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Returning Mechanics


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Here's something to consider- what mechanics that have appeared in Fire Emblem before would you like to see employed again, perhaps to greater effect than they were before?

*I would be interested in seeing a stealth chapter or underlying mechanic make a return (Path of Radiance 10). In Path of Radiance, the stealth chapter was a gimmicky chapter for which the only reward for doing it the stealthy way was 700 Bonus Experience Points- nice, but it felt rather lacking. I would be interested in seeing early chapters where, if an Enemy Phase began and you were in an enemy unit's range (or however 'stealth' was determined), they would call for reinforcements that, at this stage of the game, you may or may not be able to handle effectively. It would really impact the atmosphere of the chapter.

*You know, moving terrain (Radiant Dawn 2-P) was never really explored that much. I'm not sure how one would go about adding to this one, though... weather? A flooding stream? Axemen cutting down forests?

*Optional chapters (Thracia through to Blazing Blade). The World Map feature of Sacred Stones and the 3DS games offer a lot of potential for optional chapters, such as an alternate route to the plot objective or a path that offers some kind of helpful item. It could even be a good, casual-friendly way to introduce the above stealth: have an optional chapter that has powerful enemies that don't know you're there, and a stealthy player could accomplish their objective without having to land a single blow, or leave it for later and come in when the enemies are on your level?

 

Any other abandoned mechanics you'd like to see? I'm sure Thracia had a few I just don't remember.

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I would like to see Shove and Rescue return. The former was useful for getting a unit the one tile closer to it's target so it can actually do it's job, the letter for getting squishy characters out of danger or helping foodsoldiers keep up with cavalry. 

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20 minutes ago, Night Zap said:

I would like to see Shove and Rescue return. The former was useful for getting a unit the one tile closer to it's target so it can actually do it's job, the letter for getting squishy characters out of danger or helping foodsoldiers keep up with cavalry. 

I agree Night Zap, I can't tell you how many times I've shove a unit just for the fun of it. (I'm ignoring how Fates implemented this skill). I would like to see Shove and Rescue make a return as a default automatic mechanic for all units. In addition I want to see the return of Bonus EXP, I love this mechanic. I don't mind it being absent in older games because let's face it, this mechanic had not been thought of at the time. I will add though I would like there to be some kind of call back to the specific items need for units like the Heroes Crest, the Guiding Ring, Elysian Whip ect. I personally miss the weapon durability and weight system and liked how these have been implemented. If these return I would like to see the weapon repair feature from Genealogy of the Holy War make a comeback as well. I guess the reasons I like the weapon durability and weight systems because first of all this is what was used for multiple games, and I always thought it was realistic game mechanic. I will say though I would not mind if the following kinds of weapons were made umbreakable; Character Specific (like Hector's Wolf Beil axe), Legendary Weapons, and maybe Iron weapons. I also want the lowest weapon rank to be whatever rank Iron is, like in the GBA games. Another feature I really enjoy, are the Ledge Advantage that Radiant Dawn implemented, if you climbed up a ledge you received a hit and avoid bonus and enemies below you were at an extreme disadvantage. I want beast units to be more like the laguz where they can shift and traverse the map in their beast state, I will add though if the energy bar is used again I want to be able to walk up to enemy units and punch them. (Did anyone position Tibarn in RD so he would punch Valtome?) Lastly I want to see all achetypes used, multiple types of knights and cavaliers, multiple kinds of fighters, myrmidons, and mercs.  

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13 hours ago, Night Zap said:

I would like to see Shove and Rescue return. The former was useful for getting a unit the one tile closer to it's target so it can actually do it's job, the letter for getting squishy characters out of danger or helping foodsoldiers keep up with cavalry. 

 

Can I ask, what's the difference between pair up and rescue as well as shove?

I don't know about anyone here but I would like mines to return here as well...you know...the ones from FE7..

 

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Pair Up "combines" two units into one to improve the leading character's performance, and both characters can be switched around. Also, the unit initiating the pair-up will be in the back.

Rescue instead temporarily removes the rescued unit from the battle, and the front character will be weakened as long as they carry the rescued unit. A character that has already used their turn can be rescued by another, getting them out of trouble, but if you have a unit pair up with that greyed out character instead, they are still exposed.

Lastly, Rescue worked with the CON stat, which has been retired after RD. Unless the rescuer was mounted, they needed to have a higher CON than the unit they rescued.

 

Shove is mostly unrelated to Rescue. As long as you had more CON than the target (both allies and enemies could be shoved), you could use the Shove command to move an adjacent unit one space away. Mounted units couldn't shove or be shoved. In Fates, Oni Savages have Shove as a class skill as far as I know, but I want to see it like it was in the Tellius games.

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Things I would like to see return:

1. Canto,

2. 1-2 range swords (like the kodachi and Amatsu),

3. shapeshifting with more options for each type of shapeshifter than just --stone and --stone+,

4. Light and dark magic

5. Variety in chapter objectives, such as defend, arrive, and escape. Perhaps a new objective could be "Rescue", where one must ensure all of a certain group of units escape the battlefield alive.

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My list for things that I would like to see change is long, mostly due to how much I love the Tellius games. I think for a lot of the mechanics, they wouldn't necessarily have to return at the expense of newer popular mechanics, but I think it would be cool to see new and old mechanics fuse together.
 
Things I would like to return:
 
Light magic
 
Support affinities (I also think affinities could work within the context of pair up, since pair up is most likely returning) Affinities really add an extra dynamic to characters; while a unit might not have necessarily have the best stats, if they have a good affinity, they're still a viable character and it affects the strategy of the map.
 
Shapeshifters that have something to set them apart from being strong units with no weapon variety (like laguz or something else entirely)
 
Base conversations
 
Auto promote at level 21 
 
Weapon specific knights/cavaliers that gain a choosable weapon upon leveling up
 
Multi-dimensional side characters (personal motivations etc.)
 
Multiple protagonists (or at least a story that doesn't only follow the battles of one character)
 
A story and setting that makes your small group you control seem like a small aspect of the strategy in a war and less like the entire war itself (see Radiant Dawn)
 
Occult skills that can only be used in one class (but still some skills that can be carried across classes)
 
Weapon weight based on strength or some new attribute that increases as the character levels up
 
Weapon durability
 
Limited grinding
 
Character recruitment difficulty like in blazing sword
 
Canto
 
Rescue
 
Shove
 
Ledges
 
Separate magic triangle and traditional weapons triangle
 
Specific magic specialists like thunder mage, fire mage, etc. like in tellius games
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6 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

I agree with this one, but it sounds weird to have it suggested in the first place.

It's a consequence of the Awakening/Fates style of supports, where everyone can support with everyone of the opposite gender, so to save effort, they just gave characters a really dumb, specific quirk that each character was built off of that would make it super easy to write fluff dialogue around. I really hope THAT doesn't return, because sooooo many Fates/Awakening characters were really one-dimensional.

But for whatever reason, people really enjoyed that characters had one character quirk, and maybe deviated in one support chain, so who knows.

Edited by Slumber
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3 hours ago, Slumber said:

It's a consequence of the Awakening/Fates style of supports, where everyone can support with everyone of the opposite gender, so to save effort, they just gave characters a really dumb, specific quirk that each character was built off of that would make it super easy to write fluff dialogue around. I really hope THAT doesn't return, because sooooo many Fates/Awakening characters were really one-dimensional.

To go along with this, I'd like to move further away from "everybody can support everybody else," precisely because it generally makes support conversations lower quality.

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Some things I'd like to see:

  • Skill capacity. 
  • Shove and Rescue replace Pair-Up; the former two are better suited to a strategy game and employ a risk reward in sacrificing a unit's turn to better position or save another. I love a good rescue-drop chain (granted Pair-Up still allows this).
  • Falcon knights that use lances and swords and fewer mixed classes in general. Most of the time, mixed units will excel at one or be poor at both. On the former point, playing Shadow Dragon and the GBA games have probably spoiled me. 
  • Independent and Allied units. Some of the best parts of playing Genealogy for the first time was seeing how armies that you didn't control take part in the action. Similarly giving the player faceless units to control as did a chapter in Thracia 776. Experience that they earn if alive at the end of a chapter could become...
  • Bonus Experience. A mechanic that allows players to play catch-up with weaker units and gives maps alternative objectives even if it's just clear under XX turns.
  • Midchapter events. Give us changing objectives and conditions to work with. Changing a mission from route to escape. The thing we attacked was a decoy so we need to back up and defend now. Something like that. 
  • Fatigue but no one wants to give their powerhouses a rest
  • But above all, this game needs to be quicker than the Tellius games. Hopefully the Switch engine is good enough to allow turn skipping/fast forward. We get it Tellius, knights are slow. Really slow. 
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I'm not sure if this is considered a game mechanic or not, but Base Conversations like those in the Tellius Games. They worked, very well.

I also agree that multi-dimensional side characters should return. It was sad in Awakening to read the really interesting Robin/Cordelia and Cherche/Lon'qu support conversations, and then remember that good support conversations like those were in the minority, and this was especially true in Fates. Honestly, they can keep S-support (though please no kids), but I hope people only have as many supports in the next FE as they did in Path of Radiance (maybe a bit more or less depending on the number of characters).

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Absolutely nothing from Awakening or Fates. No Pair Up, no Second Seals, no "everyone can support everyone", no child units, certainly no Fates weapon system that was one of the worst decisions in FE history along side Awakenings attempt at Pair Up (and Fates' writing but that's not a mechanic). Avatar unit I'm neutral on. No gimmicky castle thingy. Shouldn't even have to say no touching minigame crap. Thankfully given FE's typical pattern of "two FE games of a certain style then axe most of their unique aspects and rebuild up from the core", most of those things will be gone most likely.

Tellius style base convos and supports

Tellius style map variety/mission variety

Canto, Shove, Rescue all return

Con returned

Casual Mode can return as an option, not necessary (Also started in FE3 remake so I'm not breaking my first statement, huzzah!). Phoenix Mode gets the axe.

Magic Triangle from FE10 returned

Height advantage/disadvantage returned. No idea why that never came back, it was a great way to make height like... actually matter in a map beyond "horses can't go up here".

Crossbows returned

Branching path. FE8 style, just need one to spice up replays. No multi-game purchase "branching paths" crap.

Split promotion options can return. Second Seals make the game easy mode and not interesting, but split promotion still keeps units in particular roles instead of just "make any unit anything you want"

Zero Grinding outside of Arena gambling

Skills are mostly found in class type (which makes the split promotions more interesting), but let there be a small handful of skill scrolls. You should not be able to just load everyone up on 5 skills and slaughter you way through enemies with ease, but you should be able to customize units a little bit beyond their class skills.

Multiple lords + army jumping like in FE10. Works nicely with the branching path point.

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2 hours ago, TheNiddo said:

Absolutely nothing from Awakening or Fates. No Pair Up, no Second Seals, no "everyone can support everyone", no child units, certainly no Fates weapon system that was one of the worst decisions in FE history along side Awakenings attempt at Pair Up (and Fates' writing but that's not a mechanic). Avatar unit I'm neutral on. No gimmicky castle thingy. Shouldn't even have to say no touching minigame crap. Thankfully given FE's typical pattern of "two FE games of a certain style then axe most of their unique aspects and rebuild up from the core", most of those things will be gone most likely.

Tellius style base convos and supports

Tellius style map variety/mission variety

Canto, Shove, Rescue all return

Con returned

Casual Mode can return as an option, not necessary (Also started in FE3 remake so I'm not breaking my first statement, huzzah!). Phoenix Mode gets the axe.

Magic Triangle from FE10 returned

Height advantage/disadvantage returned. No idea why that never came back, it was a great way to make height like... actually matter in a map beyond "horses can't go up here".

Crossbows returned

Branching path. FE8 style, just need one to spice up replays. No multi-game purchase "branching paths" crap.

Split promotion options can return. Second Seals make the game easy mode and not interesting, but split promotion still keeps units in particular roles instead of just "make any unit anything you want"

Zero Grinding outside of Arena gambling

Skills are mostly found in class type (which makes the split promotions more interesting), but let there be a small handful of skill scrolls. You should not be able to just load everyone up on 5 skills and slaughter you way through enemies with ease, but you should be able to customize units a little bit beyond their class skills.

Multiple lords + army jumping like in FE10. Works nicely with the branching path point.

You know they aren't going to do that right that to dated now and most people would have hate the Fe 10 support system. They are keeping pair up that a giving I don't know about avatars and what not but pair up an home stay like supports. The only game without pair up is the Gaiden remake. Seem like your an elitist too.

 

Edited by mikethepokemaster
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By Tellius supports I meant FE9 specifically. FE10 were not good supports no. Should have made that more clear or said FE6-9 style supports, though 9's is better as its based on maps and not parking two units together for a million turns.

And there is absolutely no guaranteed they'll keep Pair Up. Shadow Dragon and Heroes of Light and Shadow's free class switching didn't stick around despite people liking it. FE4/5's combat system didn't stick around. Tellius base convos didn't stick around. FE5's fatigue system didn't stick around (thank goodness for that), branching promotions or 3rd tier promotions didn't stick, dungeon crawling didn't stick, FE4's non-shared money pool didn't stick, FE5's capture system didn't stick. The only thing that has stuck around long term that I can think of beside things like, new classes are supports and currently having an Avatar unit but that's only gone past the norm by one game with the first one not leaving Japan so it might be an exception because of that. That's a fairly short list considering how many things have been tossed into FE at one point or another.

Awakening and Fates simply were not good games. Awakening I wouldn't have minded if it was truly the last FE game: while I didn't like a number of the changes a lot of them were based off of old FE ideas or things fans had asked about before. It was designed to be a send off and I can respect it for that and I enjoyed the first playthrough of it at least (the cracks really started showing on the second playthrough). Fates however, proved that as a regular set of changes to the series it doesn't work. Thankfully Fates' overall reception has soured quite noticeably over time outside of Conquest's difficulty (which... was that way due to trying to appease older fans. Something I'm sure Nintendo has taken careful note of if they're being smart about the series). The whole "buy three versions of this game" thing didn't help either.

The series won't last sticking to the Awakening/Fates formula. It waters down the support convo quality and the combat system far too much, not to mention the story was subpar even by FE standards for both and in particular Fates. The series in general doesn't last sticking to one particular style which is why they significantly switch it up every 2nd game. Odds are quite high little to nothing from Awakening or Fates returns. History says as much.

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3 hours ago, TheNiddo said:

By Tellius supports I meant FE9 specifically. FE10 were not good supports no. Should have made that more clear or said FE6-9 style supports, though 9's is better as its based on maps and not parking two units together for a million turns.

And there is absolutely no guaranteed they'll keep Pair Up. Shadow Dragon and Heroes of Light and Shadow's free class switching didn't stick around despite people liking it. FE4/5's combat system didn't stick around. Tellius base convos didn't stick around. FE5's fatigue system didn't stick around (thank goodness for that), branching promotions or 3rd tier promotions didn't stick, dungeon crawling didn't stick, FE4's non-shared money pool didn't stick, FE5's capture system didn't stick. The only thing that has stuck around long term that I can think of beside things like, new classes are supports and currently having an Avatar unit but that's only gone past the norm by one game with the first one not leaving Japan so it might be an exception because of that. That's a fairly short list considering how many things have been tossed into FE at one point or another.

Awakening and Fates simply were not good games. Awakening I wouldn't have minded if it was truly the last FE game: while I didn't like a number of the changes a lot of them were based off of old FE ideas or things fans had asked about before. It was designed to be a send off and I can respect it for that and I enjoyed the first playthrough of it at least (the cracks really started showing on the second playthrough). Fates however, proved that as a regular set of changes to the series it doesn't work. Thankfully Fates' overall reception has soured quite noticeably over time outside of Conquest's difficulty (which... was that way due to trying to appease older fans. Something I'm sure Nintendo has taken careful note of if they're being smart about the series). The whole "buy three versions of this game" thing didn't help either.

The series won't last sticking to the Awakening/Fates formula. It waters down the support convo quality and the combat system far too much, not to mention the story was subpar even by FE standards for both and in particular Fates. The series in general doesn't last sticking to one particular style which is why they significantly switch it up every 2nd game. Odds are quite high little to nothing from Awakening or Fates returns. History says as much.

Tell that to persona or pokemon they been doing the same thing for 20+ years and still make money. Well persona gain fame thanks to 3 and 4. Similar to Fire emblem, while it was a simi big name each release selling like what 90k+ a release in the west, it didn't gain mass appeal until Awakening. I can agree on some things were  taking out in later games but I feel pair up is here to stay it a mechanic that every new fan and old put with Fire Emblem now. You mean in your opinion they aren't good games the gameplay of both are great, the characters in Awakening are fun and zanny, conquest characters are fun and zanny. The stories of Awakening and conquest are okay to decent Imo. I mean if you dislike Awakening and Fates that fine and all but don't throw around your opinion like it a fact.

Edited by mikethepokemaster
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1 hour ago, mikethepokemaster said:

Tell that to persona or pokemon they been doing the same thing for 20+ years and still make money. Well persona gain fame thanks to 3 and 4. 

Just gonna chime in and say Persona hasn't been doing the same thing for its 21 years, as a matter of fact, it not staying like traditional SMT, or like Persona 1 & 2, caused a MASSIVE split in the fanbase that still exists to this day. Plus Persona was born through a very interesting spinoff of SMT called SMT IF which itself was more like SMT, but with twists that would later give rise to the older style of Persona. 

3 & 4 do share some stuff, but they also have their slew of differing aspects that has caused a very divisive reaction (heck even fans of 3 & 4 are divided between each other), despite the more "mainstream" appeal it gained in that aspect, they alienated quite a few of the more oldschool fans, its quite ugly actually if you talk to the wrong fans. I actually used to be one of those "its not traditional SMT, its not worth my time", thankfully that wore off, but its hard to compare Personas entire history to what it is now. Even Modern SMT has changed (with yet another fanbase split).

Comparing Persona 1 & 2 to 3 & 4 is like Apples & Oranges, and that itself has its own massive divide. Comparing IF ontop of that, which started the Persona line, is even more different.

This is pretty off-topic, but its a pet peeve of mine to see misinformation about games.

Also I disagree @TheNiddo with Fates & Awakening not being good, they were obviously good in areas, or they wouldn't have gotten word of mouth like they did, they just weren't good in the story telling or worldbuilding, their gameplay was fine, although Awakening got a tad samey, Conquest is actually probably one of the best designed FE games in the entire franchise. 

Edited by Jedi
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7 hours ago, mikethepokemaster said:

 I mean if you dislike Awakening and Fates that fine and all but don't throw around your opinion like it a fact.

This is a topic specifically for putting in your opinion. I did just that. 

@Jedi Popular doesn't mean good. I uh, don't think I have to point out the stereotypical movies or music artists examples that prove that. Like wise there are many good movies or games that never sell well. There's no true correlation between popularity and quality.

As I said Conquest has good maps/difficulty... but that's 1/4 rate for FE games in this style. That's not a good average and as I pointed out before, Conquest was designed specifically to try to appeal to older fans. So if the one designed to appeal to older fans is considered the best one... maybe going back to the design older fans want would work well? Small sample size but it was a success last time. And I doubt Nintendo didn't notice Conquest was the most liked out of the three Fates games.

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Base Conversations
Limited support pools (But the Fates system of getting support points)
Platonic shared endings
Shove/Rescue/Canto
Ledges
Fates pair up (if you use Rescue, there will be stat penalties instead of boosts, and no Dual Guard)
Dark and Light magic
Bonus objectives and Bonus EXP
Variety of victory conditions + creative map design
Big variety of weapons

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On 2/21/2017 at 7:32 AM, TheNiddo said:

This is a topic specifically for putting in your opinion. I did just that. 

@Jedi Popular doesn't mean good. I uh, don't think I have to point out the stereotypical movies or music artists examples that prove that. Like wise there are many good movies or games that never sell well. There's no true correlation between popularity and quality.

As I said Conquest has good maps/difficulty... but that's 1/4 rate for FE games in this style. That's not a good average and as I pointed out before, Conquest was designed specifically to try to appeal to older fans. So if the one designed to appeal to older fans is considered the best one... maybe going back to the design older fans want would work well? Small sample size but it was a success last time. And I doubt Nintendo didn't notice Conquest was the most liked out of the three Fates games.

Yeah, popularity doesn't necessarily mean quality, but its usually indicative of at least a good idea or fairly decent execution, (I mean i'm saying this when some of my all time favorite games aren't really super popular at all lol). My bad on the wording.

I think Birthright was a step in the right direction for the more Awakening styled stuff, but hopefully we just continue to get stuff like Conquest, we'll see when Switch comes around. I think Shadows of Valentia is going to be a super divisive game because its looking to be very faithful to FE2.

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I have to admit that I'm a sucker for excessive character interaction, so I actually want Fates-style larger support pools, but I am still somewhat irked by the characters being really shallow. I'm not the best at detecting what characters are better developed than others, but I can still say that I'm 90% sure that Henry has significantly more development and backstory than the rest of Awakening's cast, which means that the other characters must be super underdeveloped if even I can tell that. But I digress, what I mean to say is that I want larger support pools but with more interesting interactions, and I know it would delay the game for all those characters to be given interesting, logical conversations, but that would be something I'm willing to wait for.

Also, Arenas. I love them.

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13 minutes ago, DeoxyRibose said:

I have to admit that I'm a sucker for excessive character interaction, so I actually want Fates-style larger support pools, but I am still somewhat irked by the characters being really shallow. I'm not the best at detecting what characters are better developed than others, but I can still say that I'm 90% sure that Henry has significantly more development and backstory than the rest of Awakening's cast, which means that the other characters must be super underdeveloped if even I can tell that. But I digress, what I mean to say is that I want larger support pools but with more interesting interactions, and I know it would delay the game for all those characters to be given interesting, logical conversations, but that would be something I'm willing to wait for.

Doing this requires so much effort for so little payoff. It, by and large, also is indicative of poor character design in and of themselves.

Volke ONLY supporting with Bastion says more about Bastion and Volke than 30 different supports where Volke says nothing of substance.

If it was realistic to have 60+ soldiers all talking with each other all the time in between battles, if IS was capable of writing 30+ supports for each of those characters, and if there was actually any reason for it beyond just making babies, sure. Shoot for the moon with crazy supports.

But this really isn't the case, and until IS can create an AI to write immaculate characters and character interactions in seconds, it ain't ever gonna be the case. I'd rather see handfuls of characters have meaningful conversations/actual character development with characters that make sense for them, than see how many candy puns Gaius can make in 20 lines of dialogue upwards of 60 times with people like Panne, who likes carrots, or Tharja, who likes stalking and curses.

Edited by Slumber
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FE2 is somewhere in between classic FE and Awakening/Fates style FE, and they're adding in Casual Mode on top of it. I don't think it will be that divisive as much as a resounding "meh" in reception. Neither fanbase completely satisfied, but neither will hate it. Something different and something to tide people over until FE Warriors comes out.

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