Why are the character endings generic when paired? (some spoilers)

[MaysMrDolpin]

I've noticed that the paired endings are pretty much copy paste to each other and sometimes doesn't make sense. For example, I paired up Camilla and Niles together and Camilla's ending is something like this His wife, Camilla, gave up her royal title and spent her days at home doting on her family, and I kind of looked at the wiki and her ending is the same when you pair Camilla with any other male candidates. Same with the paired males where the ending is something like this, X did something, (insert generic wife ending here). The worst type is the Avatar's ending in Awakening Many wrote of Avatar's legendary exploits, but accounts of their origins and character varied. Scholars, poets, and bards agreed on one thing alone—they loved his wife/her husband, (name), above all else. where the spouse's ending is literally replaced by the Avatar's generic paired ending.

I kind of missed the older FE paired endings where it was something unique like Heath x Isadora, or Kent's endings http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Kent . I wonder why they sticked with the generic endings in later installments than writing a unique ending for pairs

[Thane]

It's quantity over quality, as with many supports. There's a widespread belief that the quality of character interactions would increase dramatically if everyone had around three supports with each gender, or something along those lines.

I suppose they just thought it'd be too much to write for every single possible pairing, even though a few directly clash.

[MaysMrDolpin]

It's quantity over quality, as with many supports. There's a widespread belief that the quality of character interactions would increase dramatically if everyone had around three supports with each gender, or something along those lines.

I suppose they just thought it'd be too much to write for every single possible pairing, even though a few directly clash.

I'm a bit curious on which endings clash. care to share some examples?

Also, I take you didn't like the whole Fates story or just some paths?

[Time the Crestfallen]

Because they were lazy basically. You get some real doozies like when the Avatar is said to have worked alongside their spouse to spread peace even if you married Azura on Nohr or Hoshido.

[MaysMrDolpin]

Because they were lazy basically. You get some real doozies like when the Avatar is said to have worked alongside their spouse to spread peace even if you married Azura on Nohr or Hoshido.

Oh yeah, I married her to Xander in Conquest and she ruled together according to the ending.

[Time the Crestfallen]

Oh yeah, I married her to Xander in Conquest and she ruled together according to the ending.

The power of not giving a shit.

[Sarahtoga104]

I'm a bit curious on which endings clash. care to share some examples?

Also, I take you didn't like the whole Fates story or just some paths?

I know mine in Conquest did I married Laslow and it said he disappeared after the war but I worked with my spouse to rebuild. I worked with my spouse who was gone after the war.....?

[NeonZ]

Even with all the ending combinations, I don't see how it'd take more than one afternoon to write specific text blurbs for all pairings. IS' treating text like it were some expensive resource will always be weird to me.

I think the Azura situation was left deliberately confusing and contradictory though - just read her single ending. Even her last scene in Nohr is very ambiguous, and Hoshido, although making what happens to her much more clear, still throws in an odd scene right before the final CG.

Edited March 5, 2016 by NeonZ

[Karis]

It would be a lot easier to code into the game as well if everyone had a static response. Though it makes it pathetic overall that older FE games could do this and not the brand new state-of-the-art ones.

[NeonZ]

I know mine in Conquest did I married Laslow and it said he disappeared after the war but I worked with my spouse to rebuild. I worked with my spouse who was gone after the war.....?

The localized female Corrin ending mentions helping rebuild the country alongside her husband? IIRC, in the Japanese version, it just mentions that Corrin becomes her husband's advisor/counsellor and that they stayed always together from then on. The bit about rebuilding the country was only mentioned in the male ending. If they added that to the female ending too, yes, it can cause issues.

[Kurrin]

They did the same thing with Awakening's paired endings. The formula goes:

Person with child tied to them ending + slight blurb of text added to include something vaguely related to spouse's personality (in this case, Camilla's doting) = paired ending.

Same with the Avatar: Generic ending mentioning that the Avatar is mysterious with the spouse only getting their name mentioned and nothing more.

[Sentinel07]

Yeah, there's lots of stupid contradictions.

On my first Revelation run, I married Xander and Hinoka together, yet the ending still states Hinoka became a Hoshidan general which would make no flipping sense in that scenario.

Seriously, these endings are a small paragraph long. Is it really that hard to come up with something at least semi-unique for each one? These characters all have unique personalities. Use them.

[Berret]

Blame the "Anyone can S support with anyone!" It's a quantity over quality type thing.

[Abvora]

Even with all the ending combinations, I don't see how it'd take more than one afternoon to write specific text blurbs for all pairings. IS' treating text like it were some expensive resource will always be weird to me.

I think the Azura situation was left deliberately confusing and contradictory though - just read her single ending. Even her last scene in Nohr is very ambiguous, and Hoshido, although making what happens to her much more clear, still throws in an odd scene right before the final CG.

I suppose you could interpret the ending as

her spirit constantly visiting her husband and working with him from the grave

but really, my immediate thought wasn't that, it was "what the hell"? If that was their intention, they needed to make it a lot more clear.

They needed to write the epilogues better in general. As is they just wrote half an ending for each gender and slapped them together without seeing if they clash. I was so disappointed by that, I really wanted to see something special for inter-royal marriages in Revelation and whatnot.

[MaysMrDolpin]

I really don't think it's hard to code the specific endings for each character given we're currently taking up programming.Heck the paired ending is pretty basic to do, just time consuming. Text blurbs are only a few bytes large.

IS just got really lazy

[Book Bro]

That is pretty disappointing. Paired endings were something I really enjoyed previously. I guess there's too many possible combinations thanks to S ranks, but it would have been nice if at least some pairs got completely unique endings.

[NeonZ]

They did the same thing with Awakening's paired endings. The formula goes:

Person with child tied to them ending + slight blurb of text added to include something vaguely related to spouse's personality (in this case, Camilla's doting) = paired ending.

Same with the Avatar: Generic ending mentioning that the Avatar is mysterious with the spouse only getting their name mentioned and nothing more.

They didn't, actually. In Awakening's endings, the 1st half, focused on the male, was generic, like in Fates, but the 2nd half, focused on the spouse, was unique for each pairing. In Fates, both halves are generic. And there's the Avatar ending that you mention there - In Fates, the avatar's ending works just like anyone else's, differently from Awakening where it replaced the spouse's ending and reduced them to a namedrop.

Edited March 5, 2016 by NeonZ

[Tolvir]

It would be a lot easier to code into the game as well if everyone had a static response. Though it makes it pathetic overall that older FE games could do this and not the brand new state-of-the-art ones.

Well Awakening's paired endings were fine. Some of them made no sense character wise because a few might now of been in character, but overall they made sense, and didn't contradict themselves with things that made no sense because said character didn't live or was somewhere else.

The only one I didn't like was Robin's ending because it was such a cop out. What you couldn't tell me that my character settled down somewhere, continued adventuring, or something other than "he loved his wife". Well no shit, I know that. I wish the ending was that he became adviser to Chrom if he survived, and became Ylisse's main tactician, then adding in whatever the spouse does off to the side.

For some reason they went with a more general character ending, and I think that was because of the sheer amount of characters in Fates. As said before, they went with quantity over quality. I think you may see a change with that in 15 as I imagine its annoying to have to right 20+ supports for each character.

IS has shown that they are listening to the players and their feedback, so I think Fire Emblem 15 will have a lot of changes. I can see the 2nd gen being gone from the game, supports being more limited, I do think marriage will stay, which I am fine with, but once again more limited. I think the Avatar as the main lord is not going to happen, as it just didn't work this time, and I can see a change in writers as the general consensus on Fates story is that it wasn't that great, and Awakening had the same feedback before that. While I think avatar won't be gone, they will definitely take more of a backseat role.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Tolvir

[Karis]

Well Awakening's paired endings were fine. Some of them made no sense character wise because a few might now of been in character, but overall they made sense, and didn't contradict themselves with things that made no sense because said character didn't live or was somewhere else.

The only one I didn't like was Robin's ending because it was such a cop out. What you couldn't tell me that my character settled down somewhere, continued adventuring, or something other than "he loved his wife". Well no shit, I know that. I wish the ending was that he became adviser to Chrom if he survived, and became Ylisse's main tactician, then adding in whatever the spouse does off to the side.

For some reason they went with a more general character ending, and I think that was because of the sheer amount of characters in Fates. As said before, they went with quantity over quality. I think you may see a change with that in 15 as I imagine its annoying to have to right 20+ supports for each character.

IS has shown that they are listening to the players and their feedback, so I think Fire Emblem 15 will have a lot of changes. I can see the 2nd gen being gone from the game, supports being more limited, I do think marriage will stay, which I am fine with, but once again more limited. I think the Avatar as the main lord is not going to happen, as it just didn't work this time, and I can see a change in writers as the general consensus on Fates story is that it wasn't that great, and Awakening had the same feedback before that. While I think avatar won't be gone, they will definitely take more of a backseat role.

The thing is though that Awakening and Fates are both heavily Support-oriented. Awakening gave ridiculous buffs to be paired and Fates continued that to a lesser extreme, but made it a lot easier to get those Supports. You'd think for something they started to make a bigger mechanic they'd put more effort into it. Unlike games like Rekka no Ken and Sacred Stones that, while having limited Supports, had far better epilogues than Awakening/Fates. The quantity over quality is unneeded. I'd rather have a meaningful dialogue than an entire army with A/A+/S supports just to get buffed.