What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Can we stop with this mentality that more supports = bad because that’s just blatently not true. If anything more supports are always a good thing. Why? Well more supports means more character interaction which means more opportunities to flesh out characterization and development therefore leading to more fleshed out characters as a whole. Less supports means less opportunities to flesh out those things thus resulting in more shallow characters. Meaning more supports are always better. And fates’s characters aren’t bad at all. How about Instead of being dismissive of characters solely based their archetype, you actually dig a little deeper and try analyzing them for what they are and what they represent. Trust me, there’s more beyond the surface you just gotta put in the effort to look for it

That's like saying a bigger book is always better than a smaller book.

[Vicious Sal]

Seems like ottservia still has not learned one of the pillars of writing; 'Less is more' since the last topic on supports was made.

It is one of those rules every writer learns about just like 'show don't tell'. 

Know why the rules exist before you break them, and Three Houses clearly does not know why the rule exists.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

Seems like ottservia still has not learned one of the pillars of writing; 'Less is more' since the last topic on supports was made.

This comes across as a platitude without  backing evidence. Shadow Dragon has particularly weak characterizations outside of a select few, owing to the absence of support conversations. And while Echoes has some great ones, a good chunk of them are "wait, why are we tslking again?" supports.

Like I don't believe "more supports always better", but saying the direct opposite is an over-correction.

[Interdimensional Observer]

6 hours ago, Benice said:

Furthermore, I can assure you that boring characters from older games, such as Dorcas, are not improved by reading all of their supports. He is simply a rather uninteresting character to me

I wouldn't call him boring myself. Rather, simple, ordinary, realistic, earthly. By no means a vibrant character bursting with life, but then, I don't think he's badly written by not being so. -Perhaps I'm trying too hard to put a positive spin on him.😛

 

58 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Like I don't believe "more supports always better", but saying the direct opposite is an over-correction.

True. People often cite the SilquexFaye support. Though I haven't a clue about that one myself. Still Knoll has but three, and one is a total dud, with the other two being similar, yet fairly good. -To recite something I said like yesterday or the day before.

There hasn't been a "Golden Age of Supports" in FE. Never was, probably never will be. Imagine writing conversations for +30 to ~50 characters and every single one of them turning out to be a perfectly cut diamond.

JRPGs of playable casts but 6-8 in size run into Character Irrelevancy Syndrome issues. I've had such games where not everyone was to my liking, games with one-quarter of the smallest FE's roster at best. Writing good characters is simply a difficult task I suppose.😛

[Etrurian emperor]

I don't think an abundance of support is a problem per se. Even Fates which has several very samey support chains has some glaring omissions of characters who should have been able to support each other but don't. Elise and Forrest easily comes to mind. Three Houses too has some very weird omissions despite it being a recurring complaint that there are too many supports. There's no excuse for Ashe and Yuri not to have a support together for instance. 

I think the amount of supports is less of a problem in Three Houses since the characters are usually more well rounded and have more things to talk about. Lysithea for instance has her obligatory ''don't treat me like a kid!'' supports as any Ricken should, but she also has supports over her backstory and her condition, a support of her turning into a schoolyard bully or where she and a fellow overachiever talk about student life. And while Sylvain is a womanizer there are also plenty supporters where its not at all about that. Fodlan and its inhabitants can handle large amounts of supports in a way Fates occasionally struggles with.

[Ottservia]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's like saying a bigger book is always better than a smaller book.

Well I mean if you want a more fleshed out world, story, and cast of characters yes, a longer book/story is always better than a shorter one. It’s just basic logic. A character with more screentime is always gonna be more fleshed out and better developed than a character with less screen time. Like I don’t understand how anyone could come to the conclusion that less screen time for a character equates to them being more fleshed out. That just doesn’t make any sense.

[Shrimpica]

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

Well I mean if you want a more fleshed out world, story, and cast of characters yes, a longer book/story is always better than a shorter one. It’s just basic logic. A character with more screentime is always gonna be more fleshed out and better developed than a character with less screen time. Like I don’t understand how anyone could come to the conclusion that less screen time for a character equates to them being more fleshed out. That just doesn’t make any sense.

Not really. You might run into bloat issues so many stories and games run into.

I don't really agree at all that ''less supports = better'', since even games with low supports like echoes have mostly sucky supports, but bloat isn't the way to solve it.

Then again the support system introduced by FE6 is the root of all the problems. It's really a bad and outdated system that will most likely never get replaced

Edited December 18, 2021 by Father Shrimpas

[Yexin]

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

Well I mean if you want a more fleshed out world, story, and cast of characters yes, a longer book/story is always better than a shorter one. It’s just basic logic. A character with more screentime is always gonna be more fleshed out and better developed than a character with less screen time. Like I don’t understand how anyone could come to the conclusion that less screen time for a character equates to them being more fleshed out. That just doesn’t make any sense.

that's because good writing and acting (if any) is what makes a character "more fleshed out", not their screen time
more=/=better

[Ottservia]

8 minutes ago, Father Shrimpas said:

Not really. You might run into bloat issues so many stories and games run into.

 

7 minutes ago, Yexin said:

that's because good writing and acting (if any) is what makes a character "more fleshed out", not their screen time
more=/=better

Counterpoint one piece. The reason why One piece is as beloved as it is is because it has had over 1000 manga chapters to flesh out its world, characters, and setting. Sure good writing plays a part in that but the more good writing you have in your story the better, right? A story doesn’t become bloated because there is too much good writing. That very idea is utterly ridiculous. No what makes a story bloated is when there are way too many moving parts to the point where the focus becomes lost amidst the convoluted fog. Which is usually rare when the writing is good.

[Shrimpica]

2 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Counterpoint one piece. The reason why One piece is as beloved as it is is because it has had over 1000 manga chapters to flesh out its world, characters, and setting. Sure good writing plays a part in that but the more good writing you have in your story the better, right? A story doesn’t become bloated because there is too much good writing. That very idea is utterly ridiculous. No what makes a story bloated is when there are way too many moving parts to the point where the focus becomes lost amidst the convoluted fog. Which is usually rare when the writing is good.

One Piece is a weekly manga. You can't compare it to a single game.

And the pacing in one piece isn't exactly the best.

[Ottservia]

1 minute ago, Father Shrimpas said:

And the pacing in one piece isn't exactly the best.

That’s just a blatent lie

 

1 minute ago, Father Shrimpas said:

3 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

 

One Piece is a weekly manga. You can't compare it to a single game

You missed my point. I’m not really comparing the two in terms of quality. I’m just using One Piece as an example of a story that’s extremely long simply due to the fact that it took the time to flesh out its world and characters. You want a more fleshed world or cast of characters? Then you have to dedicate sufficient screentime within your story to develop that stuff which in turn increases the length of the story or the number of supports in this case. I don’t even need to point to One Piece. The Arrancar arc in Bleach is like 300 chapters long. Why? Because Kubo likes his side characters too much and wanted to flesh them out more so he gave them more screentime but dedicating equal screen time to that many side characters made the arc over 300 chapters long because almost every character had something to do be it a dedicated fight or whatever. My point is that if you want more fleshed out characters then give them more supports. More screen time = more opportunities for development. Less screentime = less opportunities for development. It’s just basic logic really 

[Yexin]

13 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Counterpoint one piece. The reason why One piece is as beloved as it is is because it has had over 1000 manga chapters to flesh out its world, characters, and setting. Sure good writing plays a part in that but the more good writing you have in your story the better, right? A story doesn’t become bloated because there is too much good writing. That very idea is utterly ridiculous. No what makes a story bloated is when there are way too many moving parts to the point where the focus becomes lost amidst the convoluted fog. Which is usually rare when the writing is good.

One Piece isn't one of the best selling and most appreciated manga series ever just because it's been around since 1997, it's mainly because it's genuinely good (and that's why Ouda's editors and Shueisha are trying to make it last as much as possible), although some might say that lately it's been kinda subpar (i honestly have no idea, i've never been THAT much into One Piece)

other products which aren't lucky enough to be like One Piece don't last nearly as long because why would anyone keep on spending their money in something they feel it's just not worthy?

[Etrurian emperor]

14 minutes ago, Yexin said:

although some might say that lately it's been kinda subpar

From what I heard the Wano arc is actually very acclaimed within the fandom. 

[Ottservia]

17 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

From what I heard the Wano arc is actually very acclaimed within the fandom. 

Wano is also the longest arc in the series so you know that kind of proves my point now doesn’t it

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Well I mean if you want a more fleshed out world, story, and cast of characters yes, a longer book/story is always better than a shorter one. It’s just basic logic. A character with more screentime is always gonna be more fleshed out and better developed than a character with less screen time. Like I don’t understand how anyone could come to the conclusion that less screen time for a character equates to them being more fleshed out. That just doesn’t make any sense.

Well, no. Otherwise Venmurasu would be the greatest most fleshed out book in history. What's Venmurasu you ask? Well exactly.

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

 

Counterpoint one piece. The reason why One piece is as beloved as it is is because it has had over 1000 manga chapters to flesh out its world, characters, and setting. Sure good writing plays a part in that but the more good writing you have in your story the better, right? A story doesn’t become bloated because there is too much good writing. That very idea is utterly ridiculous. No what makes a story bloated is when there are way too many moving parts to the point where the focus becomes lost amidst the convoluted fog. Which is usually rare when the writing is good.

That's demonstrably not true. One Piece was well beloved long before it reached 1000 chapters. Indeed there's no chance that it ever could have reached that many chapters if it wasn't well beloved and selling well (and you can be there are manga out there that are a lot more obscure and less beloved than One Piece that have been running for a lot loner).

Longer does not equal better. That is not to say there is no value in a long story, some stories require a great deal of length to achieve the aims they're going for. But something being longer for the sake of being longer is bad. A story should be as long as it needs to be and not a word longer.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Jotari

[Yexin]

Just now, Ottservia said:

Wano is also the longest arc in the series so you know that kind of proves my point now doesn’t it

no it doesn't
more often than not, when a product is very lenghty, it's because it's already perceived as "good" and people want to milk as much money as possible out of it

in fact, prolonging a product for too much is more likely to come up as detrimental

[Benice]

34 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

You want a more fleshed world or cast of characters? Then you have to dedicate sufficient screentime within your story to develop that stuff which in turn increases the length of the story or the number of supports in this case.

Or you can show the world through your gameplay, develop the world through NPCs who grow and change, have a cast that with characters relevant to each other and feature meaningful conversations. Again, you can tell wonderful stories with minimal dialogue. One method of telling stories in video games is indeed spamming dialogue, but you can do so much better than that.

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Well I mean if you want a more fleshed out world, story, and cast of characters yes, a longer book/story is always better than a shorter one. It’s just basic logic.

I have read some pretty chunky books, but I can assure you, length does not inherently result in fleshed-out worlds, stories or characters. Things I write tend to be overly long and wordy but have little substance-such as the 250 page story I wrote a few years back. It sure was long, but that didn't make the characters good. I've read long books that are really good, and long books that are thoroughly horrible and pointless. I've read shorter books which are fantastic in terms of worldbuilding, and short books which may have been as pointless as the long ones, but were a lot more enjoyable because the books weren't spamming weak characters at me.

Like, if you ever feel an itch for an SRPG, I highly recommend playing Berwick Saga. Almost none of the characters have as much of the screentime TH's, Fates' or Awakening's characters do, yet to me, they are so much more meaningful. Berwick Saga could have done with a little more in terms of character events for sure, but it tells stories with value with what it has, and I would dearly love to see FE do anything that could bring it closer to that level-and the first way to do that is to ditch the concept that more of a character automatically makes them good. Spamming supports does not mean that we're getting tons of meaningful interactions that improve the characters, we're getting dozens of stock conversations that would be much more enjoyable in other forms of presentation.

1 hour ago, Father Shrimpas said:

Then again the support system introduced by FE6 is the root of all the problems. It's really a bad and outdated system that will most likely never get replaced

^Pretty much this.

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

wouldn't call him boring myself. Rather, simple, ordinary, realistic, earthly. By no means a vibrant character bursting with life, but then, I don't think he's badly written by not being so. -Perhaps I'm trying too hard to put a positive spin on him.😛

Well, it doesn't change that seeing him 50 times wouldn't do him any favors.

[Ottservia]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Well, no. Otherwise Venmurasu would be the greatest most fleshed out book in history. What's Venmurasu you ask? Well exactly.

That's demonstrably not true. One Piece was well beloved long before it reached 1000 chapters. Indeed there's no chance that it ever could have reached that many chapters if it wasn't well beloved and selling well.

Longer does not equal better. That is not to say there is no value in a long story, some stories require a great deal of length to achieve the aims they're going for. But something being longer for the sake of being longer is bad. A story should be as long as it needs to be and not a word longer.

I mean I’m not trying to say longer is always better. Because there’s nothing wrong with a story of any length inherently. My point is as I said earlier longer means more opportunities to flesh out your setting and characters. To reiterate my point on Bleach. The arrancar arc is only as long as it is because Kubo decided to flesh out his side characters more which in turn required them to have more screen time which in turn made the story longer. One Piece is the same way. The reason the story is as long as it is is because Oda wanted to flesh out his world and characters. He’s even gone on record to state that the seven warlords are the part of the reason the story is so long because he felt it was unfair to to the audience to introduce all these characters and not flesh them out properly. Kishimoto even understands that a longer story is required when you have a lot of characters as he said in an interview with Horikoshi that whenever you’re planning out an arc always plan on it being double the length that you originally intended. This very thing happened to Horikoshi. The sports festival arc was originally only supposed to be 10 chapters long but wound up being over 20 because he realized he had all these side characters he had to give some attention too. 

 

1 hour ago, Benice said:

I have read some pretty chunky books, but I can assure you, length does not inherently result in fleshed-out worlds, stories or characters. Things I write tend to be overly long and wordy but have little substance-such as the 250 page story I wrote a few years back. It sure was long, but that didn't make the characters good. I've read long books that are really good, and long books that are thoroughly horrible and pointless. I've read shorter books which are fantastic in terms of worldbuilding, and short books which may have been as pointless as the long ones, but were a lot more enjoyable because the books weren't spamming weak characters at me.

Like, if you ever feel an itch for an SRPG, I highly recommend playing Berwick Saga. Almost none of the characters have as much of the screentime TH's, Fates' or Awakening's characters do, yet to me, they are so much more meaningful. Berwick Saga could have done with a little more in terms of character events for sure, but it tells stories with value with what it has, and I would dearly love to see FE do anything that could bring it closer to that level-and the first way to do that is to ditch the concept that more of a character automatically makes them good. Spamming supports does not mean that we're getting tons of meaningful interactions that improve the characters, we're getting dozens of stock conversations that would be much more enjoyable in other forms of presentation.

You’re missing my point. My point isn’t that more is objectively better than less cause it isn’t. It’s that if you want to develop a character more then you have to increase the amount of screentime they get. Tell me how much can you develop a character in only 100 words? You see my point?

1 hour ago, Benice said:

I have read some pretty chunky books, but I can assure you, length does not inherently result in fleshed-out worlds, stories or characters. Things I write tend to be overly long and wordy but have little substance-such as the 250 page story I wrote a few years back. It sure was long, but that didn't make the characters good. I've read long books that are really good, and long books that are thoroughly horrible and pointless. I've read shorter books which are fantastic in terms of worldbuilding, and short books which may have been as pointless as the long ones, but were a lot more enjoyable because the books weren't spamming weak characters at me.

Like, if you ever feel an itch for an SRPG, I highly recommend playing Berwick Saga. Almost none of the characters have as much of the screentime TH's, Fates' or Awakening's characters do, yet to me, they are so much more meaningful. Berwick Saga could have done with a little more in terms of character events for sure, but it tells stories with value with what it has, and I would dearly love to see FE do anything that could bring it closer to that level-and the first way to do that is to ditch the concept that more of a character automatically makes them good. Spamming supports does not mean that we're getting tons of meaningful interactions that improve the characters, we're getting dozens of stock conversations that would be much more enjoyable in other forms of presentation.

In regards to this point I will say this mentality pisses me off to put it bluntly. Cause you can find meaning in literally everything in a story you just have to try to find it. To suggest a story has no meaning is stupid, disrespectful, and straight up false. You can find meaningful characterization in the most innocuous of places. The only reason you’re not seeing it is because you’re not trying to see it. You want an example? Take Severa’s father support for instance.

the C and B supports can just be seen as Severa being a spoiled brat but when you look a little closer there’s a little more to it. There’s one line from Severa in the C support that sticks out. In that she says:

”Odd? Is there something wrong with that? Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?! You’d rather be with Mother, wouldn’t you?”

Now this can just be seen as her trying to guilt trip her father into buying her stuff but it’s when you get to the A support that things become a bit more clear where she basically assumes that her father is disappointed in her for not being like her mother because that’s how people have treated her all her life. It adds more context to that line from the C support. Sure it can be her guilt tripping but there is some truth in how she feels in there. When her father says no she automatically compares herself to her mother because that’s how she’s been treated all her life. When someone expresses some kind of disappointment with her, they almost always compare her to her mother. Another aspect of the A support that ties into the first two convos is at the end where her father says:

”And hey-you have been doing all of your chores. So how about that reward now?”

to which Severa responds:

”No. I don’t need it. I don’t need anything but you, daddy!”

Now taking my head out of the gutter for a minute, this exchange completely recontextualizes the entire support because it shows Severa never really wanted all those fancy dresses and stuff. She just wanted to be acknowledged by her father and spend time with him but because of her low self-esteem she just kind of assumes he doesn’t want to spend time with her because she’s not Cordelia so she feels her only choice is to guilt trip him into doing so. Which by the end of the support, this mind set is proven to be false. 
 

you can even find meaningful characterization in more “filler” supports like Severa and Kjelle for instance. That support may just be Severa showing Kjelle how to be more girly but it reveals a number of things about both of them. Namely it shows how much they value appearance and things like that which also build on what was already established about their characters. Severa highly values her appearance and how she presents herself because 1. She’s Cordelia’s daughter who has more than a few support chains telling other characters to better clean themselves(namely Gaius and Sumia) and 2. Her sort of inferiority complex means she needs to validate herself in any way she can and her looking cute and pretty is one way she does that which is even outright stated in an event tile conversation. In regards to Kjelle well she’s a tomboy so she doesn’t really value that stuff and she’s more concerned with wanting to train and get stronger. Her appearance is also mostly covered by armor anyway so she doesn’t really feel the need to care much about her looks. It even ties into her support with her mother in that different people are good at different things and you shouldn’t force people to improve on things they’re clearly not talented in because Severa does end up failing in the end because that sort of thing just doesn’t fit Kjelle.

Is all that not meaningful characterization? You can find a deeper meaning in any story. You just have to be open minded enough to look for it.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Ottservia

[Etrurian emperor]

56 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Wano is also the longest arc in the series so you know that kind of proves my point now doesn’t it

Not necessarily . The similarly long Dreslossa isn't so beloved with its length typically been named as a flaw of that arc. 

[Jotari]

5 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I mean I’m not trying to say longer is always better.

You kind of did

12 hours ago, Ottservia said:

If anything more supports are always a good thing.

This is not true. If they gave every support pair a 10 conversation long support chain that is absolutely no guarantee it'll lead to more fleshed out characters. It'll likely lead to just more repetitive characters.

Quote

Because there’s nothing wrong with a story of any length inherently. My point is as I said earlier longer means more opportunities to flesh out your setting and characters.

Yes, and the fewer words in which you can do that, the better your writing will be.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Jotari

[Ottservia]

24 minutes ago, Jotari said:

This is not true. If they gave every support pair a 10 conversation long support chain that is absolutely no guarantee it'll lead to more fleshed out characters. It'll likely lead to just more repetitive characters.

Well that has nothing to do with Quantity as much as quality. Like it doesn’t matter if there are 2 or 200 supports. If you have a shitty writer then they’re going to write bad supports no matter how many of them there are. It also depends on the character. If the character is one dimensional and the writer doesn’t intend to do anything more with them then obliviously more screentime isn’t going to improve much so it’s just better to give them less screentime. My point though is that more supports do present an opportunity for fleshing out seemingly one dimensional characters. Also repetition isn’t inherently a bad thing. One Piece arcs are relatively repititive but that doesn’t make them bad. Hell in a lot of cases the repitition is intentional. The same is true for Bleach btw. Like I said with Benice. This mind set just comes from being unreasonably dismissive 

Also I love how you’re not acknowledging any of my other points regarding what Oda and Kishimoto have stated in interviews about what determines the length of a story or arc.

25 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Not necessarily . The similarly long Dreslossa isn't so beloved with its length typically been named as a flaw of that arc. 

The hell are you talking about? Dressrossa is actually pretty widely loved among the community. Doflamingo is often cited as one of the best villains in the series and don’t even get me started on how popular of a character Law is. Also Wano is longer than dressrossa which means the length of the arc has nothing to do with its quality.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Ottservia

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Well that has nothing to do with Quantity as much as quality. Like it doesn’t matter if there are 2 or 200 supports. If you have a shitty writer then they’re going to write bad supports no matter how many of them there are.

That's exactly my point. Quantity is absolutely no indication of quality. And the better a writer is, the more quality they can put into a smaller quantity.

11 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Also I love how you’re not acknowledging any of my other points regarding what Oda and Kishimoto have stated in interviews about what determines the length of a story or arc.

That's because I really couldn't care about your manga examples. I haven't read One Piece or Bleach, so their relevance to me is nonexistent (though as I understand it, Bleach's reputation has been utterly destroyed by how long it ran on without maintaining any of the quality it had in the beginning).

[Etrurian emperor]

18 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Doflamingo is often cited as one of the best villains in the series

Yeah. He is. But I talked about the arc as a whole. Not Dofy in particular. 

[Ottservia]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That's exactly my point. Quantity is absolutely no indication of quality. And the better a writer is, the more quality they can put into a smaller quantity.

I mean if One piece is any indication this is not true at all because if it were true then the series would not be 1000+ chapters long. Not that I necessarily disagree with this stance it’s just in regards to the argument being presented I disagree because less is more is a good piece of advice. If you can create an interesting character for the audience to get invested in with only 100 words or less yeah that is good but you can only do so much with 100 words and if you want to develop the character further then obviously you’re gonna need more words than that. Like that’s just how it works. How does less screentime = more development. That’s just inherently illogical. How does that even begin to make sense. A well written character with 100 chapters of screen time will always be more fleshed out and developed than a character with only 10 chapters of screentime. 

If you want better developed characters they need more screentime and thus in case more supports. 

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That's because I really couldn't care about your manga examples. I haven't read One Piece or Bleach, so their relevance to me is nonexistent (though as I understand it, Bleach's reputation has been utterly destroyed by how long it ran on without maintaining any of the quality it had in the beginning).

my point in regards to those examples still stands.

 

5 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Yeah. He is. But I talked about the arc as a whole. Not Dofy in particular. 

Counterpoint Trafalger Water D. Law

[Etrurian emperor]

16 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Counterpoint Trafalger Water D. Law

But its not a counterpoint. I said Dresrossa's length was considered a problem. Its a common complaint of that particular arc. So bringing up Dofy and Law doesn't change much. I think Emil and Marta are my favorite Tales protagonists but that changes nothing about their game being kinda meh.