What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Martin]

On 3/10/2019 at 9:18 AM, Tediz64 said:

My final unpopular opinion is: I'm so OCD that in order to feel what I am managing is clean and simple looking, I kill characters I know I'm not going to use or want just to make some screens look emptier (which feels cleaner) so by the end of most FE games I have less than 15 people. I don't just kill enemies, I do the same to my allies ; D

I'm shocked that IS didn't implement a type of mark and tab system where you could organize certain units into specific tabs or the such when looking at the unit screen. Sorta like a pokemon PC storage box. 

People for specific purposes for one tab

Benched forever units in another. 

Organized by class. Organized weapon type. Anything of the player's choice. It would really help out people who don't feel like looking at useless units. 

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

Okay... A veeeeery hot take incoming.

After looking at different custom animations from different users, I honestly think that a good portion of the GBA animations are lazy in terms of structure. There are very little key frames and mostly just smears to condensate for the lack for frames. I know that it's very popular to hold high regard to the gba sprites, because the sprites themselves are good in quality if you consider the size and the fact it's on gba, but the animations themselves could've been done better. It's doesn't necessarily mean that I hate the animations, in fact I like some of them very much, it's just from a critical standpoint, I honestly think that more could've been done.

I think I actually posted this before, but in a different thread...

[NekoKnight]

Perhaps less of a "unpopular opinion" and more a response to a common comment I've seen but...
It grinds my gears when I see people say "Fire Emblem got pegasus lore wrong. In mythology they were ridden by male figures. They were actually thinking of unicorn mythology with how they only appear before maidens." Like, god forbid Fire Emblem make its own lore. Strangely I don't see people saying "Achtually, dragons don't need magic stones to transform in mythology. I know this as I am an expert on made up creatures."

[Martin]

On 3/20/2019 at 8:29 AM, NekoKnight said:

Perhaps less of a "unpopular opinion" and more a response to a common comment I've seen but...
It grinds my gears when I see people say "Fire Emblem got pegasus lore wrong. In mythology they were ridden by male figures. They were actually thinking of unicorn mythology with how they only appear before maidens." Like, god forbid Fire Emblem make its own lore. Strangely I don't see people saying "Achtually, dragons don't need magic stones to transform in mythology. I know this as I am an expert on made up creatures."

Yeah. Fire emblem messes so many things up, there really is no point of pointing out little misconceptions. I used to be one of those irritating people that point that kind of stuff, but just learned to accept that generally, FE is it's own world with it's own rules. 

Although, gender locked classes does indeed peeve me quite a bit. 

My unpopular opinion is that Fire Emblem should experiment with having a game without classes or at least allow any class to use any weapon and have the class instead mainly decide the stats, abilities, and general gameplay of the unit. Proficiency of a weapon type should be decided soley on the character instead. I made a forum about this a while ago, but no one was able go fully change my mind. 

FE haves a lot of dough now. I think it's safe to try out some severe changes and see how the general fan base react to it. Basically, have classes be a bit like heroes, but add hit chances, crit chances, and more for the more dynamic action of FE games. 

[Tediz64]

1 hour ago, Martin said:

My unpopular opinion is that Fire Emblem should experiment with having a game without classes or at least allow any class to use any weapon and have the class instead mainly decide the stats, abilities, and general gameplay of the unit. Proficiency of a weapon type should be decided soley on the character instead. I made a forum about this a while ago, but no one was able go fully change my mind. 

FE haves a lot of dough now. I think it's safe to try out some severe changes and see how the general fan base react to it. Basically, have classes be a bit like heroes, but add hit chances, crit chances, and more for the more dynamic action of FE games. 

I'd be willing to see something like that if it was a spin off and they said while advertising, "from the makers of fire emblem, we bring you this". Like you know a spin off when you see the name. Take for example Pokemon Pinball. Or how all the different Mario games have what is about in the title (party, tennis, golf, kart, etc)

I don't want a core fire emblem game to go that direction because then it takes away that role playing feel away from it. Sometimes I create an Avatar that has the tall build and go Knight or Fighter to RP as some big muscular guy (imagine if they let you customize height, weight, build, and more). Or I use the small guy build for things like theif or mage. Having a role in mind fits nicely when they preload a character that looks the part. Have you ever tried Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen? You really really seriously have think about your role when creating a character to understand how they'll fit into it. Like for example the taller, heavier, and more muscular you make yourself, the more you jip your own height and distance when vaulting as well as climbing speed. Plus bigger guys naturally move in heavier armor compared to someone who is 5'2 weighing less than 150 lbs trying to move in the same armor. Having a class sorta eliminates the customizing aspect. So fire emblem can skate by not adding more features. Which is a little sad. But I'll take what I can get.

It sounds to me like you want a bishop with an axe or Lance, and your heavy armored knight throwing daggers and heal staff available. Why make classes that can use any weapon that don't fit the image/mold when instead you can just make character customizing more in-depth. Where I bolded and underlined what you said, why not just switch the 2nd time you said class with the word character? A class to me means what someone fits into as a generalization. A knight should wear armor and be preferably big and strong. I also think they should have high defense and hp so they can tank. They shouldn't be casting magic. That makes no sense. When I hear/read the word "warrior" I think, someone who fights right at the front, not some archer/theif who sneaks around in the background waiting for a chance. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding what you mean?

[Martin]

22 minutes ago, Tediz64 said:

I'd be willing to see something like that if it was a spin off and they said while advertising, "from the makers of fire emblem, we bring you this". Like you know a spin off when you see the name. Take for example Pokemon Pinball. Or how all the different Mario games have what is about in the title (party, tennis, golf, kart, etc)

I don't want a core fire emblem game to go that direction because then it takes away that role playing feel away from it. Sometimes I create an Avatar that has the tall build and go Knight or Fighter to RP as some big muscular guy (imagine if they let you customize height, weight, build, and more). Or I use the small guy build for things like theif or mage. Having a role in mind fits nicely when they preload a character that looks the part. Have you ever tried Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen? You really really seriously have think about your role when creating a character to understand how they'll fit into it. Like for example the taller, heavier, and more muscular you make yourself, the more you jip your own height and distance when vaulting as well as climbing speed. Plus bigger guys naturally move in heavier armor compared to someone who is 5'2 weighing less than 150 lbs trying to move in the same armor. Having a class sorta eliminates the customizing aspect. So fire emblem can skate by not adding more features. Which is a little sad. But I'll take what I can get.

It sounds to me like you want a bishop with an axe or Lance, and your heavy armored knight throwing daggers and heal staff available. Why make classes that can use any weapon that don't fit the image/mold when instead you can just make character customizing more in-depth. Where I bolded and underlined what you said, why not just switch the 2nd time you said class with the word character? A class to me means what someone fits into as a generalization. A knight should wear armor and be preferably big and strong. I also think they should have high defense and hp so they can tank. They shouldn't be casting magic. That makes no sense. When I hear/read the word "warrior" I think, someone who fights right at the front, not some archer/theif who sneaks around in the background waiting for a chance. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding what you mean?

Indeed you miss understand. The sentence you underlined comes before thr one that states how it should limit a character's weapons. I'm not saying that any knight should be able to use a staff or the such. I'm just saying, doing away with weapon limitations class wise offers a bigger range of freedom for the characters that could encountered. Instead, make certain characters unable/able to use a set limit weapons based on their unique characteristics, not the classn The class would just set how much stats one have or rather or not they fly or is armored or etcetera. 

If there is bound to be a knight that throws daggers at people, thats due to the devs giving the character the ability to do so, not the class it self the ability to access any weapons. 

And why DOESN'T a knight using magic make sense? Historically, knights were of a class of people that had nearly the only access to a kind of education that would maybe allow access to magic if it existed. They were trained to use a huge variety of weapons left and right. Gameplay wise, this could create an interesting glass cannon magical wise and a tank physically wise. 

We can still have our thieves, but one thief may be able to use a sword while another one will only have access to knives. Or perhaps a differant one is skilled with bows. Or some warriors that goes into the front lines with a lance while others uses axes. 

At the end of the day, there could be a wider range of characters and enemies that serves more purposes all around with out having IS think up of some oddly specific, or in some cases, down right wrong class name for each class that does the same thing, but have different weapons. 

[Tediz64]

5 minutes ago, Martin said:

Indeed you miss understand. The sentence you underlined comes before thr one that states how it should limit a character's weapons. I'm not saying that any knight should be able to use a staff or the such. I'm just saying, doing away with weapon limitations class wise offers a bigger range of freedom for the characters that could encountered. Instead, make certain characters unable/able to use a set limit weapons based on their unique characteristics, not the classn The class would just set how much stats one have or rather or not they fly or is armored or etcetera. 

If there is bound to be a knight that throws daggers at people, thats due to the devs giving the character the ability to do so, not the class it self the ability to access any weapons. 

And why DOESN'T a knight using magic make sense? Historically, knights were of a class of people that had nearly the only access to a kind of education that would maybe allow access to magic if it existed. They were trained to use a huge variety of weapons left and right. Gameplay wise, this could create an interesting glass cannon magical wise and a tank physically wise. 

We can still have our thieves, but one thief may be able to use a sword while another one will only have access to knives. Or perhaps a differant one is skilled with bows. Or some warriors that goes into the front lines with a lance while others uses axes. 

At the end of the day, there could be a wider range of characters and enemies that serves more purposes all around with out having IS think up of some oddly specific, or in some cases, down right wrong class name for each class that does the same thing, but have different weapons. 

So you tie in magic with education? Why? Magic like faith based for healing doesn't have to or need to be educated locked. I've met narrow minded religious people who reject science and education. Dark magic based off sacrifices from a lore point of view also never meant the person was educated. Plenty of tribes in Africa and in South America practiced voodoo magic and you don't consider that "educated". Using magic doesn't have to mean being educated. You can have one without the other.

Over the course of FE, they have at one point made it so some classes can wield weapons that they couldn't before. Shadow Dragon had generals with lances + bows, while Sacred Stones had all three melee weapons. As far as theives going from swords to daggers and then to bows, I can see how they need to make up their mind.

I think they made up classes in FE also to simplify how people look at and know what each person's role is on the battlefield. Like calling these characters knights and cavalry let's you know what to do with them as far as guarding choke points and sending out rescue units. Taking the class names away would mean you'd have to remember what each person does best or at least can do with grooming, and for people coming into the series, that'd be a whole lot of mental work. Like for example in Path of Radiance, if Soren didn't have mage next to his name, he'd look like a thief wearing all black but for someone who can't remember he uses magic, finding out the hard way after putting him next to a treasure chest that he can't open since he can't pick locks, would mean that person didn't take into account his abilities and usage. Joshua from Sacred Stones also looked like a thief. I think the names help with deciding what to do with each person. Having every person basically be Robin/Corrin and letting you decide what to do with them and how to use them would take a lot of mental work remembering plus not to mention at least the class names come with outfits  that sorta fits and looks like it gets the job done. Making each character customizable with weapons and their utility means you'd have to code/program the game to map out every single possible combination with however many people you can play with. Imagine the sheer number of ways you can play if you had 30 playable characters that didn't have class/weapon restrictions. Plus all the cutscenes that have to feature the route you made each person take. Like for example imagine Xander/Ryoma's cutscenes but instead of drawing a sword, they unsheathed an axe or pulled out a book to cast magic? Classes with weapon locks, simplifies all that and prevents the problem of cut scenes not matching how you play with each person. 

[FRZNHeir]

1 hour ago, Tediz64 said:

So you tie in magic with education? Why? Magic like faith based for healing doesn't have to or need to be educated locked. I've met narrow minded religious people who reject science and education. Dark magic based off sacrifices from a lore point of view also never meant the person was educated. Plenty of tribes in Africa and in South America practiced voodoo magic and you don't consider that "educated". Using magic doesn't have to mean being educated. You can have one without the other.

Over the course of FE, they have at one point made it so some classes can wield weapons that they couldn't before. Shadow Dragon had generals with lances + bows, while Sacred Stones had all three melee weapons. As far as theives going from swords to daggers and then to bows, I can see how they need to make up their mind.

I think they made up classes in FE also to simplify how people look at and know what each person's role is on the battlefield. Like calling these characters knights and cavalry let's you know what to do with them as far as guarding choke points and sending out rescue units. Taking the class names away would mean you'd have to remember what each person does best or at least can do with grooming, and for people coming into the series, that'd be a whole lot of mental work. Like for example in Path of Radiance, if Soren didn't have mage next to his name, he'd look like a thief wearing all black but for someone who can't remember he uses magic, finding out the hard way after putting him next to a treasure chest that he can't open since he can't pick locks, would mean that person didn't take into account his abilities and usage. Joshua from Sacred Stones also looked like a thief. I think the names help with deciding what to do with each person. Having every person basically be Robin/Corrin and letting you decide what to do with them and how to use them would take a lot of mental work remembering plus not to mention at least the class names come with outfits  that sorta fits and looks like it gets the job done. Making each character customizable with weapons and their utility means you'd have to code/program the game to map out every single possible combination with however many people you can play with. Imagine the sheer number of ways you can play if you had 30 playable characters that didn't have class/weapon restrictions. Plus all the cutscenes that have to feature the route you made each person take. Like for example imagine Xander/Ryoma's cutscenes but instead of drawing a sword, they unsheathed an axe or pulled out a book to cast magic? Classes with weapon locks, simplifies all that and prevents the problem of cut scenes not matching how you play with each person. 

I think there would be ways around this, by having certain characters "prefer" certain weapons. IE; a character who's backstory says they are a trained swordsman CAN wield lances/axe/ect but they would gain lower exp or something when not using the weapon they prefer. Alternatively, have characters who are story important locked into a certain weapon/weaponset during certain events, and make up BS reasons as to why they don't have the other weapons. Clever lying and mechanics can hide weapon locking if they are careful with it.

[Tediz64]

3 minutes ago, FRZNHeir said:

I think there would be ways around this, by having certain characters "prefer" certain weapons. IE; a character who's backstory says they are a trained swordsman CAN wield lances/axe/ect but they would gain lower exp or something when not using the weapon they prefer. Alternatively, have characters who are story important locked into a certain weapon/weaponset during certain events, and make up BS reasons as to why they don't have the other weapons. Clever lying and mechanics can hide weapon locking if they are careful with it.

But as a game designer you'd probably make people upset. Using Soren from PoR as an example say Soren prefers Anima magic but can use Dark and Light. You have to remember that all the times. But if for role-play purposes you like Dark and want to focus on that, you could never really benefit from him "preferring" Anima since his dark wouldn't grow as fast or be as strong. Taking away weapon restrictions and letting him do anything you want hurts your long term gameplay since you are using a nerfed version of Soren. I'll use another example, say for example you have a knight who prefers axes buy can use all melee based weapons, but he looks cool using a sword, the player suffers because after seeing him with a sword and deciding it looks better on him, you suffer having to use a handicapped character. Giving people options will end up making them decide poor choices based off cosmetics sometimes. Either that or people will complain that certain characters should have been just as proficient with their own personal tastes as opposed to the Dev's programmed intended choice. I know for sure I'd have been way happier using Dark magic with Soren then cheap weak wind. I'd be upset that the Dev's didn't accommodate "my" taste. They couldn't possibly make everyone happy. So that would backfire pretty quick.

The problem with your second alternative suggestion could map out various ways. Say for example for plot reasons a character has to use a sword on chapter 12. But you left him at rank D and used axes for a while. Now come this chapter, you have to drop down to iron level swords when you were just using silver axes. Talk about a drop in damage. That is one example of how that could go wrong. Another is say, you have to keep this plot related sword on you for chapter 15, but up untill now you had him carrying a wrymslayer, a Levin sword, a killing edge, and an armor slayer, with one heal item. Now you gotta take off one of your swords and add the story one which might upset people. For whatever reason, if you have him carrying what you want him to and are being told by the game dev that isn't gonna fly for this chapter, you might upset players. You could also hurt their strategy. Your 2nd alternative could cause a few hiccups depending on the situation and a person's play style. 

[FRZNHeir]

Alternatively you could do something where a character with a special PRF weapon (Ragnell, Raijinto, Seigfried, ect) ALWAYS has the weapon on them, but with that issue you lose an inventory slot. I think it would be cool to have unrestricted access to weapons, however, I think your points are extremely valid, and it would be a cool idea to explore in some manner. 


 

[Flere210]

Too much freedommlead to FFT situations when you can make monsters that make even Orlandu look week by comparisson(wich i love to do, but is not exactly balanced and ia the reason the introduced races in FFTA). For example, every character can fix their shortcomings by just wearingbthe appropriate weapon, for example a low skill fighter using swords and javelins instead of hand axes. Imo the fates incarnation of reclassing is the sweet spot when it comes to customizzation, but Three house seems to be way more open.

[Martin]

6 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

1] So you tie in magic with education? Why? Magic like faith based for healing doesn't have to or need to be educated locked. I've met narrow minded religious people who reject science and education. Dark magic based off sacrifices from a lore point of view also never meant the person was educated. Plenty of tribes in Africa and in South America practiced voodoo magic and you don't consider that "educated". Using magic doesn't have to mean being educated. You can have one without the other.

2] Over the course of FE, they have at one point made it so some classes can wield weapons that they couldn't before. Shadow Dragon had generals with lances + bows, while Sacred Stones had all three melee weapons. As far as theives going from swords to daggers and then to bows, I can see how they need to make up their mind.

I think they made up classes in FE also to simplify how people look at and know what each person's role is on the battlefield. Like calling these characters knights and cavalry let's you know what to do with them as far as guarding choke points and sending out rescue units. Taking the class names away would mean you'd have to remember what each person does best or at least can do with grooming, and for people coming into the series, that'd be a whole lot of mental work. Like for example in Path of Radiance, if Soren didn't have mage next to his name, he'd look like a thief wearing all black but for someone who can't remember he uses magic, finding out the hard way after putting him next to a treasure chest that he can't open since he can't pick locks, would mean that person didn't take into account his abilities and usage. Joshua from Sacred Stones also looked like a thief. I think the names help with deciding what to do with each person. Having every person basically be Robin/Corrin and letting you decide what to do with them and how to use them would take a lot of mental work remembering plus not to mention at least the class names come with outfits  that sorta fits and looks like it gets the job done. Making each character customizable with weapons and their utility means you'd have to code/program the game to map out every single possible combination with however many people you can play with. Imagine the sheer number of ways you can play if you had 30 playable characters that didn't have class/weapon restrictions. Plus all the cutscenes that have to feature the route you made each person take. Like for example imagine Xander/Ryoma's cutscenes but instead of drawing a sword, they unsheathed an axe or pulled out a book to cast magic? Classes with weapon locks, simplifies all that and prevents the problem of cut scenes not matching how you play with each person. 

1] because I'm saying that it wouldn't be too odd to see knights using magic. I'm not saying that ONLY they should be able to use it. Yes we have the Ninos that can be badasses with magic with little literacy, but seeing a knight with a tome does make more sense than it doesn't. 

 

2] and they would not have to make up thier mind if they remove the weapon limit in classes and instead enforces it to characters. 

3] I'm no longer arguing for taking away class names, just the weapons limit. Instead of having a perfered weapon type which gain more exp than when using other weapons like the other guy suggested, they're locked to those weapons only, unable to use the other ones. I don't see what's the crime in having one knight that could use one weapon or another knight who could only use a tome. They both keep the same job of holding out choke points. 

The coding part is not as complicated as you think. Once you have programmed one unit ability for a character or unit, it's as simple as one or two lines of code to repeat it because methods and functions exists, but even still, I'm not saying have every charcter be able to do everything. I'm saying have every class be able to use every weapon, but have each character be limited in that regard instead. Soren can still be a mage that uses magic only and so on. 

And honestly, who cares about cutscenes? You could have Robin reclassed into an assassin still have him strike Valider with a lightning bolt at the near end like I did. It was freaking AWESOME when it happened, but that's besides the point. FE don't even update the character portraits when they promote and no one is bothered by it, I'm sure everyone would be okay with characters not reflecting their ingame counter parts during cutscenes. 

Edited March 24, 2019 by Martin

[Tediz64]

22 hours ago, Martin said:

1] because I'm saying that it wouldn't be too odd to see knights using magic. I'm not saying that ONLY they should be able to use it. Yes we have the Ninos that can be badasses with magic with little literacy, but seeing a knight with a tome does make more sense than it doesn't. 

 

2] and they would not have to make up thier mind if they remove the weapon limit in classes and instead enforces it to characters. 

3] And honestly, who cares about cutscenes? You could have Robin reclassed into an assassin still have him strike Valider with a lightning bolt at the near end like I did. It was freaking AWESOME when it happened, but that's besides the point. FE don't even update the character portraits when they promote and no one is bothered by it, I'm sure everyone would be okay with characters not reflecting their ingame counter parts during cutscenes. 

1) it is your perception versus mine and I can see you won't budge so I'll stop on that. All I said was you "can" have one without the other. I didn't say that have to be exclusive. But whatever. 

2) your right. Take away the restrictions and instead make it based off character. So keep in mind this means everyone now has to remember not only what each person can and can't do regardless if they share the same class, but now your strategy has to incorporate you remembering how position each one based off what they do as if that isn't already alot more thinking being added. Make the game more complex instead of having simple easy to identify titles. 

3) see this is exactly what I'm talking about. That attitude is a poor one to have for a game developer. That is how you piss off players. I care about cutscenes. It does bother me like crazy they don't update character portraits. Not everyone will be okay with it not matching. You only are caring about what you like and want so you make the generalization that nobody else must care about these things like you but that is untrue. I know I'm not alone because look at one example, it bothered me like hell that the feet of FE awakening was poorly animated like little pegs. I truly thought I was the only one who paid attention to that. Surprisingly I wasn't alone. Apparently there were so many people, by like the hundreds of thousands, that they ended up making sure the Fates character models didn't have pegs. Believe it or not, some people pay attention to stuff like that so even though you don't, you shouldn't generalize that others must not either. IS sure heard our voice and made sure we didn't have pegs legs again in Fates. What if there are thousands of people who do care about the portraits? I can't provide you with the numbers that would come from a survey of polling everyone who plays FE and if some of the things we are mentioning do bother others since I don't have the resources to do it and get everyone to participate in, but you immediately bull dozing your way thru with the attitude "so what" is a pretty a** h*** way to talk. It really does look like you want changes made to make you happy even knowing it would screw others over. You mentioned nobody could otherwise convince you in a previous thread you made debating this very topic, and I see why. I was earnestly asking you for clarification but the generalizations you make are pretty bias to what you know and how you want things to be seen and treated as. Unless you want to re-engage me more constructively, I'm done debating this. I'm not going to give you feedback to grow your point of view. Btw, character portraits bothered me from day 1 and you have no idea how much I praised the Lord when I saw them change Ike's portrait in Path of Radiance. And again they delivered for the final cutscene when striking Ashera in Radiant Dawn when Ike promoted and had full armor on one arm. Plus the constant 2 updates to Micaiah. I loved the Tellius series for doing that. I know at least three people on this website that also commented on the portrait changes and how they loved it so I wouldn't be surprised if more people do pay attention to these little things. 

Edited March 25, 2019 by Tediz64
Modified a sentence

[Martin]

5 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

1) it is your perception versus mine and I can see you won't budge so I'll stop on that. All I said was you "can" have one without the other. I didn't say that have to be exclusive. But whatever. 

2) your right. Take away the restrictions and instead make it based off character. So keep in mind this means everyone now has to remember not only what each person can and can't do regardless if they share the same class, but now your strategy has to incorporate you remembering how position each one based off what they do as if that isn't already alot more thinking being added. Make the game more complex instead of having simple easy to identify titles. 

3) see this is exactly what I'm talking about. That attitude is a poor one to have for a game developer. That is how you piss off players. I care about cutscenes. It does bother me like crazy they don't update character portraits. Not everyone will be okay with it not matching. You only are caring about what you like and want so you make the generalization that nobody else must care about these things like you but that is untrue. I know I'm not alone because look at one example, it bothered me like hell that the feet of FE awakening was poorly animated like little pegs. I truly thought I was the only one who paid attention to that. Surprisingly I wasn't alone. Apparently there were so many people, by like the hundreds of thousands, that they ended up making sure the Fates character models didn't have pegs. Believe it or not, some people pay attention to stuff like that so even though you don't, you shouldn't generalize that others must not either. IS sure heard our voice and made sure we didn't have pegs legs again in Fates. What if there are thousands of people who do care about the portraits? I can't provide you with the numbers that would come from a survey of polling everyone who plays FE and if some of the things we are mentioning do bother others since I don't have the resources to do it and get everyone to participate in, but you immediately bull dozing your way thru with the attitude "so what" is a pretty a** h*** way to talk. It really does look like you want changes made to make you happy even knowing it would screw others over. You mentioned nobody could otherwise convince you in a previous thread you made debating this very topic, and I see why. I was earnestly asking you for clarification but the generalizations you make are pretty bias to what you know and how you want things to be seen and treated as. Unless you want to re-engage me more constructively, I'm done debating this. I'm not going to give you feedback to grow your point of view. Btw, character portraits bothered me from day 1 and you have no idea how much I praised the Lord when I saw them change Ike's portrait in Path of Radiance. And again they delivered for the final cutscene when striking Ashera in Radiant Dawn when Ike promoted and had full armor on one arm. Plus the constant 2 updates to Micaiah. I loved the Tellius series for doing that. I know at least three people on this website that also commented on the portrait changes and how they loved it so I wouldn't be surprised if more people do pay attention to these little things. 

2] Map sprites/models should be just fine in reminding the player on who is doing what. Character with certain weapons could display what they use by having a basic model of it equipped during the map phases. Secondary weapons could be a bit more of an issue, I won't argue that. I can just hope that some helpful quality-of-life GUI can help fix that. If I can remember the names of every playable character in the game, I trust I can remember who uses what, and I'm not really that bright compared to most other people, but like you pointed out, everyone might not appreciate having to do that which is why I say, it's something they should at least try. If it works, fantastic! If not, oh well. 

It's also worthy to note that the player is not just dumping the entirety of his team in every map. There are usually about 20 or so slots of battle-available units. In the battle preparation menu, the player usually goes over the items, equipment and ability each character has anyways, so scanning a character and seeing what he can and cannot do is yet another "flaw" of this idea that already exist in-game. 

3] Look. You were the one who brought up how difficult it would be for the developers to add little changes like that during the initial debate. I made that last point because updating the character's out of game look have never been a priority to IS and I founded it strange that you disagree with freedom of weaponry class wise because of something that have been present since the first game. That "Who cares?" statement was a bit of brash assumption. For that, I apologize, but when I said that, I was pointing out that it's a minor annoyance, yes, but one people won't die over. The numbers are surprisingly hard to find, but so far I found out that out of the three last FE games, SoV have sold the least after a year or so and that game actually DID have portraits that updated for the main characters.  

Either way, it is the weapon that changes with each character, not their clothing or anything and considering that in most games, there is only ONE or TWO lords and few other individuals that are cut scene worthy, I doubt this new direction of how classes are handled would interfere with the cutscenes much. XD

Xander/Ryoma would still have their awesome dark sword/Lightning Katana. Keep in mind that you've made this point despite Xander already being capable of using lances as well. It's not like the classes are randomize with each new game. Just like in the previous games, the lords and such will have their preferred weapons, but that would be due to the characters themselves. Not the classes. 

Edited March 25, 2019 by Martin
Adding some points here and there.

[Ottservia]

Here's one I'd like to raise. I honestly don't understand the whole "quality over quantity" argument in regards to the amount of supports a character should. If anything more supports for a character is actually a good thing because it gives more opportunities for more character interaction and thereby more character development and characterization. Less usually just leaves me wanting more especially if the character in question is one I happen to really like. Like it's not a matter of quantity, it's almost entirely a matter of quality. A character can really ONLY benefit from having more supports cause again it's just more opportunities for character development. A bad character will lead to bad supports. A good character will lead to good supports that's just how it is. Quantity barely has anything to with it. The quantity is only a problem with the number of characters not supports.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Ottservia

[Acacia Sgt]

5 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Here's one I'd like to raise. I honestly don't understand the whole "quality over quantity" argument in regards to the amount of supports a character should. If anything more supports for a character is actually a good thing because it gives more opportunities for more character interaction and thereby more character development and characterization. Less usually just leaves me wanting more especially if the character in question is one I happen to really like. Like it's not a matter of quantity, it's almost entirely a matter of quality. A character can really ONLY benefit from having more supports cause again it's just more opportunities for character development. A bad character will lead to bad supports. A good character will lead to good supports that's just how it is. Quantity barely has anything to with it. The quantity is only a problem with the number of characters not supports.

I suppose it's because the developers don't have an unlimited time to write the supports. With a deadline, they can only dedicate so much time to support writing. So more supports means less time for each one, which can impact the level of writing that can go to them. Alternative is pouring more people to support writing, which can detract from other areas; or hire more people, but budget is also a limited resource.

That's why the phrase "quality over quantity" exists. Since the support writers don't have unlimited time, resources, and stuff, then you either write more with less, or less with more. Perhaps.

[Martin]

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Here's one I'd like to raise. I honestly don't understand the whole "quality over quantity" argument in regards to the amount of supports a character should. If anything more supports for a character is actually a good thing because it gives more opportunities for more character interaction and thereby more character development and characterization. Less usually just leaves me wanting more especially if the character in question is one I happen to really like. Like it's not a matter of quantity, it's almost entirely a matter of quality. A character can really ONLY benefit from having more supports cause again it's just more opportunities for character development. A bad character will lead to bad supports. A good character will lead to good supports that's just how it is. Quantity barely has anything to with it. The quantity is only a problem with the number of characters not supports.

Like  @Acacia Sgt said, IS may not have the time or money to make a crap ton of supports that is also of high quality. While I'm down for having a lot more opportunities to power up my units via supports, I do indeed roll my eyes when some lackluster support conversation happens. If I can tell that a good number of them are just there to fill some type of void or quota, then I become a lot less excited to actually get the support ranks.

If IS do pull off a greater support conversation quantity which each one being immensely satisfying in some form or fashion, then hey, I'll be REALLY excited for that. Heck, maybe IS CAN pull it off. They do have the revenue generated from Heroes. Also, I didn't think that a nearly fully voiced FE game would be possible and yet, SoV exists. 

 

Speaking of support conversations, I don't know how exactly people feel about this, but another possibly unpopular opinion I have is that the C ranked support conversation between Beruka and Saizo was phenomenal. 

And no, I am not joking. 

Edited March 25, 2019 by Martin

[Ottservia]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I suppose it's because the developers don't have an unlimited time to write the supports. With a deadline, they can only dedicate so much time to support writing. So more supports means less time for each one, which can impact the level of writing that can go to them. Alternative is pouring more people to support writing, which can detract from other areas; or hire more people, but budget is also a limited resource.

That's why the phrase "quality over quantity" exists. Since the support writers don't have unlimited time, resources, and stuff, then you either write more with less, or less with more. Perhaps.

I suppose that's somewhat but I dunno I still don't like the argument. Maybe I'll have to sit on this one for a bit.

23 minutes ago, Martin said:

Speaking of support conversations, I don't know how exactly people feel about this, but another possibly unpopular opinion I have is that the C ranked support conversation between Beruka and Saizo was phenomenal to me. 

And no, I am not joking. 

I actually kind of agree with this. Both characters are assassins and of few words. What happens when one assassins meets another? well tension happens and their silence conveys that well. It's supposed to be sort of like one of those scenes where two immensely blood thirsty characters are in the same room and a loud silence just washes over to convey the sheer amount of tension in the room.

[Acacia Sgt]

I thought the issue with that support is that it's entirely different from its Japanese version, where they two do speak with each other. More so since the conversation continues into the B support, so the overseas version of the conversation now has part of it missing. If I recall correctly.

[Tediz64]

@Martin I see the point you are making. So basically, players (especially veterans) already should be at the level of giving the map a glance over as well as the characters they are going to deploy including their equipment, and part of being a good tactician or strategist is also inevitably preparing for the worst in the event of enemy reinforcements. You are absolutely right in this. Sounds reasonable and logical. The premises i'm going based off of is that i want fire emblem to still be newbie friendly. I truly want fire emblem to become way more popular and mainstream so i can have more friends to play with. Plus if more people buy the game, the means the company gets more money, more money means more budget to do things with. Like for example make more spin-offs to satisfy an even greater audience. I cross my fingers for the day something like Fire Emblem Warriors with online multiplayer becomes something that exists. I don't neccessarily disagree with weapon restriction being removed. I was just sorta making counter points i suppose. 

Regarding SoV, i can only offer my own take but how many people i represent when i say this is beyond me. I didn't like that game cause it didn't feel like a fire emblem. The dungeon crawling aspect and farming that introduced (both the remake and 1st version) plus the finding stuff in background scenes was kinda unappealing. Plus magic was so weird to use that i couldn't get behind it. Except that one attack that send a bunch of little light swords at the enemy. That looked epic =P I really do wonder how many people pay attention to stuff like character portraits, and so forth. 

@Ottservia I'll never forgive the makers of Radiant Dawn for butchering the support system. I wanted to love Lyre and Vika more. (also *thumbs up* to Severa)

[Ottservia]

8 minutes ago, Tediz64 said:

 I'll never forgive the makers of Radiant Dawn for butchering the support system. I wanted to love Lyre and Vika more. (also *thumbs up* to Severa)

you see this is exactly what I mean. If you have a good writer and a good character then more supports can only be a good thing because character interaction is by far one of the best forms of characterization. Also YES Severa deserves more love damnit! like come on she just needs a hug and for someone to tell her that she's special

[Tediz64]

18 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Also YES Severa deserves more love damnit! like come on she just needs a hug and for someone to tell her that she's special

Wait though....i have to ask....who did you make her dad? This is important. My options were either Lon'qu or Robin (with red hair). I COULD NOT have her without either red or black hair. No other color imo did her justice. Her supports with Brady were magical. I loved how they formed a anti-social group but it turned into her bossing him around. It was adorable. I shipped them. Sometimes if i did Lon'qu x Cordelia, then i'd sometimes do Robin x Severa.

[Ottservia]

8 minutes ago, Tediz64 said:

Wait though....i have to ask....who did you make her dad? This is important. My options were either Lon'qu or Robin (with red hair). I COULD NOT have her without either red or black hair. No other color imo did her justice. Her supports with Brady were magical. I loved how they formed a anti-social group but it turned into her bossing him around. It was adorable. I shipped them. Sometimes if i did Lon'qu x Cordelia, then i'd sometimes do Robin x Severa.

It's always RobinxCordelia with me. Robin to me just makes so much sense as her dad. For one. it essentially triples her self-esteem issues which adds a lot to her characterization. 2. It adds a lot more to the relationship between her and Lucina which is already great on it's own. They make great foils to one another. 3. the copy-paste sibling convos with F!Morgan just makes the most sense with her imo. All around I just really like that family. Also her cynicism towards people who act all high and mighty and her desire to put them down is very in-line with Grima's ideals of humans being inherently selfish so yeah.

Also Severa with white hair is cute.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Ottservia

[Hawkwing]

On 3/25/2019 at 4:02 PM, Ottservia said:

Here's one I'd like to raise. I honestly don't understand the whole "quality over quantity" argument in regards to the amount of supports a character should. If anything more supports for a character is actually a good thing because it gives more opportunities for more character interaction and thereby more character development and characterization. Less usually just leaves me wanting more especially if the character in question is one I happen to really like. Like it's not a matter of quantity, it's almost entirely a matter of quality. A character can really ONLY benefit from having more supports cause again it's just more opportunities for character development. A bad character will lead to bad supports. A good character will lead to good supports that's just how it is. Quantity barely has anything to with it. The quantity is only a problem with the number of characters not supports.

Other's have already brought up the time and resource cost, which always has and always will be a significant factor no matter the industry. I don't have much to add there.

I do have mixed feelings on the quality vs quantity argument in regards to Awakening and Echoes, though. For the former, while I do believe that the quality is impressive considering the quantity, you can tell that the latter did affect the former at points. And while I also agree that the good outnumbers the bad, it's difficult to tell what the ratio of that is. For instance, there are only two or three of the entirety of Stahl and Panne's supports that I'm not fond of, while there are a handful of Laurent's I dislike, despite him being tied for my favorite character in Awakening personality-wise. Although I think many of Kellams supports are good, I do find it common that they don't go as far as they could have in turning a great support into an amazing one. And this isn't even getting into S-supports. Pretty much, it's easy to judge an individual characters support quality, but not so much for the entire game.

Meanwhile, Echoes smaller cast didn't immediately make every supports amazing. If anything, they just made it more obvious which conversations were lackluster and forgettable and which ones were excellent. The lower quantity did not immediately mean raised quality. Shadows of Valentia may not be the best example of this, though, simply other factors are present (voice acting means they don't have much ability to fix anything after the lines were recorded unless they have money to spare. The game benefits from the support mechanics, but it wasn't built with it in mind originally, so even having the traditional 5 limit would mean that they either be too powerful in SoV or they would have to be significantly nerfed to the point where individual rankings would be almost unnoticeable. The presence of base conversations and having to talk to every character to recruit them helps ensure everyone can have their personality show in some way, thus making supports not as important as they can be in the other games, etc.) but it does show that this is not so simple a matter.

21 hours ago, Martin said:

Speaking of support conversations, I don't know how exactly people feel about this, but another possibly unpopular opinion I have is that the C ranked support conversation between Beruka and Saizo was phenomenal. 

And no, I am not joking. 

21 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I actually kind of agree with this. Both characters are assassins and of few words. What happens when one assassins meets another? well tension happens and their silence conveys that well. It's supposed to be sort of like one of those scenes where two immensely blood thirsty characters are in the same room and a loud silence just washes over to convey the sheer amount of tension in the room.

I was honestly expecting them to do the joke at some point in Fire Emblem support history, and I do agree that idea is funny, especially if they manage to put several twists to it (like letting the facial expressions tell the story).

The problem people have with it (other than the usual "the localization changed, something now it sucks!" complaint) is that their next conversation continues where the original Japanese one left off, and the transition can appear jarring to several people, especially with the now nonexistent context.

...

As for things to add to the topic:

- I've this observation for a while, but I think that Fire Emblem could take a page out of Blustones book and explain why a character has such high defense that isn't "they're wearing armor". In fact, no one in Blustone has that excuse. Instead, they range from Robin being a wilderness survival expert, to Gerard having a "never give up" attitude, meaning he stays in the fight until he's knocked out (and it's joked that, though this is admirable, he ends up in the hospital a lot because of it), or Kain being a freelance bodyguard, to Athena being a trained warrior, and so on. It'd be neat to see this angle taken in both a mainline Fire Emblem game, and Heroes, where a unit there would have better reasoning for being armored despite not always wearing much.

- As much as I dislike reinforcements as wish they would disappear from the series, I do think that the frustration of them could be reduced significantly if there was some kind of visual warning of when they would appear. Something as simple as having a caution sign appear over the fort they will spawn in would add to the strategy instead of being a middle finger to the player. Now that you have an idea of when and where they'll appear, you have to prioritize whether to focus on blocking a fort or attacking an already present foe, as well as logically deducing what kind of enemy will appear. Heck, they could maybe even add either a personal or class skill that allows the player to get a better idea of who will appear, hinting at their class, weapons, stats, etc. Overall, IS should stop hiding things from the player that don't have any business being hidden.

- I forget if I mentioned this before, but the desert maps in Echoes are actually well designed. There are patches of land to speed up the time to get to the battles, but it's narrow, so you have to prioritize who will proceed. You have to make wise use of your ranged forces in every desert map, while also knowing where and how to use the mercenaries. Physic is vital on these levels, and you have to make interesting decisions of who to heal on that round. They're difficult, yes, but for better reasons beyond "the desert slows you down". It helps that Deen and Grieth are two legitimately difficult and fun bosses to fight.

[Martin]

4 hours ago, Hawkwing said:

 I forget if I mentioned this before, but the desert maps in Echoes are actually well designed. There are patches of land to speed up the time to get to the battles, but it's narrow, so you have to prioritize who will proceed. You have to make wise use of your ranged forces in every desert map, while also knowing where and how to use the mercenaries. Physic is vital on these levels, and you have to make interesting decisions of who to heal on that round. They're difficult, yes, but for better reasons beyond "the desert slows you down". It helps that Deen and Grieth are two legitimately difficult and fun bosses to fight.

I guess. I don't remember my play through Echoes a lot, but I remember just being bored wasting several turns trying traverse a relatively empty desert after the mages or so have been taken care of and I almost pulled my hair out trying moving the knights. If they sent more flying units or something that may reinforce at the base of the map, I'd probably be more interested in the battle itself. Although, I do remember taking careful consideration of how to place my units when fighting Deen do the desert and that indeed was a fun battle. 

I don't know, if there is a battle on a desert map, I hope to get a feel of danger from units that can traverse normally while your own must work with limited movement options, not absolute boredom from moving them around. 

4 hours ago, Hawkwing said:

- I've this observation for a while, but I think that Fire Emblem could take a page out of Blustones book and explain why a character has such high defense that isn't "they're wearing armor". In fact, no one in Blustone has that excuse. Instead, they range from Robin being a wilderness survival expert, to Gerard having a "never give up" attitude, meaning he stays in the fight until he's knocked out (and it's joked that, though this is admirable, he ends up in the hospital a lot because of it), or Kain being a freelance bodyguard, to Athena being a trained warrior, and so on. It'd be neat to see this angle taken in both a mainline Fire Emblem game, and Heroes, where a unit there would have better reasoning for being armored despite not always wearing much.

[I've figured out how to make multiple quotes! Yaaay!!] Idk, man... The fact that troubadour Effie exists tells me that usually, devs at IS don't really consider the personalities of the characters when fleshing out how they function during game play.  What you said is not at all wrong and I agree completely. I always day dreamed about how cool it would be if we had a thief that used to be a knight, which explains his good combat stats and the ability to re-class to a cavalier WITH the lance exp already at a higher rank or something. 

On 3/25/2019 at 7:01 PM, Tediz64 said:

I see the point you are making. So basically, players (especially veterans) already should be at the level of giving the map a glance over as well as the characters they are going to deploy including their equipment, and part of being a good tactician or strategist is also inevitably preparing for the worst in the event of enemy reinforcements. You are absolutely right in this. Sounds reasonable and logical. The premises i'm going based off of is that i want fire emblem to still be newbie friendly. I truly want fire emblem to become way more popular and mainstream so i can have more friends to play with. Plus if more people buy the game, the means the company gets more money, more money means more budget to do things with. Like for example make more spin-offs to satisfy an even greater audience. I cross my fingers for the day something like Fire Emblem Warriors with online multiplayer becomes something that exists. I don't neccessarily disagree with weapon restriction being removed. I was just sorta making counter points i suppose. 

I still think that the game could be perfectly beginner friendly with this direction of classing characters. If anything, this idea gives more in every sense; more devs freedom to truly express the personalities of their characters and the gameplay they offer, more variety in enemy weaponry for all types of movement types, and even more replayability , to truly find the best characters and what specific combination makes them work so well. So in that case, the game could start out giving the typical enemies and characters their usual weapons and eventually branch out. Also, a flier is still a flier. Their movement will display options that goes over the mountains and pits when a newbie selects them, no matter if they use a bow, a spear, or whatever. A knight is still a knight. The newbie will always pay more attention to the knight's defensive stat and resistance stat, not just the weapon he uses.  A cavalier is still cavalier, as observed by the horse and high movement. Fire Emblem already has switched up the formula for which weapons a class use time and time again. Sometimes, a cavalier can only use a lance. When I played Sacred Stones, my first game and my beloved, Pegasus riders used both swords and lances.  The General class was able to use all three melee weapons. Light magic existed. I was not at all turned away from the series when I played awakening just because those things changed. They were the same classes with the same functions for the most part. Hell, I did not even notice the lack of a sword for the Pegasus riders. Give the noobs some credit. I'm pretty sure they won't be too flustered or overwhelmed if one horse rider used a lance while a different one uses a tome. 

The only points where you got me is for the cases of a swordmaster or something, but even then, the character himself could be a swordmaster, with the edgy appearance, a lone wolf personality, and a lock to swords while the class itself could be an infantry unit with low attack, high speed, and high skill, something that actually sounds appealing to me if a character has that class while using an axe. Even a dolt like me can immediately see the interesting options for interesting characters with this direction of classing. I could finally get my soldier again, who is really just a mercenary, but can only use lances while his personality matches that of a hardened warrior. If FE was already like this since the first game and someone brought up the idea of locking the classes themselves to specific weapons, what arguments would they use to help their point?