Paired Endings - how do they work?

[Crushie]

No spoilers, rather a question about game mechanics.

I just finished my second playthrough of the game (first being Blue Lions, second Golden Deer) and I can't wrap my head around how paired endings are determined. According to Reddit, the endings depend on the closest allies tap and the characters who have each other as the first option get the paired endings. However, in my GD playthrough I didn't get any of the pairings that should have happened according to the closest ally section. Claude and Flayn, as well as Hilda and Ignatz, Raphael and Leonie, Lorenz and Marianne and Lysithea and Cyril all had each other as their closest ally, yet the endings I got were Claude/Hilda, Ignatz/Raphael, Lorenz/Lysithea, Flayn and Cyil were alone and Marianne had an ending with.... Hanneman (they had an A support, however I completed that chain shortly after the time skip)?

Same with the Blue Lions, Felix and Sylvain ended up getting an ending although Sylvain and Mercedes were practically clued together the whole game.

Does anyone have any idea how the game determines which characters get a paired ending? 

[Tribute]

There's definitely alot under the hood because people can have multiple A supports, but only one paired ending.

It somehow has a rank on who can trump who for taking a pairing, and then that dominoes down the list

[xchickengirlx]

I can't help but feel that IS kinda dropped the ball with the A supports/paired endings. I can kinda understand that they wanted to take some control away from the players? Compared to Fates where you could play matchmaker? So far I haven't seen any concrete answers/solutions on how to be 100% sure you are going to get the paired ending you are vying for btw whatever two characters.

I would have preferred that players had the option to chose the paired ending they want AND have the option for it to be more random, for players who don't care as much about match making. For example, I'm on my GD rote, recruited Petra, and am really enjoying their support together. However in Claude's profile, Petra isn't listed in his top 3 closest characters. Yet in Petra's profile, Claude his 2nd on her list. SO yeah, I guess i'll see how it turns out once I'm done with this playthrough. 😕

[Tribute]

10 minutes ago, xchickengirlx said:

I can't help but feel that IS kinda dropped the ball with the A supports/paired endings. I can kinda understand that they wanted to take some control away from the players? Compared to Fates where you could play matchmaker? So far I haven't seen any concrete answers/solutions on how to be 100% sure you are going to get the paired ending you are vying for btw whatever two characters.

I would have preferred that players had the option to chose the paired ending they want AND have the option for it to be more random, for players who don't care as much about match making. For example, I'm on my GD rote, recruited Petra, and am really enjoying their support together. However in Claude's profile, Petra isn't listed in his top 3 closest characters. Yet in Petra's profile, Claude his 2nd on her list. SO yeah, I guess i'll see how it turns out once I'm done with this playthrough. 😕

If you only do one A support does that not lock it in?

[xchickengirlx]

I guess that would be one sure fire way, is to not let a character have any other A supports except with the character who you want the paired ending with. But that's kinda lame. I'd like to see the A supports with most of the students, such as Claude and Lorenz, I just don't want them to get their paired ending together. It doesn't seem fair for the player to not be able to enjoy all the A supports between the characters, at the expense of what paired ending they want

[Mark the Tactician]

8 hours ago, Tribute said:

If you only do one A support does that not lock it in?

Just completed the Golden Deer path. I did exactly that, and all the paired endings I was hoping for did come to pass.

[wissenschaft]

Remember how Chrom's waifu options had priority with Sumia having the highest. I wonder if theres a similar priority system at work in Three Houses.

Edited August 8, 2019 by wissenschaft

[Sentinel07]

28 minutes ago, wissenschaft said:

Remember how Chrom's waifu options had priority with Olivia having the highest. I wonder if theres a similar priority system at work in Three Houses.

Olivia was not the highest. Rather, she's the second lowest.

[wissenschaft]

oops, typo. I meant Sumia. lol

[MasterSlayerX]

I managed to get Claude x Ingrid ending and that was while accepting all supports . ingrid was a lot of time set as backup for Claude considering him being a flier and one of my main used character as well as setting both of them to flying or horse training a lot of the time so it could very well have an impact . Wether he would of gone with Hilda if I had not chosen to marry the main char to her I don’t know . 

[Tribute]

14 hours ago, xchickengirlx said:

I guess that would be one sure fire way, is to not let a character have any other A supports except with the character who you want the paired ending with. But that's kinda lame. I'd like to see the A supports with most of the students, such as Claude and Lorenz, I just don't want them to get their paired ending together. It doesn't seem fair for the player to not be able to enjoy all the A supports between the characters, at the expense of what paired ending they want

So yes, you can control the endings if you don't turn it into a convoluted web of tiebreakers.

Use a dummy file to fill the book (or to get your endings). Theres 4 playthroughs anyway. So use the files you're gonna burn on a new game+ to fill your log.

[joevar]

Maybe there's a hidden counter / value that's still counting even after they get A support? So whichever has the highest combination value will get paired (if possible) ? i mean, you still get heart even after max support right ?

Edited August 8, 2019 by joevar

[daisy jane]

I'm not sure. 
because Lorenz got an A+ support with someone - but he ended up being w/Marianne (which is what i wanted anyway) I have no idea. 
but  - i made Petra and Dorothea marry each other which was actually very sweet. - and not my intention. I wanted to just watch all the supports anyway. 

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

What about when Byleth chooses someone to S-support? He/she gets a paired ending with them, while everyone else who had Byleth at #1 on their “closest allies” list go down their list to the next highest?

[timon]

There's to consider that a fair share of A supports seem to have some romantic implication, so maybe we're "supposed" to have just one, but the game gives you the chance to see them all in one playthrough? Seems dumb, but it might be the reason for this weird implementation.

[Sire]

All right, I finally finished my Blue Lions playthrough and everything went fine, save for two paired endings...

I wanted Petra x Ashe and Annette x Mercedes. Instead, Ashe and Annette ended up getting paired together, while Petra and Mercedes got solo endings.
* * * * *
What perplexes me is that I had Annette and Mercedes basically glued together at all times. They dined together and sang choir together, and when I last checked, they were the Number 1 option together. Based off of "support points alone," if there was such a thing, they should have been paired together no matter what.

To further confuse matters, Ashe was mainly benched. I did bring him out on the rare occasion to build up his support logs, but otherwise he was not fielded. I believe when I checked his Roster page, he had Annette as #1 while Petra was #2.

As for Petra, her option was basically just Ashe.
- - - - -
Due to all of this, I want to say there may be an internal priority system in place. So, each student is numbered, with those of your own house probably taking priority. Then they go down that internal list, checking the roster of "closest allies" and pairing them together. In order words...

Paired Ending Selection (Theory)
0. Byleth gets the "S" Support.
1. Students have internal IDs.
2. Students of your house are prioritized.
3. The endings go down the list of internal IDs.
4. On that specific student, pair them with the highest availble "closest ally."
5. Rinse and repeat.

[iavasechui]

While I was annoyed that I got the Hilda Marianne ending when I was wanting Hilda and Claude, and Lorenz and Marianne that ending where 

Spoiler

Lorenz ends up leading the alliance after Claude leaves and meets the king of Almyra and it turns out to be Claude is amazing XD 

 

[xchickengirlx]

9 hours ago, Sire said:

All right, I finally finished my Blue Lions playthrough and everything went fine, save for two paired endings...

I wanted Petra x Ashe and Annette x Mercedes. Instead, Ashe and Annette ended up getting paired together, while Petra and Mercedes got solo endings.
* * * * *
What perplexes me is that I had Annette and Mercedes basically glued together at all times. They dined together and sang choir together, and when I last checked, they were the Number 1 option together. Based off of "support points alone," if there was such a thing, they should have been paired together no matter what.

To further confuse matters, Ashe was mainly benched. I did bring him out on the rare occasion to build up his support logs, but otherwise he was not fielded. I believe when I checked his Roster page, he had Annette as #1 while Petra was #2.

As for Petra, her option was basically just Ashe.
- - - - -
Due to all of this, I want to say there may be an internal priority system in place. So, each student is numbered, with those of your own house probably taking priority. Then they go down that internal list, checking the roster of "closest allies" and pairing them together. In order words...

Paired Ending Selection (Theory)
0. Byleth gets the "S" Support.
1. Students have internal IDs.
2. Students of your house are prioritized.
3. The endings go down the list of internal IDs.
4. On that specific student, pair them with the highest availble "closest ally."
5. Rinse and repeat.

quoting this from a redditor on the BL route who had the same issue:

"As a note, it seems like there’s a flaw in the way the game tracks support points. Pairings that don’t have an A+ rank can’t gain as many as ones that do.

So in my route, after I got Sylvain/Mercie to A, I literally marched them together around every map until the game literally wouldn’t award them support points anymore. But once Sylvain had A+ supports with Felix/Ingrid, both of them ended up pushing Mercie to third on his close allies list and I literally couldn’t gain any more support points to change it.

My theory is that the game still tracks A+ as an internal support marker, which means that for units with only A ranks they stop gaining points once they hit A+ and with no cutscene to play you can’t ever get past it. I’m hoping that’s a bug and not intended."

Don't understand why the game had to make it so difficult. Maybe it was just an oversight with the game's programming that the developers didn't think could be an issue for players? I'm still in pre-time skip mode on my GD run, but it is somewhat disheartning to see that folks are still struggling with getting the paired endings they want. I'll do my best to get the ones I want, but it seems like kind of a crapshoot. 😕

Edited August 13, 2019 by xchickengirlx

[joevar]

7 minutes ago, xchickengirlx said:

quoting this from a redditor on the BL route who had the same issue:

"As a note, it seems like there’s a flaw in the way the game tracks support points. Pairings that don’t have an A+ rank can’t gain as many as ones that do.

So in my route, after I got Sylvain/Mercie to A, I literally marched them together around every map until the game literally wouldn’t award them support points anymore. But once Sylvain had A+ supports with Felix/Ingrid, both of them ended up pushing Mercie to third on his close allies list and I literally couldn’t gain any more support points to change it.

My theory is that the game still tracks A+ as an internal support marker, which means that for units with only A ranks they stop gaining points once they hit A+ and with no cutscene to play you can’t ever get past it. I’m hoping that’s a bug and not intended."

Don't understand why the game had to make it so difficult. Maybe it was just an oversight with the game's programming that the developers didn't think could be an issue for players? I'm still in pre-time skip mode on my GD run, but it is somewhat disheartning to see that folks are still struggling with getting the paired endings they want. I'll do my best to get the ones I want, but it seems like kind of a crapshoot. 😕

so support point theory is not really reliable since theres some kind of priority right? i really hope the developers will address this issue in next update (if they realize at all)

On 8/9/2019 at 12:06 AM, timon said:

There's to consider that a fair share of A supports seem to have some romantic implication, so maybe we're "supposed" to have just one, but the game gives you the chance to see them all in one playthrough? Seems dumb, but it might be the reason for this weird implementation.

its a bummer really, but i would rather choose interesting A support conversation as highest support, rather than having bland S support conversation for every character that boils down to: "hey, i like you, and you like me, so lets have a kid"

[Crushie]

6 hours ago, xchickengirlx said:

So in my route, after I got Sylvain/Mercie to A, I literally marched them together around every map until the game literally wouldn’t award them support points anymore. But once Sylvain had A+ supports with Felix/Ingrid, both of them ended up pushing Mercie to third on his close allies list and I literally couldn’t gain any more support points to change it.

Now that you mention it, I did notice that Lorenz and Marianne stopped gaining support hearts at some point. 

So basically, what I suspect happened in my example with the GD endings is that Lorenz and Lysithia accidentally gained some support points during the final map (even though they were literally at opposing sites of the map... maybe during the rush on the final boss they gained some points), resulting in them getting the ending and affecting every other ending as a result. That would at least explain the Lorenz and Cyril situation and mayyybe the fact that Marianne ended up with Hanneman (every other candidate likely had a higher priority with another character already). What I find puzzling however, is what determines solo endings - in my case Flayn and Cyril both having one despite having several options to "choose" from. If I remember correctly, I didn't have any solo endings in my BL run, at least concerning my main cast. 

Doing a BE run right now and I'm really interested what endings I get this time around.

[VincentASM]

I think the theory is almost there, but it needs a little refining.

1. I believe every character has C, C+, B, B+, A and A+ supports even if they aren't visible. For characters who don't have those supports in their support list, you're kinda screwed and have to blindly guess. But for the protagonist, you can check via the "Share a Meal" option.

So if a pair appears to have an A, but is somehow behind a different pair also at A, the other pair could be at A+. I don't actually know how pairs with "real" A+ supports are affected. It might be true that they have an advantage. As in, they can gain points towards a S, while pairs without one might be stuck at A+.

2. Likewise, the protagonist *may* have hidden S supports with every character, regardless of gender (or only the same gender?). I have noticed that in a New Game+, if you swap the protagonist's gender, you can buy some S supports for characters who were the same gender in your previous playthrough.

For example I was a male protagonist initially, but I can now buy a S support for Lorenz and Seteth as a female. I think this behaviour only works for gender-swapping though. This may mean the protag can gain up to S for same gendered characters, but only up to A+ for different genders. I'm not 100% sure though.

Although, this probably isn't too important since the protag overrides everyone if you manually S support.

3. There is definitely a priority list. You can just tell by looking at the close allies list sometimes. It's most likely the support list order, which is the same as the internal order. So it goes male protag, female protag, Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, Hubert, etc. I think when there's a tie, the game uses this order.

It was really obvious in my playthrough, because my pairings were me x Lysithea, Claude x Lorenz, Raphael x Ignatz, Marianne x Hilda and Leonie by herself. With Lysithea taken, that's just the support list order: Claude, (gap for Black Eagle and Blue Lions who I didn't recruit), Lorenz, Raphael, Ignatz, Marianne, Hilda and Leonie.

Edited August 13, 2019 by VincentASM

[PokéStarz]

One thing I did in my first playthrough to ensure I got the paired endings I wanted: I saved viewing characters’ A support conversations with the characters I didn’t want them paired with until the last couple chapters. I don’t think characters can gain Support points if they have a pending conversation? At least it doesn’t physically appear on the battlefield:

Edited August 14, 2019 by PokéStarz
Better clarification.

[SurviveEternity]

In order to pursue an answer to this question, I started a Google Sheets book during my Blue Lions playthrough to keep track of who each person's top allies were and - honestly, I can't tell you the game's logic. Like. At all. Everyone had multiple A-ranks (except Leonie, who had one non-Byleth A-rank) and I married my Byleth to Dimitri. (I was going for 'completing the support log', not so much picking paired endings, beyond Linhardt/Lysithea)

Here are the endings I got, in the order they appeared:

• Linhardt x Lysithea (Mutual first A-rank, mutual Closest Ally)
• Mercedes x Annette (mutual Closest Ally)
• Dorothea x Lorenz (Mutual first A-rank, mutual second Closest Ally beyond Byleth)
• Ferdinand x Marianne (mutual first A-rank, mutual Closest Ally)
• Raphael x Ignatz (mutual Closest Ally)
• Caspar x Bernadetta (Bernie was Caspar's first Closest Ally, Caspar wasn't on Bernie's list)
• Dedue x Flayn (Flayn was Dedue's third Closest Ally, behind Dimitri and Byleth. Dedue's final A-rank)
• Felix x Leonie (Leonie's only non-Byleth A-rank, Felix was Leonie's second Closest Ally behind Byleth)
• Sylvain x Ingrid (Mutual first A-rank, mutual Closest Ally, the only A+ to win)

So. I have no idea what happened for most of these - sometimes, it seems like 'First A-Rank wins', other times, it's whoever's their first closest ally and then...I have no idea what happened. Ashe had 3 non-Byleth A-ranks (including an A+ with Annette) and ended up solo. Bernadetta had an A+ with Raphael, but ended up with someone who wasn't even on her close allies list. Annette had an A+ with Ashe and an A+ with Gilbert and ended up with Mercedes. Felix had an A+ with Sylvain, who wasn't even on his closest allies list. There has to be some internal order, but - I couldn't tell you what it is. It definitely isn't prioritizing A+ ranks at all.

[timon]

Well for me it went completely according to the "close allies" list so I thought it was based on that, here's what I got (S rank was Edelgard):

• Hanneman / Manuela
• Hubert / Petra
• Ferdinand / Bernadetta
• Linhardt / Lysithea
• Sylvain / Dorothea
• Caspar / Annette
• Ashe / Marianne
• Shamir / Leonie
• Alois (his closest ally was Shamir, but she had Leonie and Leonie had her, so I guess that one had priority)

I'm pretty sure (I say pretty sure because last time I checked there were still 2 battles to fight) everyone had each other as the closest ally, and with the exception of Alois there was no overlap, so I guess if you do it carefully you can just base it off that list.

[Landmaster]

For sure, they need to be the highest under Closest Allies, but I believe there is some priority given to + Supports simply because they can gain more points or units that otherwise have no other endings. In my Blue Lions run, I intended to end with Annette and Felix, but because Annette was A Supported with Gilbert, the game prioritized their ending and Felix ended up with Lysithea. 

All of the paired endings I got were:

F!Byleth X Dimitri

Annette X Gilbert

Mercedes X Dedue

Lysithea X Felix

Petra X Ashe

Ingrid X Sylvain

All of them were intended aside from Annette/Gilbert and Lysithea/Felix (Mercie and Dedue weren't really intended either but I'm not complaining about it). Felix can have a + Support with both Lysithea and Annette and Annette was highest under his Closest Allies List but Annette's A Support with Gilbert took priority since he had no other ending options.

So basically, the only way to fully ensure not ending up with something you don't want is to literally just not view any other conversations besides the ones you want to happen to avoid potentially ending up with something you don't want. Because if a Support Conversation hasn't been viewed, they can't gain any more Support points.

I'm playing Golden Deer now and I've been paying attention to who is under Closest Allies for each unit so I'll see how those pairings end up with more observations.