The next FE?

[Zerosabers]

Pants on the female units.

[Jedi]

I'll just happy if FE15 continues making the gameplay awesome, as much as I'd like some things from Mystery of the Emblem, Thracia and Radiant Dawn to return, I think they have hit a good mark in terms of how FE feels now.

Long as the gameplay is good, I don't mind if the stories & characters are nonsensical, although having both good would definitely be nice, and has been done a number of times in the series already, its not a deal breaker if it doesn't happen though, but then again thats just my odd opinion

[Rapier]

It's entirely doable, but unless you do what Fates did, like someone mentioned above, and have mostly exclusive casts, it won't work very well. Of the neutral cast in Fates you had:

Azura: Loyal to her own agenda

Felicia: Loyal only to you

Jacob: Loyal only to you

Kaze: Loyal only to you (but should be loyal to Hoshido)

Silas: Loyal only to you (for some reason)

Mozu: No stakes in the war

Izana: No stakes in the war

Shura: No stakes in the war

These excuses (while mostly valid) can only be so many times before it gets stale. Some games like Tactics Ogre can get away with this because most of your units don't have personalities and it's just a core cast that you follow. Fire Emblem casts might not be as flexible in their loyalties/principles.

I think I didn't convey my idea very well. Let's take that list as an example: In an hypothetic case, the characters who are "loyal only to you" would stay by your side, while the other with "no stakes in the war" would either desert (either join the opposite army or become NPCs) or continue if their Support levels is high enough. The ones who are more loyal to the other side / not very loyal toward you would desert and be re-recruitable later through specific methods.

To fill the empty spots on the team, similar characters could be placed on their stead, and then the player decides between continuing with the re-recruited characters (if they do re-recruit them) or keeping the new characters... or even using both, if there is enough space left. Imagine Nephenee joins after Mozu leaves, Tormod joins after Izana leaves and Shinon joins after Shura leaves. Or we could have brand new recruits.

[Weeping Dalek (MK)]

​I would like to see a hybrid gameplay between the GBA FEs (think FE7 if FE7 had the Pair Up mechanics of Fates)

Pants on the female units.

Lol, that's funny

[Moblin Major General]

Pants on the female units.

One would hope, unfortunately...

[secondworld]

You know what? Fates had basically none of any of the game play stuff that I wished for before its release and Conquest has the best game play in the series. So while I may have certain preferences for a couple things, I'm confident the next game will be good regardless.

So that just leaves changing the art direction to something more similar to previous games(as far as the western-esque designs go anyway) and actually caring about writing a good story.

[valieruswanderer]

I think I didn't convey my idea very well. Let's take that list as an example: In an hypothetic case, the characters who are "loyal only to you" would stay by your side, while the other with "no stakes in the war" would either desert (either join the opposite army or become NPCs) or continue if their Support levels is high enough. The ones who are more loyal to the other side / not very loyal toward you would desert and be re-recruitable later through specific methods.

To fill the empty spots on the team, similar characters could be placed on their stead, and then the player decides between continuing with the re-recruited characters (if they do re-recruit them) or keeping the new characters... or even using both, if there is enough space left. Imagine Nephenee joins after Mozu leaves, Tormod joins after Izana leaves and Shinon joins after Shura leaves. Or we could have brand new recruits.

The problem you could run into there is that you'd could end up with too many characters. Plus if they keep supports with everyone you'll have filler supports or supports that you don't have enough time to build. I do like the overall idea of the civil war though as long as leaders from other nations don't get involved, so no izana showing up halfway through the story for no apparent reason.

One would hope, unfortunately...

The recent games tend to err towards pantsless even some males had none cough*Han*cough.

*edit: replaced it with none.

Edited October 5, 2016 by valieruswanderer

[Radiant head]

seems like with fe14 they've come really close to nailing it gameplay-wise. i think having interesting maps like in conquest or my favorite game, radiant dawn, is a must for the next fe. i welcome the ditching of weapon durability, and the cutting on grinding from awakening.

story and characters are where so much more improvement can be made. supports and base convos along the lines of path of radiance would be great. make them less phoned in and less inherently geared towards shipping/matchmaking. children were fine in awakening because of the terminator-style plotline, but they really should not be carrying that mechanic over just for the sake of carrying it over.

[saisymbolic]

I don't know if I put this on here, but I would personally like a smaller playable cast. In my mind, I like to think that a smaller cast would enable a bit more attention to be paid towards properly fleshing out the background, personalities and motives of each playable unit, but that probably won't be the case.

Also, I've recently begun to express that the main characters in Fates don't really like all that important to the main story line. It's as if you could take all the royals out, replace them with nameless Lancers and still reach the same conclusion of the story (I might be exaggerating with that). I also noted that there seems to be a disconnect between the characters we have during the main narrative and the characters we see in the support conversations. Xander and Hinoka were the prime examples—Xander is essentially a different person in his supports; while Hinoka, who one can obviously tell was an afterthought in the development process, can actually be quite charming in her supports. It also doesn't help that the support system as a whole is terrible for character development, because said development is lost as soon as another support with a different character is initiated.

That said, I would like for there to be a way for supports to be tied in with the pacing and progress of the main story line.

Like, for (another) example, in Persona 4, there is a character who has a Social Link (essentially a support conversation) that advances at specific times during the main story and, because of how their support works, I honestly think they are the most developed and endearing character of the playable cast.

I acknowledge that this will definitely cause problems and it might be impossible to implement, but it would be nice if it were to be pulled off.

Edited October 15, 2016 by saisymbolic

[Formernintendofan]

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-don-t-censor-fire-emblem-if-fates

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-america-down-with-fire-emblem-fates-localization

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-square-enix-idea-factory-international-nc-soft-atlus-nippon-ichi-software-america-capcom-koei-tecmo-sega-ghostlight-sony-namco-bandai-valve-make-dlc-available-to-restore-content-cut-censored-inwestern-releases-of-games

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-stop-the-unwarranted-censorship-of-fire-emblem-fates

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-treehouse-bill-trinen-reggie-fils-aime-bring-back-skinship-in-fire-emblem-fates

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-get-nintendo-of-america-to-stop-censoring-fire-emblem-fates

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-nintendo-bring-back-the-amie-system-in-fire-emblem-fates-usa-version

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-intelligent-systems-do-not-censor-the-skin-ship-petting-mini-game-in-fire-emblem-fates

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-keep-fire-emblem-fates-the-way-it-was-meant-to-be-demand-for-japanese-patch

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-do-not-censor-fire-emblem-fates-for-it-s-worldwide-release

[Jotari]

I don't know if I put this on here, but I would personally like a smaller playable cast. In my mind, I like to think that a smaller cast would enable a bit more attention to be paid towards properly fleshing out the background, personalities and motives of each playable unit, but that probably won't be the case.

Also, I've recently begun to express that the main characters in Fates don't really like all that important to the main story line. It's as if you could take all the royals out, replace them with nameless Lancers and still reach the same conclusion of the story (I might be exaggerating with that). I also noted that there seems to be a disconnect between the characters we have during the main narrative and the characters we see in the support conversations. Xander and Hinoka were the prime examples—Xander is essentially a different person in his supports; while Hinoka, who one can obviously tell was an afterthought in the development process, can actually be quite charming in her supports. It also doesn't help that the support system as a whole is terrible for character development, because said development is lost as soon as another support with a different character is initiated.

That said, I would like for there to be a way for supports to be tied in with the pacing and progress of the main story line.

Like, for (another) example, in Persona 4, there is a character who has a Social Link (essentially a support conversation) that advances at specific times during the main story and, because of how their support works, I honestly think they are the most developed and endearing character of the playable cast.

I acknowledge that this will definitely cause problems and it might be impossible to implement, but it would be nice if it were to be pulled off.

Path of Radiance did exactly that. Support conversations were open based on the number of maps two characters were deployed together on so you were likely going to get conversations at very specific points in the story. Soren and Jill are two characters that come to mind where this worked exceptionally well.

[NekoKnight]

Path of Radiance did exactly that. Support conversations were open based on the number of maps two characters were deployed together on so you were likely going to get conversations at very specific points in the story. Soren and Jill are two characters that come to mind where this worked exceptionally well.

It's a good system for supports correlating with story progression but I disliked the fact you could be locked out of completing a support if you didn't field them enough chapters.

[Harvey]

Yeah...having less of a cast can help make the characters more involved in the story side of things. That might work out well.

[Limstella]

I'd like to have FE be less about skill grinding/skill collecting.

And make a get rid of pair up option :P

[Brand_Of_The_Exalt]

I'd like to have FE be less about skill grinding/skill collecting.

And make a get rid of pair up option :P

Or you can just play without :P

[Troykv]

Or you can just play without :P

I don't know if that is actually possible outside of Normal Mode.

[ChibiToastExplosion]

I'd like to have FE be less about skill grinding/skill collecting.

Yes - because even if you don't want to use skills, the enemies and game would still be "balanced" around them.

I like all of the FE's without any skills the most, I feel.

I also think it would be very interesting to have an FE with a set cast - as in, you get 10-12 units. The whole game. One flyer, one theif, knight, mercenary, cavalier, etc. Think of how good the chapter design could be through a 25+ chapter campaign where the developers can know exactly who is being fielded, and can make the maps accordingly.

Think how good early FE chapters are compared to later ones, and then imagine and entire game of this is what you got, make the best of it.

[Brand_Of_The_Exalt]

I don't know if that is actually possible outside of Normal Mode.

Actually, I think it is. At least in every path outside maybe Lunatic Conquest. Nothing really forces you to pair your units, it's your choice. Pair Up was totally broken in Awakening, but I think the way this feature is implemented in Fates make it more balanced and much more interesting strategy-wise. It's technically still possible to abuse of Pair-Up bots (just look some "Fire Emblem players" on Youtube), but there are now drawbacks to pair your units. You get less actions per turn, by doing so you chain two units so one of them will not be available before two turns pass, you don't get Dual Strikes anymore, etc. If you play correctly (from my point of view, which is Pairings are OK while it's not everybody paired-up or Pair-Up bots), it's now more tricky to use, especially in situations where you are surrendered for several turns and would gladly welcome another action. That doesn't often happen for me, but everyone doesn't play the same way as mine (I'm very aggressive), but pairing can be really useful in certain situations, because this feature is very situational. Sometimes, the Shield Gauge can save you, or pairing can prevent a frail unit to ORKO several wounded enemies because of the Dual Strikes (and allowing each enemy to attack and die, so another can perform an attack and etc., you know what I mean), go further, or get a little boost to take down a dangerous foe for X or Y reason (like utility weapons, annoying skill, etc.). It makes the gameplay more complex, especially early-game (see ChibiToastExplosion's post) and it's a strategy game, so it's really interesting (unlike FFTA). I finished CQ Hard with no real difficulty like that. The game was still punishing and challenging though. If you support Micaiah, I'm sure you played RD, so you probably remember the Earth-Earth support. Do you remember how +45 Avoid was broken (and RD already gave you tons of Avoid, I remember my Marcia having +100 Avoid) ? I recognize that one could totally miss it, but there wasn't any drawback at all. You just had to put your units in a 3-tiles radius (and that's huge in small areas) to get it! No actions lost, or any drawback.

Finally the skills. Same, you can just remove them once you get them (unlike RD, and broken combos or skills existed in it too). But I think it's a bit stupid IMHO. Why? Because units in Fates are much more complex that they used to be in classical FEs, or more gimmicky if you prefer, and skills contribute to make them more unique, and IS knew it, because they chosed appropriate class-sets. If you don't buy skills or use only accessible skills (so the shipping planning is even more complex!), you can make use of your unit's niches better. And that contributes to create a real and deeper FE experience. I always used my units' strength, and Fates goes further on the 1 character 1 role concept IMHO.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Brand_Of_The_Exalt

[Jedi]

In a new FE, i'd kind of like to see them stray from the pair up, S rank, kids deal, but I doubt they will considering how big of a deal they are now.

Fates did enough new things that makes me not worried about them trying new things in the future, so even if the things I mentioned remained, I'm sure they'll fine tune them even more nicely than Fates did.

[KoimanZX]

Yes - because even if you don't want to use skills, the enemies and game would still be "balanced" around them.

I like all of the FE's without any skills the most, I feel.

I also think it would be very interesting to have an FE with a set cast - as in, you get 10-12 units. The whole game. One flyer, one theif, knight, mercenary, cavalier, etc. Think of how good the chapter design could be through a 25+ chapter campaign where the developers can know exactly who is being fielded, and can make the maps accordingly.

Think how good early FE chapters are compared to later ones, and then imagine and entire game of this is what you got, make the best of it.

For a decent amount of time, I have thought that many of the Fire Emblem games had too many characters. I would like to see what they could do with 25 or less characters. I also would like fewer skills per character just so the characters are not quite so reliant on them. Doing these things would give the game more balance as there would be fewer variables for which IS would need to account.

[NekoKnight]

I also think it would be very interesting to have an FE with a set cast - as in, you get 10-12 units. The whole game. One flyer, one theif, knight, mercenary, cavalier, etc. Think of how good the chapter design could be through a 25+ chapter campaign where the developers can know exactly who is being fielded, and can make the maps accordingly.

Think how good early FE chapters are compared to later ones, and then imagine and entire game of this is what you got, make the best of it.

Doesn't a bigger roster make for better replayability? A small roster might make for more focused map design but at the same time, it could make every map feel the same each time you play it.

[Jedi]

Doesn't a bigger roster make for better replayability? A small roster might make for more focused map design but at the same time, it could make every map feel the same each time you play it.

It might be interesting to try once, I doubt it'll ever happen (funny thing is the low character count was kind of a hack idea I had some time ago).

But yeah the replayabillity and a cast of characters are pretty much staples of FE long at this point, then again you also have people who've always said FE isn't balanced why have so many characters etc etc.

Might be a concept for like a side game or something could try.

[Jotari]

For the record Genealogy of Holy War allows you to field every unit you have. And still manages to have replayability thanks to eugenics. Though I wouldn't really say it has very focused map design giving the unrelenting bias towards mounts.

[KoimanZX]

Doesn't a bigger roster make for better replayability? A small roster might make for more focused map design but at the same time, it could make every map feel the same each time you play it.

The problem with the bigger rosters is that many of the characters end up being poor quality and not being used by most players anyway. This is due to the need to make the characters different, which can lead to some characters having some odd stat spreads (I am looking at you, Leonardo). Replayability can just as well come from branching promotions and/or reclassing that makes sense for each character (Kagerou having diviner as an alternate class route with her 0% magic growth is--strange--to say the least).

Edited October 17, 2016 by KoimanZX

[NekoKnight]

The problem with the bigger rosters is that many of the characters end up being poor quality and not being used by most players anyway. This is due to the need to make the characters different, which can lead to some characters having some odd stat spreads (I am looking at you, Leonardo). Replayability can just as well come from branching promotions and/or reclassing that makes sense for each character (Kagerou having diviner as an alternate class route with her 0% magic growth is--strange--to say the least).

It's kind of an hard argument to make. Most games do tend to have imbalances, with some units just being plain bad, but I don't think that's an intrinsic aspect to having a lot of characters. Ideally they'd made units varied and viable. Think about how Kaze, Saizo and Kagero are all the same class but are unique in their function. If the devs put the time and effort, they could do that with every character. There is really no excuse for giving characters class sets that don't match their growths, or growths that don't let them perform well in their default class (ex Tsubaki).