Should units have special promotions based on their personalities, backstories and relationships instead of uniform class-based promotions?

[Corrobin]

I'll list three hypothetical examples to give a basic idea.

A female Mage (who we'll call "Holly") is a bit of a tomboy. She is naturally gifted at magic, but practiced with swords when she was younger and asked her older brother to teach her how to ride a horse, which is brought up in some supports. When she promotes, instead of becoming a Sage, she becomes a Mage Knight, which lets her use swords and gives her a horse. This differeniates herself from Nathaniel, a Mage who joins earlier and promotes into a Sage.

A male Myrmidon (Who we'll call "Sean") was taught how to use a sword by his father figure, Gin, who is a Hero. Sean idolizes Gin, and wants to be like him when he grows up. Instead of becoming a Swordmaster, he promotes into Hero. This is different from Sento, a Myrmidon who promotes into a Swordmaster.

A Cleric (Who we'll call "Alicia") used to work for the evil dragon cult in the past, but turned to the clergy to atone for her past after she split from it, but she still has some skill in dark magic, and she gets over her past with the help of some others. Instead of becoming a Bishop, she promotes to Druid. This makes her different than Nikolai, a Priest who becomes a Bishop.

Do you think things like these could be done in Fire Emblem? What do you think of them? Are you for or against this idea? What other sorts of things like these could be done?

Edited June 22, 2018 by Corrobin

[Slumber]

I like the idea, and I've liked it since Thracia 776.

[nyainou]

I like it. Its good, "subtle" story telling. I don't necessarily think class choice should be limited, per say, but if all class upgrades make narrative sense, that'd be great. That's why I liked the A+ support system back in Fates. Not all supports explicitly tell us that Person A taught Person B how to fight like them, but its kind of implied that they spent enough time training together to learn new skills.

[Eden Agleam]

I love the idea. I love gameplay story integration, but some of the examples in the earlier entries feel too skewed in one direction (i.e. FE4's balance in general). Thracia has a much better approach to it, and I can't wait for a complete English patch to play it. 

 

[DragonFlames]

I'd really like that, actually. It sounds like a great idea.
I would have been fine if they just kept their unique colour scheme for any of their promotions if the character had one to begin with (like in Echoes with the exception of Overclasses), but your idea is even better.

[Von Ithipathachai]

I think this is a great idea.  I'd even be willing to have this in place of branching promotions.

Of course, the unit's promotion ought to fit properly with their stat spread.  No cases like Miranda who can't do a whole lot with her new weapons.

[Shadow Mir]

Nope. This is something I've never been supportive of, and likely never will.

[Alistair]

46 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Nope. This is something I've never been supportive of, and likely never will.

But why though? I'm just interested in hearing your reasoning here.

[Bhoop]

Absolutely. Unique promotions liven up the world (its what Berwick saga did)

Edited June 21, 2018 by Bhoop

[Von Ithipathachai]

4 minutes ago, Alistair said:

But why though? I'm just interested in hearing your reasoning here.

There was another thread similar to this where he gave his reasons.

Basically he thinks IS is too incompetent to give people the right personal promotions when Miranda is really the only case of a bad personal promotion.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Von Ithipathachai

[Alistair]

Just now, Von Ithipathachai said:

There was another thread similar to this where he gave his reasons.

Basically he thinks IS is too incompetent to give people the right personal promotions when Miranda is really the only case of a bad personal promotion.

Thanks. I respect his opinion, just wanted the reasoning behind it.

[Shadow Mir]

17 minutes ago, Alistair said:

But why though? I'm just interested in hearing your reasoning here.

 

13 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

There was another thread similar to this where he gave his reasons.

Basically he thinks IS is too incompetent to give people the right personal promotions when Miranda is really the only case of a bad personal promotion.

To be more accurate, if IS can't make every class to be at least a decent option, I don't want them touching personal promotions with a 100-foot pole.

[Sage of the Mist]

@Corrobin 

Just curious but didn't awakening and fates do this to a looser extent with second and heart seals? While I think that it would be a cool idea for  everyone to have a "standard"and "unique" promotion, I would be a bit concerned about certain characters getting the short end of the stick by getting stuck with a mediocre class set, given that IS track record with given units balanced class sets leave something to be desired.My mind specifically jumps to Libra, whose second seal options had class overlay, and Charlotte who had a useless secondary class (troubadour with 10% magic growth Lol no thanks) that didn't help her at all in her base class set , despite the fact that it "fit" her personality of wanting to appear more fragile to attract men.

I guess it could work but IS would have to step up their game when it comes to giving balanced and useful class sets to units.

But hey that's just my two cents on the topic.

[Strullemia]

I love when story things also get show in the gameplay side of thins so yeah I'm all for it.

[X-Naut]

Oh hello there u/GatorDragon

I'll copypaste what I said on the reddit thread:

I wouldn't mind seeing this come back, provided there's no class hierarchy or it's limited to unpromoted units. Maybe include a special promotion item to let players promote a few units to a secondary option?

Edited June 21, 2018 by X-Naut

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Sage of the Mist said:

@Corrobin 

Just curious but didn't awakening and fates do this to a looser extent with second and heart seals? While I think that it would be a cool idea for  everyone to have a "standard"and "unique" promotion, I would be a bit concerned about certain characters getting the short end of the stick by getting stuck with a mediocre class set, given that IS track record with given units balanced class sets leave something to be desired.My mind specifically jumps to Libra, whose second seal options had class overlay, and Charlotte who had a useless secondary class (troubadour with 10% magic growth Lol no thanks) that didn't help her at all in her base class set , despite the fact that it "fit" her personality of wanting to appear more fragile to attract men.

I guess it could work but IS would have to step up their game when it comes to giving balanced and useful class sets to units.

But hey that's just my two cents on the topic.

You could say that. And yeah, the fact that they're willing to pull crap like giving Elise a physical class option for her Heart Seal class shows that I can't trust them to make the right decisions regarding classes.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[X-Naut]

I could care less about reclass sets as long as the character has ONE good fit for them, which most of them do. Reclassing is at its best when it's a fun side-option and not integral to the gameplay.

[Kazuya]

No. No character should have a "unique" class unless they are a lord or like a final boss or something. There are such things as generic soldiers and they don't get anything but the most basic of the basic, so why should someone like Wendy, Roger, or really anyone have a unique class when they are just soldiers, not even generals, lutenients, or colonels? It doesn't make sense to make everyone "unique" or even just one or two special. 

[Slumber]

5 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

There was another thread similar to this where he gave his reasons.

Basically he thinks IS is too incompetent to give people the right personal promotions when Miranda is really the only case of a bad personal promotion.

Miranda's not the one with the personal promotion, Asbel is.

Mage->Mageknight(Well, female Mages become Magefighters in 4, but they don't exist in 5 and they're just a worse version of Mageknight in 4) is the standard promotion route in the Jugdral games, while Bards become Sages. It's just that you get 2 Mages in FE5, and more people are familiar with Mages becoming Sages, which isn't how it works in Jugdral. Miranda's not made any better or worse by her promotion. Asbel, meanwhile, is made better by having a personal promotion.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Slumber

[Von Ithipathachai]

5 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Miranda's not made any better or worse by her promotion.  Asbel, meanwhile, is made better by having a personal promotion.

It still stands that she would be better off as a Sage than she would be as a Mage Knight.

But I suppose we're getting off topic.

[X-Naut]

Miranda's promotion choice is only "bad" in the context of Thracia 776's unique gameplay, and there are worse examples of bad promotion choices (FE4 Swordfighter to Hero, Mage to Mage Fighter)

And I don't think "they blew it once, they'll blow it again" or picking the worst example possible as the cornerstone makes a solid argument.

2 hours ago, Kazuya said:

No. No character should have a "unique" class unless they are a lord or like a final boss or something. There are such things as generic soldiers and they don't get anything but the most basic of the basic, so why should someone like Wendy, Roger, or really anyone have a unique class when they are just soldiers, not even generals, lutenients, or colonels? It doesn't make sense to make everyone "unique" or even just one or two special. 

This topic is more about branching promotions where the branch is set with each character instead of a player choice, not about giving everyone their own class. Imagine the two Fighter bros but where one promotes to Warrior while the other promotes to Hero.

@Corrobin you should use an example where two characters of the same base class promote to different classes, it would make this a lot clearer.

[Corrobin]

I can do that.

I'll keep on using Holly, Sean and Alicia for this, though.

Holly joins a little after an earlier mage, Nathaniel. Nathaniel (or Nathan or Nate) is the son of a wandering magic user and do-gooder who is studying at a school in a port town when the Empire invades, and joins the Lord to defend the city, then follows him because he wants to gain hands-on experience (and maybe meet his father, who he idolizes). Said father joins you later on as a prepromoted Sage, which is what Nathaniel promotes into.

Sento is a Navarre archetype Myrmidon who has a grudge against a major general of the Empire and allies with some bandits to gain the resources necessary to defeat said general, but a Cleric girl or your kind, sweet royal Pegasus Knight can make him see the error of his judgement. You find out that Sento was the student of a legendary swordsman the Empire killed early in the war, and the general he harbors a grudge against was the one that killed him. Sento promotes to Swordmaster to carry on his teacher's legacy and sword style.

Nikolai is a Priest who joins early, who is doing his own investigations for the church into the relationship between the Dragon Cult and the Empire. He promotes into a Bishop.

[Tetragrammaton]

3 hours ago, Corrobin said:

I can do that.

I'll keep on using Holly, Sean and Alicia for this, though.

Holly joins a little after an earlier mage, Nathaniel. Nathaniel (or Nathan or Nate) is the son of a wandering magic user and do-gooder who is studying at a school in a port town when the Empire invades, and joins the Lord to defend the city, then follows him because he wants to gain hands-on experience (and maybe meet his father, who he idolizes). Said father joins you later on as a prepromoted Sage, which is what Nathaniel promotes into.

Sento is a Navarre archetype Myrmidon who has a grudge against a major general of the Empire and allies with some bandits to gain the resources necessary to defeat said general, but a Cleric girl or your kind, sweet royal Pegasus Knight can make him see the error of his judgement. You find out that Sento was the student of a legendary swordsman the Empire killed early in the war, and the general he harbors a grudge against was the one that killed him. Sento promotes to Swordmaster to carry on his teacher's legacy and sword style.

Nikolai is a Priest who joins early, who is doing his own investigations for the church into the relationship between the Dragon Cult and the Empire. He promotes into a Bishop.

Why don't you add it to the first post?

[Corrobin]

Done.

[illegal knight]

Ah! You mean "canonical" class for characters when they would might "incarnated" in fixed stories (like anime, manga, movie, etc)! I see. That's very nice and easier to strengthen their characteristics so well, I admit.

A strong military tradition family which has two children consisting with a teen daughter and a younger son wants to motivate the clever eldest one who so talented with Staves. So, the family fostering an orphan boy, to motivated her. Both trained as Troubadours and the family lends the boy with one of their two-and-only finest horses which the others used by their daughter, and assigned them to the military. They works so hard a year assigned by so many skirmishes since they were posted on one of the most unsafe area in the country. The boy have no military talent at all (very poor all-stats growth) but favors by everyone because he is a genius army's chef. Beside, the squad where they assigned lack of healers, he often taken to the battlefields. A year later, both of them now Lv.20. When they off-duty, they were both suddenly called home by the family. There's surprises. The young Paladin who the daughter's first love just come home after several years on military duty. The boy also surprised as he'd also admired the famous and gentle young Paladin. The Paladin invited his love to served the Lord and presenting the daughter a Master Seal. The invitation accepted and she use it while on horseback to become a Strategist. But the surprises doesn't stop. The family taking back their finest horse from the boy as their son now are age enough to join the military as a cavalier even the son felt so bad. They have no choice since the horses are very rare breed and now the horse growth stronger enough by growing with the military duties for a year. The family gave a small sum of gold to the boy and thank him to his effords for their daughter. All the mounted young Paladin with the new Strategist goes to gave their reports and the new Cavalier goes to the military assignments. In the squad, the boy considers to resign from the military after he have no horse and learned that new curate and cleric has been assigned to the squad. The squad pity him since he did so many effords for them, so the commander gave him a spare unused Master Seal without any supreme orders, and orders to him to used it. The boy promoted to became a Butler.

Just a boring "little" story...