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[Squire]

It seems like they want to keep doing two versions of the game going forward. For the next one, I would keep the premise of fighting on both sides of a war, but I'd create a unique lord for each and make your created character someone in a position closer to Robin's.

I think one of Fates big problems is Corrin is actually pretty good in the sense of his/her characterization. Their personality is consistent to the point that if you pick Nohr, they know they fucked up. The last chapter I did was Conquest 15 and FCorrin has more or less admitted to herself she's not gone about her goal in the right way.

It's this eerie thing where the game itself is acknowledging how weird it is narratively. You could alleviate some of that by putting less pressure on the main characters shoulders and perhaps making the choice of sides less direct/obvious. In the next game, one choice could lead to what side you're on. You know where it's going as the player, but for the MC, it's much closer to happenstance. Then we don't need to have awkward inner monologues about how they totally actually fucked up.

I think getting rid of the avatar would make the story of future games improve significantly but I know some will disagree with me.

You're not wrong. A set, defined character is always for the better of the narrative. That's what they're doing though. Robin and Corrin aren't nearly as brightly colored as your units, but they do have set personalities and (other than the choice in Fates, I guess) you're not making moral or dialogue choices of any kind. They don't need to solve the Mass Effect problem.

They won't stop doing characters like this because of their popularity, but they're not even the issue. They need to be better written and positioned in these stories.

 

[Draxal]

Corrin in Rev is really, really bad.

 

[Dimmle]

I would loooooooove for the next games to abolish children and player avatars but I'm probably in the minority there.

As far as western FE goes, really only Path of Radiance has a story that's not chock-full of pulp. At least pre-Awakening stories knew how to manipulate suspense and intrigue.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

I would loooooooove for the next games to abolish children and player avatars but I'm probably in the minority there.

I probably wouldn't play a Fire Emblem without child units. I wouldn't enjoy it as much, at least.

The player avatar can go.

 

[Busaiku]

What's the fastest way to grind supports?
Boo Camp sucks when you're carrying your low level units.

 

[dakkumauji]

i look forward to more avatars and more kids in fe15

What's the fastest way to grind supports?
Boo Camp sucks when you're carrying your low level units.

find a castle where everyone is unequip and have them smak them around for a bit

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

I actually don't know if children or the avatar are a bigger issue to the game right now. The avatar messes up the story but children mess up gameplay AND story, so they should probably go first.

Children I want gone. Player avatars I really don't care, Corrin's a set character that you have no input on other than gender, size, and who do they boink. Corrin's being a disaster is independent of her/him being an avatar.

I agree with this in theory, but even in supports Corrin is really bland and undefined. Even if you aren't choosing dialogue, it's clear they want to reduce the personality so that you can impress yourself on them.

 

[Draxal]

I would loooooooove for the next games to abolish children and player avatars but I'm probably in the minority there.

Children I want gone. Player avatars I really don't care, Corrin's a set character that you have no input on other than gender, size, and who do they boink. Corrin's being a disaster is independent of her/him being an avatar.

 

[Squire]

Corrin in Rev is really, really bad.

I'm very curious to get to it. I thought she was pretty serviceable in Birthright, but whoo boy Conquest is not going well.

 

[Busaiku]

Any easy way to find empty castles?

 

[Dimmle]

How about just design an appealing set of protagonists, IS, instead of giving us the anime equivalent of those Yahoo Answers avatars?

*looks at FE7*

 

[ShinRPGamer]

Any easy way to find empty castles?

High Ranking castles that have names like "skills" and "easy skills" should help you out.

 

[dakkumauji]

Any easy way to find empty castles?

find castle, rankings, battle points one are usually those that should be easily attacked without fear of being decimated

 

[Draxal]

How about just design an appealing set of protagonists, IS, instead of giving us the anime equivalent of those Yahoo Answers avatars?

*looks at FE7*

I actually don't know if children or the avatar are a bigger issue to the game right now. The avatar messes up the story but children mess up gameplay AND story, so they should probably go first.
I agree with this in theory, but even in supports Corrin is really bland and undefined. Even if you aren't choosing dialogue, it's clear they want to reduce the personality so that you can impress yourself on them.

Eliwood is one of the most milquetoast lords in the series, as is Eirika and Roy. It's the secondary lords in those games that matter more (Lyn/Hector/Ephraim), you could also even add Lucina into that mix. I think children's impact on gameplay is way too strong right now.

 

[Mr. Fix]

I would loooooooove for the next games to abolish children and player avatars but I'm probably in the minority there.

As far as western FE goes, really only Path of Radiance has a story that's not chock-full of pulp. At least pre-Awakening stories knew how to manipulate suspense and intrigue.

I think it'd be interesting if getting S-rank supports between units would unlock paralogue chapters with units that don't have to be children. It's definitely harder to fit children into the narrative, which I was a bit more accepting of in Awakening.

 

[Dimmle]

Eliwood is one the most milquetoast lords in the series.

There's still Hector or Lyn, neither of whom are standard designs. Point is, you have choice without diluting the narrative with a weak cipher figure.

 

[Chaotic-Strike]

It's funny Pokemon Mystery Dungeon does the whole avatar thing better than than Fire Emblem does.

 

[Lorcain]

A question about Hoshido end game (spoilers ahead):

Spoiler

I just finished Ch27 and the End Game battle. I was given the option of selecting 5 characters to save or upload. And then the game goes back to the title screen. My last save is Ch27 before the battle. Is there no post-game of any kind, even for Hoshido? Where did the 5 characters I selected go? Apologies if this has already been answered earlier in the thread.

I just started the Nohr campaign. Playing on Hard difficulty is no joke.

 

[Rutger]

I think getting rid of the avatar would make the story of future games improve significantly but I know some will disagree with me.

Yeah, I'll disagree. Other than getting to decide how they look, Robin and Corrin are no different from the average lord. They are the generic hero and less interesting than everyone around them, it's how it's always been and simply getting rid of that will not fix the story problems the series has.

 

[Moonlight]

The customization angle is fine and produces good looking characters, and even if it didn't, the default is memorable. I don't know what you people are talking about. We have non-primary Lords ala FE7 in Fates, anyways?

Corrin's problems don't have anything to do with being a 'cipher'.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Honestly, the most organic way to implement children is to have an actual time skip. Play the first part of the game with young parents, skip sixteen years, then the rest of the game revolves more around the child units you created. You can still have the parents as older war veterans once again answering the call to arms. You could also have round up chapters where you rerecruit old units and their families and see what they've been doing during the time skip.

This also creates scope and scale, as it establishes and explores a longterm conflict between two entities.

This is how I was hoping it would eventually be. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

 

[Chaotic-Strike]

Yeah, I'll disagree. Other than getting to decide how they look, Robin and Corrin are no different from the average lord. They are the generic hero and less interesting than everyone around them, it's how it's always been and simply getting rid of that will not fix the story problems the series has.

I think Garon, and the lack of decent villains did far more damage to the story than the avatar ever could.

Literally every character becomes an idiot whenever Garon comes into the picture, and it doesn't help he's the most generic evil overlord ever.

 

[Dimmle]

Honestly, the most organic way to implement children is to have an actual time skip. Play the first part of the game with young parents, skip sixteen years, then the rest of the game revolves more around the child units you created. You can still have the parents as older war veterans once again answering the call to arms. You could also have round up chapters where you rerecruit old units and their families and see what they've been doing during the time skip.

This also creates scope and scale, as it establishes and explores a longterm conflict between two entities.

This is how I was hoping it would eventually be. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

This is the ideal children case, I agree.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Honestly, the most organic way to implement children is to have an actual time skip. Play the first part of the game with young parents, skip sixteen years, then the rest of the game revolves more around the child units you created. You can still have the parents as older war veterans once again answering the call to arms. You could also have round up chapters where you rerecruit old units and their families and see what they've been doing during the time skip.

This also creates scope and scale, as it establishes and explores a longterm conflict between two entities.

This is how I was hoping it would eventually be. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

Hey look, someone is asking for FE4!

 

[Draxal]

A question about Hoshido end game (spoilers ahead):

Spoiler

I just finished Ch27 and the End Game battle. I was given the option of selecting 5 characters to save or upload. And then the game goes back to the title screen. My last save is Ch27 before the battle. Is there no post-game of any kind, even for Hoshido? Where did the 5 characters I selected go? Apologies if this has already been answered earlier in the thread.

I just started the Nohr campaign. Playing on Hard difficulty is no joke.

They go in to the unit logbook, which you can talk to by talking to your butler/maid at the castle, there you can hire them or buy their skills to other characters that you have.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Hey look, someone is asking for FE4!

Wouldn't that be nice.

 

[Moonlight]

Corrin's problem, in Conquest, at least, is meaninglessly derived personal conflict and an active inability to pursue any answers that don't lead into WE'RE ALREADY DEMONS, even when that answer would probably be less difficult to execute from a moral or logistical standpoint. Garon's very existence distorts any weight of the intended personal drama because none of the actual evil are in their hands, anyways. Besides being complicit in it for incredibly dumb reasons.

Corrin being customizable is besides the point. They're a character that doesn't exist in the story principally to be an outlet through which the player inserts themselves. Fates would not be meaningfully different if Corrin was just the design you saw on the box, and I don't see how the simple decision to make Corrin reflect on the player's visual sensibilities has any overarching affects on what happened to the narrative. The problem is that Corrin just makes tons of dumb decisions over it and barely any of their moral conflicts after Chapter 15 seem anything but forced.

 

[Airgetlam]

I don't really think the avatar is the problem in fates. The story is just bad overall. I just finished conquest and it was somehow even worse than birthright.

 

[Dimmle]

I think Corrin is great, outside of the story.

 

[Rutger]

Honestly, the most organic way to implement children is to have an actual time skip. Play the first part of the game with young parents, skip sixteen years, then the rest of the game revolves more around the child units you created. You can still have the parents as older war veterans once again answering the call to arms. You could also have round up chapters where you rerecruit old units and their families and see what they've been doing during the time skip.

This also creates scope and scale, as it establishes and explores a longterm conflict between two entities.

This is how I was hoping it would eventually be. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

That's pretty much how FE4 works.
It messes with gameplay though, it enforces a chapter limit for getting characters married, and possibly losing characters we've built up, even if temporarily, isn't fun.

Awakening's time travel really was the most elegant way to have children without messing with the gameplay. Honestly, I don't really care if children return or not, so long as the gameplay isn't harmed for it.

 

[luckygodzilla]

Honestly, the most organic way to implement children is to have an actual time skip. Play the first part of the game with young parents, skip sixteen years, then the rest of the game revolves more around the child units you created. You can still have the parents as older war veterans once again answering the call to arms. You could also have round up chapters where you rerecruit old units and their families and see what they've been doing during the time skip.

This also creates scope and scale, as it establishes and explores a longterm conflict between two entities.

This is how I was hoping it would eventually be. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

Huh, I actually think this would be a really neat idea to go about it. Would make a heck of a lot more narritive sense than either awakening or especially fates.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Huh, I actually think this would be a really neat idea to go about it. Would make a heck of a lot more narritive sense than either awakening or especially fates.

It makes so much sense that they did it in 1996!

I think all future Fire Emblem games would be improved by adding equivalents to Sety and Ares if we're mining FE4 for inspiration.

 

[Draxal]

Yeah, I'll disagree. Other than getting to decide how they look, Robin and Corrin are no different from the average lord. They are the generic hero and less interesting than everyone around them, it's how it's always been and simply getting rid of that will not fix the story problems the series has.

I still don't understand how Roy won the FE6 poll, at least they got 2 right.

 

[Dimmle]

It makes so much sense that they did it in 1996!

I think all future Fire Emblem games would be improved by adding equivalents to Sety and Ares if we're mining FE4 for inspiration.

Make FE Great Again

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

I do like the reliance on children for expanding the support system in a very fun way. Its one of the reasons im enjoying birthright a lot more. The grinding there is just a lot of fun.

If they scrap the children in another game, I hope they still have added depth to the supports in some way. Just grind for higher pair up stats isnt a very fun reward

 

[chaosblade]

Honestly, the most organic way to implement children is to have an actual time skip. Play the first part of the game with young parents, skip sixteen years, then the rest of the game revolves more around the child units you created. You can still have the parents as older war veterans once again answering the call to arms. You could also have round up chapters where you rerecruit old units and their families and see what they've been doing during the time skip.

This also creates scope and scale, as it establishes and explores a longterm conflict between two entities.

This is how I was hoping it would eventually be. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

But that requires actual effort to go into the writing.

If this game (and arguably Awakening) are any indication the writer basically put together some stream of consciousness nonsense and then padded it out.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

That's pretty much how FE4 works.
It messes with gameplay though, it enforces a chapter limit for getting characters married, and possibly losing characters we've built up, even if temporarily, isn't fun.

I don't know if that's true. I understand what you're saying, but briefly having your units revoked and having satisfying re-recruitment chapters would be really cool. Since the player actually wants these units back, they're interested and motivated by the narrative about recollecting them. Then when you get those old friends back on the field, and see how they've changed, it would be very rewarding.

The chapter limit to create marriages is true, though. For plot reasons, some unmarried units might need to be randomly paired to create the second wave of units. This might still be fun though, because you could let the RNG create the units you didn't want to make yourself. So your game would be different every time.

 

[dakkumauji]

I still don't understand how Roy won the FE6 poll, at least they got 2 right.

most of the voters probably only played smash or they were pretty wowed by his ability to make 6 girls fall for him

 

[Dimmle]

I do like the reliance on children for expanding the support system in a very fun way. Its one of the reasons im enjoying birthright a lot more. The grinding there is just a lot of fun.

If they scrap the children in another game, I hope they still have added depth to the supports in some way. Just grind for higher pair up stats isnt a very fun reward

Imagine the depth of a support system where not every M/F support culminates in marriage!

 

[Chaotic-Strike]

Imagine the depth of a support system where not every M/F support culminates in marriage!

Well you could simply stop at the A support if it bother you that much.

 

[JulianImp]

Honestly, the most organic way to implement children is to have an actual time skip. Play the first part of the game with young parents, skip sixteen years, then the rest of the game revolves more around the child units you created. You can still have the parents as older war veterans once again answering the call to arms. You could also have round up chapters where you rerecruit old units and their families and see what they've been doing during the time skip.

This also creates scope and scale, as it establishes and explores a longterm conflict between two entities.

This is how I was hoping it would eventually be. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

That's something I expected from Awakening (it being my first FE game after only having played AWoR in my DS years ago), and it was really strange when I realized that children units would get recruited like they did without any kind of time skip or even a nod to the fact that time had passed.

A time skip would also probably help since it could start with any kind of outcome (player's party wins, bad guys win, stalemate) and also result in anything happening after the skip (either faction returns to make a stand, civil wars, new factions appearing, and so on).

I think Garon, and the lack of decent villains did far more damage to the story than the avatar ever could.

Literally every character becomes an idiot whenever Garon comes into the picture, and it doesn't help he's the most generic evil overlord ever.

Yup. So far things have been weird with how obviously evil Garon is and how everybody else is willing to put up with him with the foolish hope of him eventually realizing the error of his ways and letting go off of his megalomania.

At the end of Conquest Ch12 I think Corrin and co. were musing about how weird it was that the Hoshidan forces knew they were coming when theonly person outside of their company who knew about their plans was Garon's trusty serf, Macbeth. Just how dense can they be?

I'm probably halfway through the game (or even less), but it'd have been interesting if the Nohr side had to fight rebels within their own borders as well as Hoshido's forces, at least for the story implications and possible dialogs/scenarios that could've come from that.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

most of the voters probably only played smash or they were pretty wowed by his ability to make 6 girls fall for him

These are both reasons that I consider myself a Roy fan. Well, that, and that he's his own tactician.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Maybe I'll write an SRPG.

 

[pokemonsquared]

Finally beat Revelation, probably my favorite path of the three just because I can get all the characters and mix and match between all of them.

Now time to recruit all the children and go all in min maxing.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

Imagine the depth of a support system where not every M/F support culminates in marriage!

it would result in a support system that was simply grinding up for pair up stats, which is exactly what I said I didnt want.

We have something cool already with friendship/partner seals allowing class swapping with top ranks, but with kids gone I would want something else new in their place. As it is, adding new characters to your army with customized skills is a pretty damn cool reward

 

[Rutger]

I don't know if that's true. I understand what you're saying, but briefly having your units revoked and having satisfying re-recruitment chapters would be really cool. Since the player actually wants these units back, they're interested and motivated by the narrative about recollecting them. Then when you get those old friends back on the field, and see how they've changed, it would be very rewarding.

The chapter limit to create marriages is true, though. For plot reasons, some unmarried units might need to be randomly paired to create the second wave of units. This might still be fun though, because you could let the RNG create the units you didn't want to make yourself. So your game would be different every time.

Well, it's personal preference really, Radiant Dawn had us switching between multiple armies and characters being rerecruited often.

I didn't care for it myself, but I can't say anyone would be wrong for liking it.

These are both reasons that I consider myself a Roy fan. Well, that, and that he's his own tactician.

I like Roy because of Smash and because he doesn't make the game easy mode.
Still not at the top of my list of favorite FE6 characters though, haha.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Finally beat Revelation, probably my favorite path of the three just because I can get all the characters and mix and match between all of them.

Now time to recruit all the children and go all in min maxing.

My Shiro has accidentally wound up with so many good skills that I can't juggle them all.

He's a Master of Arms with Astra/Vanguard/Strength Seal/Defense Seal and the skills that give +30 Avoid when you initiate.

Untouchable lead unit.

 

[chaosblade]

Maybe I'll write an SRPG.

If I did this it probably wouldn't reach 100 words.

 

[-Horizon-]

There are only 3 of them, and yes, they are just for grinding. You get nothing else from them.

Aww, I expected something more. Oh well, won't complain. Support grinding lets go.

 

[Dimmle]

Well you could simply stop at the A support if it bother you that much.

This wouldn't really be a solution since the intention would be to have supports with trajectories other than marriage. There are so many types of relationships in the world that don't end in marriage. Even romantic relationships. Some end in business partnerships. Some end in best friendship (I dig the A+ addition to Fates for this reason but it would be nice to have conversations along with it). Some might end in heated rivalry. As the current system exists, A supports are still written to segue into S supports which represent marriage, so not only does ending at A give you less of a stat advantage but it also doesn't introduce any more possibility to the support narratives.

it would result in a support system that was simply grinding up for pair up stats, which is exactly what I said I didnt want.

We have something cool already with friendship/partner seals allowing class swapping with top ranks, but with kids gone I would want something else new in their place. As it is, adding new characters to your army with customized skills is a pretty damn cool reward

This is a good argument for children; I've been having a lot of fun with optimizing skills and stats for kids lately. There are probably other side effects that could be introduced in a support system that isn't built toward marriage, though.