What do you think of Fire Emblem's current state?

[Etrurian emperor]

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And Haar's gimmick wasn't overdone either.

Haar's probably the best gimmick character in the series since he merely happens to have a quirk rather than being defined by it. Rather then just napping all the time Haar actually bothers to discuss strategy and politics with Elincia and having some of the deeper endgame boss conversation. 

Perhaps Haar handled his gimmick so well because RD in general was really good to him. You could easily tell the devs really loved Haar and found him one of the most interesting characters. 

[Hawkwing]

7 hours ago, Slumber said:

Touched on, but they're repeating gimmicks and just doing it worse. Oh man, Stahl likes naps. Haven't seen that before. Miriel's a huge nerd who likes books. That sure is original. Sumia likes cooking. Donnel sure is a downhome country boy. Olivia sure is a shy and timid person who's not great when eyes are on her. It goes on and on, and these are just the gimmicks that were repeated from characters in this conversation(Stahl and Haar, Miriel and Canas, Sumia and Lowen, Donnel and Nephenee, Olivia and Florina). Not only are many of these things not original to begin with, Fire Emblem has already done them. What more can many of these characters possibly add that wasn't touched on before? Turns out, not a lot. Especially when they ride their gimmicks so much harder. 

...Where in the world did you get the impression that Stahl likes naps? If anything, I would have assumed that people thought his gimmick was that he liked to eat. But no, his "gimmick" is that he is a nice guy that likes to help people, and IS actually writes this part of him extremely well. Nearly every single conversation he has deals with him wishing to help others in issues both large and small, and a select few are conversations about other things entirely. Impressively, most of his conversations manage to be unique in how they play his nice guy traits, and they also show that he has a few flaws (he's a doormat, can't say "no" and is his own butt-monkey) and usually his love of eating is used to further or start a conversation. None of his supports revolve entirely around his love of food.

Heck, in nearly all of Kellam's supports, the joke about him being hard to spot is usually only played in the first support, and then they get immediately to the meat of the support. The shepherds aren't needless jerks that f*ck around with Kellam because he's hard to spot. No, they usually are trying to find him in several supports, or they just happen to bump into him and decide to give him some company and start up a conversation.. It's often commented that he's not that hard to spot after a while, and the game shows that Kellam uses that time alone to think, and that he also has a very stubborn side. Extremely few supports dwell in the fact that he's hard to spot, as more often they play that joke once and then start a normal conversation.

I say nearly all because if you asked me to write nearly 50-60 conversations for one character, of course I would write a few gems as well as a few crappy ones, and that's a result of being human more than anything else. Heck, I'm impressed that the number of good supports outnumber the bad ones in Awakening, even if the bad ones are complete sh*t.

Donnel is a country boy, yes, but they also make it clear that he earns his aptitude skill by also having several moments of being clever both in handling problems, setting up traps, and showing that he loves learning and loves to read.

I could go on, but I'm pressed for time in real life, but not every single character in Awakening revolves around a single gimmick. Do some characters rely their gimmick far more than others? Yes. Where some of these character types handled better in other games? Sometimes. Does this automatically make Awakenings cast bad. HECK NO! They twist up some ways these tropes have been played in the past, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but they aren't a complete slurry pit of writing inadequacy. IS had to write over 300 supports, and if anything else, they at least kept a consistent quality. Some conversations are the worst the series has ever seen, but some of its gems are also the best in the series.

(Apologies for the frivolous swearing, but this complaint has been annoying me for a while, and I felt like I had to say something. I might edit this later when I have time and when I've calmed down).

Edited April 2, 2018 by Hawkwing
Removed/edited most of the swearing, and fixed a few grammatical errors..

[Slumber]

3 hours ago, Hawkwing said:

...Where the hell did you get the impression that Stahl likes naps? If anything, I would have assumed that people thought his gimmick was that he liked to eat. But no, his "gimmick" is that he is a nice guy that likes to help people, and IS actually writes this part of him extremely well. Nearly every single conversation he has deals with him wishing to help others in issues large and small, and a select few are conversations about other things entirely or him seeking out advice. Impressively, most of his conversations manage to be unique in how they play his nice guy traits, and they also show that he has a few flaws (he's a doormat, can't say "no" and is his own butt-monkey) and usually his love of eating is used to further or start a conversation. None of his supports revolve entirely around his love of food.

Heck, in nearly all of Kellam's supports, the joke about him being hard to spot is usually only played in the first support, and then they get immediately too the meat of things. The shepherds aren't needless jerks that f*ck around with Kellam because he's hard to spot. No, they usually are trying to find him in several supports, or just happen to give him some company and conversation if they bump into him. It's often commented that he's not that hard to spot after a while, and the game shows that Kellam uses that time alone to think, and that he also has a very stubborn side. Extremely few supports dwell in the fact that he's hard to spot, as more often they play the joke once and then start a normal conversation.

I say nearly all because if you asked me to write nearly 50-60 conversations for one character, of course I would write a few gems as well as a few sh***y ones, and that's a result of being human more than anything else. Hell, I'm impressed that the number of good supports outnumber the bad ones in Awakening, even if the bad ones are complete sh*t.

Donnel is a country boy, yes, but they also make it clear that he earns his aptitude skill by also having several moments of being clever both in handling problems, setting up traps, and showing that he loves learning and loves to read.

I could go on, but I'm pressed for time in real life, but not every single goddamn character in Awakening revolves around a single goddamn gimmick. Do some characters rely their gimmick far more than others? Yes. Where some of these character types handled better in other games? Sometimes. Does this automatically make Awakenings cast bad. HELL NO! They twist up some ways these tropes have been played in the past, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but they aren't a complete hellhole of writing inadequacy. IS had to write over 300 supports, and if anything else, they at least kept a consistent quality. Some conversations are the sh***est the series has ever seen, but some of its gems are also the best in the series.

(Apologies for the frivolous swearing, but this complaint has been annoying me for a while, and I felt like I had to say something. I might edit this later when I have time and when I've calmed down).

You're right. I don't know why I said Stahl and Haar, since it's closer to, Stahl and Ilyana. Either way you cut it, nearly everything about the things Stahl says has been done before. And I wasn't singling all of those characters out as being the most gimmicky gimmicks, I was singling them out for leaning heavily on something characters in the series have already done, and (largely) done better. Donnel and Stahl are exceptions, but that's because there's really... Nothing to Nephenee, and she ALSO shares her gimmick with a character recruited in the same chapter as her, but Brom's more of a hearty, good-natured dad than just one of the simple country folk. And Ilyana's just the worst, to the point where people in the army are worried she'll start prostituting herself for food if they don't keep her fed, while Stahl at least also has the "I'm just a normal dude" shtick going for him. 

And I argue Donnel doesn't make it clear that he's more than a simple country boy. Do you want me to go support-by-support and make me ask where he makes this clear? Alright. 

THE GIRLS:

Spoiler

 

In his Lissa support, he has ONE line about him correcting Lissa on a constellation. This is the only deviation from the "Aw gee shucks" personality. He talks about laying traps, but guess what? That's a farmer/country living thing, too. 

Not a single line in his Sully supports deviates from the "I like country things and gosh knights are so neat" shtick. 

Miriel's one of the big deviations for Donnel. It comes off a lot like Canas and Nino, but with none of the fun world building. But credit where credit is due, Donnel's country boy thing is only a tool to get him to study, which is a good utilization of it. Miriel, however, benefits 0 from this. 

Maribelle's shows he's a quick learner, but it's mostly just the B support, while the C and A are mostly just "Gawrsh, boy howdy this fancy stuff sure is different than the farm" 

Cordelia's another support string of him being impressed by them fancy knights, and not much else. 

Nowi's is more "important" for Nowi, but even that I'd call a stretch. For Donnel, it's mostly just about how much he loves his pa. 

We're back to pure "I'm a simple country boy" in his Tharja chain. 

I guess his Olivia chain revolves around him liking to sing. Which is... something new to his gimmick, even if it doesn't deviate. This is also a decent chain for Olivia, as it gives a believable reason for her to come out of her shell and dance for someone. 

Finally, Cherche is back to knight idolizing, with a wyvern flavor. All because of a story some fancy merchant told him. 

 

...

I said I was going to do everyone, but I'm tired already. The child supports are all very same-y regardless of the dad and the female supports make up the bulk of his gen 1 supports, so I'd think it's a good sample size. 

The vast majority, not counting S ranks because those are generally out of left field and don't really follow the flow of conversation, are about how much of a simple country boy Donnel is. His Miriel and Olivia chains being the major deviations, with his B support with Maribelle being the one standalone from the rest. This is 20/27 conversations where Donnel sticks completely to his gimmick. So forgive me if you're not happy when I say "No, no the game doesn't make it clear that Donnel is anything but a flabbergasted country boy". Because amounting to 25% of his dialog in these cases, with all but a single random support from Maribelle being tied to specific chains, is not "clear". 

But moving on from Donnel, the others, and others I haven't mentioned? There are a lot that just stick to their gimmicks, not matter how... Nonsensical they are. 

And yeah, I'd probably make some shitty supports if I had to write 20+ support chains if at least 3 conversations for 60+ characters, which was exactly my point. If I was relegated to making a small handful of supports that made sense, then I imagine I'd do a much better job. 

Suppose Donnel ONLY had Maribelle, Olivia and Miriel as his romance options. Donnel would come across as a much more interesting and dynamic character than he does when the rest of his supports offer nothing for his character besides a single line suggesting he might be decent with astrology. 

Edited April 2, 2018 by Slumber

[Dismissed]

You know, maybe we should bring in @ghast to do his Support Science shtick. Just kidding.

Most of the characters in the older games either had fleshed-out, varied personalities (Elibe) or minimal personality if any (Archanea). FE13/14 was mostly gimmicks, and gimmicks in earlier games had more to them. I feel FE15 nailed characterization correctly.

[The Roger The Paladin]

3 minutes ago, Purple Mage said:

You know, maybe we should bring in @ghast to do his Support Science shtick. Just kidding.

Most of the characters in the older games either had fleshed-out, varied personalities (Elibe) or minimal personality if any (Archanea). FE13/14 was mostly gimmicks, and gimmicks in earlier games had more to them. I feel FE15 nailed characterization correctly.

I honestly think a large part of the supports in FE 13/14 being inferior stems from the marriage system introduced in the games. I know FE4 had it, but FE4 didn't go and do support conversations to build up the possible marriages. When you have to have the options for almost any male and female character to get together regardless of chemistry and tie it in to the support conversations, then you end up with some really bizarre/formulaic material. If they merely limited marriage options for each of the characters they could limit the number of supports, and have a handful of strong supports as opposed to a plethora of weak and so-so ones.

I guess my point is, the quality of the supports and not the quantity is what should be the focus. Though I'm sure there's going to be others who disagree.

[Armagon]

11 minutes ago, Mad-manakete said:

I honestly think a large part of the supports in FE 13/14 being inferior stems from the marriage system introduced in the games. I know FE4 had it, but FE4 didn't go and do support conversations to build up the possible marriages.

And that's why FE4's marriages aren't that great either. A lot of FE13/14 marriages have """"""""buildup""""""" (there's a reason why it's in big air quotes) whereas you won't even know if two characters got married in FE4 unless you check their status page or the Fortune Teller. Of course, that's because FE4 is old. A remake can easily add Support Conversations.

But yeah, FE13/14 definitly have the weakest Support Conversations. There are some really good ones to be had in there (Laslow x Mozu, for example), but there's no denying that the Supports would be a lot better overall if there weren't as many and S-Supports weren't a thing unless it makes sense between the two characters involved.

[Dismissed]

18 minutes ago, Mad-manakete said:

I guess my point is, the quality of the supports and not the quantity is what should be the focus. Though I'm sure there's going to be others who disagree.

Agreed. Quality, not quantity. Having more supports means that the developers would have to manufacture them factory-style instead of creating it by hand. Nowadays, the characters can converse with almost anyone else without any reasonable explanation. There should be a connection, like say, Character A and Character B are both magical scholars, or Character C is Character D's boss, or Character E used to be friends with Character F.

[Hawkwing]

32 minutes ago, Slumber said:

You're right. I don't know why I said Stahl and Haar, since it's closer to, Stahl and Ilyana. Either way you cut it, nearly everything about the things Stahl says has been done before. And I wasn't singling all of those characters out as being the most gimmicky gimmicks, I was singling them out for leaning heavily on something characters in the series have already done, and (largely) done better. Donnel and Stahl are exceptions, but that's because there's really... Nothing to Nephenee, and she ALSO shares her gimmick with a character recruited in the same chapter as her, but Brom's more of a hearty, good-natured dad than just one of the simple country folk. And Ilyana's just the worst, to the point where people in the army are worried she'll start prostituting herself for food if they don't keep her fed, while Stahl at least also has the "I'm just a normal dude" shtick going for him. 

Ah, okay. I'm used to people complaining about Awakening being one-note gimmicks, and although I disagree with the opinion, I do understand where people are coming from. You just mentioning Stahl had a gimmick that didn't actually apply to him hit the trigger so to speak for me to say something. Admittedly, I don't have much experience with the characters outside of Awakening and SoV (although that's more due to the time it takes to play these games than a lack of willingness to try, that, and my computer deleted my FE6 and 7 save files, and I am NOT looking forward to doing Lyn's story again), and I'm certain that if I did, my opinion on them would be more informed and balanced. I still think that Awakenings cast is over-hated, though.

I mentioned Kellam because it's easy to do the "everyone ignores him, that's all to him" when really, that joke is only played once or twice a support and then dropped. I do think that IS missed a few opportunities to expand upon his insightful side, though.

Also I only mentioned Donnel because you did, but I do see your point.

34 minutes ago, Purple Mage said:

You know, maybe we should bring in @ghast to do his Support Science shtick. Just kidding.

No joke, I was almost going to mention ghast in my rant above, but decided that was a little to on the nose, and I didn't want to bring some random member into a conversation that didn't concern him.

11 minutes ago, Mad-manakete said:

I honestly think a large part of the supports in FE 13/14 being inferior stems from the marriage system introduced in the games. I know FE4 had it, but FE4 didn't go and do support conversations to build up the possible marriages. When you have to have the options for almost any male and female character to get together regardless of chemistry and tie it in to the support conversations, then you end up with some really bizarre/formulaic material. If they merely limited marriage options for each of the characters they could limit the number of supports, and have a handful of strong supports as opposed to a plethora of weak and so-so ones.

I guess my point is, the quality of the supports and not the quantity is what should be the focus. Though I'm sure there's going to be others who disagree.

It doesn't help that S-Supports are both the best and worst of Awakenings supports. They helped make Stahl my favorite character in the series, and several are well-done but others... come out of nowhere and can actually harm the characterization of some units. Neither does it help that romance is one of the most cliched genres there is.

I think that after the backlash feedback IS received, they probably are going to focus on quality over quantity.

 

A factor that hasn't been brought up yet though is cast size and the fact that the games have permadeath. Larger casts will inherently have a harder time matching the quality that smaller casts can achieve, but smaller casts provide a double-edged sword in gameplay. Taking Echoes for example, the small cast means that everyone has a chance to shine and no-one is downright useless, no matter how kind or mean the RNG is to them growth-wise. However, it also means that very few characters are expendable, and it makes the permadeath aspect of the game seem like an arbitrary and unfair handicap than one that enhances the gameplay (personally, I believe all the games in the series suffer this to some degree, but that's a conversation for another time).

[The Roger The Paladin]

12 minutes ago, Armagon said:

But yeah, FE13/14 definitly have the weakest Support Conversations. There are some really good ones to be had in there (Laslow x Mozu, for example), but there's no denying that the Supports would be a lot better overall if there weren't as many and S-Supports weren't a thing unless it makes sense between the two characters involved.

Ironically, the one place I do feel that FE 13/14's support/marriage system should be implemented is if they remake FE4. Simply to maintain the integrity of the marriage options available in the original. If it does have unfortunate effects on some of the supports, I'll live with it. Better than the alternative of them remaking it with the original ambigous system, or accidentally nerfing some of the child options beyond viability. Though then again, they might need to redo other things in viability relating to pursuit.

4 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

A factor that hasn't been brought up yet though is cast size and the fact that the games have permadeath. Larger casts will inherently have a harder time matching the quality that smaller casts can achieve, but smaller casts provide a double-edged sword in gameplay. Taking Echoes for example, the small cast means that everyone has a chance to shine and no-one is downright useless, no matter how kind or mean the RNG is to them growth-wise. However, it also means that very few characters are expendable, and it makes the permadeath aspect of the game seem like an arbitrary and unfair handicap than one that enhances the gameplay (personally, I believe all the games in the series suffer this to some degree, but that's a conversation for another time).

Truly is a funny thing. The permadeath was one of the things that drew me to the series in the first place, and playing Ironman runs recently, I have found it interesting.
On the other hand, you hit on the reason why I realized I like Echoes so much during my ironman of it (can it be called that if they all were alive by the end? I don't think there's a rule against the revival springs). The small cast makes it so everyone has their niche and uses (yes, even Nomah is potentially useful), and the prospect of losing them feels far more devastating.

But at the same time, I feel playing New Mystery as an Iron man run, the amount of replacement options make it ideal for such a run because it allows you a good amount of choices to replace any given unit (also forcing you to use units you probably wouldn't consider with reset available). That said, the large cast games inevitably suffer from issues with supports and the reasons why characters are even there. Look at Radiant Dawn for the former or New Mystery for the latter as they shoehorned everyone in Archanea in, sometimes on the flimsiest of pretexts.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Having read and critiqued every single support in PoR, which had a restrained but good number of supports, albeit with many planned that were cut, and other things that should have been supports relegated to conversation-free "bonds", even in a game with more limited supports not all will be not-duds. Take Ulki for instance, his Mordecai and Rhys are the same in that his buddy wants to ride him high in the sky, the only real difference is their race and intellect. In SS, Knoll has only 3 supports, but the Lute is a total bomb.

Still, overall the quality is decent to great. You're never going to get complete perfection over hundreds of three-part conversations.

The GBA rule was 3-7 supports per character, barring Roy and Lilina with 10, PoR kept the maximum rule of 7 (but Ike could have done with 9- adding Zihark and Mist), but unfortunately cut the minimum to 1 for Volke and 2 for some others. I think the GBA rule is the ideal for support quantity.

[Slumber]

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Having read and critiqued every single support in PoR, which had a restrained but good number of supports, albeit with many planned that were cut, and other things that should have been supports relegated to conversation-free "bonds", even in a game with more limited supports not all will be not-duds. Take Ulki for instance, his Mordecai and Rhys are the same in that his buddy wants to ride him high in the sky, the only real difference is their race and intellect. In SS, Knoll has only 3 supports, but the Lute is a total bomb.

Still, overall the quality is decent to great. You're never going to get complete perfection over hundreds of three-part conversations.

The GBA rule was 3-7 supports per character, barring Roy and Lilina with 10, PoR kept the maximum rule of 7 (but Ike could have done with 9- adding Zihark and Mist), but unfortunately cut the minimum to 1 for Volke and 2 for some others. I think the GBA rule is the ideal for support quantity.

I think there shouldn't be much of a rule, just so long as the supports make sense. 

Adding supports to meet some magical quota won't do much good, and an upper limit seems silly if there's still plenty to be explored with other characters(Ike with Zihark/Mist or Hector with Raven, for example. All of these likely would have been interesting supports).

The Volke example is a tricky one, because how do you support an admitted sociopath who is trying to keep a distance and adamantly doesn't want to change? You can really only support him with people he wants to talk to, and that boils down to Bastion for Volke. 

I think it all goes back to just having supports that make sense, though I generally do agree that the GBA games found the best balance of this. Having two characters who have no reason to talk to each other and talk about nothing that adds to their characters is what hurts the Fateswakening supports. It comes off as fluff and filler, and only serves to obscure supports that might actually add meaningfully to the characters, using my Donnel breakdown as an example. 

Edited April 2, 2018 by Slumber