What little things really grind your gears?

[Ertrick36]

1 hour ago, Dragoncat said:

Dead parents
Jeralt didn't have to be playable! He just needed to survive and have a good story role for longer. It's clear IS is using the dead parents as a reason to spur the main lord or avatar into action and give them a reason to hate the enemy. And there are other ways to do this, not as easy, but these are supposed to be professional writers I'm sure they can do it.

Killing off a character of fleeting importance to the overall plot always feels like such a cheap, overused hook.  Same with damsel in distress which I'm glad doesn't see excessive enough use in the series for people to complain about it.  Of course killing off a character can be a great turning point in a story, and I understand the issues that come with spontaneously killing off a playable character in a game like FE, but it can't just happen to someone the author obviously set aside to be killed off.  I don't think there was a single FE fan that didn't see Jeralt's death coming.  I'll admit Jeralt was more appealing to me than other characters who were set up only to fall, but it's still irksome that I knew it was coming.

I'll echo your listing of elitist fans as well, but I should say right now that doesn't mean veteran fans of the series.  What I mean by elitist fans is those who actively spite newer fans, blame them for "ruining" the series, and give people crap for not being able to beat challenges they think are "easy" (some I would even say are easy for me, but mileage always varies).  And I mostly blame the fact that when I was just starting out with the series, I went to GameFAQs for FE discussions and wound up disillusioned by a bunch of nobjobs that kept circle-jerking over Shadow Dragon and basically all the NES/SNES era games while starting constant flame wars over the newer games (there's one scumbag hypocrite user who was so bad about it that he had to make a bunch of alts that everyone sees right through).

1 minute ago, Captain Karnage said:

I really hate exploring the monistary, like I get that it makes the place feel more lively, but it just gets old really fast. I just want a menu as an option. 

My issue is that in subsequent playthroughs there's basically no way to skip over all the mid-month stuff without leaving your entire team compromised, particularly on Maddening where you need every drop of experience in the beginning of the game.  So every single playthrough you have to explore the monastery doing activities to boost your students' motivation and Byleth's professor level, conduct skirmish battles and/or paralogues, and manage your team's growth all the way through.

I mean, I loved it in the first playthrough, but I also dislike it in follow-up playthroughs.  There is a beauty in the simplicity of how older FE games did it; the only real slogs that existed in those games between chapter missions were the cutscenes/dialogue/supports and possible skirmishes, and both of those could easily be skipped/ignored by the player.

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Well anyway for me one thing that really grinds my gears about these games is the inconsistient number of units you can deploy each map. Like it's not so bad in SS, awakening, birthright, or rev, and to some extent 3H because of grinding but in other entries it annoys that for 3 maps in a row I'm only using like 12 units then on the fourth map I'm suddenly allowed to use 15 units and said units are waay behind in levels and stats because I haven't been using them. It annoys me a lot.

Never really bothered me, tbh.  Different maps call for different army compositions.  And whenever I use a bigger dedicated team than what is allowed in some or all maps (which I often do), I'll just switch them out and give preference towards using the weaker units in any given map.

Like for that example of three 12's in a row and then a 15, I'd be cycling characters in a pool of 15 in each of those 12-allotted maps so that no one falls behind.  For one or two chapters I'll drop Caeda, but then in the third she'll be the star.

 

I just have a single complaint that I don't think was listed here:

Archetypes

Look, I'm not a fool hipster who thinks there exists as such a thing as a completely original concept that doesn't draw from any old well at all.  Everything is based on something in entertainment, and what we see as "creative" is mostly either unique concoctions of previous plot structures, tropes, and what-have-you that haven't been tried before or just aren't done much in the current era.

But this idea of archetypes is annoying.  The reason it's annoying isn't because I hate tropes or lacking originality, but because fans treat it like it's this super serious thing that must be documented.  When it gets really asinine is when they start talking sub-archetypes, like Oifaye.  Like, come on, why do we need to discern two different versions of a pre-promote who joins at the beginning of the game?  Their roles will depend more on the game they come from rather than if they happen to be one of the easier "Jeigans" to bring to endgame.

The thing that seems to irritate me the most is that the Fire Emblem Fandom Wiki seems to treat it with deadpan seriousness.  Like, "archetype" has its own page on that site.  What annoys me is whether or not the developers are deliberately recycling aspects of characters, it's ultimately not something they made; it's something the fans made.  And I suppose the argument could be made that it's a fandom wiki, but that just means it's a wiki made by fans - there are some fandom wikis that are super slick and professionally put together, not pulling into more subjective stuff unless it's appropriate for the given subject.

Yeah, this is petty.  But this is a topic about "little things" that grind our gears, so I can afford to be a petty idiot in this thread in regards to opinions I express.

[Dragoncat]

10 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

I don't think there was a single FE fan that didn't see Jeralt's death coming.  I'll admit Jeralt was more appealing to me than other characters who were set up only to fall, but it's still irksome that I knew it was coming.

I saw it coming for sure, but I clung to that sliver of hope. When it did come it was like omg. "The only time I see you cry...it's for me." Ahhhhhh hell who's cutting onions in here? RIP Blade Breaker/Nun Humper.

12 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

I'll echo your listing of elitist fans as well, but I should say right now that doesn't mean veteran fans of the series.  What I mean by elitist fans is those who actively spite newer fans, blame them for "ruining" the series, and give people crap for not being able to beat challenges they think are "easy" (some I would even say are easy for me, but mileage always varies).  And I mostly blame the fact that when I was just starting out with the series, I went to GameFAQs for FE discussions and wound up disillusioned by a bunch of nobjobs that kept circle-jerking over Shadow Dragon and basically all the NES/SNES era games while starting constant flame wars over the newer games (there's one scumbag hypocrite user who was so bad about it that he had to make a bunch of alts that everyone sees right through).

Basically this. Mainly the giving people crap for not being able to beat "easy" stuff. That annoys me to no end.

[Silver-Haired Maiden]

I would like to echo the elitist fans, though that's a gaming and.... fandom in general issue. "Oh this game mode never should have existed, people aren't getting the true experience!" Like first of all, no one cares about your interpretation of the game's experience. Second of all, you don't have to use that mode and can entirely ignore it, so it hurts you exactly none. I say that as someone who has been playing Fire Emblem for a decently long time and been part of fandoms for longer.

On the fandom note! Toxic. Shippers. Yes, they're here in the FE community. Yes, I hate them just as much here as I do in every other fandom where they seed their way in. No your crackship is not canon, stop claiming it is, and stop shoving it down my throat. Conversely, no one cares if this polite person's ship is not canon, stop being a jerk about disagreeing with them!

[Benice]

• That moment when you reduce someone to one hp and then  they crit you with 1% crit chance, which kills you.
• Boyd x Mist being existing for some weird reason (WHYYYYYYY?!)
• in games with 2nd gen units, weird mash-up relationships that shouldn't exist or should at least mention a divorice in their shared ending. 
• Bad protagonists
• Laguz only appearing in two games
• One-dimensional characters, characters fixated on one thing and characters that everyone in-game likes.
• Ike's ending in RD (which I find is pretty weak...)
• The three hundred billion effective against dragon weapons in heroes
• Teleportation being used as a plot device
• None of the avatars are thick

Also, referring to @Silver-Haired Maiden's comments about shipping, I mostly agree, only slightly less agressively. I personally occasionally ship certain relationships, (almost entirely Rolf and Mist) but find it toxic when it becomes things like Ike and Lethe. Especially since FE is not a dating sim. As long as it's not harrassing, I don't find them that bad, although things can get out of hand... Also, I appreciate your good grammar.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2019 by Benice

[Ottservia]

2 minutes ago, Benice said:

None of the avatars are thick

I mean female Corrin. Speaking of Corrin can I just say it bothers me that Severa has no zettai ryouiki in any of her official artwork(well cipher aside anyway) from fates, heroes, or awakening. I mean we got the twintails and tsundere personality but we don’t have the zettai ryouiki and it bothers me far more than it should. Like come on you just can’t have a twintailed tsundere without it. Hopefully heroes can remedy this. I mean the de-pantsed maribelle so why not

[Benice]

4 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I mean female Corrin. Speaking of Corrin can I just say it bothers me that Severa has no zettai ryouiki in any of her official artwork(well cipher aside anyway) from fates, heroes, or awakening. I mean we got the twintails and tsundere personality but we don’t have the zettai ryouiki and it bothers me far more than it should. Like come on you just can’t have a twintailed tsundere without it. Hopefully heroes can remedy this. I mean the de-pantsed maribelle so why not

Two things: I was mostly joking, (although Mark should be Uber hot) and also, I have hardly a clue what you are saying. Also, if there was a Severa without pants, she'd be unusable do to her being harrased by Inigo. And FEH would be raised to 18+. 

And I guess they could just do another hot springs paralogue and it has Selena or Severa in it. That'd probably make you happy. Or a summer themed one, although you'd have to wait a while for it.

[Silver-Haired Maiden]

16 minutes ago, Benice said:

• That moment when you reduce someone to one hp and then  they crit you with 1% crit chance, which kills you.
• Boyd x Mist being existing for some weird reason (WHYYYYYYY?!)
• in games with 2nd gen units, weird mash-up relationships that shouldn't exist or should at least mention a divorice in their shared ending. 
• Bad protagonists
• Laguz only appearing in two games
• One-dimensional characters, characters fixated on one thing and characters that everyone in-game likes.
• Ike's ending in RD (which I find is pretty weak...)
• The three hundred billion effective against dragon weapons in heroes
• Teleportation being used as a plot device
• None of the avatars are thick

Also, referring to @Silver-Haired Maiden's comments about shipping, I mostly agree, only slightly less agressively. I personally occasionally ship certain relationships, (almost entirely Rolf and Mist) but find it toxic when it becomes things like Ike and Lethe. Especially since FE is not a dating sim. As long as it's not harrassing, I don't find them that bad, although things can get out of hand... Also, I appreciate your good grammar.

I must say I agree with your entire list. Your comment does leave me feeling as though I should clarify.

I don't have a problem with any ship anyone ships (for the most part, there are some problematic ships out there - any of the herons x Oliver for example). My problem comes in with toxic shippers who are so vehement about their ships that they resort to derogatory comments about not only other ships, but the people who ship them or don't agree with their own ship. "You don't like my ship so you must be (insert insult here)!"  Also the people who go onto shipping threads just to sit there and mock people who like lesser known ships or any ship that isn't their own. Those are the people I was referring to, I don't care about crackships in general.

Also Rolf x Mist is adorable and you're very sweet, thank you so much for the compliment!

[Ertrick36]

Oh, I forgot one other thing.

"Canon" OTPs/Avatars/Routes

Of course people have their fanons and head canons... this isn't what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about is crap like "Chrom x Sumia is heavily pushed by the devs, therefore it's canon".  Or "Revelation is the Golden Ending, therefor it's canon".  People who say that kind of crap are the kind of people who'd eat glue, I guarantee you.

Canon, strictly speaking, refers to events that, without dispute, had happened in the main continuity of a story.  When people speak about "diverting from canon" they don't mean a character not pursuing what you deem as the "canon" OTP, they mean stuff like "and suddenly Seliph decided to join forces with Alvis" - crap that definitely didn't happen in the actual story.

As such, the only true "canon" pairs are those which are fixed - pairs such as Marth x Caeda, Pent x Louise, and Sigurd x Deirdre.  A canon "route" only exists in the games which only have one story/path to play, or in the case of something like Blazing Sword, both are semi-canon - pretty much all the events that happen in Eliwood and Hector mode happened, it's just the dialogue's state of canon that is in question.  But for Fates or Three Houses?  No path is more canon than the other.

As for the avatars thing...  Yeah, they have their default appearances in the spin-offs and in said spin-offs they often favor one avatar gender over another.  But no rational person uses spin-offs to determine what is or isn't canon.  Because if they did, then we'd have to assert ridiculous things like "Robin canonically fought Samus from Metroid" or "Marth fought alongside Xander to defeat the OCs of FEW".  To put it simply, Robin, Kris, and Corrin could've had any name or appearance, we just default on those names and appearances because it's easier than trying to make these spin-offs accommodate so much more for them than for other characters, and it's less clunky to say "Robin" than "FE13's avatar".

And this brings me to my ultimate point, which is that the arguments about canon in general are stupid.  Canon refers to an element of fiction, which is extremely malleable and, to put it simply, not real.  As such, it's up to everyone to fill in the gaps where they exist or find their own ways to enjoy fiction.  "Canon" should not get in the way of someone's ability to enjoy a game.  If people find joy in making art of Marth x Catria, that's fine.  If they make self-insert fan-fictions about pursuing love with default female Corrin in Conquest's story, that's fine too.  "Canon" is a construct of the human mind that serves no purpose except to describe what it means to stray away from what was written, and people have perverted that into making pointless assertions based on mere inferences.

And I know we can joke or describe our head canons as "canon".  Like, I'll often say that I think Eliwood x Ninian is canon.  I don't actually mean it, even though I am biased towards it.  But people out there take the concept of "canon" very seriously.  Hell, there are probably people out there who will insult you and/or block you if you say anything that opposes their idea of what's "canon".

1 hour ago, Dragoncat said:

I saw it coming for sure, but I clung to that sliver of hope.

I clung to hope until I heard people talking about it.

4 minutes ago, Silver-Haired Maiden said:

(for the most part, there are some problematic ships out there - any of the herons x Oliver for example)

When it crosses the line for me is when the ships/art are non-consensual.  BIG no-no zone, there.

[Ottservia]

17 minutes ago, Benice said:

Two things: I was mostly joking, (although Mark should be Uber hot) and also, I have hardly a clue what you are saying. Also, if there was a Severa without pants, she'd be unusable do to her being harrased by Inigo. And FEH would be raised to 18+. 

Zettai Ryouiki otherwise known as “the absolute territory” basically the bit of skin that exists between a girl’s skirt and their thigh highs(or thigh high boots). It’s a very common design element among female characters in anime and Japanese video games but make no mistake it’s a fetish nonetheless. If you want example of what I mean just look at most Pegasus knights in the series they almost all have it.

 

21 minutes ago, Benice said:

And I guess they could just do another hot springs paralogue and it has Selena or Severa in it. That'd probably make you happy. Or a summer themed one, although you'd have to wait a while for it.

Dude I’d be happy to get anything at this point. I mean both Inigo and Owain have their original versions in by some form or another so where the hell is Severa?!

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, GlitchWarrior said:

The higher difficulties of FE10 would be almost impossible without Haar,

I'm going to nitpick this one, Haar is low on the "indispensability" list.

Titania won't be around for 2-P/F, and she can't do flier stuff that helps in P4 and a few P3 maps, but otherwise she can with fairly little investment replicate Haar's Hand Axes/Steel Poleaxes Enemy Phase Annihilation. As for P4, Tibarn and Naesala are forced on the two routes you'd put Haar, a Nullify scroll exists if they need to block their arrow weakness, no 1-2 range means it'll take longer, but they invincibly juggernaut everything regardless. Elincia can do the bosskill in 2-F.

This is ignoring that the Greil Mercenaries have Ike and other solid enough units who won't be floored the way early New Mystery, Awakening or Conquest Lunatic will maul most units.

 

 

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

My issue is that in subsequent playthroughs there's basically no way to skip over all the mid-month stuff without leaving your entire team compromised, particularly on Maddening where you need every drop of experience in the beginning of the game.  So every single playthrough you have to explore the monastery doing activities to boost your students' motivation and Byleth's professor level, conduct skirmish battles and/or paralogues, and manage your team's growth all the way through.

I mean, I loved it in the first playthrough, but I also dislike it in follow-up playthroughs.  There is a beauty in the simplicity of how older FE games did it; the only real slogs that existed in those games between chapter missions were the cutscenes/dialogue/supports and possible skirmishes, and both of those could easily be skipped/ignored by the player.

This is why I'll need a break once I'm done with my first playthrough of the game, the calendar makes filler mandatory. I could've finished 3H in the nearly 30 hours it has taken me to get to chapter 16, since that's how long several Fates and SoV playthroughs individually took. And I haven't once explored the monastery outside of doing the bare minimum mandatory visits, nor watched a single story scene, nor read a single support, (but I've filled every weekend with a battle), so my playing has been fairly streamlined.

If I ever want to relax and actually see what the characterization and plot hoopla is about with this game, I think I'll do NG+ Normal Casual, set to autobattle when possible, it'll make me wish they hadn't gotten rid of Phoenix Mode. 

 

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

Killing off a character of fleeting importance to the overall plot always feels like such a cheap, overused hook.

Which is why the next time, the parent should die a tragic sacrificial death early. But then lo it be discovered much later when the heroes achieve a great success that by sheer surprise, their parent been alive, hiding in secret to avoid being caught and executed.

Their hiding place is a warm island where the waves gently roar onto the shore, you find them laying in a hammock, drinking a pina colada; sitting on the sand besides them is the person who found them and nursed their severe wounds to perfect recovery, and said person looks attractive. The dead parent greets the main character, rewards them for their visit and victories, maybe they give them a hug, and then promptly chooses to remain on the island while their young one goes and make a legend for themselves, they'll do some support stuff while they fight on they promise. And then as their child is about to leave, they ask them what they'd think about a new stepparent as their aide refills their colada.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

3 hours ago, GlitchWarrior said:

AMEN. This also goes the other way around- you're using a full army, but then you're forced to bench some of that army in the next map. Then, new units also join in on the crud, making your decision on who to bench a little bit crazy.

Again, AMEN. FE4, for example, is a very mount-focused game, and FE6/7 also really seem to prefer mounted and flying units, due to the rescue drop mechanics, those units typically having low-to-middling constitution and high AID, allowing for those rescue drops, and other units typically not being able to reach the field quickly enough to matter. Apart from Oswin, there's not a single GBA general I like using (and Marcus STILL has to carry him into battle), and Lords being locked at 5 MOV for most of the journey means that if you don't want them to be underleveled, you'd better use enough mounted units to ferry THEM around.

It's the same with units. As you yourself said, Fates puts HEAVY bias on Camilla and Ryoma as units in particular. FE8 puts Seth on such a high pedestal that he's almost considered Meta Knight tier. The higher difficulties of FE10 would be almost impossible without Haar, and in Awakening, dropping Robin almost feels like a death sentence to some. But it goes a step further, like in FE6 where half of the cast is awful, and the other half is mostly boring.

Mount bias is basically impossible to dodge in these kind of games - its about as simple of a concept as why Pawn is a weaker individual piece than Queen in Chess. 

I won't deny that CANTOFE was particularly silly with it but i don't think theyre a heavy offender of developer favoritism. I feel like the issue with Cavs is oftentimes the dev outright not making character around them be as rounded or good and this stacks into whatever broken mechanic the games had. Standard unit power level in Older FE essentially boils down to Mercenaries and Myrm being the only one with any sort of chance matching Cavs - a hangover from the fact that in FE1 and FE3, Ogma and Navvare was deliberately made to be better than every other character due to their lore. In FE7 this get worse off the fact that Sain/Kent/Florina can abuse the OP mechanic Lyn Mode and have the revamped Javelin

 

 

And mind, just because they have developer favoritiosm, doesn't mean theyre good and vice versa.

 

Mareeta and Olwen is probably the grand champion of sheer developer favoritism in the entire series. LIke you have to be blind to not realize how much they want you to think Olwen is good. The only character who'se blatant favoritism is even more blatant is FE4 Leif, who have more storyline showtime than everyone else in the game including Selif somehow

Except the only thing an actual Thracia player remembers about Olwen is her getting actually powercreeped in her own game by literally Superman. Mareeta is on a much better position but she's largely considered the worst Swordmaster in the game since she's just overkill mc overkill

 

On a smaller scale most people would consider Cordelia the one getting developer bias in Awakening(every weapon EVER). Except anyone in the knew about Awakening min maxing would tell you that the character getting all the good stuff was Sumia and every min maxing in the game is essentially done to make the childrens about as good as Sumia

 

 

[Dragoncat]

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

But for Fates or Three Houses?  No path is more canon than the other.

I like to say Revelation is the canon Fates route and I actually kinda want a 3H route where all three lords live, which is why my 2nd gen fic verse does that and keeps the war ambiguous. But I can see your point here. The Ike sexuality shitstorm comes to mind here and that's all I'll say on it.

@Interdimensional Observer

Quote

Which is why the next time, the parent should die a tragic sacrificial death early. But then lo it be discovered much later when the heroes achieve a great success that by sheer surprise, their parent been alive, hiding in secret to avoid being caught and executed.

Their hiding place is a warm island where the waves gently roar onto the shore, you find them laying in a hammock, drinking a pina colada; sitting on the sand besides them is the person who found them and nursed their severe wounds to perfect recovery, and said person looks attractive. The dead parent greets the main character, rewards them for their visit and victories, maybe they give them a hug, and then promptly chooses to remain on the island while their young one goes and make a legend for themselves, they'll do some support stuff while they fight on they promise. And then as their child is about to leave, they ask them what they'd think about a new stepparent as their aide refills their colada.

This is glorious and I could see it being Jeralt. He found a new nun to hump, still loves his first one, but trusts that she'd be okay with it.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Dragoncat

[Ottservia]

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

But for Fates or Three Houses?  No path is more canon than the other.

three houses maybe. Fates is weird when it comes which path can be considered cause they technically are all canon but at the same time not canon like I said it's really weird

[Benice]

2 hours ago, Silver-Haired Maiden said:

 I don't have a problem with any ship anyone ships (for the most part, there are some problematic ships out there - any of the herons x Oliver for example.)

That's because oliver is Ike's soulmate. After the events of RD, a branded pride movement begins and Oliver hires Soren to pretend to be a statue on his estate. Ike believes that it is actually a statue and thinks that oliver changed. And thus begins a whirlwind romance.  

[Parrhesia]

cough kill the unmarked fe16 spoilers you idiots cough

Edited November 3, 2019 by Parrhesia

[KevinskyHaaz]

1) The new critical animations ever since Awakening. I am not a fan of how instead of the really cool, really unique character movements that we used to get, now its usually just "OH HEY MY FACE IS ON THE SCREEN! YOU'RE GONNA REGRET FIGHTING ME, BAD GUY!!!" And they jump and strike down or something. Granted, there are a few actually good crit animations. I love the new Peg Knight and Wyvern Knight crits where they fly around (esp. with bows). Also War Masters have some interesting stuff. Most classes are really lacking though.

2) All of the pre-mission and post-mission scenes in Three Houses where your class gathers around and endlessly praises Byleth and only Byleth. I seriously cannot stand this... Also, I hate how every character other than the Lord (Dim, Edel, or Claude) has usually only one line in each of these scenes. Their line is never necessary. It's always just a "HEY! REMEMBER MY CHARACTER TROPE? YEAH? REMEMBER THAT I'M STILL HERE? HAHA YEAH." Ugh... Why can't they just talk like normal people?

3) This is not exactly a 'little thing,' but I'm still putting it because it bugs me. Games that have multiple stories based on what path you choose at the beginning. There are only 2 games in the series that apply to this. For some reason, this is the new popular thing because people like feeling like they are in control of the story, but I just don't vibe with it. Instead of having one super long, super engaging, and beautifully written story with characters whose arcs span an extremely long play time... people now prefer to have two or three much shorter stories that force complex arcs and narratives into a much tighter space. This often leaves each possible route feeling very rushed (looking at you Crimson Flower), and it leaves an empty feeling in me. In short, compare Radiant Dawn to 3 Houses. Radiant Dawn was one MASSIVE story, and you got to play as three different teams throughout the overarching story! That's so cool. Meanwhile in 3 Houses, which still had fabulous writing at times, you only get a small chunk of the cast, and the story is so much shorter if you only do one run. Instead of one AWESOME story, we got 3 decent ones. Sad.

[NekoKnight]

14 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Fae, Tiki and Myrrh are precious balls of sunshine who must be protected forever.

It's when they start sexualizing them that it gets uncomfortable for me. Nowi may be an entertaining character, but to hell with that crazy stripper outfit.

Agreed. While I think we could use some variety in how non-human characters are portrayed (Manakete aging is so vague. Why are some of them adults but others are children for thousands of years? Did Dheginsea spend 3000 years as a little dragon shota?) there is nothing wrong with a character appearing young if they're dressed like a child. No more Nowi's, please and thank you.

8 hours ago, Ottservia said:

It's a little bit of both actually. Byleth is written like a Persona protagonist if that wasn't already obvious. What I mean is that they're written as if they are their own character within the established world but its done in way to make it open-ended to the player in how they choose to interpret it. You can see Byleth as just an self-insert avatar of yourself or you can see them as their own character with their own thoughts, opinions, backstory, what have you. With the way it's written both interpretations are equally valid. It's like how Robin is written. Robin has an established personality, opinions, and backstory but it's so subdued and open ended to the point where you can pretty much interpret his character in any way you wish and I find it does that well. Robin can be his own established character but that character is mostly up to player interpretation which is why he works. Byleth is the exact same way. 

Also what about that character arc is terrible? It's straightforward, consistent, its not contrived at all, it doesn't raise any plot holes, so I fail to see the problem with it. If you found the character arc to be uninteresting that's fine(I personally don't find it to be all that interesting myself) but that's not why it's objectively terrible. Phrase your arguments better please.

Agreed with everything here. I think there are a lot of problems with avatars, including how TH uses them, but there IS a character arc. My disappointment with the arc is that it sorta just fizzles out in the part 2 of the story and Byleth is just along for the ride.
-------
Some TH interface stuff
It's bothers me that:
-You can't see the rank of your equipped battalion
-Duplicate battalions aren't listed next to each other in your list
-You can't see the unit's class experience unless you try to reclass them
-You can't see how many of an item you're already holding when buying things

And probably more.

[coldhand25]

• As a lot of people already mentioned, loli dragons are just ridiculous... sure, Myrrh might have been cute (although she already was a bit too much for me), Nowi was just way beyond what I was expecting. Like, seriously? At that point they didn't even try to hide the fact that she is only there for those who find pleasure in looking at little children. As Ephraim would say: "Disgusting". It's not like they couldn't make them older. There is Ninian, there is Bantu...
• Bland and boring MCs with literally no personality. I don't care about Mark in FE7, because you don't have to control him, and he plays no part in the story whatsoever, but Corrin? I know it's pretty unoriginal to hate Corrin, but he just ruins Fates for me as a whole. It is hard to give the MC a personality, because not everyone is the same, and people would like to relate to their game-self, but if you can't get it right, then don't do it. There is no such a thing in FE8 or SoV, and those easily became my favourites of all the games.
• Only popular heroes getting alts in FEH. This one though is definitely understandable, people much rather make money than not make money. Still, it bugs me.
• Overly fanservice content. It was never alien from the games, but there are some clear examples where there went overboard. Once again, hating on these characters is very unoriginal, so I won't mention them. Also, wear damn shoes people...

Now, for the more gameplay thingies part:

• I honestly prefer the weapon system and magic system in SoV over the other games. The only thing I really disliked in FE7 the very first time I've played it (basically when I started playing FE), is always having to worry about breaking weapons, and buying new ones instead. I remember not even using some weapons at all, because I was saving them for stronger enemies in late game, and had to struggle with worse weapons to get through some maps. I even like FE4's system more, because there you can just repair weapons. Also, magic and skills reducing your hp is kind of a clever way, and I rather think about how to best use my hp, than how to best use the "ammo" of my swords...
• Archers being weak. It was also mentioned already, but I honestly think bows are such cool weapons. Shame that they are almost always unviable in the games. SoV made bows better by adding them huge range, and the ability to counter-attack even in 1 range. It's so stupid that they can't in other games. Like, why?

This post might seem much more of a rant, with almost no originality in it, and some of the mentioned stuff might not be considered "little things", but these are what really bothers me.

[Lief]

1) Learning a new weapon type after promoting, but it's E rank. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but in Fates and Awakening it really sucks since Iron weapons are d in that game. Thankfully 3H did away with bronze weapons, and Irons are usable at E again.

2) Making a big stink about Echoes' having the worst maps in the series. I played and loved Conquest, yet I still loved Echoes' gameplay due to how fresh it is compared to every other FE game. It boggles my mind how people can praise Conquests' map design while dumping on Echoes', since they're both filled annoying, unfair gimmicks that are fun challenges to play around.

3) Units that are not pre-promotes but start off with bad bases. Looking at you Arthur and Odin <_<.

4) Low movement, I love Echoes but IS must love it more than me since they brought over its attitude towards movement. Mages once again have four movement, making CF a slog for me since I'm dumb enough to have 4 in my main party. There's no reason to go hero, swordmaster, or warrior since the one extra movement given to assassin and grappler invalidates the extra bulk/strength/skills they have. And of course armor knights don't gain movement in their promotion like in the pre-Echoes games.

5) Shippers that dump on ships they don't like, everyone hates them.

[Alastor15243]

Pure trial-and-error gameplay elements. Whenever a game's challenge depends entirely on hiding information from me and giving me no means to find out before it's too late to use it without restarting, that pisses me off to no end. Because all it serves to do is ruin a first-time playthrough while not affecting the difficulty of repeat playthroughs at all. Ambush spawns are the most common iterations of this, but there are other cases where the game spontaneously changes the rules on you without giving you any time to react and prepare. Three Houses in particular did this so often, and with so many varying features of the game, that by the end of my CF playthrough, after it had lied to me about the victory conditions and spawned ambush reinforcements when I met them, gave immobile enemies their movement back on enemy phase after triggering an unseen flag, and literally transformed enemies into completely different enemies with completely different classes, weapons and stats, on enemy phase, I was legitimately convinced that there wasn't a single thing the game wasn't willing to do to score a cheap kill on me, and words cannot describe how much that feeling of absolute "how is the game going to cheat next" paranoia ruins the experience of playing a game.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Etrurian emperor]

20 minutes ago, coldhand25 said:

Bland and boring MCs with literally no personality. I don't care about Mark in FE7, because you don't have to control him, and he plays no part in the story whatsoever, but Corrin? I know it's pretty unoriginal to hate Corrin, but he just ruins Fates for me as a whole. It is hard to give the MC a personality, because not everyone is the same, and people would like to relate to their game-self, but if you can't get it right, then don't do it. There is no such a thing in FE8 or SoV, and those easily became my favourites of all the games.

Corrin does have a personality though. He can be blamed for many things but not the lack of a personality. If anything Corrin's whole problem is the exact opposite, that he has too much of a personality to function as an avatar. 

Corrin's personalty is firmly established as a naive, wussy bleeding heart. So he does have a very noticeable personality. His wussy persona is so noticeable that its very hard for him to represent players who aren't like that kind of character, who don't like such soft characters or who think he's complete idiot. 

[lenticular]

1. Partially voiced dialogue. By which I mean just having one or two words voiced at the beginning of a line like "sure!" "hmmm" "no way!" or something like that. If it's not possible to do something fully voiced, then I'd rather have no voice at all. The one or two words don't really add anything and just distract me from reading. I found this one maddening beyond all reason, and it's the single biggest reason why I never finished Awakening.
2. In Three Houses, the way that there is no benefit to levelling movement skills to S. There's no ability unlock, it doesn't help you with any certifications, it's just something that you pass through on the way to S+ (which you're probably not going to reach outside of NG+ or extreme grinding). Couldn't they have put something there, at least?
3. Anything that you cannot reasonably be expected to figure out on your own in a normal playthrough and pretty much have to just look up. Things like recruiting Stefan in Path of Radiance (which requires having one of two specific characters stand on one specific square of one specific map), or the absurdly overcomplicated greenhouse mechanics from Three Houses.
4. Characters who can't be moved during deployment for no good reason. It makes sense in some cases, like when a unit is split off from the rest of the army (eg, Manuela's paralogue in Three Houses) but if everyone is starting together and I can move everyone else, it's annoying to have the Lord or Avatar be stuck in one square for no apparent reason.
5. (Going into fandom rather than the actual games here.) Tier lists (or similar) that don't say what exactly they're supposed to be ranking. "Best character" is so vague as to be completely useless, given that there are so many different criteria that can be used depending on play style, personal preferences, difficulty level, etc.

[Fabulously Olivier]

20 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

There are a few things that grind my gears in Fire Emblem. I'll list some of them:

Ambush spawns
I hate them because they're just there to f*** over new players. Playing a game for the first time, you usually have no clue that they're even in it or - even worse - from which way they'll arrive. They can make you lose units through no fault of your own. You have to have the entire game memorized to know which chapter has which ambush spawns and from where they'll come, which just adds to the frustration of it all. Btw, "look it up" is no excuse. Rather, that kind of statement is precisely why they are BS and automatically disqualified for any discussion about fair challenge or difficulty for me, as is every game/difficulty level that implements them. Because I shouldn't have to rely on outside sources to beat a game.

Philanderer archetype
Inigo/Laslow, Sain, Gatrie, Saul, Virion, Sylvain (to a certain degree, because besides the philandering stuff, he's actually a decent enough guy)... I hate every character that is associated with this trope. With a burning passion. I wish Fire Emblem finally did away with that garbage. Sadly, these characters always end up insanely popular for reasons that are honestly way beyond my comprehension. Not that I have anything against the people who like them, of course.

Asshole Archer
Innes, Shinon, Takumi... yeah, another character type that seriously needs to get the hell out of here. These characters are just flat-out unlikable to me and have very few - if any - redeeming qualities. 

Camus types being depicted in a heroic light
I am of the mind that surrendering your free will for loyalty to anyone or anything and/or blindly following orders without question no matter how immoral is just about one of the dumbest things anyone could do. Thus, I really dislike it when these kinds of characters are depicted as anything but utter failures (looking at you, Xander). Now, these characters can be interesting (though Fire Emblem's depictions of them rarely are), and I do think they have a place in the games, but not as heroes. Because there is nothing heroic about them to me.

Most natural Cavaliers are bland and/or boring, personality-wise
Basically what it says. I personally think that most characters that start out in the Cavalier class are really freaking boring. There is usually nothing to them beyond "I am loyal to my lord/lady". Sadly, most Jeigan characters also fall into this trap. There are exceptions, of course (some of which fall under the philanderer category, which I really hate), but for the majority, it sadly holds very, very true to me. Perhaps this is why I refuse to use any of them...

Unit/Class bias
When the game is very blatant about what kinds of classes it wants you to use or which characters were the developer's favorites. In a game that gives me the choice between so many different characters and classes, this stuff has always bothered me when it popped up. Case in point: the blatant bias for the Royal siblings in Fates.

I don't much enjoy seeing Virion lumped in with the likes of Sylvain. That's a surface level comparison at best.

 

Sylvain is quite possibly the only actual womanizer in the franchise. He's the only one who operates with the express intention of "pumping and dumping" women, and he's the only one with a genuine contempt for women. But he skews better with female players because he also happens to be conventionally attractive, so his bullshit sob story is seen as sufficient to excuse his actions. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with fanservice aimed at female players; it's great, but it also shouldn't excuse genuine, major character flaws.

 

Virion is NOT a womanizer. He's a romantic. He's genuinely supportive (seriously, read his Olivia support conversations), and he operates with the endgame of courtship and marriage in mind. He has more in common with Bastian than with Sylvain, with the only real difference being that Bastian has already found his one true muse, while Virion is searching for them. And then you have Lorenz, who is Virion if you amplified and flanderized his flaws for the purpose of humor.

 

 

As for the asshole archers, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that I personally like Innes a lot. He's the first of his kind, and he's an authentic representation of how a noble might actually act. On Shinon, I actually agree with you, but that is because overt racism is not cool. In regards to Takumi, it's almost strange to lump him with the others, because he suffers from an inferiority complex rather than a superiority complex.

[DragonFlames]

20 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

Dead parents

 

Jeralt didn't have to be playable! He just needed to survive and have a good story role for longer. It's clear IS is using the dead parents as a reason to spur the main lord or avatar into action and give them a reason to hate the enemy. And there are other ways to do this, not as easy, but these are supposed to be professional writers I'm sure they can do it. I rooted for Jeralt to break this trend. I really did. Oh well he can be bros with Greil now. #DeadDadClub

While I agree with your overall sentiment, I find Jeralt's death to be the one where the "dead parent/parental character dies somewhere in the story" cliché is actually executed pretty well. Its placement within the plot as a shift in tone from "yay, we're at school!" to "oh crap, now sh** hits the fan!", what it means for Byleth's character (who is (re-)discovering their emotions due to their students), and of course the fact that we as players had enough time to get to know who Jeralt was as a person and his relationship with his child, provided of course one talks to him on every new month and pays attention to what other characters are talking about, too.

Don't get me wrong, I also wished he'd break the trend, but that's mainly because I actually liked his personality.

18 hours ago, GlitchWarrior said:

Again, AMEN. FE4, for example, is a very mount-focused game, and FE6/7 also really seem to prefer mounted and flying units, due to the rescue drop mechanics, those units typically having low-to-middling constitution and high AID, allowing for those rescue drops, and other units typically not being able to reach the field quickly enough to matter. Apart from Oswin, there's not a single GBA general I like using (and Marcus STILL has to carry him into battle), and Lords being locked at 5 MOV for most of the journey means that if you don't want them to be underleveled, you'd better use enough mounted units to ferry THEM around.

It's the same with units. As you yourself said, Fates puts HEAVY bias on Camilla and Ryoma as units in particular. FE8 puts Seth on such a high pedestal that he's almost considered Meta Knight tier. The higher difficulties of FE10 would be almost impossible without Haar, and in Awakening, dropping Robin almost feels like a death sentence to some. But it goes a step further, like in FE6 where half of the cast is awful, and the other half is mostly boring.

I agree with everything said here.

[Dragoncat]

2 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

While I agree with your overall sentiment, I find Jeralt's death to be the one where the "dead parent/parental character dies somewhere in the story" cliché is actually executed pretty well. Its placement within the plot as a shift in tone from "yay, we're at school!" to "oh crap, now sh** hits the fan!", what it means for Byleth's character (who is (re-)discovering their emotions due to their students), and of course the fact that we as players had enough time to get to know who Jeralt was as a person and his relationship with his child, provided of course one talks to him on every new month and pays attention to what other characters are talking about, too.

Don't get me wrong, I also wished he'd break the trend, but that's mainly because I actually liked his personality.

Yeah, basically all this, but how he died could have been done better. Greil went down fighting. Jeralt was this badass mercenary leader/knight captain and he lets his guard down for one second and he's gone? I'm not buying it even if that weapon was coated in lethal poison.

Other than that you make a point. Jeralt is kinda Greil 2.0 and I can accept that.

@lenticular

Quote

Partially voiced dialogue. By which I mean just having one or two words voiced at the beginning of a line like "sure!" "hmmm" "no way!" or something like that. If it's not possible to do something fully voiced, then I'd rather have no voice at all. The one or two words don't really add anything and just distract me from reading. I found this one maddening beyond all reason, and it's the single biggest reason why I never finished Awakening.

I hate that too! You can turn it off in the options menu.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Dragoncat