How Warriors Should Have Decided Characters

[Crubat]

First of all, no, this is not a warriors hate thread, so I don't want anyone to complain here. This thread is giving an idea on how they should've chosen the characters instead of focusing on games.

The idea here is simple, put a class or a type of unit and take the most popular one

Of course some exceptions like Marth and Chrom are not affected by this but this is how it goes:

Fast sword user: Eirika

Slow sword user: Ike

Infantry Lance user: Ephraim

Infantry Axe user: Hector

Sword Pegasus: Caeda

Lance Pegasus: Hinoka or Cordelia

Sword Cavalier: Eliwood or Xander

Lance Cavalier: Jagen

Axe Cavalier: Frederick

Mage Knight: Leo

Axe Wyvern: Minerva

Mage Wyvern: Camilla

and I guess you get the idea, it's very easy and will satisfy older and newer fans while also making every character unique.

 

 

[Thane]

I still think they could've gone the all-lords-route and then pad out missing niches with suitable characters.

Sword: 12 - Marth, Alm, Sigurd, Leif, Seliph, Roy, Eliwood, Lyn, Eirika, Ike, Chrom, Lucina

Axe: 1 - Hector

Lance: 2 - Ephraim, Azura

Tome: 3 - Celica, Micaiah, Robin

Breath: 1 - Corrin

While it seems like we've got a handful of clones, we do have around, what, 11 sword users in the base game? I think this list would make a lot more sense, especially if you fill it out with characters like Takumi. That way you could even market to the people who have only played the 3DS games while simultaneously honoring the entire series.

[Crubat]

2 minutes ago, Thane said:

I still think they could've gone the all-lords-route and then pad out missing niches with suitable characters.

Sword: 12 - Marth, Alm, Sigurd, Leif, Seliph, Roy, Eliwood, Lyn, Eirika, Ike, Chrom, Lucina

Axe: 1 - Hector

Lance: 2 - Ephraim, Azura

Tome: 3 - Celica, Micaiah, Robin

Breath: 1 - Corrin

While it seems like we've got a handful of clones, we do have around, what, 11 sword users in the base game? I think this list would make a lot more sense, especially if you fill it out with characters like Takumi. That way you could even market to the people who have only played the 3DS games while simultaneously honoring the entire series.

This is also good, I don't know how we can have something like Heroes and then this releases. It's pretty annoying.

[Rezzy]

4 minutes ago, Thane said:

I still think they could've gone the all-lords-route and then pad out missing niches with suitable characters.

Sword: 12 - Marth, Alm, Sigurd, Leif, Seliph, Roy, Eliwood, Lyn, Eirika, Ike, Chrom, Lucina

Axe: 1 - Hector

Lance: 2 - Ephraim, Azura

Tome: 3 - Celica, Micaiah, Robin

Breath: 1 - Corrin

While it seems like we've got a handful of clones, we do have around, what, 11 sword users in the base game? I think this list would make a lot more sense, especially if you fill it out with characters like Takumi. That way you could even market to the people who have only played the 3DS games while simultaneously honoring the entire series.

I don't know what the final roster number is, but they could give some characters their canon alternate weapons, like Lyn with a Bow or Lucina with a Lance.

[Thane]

2 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

I don't know what the final roster number is, but they could give some characters their canon alternate weapons, like Lyn with a Bow or Lucina with a Lance.

My list has 19, and we know of 25/26 characters so far in Warriors. That means you could add characters like Tiki, Minerva, Oboro, etc., and, like you say, also give characters alternate weapons.

[thecrimsonflash]

personally for me, I feel like they should have swapped fates out for blazing blade, going for the 3 game rule here, BB had more reach than any of the games prior to awakening and would have been able to avoid pissing off older fans, not to mention there are only about 3-5 characters who are required to be there so they would have had way more flexibility for character additions as opposed to fates' 10 royals who would have pissed chunks of the fanbase off if they are not included while others are present. I think fates ruined this game's roster with the sheer volume of required characters.

[Book Bro]

50 minutes ago, Thane said:

I still think they could've gone the all-lords-route and then pad out missing niches with suitable characters.

Sword: 12 - Marth, Alm, Sigurd, Leif, Seliph, Roy, Eliwood, Lyn, Eirika, Ike, Chrom, Lucina

Axe: 1 - Hector

Lance: 2 - Ephraim, Azura

Tome: 3 - Celica, Micaiah, Robin

Breath: 1 - Corrin

While it seems like we've got a handful of clones, we do have around, what, 11 sword users in the base game? I think this list would make a lot more sense, especially if you fill it out with characters like Takumi. That way you could even market to the people who have only played the 3DS games while simultaneously honoring the entire series.

This is a perfect example of why making a series wide roster wasn't so complicated. I mean, even going off this list, you can see that there's still variety among the sword lords. You have fencers, swordmaster types, magic swords, mounted swords, and bulky swords. Sure there's a few shared movesets, but it's what we got anyway and at least this way you appeal to a wider range of fans. 

[Rezzy]

36 minutes ago, Thane said:

My list has 19, and we know of 25/26 characters so far in Warriors. That means you could add characters like Tiki, Minerva, Oboro, etc., and, like you say, also give characters alternate weapons.

 

21 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

personally for me, I feel like they should have swapped fates out for blazing blade, going for the 3 game rule here, BB had more reach than any of the games prior to awakening and would have been able to avoid pissing off older fans, not to mention there are only about 3-5 characters who are required to be there so they would have had way more flexibility for character additions as opposed to fates' 10 royals who would have pissed chunks of the fanbase off if they are not included while others are present. I think fates ruined this game's roster with the sheer volume of required characters.

It looks like Hyrule Warriors had 27 launch characters, so 25 or so sounds about right.  Your Lord list would leave about 6 or so left.

In addition to the Lords, I think Anna, Caeda, and Tiki would be god choices.  Anna because she's the face of the series after Marth; Caeda because she's iconic as the pegasus knight and Marth's chief love interest; Tiki because she's got cross generational appeal and is a semi major character in two sagas.  That would leave the roster at 22.  If they want to put more Fates in, they could add Takumi and Camilla, since they are the two most popular and have weapons that aren't bloated.

[Lau]

If I'm allowed to be selfish for a second...I'd have chosen SD, Awakening and Blazing Blade...plus the amiibo characters. That way, Fates is restricted to just Corrin, meaning that we don't have to have so many required main characters, Ike would get in to appease his worshippers, Alm and Celica would get in due to advertisement for Echoes, and Roy would get in to my utter delight.

But it didn't happen. I'm I happy with the roster as it is? Uhm...the lack of SD is distressing, but it could be worse. Do I want more? Of course. There are many of my favourites missing, like Kaze, Xane, Minerva and Olivia. But I'm I mad? Not in the slightest. Because my opinion doesn't matter. At all.

[HK Motendra]

While not ill-founded I don't quite agree with @Thane's changes.

Starting with Corrin. We know that they're a manakete lord but they're most notable from their Yato blade. Plus, the moveset they have now is perfect in showcasing being half dragon, with the only downside withstanding is that its not a fully controlled transformation like Tiki's when in Awakened state. While one could argue about Heroes differing the two of them, heroes works under a much simpler format and because of this, the Corrins being different was absolutely necessary. That Corrin had a secondary attribute made it an easy addition.

Then there's Celica, whose a little harder to make a case for because of Heroes, but I'll try. She may be a hybrid sword/magic unit, but like Corrin's primary being swords via the Yato, due to the very nature of black magic, Celica's primary weapon is also swords. In the case of Robin, another hybrid, they have shown a lean toward magic, and has been reflected in every appearance afterward. In Echoes, Celica does the inverse, and as such, does the same in Warriors. That Heroes gave her a tome I believe was more out of necessity for adding another mage and not having her stick out too much

With that into account, it brings the swords up to 14, (though with the twins, along with Ryoma and Xander that you left out fsr, that actually makes 18) as opposed to the current confirmed 10. Not a ratio that I'd be okay with, good sir.

--------------------------------

As for what I think the roster should have been, have a range of 1-3 characters from every basic, reoccurring class. Some will have more than others, but this way, the character cast would have a lot more variety that Fire Emblem's class system is known for, instead of just trying to balance how many swords there are to the rest via the weapon triangle. The fact that there isn't (or yet to be) a single knight and fighter I find to be a disservice to the [FE] series' gameplay.

Who that gets picked from the 3 game pool wouldn't have mattered this way, yet would leave some room for leeway in terms of favorites among classes.

[SMinairo]

Personally, I don't like the approach of having a bit of each game, as there are lots of great characters that would be lost, and having three games is the limit for it. It's true that the fates sibling take a big part of the roster, so another game might have been bether, but seeing that Camilla and Takumi are the characters with the most interesting moveset to me, I can't really say that I'd prefer any other.

[Rezzy]

2 minutes ago, Sbuscoz said:

Personally, I don't like the approach of having a bit of each game, as there are lots of great characters that would be lost, and having three games is the limit for it. It's true that the fates sibling take a big part of the roster, so another game might have been bether, but seeing that Camilla and Takumi are the characters with the most interesting moveset to me, I can't really say that I'd prefer any other.

Having a few from each game would be the fairest way to appease the older fans.  Having half the roster come from just one game seems like pandering to fans of just that game, and I can understand the older players feeling slighted.

[Reality]

I would have liked if the KT staff had picked personal favorites irrespective of in-game importance or marketability.

Some people say there's precedent for this with Agitha in Hyrule Warriors and DW 7- 8's.... obscure charathers side from the Three Kingdoms Novel over more prominent ones, but they may be overstating KT's quirkiness. 

 

My other concern is how characters affect the writing especially in the occasionally mentioned support system in this game. From all appearances, KT staff have only played modern games, so while say putting in Telius/Judgral might have been nice- I wouldn't actually expect them to be written as true to form as other charathers due to the developers not having a personal connection or history with them. If FE Warriors had been a more in-house project or had leading developers in common with the original games (as Shadows of Valentia and to a lesser extent Heroes) then their inclusion would be not only nice but might add something to them. With the current mostly outside team, it's all too likely that even if these chaarathers had been in , they would have basically be token anyway.

[Namarid]

I prefer the 3 game approach, the problem this time was that fates was selected as a focus game. The fates roster is just so big that it  I can definitely understand why the older fans would be upset since the 3ds games are being pushed way more.

Like others have suggested replacing fates with blazing blade would have been a much better choice. 

[SMinairo]

Just now, Rezzy said:

Having a few from each game would be the fairest way to appease the older fans.  Having half the roster come from just one game seems like pandering to fans of just that game, and I can understand the older players feeling slighted.

I can understand too, but I would be saying the same if the game was about Elibe/Tellius/Valentia because no one remembers Magvel. 

A few characters from each game wouldn't feel good to me, I don't want to have Tellius if I'm not going to have at least one Laguz, for example. I prefer them focusing in three games and wait for a sequel than not having much more tha the MC.

[Iridium]

Personally, what I would have done would've been a vain attempt to get at least a little bit of representation from all continuities while accounting for gameplay diversity as much as possible. Some more than others, certainly, but only such that every character serves a clear and obvious purpose.

Archanea: Marth, Caeda, Tiki, [Camus]
Valentia: Alm, Celica
Jugdral: Sigurd, [Arvis]
Elibe: Roy, Lyn, Hector
Magvel: Ephraim, Eirika, [Lyon]
Tellius: Ike, Micaiah, [Black Knight]
Awakening: Chrom, Robin, Lucina
Fates: Corrin, Azura, Camilla, Takumi, Outlaw Anna

The roster has obvious weaknesses, although ironically not significantly more sword users than the current one, but DLC is used to shore them up. Something like

DLC1: Inheritors of Light: Leif, Lilina, and Owain. Focus on child characters.
DLC2: Silent World: Minerva, Eliwood, and Elincia. Focus on characters who should be in but couldn't quite make a cut of 25.
DLC3: Legendary Warriors: Nephenee, Tharja, and Leo. Focus on the most popular characters who aren't in the game, with mild consideration of gameplay/region.

(still doesn't leave any room for fe4 gen 2, but genealogy is regrettably obscure so it's not like i can just make all of the dlc jugdral)

This is obviously completely unrealistic and always has been for countless reasons, which is why I would never have bothered expecting it or even posting it prior to now when it's irrelevant anyway. But I think the sentiment is nice, at least.

To be honest I was actually on board with the "choose from three games" thing at first, but after seeing how they did it I regret ever giving them a chance. Superficially that's actually the right way to handle it, but with direction that incompetent they would clearly have been better off just going the safe route.

14 minutes ago, Sbuscoz said:

I don't want to have Tellius if I'm not going to have at least one Laguz, for example.

look at how this game handled fates

no daggers
no ninjas
no unique hoshidan crazy magic
no beastmen
no oni savages
no azura
no unique classes whatsoever besides the ones that are basically stand-ins for other classes already, and in the way that they're presented the difference between camilla and a theoretical other wyvern knight IF WE HAD ONE would be practically nil

i'd almost hazard a guess that if this game had had tellius it probably wouldn't have had laguz either way

Edited September 24, 2017 by Iridium

[Rezzy]

13 minutes ago, Sbuscoz said:

I can understand too, but I would be saying the same if the game was about Elibe/Tellius/Valentia because no one remembers Magvel. 

A few characters from each game wouldn't feel good to me, I don't want to have Tellius if I'm not going to have at least one Laguz, for example. I prefer them focusing in three games and wait for a sequel than not having much more tha the MC.

I don't know if you can really hope for a sequel.  I haven't followed the news too closely, but I though this was just a one-off spinoff.

[Acacia Sgt]

22 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

I don't know if you can really hope for a sequel.  I haven't followed the news too closely, but I though this was just a one-off spinoff.

I think it was stated that if the game sells well, they would make a sequel with more/other characters.

Edited September 24, 2017 by Acacia Sgt

[NinjaMonkey]

3 hours ago, Rezzy said:

I don't know what the final roster number is, but they could give some characters their canon alternate weapons, like Lyn with a Bow or Lucina with a Lance.

Except it has already been confirmed that alternate weapon types aren't going to happen.

[SMinairo]

7 minutes ago, Iridium said:

look at how this game handled fates

no daggers
no ninjas
no unique hoshidan crazy magic
no beastmen
no oni savages
no azura
no unique classes whatsoever besides the ones that are basically stand-ins for other classes already, and in the way that they're presented the difference between camilla and a theoretical other wyvern knight IF WE HAD ONE would be practically nil

i'd almost hazard a guess that if this game had had tellius it probably wouldn't have had laguz either way

I said I like the three games approach, not that I like how they handle it. I hate not having beastmen, but that's not a fate's problem, awakening doesn't have Panne either, I hate not having scrolls, I've complained about it in the past, i don't really care about oni, the only one is Rinka and she wouldn't have been in even with a bigger roster, there's no excuse for not having Azura, and I have mixed feelings about daggers. We might have some of these things through DLC though, so I'll wait until we see which fates characters they are including.

We also have clones, and seeing that it isn't something that has to do with Fates per se, I'd say that would have happened even if we had a bit from each game. Now yo can beging to think about people's reaction at finding that Eirika and Roy also have Marth's moveset, Micaiah has Robin's and you can imagine the rest.

 

4 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

I don't know if you can really hope for a sequel.  I haven't followed the news too closely, but I though this was just a one-off spinoff.

They said (at the beginning, so they might have changed opinion) that they might do a sequel because they knew that a lot of people liked older characters, or something like that.

[Truthblade]

I might be playing the devil's advocate, but I don't really have much of a problem with their processes of character choices, as most of them seem rather logical (barring Azura's exclusion, which is still debatable). Say what you will about how it was handled, but the reasoning behind it is pretty sound when you think about it.  For one, I think the choices for games were very solid. If you want to represent as much of the series' timeline as possible with only 3 games, you got to make sure those choices have enough reach across it. And that's what they did. They first hit both the start in finish of the timeline with Shadow Dragon and Fates, representing the absolute oldest and the absolute newest.  Then for the third game, they got to choose the one that tried to include as much of the series as possible. That was Awakening. I honestly believe that if they were limited to only limited to three games, I don't know what would better to choose over those three. 

[Etrurian emperor]

I think that focusing on just three games was a good move. Its the games they picked that are the problem.

If the Fanbase naturally fits into three groups, the newbies, the veterans and the Japanese then the obvious solution would be to give each group one game. 

The Japanese could get the Archeneans they love so much, the new fans can get either Fates or Awakening and the veterans can have either the GBA games or Tellius.

That way every part of the fanbase is at least a little bit happy and this whole spiral of negativity could have been avoided. 

[Acacia Sgt]

15 minutes ago, Truthblade said:

I might be playing the devil's advocate, but I don't really have much of a problem with their processes of character choices, as most of them seem rather logical (barring Azura's exclusion, which is still debatable). Say what you will about how it was handled, but the reasoning behind it is pretty sound when you think about it.  For one, I think the choices for games were very solid. If you want to represent as much of the series' timeline as possible with only 3 games, you got to make sure those choices have enough reach across it. And that's what they did. They first hit both the start in finish of the timeline with Shadow Dragon and Fates, representing the absolute oldest and the absolute newest.  Then for the third game, they got to choose the one that tried to include as much of the series as possible. That was Awakening. I honestly believe that if they were limited to only limited to three games, I don't know what would better to choose over those three. 

Well, personally, I think either of Awakening or Fates could've been replaced with Blazing Sword. As the first game to be international, I think it's a milestone to be added to the (hopefully) first game of a potential spin-off series. And even if it doesn't make it to more than one game... well, at least the game choices would have something to them behind them.

7 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think that focusing on just three games was a good move. Its the games they picked that are the problem.

If the Fanbase naturally fits into three groups, the newbies, the veterans and the Japanese then the obvious solution would be to give each group one game. 

The Japanese could get the Archeneans they love so much, the new fans can get either Fates or Awakening and the veterans can have either the GBA games or Tellius.

That way every part of the fanbase is at least a little bit happy and this whole spiral of negativity could have been avoided. 

Yeah, pretty much this.

Edited September 24, 2017 by Acacia Sgt

[Jedi]

2 hours ago, Rezzy said:

It looks like Hyrule Warriors had 27 launch characters, so 25 or so sounds about right.  Your Lord list would leave about 6 or so left.

It had 13. 29 with DLC.

Edited September 24, 2017 by Jedi

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Sticking to three focus games was the right call. Making FE7 one of those games probably wouldn't have gone over well with the Japanese audience. A lot of older fans got their start on FE6 if not FE3. FE7 to them is just a dumb prequel that happens to be a hugely important game for the rest of us. If you're a Japanese fan since FE3, there's good odds you missed out on Thraccia due to its inacessibility. FE4 to 6 is a larger generational gap (6 years) than between Shadow Dragon and Awakening (4 years). And we know how many of you guys got your start on Awakening.

I would love to replace Shadow Dragon with Elibe though, but obviously you can't represent Elibe with just three character slots. Marth is here because of contractual obligations through the "Marth Clause" that states he must appear in each crossover game by virtue of being the first lord.