What would you want out of a FE5 Echoes?

[Corrobin]

What kinds of changes and additions would be made? New characters? Changes to skills and items?

[Hero_Lucina]

The Reinhardt to be playable

[AndrewMcC00l]

A support system. There are a lot of characters with interesting backstories that I'm pretty sure are only detailed in outside sources, like how Eyvel made Dagdar a good guy by beating him up.

Tone down some of the really unfair parts. Status effects should wear off over time, and 24x should be completely reworked.

Make it so the player has a reason to choose Cyas over Ced. 

[Dandy Druid]

• More modern support system to flesh out the cast a bit more.
• Redesign a couple of the chapters so there's more than 1 way to proceed them (this only really effects 1 or 2).
• The characters that should be added, IMO, are the subs that were originally supposed to be in the game but got cut. It could be neat to see Femina, Asaello, Daisy, and Janne in a game where they're not compared to a much better, holy counterpart. But, they should be gotten through more unorthodox methods. (I.E., if Lara becomes a dancer, than Daisy will show up to take up that role. Or if she doesn't, have to play though another gaiden chapter to get a different dancer- maybe Leylia or Dancer!Daisy).
• Have Celice and Julia have more presence in the story.
• Branching promotions? Perhaps a "branch" is gained through supports- i.e. if Safy has supported with a mounted unit, she can promote to valkyrie instead of bishop/sage. Or if Lifis has supported with Safy, he can become a trickster instead of a thief fighter, etc.
• Give Lara her own dancer portrait.

[Slumber]

I'd say readjust the stat caps. As neat as it is that all units have the same stat caps, it kind of takes away from some of the uniqueness of some units. It also makes units like Armored Knights a liability when it ultimately ends up just meaning that they're a foot unit that starts with 1 less move than everyone else and an extra weakness.

I'm hesitant to say "Add more characters", since FE5 already has a massive cast, but it would be nice to see the subs and other kids who were supposed to be there. It'd be cool to have the subs get a bunch of characterization in a game like FE5. Something to separate them from the kids who always get preferential treatment.

24x

Obviously supports and more lines of dialogue to give more characterization(Why hello Selfina's group, no I don't remember anything about any of you from your 3 lines of dialogue.) A Finn/Glade support would be amazing, seeing Finn have a conversation with a peer that isn't depressing as all hell. Maybe going over the days when they were both training to be knights. Even something silly like Finn having to get nice clothes for Glade and Selfina's wedding. And obviously seeing more from Glade and Selfina when you know who dies.

Allowing mounted units to use their highest ranked weapon after dismounting, regardless of what it is.

Make Fatigue harder to bypass. Maybe make it lower your stats like it did in SoV, rather than make a fighter undeployable to stop situations where a fatigued unit is required to recruit a character in a chapter, making you now unable to recruit said unit. And/or give more incentives for party rotation like the game was designed for. Maybe make the final few chapters break up into groups like with pre-endgame part 4 of Radiant Dawn(Or for another example from a different genre, the fight against Bizarro-Sephiroth from FF7 where you fight it with multiple parties).

Make light magic a bit more common and powerful so that units like Linoan and Homer aren't relegated to roles they clearly weren't intended for(IE Linoan becoming a non-combat staffbot, Homer becoming another wind flinger).

More Sara.

Edited January 24, 2018 by Slumber

[Armagon]

Make it actually worth playing.

Alright, aside from the obvious "add Supports, fix balancing" etc, i'd like to see them rework Fatigue. Make it like how it worked in Echoes. When it comes to Dismounting, make it so that Cavaliers aren't swordlocked when dismounted. Or just get rid of it entirely. Dismouting was never a good feature imo. All it's done in the past is nerf units. Also, when the game starts, have a bit of gold in reserve. It really wasn't fun having to capture enemies in the first chapter in order to sell their gear just to buy the basic necessities. Add guaranteed 0 and 100% hit-rates, as well as make it impossible for healing Staffs to miss.

Also, fix Ch.24x.

[Dandy Druid]

On 1/24/2018 at 1:16 PM, Dandy Druid said:

• More modern support system to flesh out the cast a bit more.
• Redesign a couple of the chapters so there's more than 1 way to proceed them (this only really effects 1 or 2).
• The characters that should be added, IMO, are the subs that were originally supposed to be in the game but got cut. It could be neat to see Femina, Asaello, Daisy, and Janne in a game where they're not compared to a much better, holy counterpart. But, they should be gotten through more unorthodox methods. (I.E., if Lara becomes a dancer, than Daisy will show up to take up that role. Or if she doesn't, have to play though another gaiden chapter to get a different dancer- maybe Leylia or Dancer!Daisy).
• Have Celice and Julia have more presence in the story.
• Branching promotions? Perhaps a "branch" is gained through supports- i.e. if Safy has supported with a mounted unit, she can promote to valkyrie instead of bishop/sage. Or if Lifis has supported with Safy, he can become a trickster instead of a thief fighter, etc.
• Give Lara her own dancer portrait.

Changing my mind sorta on part 3. I rather have a money grubbing dancer who really just wants the funds to send back to the orphanage she was raised in. May be a rival to Lara, and you can use both of them, but not at the same time (this is where the fatigue system comes in). Or maybe she comes in if you didn't class change Lara, or you have to pay her to join, with the more expensive price giving her better skills and stats.

[MacLovin]

I want capturing and a build? growth implemented and be visually represented.

[eastcanman]

- I think an easier difficulty level would need to be added to make it more broadly-accessible (and I'm usually the first to complain about JP-to-NA difficulty nerfing). Alternatively, make the whole game a DLC expansion for a Genealogy remake and market it as a super-challenging side story.

- Fix some of the mechanics that cross the line from challenging to irritating (making healing staves no longer miss, making "escape" chapters into "escape all" chapters or having it so that Leif escaping first doesn't leave your other units behind, the 1%-to-99% system, rework the fatigue system)

[Kysafen]

On 1/24/2018 at 1:49 PM, AndrewMcC00l said:

Make it so the player has a reason to choose Cyas over Ced. 

Simple: nerf Holsety's speed boost and limit its uses by 20-30 and give Cyas his own personal flame weapon and an A-rank in Fire Magic; wouldn't be outlandish, given he's the true successor to Velthomer. Even then, they're both trivial if you kept all your units alive. We're talking 2-3 chapters maximum; one trivializes the endgame with insane combat potential, the other has staff rank that can undo/outdo enemy staff-fuckery and/or berserk some heavy hitter enemy units and break their formations. They both have their ways to be useful.

On 2/11/2018 at 10:44 PM, eastcanman said:

- I think an easier difficulty level would need to be added to make it more broadly-accessible 

- Fix some of the mechanics that cross the line from challenging to irritating (making healing staves no longer miss, making "escape" chapters into "escape all" chapters or having it so that Leif escaping first doesn't leave your other units behind, the 1%-to-99% system, rework the fatigue system)

Paragon mode turns it from "Thracia 776"-hard to "Path of Radiance NA  Hard Mode" hard, if that. If we're talking beginning-of-player-phase reinforcements, then I think everyone could get on board with that.

Healing staves missing should be nixed, but missing on Berserk/Sleep/Silence staves should be preserved.

If you just removed "leaving your units behind", that'd break the level design and make it ripe for exploitation, allowing for cheapout strategies that can leave weaker units to get dragged into a corner and then suddenly get a pass because the player cleared the chapter. It makes it no different than a seize chapter, minus the boss standing on the clear space. And that shouldn't happen, period.

Here's a way to preserve the "escape" conditions: give an "escape" radius on the exit point when you highlight it; units within the "escape radius" when Leif exits get to leave the chapter, and units outside are captured. Give a warning box showing any units that will be left behind when the player selects "escape" with Leif there. That way it incentivizes players to not leave their units halfway across the map, but it also removes the tedium of making each and every single unit escape.

On 1/24/2018 at 9:07 PM, Armagon said:

When it comes to Dismounting, make it so that Cavaliers aren't swordlocked when dismounted. Or just get rid of it entirely. Dismouting was never a good feature imo. All it's done in the past is nerf units. Also, when the game starts, have a bit of gold in reserve. It really wasn't fun having to capture enemies in the first chapter in order to sell their gear just to buy the basic necessities. Add guaranteed 0 and 100% hit-rates, as well as make it impossible for healing Staffs to miss.

There's a particular dichotomy in Thracia 776: cavalry dominates outdoors, infantry dominates indoors. Remove the nerfs on cavaliers and all you're left with is Horse Emblem. There are multiple solutions to this problem:
1. Auto-dismount indoors and auto-lower the movement range based on how many outdoor movement points they've used, keep their weapon rank on foot, but lower all stats by 2 (1 if they're promoted), and give mounted users low CON bases in general to significantly limit their capture/doubling capacity for heavier weapons.
2. Remain mounted indoors, lower all stats by 3-4, and maintain cavalier weaknesses. They can capture because mounted, but their speed/strength/skill/def stats take a huge hit, and one hit from a Horseslayer=dead.

As for the earlygame "no gold" problem, we've got 2 easy fixes:
1. Give Leif gold at the end of chapter 2x. "Sire, Lifis' pirates have a stash of gold here! 5000 gold, in all!".
2. Have thieves steal gold from enemies whenever they successfully defeat them. Have the amount vary by their level and increase by 5G for each level:
Level 1: 55 gold per defeated enemy.
Level 10: 100 gold per defeated enemy
Level 20: 150 gold per defeated enemy.
2a. Use their skill stat as a % to double their gold earnings. 20 Skill = 20% chance to get 200 gold at level 10, and 300 gold at level 20.
Of course, with the exception of the Arena, because you're making money by winning there anyway.

Chapter 12x gets a special mention: either totally remove it, or auto-clear the chapter and auto-recruit Pahn/Trewd and get the chest contents if you talk to Pahn. Make Lara's promotion a "base" option if you used Salem/Lifis to talk to Pahn.

Chapter 18: Give the Leonster knights non-aggressive AI (they don't move) and auto-recruit Xander if all the citizens/Leonster soldiers are alive when you clear the chapter. Have reinforcements come to kill the citizens once you enter the central area, to incentivize stationing your units to the prison area.

Chapter 3: When you highlight the unit carrying the child unit, it also highlights the house they go to. Or just have a radius around the houses you can drop the child off in that has the child automatically run to the house they go to.

Give Lara her own 1-2 range personal weapon (I vote for Chakram) and have her refresh all units adjacent to her whenever she dances or attacks. Also give her stat-boost dances a la FE7.

Remove a minimum quantity for unit deployment. It was ancient in FE1, it was ancient in FE3, and it's ancient now. I fail to see a justification for it other than to prevent people from cheesing Chapter 19, which is already fixable by changing Leif's deployment space to the middle of the map.

As for the stat-caps screwing over your armored units, simple: make Dalshin promote to/Xavier already a Great Knight. 6-7 movement, multiple weapon proficiencies, dismounts to General, add a "DEF + 5" skill to surpass stat cap limit, has incredibly low RES and weak to Armorslayers/Heavy Lances/Hammers.

Either make Magic Bows a thing, or make Ronan's magic stat his strength stat as well, so he can be a mage killer like Niles.

Add long-range statbooster staves, because Thracia 776 is Staff Emblem.
Make Laufey from Super Thracia 776 the secret final boss
Make Veld a dragon like they originally planned

Edited March 16, 2018 by Kysafen

[Corrobin]

I'm down for branching promotions as well.

[DemolisherBPB]

I imagine all the obvious has been said, Change the stat caps so classes mean more than just weapon and moment. Real support  because character development is always good. Though Personally I'd want it to be a "Book X" for a FE 4 Echoes so it can take things from a FE 4 save, such as Finns marriage or lack there off. I wouldn't want it to be too dependent on it only minor script changes but just so it feels like the first plans for Jundral.

Branching promotions would be neat for it, again, stat caps not been so low would help there.

I'd say keep dismount, maybe not force it (50/50 on that as it) but let people keep there classes primary weapon, HOW DO PEOPLE FORGET TO USE AXE WHEN THEY AREN'T ON A HORSE IT MAKES 0 SENSE. Stuff like that should be changed for the better.

Heal staffs missing was a terrible choice and whoever thought of it should feel bad.

The more difficulty options, Keep Paragon mode, add just an easy, or "normal" (SNES difficulty) Then a Hard because masochists exist. Though if they use the new RNG the game may be more normal anyway.

[Slumber]

I don't think I'd want branching promotions. 

One of the fun/quirky things about FE5 is that units of the same class didn't all promote to the same things. If anything, I'd say add more unique promotions, so that it wasn't just Machyua and Asvel with unique promotions. Make Halvan promote to Warrior while Orsin stays Hero, stuff like that. 

[Etrurian emperor]

I'd say they should ''Echoefy'' the heck out of the cast. From what I've seen the cast took a big step back from genealogy where every gen one character had a clear personality and instead more closely resembled Shadow Dragon where most characters were practically mute. 

[Slumber]

48 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'd say they should ''Echoefy'' the heck out of the cast. From what I've seen the cast took a big step back from genealogy where every gen one character had a clear personality and instead more closely resembled Shadow Dragon where most characters were practically mute. 

It's not quite SD or Gaiden bad. Even the characters with the least focus had at least 3 lines of dialogue(Ahem, Selfina's group). Most people had a solid handful of lines. And a lot of characters have arcs throughout the whole story, whereas SD was largely just the Marth show, with Jeigan giving advice here and there. You can follow even minor characters like Galzus, who you don't even get until the second to last chapter, pretty much all the way through the whole game. Lifis' involvement in the game doesn't begin and end with his recruitment chapter, like you see from SD's cast. He gets moments like when he manages to get a bunch of locked up bandits to cause a ruckus in prison when Leif and Lifis get captured, and he gets Pern's chapter to give some more character. 

But yeah, there could still be more. Characters like Finn, Mareeta, Leif, August, Dorias, Nanna, Eyvel get a fair amount of screen time, but 90% of the cast doesn't. Supports would probably go a long way. 

[Jotari]

I actually have a whole list of Thracia changes I want sitting on my laptop, but I stupidly went away somewhere and left my charger at home :(

On 3/16/2018 at 9:00 PM, Kysafen said:

 

Healing staves missing should be nixed, but missing on Berserk/Sleep/Silence staves should be preserved.

 

I'm pretty sure status staves can't miss in Thracia. They work along the whole unit's mag is higher than foe's logic.

Edited April 18, 2018 by Jotari

[Strullemia]

24x needs to be reworked.

Status staves need to be nerfed to an extent. You should still be able to have fun pulling off crazy stuff like turning Reinhardt into a traitor but when the enemy uses a sleep staff they shouldn't take your units out of the fight for the entire map.

Give us an option to reposition our units.

Don't make it so that you need certain items to complete the final chapter. That final chapter was a lot more difficult because I only had a few warps, lockpicks and one door key left.

[Shadow Mir]

For one, better balance the cast. I find the case of Saias and Ced pretty awful (the former doesn't really have anything to warrant picking him over the latter - Saias has worse bases across the board except for a tie in Skill and one point in Mag, and that A rank in staves? Ced has it too). And while we're talking about Saias, there's something else that needs fixing, but I'll get to that later. Aside from the case of Ced and Saias, I want it such that there's a legitimate reason to want to use, say, Eda over Dean - as it is, the only real reason to use her is to replace a fallen or fatigued Dean. Second, I want something done about fatigue. As it is, it can easily screw you over if a unit that's required to recruit another gets too fatigued and thus is forced to sit out a chapter. Third, fix 24x. Fourth, get rid of dismounting. It worked in Mystery of the Emblem because weapon ranks did not exist yet, but it doesn't add anything to Thracia. Fifth, fix everything that crosses the line into irritating territory, like healing staves being able to miss, which REALLY should not have been in the game to begin with. Also, Saias. Why does he have 10 authority stars??? It does nothing but make any battles where he shows up stressful and unfun. Status staves need to be nerfed, too. Also, make it so you don't need keys or picks for the final chapter - instead make the doors open automatically. The cast could use some development, too.

Edited April 19, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[UNLEASH IT]

An obvious one would be to let you order your units on the map before the battle starts without having to plan 5-6 chapters in advance. I nearly dropped the game because of that.

[Jedi]

Just update it like Echoes did to Gaiden, the Maps in Thracia are much stronger and reworking any mechanic might severely tip the scale of balance, keeping Dismount is paramount, but making it so people can use their actual weapon dismounted would be nice, the sword lock is a good way to limit what mounts can do inside though.

[Kysafen]

On 4/13/2018 at 5:22 PM, Slumber said:

It's not quite SD or Gaiden bad. Even the characters with the least focus had at least 3 lines of dialogue(Ahem, Selfina's group). Most people had a solid handful of lines. And a lot of characters have arcs throughout the whole story, whereas SD was largely just the Marth show, with Jeigan giving advice here and there. You can follow even minor characters like Galzus, who you don't even get until the second to last chapter, pretty much all the way through the whole game. Lifis' involvement in the game doesn't begin and end with his recruitment chapter, like you see from SD's cast. He gets moments like when he manages to get a bunch of locked up bandits to cause a ruckus in prison when Leif and Lifis get captured, and he gets Pern's chapter to give some more character. 

But yeah, there could still be more. Characters like Finn, Mareeta, Leif, August, Dorias, Nanna, Eyvel get a fair amount of screen time, but 90% of the cast doesn't. Supports would probably go a long way. 

Ronan: Okay, so I'm from a fishing village, but hear me out: I really, really fuckin' love magic.

[Slumber]

7 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

For one, better balance the cast. I find the case of Saias and Ced pretty awful (the former doesn't really have anything to warrant picking him over the latter - Saias has worse bases across the board except for a tie in Skill and one point in Mag, and that A rank in staves? Ced has it too). And while we're talking about Saias, there's something else that needs fixing, but I'll get to that later. Aside from the case of Ced and Saias, I want it such that there's a legitimate reason to want to use, say, Eda over Dean - as it is, the only real reason to use her is to replace a fallen or fatigued Dean. Second, I want something done about fatigue. As it is, it can easily screw you over if a unit that's required to recruit another gets too fatigued and thus is forced to sit out a chapter. Third, fix 24x. Fourth, get rid of dismounting. It worked in Mystery of the Emblem because weapon ranks did not exist yet, but it doesn't add anything to Thracia. Fifth, fix everything that crosses the line into irritating territory, like healing staves being able to miss, which REALLY should not have been in the game to begin with. Also, Saias. Why does he have 10 authority stars??? It does nothing but make any battles where he shows up stressful and unfun. Status staves need to be nerfed, too. Also, make it so you don't need keys or picks for the final chapter - instead make the doors open automatically. The cast could use some development, too.

Dude, why do you keep doing having this argument? Stop doing this if you haven't played the game. 

This is the second time in a week you've whined about the cast balance and based your argument around Ced and Saias. @Jotari already had this argument with you, but the imbalance for Ced and Saias isn't so crazy that it brings down the whole game. Saias simply coming with Warp and Silence staves does a lot to close the statistical gap between the two.

The fact that you started the post with "Better balance the cast" after the argument you had with @Jotari instead of just saying "Give more of a reason to go for Saias instead of Ced" actually leads me to believe you're doing this to deliberately start more shit. 

For the record, I do agree that there are parts that could be balanced better with the cast. Since it's related to another thread, Eda and Dean is a much more glaring imbalance than Saias and Ced. You get SOMETHING of value for picking Saias. With Eda and Dean, the game just says "Hey, here's a pretty good, pre-promotee flier who gets a good prf weapon and comes with one of the best Crusader Scrolls in the game. Also here's a lower leveled, unpromoted, harder to train version of him that gets nothing unique. Have fun?" That's an actual case of the cast balance in the game being indefensibly bad, even if the game as a whole has much better cast balance than... Possibly any other FE? 

22 minutes ago, Kysafen said:

Ronan: Okay, so I'm from a fishing village, but hear me out: I really, really fuckin' love magic.

Ronan would be an instant 10/10 as a character if it turned out he was just really into party tricks. 

Edited April 20, 2018 by Slumber

[Cysx]

I'm confused as to why people consider Saias the "wrong" choice when he's one of the best units in the game. It's hard to deny that Ced is a little better, but you can't go wrong with a staffbot with 3 leadership stars and 3 movement stars. It's great value for a deployment slot. Plus this isn't FE4, Ced's combat is overkill and many units can do what he does, it's mostly in the survivability department that he shines; Forseti having infinite uses doesn't really make a difference either, since they join so late that even 30 uses would be more than you need.

Anyway, if I were to remake Thracia myself one day(not happening), I'd change a ton of things, but for an official one that would be the first experience most people have with the game, I'd keep it to broad balance fixes and quality of life stuff. So control over deployment, 100% and 0% accuracy, no heal missing, explored fog of war staying explored, clearer objectives, no same-turn reinforcements, dismounting now only lowers your weapon ranks(by 1 if you can only use one type, by 2 otherwise, swords included; on the fence on whether prf weapons that aren't swords, bows and magic should be usable or not) instead of getting rid of them, give the player a bit of money throughout the game, make Xavier's soldiers never fight one another and drop the npc-specific objectives entirely, any npc can do. Among other things.

And you know, making it less obtuse and walkthrough-friendly by properly explaining/indicating things. Warp tiles? Show them. Leif is leaving allies behind? Warn the player and ask them to confirm. Green units that will attack yours? Make them red units. Explain PCC, leadership, movement stars... etcetera.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Cysx
I can't spell survavabality

[Slumber]

46 minutes ago, Cysx said:

I'm confused as to why people consider Saias the "wrong" choice when he's one of the best units in the game. It's hard to deny that Ced is a little better, but you can't go wrong with a staffbot with 3 leadership stars and 3 movement stars. It's great value for a deployment slot. Plus this isn't FE4, Ced's combat is overkill and many units can do what he does, it's mostly in the survivability department that he shines; Forseti having infinite uses doesn't really make a difference either, since they join so late that even 30 uses would be more than you need.

Levant hasn't played the game. He watched a playthrough I think, and is basing his opinions on that.

He sees that Ced has better stats and Holsety, so Saias is completely pointless and that it just goes to show how imbalanced the cast as a whole is. It's the second thread from the last few days, at least from what I've seen, where he's done this, even though people who have played the game have told him that Saias is also a very good unit and has unique merits of his own. I didn't bother the first time because somebody else decided to bring this up, and it wasn't a thread strictly about FE5. 

Edited April 20, 2018 by Slumber

[Jotari]

The obvious way to fix the Ced Vs Saias problem is just to make both of them deployable at the same time. There's no real justification as to why Saias just leave the army if Ced joins. Same with Olwen and Illios. How does she in any way affect his decisions? I dont mind a Arran/Samson choice, but the game needs to justify it in some way rather than arbitrarily locking off some units because others exist.