You think affinity should come back?

[Harvey]

Remember that affinities that were in the GBA games and the GCN ones? Well like the questions says, you think they should come back?

Personally, it depends on how its done. Some characters that need good affinities won't get them due to getting something else for that so it might be difficult to get those needed bonuses on one hand.

On the other hand, if it helps to get consistent support conversations, then I'm all in for it.

 

[Ivy Wife Supremacy]

It was a cool concept back then but not really needed now.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Affinities were pretty OP, even more so than the dumb stuff people can do with Pair Up in Fates. The only balance was that supports took forever to get, so honestly the whole thing feels a bit pointless.

[Darros]

Eh, wouldn't mind them but I really don't think they're necessary.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Honestly I didn't care for affinity in supports in the GBA games at all mainly because I didn't even know what the affinities did.
They became more important in FE9 and especially FE10 at cost of the conversation itself.
Having 45% evasion with earth-earth was really nice.

All in all they never have been necessary.
 

Edited May 18, 2017 by アリサ ラインフォルト

[Thinks Their Own Way]

I've played the GBA games and I still don't know what they do.

[Ertrick36]

I think affinities would play out quite differently than they did back in those days due to how supports are handled nowadays.  Back in the GBA days, if you have units stand next to each other for an ungodly amount of turns, you could rank them up to B within a single chapter.  But of course, there were severe limits to the amount of supports you could have, and affinities were made with that in mind.

Now, there's a limit to the amount of "support points" you can earn in a single chapter or skirmish, so you could only get up to a single rank up in one chapter in Fates no matter how many bouts a single pair takes on and no matter how many turns they're paired together for.  But if you so desired, all characters could earn as many supports as you want them to, e.g. a character can have five A-rank supports in Awakening or Fates (good luck with that on a no-grind run, though), while in the affinity days, they could only get one A-rank.  So they'd have to balance affinities to accommodate for that.

Of course, if affinities meant there would be smaller support pools, then I'd be all for it.  And I like the idea of different kinds of characters giving different support bonuses, and affinities help to streamline and visualize that concept, so...  I wouldn't be opposed to them returning.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Technically, Affinities do in a way exist in Fates. The stat bonuses a character gives as the backup in Defensive Stance which are gained with support level increases are not universally the same across all units. Plus the Offensive Stance bonuses differ too, albeit with much less variation (more like Affinities than the DS boosts).

With this said, bring back Affinities because they look pretty and sound cool, just tone down the bonuses they give and restrict how many bonuses a character can received at once. No +30/45 Avoid, and everything will be good.

[Shadow Mir]

Personally, I don't think affinities add much of anything to the game.The issue, as I see it, is that some wind up being worthless (Case in point: Heaven), and others, too powerful (Case in point, Earth).

Edited May 18, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Spoiler Alert]

I didn't care for affinities back in the day, and don't miss them currently.  Affinities seemed like another invisible stat I had to look up online or in a guide just to understand what on Earth it did.  It’s one of the older mechanics that I would rather not see return unless it’s redone in some way to make it work better with newer mechanics introduced by later games.

[Xaos Steel Wing]

No.

Back when I first played the GBA games, I never understood what they do.

As I understand now, they were an early form of support bonus in the form of stat boosts.

They were balanced around a 5 support limit per playthrough. But that had the horrible consequence of limiting us to only seeing 5 supports per character per playthrough, so players would miss out on a lot of characterization and backstory as a result. Unless you looked it up online, but that's not the same. Thank goodness Awakening got rid of that limit. And after Fates and Awakening, I don't think there's any going back to a limited number of supports per playthrough.

Maybe some similar system could return if pair-up was done away with, but it would have to be balanced in a way that wouldn't need to limit the number of supports per playthrough. Something like only getting the bonus of the highest support rank you have, and if there are multiple supported characters at the same rank nearby, get the average of their bonuses?