New Game Mechanic Speculation

[Jayvee94]

Well, we do like a few gimmicks in a fire emblem game. We just don't like too many of them.

Imagine if the heroes are mercenaries, we can have contracts which are essentially gaidens/paralogues where our heroes can earn a few gold, items, new allies, maybe rare weapons, maybe even character development etc.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Jayvee94
I am trying for a more catchy title tbh

[voltimer]

I like the idea of this. How would those dungeons shown in the trailer fit in?

[Night Zap]

I would like to see some economy mechanics.

• Money becomes a much more limited ressource. During battles it's not only important to defeat the enemy, but also to pillage their treasuries to keep your wallet full.
• Instead of unbreakable weapons like in Fates, weapons need to be repaired for money (like in FE4), with forged and stronger weapons requiring more money to be kept in good shape (This would also help to fix Fates' problem of some weapons being absolutely bonkers. Looking at you, Ryoma).
• In every chapter you will also have to pay money to feed your troops. In an break from realism, only units that are deployed use up money that way, otherwise players would be encouraged to kill of anyone they don't use. Not having enough money (or outright refusing to serve meals to save cash) lowers your army's performance.
• Siege engines can be deployed for a rather large sum.
• A lot of units come from neutral parties or the enemy armies, and you can bribe them if you don't have the correct partymember to recruit them through the power of friendship (and even if you do, they might still demand a little security, since they abandon their old employer).
• There could be also some kind of karma meter. One way to raise it would be to share your funds with villages that suffer from the war, but you can also take what little they have by force to fill your wallet, which obviously is an evil action.

[Fly_or_Die]

I'm kinda curious to see if they're going to keep the unbreakable weapons/weapon debuffs system from Fates. It was an interesting mechanic, but also one that seemed to get hectic at times (with multiple units at various levels of debuff).

On the topic of weapons, do you think the Fates weapon triangle going to be the new series standard?

[Jayvee94]

If they have light magic return, it will be ally buffs in contrast with dark magic's enemy debuffs. Someone else suggested that idea.

Also, with the returning world map, we can establish the following:

Random mercenaries who would only join in one chapter unless fulfilling certain conditions for then to stay (E.g. Rescuing an important character, obtaining a certain item, 3000 gold etc)

Teaser chapters for units to be recruited later by the main team.

Items or even chapters unlockable through supports

Team armorers, weapon recipes, and plebotinium (mythical) ores (could be the fire emblem). 

[bethany81707]

This was an idea that occurred to me, vaguely inspired by something of warfare I learned from the Ranger's Apprentice series- some implementation of pikemen.

The idea would be that pikemen would defend your rearline units, but would not advance on the enemy. Pikes might be a resource that takes up an inventory slot, but it could give the player a sigh of relief if they accidentally leave a hole in their defences. Not an indefinite sigh (now your army has to do something about your tactical error, and it wouldn't suffice for repeated errors), but one nonetheless.

On the topic of unconventional weaponry, I wonder how balanced the idea of every unit being able to use any weapon, but if the weapon is not of the appropriate type or the weapon rank is too low, penalties to Hit, Dmg or even just plain Devil-Axe-esque backfiring would occur. If only for the sight of an enemy archer suddenly running in with an axe against a pegasus knight, and then completely botching the swing.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I really want them to stay the course with Fates' dropping of "True Hit". I know it's there because people don't have respect for statistical odds, but I absolutely hate the game lying to me. When I found out True Hit wasn't a figment of my imagination after years of Fire Emblem I lost a lot of respect for these games and their map/enemy designs. If you really want to have players effortlessly blow through armies three times the size of their own make that happen because of real mechanics. Make terrain matter more. Recreate the altitude system from Radiant Dawn. Make the weapon triangle matter more, make support bonuses effect derived stats (hit rate, avoid, crit, etc) instead of base stats. Any one of these are good ways to make the player win through the choices they make, not the invisible training wheels.

Not an individual mechanic wish, but I'd like to see Fire Emblem games with smaller scale maps. Less enemies on the field, less allied units on the field. Rarely do the large maps that we see portray a realistic battle scenario. Are you really telling me that 26 bandits agreed to fight and die for the same cause? They're outlaws, murderers, and thieves. Not patriotic soldiers. And I hate maps taking as long as fifteen minutes for a single player phase of trying to visualize threats and compare stats. I get having full scale army to army rout chapters for the last few story missions, but definitely not in paralogues. 

And finally I want Fixed Mode to return. Don't hide it away in Lunatic mode like in Fates or lock it away until after you've beaten the game like in PoR. Fixed stat growths should be up to the player's choice from the start. I personally love fixed growths because I hate bad level ups more than I love great level ups. But on the subject of PoR, don't put in weird stipulations where your growth points are affected by your equipped weapons and whatever enemy you slain to get that level up. I hate hidden mechanics on principle, but things like that make absolutely no sense and shouldn't be in the game. Enchanted items that affect stat growths, afa's drops, or the aptitude skill are okay with me though.

[SavageVolug]

On 1/23/2017 at 3:59 AM, Jayvee94 said:

Well, we do like a few gimmicks in a fire emblem game. We just don't like too many of them.

Imagine if the heroes are mercenaries, we can have contracts which are essentially gaidens/paralogues where our heroes can earn a few gold, items, new allies, maybe rare weapons, maybe even character development etc.

Awesome idea Jayvee94! Reminds me of the side quests in Blazing Sword. I would love to see a compilation of all the various mechanics from the FE games and bring them together into one game. The dungeon crawling of Gaiden, the ledges mechanic of Radiant Dawn, staves heal healers once per turn ect. I would like beast units to be more like laguz except we can walk up and command them to attack even in human form and they punch or kick the enemy. On the laguz note I would also want every laguz to learn Formshift once they reach a specific level (let's say level 40 for example). I also want greatswords to return as well as poleaxes both with the feature of dealing bonus damage on cavaliers. In terms of buffs, I would rather see skills like resolve return to the game instead of the rallies, in regards to the stat reduction skills I'm not sure how I feel about those. I don't hate them, but I also don't love them either. I want shove to be an automatic feature for all mounted units and all foot units provided they are of a high enough constitution, same thing with rescue. However I would like to see all mounted units learn the skill Saviour, in regards to the pair up system. I enjoy battling one on one without relying on the pair up system so I would enjoy having the option to turn pair up on or off where it's there if I want it but I'm not forced into using it either. 

[vanguard333]

I would like to see them continue with 1-2 range swords like the Kodachi and Amatsu from Awakening. Throwing a sword is actually a viable historic technique; and the way they throw it in the game (overhead and straight forward like a spear) is pretty close to how the technique actually worked.

[Jayvee94]

Something connected to the storyline.

One city state hosts a periodic arena event (any allied kingdom is invited). A way to strengthen units during times of peace.

[Seanp12]

I was thinking it might be cool to have a naval warfare aspect. Sort of like Jugdral's multiple castles you have to capture, except they're ships, can move, and when you attack, it triggers one of the typical boarding party-style maps depending on your positioning when you laid the planks to board them. And then there could be different classes of ships like fast but small boats with few weapons and small boarding parties, huge, slow-moving flagships with massive crews, or even some boats you could throw away as hellburners like Robin did against the Valmese fleet in Awakening.

[vanguard333]

One small idea I had: a feature in the base that allows one to read more about the history of each kingdom in the continent, each being unlocked after the first time the kingdom is mentioned in dialogue. These would be short paragraphs written in English so that they would only take a small amount of time to read, and it wouldn't be necessary to read them to understand the story of the game, but they would add to the worldbuilding for those who are interested in learning more about the history of the continent.

[Rapha666br]

The weapon triangle in fates is crap imo. We need both the physical and magical weapon triangle, with dark tome strong against anima, and light against dark, like Radiant dawn, it resembles the classic triangles and it's complet.

[Rapha666br]

If they want to use the hardware capabilities of the Switch, a good complex 3d map with levels of floors, the upper level having advantage, would be awesome, kinda like Radiant Dawn, but they can do more.

[Rapha666br]

On 16/02/2017 at 0:03 AM, SavageVolug said:

Awesome idea Jayvee94! Reminds me of the side quests in Blazing Sword. I would love to see a compilation of all the various mechanics from the FE games and bring them together into one game. The dungeon crawling of Gaiden, the ledges mechanic of Radiant Dawn, staves heal healers once per turn ect. I would like beast units to be more like laguz except we can walk up and command them to attack even in human form and they punch or kick the enemy. On the laguz note I would also want every laguz to learn Formshift once they reach a specific level (let's say level 40 for example). I also want greatswords to return as well as poleaxes both with the feature of dealing bonus damage on cavaliers. In terms of buffs, I would rather see skills like resolve return to the game instead of the rallies, in regards to the stat reduction skills I'm not sure how I feel about those. I don't hate them, but I also don't love them either. I want shove to be an automatic feature for all mounted units and all foot units provided they are of a high enough constitution, same thing with rescue. However I would like to see all mounted units learn the skill Saviour, in regards to the pair up system. I enjoy battling one on one without relying on the pair up system so I would enjoy having the option to turn pair up on or off where it's there if I want it but I'm not forced into using it either. 

''ledges mechanic'', yup, that's what I mean.

[Oricorio]

Ability to create your own maps. You can set the tiles (forest, water, mountains, plain, etc.), position enemies, determine their classes, weapons, and skills, and be able to share them online.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Bandido Banderas

[vanguard333]

10 hours ago, Bandido Banderas said:

Ability to create your own maps. You can set the tiles (forest, water, mountains, plain, etc.), position enemies, determine their classes, weapons, and skills, and be able to share them online.

So... Fire Emblem Maker? That could be interesting.