The One Mission a Month System (Early Game Spoilers Kinda)

[Rezzy]

For some missions, it makes sense, like the House mock battles or a planned attack on a ceremony day, but for others, it's downright weird that they act like time is of the essence, yet we wait until the end of the month before getting around to helping with an imminent threat.

Byleth: Seteth, I know Flayn's been kidnapped, and it's an emergency, but I don't want to miss out on 3 weeks worth of EXP, so she'll just have to wait.

[SilverArcher]

Next Fire Emblem game should just ditch the calendar and if they want keep a similar format the should do something like Stella Glow. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Well if I remember correctly in the Flayn example you actually don't wait until the end of the month. The game locks out any other activities, and then after the mission awards you with four weeks of automatic instruction to account for the month you lost.

But yeah, it's pretty silly in terms of story telling that nothing happens until the last possible day of each month. Like it's some cosmic coincidence. "The brigands will wait patiently for 25 days before they attack the village"

[iavasechui]

As long as you don’t go after Jeritza manually you can totally put off saving her the entire month. I saved her day one golden deer then end of the month with blue lions 

[Rezzy]

1 minute ago, Glennstavos said:

Well if I remember correctly in the Flayn example you actually don't wait until the end of the month. The game locks out any other activities, and then after the mission awards you with four weeks of automatic instruction to account for the month you lost.

But yeah, it's pretty silly in terms of story telling that nothing happens until the last possible day of each month. Like it's some cosmic coincidence. "The brigands will wait patiently for 25 days before they attack the village"

You don't have to complete that mission the first week, if you don't want to.  I opted to wait until the last week, so I could do battles and stuff.

[StriderSean]

This is why I wish months just had the cutscene with the neat lore and pictures, but in-game events happen daily, on their own rules, rather than just the month's end. Basically, more Persona. I've only played 3FES and 5, but either a "Full Moon" that happens at a predetermined time, but changes each month, or a "deadline" would both work equally as well.

Edited August 20, 2019 by StriderSean

[Humanoid]

Yeah, it's godawful. There being only one story mission a month shouldn't really have anything to do with the existence of a calendar, as there really isn't any reason why they have to be in a one-to-one ratio other than laziness. They don't want to script NPC dialogue and locations dynamically over the course of the month and would rather have everyone stand stock still in the exact same place for the entirety of every month. (And don't get me started on random Sundays and Mondays you arbitrarily aren't allowed to do anything on)

In the Flayn example, so what if we tackle the mission during the very first exploration session of the month? The NPCs could then start talking about the fallout from that event as soon as you complete the mission, instead of doing it starting on the first day of next month. Yes, it might mean the state of the monastery might end up being the same for the next 6-7 weeks, but how is that worse than just handwaving away the next 3 weeks off-camera? The current "solution" just comes off as a clumsy hack.

Edited August 20, 2019 by Humanoid

[Florete]

I always imagined Edelgard saying to Byleth, "Professor, isn't it peculiar how these important battles always happen at the end of each month?"

The Flayn one was certainly weird, but also...whichever chapter it was where you go to save the villagers and defeat Solon. At the beginning Jeralt is all, "We have to act quickly. Get ready." And he actually says "Get ready" like you're going right away, but then we just dilly-dally for a month. Then we get there and at one point he says something about being too late and I'm like, "Yeah, maybe we should have come a few weeks ago."

[Humanoid]

Makes you wonder how incompetent Solon must be if he's had Flayn prisoner for an entire month and still failed to get her to donate any blood. And how Manuela has been bleeding out on the floor for the same length of time with no food or water.

Lonato's rebel army also seemingly travels at about a furlong a fortnight.

[Spectrum]

Yeah I'm not a big fan of the calendar system. Don't hate it, don't like it either. I would prefer it if they ditched it in the next game. Felt kinda stupid at some missions.

[EricaofRenais]

Yeah I find the whole month thing annoying and dumb, I feel like they should have had it so that you walk around one day a month and set what you want people to learn then the rest of the month is devoted to battles and you can pick which ones you want to tackle first.  It would have made more sense.

[Humanoid]

I want to keep the calendar system, but the the events of the game should be planned out independently of it. Used properly, a calendar can properly contextualise events and timescales and would be a boon to worldbuilding. Build the calendar, put all the known, foreseeable events like birthdays and mock battles on it, and let us view the entire year in advance. But "surprise" events should never appear on it at all, they should be as surprising to the player as they are to the player character. Being caught (believably) unprepared by the actions of the various behind-the-scenes factions is a story element they keep trying to push but their rigid structure is undermining that.

More generally, the series really needs to do more about interface spoilers. Beyond the big story events on the calendar and also the strict end dates on paralogues, it baffles me how they still do stuff like exposing who the good guys are by their presence or absence on the support menu.

 

Speaking of worldbuilding, I've only just started paying attention to the world map, and boy, whoever drew it has no idea how rivers work.

[Dark Holy Elf]

12 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

More generally, the series really needs to do more about interface spoilers. Beyond the big story events on the calendar and also the strict end dates on paralogues, it baffles me how they still do stuff like exposing who the good guys are by their presence or absence on the support menu.

 

I think in this particular game the support list is fine, because it only tells you who will be a good guy on at least one route.

Anyway like most others I think the "build up to problems for a month" was a big miss. In the case of something like say Flayn, I'd have had a normal month with either no listed mission or a fake-out one you end up not doing, and have the Flayn events happen over one surprise day near the month's end. I don't mind having one story battle per month as a time-tracking thing, but there's no reason to call out the missions in advance when it makes no logical sense. 

[Humanoid]

1 minute ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think in this particular game the support list is fine, because it only tells you who will be a good guy on at least one route.

Imagine if the game treated Jeritza just like another Catherine or Shamir, or Tomas just like another Seteth or Hanneman. It'd make the shock just that much better (though Jeritza would need to actually have a personality too, granted).

[Dark Holy Elf]

(spoilers for stuff up to chapter 10 or so)

Jeritza and Tomas being missing from the list does tell you they're not PCs and I guess that reduces the impact of the "twist" that they're villains, but to be honest I found the twist ineffective in both cases, because both characters were so poorly characterized prior to their heel turns (... and after as well if I'm being honest, though I haven't done the Death Knight-related paralogue yet so maybe that'll help). You're right that gameplay does tend to have some sort of spoilers like that, Monica being another good example (really, this named student just "joined" the Black Eagles but isn't a PC?), though they don't bother me that much.

[Humanoid]

Rhea's not playable but appears on the list so it's not like there's no precedent. I can't remember if Gilbert shows up on the list if you're not with Dimitri though, hmm.

[Ertrick36]

2 hours ago, Rezzy said:

Byleth: Seteth, I know Flayn's been kidnapped, and it's an emergency, but I don't want to miss out on 3 weeks worth of EXP, so she'll just have to wait.

I love poking fun at Byleth blue-balling Seteth for a whole month in favor of getting the students some more training.

That said, it's weird because no matter what you do, you always wait until the end of the month to locate him.  Yet at the same time, during the first week, you have no choice but to explore, and you can't end your exploration until you talk to Jeralt about Manuela and Jeritza.  So you'll always find yourself in a situation where you're waiting on the damn thing even though you know where to look.

[MiaMain]

That’s just rpgs in general though. Part 1 had some iffy times with the month calendar, but part 2 was brutal with it. Talk before release made it sound like gameplay changed in the second half, but it was basically the same. Only this time there was no discernible reason why they are at the monastery most of the time. 

 

I think the solution would be to vary the dates so some weeks you have 3 classes, and others there are none so that it feels like you’re just seeing key moments, but that time is still passing.

My other main problem with the system was that people don’t recover happiness. So if you don’t explore every week, your classroom sessions are shot (especially at higher prof levels).

 

[thecrimsonflash]

Admittedly it does have issues, convenience isn't my issue as much as us somehow going from the monastery to enbarr in roughly 2 days, not too bad for a teacher who actively ignored the riding skill.

[NobodiePichu]

2 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Imagine if the game treated Jeritza just like another Catherine or Shamir, or Tomas just like another Seteth or Hanneman. It'd make the shock just that much better (though Jeritza would need to actually have a personality too, granted).

that wouldnt change the fact that these characters being villains in disguise is not very subtle whatsoever. i kept myself as spoiler free as i could going in but it wasnt hard to figure out jeritza and tomases identies, nor was the flame emperor pretty hard to figure out either. And i dont necessarily mind that personally because building a convincing mystery story isnt necessarily part of the stories aims, this isnt mrs marple, but it does lessen the shock of revelations in the story.

[Humanoid]

1 minute ago, NobodiePichu said:

that wouldnt change the fact that these characters being villains in disguise is not very subtle whatsoever. i kept myself as spoiler free as i could going in but it wasnt hard to figure out jeritza and tomases identies, nor was the flame emperor pretty hard to figure out either. And i dont necessarily mind that personally because building a convincing mystery story isnt necessarily part of the stories aims, this isnt mrs marple, but it does lessen the shock of revelations in the story.

Yeah, the game is very heavy-handed in its foreshadowing, almost if it's afraid that the player might miss one and so it keeps repeating itself. Did they think the player would be annoyed if they got through without picking up any of the hints or something? Very weird.

[eclipse]

I mean, the "hurry up and wait maybe" thing is a running joke in RPGs.  Even if it isn't meant as one.

A way around it would be to make the "time sensitive" missions at the end of the month give rewards if they're done early.  For example, if you go to Remire Village at the first opportunity, you have more treasure chests to loot, while if you delay it to the end, everyone's a zombie and all the chests are opened.  Likewise, if you go after Flayn immediately, she joins with better stats.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

1 hour ago, eclipse said:

I mean, the "hurry up and wait maybe" thing is a running joke in RPGs.  Even if it isn't meant as one.

A way around it would be to make the "time sensitive" missions at the end of the month give rewards if they're done early.  For example, if you go to Remire Village at the first opportunity, you have more treasure chests to loot, while if you delay it to the end, everyone's a zombie and all the chests are opened.  Likewise, if you go after Flayn immediately, she joins with better stats.

I agree with those solutions. I was honestly wishing for time-sensitive stuff to be implemented if elements like world map etc. were to be kept in future FEs, mostly to dissuade excessive map grinding. It could still be applied to this game, perhaps, by making doing the task earlier and later have trade-offs, perhaps.

I honestly wonder why they chose to have the task be announced at the start of the month instead of near the end. Literally, what's wrong with making it so that Lonato's rebellion starts up near the end of the month instead of at the start? My guess is they wanted week 1 to always be Explore week for players to get convos, but really, I think they could've just given a free but limited Explore on the day of the task for plot convos but no activities, and ending the Explore session starts the mission.

[Humanoid]

33 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I honestly wonder why they chose to have the task be announced at the start of the month instead of near the end.

They have scripted it so that the state of the monastery for every given month is static, which is a effort-saving measure: it halves the amount of dialogue required to be written per month since they don't have to worry about accounting for anything that happens in the story mission. Finding Flayn ends the month because they didn't want to write a "hey, good job rescuing Flayn, professor, but we're not ready to tell you about the next mission" line for everyone in the monastery. Lonato starts moving at the start of the month because they don't want to make different "hey, heard some suspicious news about unrest in the Kingdom" and "oh no, they're marching on the Monastery" dialogue.

The resulting limitation is that the first explorable Sunday of every month must have the same world state as the final explorable Sunday - absolutely nothing of plot consequence is permitted to happen between the two dates. Notice how sometimes Rhea and Seteth drag you into their "office" occasionally, but only before the first time you're allowed to explore. In the event it happens after the first Sunday, they make that Sunday a dead day and you're not allowed explore, or indeed do anything at all on that day - it just automatically skips to the next week.

Edited August 20, 2019 by Humanoid

[Vince777]

Could have easily fixed this by forcing you to explore on the last week before the mission and have the events happen there.