Your opinion on Seasonals

[UNLEASH IT]

2 hours ago, Vaximillian said:

I might be the most passionate opponent of them here on SF, and nothing ever will change my opinion.

They are silly and forced, they clog up the metaphorical tubes and slow down the introduction of actual new characters, they hog most of new and cool skills, they are most often overpowered and powercreeping, and so on and so forth.

I’d rather them never have existed.

With the exception of the Christmas banner, I can't say that I agree with this. 

[Thany]

its strange to talk about immersion when this is a game thats about units joining you from many worlds that arnt the same, so im not sure how a festival unit is unimmersive when its told units from different worlds come partake in festivals.

[EricaofRenais]

I really like them, my favorites are C!Chrom, H!Henry, H!Jakob, S!Corrin, Inigo and Shigure.  I am fine with seasonal alts since they are limited are don't bloat the general pool and they introduce new or rare unit types.

[THE underdog]

I like some of them a lot - like Witch Nowi. Guess they serve to prolong the games life. They also add an aditional level of rarity.

Edited April 2, 2018 by THE underdog

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, Thany said:

its strange to talk about immersion when this is a game thats about units joining you from many worlds that arnt the same, so im not sure how a festival unit is unimmersive when its told units from different worlds come partake in festivals.

Actually, that's a good point.

I don't see how fielding a team of Ike, Brave Ike, Legendary Ike, and the Black Knight to beat up a team consisting of Ike, Brave Ike, Legendary Ike, and Zelgius does not break immersion.

Or when you go to the Training Tower and end up on Story 1-5-4 against Hector and 3 Florinas. Or, you know, you go into the Training Tower and you are most definitely not inside a tower anymore.

[Midnox]

I like the concept, it's funny seeing FE characters fighting in silly outfits and even more ridiculous weapons, plus the occasional fanservice helps, right Tiki?. The only thing I don't like is that many of them are lackluster gameplay wise, with very few actually being good, not to mention their availability. Still, it's refreshing having FEH not taking itself seriously and having time to have fun, and fight for dumb reasons  (like how hilarious was having Hector bringing an even stronger Armads and the others where like "Hector, you are overdoing it again ")

[Sunwoo]

In general, I'm not a big fan because it seems like there are way too many seasonal banners, the characters being limited can stress out people who keep on missing that one unit they want, and quite a few unique classes are locked behind them. Not to even get into discussions of their choice of characters, which may or may not change later in the year but unpopular characters will likely never get a seasonal.

That said, if there's a seasonal version of a character I really like (or a class I can't resist like flying dancer), I'll try to pull for them.

[Fabulously Olivier]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Actually, that's a good point.

I don't see how fielding a team of Ike, Brave Ike, Legendary Ike, and the Black Knight to beat up a team consisting of Ike, Brave Ike, Legendary Ike, and Zelgius does not break immersion.

Or when you go to the Training Tower and end up on Story 1-5-4 against Hector and 3 Florinas. Or, you know, you go into the Training Tower and you are most definitely not inside a tower anymore.

The difference lies in respect to the franchise. Randomized encounters and player choice team compositions are acceptable outliers that fall under the net of this being a video game with impossible to establish boundaries.

Dressing Robin like Santa Claus, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the franchise's setting whatsoever, doesn't fit within any canon ingame event, doesn't provide a reasonable "what if" scenario, and denegrates the character. 

In any other medium, such a thing would be appalling. If one were watching Game of Thrones and Jon Snow suddenly donned a bunny suit to fight the Night King, that might raise a few eyebrows.

[Athena_57]

I really don't care for them. I think it's pretty dumb personally, but hey, if people like it I won't judge. I wouldn't say I hate them, but I don't use them either.

I would say I'm bothered by their low availability for skill fodder reasons, but the good ones come back around legendary banners anyways so it's whatever.

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Etheus said:

with impossible to establish boundaries

There is literally nothing impossible about preventing two of the same character from being on the same team. There is nothing impossible about preventing two units that are antagonistic towards each other from being on the same team.

For the purposes of player choice and team composition diversity, these systems obviously won't be implemented, but there is nothing impossible about making those physically happen.

 

1 minute ago, Etheus said:

doesn't fit within any canon ingame event

Being able to go to other worlds is Heroes's canon. Celebrating a winter festival in that world is Heroes's canon.

 

5 minutes ago, Etheus said:

If one were watching Game of Thrones and Jon Snow suddenly donned a bunny suit to fight the Night King, that might raise a few eyebrows.

I know nothing of Game of Thrones, but Chrom in a bunny suit is just as out of place on a battlefield as Felicia in a maid outfit. Hell, Corrin and Azura being barefoot already strikes me as extremely odd, even more so than the more questionable armor designs.

I'm off to defeat the Fell Dragon's avatar summoning the Fell Dragon's visage standing on top of the Fell Dragon while wearing a maid outfit and throwing an enchanted serving plate. Yep.

[Ivy Wife Supremacy]

I'm okay with it since its not a strange concept since recent modern games do it(Awakening/Fates) *kinda* (some they borrow from) so far ie Summer Elise/Leo/Xander/Gaius. But in Heroes it may be a little bit too excessive for almost every month which might feel like padding to a bunch instead of more actual new characters but its doing well for "obvious" reasons *hint* and its definitely not hurting them either.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Blade Lord Lyn

[Dark Holy Elf]

17 minutes ago, Etheus said:

The difference lies in respect to the franchise. Randomized encounters and player choice team compositions are acceptable outliers that fall under the net of this being a video game with impossible to establish boundaries.

Dressing Robin like Santa Claus, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the franchise's setting whatsoever, doesn't fit within any canon ingame event, doesn't provide a reasonable "what if" scenario, and denegrates the character. 

In any other medium, such a thing would be appalling. If one were watching Game of Thrones and Jon Snow suddenly donned a bunny suit to fight the Night King, that might raise a few eyebrows.

The parallel isn't Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, it's Jon Snow in a goofy cross-over in which Game of Thrones characters mingle with those from Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings, and Dune. In that case, putting him in a bunny outfit would be just fine.

FEH is a crossover in which characters are expected to put down their everything they're currently doing in their home games and fight for the amusement (sorry, "contracts") of millions of player summoners. It's not even remotely believable and does not take itself remotely seriously. If you are disturbed by something making light of serious Fire Emblem canon, you shouldn't be playing this game (or Warriors) to begin with.

 

One other criticism I don't understand is "these characters have skills which aren't in the general pool". It's not like it's much easier to get any other 5*-locked character off-banner. I'm pretty sure Spring Camilla has been re-run more than, say, Luke.

[ruruo]

I think I would have prefered if they had less seasonal banners, and replaced them with banners for in game characters instead of alts. It doesn't really feel that 'special' to get a seasonal unit as before because another banner will be out within a month or two, and it'll usually be an alt of the same few characters :/

[Azz]

I'm not the biggest fan, mainly because they get boring after a while when they keep celebrating atypical things like Easter, Christmas, Halloween etc. I really liked Performing Arts since it was very different from all the other holiday/typical seasonals (Summer etc) you get in other games and Love Abounds was nice too since it wasn't just Valentines. If we got more like these, I wouldn't be bothered as much.

[mampfoid]

I like some seasonals because I like silly things. I use many, because their movement/weapon combination is unique. They are not necessary for this game though since the pool for new units and canonical alts (i.e. dark flier Cordelia) is still big. 

[Shiki]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Nothing stopping them from giving it to standard units later on.

They are taking their sweet time though (an early example would be Swift Sparrow which Katarina had). Considering that a lot of units come with A passives that are kinda questionable (the mixed stat-ups) or "readily" available like Darting Blow on Soleil you would think they would release these things a bit sooner.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

This is because Bride Lyn is still the most recently released staff unit.

You forgot Genny (though they are in the same month).

[gone]

A musthave in gachas so I guess you have to deal with it

what bothers me is the huge focus on them ( especially in combination with the legendary banners)

actual new content to be added lasts way more than popping out those (the lack of presentation = actual new heroes,GHB's besides)

so overall it's more a curse than a blessing for me in the longrun

if I had to give an honest opinion, I would say that their announcements are less exciting the more they appear

 

[Ice Dragon]

5 minutes ago, Zeratul said:

They are taking their sweet time though

Judging by the release frequency, it appears that they have determined Bond skills are lower priority than other skills like the mixed Stance skills. Swift Sparrow likely managed its short two-and-a-half-month turnaround for being added to the standard summoning pool due to its high desirability.

 

7 minutes ago, Zeratul said:

Considering that a lot of units come with A passives that are kinda questionable (the mixed stat-ups) or "readily" available like Darting Blow on Soleil

The dual stat up skills are there both for completion and because they are all typically good filler skills for those characters to have.

One can also argue that Darting Blow is one of the better skills to pair with a Firesweep weapon, especially with their apparent reluctance to add Swift Sparrow to a 4-star-pullable character.

 

12 minutes ago, Zeratul said:

You forgot Genny (though they are in the same month).

Genny was released earlier than Lyn. Therefore, Lyn is still the most recently released staff unit.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

I like seasonals, but the seasonal gauntlet of June to October last year was a bit too much.

[Rezzy]

1 hour ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I like seasonals, but the seasonal gauntlet of June to October last year was a bit too much.

I'm not a huge fan of seasonals, but if we only got one every three months, they wouldn't be so bad.  Having 50% of the banners be seasonal made me really hate them.

[Shiki]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

The dual stat up skills are there both for completion and because they are all typically good filler skills for those characters to have.

One can also argue that Darting Blow is one of the better skills to pair with a Firesweep weapon, especially with their apparent reluctance to add Swift Sparrow to a 4-star-pullable character.

Begs the question why these aren't on the Seasonals instead. Unlike most regular characters the Seasonals have some unique class choices to make them desireable (like Camilla, Tharja or Jakob) so that would make them better choices to dump these skills. The thing is most of the past Seasonals had those on them and only one Hero was really desireable for SI (Swift Sparrow from S!Lucina, Close Def from S!Tiki and so on).

But ever since Halloween they are just dumping all the new skills on seasonals and it gets worse with the new weapons.
Just like skills they may eventually release carbon copies of them to the regular pool but considering the recent trend and how long it took for them to get the Poleaxe into the game, having skepticism is imo fully justified.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Zeratul

[Grandosco]

Overall I like the idea of seasonal units. But as many have mentioned, their limited availability and skills that could be on units in the permanent pool, not to mention spots that could be new characters that aren't already in the game, are all a bit of a shame.

But as for their existence, I'm a fan of them because of the fun outfits characters can get into, different voice lines and just general hilarity that comes from the fun of it. I don't have Winter Tharja, but she's my most wanted unit because I find the support conversation in which she attempts to be "normal" absolutely hysterical, and it's amazing they devoted an entire unit to that idea. Plus, while the weapon effects like the Wo Dao+ dagger, etc., should be put on normal units, the comical Sack-O'-Gifts, Giant Spoon, and Fish Stick Deft Harpoon probably wouldn't make it into the game otherwise, and I love me some funny weapons, especially when they're actually useful.

So yup! I like seasonal units, but also recognize that their weapon mechanics should be expanded into the permanent pool, otherwise it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. IS has been pretty good about feedback, so feel free to give 'em a reasonably-worded message.

[Lewyn]

Don't mind them.  Even though this is the only gacha game I've ever played, I know that seasonals are apparently a staple of these games.  Personally they don't interest me too much, and when that first spring banner came out last year, I was like whatever.  I'm not spending orbs on that.   The first few seasonal banners were very skippable, containing mostly mediocre units and perhaps some new unique type like Summer Corrin or Spring Camilla.  I didn't pull at all on any of those banners, even if bikini Tiki was aesthetically pleasing.  However then came Performing Arts.  4 dancers, 2 of them are first dancer mages, one the first with a PRF weapon, and the last our first dancer dagger user.  Holy smokes!  There was no ignoring that banner.  That was must pull.  It also started a trend of incredibly powerful units no duds, not only exclusive but powerful skills/weapons, in addition to introducing new unit types.  Like could you skip the Halloween banner?  No. Winter's Envoy?  Hell no, that is probably the most powerful banner in the game's history!  New Years?  Nope.  Love Abounds?  Nope.  

Essentially if you care about gameplay, then regardless of if you like/dislike seasonal costumes you were doing yourself a grave disservice by skipping any of these banners.  Seasonals no longer became a side thing, but the main dish.  I don't know how I feel about that.  I am happy that it isn't all fates/awakening like it was last year so at least there is a good variety of characters from different games.  However they have maximized the temptation.  OP or at least high tier units.  Check.  New weapons, skills, new unit type?  Check.  Crazy costumes?  Check.  So in essence every player is going to be drawn to pull from these banners.  I have to imagine the profits are beyond imagination.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

46 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

I'm not a huge fan of seasonals, but if we only got one every three months, they wouldn't be so bad.  Having 50% of the banners be seasonal made me really hate them.

They often have cute art, so I can't hate them...

[Ice Dragon]

29 minutes ago, Zeratul said:

Begs the question why these aren't on the Seasonals instead. Unlike most regular characters the Seasonals have some unique class choices to make them desireable (like Camilla, Tharja or Jakob) so that would make them better choices to dump these skills.

Because it is generally expected that skills being added to limited characters, with few exceptions, will eventually be available in the standard summoning pool.

The problem with adding the dual stat up skills to limited characters is that it wastes a skill slot that could have been used for a more lucrative skill. It's wasted because these are skills that are pretty much required to make their way into the standard summoning pool (because it's dumb if a completely unimpressive skill is also limited), and putting the skill on a standard character is more efficient for getting the skills out of the way than putting the skill on a limited character and having to reprise the skill on a standard character later.

 

37 minutes ago, Zeratul said:

But ever since Halloween they are just dumping all the new skills on seasonals and it gets worse with the new weapons.
Just like skills they may eventually release carbon copies of them to the regular pool but considering the recent trend and how long it took for them to get the Poleaxe into the game, having skepticism is imo fully justified.

On the other hand, Bold Fighter and Vengeful Fighter got into the standard pool just two months after their debut on a limited banner.

If you cherry pick your examples, you can easily make them look agreeably fast or painfully slow at adding things to the game.