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How do you think avatars should be handled?


Ottservia
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Three Houses didn't need an avatar, honestly.  All the units are fully customizable with the game's Monastery/Instruction system for classes.  Byleth should've been a fully VA'd static protag.

 

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I say they should either be customizable lords, with no real change to the story or formula asside from changing thier appearance, or they ahould be side characters, similar to Robin but without the whole Grima debacle, who are just along for the ride. I feel like Byleth not being voices and having no personality aside from cutscenes is just a waist. In all honesty, an avatar should just be a Unit you name and change the appearance of. 

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12 hours ago, EdeaCreamer said:

Three Houses didn't need an avatar, honestly.  All the units are fully customizable with the game's Monastery/Instruction system for classes.  Byleth should've been a fully VA'd static protag.

I would rather have a customisable avatar as long as specialised units come back. Units being able to wield any weapon make no sense to me.

That being said, I would rather have no avatar at all. But if unit customisation is a must, I would definitely prefer to centre it all in one unit instead of spreading it to the whole party.

Edited by starburst
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Short answer; if it's necessary do it like fe12 but don't give him a personality that makes me want to play fe3.

Long answer: something I've noticed about avatars is that I both dislike them because they have no personality but also dislike them because they have a personality. Robin & Byleth both fall in the awkward middle-ground of not having enough personality/relevance for me to like them  as characters but also to much of a personality to be a self insert. Byleth also has the problem of not having enough diversity with what he can say. For example, I'm a pretty sarcastic person in real life and because there barely are options to be sarcastic I can never see myself as Byleth since I can't express how I would really act in such a situation. The only option I see is the fe12 route but instead of giving a little bit of dialogue which goes a long way in frustrating me give him no dialogue. But this will not work because people seem to like shipping themselves which will be impossible with no dialogue. But giving them dialogue will alienate people who don't talk like the self insert.

What I'm trying to say is that as long as Fire Emblem keeps the plot structure they currently use, avatars will never work for me. But removing them also removes an appeal of the modern games so no matter what we are most likely stuck with them and we will keep complaining about how much we hate avatars for another 10 years.

Edited by Rapaille
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As others have said, without having meaningful choices to make, you are just playing a preset character that you can somewhat customize visually. Fire Emblem has not yet had an actual "avatar" imo.

As I never see Fire Emblem going true sandbox in terms of being whoever you want to be and doing whatever you want to do, acceptable alternatives to the avatar issue would be something along the lines of a Bioware-Lite or a Obsidian Entertainment-Lite style narrative. And no, choosing one route at the beginning of a game doesn't count. Being forced to make a decision so soon with almost no information is stupid, and ruins any drama you could have had later on in the story.

Side note, while I think Byleth wasn't a great "Avatar", I really did like how they were tied into the story. Just give them some lines (not too much, like Shamir), make us play as a less important character and voila! Byleth is instantly a better character (I would hope). Maybe we could have played as one of Jeralt's random mercenaries? You know, with much less story importance? Or played as Jeralt himself? Or be a customizable student?

Side note, I hate playing as someone special. I don't want to be the best (like no one ever was), I just want to be someone normal(ish) who's thrust into abnormal situations. And if I have no choice but to play a character who is the absolute best at everything, it had better be along the lines of Hawke from Dragon Age 2 where life just deals you a terrible hand no matter how hard you try. I wish more story-oriented games would ease off of the player worship.

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On 4/2/2020 at 3:38 AM, Hawkwing said:

If the avatar is a lowly soldier who would be just another unit in a different game, then the direction should instead be on seeing a war through the eyes of the ones fighting it. The player may be the leader of a squadron, but they shouldn't be the second-in-command of the king, queen, prince, or princess. There should be a sense that while you may have a direct impact during battle, you can't do anything about the overarching story since it doesn't focus on "you".This would be a good compromise between making the avatar "insignificant to the plot" while also not just being a single unit you can change the hair color of.

This would be a really cool concept for a Fire Emblem game and I hope they will some day do this.

Other than that, I very easily identify with an "avatar". Whether you give me Byleth, Robin, or even Ike, if you tell me "hey this is you" that is all I need. (I know Ike isn't an avatar, but to me he feels almost as much of an avatar as Byleth and Robin did.) So I don't mind Nintendo/IS/KT calling them avatars, but they may just as well have been regular characters, it's not like the "choices" added much to the game.

Now don't ask me what a "real avatar" means, but giving actual choices sounds like a fun idea. It's not like FE needs it though, I'm currently replaying FE6 and deciding paths on what units you are training sounds like a much more fun decision making mechanic. (Not saying FE6 did it perfectly, but it has more potential and I'm sad they didn't use this again.)

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10 hours ago, whase said:

This would be a really cool concept for a Fire Emblem game and I hope they will some day do this.

Other than that, I very easily identify with an "avatar". Whether you give me Byleth, Robin, or even Ike, if you tell me "hey this is you" that is all I need. (I know Ike isn't an avatar, but to me he feels almost as much of an avatar as Byleth and Robin did.) So I don't mind Nintendo/IS/KT calling them avatars, but they may just as well have been regular characters, it's not like the "choices" added much to the game.

Now don't ask me what a "real avatar" means, but giving actual choices sounds like a fun idea. It's not like FE needs it though, I'm currently replaying FE6 and deciding paths on what units you are training sounds like a much more fun decision making mechanic. (Not saying FE6 did it perfectly, but it has more potential and I'm sad they didn't use this again.)

For me personally, the problem is Robin don't feel like a regular character in a way that didn't effect Mark. (Ironically enough considering Mark is Dora the Explorer and is even more explicitly a player stand-in.)

Mark isn't very suspiciouis and his first real "Gig" in Elibe is with Lyn, who isn't in a position to be picky if she wanted to, the only real suspicious thing is Hector mentioning how they're a little young (insert semi-joke theory about how they're not actually a tactician.)and even then they've probably got a bit of fame from helping Lyn,  in-universe, this makes sense, he's even initally taken in by Eliwood in a sorta spur-of-the-moment thing involving a bandit attack.

Robin, well, Robin is wearing Pelgian Robes, is amensic but knows Chrom's name and is capable of killing someone with magic and a swrod, that is suspicious, alot, yet Chrom, after not knowing Robin for even 24 hours, decides he wants this dude, to lead his army, I distinctly recall thinking "what?!" when I saw that for the first time because Robin shouldn't be trusted to command generic low level foot troops without supervision, let alone the Shepards after not even a day, it doesn't feel believable at all.

So while Mark being given a leadership role made sense for me, it doesn't to me with Robin, at all.

Doesn't help Awakening likes to praise the player via character dialogue/supports that don't change to reflect deaths, which only makes it feel even more obnoxious, like someone praising you for even the slightest action, FE7 praises the player sure but not to the extent of characters (Such as Virion's support) claiming you "Never make sacrifices" which, well, if the support dialgoue changed and that only played if you did infact do that? I wouldn't have a problem but it always does, Robin is always being praised like he's never losing even when the player is in all I've seen so that sorta again, makes it feel like the game is kissing up to me which I don't like at all.

So while I never once questioned Mark being in a leadership role, it bothered me when Robin was given the same in Awakening. (The fact Robin is also a really, really overpowered unit while Mark hides behind the lord also effects this.)

Plus like I said, Mark is a tactician who has to rely on others to fight  (more so if you take Lyn finding Mark on the plains as him possibly being robbed by bandits on the plains before the game begins.) while by FE standards Robin is a one-person army  (which actually I feel flies in the face of Awakening's moral of the real superpower of friendship.) Which both makes him feel even more like a player-insert who's special to try to make the player feel empowered (or obnoxiously being pandered towards in my case) and kinda flies in the face of being a strategy game.

Edited by Samz707
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My ideal player character is a balance between Mark and Corrin, plot-wise.
Corrin is an annoying unlikeable protag who everyone worships for no reason and is the main story focus. Needless to say, I hate them.
Mark is bland and boring and rarely even mentioned at all in the story who no one cares about or talks to and doesn't even feel a part of the story. Needless to say, I'm indifferent on them because I've seen so little of them I have no clue what they even are.
A mix between the two is someone who's like Lissa or Frederick: A somewhat story important character who takes part in the story and dialogue and is one of the main characters, but isn't taking away from the importance of the actual main character (in this case, Chrom).

Character-wise, I really liked the dialogue options in Three Houses. Keep that. What's the point in having a self-insert if they act nothing like you? Dialogue options increase my immersion and let me feel like I'm actually me in the story and not some character I just played dress-up with and named.

Gameplay-wise, I like Kris. I really don't like the whole unique class thing for the player character. I don't want to be a Grandmaster, but since the class is so good and is the best fit for me there's no point being anything else. I would love a player character where I get to choose any generic class I want (and when I mean any, I mean any. Genderlocked classes are stupid. Let me be a male Pegasus Knight.), and get to have some control over the stats of the character as well, like the questionnaire about your background and personality dictating Kris's stats and growths.

Finally, stop worshipping me. I hate it when every character loves me for no reason.
Let there be characters who dislike me. Let there be characters who react poorly to my decisions. Three Houses did this pretty well, with characters getting angry at certain dialogue options and characters disapproving of you and/or your actions.

In summary:
I want the main character to feel like me, and not just a character I named and played dress up with. Give me dialogue options.
Make the character important to the story so they're not just some guy, but make them unimportant enough that they don't take away from the actual main character. In other words, make me a supporting character, not the protagonist.
Don't give the character an overpowered unique class. It takes away from the customization. Let me choose my own generic class that I like and want to be, and let me customize my stats too.
Don't make every character love the player. I hate Corrin for this. Don't make Corrin again.

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