List all the wasted potential in Awakening. And think of ways to improve them for the next Fire Emblem.

[IceBrand]

Just like the title says, let's name some flaws and hope the next FE either fixes them, or completely ignores them.

[WIRE Shut]

The thing that bothered me the most, the difficulties, it could actually be somewhat of a incredibly amazing game, better than most by far if it was balanced and pair-up was removed, plus an actually interesting story to go with everything. And GBA level of flashy crits, I really want that back.

[That Person's Name]

I think the next FE needs some competition and better scaling difficulty levels.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i'm gonna agree with the difficulty scaling.

there's a huge jump between normal and hard, and hard and the next thing up (is it lunatic? i can't remember cause i haven't played it in almost a year)

*insert story related complaint here* but really i could ignore the story if the game play was better balanced.

another big change i think is that the support defend should be optional to select or not before units are attacked, and the unit who takes the hit takes reduced damage by half according to their defense/magic defense stat.

[Baldrick]

For the future implementation of difficulty levels, one idea I had was to have three levels of enemy stat scaling (Normal, Hard, Lunatic) and three levels of random L+ skills for the enemies (0 skills, 1 skill, 2 skill). That makes 9 levels that may have variable difficulty curves, for not much in the way of extra work.

[shadowofchaos]

Guys, when it comes to difficulty scaling, I think they only missed the jump from Hard to Lunatic. However, from there, they handled the difficulty phenomenally! I speak from the experiences of my "zero experience with FE" friends as well as mine.

Hard was a great difficulty for FE veterans, but the jump to Lunatic and its learning curve was insane. I mean sure we can break it now, but...

[Diabeasty]

First off, Awakening is one of my favorite games of all time. However, I feel it is necessary for a fan of a game to understand its flaws as well as its positive points.

Here are my thoughts:

• Map Diversity: I feel like Awakening was especially lacking in this aspect, compared to other games in the series there simply aren't that many win conditions in the game. The maps also lack anything like the fog of war effects from past games that, while usually mostly irritating, actually add to the diversity of the chapters. This was a big thing they could have improved upon in my opinion.
  
• Class/Skill Balance: I feel like the reclass system is a double-edged sword for the most part. Having access to so many skills and classes is amazing because it gives you the flexibility to use whatever you want, and I really enjoy it. However some classes really get the shaft because they're essentially inferior to other classes entirely because of it. I think a good example is assassin vs swordmaster. Assassin has some amazing stats, and access to bows, which puts it in a league of its own as one of the better classes in the game. It almost completely eclipses Swordmaster just because any character that has Swordmaster can grab the Swordmaster skills and switch to Assassin. If you couldn't reclass, Swordmaster would almost definitely be the superior option just because of its skills. There are simply too many cases of "good class with bad skills" and "worse class with good skills".
  
• Lunatic+: I'm actually alright with the other difficulty levels. Normal should probably have been named Easy and Hard should have been Normal, but really the game does a good job of telling you what you're getting into with both modes. Lunatic+ is, in my opinion, a really poorly designed game mode just because of the first 4 chapters. First of all, you're basically forced to play the game in very specific ways and use specific setups to do it. It's set up in such a way that you're forced to use Frederick, who even then is still taken down fairly easily if you do it wrong. Whether or not the levels are even BEATABLE is entirely up to the RNG and what enemies it throws at you. After chapter 4 it lets up a bit, but those first 4 chapters just really break the deal for me because of how specific the ways to win are. It's hardly even a strategy game when you consider that.
  
• I'm actually alright with the Pair-Up system. I think it's pretty fun and adds to the diversity of team building. The game should have just been tuned around it more, primarily the endgame content, and the bonuses themselves should have been better balanced which ties in to my second point. I also think they should have given the support unit more EXP so they don't fall behind so badly if you don't switch them enough (which happened a lot to me given how many enemy turn kills units tend to rack up).
  
• Endgame content: Enemies aren't strong enough considering how much power the game gives you. Not much to say about that.

That's all I have for now really. If I think of anything else I'll add it in.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Diabeasty

[Emeraldfox]

Better customization options

I wanted my guy to have an afro

[Anacybele]

I'll list the three main things I felt were really lacking.

1. The story. Ugh, it just did not compare to that of Tellius (my favorite story in the series so far). At all.

2. Map diversity, as stated above. The maps just weren't as interesting as ones from past FEs, especially Tellius, imo.

3. Objective diversity. What happened to the cool unique objectives from RD?

Yeah, these. Also, I want RD's unique mechanics brought back. I mean the ledges and stuff. If pair-up comes back, it needs some balancing too.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Anacybele

[Alastor15243]

Overall, I love the game, but a few things I'd change:

1: Nerf Galeforce or otherwise don't implement it again. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, I just don't like skills that are simultaneously the coolest thing ever and just barely widespread enough to demand of every frontline fighter. I don't know if it's as bad as Pursuit was, maybe it is, I don't know, but I find it annoying, and especially in games that have pairings, it really cripples diversity of viable options.

2. Get. Rid. Of. Brave. Weapons. Burn them. Eradicate them. Obliterate them from the plane of reality. Seriously, is there any point to them other than to be objectively orders of magnitude better than every other weapon in the entire game, even the legendary weapons forged by the gods out of dragon fangs? Such a huge array of legendary weapons and most people don't give them the time of day because they just shoot straight for the superior brave weapons.

[Diabeasty]

1: Nerf Galeforce or otherwise don't implement it again. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, I just don't like skills that are simultaneously the coolest thing ever and just barely widespread enough to demand of every frontline fighter. I don't know if it's as bad as Pursuit was, maybe it is, I don't know, but I find it annoying, and especially in games that have pairings, it really cripples diversity of viable options.

I actually like Galeforce quite a bit. It lets you go more on the offensive rather than just playing defensively and racking up enemy turn kills(which you still do anyway). I think it should definitely stay, I think it just needs to be distributed differently and there need to be other viable alternatives to it. If a unit can get Galeforce within reason, they're going to have it no matter what. It should be more like the situation with procs. You want a proc, but which one? There are several that are viable, even if some of the lesser ones could use a little help.

[deleted35362]

putting aside how stupid i think the game is, i'm going to talk about the difficulties because difficulty settings were never really very good, and with fe13 a lot of people complained that lunatic + is just luck. i think they should make the level design more complicated on higher difficulties, not just buff up the enemies. basically, i think they should do this:

[Owain_the_swordsman]

If the characters in the next game were the same as awakening (Which might not happen),MAKE CHROM BE ABLE TO MARRY CORDELIA.SEVERA AND LUCINA WOULD BE OP

[Kreekakon]

I mainly have four core complainants about this game that I hope to see fixed despite it still being one of my favorite games of all time. Some may be more subjective than others:

1. Special Weapon Balance: Story/lore-wise it is very obvious that the Regalia, and so called "Timeless weapons" are supposed to be incredibly rare, and powerful weapons worthy of their legendary status. This lore implication is completely ruined by the fact that in most cases Brave Weapons just straight-up out class them. In a video game's story telling it is sometimes equally important to tell a story aspect not only through text "telling you", but how it "plays" as well. In this case the Legendary weapons should be the most powerful, and rare weapons in the game bar none to accomplish this sort of feel. However like I said the feeling was not achieved due to these Legendary Weapons being easily outclassed by easily acquired Brave Weapons.

2. Core Story: In my opinion the story of Fire Emblem Awakening was a very mediocre one which was presented extremely well, but at its core still mediocre. I really wish they had put more time into crafting the story to be more inspired, and be deeper.

3. Missed Opportunity for Actual Multiplayer: Very simple. I wanted to see online matchingmaking with actual players, which would really boost the game's already huge replayability. A problem with this though is that they may need to implement some sort of MMR to prevent new players who just beat the game for the first time getting paired up against the scariest DLC-grinder, and optimizer in the world.

4. Better End-Game/Post-Game Way to Play: This is probably my biggest complainant, but I felt that FE: A didn't have a very strong end-game. There's plenty of stuff to do (Summoning teams, and doing DLC), but it's all very repetitive. I would've wished to see an end-game mode (Or whatever) which was genuinely fun to play/grind in over, and over again without feeling at all repetitive.

[ViewtifulBo]

As stated previously I feel like the map diversity wasn't outright bad but could've used a fog of war map, more hazards on some maps, just little things like that.

Also as said before, different objectives would've been nice too, I love routing the enemy, probably more than anyone I know but for the majority of the game?

The story is probably my least favorite in all of fire emblem. I wish they would've devoted a chapter to Panne losing her Warren, Nowi's introduction could've been a bit better by swaping Gregor in for Libra and vice versa, introduced Virion and Cherche when you first got to Valm instead of Say'ri. The antagonists were somewhat cool, Gangrel was a dude you just loved to hate, reminded me of Shaggal, out of all the arcs I actually wish that one could've gone on a bit longer. Walhart/Valm arc was okay-ish. Validar is just kind of a lesser Gharnef/Yurius really, not really memerable. Fighting on Grima was pretty cool though. In short its not the worst story in my opinion but it could certainly be a lot better.

The Pair Up/Dual Attack/Dual Guarding is a neat idea but I kinda like going mono e mono. It'd be a different story if the enemies did it too but they don't. It makes the main game incredibly easy.

Bigger terrain bonuses would've been nice.

The DLC was very cool but for the chapters with past characters instead of this Ehreanjar thing I think it would've been more neat if say for example, take a map like Blazing Sword's Final Chapter and instead of facing off against various hero's and villian's from past games, team up with Lyn, Eliwood, Hector, etc. and fight off Nergal like in the original. Stuff like that would've been a cool throwback but I'm happy to get various maps and past tunes from past games regardless.

Also the lack of Light Magic and usefullness of Fire Magic (with the exception of Valaflame) makes me sad. I mean how hard is it to make light magic good against dark and dark against anima? Were they afraid the player would be overwhelmed by this?? Nintendo has done this plenty of times so I don't see why it was left out.

Offical English translations of Genealogy/Thracia776 names (>_<)

In the next Fire Emblem I REALLY hope we can be done with Akaneia, A continuation of Magvel would be pretty cool. I'd like remakes of FE 2, 4,5 and 6 just to get every casual fan up to speed? And possibly an English release of FE12 but I don't ever see that happening. Or something comepletly new.

If I got to pick though I'd want a completely new story that could give Genealogy a run for its money and even more character customization. ON WII U.

[Airship Canon]

1. Story.

I'm not going to be the guy who says it was bad. Awakening's story is middle-of-the-road as far as FE goes. But for something so ambitious as Awakening's [its scale is immense with three arcs], it flew by far too quickly, and didn't let things develop. It's not something that would fit well in the standard 30 chapter format, and they tried to do that, when in order to do this story justice it'd need in the area of 60 to 70 chapters.

2. Difficulty Scaling.

Beyond the fact that Normal is insultingly easy, and should in fact be called "Easy", the first two are sound. However, there's something missing between Hard and Lunatic- and that jump is immense as a result. Basically, Maniac Mode, where art thou?

...a + mode for ALL difficulties would be something that would be well appreciated-- while Normal+ wouldn't be a major thing, Hard+ would a very solid "common challenge".

3. Postgame Content

...It's undertuned.

Streetpass comes in as horrifically lopsided-- it only takes COMMON SENSE to win every time [Hmm. It's dangerous. Don't let it attack. Simple.] although, a way to buff Streetpass isn't very "there" to say, since it's a weak PvP [direct PvP would be 1st-turn Advantage Godstomps, due to the nature of the game], only thing coming to mind is letting the Player mess with the AI of their team ala Armored Core Verdict Day's UNACs, so issues like Attack range preference [2+ if available] could be changed, Rally timing, target prioritizing, etc. all of which would serve to make it a bit less of "Player Godstomp" joke.

Lunatic+ Skirmish is an interesting beast, but mostly by time you've got the stats to beat them reliably, it falls into the Common Sense/Kiting area. Double Skirmish should be forcible with Reeking Box, really, since kiting Doubles is a mess on small maps, and that creates a need to actually use all that power.

Apoth, it's shy on the stats, about 20 points so. For something presented as the ultimate, final challenge, the amount of power thrown at the player is not truly tested by this map. At least, its less of a kiting-fest somewhat.

All in all, Postgame does kinda flop. It runs better than maingame, but it's balanced poorly. Awakening throws a lot of power at the player, sure you can choose to not take it, but frankly it's poor design to balance around the idea that you won't. This is a strategy game, not a dating simulator. It should be balanced on using the tools made available-- especially true of maps like Apotheosis: the fact that it's even conceivable to beat Apo under the challenge conditions that it has been is absurd.

...

Shifting away from things that it just flopped on, towards areas that just should've seen more:

Lunatic Mode "Berserk" timers - It's a complaint to some, partially because "slambush" is not a fair thing, and these required it. One might note on several missions, like C16 and C20 [C20 in particular], there are large, powerful waves of reinforcements, often striking from behind. A simple thought to them, is they're not reinforcements to the enemy for you to engage outright. ...they're more akin to the Berserk Timers seen in MMO Raids, which is a better concept than "Par" for hurrying up. Instead of costing a player something pointless like ranking, failing to keep pace causes the player to become trapped by exceptionally powerful reinforcement units- and if they can't take that, well, they die. This is seen really well in L+ Mode since well, Mr. Silver Axe++ Hawkeye/Counter General just came from behind while you were derping back from Excellus. They could've fared to be a bit more common. On the other hand, these aren't so hard [like the ones in SR Apoth] that if you can take them out anyways, you can keep going.

...C21- Maps aren't necessarily a strong point for Awakening, but there's no denying it a has a few good areas. C21 is one. You're pinned by Mire from outside your attacking range. You have to keep moving. Sure the map objective could've faired to be "escape", but it maintained the feel of what Escape should be [unlike "Escapes" in FE9/10] (and then gameplay wise, it was Defeat Boss, which basically is what Escape sorta is outside of FE5)... This was a very cool chapter design, even if the map itself is very dull. More unique maps like C21 [and some of the paralogues, like P16 and P22] would've been something well appreciated.

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

I'd mostly just want pair up removed, or, if it stays, make there be some drawback to using it. Mechanics like rescue and capture were good because they had uses and increased the game's strategic depth, while having drawbacks so that they don't dominate. Adjusting maps, enemy stats, and pair up bonuses would be a good way to do this, since by manipulating those the game could be made more player phase centered so that at times the greater flexibility of splitting up is better than the extra power of pairing up while at other times those extra stats are super important. The pair up mechanic should have more drawbacks but still be usable.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Agreeing with everyone who has complained about map diversity. A lot of the early maps were pretty creative, but just as many fell off into "big open map with a bunch of zero bonus/effect terrain" somewhere around the middle of the game. I think this is exacerbated by pairup, as some of the somewhat less open maps might have been fine with a more traditional FE deployment scheme. However, pairup greatly decreases the amount of available units, while providing big support bonuses that encourage single pair power gaming. I'd like to see them keep dual strike and dual guard, though, so ideally the next FE would drop pairup and have dual strike and dual guard for adjacent units.

2. Get. Rid. Of. Brave. Weapons. Burn them. Eradicate them. Obliterate them from the plane of reality. Seriously, is there any point to them other than to be objectively orders of magnitude better than every other weapon in the entire game, even the legendary weapons forged by the gods out of dragon fangs? Such a huge array of legendary weapons and most people don't give them the time of day because they just shoot straight for the superior brave weapons.

I'd like to say I think Braves in and of themselves are fine. I mean, previous games just had one, maybe two of a weapon class type show up to the point that they may as well have been legendaries (with their double attack being their perk instead of +5 to stat X) and they were pretty balanced. I'd say that what made them so ridiculous was the ability to buy them and the fact that a support unit could double attack on every dual strike.

3. Missed Opportunity for Actual Multiplayer: Very simple. I wanted to see online matchingmaking with actual players, which would really boost the game's already huge replayability. A problem with this though is that they may need to implement some sort of MMR to prevent new players who just beat the game for the first time getting paired up against the scariest DLC-grinder, and optimizer in the world.

Considering the power of the characters and skill as is, this would have been a total mess. A whole bunch of stuff would need to be banned to prevent a Galeforce-fest of doom (especially considering how easily Apotheosis SR falls under a properly configured team and their stats are roughly equivalent to a paired unit who doesn't have LB) or the entire game rebalanced around two game modes (a very difficult task).

Edited September 2, 2014 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

[Diabeasty]

There's something I really have to say about this game's story. I feel like for the most part it's pretty good, but I think the one thing that holds it back is none other than the middle half of the game, the Valm arc.

Now don't get me wrong, I liked the Valm arc if you were to separate it and look at it on its own. It's just, it felt so... far removed from everything else. It didn't really tie in at all to the rest of the game. If it had been some kind of sidequest, it would have been excellent. Even worse is that nothing important that happened in Valm couldn't have happened elsewhere. The worst part to me, though is that afterward they make a desperate attempt to tie the Valm arc into everything by saying Walhart was attempting to unite the world against Grima. OH YOU SNEAKY VALIDAR, YOU SURE GOT US THIS TIME. They could have spent those chapters telling us more about the world that matters, the conflict between Ylisse and Plegia. We maybe could have gotten more backstory to Validar other than "well hes yer dad" because I honestly left wondering about him. Gangrel was a great character honestly, but they could have done more with him too.

The game's story had a ton of moments that made me smile or made me sad, and honestly I felt like most of the characters were pretty likable. There are just a few things they could have done better.

[Superfan959]

I want them to utilize the existence of Casual vs. Classic mode. Classic mode should have no map grinding or shops, event tiles, DLC access, reclassing, unlimited supports, etc. until AFTER THE GAME HAS BEEN CLEARED. I don't care if they want to give the series some post game fun, but players who pick classic shouldn't have to limit themselves a thousand different ways just to get a somewhat well balanced experience during the main play through. If people insist on keeping that crap in this series, then let's let the casual players have their fun in casual mode.

This is in addition to pretty much everything else that's been said in this topic.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Completely InShane

[shadowofchaos]

Yo, the person that posted above me.

Why should a single mode restrict the freedom of people to utilize the resources they have, even if they're unlimited?

Permadeath is permadeath. It should not dictate other features just because classic "should appeal only to the hardcore audience" that you're implying.

Edited September 2, 2014 by shadowofchaos

[Superfan959]

Because it trivializes the basic experience, to have all this broken crap thrown at you.

I know it's not a popular opinion, but that's what I'd like to see happen. I know it won't though.

[shadowofchaos]

Because it trivializes the basic experience, to have all this broken crap thrown at you.

And?

Why are you complaining about people trivializing their own experience for an optional part of the game?

Why should they conform to the standards of the hardcore audience, when they themselves can restrict what they want to do?

You're saying they can't take care of themselves.

What if they WANT to trivialize the game? What if that's FUN for them?

AND they want the permadeath feature on?

What if I'm on Lunatic+ Classic AND going completely no-grind is too much for me?

I want permadeath still on, but still at a level that is PLEASANT to me.

How about that? Are you going to tell me that I don't deserve to play Lunatic+ Classic like that?

3. Missed Opportunity for Actual Multiplayer: Very simple. I wanted to see online matchingmaking with actual players, which would really boost the game's already huge replayability. A problem with this though is that they may need to implement some sort of MMR to prevent new players who just beat the game for the first time getting paired up against the scariest DLC-grinder, and optimizer in the world.

Considering the power of the characters and skill as is, this would have been a total mess. A whole bunch of stuff would need to be banned to prevent a Galeforce-fest of doom (especially considering how easily Apotheosis SR falls under a properly configured team and their stats are roughly equivalent to a paired unit who doesn't have LB) or the entire game rebalanced around two game modes (a very difficult task).

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that FE should stay a single player game.

Not everything has to have a multiplayer mode. Considering how there's a horrendous amount of rebalancing in order for an extra feature.

Edited September 2, 2014 by shadowofchaos

[Thor Odinson]

Honestly if the game can be beaten without grinding on all difficulties by a skilled enough player, then the existence of grinding shouldn't be an issue. As long as it's fully optional I don't see an issue with there having some options if people find that fun.

Anyway I'm mostly critical about the non-gameplay aspect but I think enough people have heard of my so many supports and not enough variation in content spiel I won't go into detail about it.

[Airship Canon]

I want them to utilize the existence of Casual vs. Classic mode. Classic mode should have no map grinding or shops, event tiles, DLC access, reclassing, unlimited supports, etc. until AFTER THE GAME HAS BEEN CLEARED. I don't care if they want to give the series some post game fun, but players who pick classic shouldn't have to limit themselves a thousand different ways just to get a somewhat well balanced experience during the main play through. If people insist on keeping that crap in this series, then let's let the casual players have their fun in casual mode.

This is in addition to pretty much everything else that's been said in this topic.

There's a huge difference between restricting player choice and balancing around certain choices.

If you merely restrict player choice, you don't get a good result.

If you balance on the player making certain choices, you do. Yes, this means the player could potentially screw them-self.

Now, main game, shouldn't assume DLC. But high end difficulties should assume the player is going to be using all of those that you said shouldn't be accessible.

Guess what? Lunatic+ does. Shops, Reclassing and unlimited supports don't break L+ as hard as you might fool yourself into believing. [Although, I will admit, the Renown Supreme Emblem does by virtue of giving you very OP characters... that thing shouldn't exist/logbook characters should be significantly more expensive]

..and Grinding? Well, it's shut down enough.

That's good game design--> Balance on the high end.

Just because it's not within a box of ye-olde-rules doesn't mean it's bad.

Sure, this drops off like a rock later. Postgame content starts becoming tuned for the low-end, but the changes there aren't affecting it.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Airship Canon