Its also possible to infinitely grind your units XP as long as the battle doesn't have a sword icon in the tab. yet another thing the game does not tell you and I assumed they all cost 1 time unit each and avoided them up until now. Now all of my units are around level 30 and ready for the defense of the cathedral and the game is playable now that I dont have to solely rely on byleth. Why didnt they just call it Byleth: the game?
This is only a "feature" on normal mode, evidently for people like you who are legitimately getting filtered by normal mode and have to grind up all their units to level 30 while they're barely in the mid game. And they didn't call it "Byleth: the game" because it is not necessary to rely solely on Byleth for any part of the game, even on Maddening. Normal is actually the only mode where you could legitmately do a true Byleth solo because it's so easy.
1. Removal of previous entries' QOL features.
(This game doesnt save your last used units so you have to manually re-pick all of them every map. Also autofills your lowest leveled units first and will sometimes sneak them into your roster when starting the level, which will often result in extremely unfair deaths that were otherwise preventable or wasting your time restarting the level to unselect them again.)
Simply false. I legitimately have no idea how you even came to the conclusion that the game functions like this, either. When you get into the preps for each chapter, all of the characters you deployed in a previous battle will automatically fill up the remaining deployment slots after whichever units are force deployed for that chapter.
3.Automatically selects weakest weapon and fights you when trying to use the weapon you chose.
(For marianne's paralogue, it is a requirement to use a relic weapon to damage the boss. Instead of Byleth attacking with the upgraded creator's sword like I chose to have him equip, he uses a Levin sword instead and nearly gets himself killed for no reason. The X/Y tab also fights you by cycling through just about every fucking attack in the game except the weapon you want them to use and will often just randomly start the attack instead.)
Also false. When attempting to attack at range when your unit has a melee weapon equipped but multiple ranged weapons equipped, the game will just automatically choose the ranged weapon higher up in the units inventor for the combat forecast. So for example, if Byleth has an iron sword equipped with a Levin Sword and the Sublime Creator Sword in his inventory, and then he attempts to initiate combat at two range, he'll just automatically equip the Levin Sword because it's above the Sublime Creator Sword, even though the Sublime Creator Sword would probably be a better choice. Also, switching weapons while in the combat forecast functions basically the same. It will just swap the weapons in the order that they're placed in the unit's inventory and switches between combat arts in the order you have them equipped to the unit, when applicable.
5. Constantly fighting the player.
(Turns simple tasks like giving a killer lance to a unit into a herculean feat. Half of the time it will just cancel the transfer and you have to go all the way back down the list to attempt to give that equipment to a unit again. Its even worse with classes that can move after attacking where its like the game cannot comprehend you dont want them to move out of formation after an attack.)
Are you sure the controller you were using wasn't broken? I've never had that much of an issue doing something so innocuous as trading weapons. I will agree that microing units with Canto can be kinda finnicky (you have to tap A twice quickly if you want a unit with spaces left to move after an attack to wait in the same tile they attacked in), but even then I'm glad they did it this way so I don't accidentally end up using all of a units left over move and get them killed. I think they even do the same thing in other Fire Emblem games now that I think about it.
I won't comment in any real detail about any of your other posts lest I give myself an anyuresm, but I will say this: it's not a shock you didn't really enjoy the game when you both evidently don't understand it and grinded up all your units half way through the game on one of the easiest difficulties in a game with very casual friendly features such as aggro lines and turn rewind.
I'm also a little surprised by the reception of the Maddening and NG+ modes here. Maddening has it's bullshit moments, too many of them really, but it's also the only mode that consistently give you any real challenge unless you gimp yourself heavily on hard mode. I disagree with the notion that NG+ is required to fix Maddening or even make the mode "tolerable", nor that NG+ is required to do meme builds. Stuff like War Master Lysithea or Sniper Mercedes is perfectly feasible to get and use effectively even on a non NG+ Maddening run, it just requires some actual effort to be put in to get there which I think is the more satisfying way of getting those builds rather than just using NG+. I understand that doing the wacky builds easy with NG+ so you can see Lysithea punch some dude's face in easier is much more convenient if that's what you're primarily looking for.
