Anomalocaris

If the roster rumors I've heard are true, then first and foremost I'd really appreciate it if they made playable in a free update; it feels weird not having them. For paid DLC, some kind of alternate "Free Play" mode where you can use all your units from every route together in one mode with a variety of battle challenges would be nice. Not sayin' it has to be as robust or long as FEW's History Mode, but some way to just mess around with the full roster without restriction would be nice.

Fair enough. I do still miss History Mode for other reasons (the references to the source games, the silly dialogue exchanges, the sense of progression, etc.) and it was my favorite part of the previous game, so I'm afraid I cannot budge on wanting it back, but I can respect your position.

An interesting concept, and randomly-generated missions would definitely add more replayability to the game, but I don't think it can replace History Mode; you lose out on the sense of progression, and randomly-generated missions will never be as balanced as missions that were manually crafted by the devs, even if all the pieces feel interchangeable. That being said, the mode you're suggesting sounds perfect for a Chain Challenge mode like I've always been hawking as the best way to implement perma-death: play through a sequence of five or six randomly-generated missions using only eight chosen characters; any who die during a mission are dead for the remainder of the chain challenge, and healing is limited so you have to actually budget your heal uses. Big rewards for clearing the "boss mission" at the end of the challenge.

A branching story that is nevertheless replayable is not a bad idea; there's even some minor precedence for it in the original game, with the Fates part of the story split into two parallel routes that eventually converge. I can get behind that. However, gonna disagree on ditching History Mode. The advantage of History Mode (and one thing I can already tell I'm gonna miss in Three Hopes) is the missions all being non-canon to the story mode. Without that constraint, it allowed them to use the roster freely and let you fight actual named enemy commanders even if it wouldn't make sense story-wise, like Marth being an enemy, or Sakura and Validar being on the same team, or whatever. I want that to return so we can have more creative battles than just fighting nothing but nameless captains. 3 classes per character can certainly work, it's just a lot more work assuming their secondary and tertiary classes all have unique outfits, Warrior Specials, and/or perf. weapons. I guess outfit changes could be ditched for the most part, though it may look weird if you have stuff like Dedue wearing his armor but being considered a non-armored class, or vice-versa.

Direct sequel as in similar gameplay structure (short, linear Story Mode with replayable levels, History Mode stuffed full of missions, unlockables, a universal roster where you just unlock characters permanently instead of it being route-based, etc.), but with any changes you'd want to make based on how Three Hopes does things. For example, if you think having a route-based Story Mode with NG+ rather than standard per-level replayability is the way to go, you're free to suggest that. Side-note, Duessel is apparently so good he made the roster twice. 😛 ------------------------------- For my own wishes, I'd like it if Combat Arts are backported in, with healing magic folded into that. It's a good way to represent weapon durability as well as give a little more customization to the moves players can use. A limited form of reclassing, too: rather than a full class tree like Three Hopes uses, I'd just give each character a primary class they start out in, and a secondary class that can be unlocked. Characters all having personal skills that stick with them regardless of class would also be a good feature from Three Hopes, though I'd limit it to just two per person; an active skill that sometimes includes a unique attack like Mercedes', and a tactical skill that affects their performance when given orders. The standard, shareable skills from FEW1 would probably also return but might be distributed differently. Roster-wise I'd like it if they brought back the full roster and movesets from FEW1 and strictly added new characters and movesets to it. I'd like a handful of Three Houses folks but not the full roster to avoid bloating it or being redundant with Three Hopes. Some of them would use classes that already had movesets in FEW1, but some would bring Three Hopes movesets along with them, adapted for compatability: Byleth (unique Enlightened One moveset) Edelgard (Axe Armor Lord moveset based on the Three Hopes version) Hubert (Dark Mage moveset based on the Three Hopes version) Bernadetta (Archer moveset based on Takumi's) Ferdinand (Lance Cavalier moveset based on the Three Hopes version) Dimitri (Lance Lord moveset based on the Three Hopes version) Dedue (Axe Armor moveset based on the Three Hopes version) Annette (Mage moveset based on Robin's) Felix (Swordmaster moveset based on Lyn's or Samurai moveset based on Ryoma's, not sure which fits him better) Claude (Bow Wyvern moveset based on the Three Hopes version) Hilda (Axe Fighter moveset based on the Three Hopes version) Lysithea (Dark Mage moveset, same as Hubert. Ironic since she can't actually use that in Three Hopes, but I'm making an executive decision here. 😛 ) Raphael (Brawler moveset based on the Three Hopes version) Seteth (New Lance Wyvern moveset) Flayn (Priest moveset based on Linde's) Shez as a bonus character unlocked in History Mode (unique Fluegel moveset) That's 16 characters, more than even Fates' 12 with DLC, but I think it's fine; Three Houses is a big game with a big cast, and porting over Three Hopes assets would speed it up. They'd be based on the original Three Houses depictions and have their pre- and post-timeskip designs available by default, but with their Three Hopes costumes as unlockable rewards. Of course, Three Houses wouldn't be the only "new" game represented, but that's a topic for another time. I just wanted to integrate some Three Hopes characters and movesets back into "standard" Fire Emblem Warriors.

With Three Hopes upon us and proving to go in a radically different direction from the original Fire Emblem Warriors in many ways, does anybody here still want a proper, direct sequel to the original game? If so: Assuming the gameplay structure is primarily built upon FEW1, what mechanics/features from Three Hopes would you like to see backported in? How should this hypothetical sequel handle Three Houses and its cast now that they've got their own dedicated Warriors game? Should Three Houses be skipped for now in favor of other games? Included but with less emphasis than the others? Go all-in on them yet again?

Is there anywhere I may learn about some of these spoilery files? Not interested in story spoilers but I am curious about some character/class details.

I do, yes. My copy is pre-ordered and I'll pick it up next Friday, though I might not be able to play it (or document things) right away.

Well, I helped out with the previous Fire Emblem Warriors title, I wouldn't mind doing it again here. I should note that I haven't been involved with the datamine, though, so any contributions I make are liable to just be me jotting things down as I play through the game myself.

Three Houses' list of classes would be pretty comprehensive if it weren't for the gender-locking and the exclusion of 3/4ths of the DLC classes, but it would be nice to have a sword cavalry or flying class, an additional bow infantry class (Outlaw), and maybe something pretty unconventional like an armored tome class (Baron). Flying tome and additional gauntlet class would be covered by Dark Flier and War Monk/Cleric, but those are absent.

Yeah, wholly new movesets would be fair as paid DLC.

I'd be pretty mad if the paid DLC was just removing gender locks or adding promotions that should have been in from the start. That's shit that should be a free update at most.

I know somebody else who swears by Agitha as their main. But I've 100%'ed both the Wii U and Switch versions of Hyrule Warriors and sunk in more culmulative hours than I'd like to admit, and at the end of the day I still consider her one of the worst characters in the game. Even so, I wouldn't want the game to remove character-locked missions over it. FE Warriors, on the other hand, had no bad movesets, which was nice. The worst one in the game was Corrin's but even then it was still fun and easy to use, just not as good as the rest.

Yeah, I liked how Hyrule Warriors' Adventure Mode maps featured character-specific missions to make sure you give everybody some love. It'd be better if some of those characters didn't suck ass (Agitha...), but that's a consequence of moveset misbalancing, not the character restrictions themselves. With how Three Hopes is set up I wouldn't expect anything like that, but if we ever get a direct sequel to the original FEW I'd hope for a few missions with pre-determined character deployments.

Five, technically; solo Warrior Special, first and second halves of paired Warrior Specials, Awakening auto-finish, and Awakening manual finish Three Hopes only having one special for each character (in their preferred class) doesn't bother me as much as it should. Back in FEW you tended to only ever see the paired Warrior Specials and sometimes the Awakening auto-finish anyway, making the others feel like a waste.

We know that the promoted personal classes (Emperor, Great Lord, Barbarossa) are in the game at least, you can see their names referenced in the skill descriptions of their weaker forms. This suggests they'll just be stronger forms of the same movesets, however. They're probably Master Tier but somebody who studied the datamine more closely is free to correct me.

Yeah, even just from the classes available in the demo, I feel that emulating Three Houses' class tree so faithfully is a huge mistake. Gender-locking and Advanced Tier dead-ends are dumb, of course, but I also feel that the bow and gauntlet movesets should have had Beginner Tier equivalents instead of Fighter pulling triple-duty again (leading to odd things like the game saying you're an axe class when you're clearly using a bow), and the Soldier moveset disappearing after Beginner Tier is dumb even if you can use it by dismounting. Would have been nice if, in addition to removing gender-locking, they also added a couple wholly new classes to the game just to fill the tree out a little more. I don't mind some movesets only coming into play in Intermediate or Advanced Tier (Armor Knight, Thief, Wyvern Rider, for example) but at the very least I feel like every moveset should have a representative final class in Master Tier.

This is exactly my concern, along with gender-locked promotions. It wasn't a huge deal in an SRPG where all that matters is the numbers on your screen anyway, but in an action game like Warriors it's a shame if entire movesets and gameplay styles get left behind because they just don't have a higher-level equivalent, or because women are only allowed to use the weakest forms of the Brawler or Mercenary movesets. It's awkward enough with Soldier having no direct promotions, but at least mounted lance units can still dismount and use the Soldier moveset all the way into Master Tier (Dark Knight or Holy Knight). Some classes just don't have a logical Master Tier equivalent and so their moveset would get left behind in Advanced Tier, weaker than the others who graduated to Master Tier. If I really like how the Mercenary/Hero moveset plays I should be able to use it at peak potential, instead of feeling like I'm gimping my stats by not switching to Mortal Savant or Trickster.

Because at least going by the datamine, this game seems to be treating master classes as objective upgrades to advanced class, instead of weird sidegrades.

Constance being a Gremory instead of a Dark Flier is expected. Dark Flier would have been fun, but the real shame is not having War Monk. Because now that means once again girls can't use Gauntlets, except as the basic Fighter class. Even worse now since using off-class weapons isn't allowed anymore.

Right. I'm sure Wyvern Rider will be playable, but I don't wanna take any chances after last game's Armor Knights, haha.

As far as I know the datamine itself doesn't, but if you read the skill descriptions for some of the class skills they reference Swordmaster, Mortal Savant, Assassin, Trickster, Falcon Knight, Fortress Knight, Warrior, Grappler, War Master, Sniper, Bow Knight, Bishop, Warlock, and Gremory. Accounting for classes referenced in tweets (Paladin, Dark Knight, Holy Knight), that leaves Hero, Great Knight, Wyvern Rider/Lord, and the other three DLC classes unaccounted for I believe. Not sure about Dark Mage/Bishop. I forget if Hubert even got a tweet mentioning his preferred class, but his actions in the trailer are clearly not the basic Mage class so I have to assume Dark Mage is in, but I didn't see it referenced anywhere in the demo.

Obviously I'm eager to see supports involving characters who weren't playable in the original game, like Rodrigue. But talking purely about "missed opportunities" from the original game... Hapi + Lysithea = cursed dubstep experiments Ashe + Flayn = Precious cinnamon bun meets precious cinnamon bun Lorenz + Constance = insufferable gathering of insufferable nobles. Hubert + Dedue = overly dedicated vassals and how far they're willing to go for their lieges. Hanneman + Bernadetta = Crest of Indech buddies. Hilda + any character who is able to reverse uno card her and trick her into doing work for them instead of the other way around. I had hoped for something like that in the base game but the closest we got was Annette accidentally making more work for Hilda. I wanna see someone deliberately pull one over on her.

I think there's a time and place for that. Obviously not every game needs to be brutally hard, but it incentivizes building skill and makes you feel like you've really accomplished something when you finally win. I play a lot of The Binding of Isaac. Beating the hardest modes as the hardest character wouldn't be half as satisfying if I could have easily achieved the same thing by just turning a knob from hard to easy. It's a game that would not benefit from adding an easy mode because that would defeat the whole purpose of it. In the context of Warriors, I preferred the way Hyrule Warriors and FE Warriors handled it, where story mode has four difficulty settings but the side-modes are scaled on a mission-to-mission basis. I'm not super big on side missions also being subject to the all-encompassing difficulty system.