What, to you, would be the best Avatar implementation?

[DefyingFates]

Barring "take the Avatar out", this extends to all facets of the Avatar - customisation options; whether they're a main, secondary or tertiary character (like Mark in FE7); supports; weapon and promotion options; everything. I'm curious to see what ideas you all come up with!

[Magical Glace]

Make them just some random unit who never appears or is referred to in cutscenes, keep them as faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away from the plot as humanly possible.  They could be the MC's retainer or something.

Give some personality options at the start of the game that limits the support pool.  Making someone who can support everyone no matter what is not my cup of tea.

Pick a starting class like New Mystery.

Make them, in terms of gameplay, play by the rules.  All class reclassing when everyone else doesn't have access to that is a no, as is only needing an A for a friendship seal.  They should be constrained to the same rules as everyone else, thanks.

[Emerson]

I'd say give them a little bit of story presence, but just in the sense of someone like Gray or Tobin from Echoes. Not a main force behind the plot, but exists to aid the main character and has some form of a personality.

NM's system of class picking, with one reclass option ala Fates. Basically, pick a main class and a subclass. Assuming the game has Reclassing. If not, then just picking a main class.

26 minutes ago, Glaceon Sage said:

Give some personality options at the start of the game that limits the support pool.  Making someone who can support everyone no matter what is not my cup of tea.

^^^^^^

 

[NekoKnight]

I'll probably just echo others and say that the avatar should be of minimal to medium plot relevance. It could be the protagonist's childhood friend or their tactician.

Supports should be contingent on a selected personality.

The starting class can be unique or just a normal one.

For customization, I'd like to see facial hair and 3 body types per gender, in addition to everything else we've had in character creators. If the story features them, choosing a race would be neat too.

If the avatar should get a signature weapon let it be dependent on the chosen class (ie if you chose Soldier as your default class, your signature weapon is a lance).

Edited June 1, 2017 by NekoKnight

[a bear]

1 hour ago, Glaceon Sage said:

Make them just some random unit who never appears or is referred to in cutscenes, keep them as faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away from the plot as humanly possible.  They could be the MC's retainer or something.

Give some personality options at the start of the game that limits the support pool.  Making someone who can support everyone no matter what is not my cup of tea.

Pick a starting class like New Mystery.

Make them, in terms of gameplay, play by the rules.  All class reclassing when everyone else doesn't have access to that is a no, as is only needing an A for a friendship seal.  They should be constrained to the same rules as everyone else, thanks.

7 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

I'll probably just echo others and say that the avatar should be of minimal to medium plot relevance. It could be the protagonist's childhood friend or their tactician.

Supports should be contingent on a selected personality.

The starting class can be unique or just a normal one.

For customization, I'd like to see facial hair and 3 body types per gender, in addition to everything else we've had in character creators. If the story features them, choosing a race would be neat too.

All of this for the most part:

• Having them involved in the main plot is fine as supporting characters who aren't explicitly amazing or special. Frederick/Sothe levels of involvement and talent, give or take. Other minor characters should be appearing regularly as well to avoid same-four-character syndrome anyway.
• On the other hand, having extra conversations or content unique to avatars isn't explicitly a bad thing if the game properly considers them to be viewpoint characters. A silent avatar whose supports are entirely about letting the other character pour their heart out is fine.
• At one point I thought starting class should determine personality, but I think I prefer the idea that they're separate. I DO think it should decide an avatar's backstory, and both class and personality should be what unlock support conversations (e.g. you can support Sally the bookworm archer if you're shy or a pegasus knight). Personality could also decide alt class(es) if reclassing is a thing.
• More design options forever. I think different outfits might be my biggest hope at this point, but honestly the more the merrier.

Another thought I had was to allow the player to freely select their own viewpoint character from a large selection of the cast. We're talking like 10 or 15 characters at minimum and not tying them to specific paths like in other games. The story wouldn't necessarily need to change much, but it would change dialogue around and should feature some viewpoint scenes to emphasize the fact that this character is your protagonist.

[Azure Sen]

For me:

• Limited plot importance if any. The Avatar should just be treated as another unit in the army.
• Choose a limited support pool via a personality selection.
• More customization options, with at least three separate body types and facial hair for the males, among others.
• No unique class or personal weapon.
• As Glaceon Mage said, they should play by the same rules that everyone else does. The reclass options should be just as limited as the other units'.
• If there are children, let the player pick the gender of the child.

[NekoKnight]

3 minutes ago, a bear said:

More design options forever. I think different outfits might be my biggest hope at this point, but honestly the more the merrier.

If the game let's you choose a broad range of outfits, I'd be fine with a single body type (young adult, average build). The outfit options could change depending on your class.

[Godhand]

They should either let you pick the avatar's personality, or they should allow you to make all of his/her decisions. This is the most important aspect of the avatar, because if the avatar just does whatever he wants regardless of what you would do in his situation (ex. Corrin), then it's not really an avatar. They should also be a tactician by trade, because that makes the most sense for them.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Godhand

[Zerxen]

I'd like to do it FE7 style where the Avatar serves as part of the Lord's army- just another member that gets some screen time now and then but does not overshadow anyone. Only difference is that the Avatar is a fighting unit whose initial class is chosen at the beginning like in FE12 along with the gender and physical appearance. In terms of personality, I do not think we should have IS let us pick one since that would be extra work for the script, affecting the quality of writing. The Avatar could be entirely voiceless, but we are given some dialogue choices whenever another unit interacts with our Avatar, think of Devil Survivor and the later Pokemon games if you played those. Beyond that, the Avatar should bear no major effect on the plot and is simply there as a sort of audience surrogate. I don't know about supports, but I would like it if the Avatar remained voiceless while other units spoke to them so whatever words they had remained ambiguous, similar to how characters spoke to Alm/Celica in SoV.

[bethany81707]

37 minutes ago, a bear said:

• On the other hand, having extra conversations or content unique to avatars isn't explicitly a bad thing if the game properly considers them to be viewpoint characters. A silent avatar whose supports are entirely about letting the other character pour their heart out is fine.

I'd actually be down for a variation where this happens, and then you can choose a reaction a la at least Tales of Symphonia.

[Book Bro]

I agree with the general consensus about minimal plot involvment and choices for personality. But I don't think this should determine supports. They'd still spend time writing all the supports and it would basically just be choosing what content you want to lock yourself out of. Then again, having a limited support pool from the get go for the supposed avatar limits player freedom and people would just get upset if they couldn't support their favourite characters. I kind of like the idea of having avatar supports be unique in that you can chose what to reply and have it branch from there, but that would be a lot more writing. I think the easiest option is just to let the avatar support everyone as usual.

As far as classes, make it so you can choose your starting class and reclass options.

[Slumber]

Do Kris, but nix all of the worship-y stuff. Just make him/her a royal guard to the main lord/s or something like that.

[NoirCore]

Honestly, I'd prefer an optional custom unit that has no impact on supports or the story, but with a wider range of physical customization to compensate. I'm a fan of the avatar specifically for the opportunity to create characters; I'm just not too keen on the plot involvement, already-established character, and unique class given to them with their avatar status.

[Baldrick]

For story, as long as the role is the tactician, their interaction and impact on the plot can be dictated by the player and there is no romance/children, I'm fine with anything.

For gameplay, a dedicated support unit would be interesting and thematic.

[Omegaprism]

Evidence indicates that the more games we have a My Unit in, the more important and central a character they have become. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this isn't even necessarily a bad thing. Before Fates I actually really wanted a lord for an avatar. The idea that we could have our own personal self-insert and they won't be the main character is honestly unrealistic, and it goes against developers' tried-and-true methods of involving the player in the game's story. The source of the problems with the Avatar in Fire Emblem thus far have stemmed from the fact that they are just naturally amazing at everything, their only flaw is that they are too awesome/kind/sexy/pure/heroic, and anything bad that happens as a result of their non-flaw gets dismissed by the rest of the cast, and in at least one extreme case gets a teeth-grindingly awful, "The reason this happened is the same reason that I love you so please don't change," line.

There are several things I would love to see done with the avatar in future games, but number one with a bullet is this: Everybody knows IntSys is just going to make a default character and slap the avatar label on them. We have yet to be given any agency over how they sound, or what they do in any meaningful way. They are pretty fixed as characters. So treat them more like the other plot-important characters are treated. Here is a nice concise list of criteria to work with:

-Not everyone has heard of the avatar

-People who do know who they are think and even talk about things other than the avatar

-The avatar is bad at something that would otherwise be pretty useful (what if their bane and boon affected their dialogue?)

-There are named characters who dislike or hate the avatar and are something other than cartoonishly villainous

-Said haters do not "come around" and convert to MU-ism. They remain at odds to the very end.

-The avatar makes a mistake (it doesn't have to be a big one), and doesn't get a, "There, there, it's not your fault."

-They have a personality trait other than, "Charismatic."

I think that about covers it.

Nobody is universally loved by everyone no matter what. Most of the time we have to earn the respect and admiration of others, and over the course of doing so we make mistakes, screw up other people's lives, make bad first impressions, and step on other people's toes. It is literally impossible to live your life without making mistakes. How we (and the characters we play as) deal with the consequences is the stuff that makes a story compelling. If you look at how the various lords are treated across FE as a series, that's generally how I want the avatar to be treated.

[saisymbolic]

I've always wanted a viewpoint/narrator avatar. I like the idea of the avatar being childhood friends with the main protagonist - it gives a valid reason for the avatar to be present during the story and be relatively close to the bulk of the action. Stemming from the viewpoint angle, I thought it would be interesting if the avatar was an unreliable narrator of sorts, though I'm not sure how that would work.

I agree that the avatar should abide by the same restrictions as the other units in terms of class inheritance. I'd also like the background thing to return in order to dictate personal growths and possibly personal skills if they return.

As for supports, while I wanted a kind of personality quiz to be utilized to select a small pool of character supportable during the game, I see now that it wouldn't really fix the issue I have with the current system. I still think that there should be a limited pool of supports, however. I would say limit romance options as well, but I may as well be asking for Armageddon to happen in that case. 

In terms of customization, I have a lot of specific demands (that likely won't happen), but to summarize from a post I made in an older thread:

If transformation were to return, I would like the ability to choose them as a race for my avatar. Particularly if bird transformations were to return. The return of builds. To go a step further, split it into height and build (i.e. have an avatar with a "short" height but a "buff" build/weight.) The ability to choose skin tone - they could just imitate Pokemon S/M and give four, ranging from very fair to very dark. More hair style options. For twelve instant hairstyle bases, they could choose three varying lengths (i.e. short, medium, long) and four varying textures (i.e. straight, curly, wavy, kinky). More hair decorations for both male and female. More facial scars, markings and possibly facial hair for dudes.

[NekoKnight]

3 hours ago, Book Bro said:

I agree with the general consensus about minimal plot involvment and choices for personality. But I don't think this should determine supports. They'd still spend time writing all the supports and it would basically just be choosing what content you want to lock yourself out of. Then again, having a limited support pool from the get go for the supposed avatar limits player freedom and people would just get upset if they couldn't support their favourite characters.

I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle. You're not being "locked out" of content. That's framing the discussion from the viewpoint that "Fates/Awakening did it so it must continue that way."

Unless they write supports for EVERY CHARACTER, X number of times for each personality, there won't even be a point to the character having a distinct personality. Supporting everyone at the same time only works in Fates/Awakening because the Avatar's personality is "friendly, inoffensive".

The writers shouldn't sacrifice the integrity of the characters just because the player wants to pair their loud and bubbly avatar with the quiet loner stud.

[Spoiler Alert]

That’s a hard question to answer for me because I can see a lot of ways that the avatar can be implemented, and I wouldn’t be disappointed with too much.  I think "what's best" should depend on the game itself.  I'm probably going to end up repeating some other ideas already mentioned or sticking my foot in my mouth.  If I had to make a list based on what I would personally like to see out of the avatar for the Switch game specifically, it's still hard, but maybe…

- As another poster mentioned.  I want the game to treat the avatar like a person.  It would be nice to see choices backfire on me no matter what I pick.

- For the avatar’s story role, I’m not too picky about it.  I’d like to see an avatar who acts as the game’s narrator though.  Also maybe the avatar character isn’t with the main lord at the start of the game, and you have to recruit your own character early on, or as part of a tutorial.  (If you kill them it’s an instant ‘defeat' accompanied by some snark from the main lord.)

- As for customization I’d like to some see skin color options, pleeeaase.  That’s the only thing that really bothers me about it at the moment.  

- I’d prefer if classes were chosen at the start of the game and promotion went from there.  I don’t mind having a special class (Tactician), but I don’t think it should be mandatory.

- As for supporting, I'd like the S-support system to stay, but narrow down the amount of supports.  I really don't see the point of the avatar getting special treatment support-wise, and I can only see myself managing about 3-5 chains per playthrough.  I'd like to see the avatar have some normal support endings like other characters: getting married, fighting bandits with their best friend, etc.

Honestly, I don't like the idea of restricting supports to personality choices one bit.  Restricting supports to personality is a nice idea on paper, but in execution I imagine it being a small scale, avatar specific version of Blazing Sword’s 5 support per playthough system.  

I think it would be flawed because chaining personality to support options does lock players out of content.  It forces people to possibly make multiple playthroughs for the sake of seeing all possible supports for only one character, their character, and it forces players to play a certain way if they want to support their favorites.  Personally, it's seems like it’s there to be a hindrance and not add anything of value to the game.

I think it might work better if the rate of support growths with specific characters were chained to personality traits instead of the support options themselves.  This can imply in-game how certain characters feel toward your character based on their given personality instead of locking off supports altogether.  I’d really prefer that if avatar supports are going to be limited, then just make them limited and the same regardless of personality.

[Augestein]

The lord. Corrin is the right idea for how to do an avatar gameplay wise. It doesn't make any sense to have some forced dullard in the party that uses a forced weapon in a game like Fire Emblem. Sure, if the game has no weapon triangle and generally plays like Gaiden / Echoes I don't care, but in the standard Fire Emblems, please let the hero be able to be customized. I hate forced dudes that you can't customize. 

I'm even fine with losing the "lord" class if it means that we can actually get a fully custom character. Also, having skin tones would be nice. Outfits I don't really care about as you can just change classes tbh. 

[Rafiel's Aria]

What if the Avatar character took a narrator role? Kind of like someone watching from the sidelines and recording history. I like the idea of a bookish character, maybe a close friend of the main lord, madly scribbling down every second of conquest. But it might be even cool if the main lord is the leader of a resistance or at least someone who doesn't have history on his/her side. It would make the role of a historian even more important. Granted, something like that would be difficult for VAs. If the Avatar is recording all of the dialogue between chapters (kind of like the narrator in RD), that could get troublesome.

As far as combat goes, I'm fine with giving him/her a special class like Robin, but I'm also fine making him/her a "normal" character with limited supports and class options. The latter would probably enrage some people, but I'm of the mindset that quality is more important than quantity. 

[Ivy Wife Supremacy]

Like Robin but probably less importance to the story. I do like the personality idea so your character can be paired to a few characters depending on your Personality perk. Also I would like to pick my own base class than have a default one.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Blade Lord Lyn

[Elincia]

I would love for the avatars to just be removed entirely, but since they will probably be making a return, they should play a much minor role in the story, or not one at all preferable (like making them just another member of your army for example) Basically, just dont make them the main lord again. I do not want to see another Corrin happen again.

[NekoKnight]

11 hours ago, Spoiler Alert said:

As for supporting, I'd like the S-support system to stay, but narrow down the amount of supports.  I really don't see the point of the avatar getting special treatment support-wise,

 

11 hours ago, Spoiler Alert said:

It forces people to possibly make multiple playthroughs for the sake of seeing all possible supports for only one character, their character, and it forces players to play a certain way if they want to support their favorites. 

How do you reconcile these two ideas? You say in one part you want the avatar to have a limited support pool but in the next you say players shouldn't be restricted when choosing to pair up with their favorite characters.

11 hours ago, Spoiler Alert said:

  I’d really prefer that if avatar supports are going to be limited, then just make them limited and the same regardless of personality.

If the support pool doesn't change, and the things the avatar says doesn't change, can it really be said they have a distinct personality? Is my brash, arrogant Avatar going to interact with people in the same way my shy, bookish Avatar would?

[Crux]

21 hours ago, Omegaprism said:

Evidence indicates that the more games we have a My Unit in, the more important and central a character they have become. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this isn't even necessarily a bad thing. Before Fates I actually really wanted a lord for an avatar. The idea that we could have our own personal self-insert and they won't be the main character is honestly unrealistic, and it goes against developers' tried-and-true methods of involving the player in the game's story. The source of the problems with the Avatar in Fire Emblem thus far have stemmed from the fact that they are just naturally amazing at everything, their only flaw is that they are too awesome/kind/sexy/pure/heroic, and anything bad that happens as a result of their non-flaw gets dismissed by the rest of the cast, and in at least one extreme case gets a teeth-grindingly awful, "The reason this happened is the same reason that I love you so please don't change," line.

There are several things I would love to see done with the avatar in future games, but number one with a bullet is this: Everybody knows IntSys is just going to make a default character and slap the avatar label on them. We have yet to be given any agency over how they sound, or what they do in any meaningful way. They are pretty fixed as characters. So treat them more like the other plot-important characters are treated. Here is a nice concise list of criteria to work with:

-Not everyone has heard of the avatar

-People who do know who they are think and even talk about things other than the avatar

-The avatar is bad at something that would otherwise be pretty useful (what if their bane and boon affected their dialogue?)

-There are named characters who dislike or hate the avatar and are something other than cartoonishly villainous

-Said haters do not "come around" and convert to MU-ism. They remain at odds to the very end.

-The avatar makes a mistake (it doesn't have to be a big one), and doesn't get a, "There, there, it's not your fault."

-They have a personality trait other than, "Charismatic."

I think that about covers it.

Nobody is universally loved by everyone no matter what. Most of the time we have to earn the respect and admiration of others, and over the course of doing so we make mistakes, screw up other people's lives, make bad first impressions, and step on other people's toes. It is literally impossible to live your life without making mistakes. How we (and the characters we play as) deal with the consequences is the stuff that makes a story compelling. If you look at how the various lords are treated across FE as a series, that's generally how I want the avatar to be treated.

I would agree with most of these points, though I would say that the characters who dislike the avatar, while not being cartoonishly evil and unsympathetic, also shouldn't feel like they simply exist to be the obligatory character who doesn't like you (like that whiny brat Takumi). Characters like this should thus focus less on simply not liking the avatar for who they are or for trivial reasons, and more on being unable to forgive them for their specific decisions. One way I think this could be done well would be to have choices similar to the one in Yarne's recruitment chapter, wherein you choose which side to back, and depending on your choice, certain characters will be at odds with the avatar for potentially the rest of the game, even if they remain in the army.

I'll confess that I never really self-insert into my avatars and so perhaps that is why I wouldn't mind them simply being given more distinct personality traits (maybe choosable?) and taking an important (but not singular) role in the plot. I'm a bit baffled by the general consensus that the avatar shouldn't be important to the plot because it just seems to defeat part of the purpose of having one, they are inherently distinctive from the preset cast members and should be treated that way to some extent, otherwise why bother? I don't see how people could connect with a "character" like Mark for example. The avatar doesn't always need to be the lord, and perhaps they shouldn't be the sole protagonist, but they should remain somewhat relevant to the plot to justify their existence at all. I would say that overall Robin was the best handled avatar thus far, Corrin was poorly executed, but I would argue that came about due to the poor writing of the character rather than the idea of an avatar lord itself being intrinsically bad. I know a lot of people like avatars simply for gameplay reasons, which is fair, but it seems odd to have them solely for that purpose while trivialising their role in the story. 

Regarding customization options, eye color please. Skintones would also be appreciated, and perhaps a general color scheme regarding their gear rather than the standard blue in every class. Choosing personality could be harder to do well, but it does sound appealing. I'm fine with either a special class or a default one, though in terms of reclassing it should probably be done in the style of fates rather than awakening.

Other than that... two-tone hair color options maybe?

Edited June 2, 2017 by Crux

[a bear]

5 hours ago, Rafiel's Aria said:

 What if the Avatar character took a narrator role?

I like this take on that idea:

"And so, after her many ordeals -- ending the tyranny of Emperor Julius, bringing peace between Nohr and Hoshido, sealing the Dragon's Gate, among countless others -- Becky single-handedly brought the world the peace it deserved. She left for new lands with her husbands Camus and Zelgius, the sacred Falchion at her side. Also all her stats were capped. The End." - Fire Emblem Switch

14 hours ago, Spoiler Alert said:

Honestly, I don't like the idea of restricting supports to personality choices one bit.  Restricting supports to personality is a nice idea on paper, but in execution I imagine it being a small scale, avatar specific version of Blazing Sword’s 5 support per playthough system.  

I think it would be flawed because chaining personality to support options does lock players out of content.  It forces people to possibly make multiple playthroughs for the sake of seeing all possible supports for only one character, their character, and it forces players to play a certain way if they want to support their favorites.  Personally, it's seems like it’s there to be a hindrance and not add anything of value to the game.

I think it might work better if the rate of support growths with specific characters were chained to personality traits instead of the support options themselves.  This can imply in-game how certain characters feel toward your character based on their given personality instead of locking off supports altogether.  I’d really prefer that if avatar supports are going to be limited, then just make them limited and the same regardless of personality.

Supports are already slightly locked in Awakening (S ranks, children, specifics like with Chrom) or significantly in Fates (same as Awakening plus path differences). Even then, seeing all of the supports isn't something you're expected to grind out in a single playthrough anyway. I'd consider it a bonus to want to play the game again to see new dialogue anyway.

The main reason for limited supports in the first place is for writing quality. Having everyone support multiple personalities means either every personality is written the same (making personalities meaningless) or IS has to write supports for each personality with each character (meaning they'll likely be terrible given the sheer amount of writing to be done). Even then, do we really need our self-insert to always be everyone's best friend?