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


Rezzy
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29 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

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.

It would still result in some extra filler dialogue/commentary on last month/actually quest-relevant dialogue to be written, but the game would flow much better. Even with how the game is now, there's a lot of characters whose dialogue aren't even relevant to the current month's task anyway (at least until timeskip)...

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It' far more implausible to have 20 battles in a couple of years at best like how happens in other fire emblem games. Or that the genius tactician alway popose sieging the inpregnable fortress instead of just waiting untill they run out of food. It's just gameplay taking precedence over story.

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Personally I also felt weird that we wasted an entire month around the monastery when we figured out the solution on the weekend. A child is kidnapped, and we can't go to rescue her, otherwise it'll automatically end the month, which is silly. Yet much later in the game there's 2 chapters which come right after each other without spending an entire month between them - so they could've pulled out something like this if they really wanted to. It's not like we need to search the areas outside of the monastery to find her or anything.

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For the record, the Flayn map can be done at any time if you do a certain event while exploring. Once you’re done, the remaining teachings are done automatically, so you don’t miss out on them. 

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The Flayn chapter specifically is such a self-made problem, it's straight up bizarre. That being said, I do believe you get a (worthless) accessory and additional affinity points for both Flayn and Seteth if you do it early. Which isn't worth it at all, and I'm not even certain, I'll check on my next run.

Outside of that, yeah, we could definitely have used a few mid-month chapters. Similarly, chapters that don't have you go back to the monastery in between could have happened a bit more often, post-timeskip especially. I don't think the system cannot work, the player just needs some novelty here and there.

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I think you just have to disconnect a bit the two things. The month system is just a gameplay mechanic that takes over the story, like the fact that you can spend 3 battle pointsto fight in the south, north and east of the continent in the same day. If you want to "RP" it just go directly in Jeritza's quarters asap I guess. Or you could say that they were looking for her the whole month, but the Manuela thing wouldn't make a lot of sense.

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11 hours ago, Rezzy said:

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.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't your example not allow for 3 weeks of delay? 

 

I recall only having Explore as an option during Week 1, and interacting with Jeritza's house causes a 3 week time skip (using up the rest of the month after rescuing Flayn).

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2 hours ago, Etheus said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't your example not allow for 3 weeks of delay? 

 

I recall only having Explore as an option during Week 1, and interacting with Jeritza's house causes a 3 week time skip (using up the rest of the month after rescuing Flayn).

It gives you the choice not to go to Jeritza's spot, allowing you to do other stuff until the end of the month.

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I just beat Dimitri's paralogue. Post-timeskip, but one line of dialogue in the conversation afterwards jumped out at me:

Spoiler

I wanted to thank you for your help with the Arianrhod campaign the other day.

This line is either nonsense or illuminating mechanically. Probably both.

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On 8/20/2019 at 2:55 PM, Cysx said:

That being said, I do believe you get a (worthless) accessory and additional affinity points for both Flayn and Seteth if you do it early. Which isn't worth it at all, and I'm not even certain, I'll check on my next run.

Can now confirm. If you do the chapter at the start of the month, you get the White Dragon scarf(+2 Charm), and affinity for both Flayn and Seteth right after the final choice where you accept Flayn in your class. If you do the chapter at the end of the month, you get neither of those things.

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5 minutes ago, Cysx said:

Can now confirm. If you do the chapter at the start of the month, you get the White Dragon scarf(+2 Charm), and affinity for both Flayn and Seteth right after the final choice where you accept Flayn in your class. If you do the chapter at the end of the month, you get neither of those things. 

Are you able to test the in-between scenario where you trigger the mission via exploration, but not the first exploration of the month? The reward might be something you get for investigating yourself versus letting the month time out (in which case for me it was Ignatz who discovered the place) instead of having to do it at the earliest possible opportunity.

Edited by Humanoid
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28 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Are you able to test the in-between scenario where you trigger the mission via exploration, but not the first exploration of the month? The reward might be something you get for investigating yourself versus letting the month time out (in which case for me it was Ignatz who discovered the place) instead of having to do it at the earliest possible opportunity.

Okay, I just entered and cleared it from the exploration of the 28th, and I again didn't get the accessory or the affinity. Note that I killed the Death knight on every clear I did of this chapter(beginning of the month or not), so that's not a factor.

Edited by Cysx
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2 hours ago, Cysx said:

Can now confirm. If you do the chapter at the start of the month, you get the White Dragon scarf(+2 Charm), and affinity for both Flayn and Seteth right after the final choice where you accept Flayn in your class. If you do the chapter at the end of the month, you get neither of those things.

That’s kinda unfortunate. I mean, I’m glad the game gives you something to make up for losing a whole month of time for exploration, battles, teaching, etc. but man that does not seem like a good trade. You’re much better off doing it at the end of the month. 

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18 minutes ago, ZanaLyrander said:

That’s kinda unfortunate. I mean, I’m glad the game gives you something to make up for losing a whole month of time for exploration, battles, teaching, etc. but man that does not seem like a good trade. You’re much better off doing it at the end of the month. 

I can't help but wonder if that accessory doesn't have some other use, but to my knowledge, it doesn't. That being said, there are some fairly hidden things in this game, like that battalion you get for bringing Manuela(or Dorothea?) in front of(light post timeskip spoilers)

Spoiler

the Mittlefrank Opera.

So maybe, just maybe.

Edited by Cysx
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I honestly would say this was my biggest gripe with the game immersion/story wise. I didn't mind it originally, but I think for SOME missions, they could have done better with staggering out missions around the calendar. Like instead of saving Flayn at the end of the month, they could have had the mission in the first week of the month, and then had the usual 3 weeks after dealing with the aftermath.

But honestly I found it more egregious in the Post Time-skip route. "Oh we have this big war battle that will determine our entire course of the war, but first back to the monastery for a month to garden and fish!" I wish they had made it more of a traveling base in the second half of the game, and staggered missions throughout the month versus keeping it so hard set on the end.

 

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