Prediction/Theory: School Phase will be 3 Years

[HTakara82]

Why? because Lysithea's profile confirms that the students are all newly admitted, meaning first years. If we go by the Japanese school systems, that'll make it 3 years. 

With the recent trailer, we got dialogue where they hear them making a graduation promise to meet up again, meaning we're going to be around for start to graduation before the time skip.

So I see two possibilities:

A- We're playing out all the years of the academy

B- There will be mini time skips after the first year to speed up the time in the school

Also have a theory on the "story battles" of each month, each "story battle" won't be plot turning story sequences, but rather they will be padded. Like there will be major training battles, where you take your students out for practical battle training, and then there will be exam battles as well, these events are basically to see your students growths over time in a story setting rather than just be a menu thing. Just as an example of the first year:

(I 1000% believe the game starts in March, that's when the school year starts in Japan)

March - First training battle
April - Minor story battle
May - Mid term battle
June - Another training battle, but with some story sequence
July - Semester Finals - with some main plot thrown in
Aug - Vacation
Sept - 2nd semester starts Story battle
Oct - training battle
Nov - Another Story battle (this was shown in the tree house)
Dec - Mid terms
Jan - Story battle
Feburary - 2nd Semester Finals
March - break in the beginning, then start 2nd year with story sequences

I outlined based on Japan's school calendar, and how I feel the years will play out. Obviously just an example.

Now let's see how accurate i'll be once the game comes out

[Owain Dark]

It's confirmed that school phase is only 12 months. After that timeskip happens and with the deadly war

[HTakara82]

14 minutes ago, Owain Dark said:

It's confirmed that school phase is only 12 months. After that timeskip happens and with the deadly war

link?

[Owain Dark]

16 minutes ago, HTakara82 said:

link?

Famitsu

[HTakara82]

Just now, Owain Dark said:

Famitsu

sorry that aint telling me shit. I've looked everywhere and it's been nothing but guessing and speculation. 

[luchinania]

But this is not fantasy high school, but a military academy hence why no one is actually the same age. Maybe the military academy in Fodlan only lasts 1 year, similar to vocational schools in rl.

Also for confirmation, Vincent should have something in one of his analysis. I remember he was theorizing that the school year would only last 12 months due to the deadlines of some of the side quests, and I think there was something from E3 that confirmed this.

[Onestep]

I highly doubt it will be three years. It seems to be that One Month = One Chapter, with the chance to paralogue and skirmish. If it's three months, you're looking at a bare minimum of 36 Chapters before you hit the timeskip (not including any prologue chapters). That seems absurd.

[Ertrick36]

Well, each month represents a chapter... so if this were the case, this FE would be more than 48 chapters, because it seems we have at least a full year in the war phase...

I dunno, I think it's a bit outlandish.  Lysithea is young, but the others are older.  I think the academy is more akin to a college or vocational school, which means it could last any number of months or years.  Reason Lysithea is the youngest is probably because she's a prodigy (her bio says as much) and got sent there early so she could take the most advantage of her gift.

1 hour ago, Owain Dark said:

It's confirmed that school phase is only 12 months. After that timeskip happens and with the deadly war

48 minutes ago, HTakara82 said:

link?

As far as I know, the only source that says it'll only last 12 months is thanibomb.  Anything else, as far as I know, is either a misquote or speculation.

Vincent's analysis of the leak said that Treehouse said it'd last "a year or so", but I'm finding nothing to confirm that and I don't really want to sift through a video just to confirm or deconfirm that.

[Kiran_]

1 hour ago, HTakara82 said:

Why? because Lysithea's profile confirms that the students are all newly admitted, meaning first years. If we go by the Japanese school systems, that'll make it 3 years. 

I'm also pretty sure in some gameplay videos during E3 one of the people playing the game said the first part was "about a year"

And in VincentASM's analysis (https://serenesforest.net/2019/06/12/three-houses-e3-treehouse-live-day-2-analysis-part-1-academy/#more-53112) it says " It’s currently the 11th month, the Red Wolf Moon, which is around halfway through the school phase."  and we know it starts the 4th(?) month or something, which would imply it sits at about a year.

Also, if every month is a "chapter", that's A LOT of chapters pre time skip when it seems like the +5 Years is going to be the bulk (or at least slightlyyyyy) more than half the game. So the only thing that makes sense is if they DO do "skips" like you suggested, but even then they'd have to do a lot of skips, so many so that I feel like the story might become disjointed. 

I think realistically, something happens that would make them leave the school after this unspecified time period. And it's a military academy, it makes sense to be 1-2 years at most. 

[Timlugia]

3 minutes ago, Kiran_ said:

 the +5 Years is going to be the bulk (or at least slightlyyyyy) more than half the game. 

I actually was wondering about this

If time skip is half into the game, that means there are only 12 chapters left when war starts.

Not only it's very short for a game, there would also be major pacing problem: It seems academy phase is very light on the story, nothing too major or twist here. If we only have 12 chapters left, it would really hard to have proper story build up and the guaranteed plot twists. Unless there will be multiple plot events in a single month.

[Owain Dark]

7 minutes ago, Timlugia said:

I actually was wondering about this

If time skip is half into the game, that means there are only 12 chapters left when war starts.

Not only it's very short for a game, there would also be major pacing problem: It seems academy phase is very light on the story, nothing too major or twist here. If we only have 12 chapters left, it would really hard to have proper story build up and the guaranteed plot twists. Unless there will be multiple plot events in a single month.

We don't know how long post timeskip/war phase is. And I think the story will build up good in act 1, due to quests, paralogues and whatnot 

[Timlugia]

2 minutes ago, Owain Dark said:

We don't know how long post timeskip/war phase is. And I think the story will build up good in act 1, due to quests, paralogues and whatnot 

We don't, that's why I was wondering about being half way. Because I read several people saying war phase was probably only 12 month.

[Owain Dark]

50 minutes ago, Timlugia said:

We don't, that's why I was wondering about being half way. Because I read several people saying war phase was probably only 12 month.

We only know for sure that the school phase is around 12 months. I think people imagine, since it's called act 2, that both acts have the same length, where the war phase could have 18 chapters as an example 

[HTakara82]

1 hour ago, Kiran_ said:

I'm also pretty sure in some gameplay videos during E3 one of the people playing the game said the first part was "about a year"

And in VincentASM's analysis (https://serenesforest.net/2019/06/12/three-houses-e3-treehouse-live-day-2-analysis-part-1-academy/#more-53112) it says " It’s currently the 11th month, the Red Wolf Moon, which is around halfway through the school phase."  and we know it starts the 4th(?) month or something, which would imply it sits at about a year.

Also, if every month is a "chapter", that's A LOT of chapters pre time skip when it seems like the +5 Years is going to be the bulk (or at least slightlyyyyy) more than half the game. So the only thing that makes sense is if they DO do "skips" like you suggested, but even then they'd have to do a lot of skips, so many so that I feel like the story might become disjointed. 

I think realistically, something happens that would make them leave the school after this unspecified time period. And it's a military academy, it makes sense to be 1-2 years at most. 

Game starts on the 3rd month, early screenshots show March as the starting point. Which is 9 months into the game's story from the e3 demo.

In any case you make it sound like a long game is bad. Radiant Dawn for example had 43 chapters. And on what basis do you think the time skip is the bulk? nothing really points to it. At most it'll be half. At least that's my opinion from my own analysis of what we've been shown. 

think about it for a minute, Lysithea's bio is "the youngest admitted student THIS YEAR" and she's in the same classes as the rest of the students, that means everyone is first years just like her. The only way that the academy will only take place in a single year is if the school itself is only a year. Which is entirely impossible, but at the same time... how can you train military officers and world leaders in a single year? 

In the trailer dialogue, it sounds like they're talking right before graduation, I could be wrong, but there's no reason to talk about graduation when they're still first years, it makes no sense. 

I've learned to not take vague, and unspecified comments from tree house members at face value, the PR people generally aren't super knowledgeable, Audrey is the only one that I know of that actually plays the games in and out.

I would like to think that I'm really good at deductive reasoning based on what is given to me, I predicted the entire gameplay flow and holy blood several weeks before anything about them was officially announced, though I can be completely off base, but I feel the evidence is too strong for me to ignore. But again, this is merely a theory, a hypothesis if you will, so I'm glad there's people like you and others here that are willing to discuss and challenge my theory ❤️  

 

[HTakara82]

Something else I want to add as to why I think the game will be longer than the majority of past FEs, is weapon and skill ranks. Because each rank has a + and - Rank, that makes you required to gain THREE TIMES, the amount of rankings as oppose to older FEs. You'll need sufficient time to feasibly hit S+ rank.

[SageOfAnys]

6 minutes ago, HTakara82 said:

Something else I want to add as to why I think the game will be longer than the majority of past FEs, is weapon and skill ranks. Because each rank has a + and - Rank, that makes you required to gain THREE TIMES, the amount of rankings as oppose to older FEs. You'll need sufficient time to feasibly hit S+ rank.

I believe you're underestimating how fast weapon rank will develop in this game.

Weapon rank develops not only in battle, but through one-on-one tutoring and on its own through student goals. All of the factors together means that weapon EXP can accumulate rather quickly when prioritizing one or two weapons.

Also, there's a good post on Reddit analyzing weapon rank growth based on knowledge gleaned from Famitsu and gameplay footage. According to it, getting to a hypothetical S-rank with only 24 chapters (or 24 months of progress) is completely feasible even with minimum estimates.

[Lynsanity]

Keep in mind you can venture out and do optional missions every weekend of the month, so assuming the battles refresh often enough, you could end up doing 36+ in the single pre-timeskip year.

10 minutes ago, HTakara82 said:

Something else I want to add as to why I think the game will be longer than the majority of past FEs, is weapon and skill ranks. Because each rank has a + and - Rank, that makes you required to gain THREE TIMES, the amount of rankings as oppose to older FEs. You'll need sufficient time to feasibly hit S+ rank.

It appears to be only a regular and a + rank, with no - ranks. So it's two times as many rankings, to account for how many more ways you have to build weapon rank now. I think if you set a student's focus to a weapon, then Instruct them in it, in addition to what they use in battle, you'll actually still go through those weapon ranks faster than before. Which could be useful because promotions are locked behind weapon ranks now.

That said I do think the game will feel longer than other Fire Emblems, if only because of how much freedom you're given in how to spend your gameplay time.

[Ertrick36]

10 minutes ago, HTakara82 said:

In any case you make it sound like a long game is bad. Radiant Dawn for example had 43 chapters. And on what basis do you think the time skip is the bulk?

I'm not sure it's necessarily that people here have a problem with a long game, it's just they want the one part of the game they don't like the sound of (the school part) to be very long.

Radiant Dawn is a big, long game covering multiple plot arcs and a massive cast (73 playable characters).  The only other game in the series that I'd say would even count as an equivalent-or-greater in length is Fates, since it covers three different versions of a story.  The skepticism is based on the fact that these games lasting 40+ chapters are outliers in the series - most games in the series either hit the 25-30 chapter mark or hit just shy of it.

I'd also say the school part, in my personal opinion, seems more like a tutorial phase.  Which, if you think about it, almost makes too much sense.  I mean for one, the whole point of a school is to learn, and a tutorial is a process of teaching, so the school being a tutorial is incredibly sensible.  And for another, Blazing Sword/FE7 had close to 12 chapters dedicated to learning the game - those chapters being Lyn Mode, and each and every single one of them presented you with at least one new element in the game.

[Kiran_]

2 hours ago, HTakara82 said:

In any case you make it sound like a long game is bad. Radiant Dawn for example had 43 chapters. And on what basis do you think the time skip is the bulk? nothing really points to it. At most it'll be half. At least that's my opinion from my own analysis of what we've been shown. 

think about it for a minute, Lysithea's bio is "the youngest admitted student THIS YEAR" and she's in the same classes as the rest of the students, that means everyone is first years just like her. The only way that the academy will only take place in a single year is if the school itself is only a year. Which is entirely impossible, but at the same time... how can you train military officers and world leaders in a single year? 

In the trailer dialogue, it sounds like they're talking right before graduation, I could be wrong, but there's no reason to talk about graduation when they're still first years, it makes no sense. 

I've learned to not take vague, and unspecified comments from tree house members at face value, the PR people generally aren't super knowledgeable, Audrey is the only one that I know of that actually plays the games in and out.

Oh no, I would LOVE a long game. I would really, really enjoy a long game like RD again. I just don't particularly want the school portion to be the bulk of it! And I fear if that portion is 3 years (even with skips) it will leave a lot less for the war phase which seems to be a really interesting part!

I don't have a basis for the time skip being the bulk, I'm just doing based off old games and the fact they revealed in when they did and how they did from a marketing standpoint. It has to be at least HALF the game because if it was only the last 3rd or so it would make sense to only tease it near the end of the promotional material. But since they did a lot earlier it stands to reason at least half the game is War Phase, and I'm inclined to believe based on the hype they gave for it, it might be more than half. When I say 'bulk' I don't mean like 3/4th of the game. I'm hoping something closer to 2/3rds or so. But that's just speculation/hope on my part!

"This year", but we also haven't seen any older students. It's always divided by 'house' which seems odd. It wouldn't make sense for the academy to wait every 3 years to admit students, but the fact we've gotten no indication of a senior class above them (you'd think some characters could have been from the other years) is odd. Which leads me to believe it is a year-ish. I think there's a reason to talk about it if it's a single year for military academy where all the important nobles/lucky commoners come together for a year and then return to their respective countries! But I'm more inclined to believe some event happens which forces them to leave (specifically the three main lords).

I don't think 3 years is impossible, but just based on what we've been given, unlikely unless they do skips specifically (which I can 100% see), but even then I still think the military academy might be 2 years at most.

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Kiran_

[Timlugia]

2 hours ago, Lynsanity said:

Keep in mind you can venture out and do optional missions every weekend of the month, so assuming the battles refresh often enough, you could end up doing 36+ in the single pre-timeskip year.

It appears to be only a regular and a + rank, with no - ranks. So it's two times as many rankings, to account for how many more ways you have to build weapon rank now. I think if you set a student's focus to a weapon, then Instruct them in it, in addition to what they use in battle, you'll actually still go through those weapon ranks faster than before. Which could be useful because promotions are locked behind weapon ranks now.

That said I do think the game will feel longer than other Fire Emblems, if only because of how much freedom you're given in how to spend your gameplay time.

If I heard it right from various demo presenters on Youtube, you could do more than 36 battles in the year.

I think there is one random skirmish each week, with multiple quests and paralogues depending on your students and progression.

 

In normal mode fighting weekly skirmish does not taken movement points, but it does in hard mode. Also fighting too many battles in a row would reduce morale in your classes (and Sword of Creator needs recharge). Those are soft limits how many battles you could have.

 

So yeah, 3 years would be kind absurd in terms of progression or pacing.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Timlugia

[Sentinel07]

Yeah, I very much sincerely doubt there'll be a 3-year school period. That just sounds outrageous to deal with.

[BastienSoul]

If there were three years, than why aren't they showing the designs later in the school phase instead of those in the war phase? Unless you're suggesting that, for example, Caspar doesn't change at all for three years (while he's a teen) but then has a significant growth spurt while in his 20s. Also, why can't the war phase be more than half the game?

Edited June 28, 2019 by BastienSoul

[HTakara82]

1 hour ago, Kiran_ said:

Oh no, I would LOVE a long game. I would really, really enjoy a long game like RD again. I just don't particularly want the school portion to be the bulk of it! And I fear if that portion is 3 years (even with skips) it will leave a lot less for the war phase which seems to be a really interesting part!

I don't have a basis for the time skip being the bulk, I'm just doing based off old games and the fact they revealed in when they did and how they did from a marketing standpoint. It has to be at least HALF the game because if it was only the last 3rd or so it would make sense to only tease it near the end of the promotional material. But since they did a lot earlier it stands to reason at least half the game is War Phase, and I'm inclined to believe based on the hype they gave for it, it might be more than half. When I say 'bulk' I don't mean like 3/4th of the game. I'm hoping something closer to 2/3rds or so. But that's just speculation/hope on my part!

"This year", but we also haven't seen any older students. It's always divided by 'house' which seems odd. It wouldn't make sense for the academy to wait every 3 years to admit students, but the fact we've gotten no indication of a senior class above them (you'd think some characters could have been from the other years) is odd. Which leads me to believe it is a year-ish. I think there's a reason to talk about it if it's a single year for military academy where all the important nobles/lucky commoners come together for a year and then return to their respective countries! But I'm more inclined to believe some event happens which forces them to leave (specifically the three main lords).

I don't think 3 years is impossible, but just based on what we've been given, unlikely unless they do skips specifically (which I can 100% see), but even then I still think the military academy might be 2 years at most.

 

I think we as a community need to stop basing off of what's been done in the past. Virtually everything Three houses has done so far has been far away from the norm. 

We do see other "faceless" NPCs in roaming around, they're just not important. There's no way that the entire school is made completely of only 24 people, that's just silly. 

Some more reasons why i believe the game is long; 

Old Fire Emblem level conventions are gone, we've seen beginner tier hitting level 25+, stat ceilings seems to be a lot higher as well, and the fact that you can break the stat caps +5 to all stats as well through the statues. And that there's several tier levels. We've shown up to Advance class, Noble / Commoner > Beginner > Intermediate > Advance, and we see that the bar can scroll down to even a higher tier class. Meaning the game is staged to be long. If the game is set for us to reach such high heights it's not unreasonable for the game to be long enough for us to take advantage of the "tier 4" classes (I'm counting the starting class as tier 0)

[Timlugia]

15 minutes ago, HTakara82 said:

We do see other "faceless" NPCs in roaming around, they're just not important. There's no way that the entire school is made completely of only 24 people, that's just silly.

How about three imperial army groups with auxiliary in Radiant Dawn being represented by 20 guys? Fire Emblem rarely repents realistic numbers. It's not like playing Total War series.

 

And current info hints that you could get more characters(may not be called students anymore) later in war phase, since some of the instruction mechanism still remains.

Flayn, Tomas, Cyril might very well be your "second class students" after time skip.

As for overall cast size, including faculties, we already have close to 35 potential playable. While smaller than previous games, each character has far more background and interaction than any previous Fire Emblem title.

 

Anyway, over 100 battles (consider over 36 battle possible a year) even before hitting main arc just doesn't make sense.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Timlugia

[Kiran_]

1 hour ago, HTakara82 said:

I think we as a community need to stop basing off of what's been done in the past. Virtually everything Three houses has done so far has been far away from the norm. 

We do see other "faceless" NPCs in roaming around, they're just not important. There's no way that the entire school is made completely of only 24 people, that's just silly. 

Some more reasons why i believe the game is long; 

Old Fire Emblem level conventions are gone, we've seen beginner tier hitting level 25+, stat ceilings seems to be a lot higher as well, and the fact that you can break the stat caps +5 to all stats as well through the statues. And that there's several tier levels. We've shown up to Advance class, Noble / Commoner > Beginner > Intermediate > Advance, and we see that the bar can scroll down to even a higher tier class. Meaning the game is staged to be long. If the game is set for us to reach such high heights it's not unreasonable for the game to be long enough for us to take advantage of the "tier 4" classes (I'm counting the starting class as tier 0)

Nobody is arguing against a longer game. Just where the game is going to be long at. You're suggesting a high front end of 3 years, I'm suggesting a shorter front end and a longer war phase. I think we all think the game is going to be long based on the level caps/higher tier of classes.

And you can't not base things off the past. I don't think you can say things will exactly happen BECAUSE of the past. But combat arts are brought back. Echoes. Weapon durability. A staple came back. The roaming around — an extension of what we saw in Echoes. The paths again, like Fates. Dismounting, from the Tellius games. Three Houses isn't THAT different from everything that's been done. It's drawing off a lot of the past. Sure it's going to be unique and have its own things, but the past is a guideline and it's silly to ignore it. Because of the fact Fire Emblem has always focused on war and said implications, I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that's why the War Phase could be longer.

It's the same reason why I thought it was silly everyone was freaking out about the school portion being the 'only' part of the game when clearly they would never fully do that. We have the past to look at and know what we can expect, up to an extent.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Kiran_