Stones

Actually it was first introduced in Gaiden, but there were only 2 commands you could give. I disagree that there you will direct most of your units in the same direction, you may want to split the footlocked ones to send them further ahead in maps like Chapter 2 and Chapter 7. I actually think this is a good idea. Also move growth, also infantry exclusive. I guess it would kind of suck on enemies though.

I always liked the 5th one, I think it was because it was pretty dark and edgy and I liked the whole thing with Umbridge progressively gaining authority. Very YA now that I think about it, but I guess the reason I like this rather than most YA books is there was much less romance than they usually have. Nothing really wrong with that by itself but its not really my cup of tea, and they also tend to be really predictable, which is obviously boring. I also like how Prisoner of Azkaban did time travel, because it followed the Fixed-Timeline Theory, which is that the timeline is fixed and if you go back in time an "change" it, all you do is making it end up like how it is when you came from, if that makes sense. Like Sirius and the hippogriff never died, because Harry and Hermione went back in time to save them, or if you go back in time to when there were dinosaurs, but something goes wrong with your time machine and causes a big explosion which kills them all (so you are the "asteroid"). Or, you kill Hitler as a new-born, and replace him with another baby so his parents don't notice, but then Fake Hitler grows up an becomes Real Hitler. Harry and Hermione didn't change, they just made everything happen. It still has paradoxes though because they interact with each other in the past, which I'm not a fan of because they're a bit of a lazy way to not have to think about the order of events to have everything make sense. If Harry is surrounded by dementors, how the fuck does he survive to go back in time and save himself? He should have already died or become a soulless husk or whatever. Very lazy, but not as lazy as the Multiverse theory: yeah just go back in time and dick around, who cares because it just creates a new reality. Dynamic timelines are similar but there are actual stakes like in Back to the Future, where Marty has to make himself exist or prevent the Rich Biff timeline. However it just makes stupid rules, like where he turns invisible, like is there are timer or something going on? Why did he randomly turn invisible then? Why did his siblings disappear from the photo in age order? If the oldest doesn't exist, none of them will, they should all disappear at the same time, as soon as he screws up. Still good movies, but it annoys me. /rant

I completely disagree with all of this. To be honest I'm not quite sure what your issue even is with them. It isn't a terrible thing for enemies to require the player to actually think, whether that is because you have to manage when and where your units attack or that the enemy won't die to a single low-percent crit. Demonic beasts are strong, but they have weaknesses and so there are clear counterplays against them. People often complain about the series using stat inflation to increase difficulty (which I don't even have much of a problem with) but when we have a new and interesting way to make enemies require more tactical thinking from the player, it's described as unfair and lazy because it needs you to use your brain.

The argument is that Echoes was in the same situation with Gaiden's characters, but rather than adding a new character and doing very little with the old characters like New Mystery did, it developed it's existing characters instead.

I think it's a good thing. Let's assume that there's a group of people who are going to do different things. Each "thing" is good or bad, but no one KNOWS for sure whether they are doing something that is right or wrong, they can only decide based on their own opinions and morals and everything. There are 3 possible situations here. Number 1 is that everyone does things they believe is wrong, Number 2 is that some people do things they think is right and some people do things they think is wrong, and Number 3 is that everyone does things they believe is right. Obviously, 3 is the best situation we have. This is really just a convoluted way to say, they best thing we can hope for people is to do what they think is right. Even if what they do is actually wrong, surely that is better than them doing things they think is not right? If "everyone doing what they think is right" is a bad thing, then what is a good thing? The way the OP was phrased does make it seem like an excuse for a bad thing, but I don't think that was what was intended when it was written.

This is true but the ranking system is kinda garbo in FE7 because the game rewards you for doing stuff like hoarding stat boosters and punishes you for promoting Dart. It's not really good strategy and more following some abstract and arbitrary rules set by the game that don't reward the right sort of playing, in my opinion. At least they tried though, which is more than the majority of games have done.

That doesn't have very much to do with the actual avatars, it's more that they are important characters so cutscenes often feature them. Like Ike and Micaiah get cutscenes, but the only difference between theirs and Corrin/Byleth is that the second pair are avatars, there's no real difference between the actual animated cutscenes. Regarding the quality, that's really just a matter of opinion and again is not really related to the avatars, they just have them in it, if that makes sense. I very much disagree. Two of the examples I gave were of Ch 1 and Ch 7, both of which are pretty small battles, and very easy. Even Ch 10 isn't that important. You could argue that the praise is appropriate if you go quick and have Florina break the snag and everything, A) but you can go fast in Awakening and 3H, and B) you get the "you're so smart mark" regardless of whether you go fast or take the full 15 turns you need to get the gaiden. In late Lyn Mode the game also incentivises going slowly so you can level Nils up and get 19xx later on as well, and this is only on playthroughs where you're doing Hector Mode, AKA playthroughs in which you know how to play and probably want to finish LM in 1 or 2 sittings. I would rank avatars by how much they add to the game. Mark adds nothing so I don't like him very much. Even Kris, my next least favourite, adds new chapters, supports, and funny hats. I might elaborate on this tomorrow. (Now that I think about it Mark and Kris would be much better in the opposite games. It would be very novel to be able to have a unit whose class you can choose in FE7, but I guess in practice there would only be 2 or 3 practical options.)

What I meant was that I personally wouldn't consider them avatars, and therefore I personally don't consider Byleth an avatar. I can see that I was unclear though, sorry for that.

But he gets those scenes anyway. After Chapter 1: Lyn: “That’s the last of them! Fantastic work, Mark!” After Chapter 7 if you say no to going to 7x: Lyn: “I understand. That is the logical decision. If it had been up to me, I’d have ridden off and put us all in great danger. I’m glad you’re here to calm me down. Thank you. Let’s get moving! To Caelin!” After Chapter 10: Lyn: “Mark… you’re leaving, aren’t you? No, I’m not asking you to stay. It’s just… I’ll miss you. When I found you unconscious on the plains… I had no idea we would be together for so long. You’ve helped us so much, and I’m sure you’ve learned all you can from us. You’ll do just fine on your own. I have the utmost faith that you’ll be a master tactician, Mark. That’s from someone who’s seen you at work!” When you say victories, do you mean like beating Lyn Mode? Because Lyn Mode isn't very strategically complex. Even the main game isn't all that mentally strenuous, certainly not on Eliwood Normal Mode like you have to do on your first playthrough. Yeah, that's what I mean. I wouldn't call any of those characters avatars, and I wouldn't call Byleth one either. To me they are player characters.

I honestly think Mark is the worst because he adds NOTHING to the game, he only makes it worse. At least the others have something interesting about them in the gameplay, and they sometimes do cool things in the story other than saying “aren’t I just the cleverest” from time to time. There’s no point to him. My next least favourite is Kris, again because there’s no real reason they should exist, but they do add some things, like supports or the assassin subplot (neither of which I think are any good, but still). Generally they are just there to be annoying. I can see why people prefer that to ones like Robin or Corrin but if an avatar is going to exist, it should be important, rather than being bad just for the sake of it. Also Byleth isn’t really an avatar, unless you think someone like Link, or a Pokemon protagonist is an avatar. All of those are just player characters (this is partially why I dislike Byleth the least, although I’ve not played Awakening).

The 15 weight isn't that important because most units with the magic to use it effectively won't be doubling nor will they get doubled because they shouldn't be getting hit any amount of times. The magic hit formula is actually a good thing because most units don't have a huge difference in Dex and Luck so the magic hit won't be much better or worse than physical hit, but enemies will have lower magic avoid than physical avoid because they have less luck than speed (although since magic avo uses Speed and not AS like phys avo, the difference may be less than it looks), but it also doesn't care about terrain. You can also attack at 2 or 3 range without an accuracy penalty unlike bows. Even is you are still having hit issues, hit is known to be easy to boost by using Linked Attacks, getting Hit +20, Prowess Skills (Axe Lv 4 gives +16 and Lv 5 gives +20) and using Combat Arts. With Axe Prowess Lv 5 and Hit +20, that's an extra +40 hit added onto the base hit of the Bolt Axe, and there's Lancebreaker as well for Paladins and Fortress Knights.

In my Birthright playthrough I only got the A support in the previous chapter, and I knew I needed it in advance. On Hard Kaze can definitely do a lot of work by himself if you staple Rinkah onto him. When I reclassed Corrin into Ninja, he stopped being able to 1RKO due to the Strength and Might loss, so Kaze was one of the few, if not only, units I had that could 1-round on EP for a while.

There is a big difference between 2-3 range bows and 2-3 range archers. I think giving archers and snipers extra range, but mounted archers like bow knights or nomads should have 2 range. I also think the Mini Bow is fine because you can’t double at 1 range and it’s not effective against fliers. Close Counter is fine too but it should be gotten at A bows or something, C is a bit early.

I think class certification should be slightly changed so it isn’t so easy to get into busted classes, most of them involving flight. It’s really dumb how easy it is to get into Wyvern Rider compared to something like Great Knight. Maybe if you absolutely needed the required weapon ranks to certify, although some of them would needed to be lowered a little to compensate. Removing gender locks would also be lovely.

I would say it's less about Combat Arts specifically and more about the options you have on PP that aren't available on EP. Combat Arts count, but so do PP skills (like Death Blow, but even something like FE4 Wrath), staves, Rescue, gambits and ranged chip, all of which can't be done on EP. I think some games can be both. For example, Thracia has extremely potent staves so making the most out of them on Player Phase is important, but most enemies are mowed down on Enemy Phase because they are so weak, Radiant Dawn has the PP Dawn Brigade bits, which are designed differently to the EP Greil Mercenary bits, and 3 Houses is definitely PP based but you can make use of certain skill combinations to focus on EP (I imagine Conquest is like that too).