Support Ideas

[bethany81707]

So, I've been playing a little Xenoblade Chronicles recently, and that got me thinking about that game's 'Heart-to-Heart' feature: each party member has three conversations with each other party member, and each give that pair of party members bonus affinity points. The conversations themselves often make use of their surroundings to inspire topics, and even discuss events in the story (Dunban/Melia Pink reminds me so much of Cormag/Duessel A) or even have gameplay hints (Dunban/Sharla Green explains quite a bit about item gifting, including what gifts some characters, not exclusively Sharla and Dunban, like).

It has since occurred to me that Fire Emblem's Support system has a few connections to Xenoblade, but there are obviously a few key differences- mainly coming from the fact that Xenoblade's cast of seven allows them to go more in-depth with the conversations. However, as Fire Emblem moves towards the idea of everyone being able to Support with everyone, I feel Xenoblade's Heart-to-Hearts might be able to help bridge the gap between those that want the 'less-is-more' approach of older games and those that want the versatility of the newer games.

Use the Radiant Dawn system of template conversations for everyone, with the obvious caveat of not requiring mutually exclusive pairs, while using Info Conversations and/or map events to host the traditional Support conversations between canonically linked characters or characters that might have mutual interests to supplement grinding their affinity for one another. I don't know if using Xenoblade's branching conversation model of a Heart-to-Heart would benefit Fire Emblem's Supports, but it's always an option. That way, the main appeal of the newer games' Support system remains, while fans of both kinds can find it easier to sift through generic Support conversations to find the gems each game has.

So what do you think? Does this idea work? If not, do you have another idea for how they can help the quantity control of Supports the newer games suffer from? Are there other games with affinity systems you think Fire Emblem could benefit from?

[Extrasolar]

7 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

So, I've been playing a little Xenoblade Chronicles recently, and that got me thinking about that game's 'Heart-to-Heart' feature: each party member has three conversations with each other party member, and each give that pair of party members bonus affinity points. The conversations themselves often make use of their surroundings to inspire topics, and even discuss events in the story (Dunban/Melia Pink reminds me so much of Cormag/Duessel A) or even have gameplay hints (Dunban/Sharla Green explains quite a bit about item gifting, including what gifts some characters, not exclusively Sharla and Dunban, like).

It has since occurred to me that Fire Emblem's Support system has a few connections to Xenoblade, but there are obviously a few key differences- mainly coming from the fact that Xenoblade's cast of seven allows them to go more in-depth with the conversations. However, as Fire Emblem moves towards the idea of everyone being able to Support with everyone, I feel Xenoblade's Heart-to-Hearts might be able to help bridge the gap between those that want the 'less-is-more' approach of older games and those that want the versatility of the newer games.

Use the Radiant Dawn system of template conversations for everyone, with the obvious caveat of not requiring mutually exclusive pairs, while using Info Conversations and/or map events to host the traditional Support conversations between canonically linked characters or characters that might have mutual interests to supplement grinding their affinity for one another. I don't know if using Xenoblade's branching conversation model of a Heart-to-Heart would benefit Fire Emblem's Supports, but it's always an option. That way, the main appeal of the newer games' Support system remains, while fans of both kinds can find it easier to sift through generic Support conversations to find the gems each game has.

So what do you think? Does this idea work? If not, do you have another idea for how they can help the quantity control of Supports the newer games suffer from? Are there other games with affinity systems you think Fire Emblem could benefit from?

No RD-style "supports" please; those were awful in their stripped-down genericness. They honestly might as well have not even bothered, considering that every single conversation in RD pretty much boiled down to "yo, don't die" "okay."

That said, a return of the Tellius series Base Conversations would be great too - they're character development you get just by playing through the game. I think that model worked the best as far as characterization goes, and just like the conversations you mentioned, they are often tied to the location of the army or current events.

I think Fates and Awakening trying to move toward "everyone supports with everyone" is the main problem here, since FE has shown that they do quality much better than quantity.

In POR, every single support conversation (barring Ilyana's conversations, but Ilyana herself is a gimmick character, so you can't do much with her) was meaningful, giving development to both units. You always learned something important about them, a lot of the time something that wasn't evident at first. They were great.

Not saying that Awakening and Fates didn't have those meaningful, interesting conversations, but then you got conversations like Sumia baking Chrom a pie. ....Okay. Why the hell do I care? There's nothing really funny or interesting about it either. To make things clear, I'm not saying that every support conversations needs to be deep introspection.  You can have lighthearted conversations that are still funny, interesting, or developing - Shinon and Janaff's convo in POR is one such example.

My suggestion? Limit supports to pairs that you actually have something to say about, rather than "need to shove a conversation in here for the sake of having a conversation." Is it limiting that Soren can only support with Ike and Stefan in POR? Yes. But it makes sense not only in-character for Soren, but it avoids any potential awkward breaking of the suspension of disbelief by trying to force an antisocial, grumpy guy to support with someone like Mia, for instance.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Extrasolar

[bethany81707]

5 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

No RD-style "supports" please; those were awful in their stripped-down genericness. They honestly might as well have not even bothered, considering that every single conversation in RD pretty much boiled down to "yo, don't die" "okay."

[...]

I think Fates and Awakening trying to move toward "everyone supports with everyone" is the main problem here, since FE has shown that they do quality much better than quantity.

[...]

Not saying that Awakening and Fates didn't have those meaningful, interesting conversations, but then you got conversations like Sumia baking Chrom a pie. ....Okay. Why the hell do I care? There's nothing really funny or interesting about it either. To make things clear, I'm not saying that every support conversations needs to be deep introspection.  You can have lighthearted conversations that are still funny, interesting, or developing - Shinon and Janaff's convo in POR is one such example.

My suggestion? Limit supports to pairs that you actually have something to say about, rather than "need to shove a conversation in here for the sake of having a conversation." Is it limiting that Soren can only support with Ike and Stefan in POR? Yes. But it makes sense not only in-character for Soren, but it avoids any potential awkward breaking of the suspension of disbelief by trying to force an antisocial, grumpy guy to support with someone like Mia, for instance.

...I think you might have slightly missed the reason why I chose Radiant Dawn's example. You bring in the good Supports found in every other game, and then for everyone else you have to pair in the army to do the whole 'shipping' thing the new games do, you use the generic template instead of a random conversation that has about as much characteristion in about thirty or so more lines of dialogue.

[Extrasolar]

5 minutes ago, phineas81707 said:

...I think you might have slightly missed the reason why I chose Radiant Dawn's example. You bring in the good Supports found in every other game, and then for everyone else you have to pair in the army to do the whole 'shipping' thing the new games do, you use the generic template instead of a random conversation that has about as much characteristion in about thirty or so more lines of dialogue.

But generic templates are lame. They homogenize the characters to an extent; I mean, they already did a generic template for the Kana parent  conversations in Fates, and it's no less terrible there. Imo if they wanted to step up the quality, they'd have to make each one unique.

But that's still a problem, because when the writers still have to write 20+ conversations for each character, whether they end in marriage or not, the quality takes a sharp dive.  Honestly, it would be better to limit the "paired" endings and do them the same as the other supports.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Extrasolar

[bethany81707]

2 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

But generic templates are lame. They homogenize the characters to an extent; I mean, they already did a generic template for the Kana parent  conversations in Fates, and it's no less terrible there. Imo if they wanted to step up the quality, they'd have to make each one unique.

But that's still a problem, because when the writers still have to write 20+ conversations for each character, whether they end in marriage or not, the quality takes a sharp dive.  Honestly, it would be better to limit the "paired" endings and do them the same as the other supports.

Yeah, that solution would be my preferred one, but I do think this might help support quantity if quantity is inevitable.