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The Logistics of Marriage Modernization


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I think we can all agree that FE4 should be in line for the next FE remake, or at least after FE6. And furthermore, I think we can all agree, the most conservative of us regarding remakes, that Supports would be a welcomed addition that should be added. I think we can likewise agree the various conversations already in the base game should be left in on top of Supports being added.

Now FE4, for better or worse, was the first game in the franchise to feature Marriage, and it is pretty damn important, much more so than in Fates and Awakening. Insofar as I, someone who hasn't actually played FE4 can tell, marriage dialogue is generic barring special battlefield conversations. Though that is better than pre-martial conversations between units, which are nonexistent barring those aforementioned special conversations. None of this will fly in New/Echoes Genealogy, fans have come to and have the right to expect better.

So, here are my speculations on what they may do and or will be faced with confronting when tackling Marriage in FE4:

  • The old Love Point system will be modified, if not totally scrapped. How to modify it? I'm not quite sure. But scrapping it wouldn't be difficult, just institute CBAS Supports. I wouldn't layer the two systems on top of each other, it'd be a little too complicated I'd think, but they could. One benefit of Supports is that they can't be accidentally triggered, unlike FE4's system where I here it isn't uncommon for someone to accidentally marry Silvia and Lewyn. I would make an exception to the CBAS system just for the Lewyn-Erinys Silesse conversation- that is just too good to modify.
  • Now if they went with CBAS, which I'm expecting they will, how many Supports would there be in total? Well we have 13 stunning bachelors, each able to freely marry one of 7 beautiful bachelorettes. 13x7 = 91 Support chains. I'm not sure how that compares to Awakening and Fates, but that seems like a lot of conversations to write! We should also factor in about 2 same-sex Supports as per character, such as Quan getting Sigurd and Finn. It'd be great if they added Supports between Quan and Sigurd and their spouses like Pent and Louise did, and Sigurd should have ones with his sister and the Chalphy trio since he has a fixed marriage and would otherwise be lacking in Supports.
  • And then we get to the Second Generation, which while not as important regarding the Marriage thing since kids don't result, I'd expect them to add Supports here too. What we're looking at this time is 14 men x 8 women (I don't need to rule out siblings since they'd be getting non-marital Supports too), for another 112 Support chains, on top of same-sex supports and whatever Altena gets. And what about Subs having different backstories from their counterparts, and what if I have a Sub and a non-Sub supporting? I can't fathom what they'd do about the Second Gen, it's just too much! I think we might have to settle with many Marriages without Supports here, restricting them in numbers to SoV levels for the sake of the writers' sanity. And we the fanbase will end up making complaints about supports not changing to accommodate different fathers even so. 
  • Needless to say, Support quality will likely be sacrificed again for Support quantity. And the FE4 cast isn't so blank slate compared to Gaiden's, they have stronger predefined personalities, which although they may be modified in a remake, we can't expect them to have as much zest and exoticism as the Awakening and Fates crews. The supports might be a little dull as a result, though I'll be looking forward to see if Azelle throws memories of Arvis around in his Supports.
Edited by Interdimensional Observer
miscounted 2nd gen females
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I feel this is a case of being careful of what you wish for. Part of the fan-base wants a small number of support conversations, but it may leave others wanting more. On the other hand, there are some that want more freedom in supports, making  the gameplay easier, but the writing would be stretch to it's limits. Having a lot of "meh" supports making the game make the writing feel medicore.  I too never played FE4 yet, but it IS are going to be faithful to the original (which to probably going to be the case, considers the other remakes in the series) it could suffer the same problems as Awakening. That being the power difference between unit, shipping, and the map design, and massive supports with characters that have little chemistry together. Which is pretty ironic that the game that Awakening took the most inspiration from, could be the inverse. 

That is why I wish IS took time to really consider that would be the best for a FE4 remake.

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Traditional CBAs in FE4 could end up causing a world of trouble: everyone x everyone is in close to full effect and there's very few limitations on pairings. I would retain the original love grinding system myself, but perhaps allow CBAs when certain pairs reach love point thresholds. Love point boosting talks and the Levin x Fury instant love convo would remain intact. If I had my way, I'd just retain the FE4 system straight, but I wouldn't really be opposed to adding CBAs for couples that have talks in their final chapter in gameplay, reducing the problem of couples having poor chemistry. FE4 ain't FE4 without Sylvia throwing a spanner in the works, though.

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The main problem with the Love System is that it's not exactly the best system. By that, i mean that's it's kinda hard to keep track of. A character needs 500 points to marry but the game doesn't really tell you how close a character is to that goal, outside of a few vague statements.

The best thing about the CBAS Supports is that a character won't get married until the player says so. So no Sylvia accidentally marrying Lewyn.

If they wanted to, due to the game's length, they could extend the CBAS Supports by doing this: C-, C, C+, B-, B, B+, A-, A, A+, S. Of course, that comes it's own issues.

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3 hours ago, Jingle Jangle said:

I feel this is a case of being careful of what you wish for. Part of the fan-base wants a small number of support conversations, but it may leave others wanting more. On the other hand, there are some that want more freedom in supports, making  the gameplay easier, but the writing would be stretch to it's limits. Having a lot of "meh" supports making the game make the writing feel medicore.  I too never played FE4 yet, but it IS are going to be faithful to the original (which to probably going to be the case, considers the other remakes in the series) it could suffer the same problems as Awakening. That being the power difference between unit, shipping, and the map design, and massive supports with characters that have little chemistry together. Which is pretty ironic that the game that Awakening took the most inspiration from, could be the inverse. 

That is why I wish IS took time to really consider that would be the best for a FE4 remake.

To be frank, I'd imagine the power gap between units and the map design are already problems. It's hard for non-mounted units to contribute to a fight in any meaningful fashion unless you slow down regularly, and the lack of balance between weapon types already shafts some units. And that's ignoring holy weapons and Pursuit...

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If all 13 bachelors and 7 bachelorettes had supports with one another like you said, I think the actual structure of the game will need to change. I would change it to be more of a standard FE game, and not horse emblem.

If CBAS is going to replace the Love System, then the whole format of the game should change as well, IMO. I wouldn't mind if FE4 was split into 2 games, so each game wouldn't be super long. I think this will allow the game more time to flesh out the cast, as well as include details not present in the game, but within supplementary materials, such as the guidebook and the mangas. And also, the writers won't be overwhelmed with the amount of supports they'll have to write. For children inheritance- inventory and maybe hair color- will have "transfer data" where if you played Part I and upload your data from one of your saved files (gives you the option of which one to choose each time you start a new game btw), then it will unlock the children inheritance system.

IMO, an FE4 Echoes will be tricky. Recently, in a poll asking JP fans what their favorite game was, FE4 came out on top. And judging from their last couple of remakes, I'm not sure how far IS is willing to experiment.

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1 hour ago, Dandy Druid said:

IMO, an FE4 Echoes will be tricky. Recently, in a poll asking JP fans what their favorite game was, FE4 came out on top. And judging from their last couple of remakes, I'm not sure how far IS is willing to experiment.

I could read that as a reason to remake fe4.

1 hour ago, katodelumo said:

FE4 will be hard to remake. The love system is confusing, the maps are too big, cavalry characters outshining other characters... In my opinion, I don't think support conversations would fit there.

I don't see the love system as unfixable. It just needs to be explained more clearly (in the actual game, it is barely explained at all), and the number of love points has to be shown somewhere. The cavalry and map size issues could be ameliorated by giving everyone not on a horse one or two additional points of mov, plus a buff to other stats (foot characters often have slightly higher stats than the equivalent horse character in the actual game, but this was not enough to fix the mov issue and canto). Roads could also consume less movement than they do now.

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I probably threw the old Love Point system under the bus a bit too easily. Being able to see Love Growth more easily and being able to choose whether or not a couple gets married would probably be sufficient changes for making things work from a mechanics perspective. Just make it so when you have two units in a castle together and they've maxed LP, you can select to marry them instead of them tying the know without your knowledge. A stronger heads up on and encouragement to marry too could help. But I can't see them not adding new dialogue in some way, and it'd open the door to the SD/NM critique of keeping the cast in the past and dull and forgettable for all eternity. I don't want that!

I guess going with the scrapped RD idea of letting everyone support and giving non-generic ones only to certain couples, except applied to the full support chain instead of just the A, would be a compromise between quantity and quality. Would there be complaints about why X pairing is generic when Y pairing isn't? Certainly, but that is something that would just have to be tolerated.

I don't really want to consider radical overhaul of the gameplay in conjunction with marriage reform. That's tying two rather separate issues together, one of which is highly controversial and which I'm on the fence about.

 

As a side note, if IS wants to insert a slim modicum of questionable progressivism as they did in Fates and SoV (Niles/Rhajat and Leon), they do have some room for it. The 1st Gen has a glut of men vs. women unlike in Fates or Awakening, so while 1st Gen lesbianism is off the table, they could give a couple guys some gay choices, since at 6 of them are guaranteed to be left unwed if nobody dies. Since kids don't exist as a worry for the 2nd Gen, they would be able to feature female-female S supports, and have more leeway overall for a slightly progressive touch.

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By the way, I'd also like one small detail that could have a big impact if done well, and that's conversations. I felt conversations were a pretty good bridge between supports and face-value characterization, giving characters enough interest to be invested while also keeping things vague enough to imagine what their like. Really I'd like to just see all pairings have love conversations to keep the problem of Genealogy's "Strangled By the Red String" issue.

Anyways, I never actually had an issue with the love point system, it was fine enough once you understood it, so really a quick tutorial or hint around say Chapter 1 could suffice.

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3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

As a side note, if IS wants to insert a slim modicum of questionable progressivism as they did in Fates and SoV (Niles/Rhajat and Leon), they do have some room for it. The 1st Gen has a glut of men vs. women unlike in Fates or Awakening, so while 1st Gen lesbianism is off the table, they could give a couple guys some gay choices, since at 6 of them are guaranteed to be left unwed if nobody dies. Since kids don't exist as a worry for the 2nd Gen, they would be able to feature female-female S supports, and have more leeway overall for a slightly progressive touch.

Not this please, we have enough of LGBT, BLM and feminism stuff in real life already.

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9 hours ago, Great Dane said:

Anyways, I never actually had an issue with the love point system, it was fine enough once you understood it, so really a quick tutorial or hint around say Chapter 1 could suffice.

The Love Point system itself isn't the issue, it's that it doesn't tell you anything that's the real problem. Being able to see how many Love Points each character has would solve this issue.

6 hours ago, hanhnn said:

Not this please, we have enough of LGBT, BLM and feminism stuff in real life already.

As long as it's not shoved in my face, i'm fine with it. IS did a good job with Leon.

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3 hours ago, Armagon said:

The Love Point system itself isn't the issue, it's that it doesn't tell you anything that's the real problem. Being able to see how many Love Points each character has would solve this issue.

As long as it's not shoved in my face, i'm fine with it. IS did a good job with Leon.

Again, a short tutorial or something along the line should suffice. The game already has a way to measure love growth in the castle, (if slightly vague) so I don't see that big a problem.

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25 minutes ago, Great Dane said:

The game already has a way to measure love growth in the castle, (if slightly vague) so I don't see that big a problem.

That's the issue though, that what the game tells you is too vague. "These two are close" that doesn't tell me anything. "X character has Y on his/her mind" ok, but how close are they to marriage?

Again, the Love Point System by itself is fine, it's just that the game barely tells you anything regarding it. It needs to be much easier to keep track of.

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On 26/09/2017 at 2:30 AM, hanhnn said:

Not this please, we have enough of LGBT, BLM and feminism stuff in real life already.

True, and Fire Emblem isn't about romance either. I see that people take shippings more seriously than any important part of the story. Let's not turn it in what Harvest Moon has become.

Edited by katodelumo
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Personally I think the Lover System should stay as is. Yes, all you have to go off of are vague statements, but those statements are enough. "On your mind" is low rank, "Fond" is mid rank, "Love" is high rank, and "married" is the done deal. 

H O W E V E R 

I still want supports. But supports should either have no effect on love points at all, or SUPPLEMENT them. For example, if Ayra and Lex get a C support, that can provide a little boost to their love points. Heck, even let them get an A support - but that support does not guarantee a match up. It can surely help, but that's it. Writing supports more platonically can help here as to avoid stacking high supports and only getting one lover in the end. Also I think a good addition could be when love points reach 500, the characters in love should have to trigger a conversation with each other, maybe a special dialogue called a "Confession", where they admit their love for one another. This can give players more control over who pairs with what without undermining the original mechanics. Special love point conversations should also stay (or at least integrated into support convos. Alec and Sylvia's goofy meeting does feel like a C support...).

 

As for same sex pairings, I'm not so hot on them JUST to be having them to "be more progressive". That's a bad mindset to go about writing something, and in the case of Leon in Echoes, he was essentially a blank slate to add a character too - most FE4 characters are much more developed than FE2 ones were (though not significantly so). If homosexuality is added to certain characters, I'd want it to be something that can bring more TO that character. Leon's love for Valbar is one of my favorite things in Echoes, because it feels natural and adds depth to both characters (as its unrequited on Valbar's end). Most characters, G1 and G2 alike, have heterosexual leanings and its best to avoid the tripe "everyone is bi" writing. 

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2 minutes ago, CappnRob said:

As for same sex pairings, I'm not so hot on them JUST to be having them to "be more progressive". That's a bad mindset to go about writing something, and in the case of Leon in Echoes, he was essentially a blank slate to add a character too - most FE4 characters are much more developed than FE2 ones were (though not significantly so). If homosexuality is added to certain characters, I'd want it to be something that can bring more TO that character. Leon's love for Valbar is one of my favorite things in Echoes, because it feels natural and adds depth to both characters (as its unrequited on Valbar's end). Most characters, G1 and G2 alike, have heterosexual leanings and its best to avoid the tripe "everyone is bi" writing. 

Yeah I didn't mean to force it in nor demand it or anything. That was a side thought I really should have left out since It understandably hijacks the conversation. And again, IS hasn't gone overboard with it yet or anything, so I don't think they would with FE4 remakes.

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Honestly I'm completely of the mindset of no remake.

The fandom overall in this day and age couldn't even handle FE14 when it came to incest and bi characters. The fandom blew up over the dumbest things that were optional. The localization would probably censor too much and after what happened with Awakening, I don't trust the localized writing not to change entire backstories and leave out vital details. Ah yes, we're not having our children captured by the Lopt Sect and sacrificed and murdered for people to become nobles of the new empire. They're just going to wizard school!!!

As for the love system, the only thing I'd prefer is they make it more obvious where the love points are out of five hundred with the little fortune teller comment. Otherwise, don't even touch it. Keep it as it is. Supports would be one thing for characters with any kind of chemistry or if IS could find a way to GIVE people chemistry then fine, but god no I would never want to see every single unit with supports. I love the 3DS games, but a lot of supports are cringe worthy at how forced they are to even exist. FE4 has the perfect dialogue balance. It's not too little and you get to learn about the characters, and it's not too much to the point that what they say is just filler text and thrown in there without meaning. In FE4, every bit of dialogue counts for something.

FE4 wasn't planned to be FE in the first place - and that's what makes it too difficult to remake it to be "more modern". It was made FE because it was too similar in the end. A port with updated graphics would be one thing, with absolutely positively nothing changed, but that still brings us to localization which is what most people will know. Japan is only one country. As stated above, I could never trust localization with FE4.

As mentioned, FE4 was the top ranked game among Japanese fans very recently. That also means they prefer the old gameplay. For example, if SoV won, that would mean a remake was preferred. In this case, not only did a very not modern game come out as number one, but it wasn't an older title that got a remake.

To be fair too, IS is still more or less ignoring the hell out of Jugdral where possible - such as in Heroes. I know there was a prediction floating around about getting it in October for FE4, but look how long it took. One banner and one GHB potentially, and it's been quite a long time since we last saw new Jugdral in Heroes. More like, it's about fuckin' time. IS simply has no urgency whatsoever for Jugdral, and that makes it much more unlikely it will ever see remakes. Of course, I have zero issue with that. It's not just IS. It's not that I don't think they'd be faithful. The Japanese version surely would. Localization? Awakening would death glare for both their sakes. And as mentioned as well, Awakening very much seemed to take inspiration off FE4's story, and Awakening did fantastic in the market beyond just Japan (to which btw, FE4 is STILL Japan's second best seller behind FE3. FE13/14 only did better due to being worldwide - not in their country of origin). Awakening is definitely a much happier overall take on FE4 with its ending.

Regarding the bi thing, I agree on not making characters bi who showed no signs of it. Just doing it do it and to be "progressive" does indeed cause issues with the already formed gameplay and writing. It would certainly work better in gen 2 than gen 1 with the kids being the factor of gen 1, and it's more plausible as incest is more accepted in gen 2 than it is in gen 1. However, I agree - it was easier to work with Gaiden in that regard because the characters were overall blank slates to work with, and FE14 was just a new game. If they wanted to attempt it for gen 2, that would open a whole other bag of problems though, such as "wait this character is inheriting something and married someone of the same sex. How will they have kids to carry on the legacy?" As you may have noted in FE14, the royals besides the avatar can't engage in same sex relationships.

Overall, I just feel like trying to modernize the marriage system and characters' sexuality would cause a lot of complications with the writing we already have - and the writing we already have is amazing and clearly Japan's favorite. I would be a-okay with some bi characters if they could manage to write it correctly and get past the whole inheritance thing, and I ship a good chunk of same sex ships in FE4. However, I agree doing it just to be modern is pretty pointless. They didn't do it for Archanea's titles (in fact, it's directly stated by the MU they "don't swing that way" at one point if you chose the male avatar, and that was an entirely new character in a remake), and I'd prefer they don't do it just to force it in.

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If I were to take the most conservative position possible for a FE4 remake, I'd say it should stick to Love Points, but change it so that you can only advance further to a friendship/marriage if units have a Support Talk with each other, be it in the Castle or outside. Also, show how many Love Points (which I think should be renamed to Support Points) they have in the Castle, like with the SNES Harvest Moon.

Keep long maps but have roads give foot units more speed so they don't lag behind. I'd suggest cutting those large maps into smaller maps, but I'm trying to stick with the original idea.

Expand upon the Talk options in the map, give proper Support Conversations to units that are related somehow (that means Noish talks with Arden, Alec and Sigurd, but not Cuan or Finn), but keep all marriage options.

I... can't think of much else if I limit my reasoning like that.

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I personally really don't like the idea of seeing your exact amount of love points. It makes the love system feel artificial (which I guess it is anyway but this moreso) because its giving a quantitative value to the character's emotions. Idk, it just feels weird?

Now what I WOULD like to enhance the love point system is being able to see your feelings for characters BESIDES the one you like the most. It's perfectly possible for people irl to love more than one person or be in love with more than one person at a time or to have unrequited love with someone and the same holds true in FE4 - heck my last playthrough I thought I had a Claude/Sylvia pairing in the bag because the fortune teller told me Claude loved Sylvia, but I neglected to realize Alec also loved Sylvia and had a minor lead over Claude! Perhaps creating a new status screen where you can track character's general affections for one another would work. Maybe colored bars or something, IDK (yes I realize this flies in the face of what I just said but EH). That way you can tell not only who likes who the most currently, but who they like second best and third and so on and so forth. Would probably be good for avoiding accidental Finn pairings with Bridget too lol.

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Hannibal seems more asexual than gay to me.

Anyway I've been following the topic and I agree with what a lot of people have said regarding the love system and the possibility of an Echoes of Genealogy. I don't think the original script is as much an obstacle as people make it out to be; just look at Echoes openly implying slave trade, rape and by extension forced marriages. However, the love system is a three-headed beast that can either make or break the game for a lot of people with how it's implemented. Moreover, the minimal attention Jugdral receives in spite of its popularity suggests that a remake is wishful thinking rather than a reality at this point... extremely vocal wishful thinking.

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1 hour ago, hanhnn said:

I think the only character can fit to be gay is Hannibal.

The one line given says this:

Villager:
“General Hannibal of Kapathogia is one of the most revered generals in all of Thracia. He has spent his entire adult life on the battlefield, so he never did marry. But he did take in an orphan several years back raising him as his own. Such a kind man.”

 

So Hannibal was just concerned with career and duty, and didn't make time or perhaps have talent for romance. Of course that probably got tiresome and he sought some other form of fulfillment and joy in life, hence adopting a kid to overcome his possible inability at love and likely passing of most prime marriage years. By a slim chance he could be gay, as I heard the Austro-Hungarian Empire's military did become a place for the dual monarchy's homosexuals to secretly bond, but that is just one not really relevant case. (I apologize for having brought up the topic in the first place.)

 

30 minutes ago, X-Naut said:

Moreover, the minimal attention Jugdral receives in spite of its popularity suggests that a remake is wishful thinking rather than a reality at this point... extremely vocal wishful thinking.

Gaiden had no popularity, at best its world map grinding idea had been borrowed in recent games. If Gaiden got remade, Genealogy will some day.

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1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Gaiden had no popularity, at best its world map grinding idea had been borrowed in recent games. If Gaiden got remade, Genealogy will some day.

I think in some ways that works against the idea of a remake.  I know it's counter intuitive, but there are a lot more ways  to 'mess up' in a remake of a very popular game and setting. Gaiden was basically a blank slate, of course there are some fans of the original game, but you don't run the risk of running afoul of many loyal fans who already love the game.  If IS decides to remake a game from the already popular setting of Jugdral, with all the can of worms involved, there are too many people that they run the risk of alienating.  If they change the basic narrative of the game and the required incest to push the plot forward, the whole setting will require a rework, or at least a big shift, which seems very likely to alienate the already devoted fan base.  But on the other-hand, if they remain too loyal to the setting they run the risk of alienating a more conservative segment of the fan base, namely the parents of the people who buy these games for minors in the USA, and procuring an 'M' rating the US.  That seems like an immense risk.

Now having said that, I'd love a 'faithful' Genealogy remake with some modern updates and would likely throw loads of money at it, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I only recently beat Genealogy and really If they re-made it I'd kinda leave most things as is but just add more conversations, The main problem I ended up with is 90% of my pairings said nothing to each other on final maps or what not, The game just needs more character development in game. You have to scour the very depths of everything to learn even a little about the characters in the game itself with odd villages mentioning something or a specific pairing. (Or no pairing at all sometimes.) I found the game had the least world and character building yet...It could also do with making the Big evil group actually seem more evil, because I just found it all "Yeah! everything fine now Seliphs here!" I think they need to add some, you take over a castle and like, it has gone to shit, like real shit, there's dead bodies piled high, worst I remember is "Oh it's a ghost town"

 

In short, keep the game practically the same, (maybe be more lenient or what classes can inherit what skills) And more conversations, And make the world be in a worse shape. 

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