[FE Switch Discussion] The Avatar

[Anomalocaris]

Here's my stance on the ideal Avatar for this game:

Aesthetic Options:

Since female avatars got hair decs in Fates but males got not equivalent options, I'd give the latter some facial hair options. Facial hair is awesome. Also, skintone options would be a good asset to add, assuming there's no in-universe reason for the avatar to be Japanese-ish like in Fates (which, as I describe later, there shouldn't be). Eye color would be another good option to implement. Different colors for their basic outfit would be nice, to help match the chosen hair color, but would probably be a bit complex.

Builds should be like Awakening; a young, childlike build, a young adult build, and a more mature build.

For the default design, maybe black hair instead of white hair to better differentiate them from Robin and Corrin, but since it's just a default it doesn't really matter.

Mechanical Options:

I think Fates got this pretty right; boon, bane, and secondary class option seem good enough to me, and if it ain't broke don't fix it. To ensure that all the secondary class options are viable, I wouldn't give this avatar any sort of exclusive weapon like the Yato blade; that made it detrimental to pick non-Sword classes since the Yato was so good you'd be foolish not to use it.

Exclusive Class:

I'm having trouble with this one. To facilitate both physical and magic builds, the avatar's personal class should be something that can use both a physical weapon and magic right out the gate, but I wouldn't want them to just be a rehash of Robin's swords'n'tomes. Lances might be a good substitute alongside tomes since Axes are a bit unwieldy for earlygame and Bows and Shuriken are a bit gimmicky, but I feel like that just isn't different enough from Swords to feel unique.

For promotion options, I'd do like Revelations did and give them two options, one of which adds Staves for a more supportive role and one of which adds another weapon type, perhaps Bows or Axes, for a more offensive role.

Oh, and I'd allow whomever the avatar marries to reclass into the avatar's class instead of their secondary class. That way we don't have a situation like Fates where anybody can be almost any class if they marry Corrin.

Character Writing:

Since the avatar represents a wide spectrum of players, their personality should be somewhat muted. Robin was pretty fine with that, though Corrin's catastrophic stupidity and naivety was rather awful.

The avatar doesn't really need any described talents other than tactics, but I'd also avoid giving them too many flaws; for example, I'm pretty good in the kitchen, so Robin and Corrin both being terrible cooks is a bit of an immersion-breaker for me personally, and I'm sure other people took issue with other skills or lack thereof. This one is pretty minor, though.

Less character shilling would be nice, too; we don't need to be constantly told how great we are because we already know it. It's already a bit of a stretch that we can potentially woo whomever we please, we don't need even more praise heaped upon us.

More decisions that affect the plot would be fine; Awakening's choices never amounted to anything. I wouldn't do another game-dividing choice like Fates, though, just some minor things like affecting when and where a character joins you, what enemies you face, ect.

Story Integration:

Here's the big one, and my biggest issue with Corrin. I've written entire diatribes on why I think Corrin sucks as both a protagonist and avatar, so I won't retread all that again, but suffice to say I think in order to serve as an adequate viewpoint character it should be more like Awakening; where the avatar represents the player but is not the main character; the Ishmael to Chrom's Ahab.

Here's my idea for the avatar's role in the story. The game opens up with the avatar (with no amnesia, or anything silly like that) going to the capitol. They don't have any particularly special backstory like being the avatar of a demon dragon god or the dragon-child of two royal families, they're just an everybody with a knack for tactics and no particularly notable backstory. They have been training under the army's aging royal tactician to eventually take his place when he retires. The prologue is a mock battle arranged by the tactician as a final exam of sorts, which also serves to introduce you to the game's main protagonist and other major characters. For the first few chapters you travel with the army as the tactician's assistant, but around Chapter 5 or so he gets assassinated by the enemy, and with a war going on your avatar has the position of Royal Tactician thrust upon them whether they like it or not. Part of their personal arc, alongside the game's main plot, is them coming into this role, and perhaps their personal vendetta against the aforementioned assassin. By the endgame, the avatar's personal arc is complete, so the finale doesn't really revolve around them like it did in Awakening or Fates, but they still serve an important role (I do like the whole "avatar comes close to death but is snapped out of it by all their allies' rallying calls" bit, so let's keep that) as the main character's closest support.

Edited January 20, 2017 by Anomalocaris

[Sunwoo]

I'd personally want the next FE game to not have an avatar. That doesn't necessarily mean that I want avatars gone out of FE forever (although I wouldn't complain), but it'd be nice to see a couple of games that didn't have one just to mix things up a bit? Adding an avatar to Switch FE would mean an avatar four like three new games straight (not counting remakes), and it's kind of dull.

Of course, if we had to have an avatar, I'd rather we get someone who's not super plot relevant, doesn't get treated like the best thing since sliced bread, and is able to learn from shit if they have to.

[AlexArtsHere]

1 hour ago, Anomalocaris said:

Here's my idea for the avatar's role in the story. The game opens up with the avatar (with no amnesia, or anything silly like that) going to the capitol. They don't have any particularly special backstory like being the avatar of a demon dragon god or the dragon-child of two royal families, they're just an everybody with a knack for tactics and no particularly notable backstory. They have been training under the army's aging royal tactician to eventually take his place when he retires. The prologue is a mock battle arranged by the tactician as a final exam of sorts, which also serves to introduce you to the game's main protagonist and other major characters. For the first few chapters you travel with the army as the tactician's assistant, but around Chapter 5 or so he gets assassinated by the enemy, and with a war going on your avatar has the position of Royal Tactician thrust upon them whether they like it or not. Part of their personal arc, alongside the game's main plot, is them coming into this role, and perhaps their personal vendetta against the aforementioned assassin. By the endgame, the avatar's personal arc is complete, so the finale doesn't really revolve around them like it did in Awakening or Fates, but they still serve an important role (I do like the whole "avatar comes close to death but is snapped out of it by all their allies' rallying calls" bit, so let's keep that) as the main character's closest support.

This basically exactly what I want for the Avatar's plot relevance. I didn't have a particular scenario, but what you've described is perfect and captures the idea of an Avatar who isn't too important to the conflict, but has significant personal importance. In terms of the ally rallying cry, it was awesome in Awakening, but just felt kind of cheap and forced in Fates. I'd rather them do something similar to Revelation, where the Avatar is the one who rallies on everyone else.

[Thane]

12 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

I'd personally want the next FE game to not have an avatar. That doesn't necessarily mean that I want avatars gone out of FE forever (although I wouldn't complain), but it'd be nice to see a couple of games that didn't have one just to mix things up a bit? Adding an avatar to Switch FE would mean an avatar four like three new games straight (not counting remakes), and it's kind of dull.

While you shouldn't celebrate prematurely, it looks like Echoes won't have an avatar, at least thus far; it took a little while for them to outright say "this is the avatar of Fates", though people were quick to piece it together from the teaser trailer, so when it was revealed people weren't exactly shocked.

I must admit I'm really curious to see how a modern Fire Emblem game will be without an avatar now. Like you say, it's been done in the two most recent games plus New Mystery of the Emblem. I wonder to what extent certain writing habits have emerged, if that makes sense.

 

17 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Of course, if we had to have an avatar, I'd rather we get someone who's not super plot relevant, doesn't get treated like the best thing since sliced bread, and is able to learn from shit if they have to.

I agree, I think a more humble approach could work. I mean, just being the main tactician of the army could let you speak to the right people, check equipment, make some choices etc. without you having a connection to a god.

[Jave]

Here's my idea for an Avatar character. I posted this in another thread about a year ago, but it's something I'd still like to see.

If IntSys absolutely must have an Avatar character in future games whether they're new or remakes, I'd like to see a character that helps your army in an important way, but not necessarily on the battlefield. Here's an idea I've been pondering for a while.

- The Avatar is a Travelling Merchant who makes and sells weapons. He runs into the game's main Lord at the beginning and sticks around for the whole story.

- The Avatar can be deployed, but he has no weapon ranks so he can't attack nor counter. Instead he acts like the Convoy and can trade as many weapons as the Convoy can handle. (Think FE6 Merlinus)

- If a unit finds an item and the unit's inventory is full, the item is sent to the Convoy, but if the Avatar is not deployed, the item must be discarded.

- Unlike FE6 Merlinus (who sucked as an actual unit), the Avatar can gain levels by doing various things. He can give boosts to unit's weapons while on the battlefield, but only once per turn and a limited amount of time per map. The Avatar can also Support other units for Support Ranks.

- The Avatar also has a unique skill that allows him to Mine/Dig/Search for materials in the battlefield. Finding specific ore allows him to create specific weapons in the Shop in limited amounts (Those who have played Etrian Odyssey can have an idea of how this could work).

- While at the base, the Avatar runs the Weapon/Item Shop. At first he only has the basics (Bronze/Iron weapons, Basic Tomes and Staves, and Vulneraries), but through certain conditions he can sell more stuff, including game progression, story events, finding specific materials, talking to certain NPCs, or reaching Supports with certain characters (where he can "learn" to make a weapon based on what other characters talk to him about).

- The Avatar can also forge weapons, but if he has a high rank Support with a unit, he can forge a personal weapon for that unit, with unique stats and bonuses.

I feel something like this would be a fresh take on an Avatar character, as it puts him in a role that's important to the army but doesn't necessarily steal the spotlight from the main Lord. It could work on a new game as well as a remake (I was picturing it with the FE5 cast as I typed).

[AlexArtsHere]

I'm sorry to rain on your parade, Jave, but I don't see this ever happening. It's certainly a fresh take on the Avatar, but in a fantasy strategy game revolving around armed conflict and sword fights, why would casual players, or people who otherwise have an interest in avatars, want to have an Avatar whose role is basically glorified item management. I don't think that's the kind of thing IS would put out as a selling point for a game.

But then, I'm not opposed to a completely new IP doing something like that (i.e. a game revolving around item management to be a much bigger asset to an army than any fight could be, all without being able to raise a hand to the opponent)...

[Jave]

Honestly, it's not something I'm expecting to ever happen either, but as I said it's something I'd like to see and usually I'm kind of a nut for things like item management. It's a fresh take, as you said.

But I guess some people feel being a playable fighter is the only significant way an Avatar can exist.

[Time the Crestfallen]

While we're talking about non-fighting roles, I've always thought that a healing Avatar would work best:

-Avatar can be made important without taking over the plot (disease and non-battle injuries are the biggest killers in war)
-Easy framing-device for supports with characters an Avatar otherwise wouldn't interact with often (illness, injuries, health check-ups ETC)
-Good unit without being OP (who doesn't like healers?)

[Rezzy]

20 hours ago, LuxSpes said:

I think the main problem with Corrin isn't that they were an Avatar in a lead role, but rather that they were just a poor Avatar, as other have stated. Despite being your supposed self-insert, you barely make any in-game decisions that affects the plot and their personality is incredibly bland (though Robin also suffered from this, at least they weren't the main character). Doesn't help that the entire world of the game panders to them. Corrin could do no wrong, with the game outright saying that them being helplessly naive and trusting was a good thing, people forgiving them way too quickly for horrible things they committed and several characters who's personality revolved around them. 

I think that if IS really want to keep using the Avatar, they need to design the game around the fact that the main character is an Avatar of the player. What I mean by this is that their personality, as well as what path they will follow in the story, is molded by your decisions as the player. It's going a bit extreme, but having different endings depending on your actions during the game would be pretty interesting. Otherwise avatars are just bland MCs that you get to customize in which case having no avatar at all would be better since then we have the potential to have a good story based around the growth of the main character.

Also the player pandering need to stop. I don't want the game saying I made a good choice and characters saying how great I am even though I decided to make a morally reprehensible decision. 

Even though I'd be surprised if IS actually went down that road, since it's quite a major change to implement, I think it has the most potential to happen in the Switch game since the added power should allow it to handle a game with more complexity. 

It may be an unpopular opinion, but I think most of the leads in Fire Emblem have been pretty bland.  I think the sole exception was the Tellius games, who had interesting, nuanced lead characters in Ike, Micaiah, and Elincia.  Marth, Roy, Eliwood, Ephraim, and Chrom were all pretty bland in my opinion.  Hector and Eirika were okay, I suppose, but most of the leads didn't really stand out to me, much.

[Nym]

4 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

It may be an unpopular opinion, but I think most of the leads in Fire Emblem have been pretty bland.  I think the sole exception was the Tellius games, who had interesting, nuanced lead characters in Ike, Micaiah, and Elincia.  Marth, Roy, Eliwood, Ephraim, and Chrom were all pretty bland in my opinion.  Hector and Eirika were okay, I suppose, but most of the leads didn't really stand out to me, much.

Wanna know why? Because they are all royals or end up being royal. Ike is just a son of the leader of a group of mercenaries.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Nym

[Rezzy]

4 minutes ago, Nym said:

Wanna know why? Because they are all royals or end up being royal. Ike is just a son of the leader of a group of mercenaries.

I think it's more poor writing than an innate quality of being royal.  Elincia and Leo are royal, and they're among my favorite characters.

[Nym]

Just now, Rezzy said:

I think it's more poor writing than an innate quality of being royal.  Elincia and Leo are royal, and they're among my favorite characters.

Still, Ike and Micaiah were a little bit of fresh air.

[Rezzy]

Just now, Nym said:

Still, Ike and Micaiah were a little bit of fresh air.

Yeah, I like how Tellius mixed up the formula, but then again, even Micaiah ended up being Queen.

[Nym]

3 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

Yeah, I like how Tellius mixed up the formula, but then again, even Micaiah ended up being Queen.

At least, at the start, she was only a silver haired chick with super powers and a questionnable age.

(I didn't play RD but when I saw Micaiah's age compare to Sothe, my eyes were wid open but that's not the subject of this topic).

Edited January 21, 2017 by Nym
I type wayy too fast

[Rezzy]

2 minutes ago, Nym said:

At least, at the start, she was only a silver haired chick with super powers and a questionnable age.

(I didn't play RD but when I saw Micaiah's age compare to Sothe, my eyes were wid open but that's not the subject of this topic).

Micaiah's only like 20-something, and she at least looks late teens, unlike the stupid trope with Nowi being 1000, but looking 10.

[Nym]

Just now, Rezzy said:

Micaiah's only like 20-something, and she at least looks late teens, unlike the stupid trope with Nowi being 1000, but looking 10.

Wait, are you sure? I could swear in the game, we heard that she is like 40 years old but her body growths slowly because she's half Laguz, half Beorc.

Unless I'm wrong but I'll to find proofs somewhere.

[Rezzy]

1 minute ago, Nym said:

Wait, are you sure? I could swear in the game, we heard that she is like 40 years old but her body growths slowly because she's half Laguz, half Beorc.

Unless I'm wrong but I'll to find proofs somewhere.

I forget her exact age, but she's Sananki's sister and was very young when the Serenes Massacre happened, which was 20 years before the events of the game.  So that would make her twenties to thirties at the oldest.  So she'd be about my age, which is by no means ancient.  >:D

[Nym]

4 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

I forget her exact age, but she's Sananki's sister and was very young when the Serenes Massacre happened, which was 20 years before the events of the game.  So that would make her twenties to thirties at the oldest.  So she'd be about my age, which is by no means ancient.  >:D

*Mind blows*

Welp, back to my corner

[Rezzy]

1 minute ago, Nym said:

*Mind blows*

Welp, back to my corner

It's okay, you can come out of time-out in 5 minutes.  Just kidding.

[KMT4ever]

I think the biggest thing that can be done with the avatar is to give you decisions that have real consequences, like what Fates heavily implied and proceeded to do nothing with. I find it hard to get invested in someone who's supposedly me when I have no influence over "my" decisions in the story, and the "decisions" in Awakening didn't do anything more than change a few lines of dialogue.

To cite one example that struck me while playing Conquest for the first time: sparing Shura. The very next level was in Mokushu, the land that destroyed his kingdom. I was expecting him to make some sort of comment in the pre-level scene that ended up getting us into a reluctant fight against Kotaro. Of course we ended up fighting Kotaro anyway, but what if you had executed Shura? Maybe then you help Mokushu repel the Hoshidan forces, killing Kagerou in the process. This would result in someone replacing her during Chaper 25, along with Saizo being much more hateful when you fight him. If you did spare Shura and end up defeating Kotaro, have a discussion between the main characters regarding whether they did the right thing betraying an ally even if said ally was shady as hell.

Say in FE6 you could choose whether to go to Ilia or Sacae. Have the peg knights/nomads make their opinions known if you don't go to liberate their people. Add some dialogue throughout the arc hinting at what's going on in the other country. Maybe have a level where you fight enemies explicitly reacting to your choice earlier. If you went Sacae have there be a bunch of Bernese and Ilian troops trying to escape Ilia before you cut them off from Bern. If you went Ilia have the Djute clan make a desperate stand after Bern abandons them in response to losing up north.

Otherwise I also think the avatar should be the army tactician. It helps integrate story and gameplay since you're directing the units both IRL and in-game. As a unit he/she should be oriented towards magic, maybe getting a mount when promoted.

[Dandy Druid]

I kind of like having the avatar, mainly because it was one of the selling points that allowed this series to boom. As many problems as it has, here are some of my suggestions. I think the options of expanding customization and subduing plot relevance would be better. I feel like Robin's role in the first and second arcs of Awakening were fine; it made him important, but he didn't overshadow Chrom. He felt like a customizable Soren until the 3rd arc where they gained so much relevance. I think a mix of all of the custom figures from the 3 games that had it may be good.

From Awakening- the plot relevance in the early story, from FE12, the "normalness' of the character. They weren't some sort of special class, they were just another cavalier/mercenary/myrmidon/priest/etc. Although unlike Kris, they shouldn't be the ones given credit for every victory. One or two, three tops is fine, but the whole war? Sorry henny that's a group effort. If an exclusive class was given to the avatar, I think it should be the dancer/bard, because the sick part of me wants to be a wayward musician that gets involved in a whole bunch of sh*t and next thing they know, they're performing for the army. I believe FE12 also had a "background" trait, like affluent prodigy/rough thug/former stripper/etc. (not the real traits of course) and it affected stats. I think this can be expanded upon, instead just influencing your stats, your background/personality trait can affect who your avatar can bond with. It makes sense for someone that was an affluent prodigy to attract more units that were of nobel lineage, or someone who's used to protecting them, those that want greed or fame, and maybe one unit that is poor and your character has to find a way to settle your differences and grow from them. From Fates, the amount of customization was good, like the accessories and scars, I think they can add more beards/scars/etc. to further differentiate our characters.

Other suggestions include- customizing all of the uniforms of playable characters. By that I mean all characters will don a similar color palette and have a reoccurring motif to look more like a team. I know other people would prefer the individuality, but the OCD within me just wants everything to match. Maybe have 2 customizable characters, which may also decrease one avatar's relevancy. By having one more, we can potentially decrease their value, and they'll just be a supporting cast member.

[boboliontamer]

Personally, I'm not too big on the idea of having an avatar be in this next game, but I'm also pretty resigned to the fact that it's an inevitability. I'm pretty sure IS is pretty satisfied with their formula that they have going, and as much as I would love to return back to the days of the Tellius games, I know that's pretty unrealistic. 

That said, I think that there are definitely ways to make the idea of an avatar character work, but IS has always seemed a little too scared to go all the way and they try to find a middle ground, which ultimately makes the whole idea not work. I think that the most important thing is that if you're designing the avatar to be an empty slate to function as a self-insert character, then they can't play a huge role in the plot, because at that point they can't really be relatable anyways. This is especially true if they're royalty, because I doubt that the number of people who can empathize with such characters make up a majority of FE players. Robin actually did a pretty decent job at it for the first half of Awakening, because he was (to the player's knowledge anyways) a commoner who just happened to become a small side role in the story (I do think that reducing his role in the plot even more would've been better). Of course with the second half of the game his character became.... less than stellar. Corrin was just plain crap, as an unrelatable royal with no personality and nothing to really empathize with. But I digress......

I think there are two possible solutions to make the avatar interesting. One would be to have them be a main character but give them a three-dimensional personality just as you would any other good character, while at the same time giving them the normal customization options. The second, and I think, the best, is to reduce their role to the point at which they don't particularly impact the main plot itself while still allowing the player to imagine their own personality. Having a character that doesn't speak at all often times is much more relatable than a character who speaks but is bland. And maybe, as a side role, it would make more sense for IS to allow the player to make dialogue choices in situations like support conversations, so that they can quite literally CREATE their own avatar's personality into someone that they can wholeheartedly relate to. If they were a side character, their personality would be much more flexible and they could have a much broader moral compass than if they were the main lord.

 

Edited January 22, 2017 by boboliontamer

[Jayvee94]

I would like the avatar the quiet bookworm in the group. (As silent as Pokemon Trainer red). With a side of a visual novel character. A strategist as competent as Soren.

Edited January 22, 2017 by Jayvee94

[BANRYU]

I'll tell you one thing I'd like to see for the next potential avatar character we get in the series.... custom armor palettes. I want to be able to choose 2-3 colors attributed to the character's outfit at the beginning of the game that get mapped to any classes that the character happens to change to. I can't be the only person who's sick of the forced-blue palette of the 3DS games, and color customization goes a long way toward personalization IMO. 

Incidentally, it'd be nice if other characters' models did this with THEIR characteristic colors as well. 

Edited January 25, 2017 by BANRYU

[Harvey]

On 1/17/2017 at 8:50 PM, Glaceon Mage said:

My ultimate wish is no avatar, gone, poof, no more.

But I suppose the next best thing is just make them of no importance to the plot and just another member of the army, exclude them from cutscenes after they first join and such like 95% of the army.  Or make it optional, so they may be ignored.

I agree. Having you as either the main character or the side character is not going to make the story better because that character is suppose to reflect on your emotions and not its own scripted emotions of its own.

I personally wish that a main lord makes a return. It helps in making the game memorable to say the least.