Come up with a potentially controversial gameplay mechanic

[Perkilator]

Throughout the series' 30-year lifespan, gameplay mechanics in FE have changed in some way, small-scale or large-scale. Just as the title says, what kind of new mechanic could potentially be controversial?

For me, it'd be to have Critical Hits be a singular attack regardless if your unit can attack twice.

[Fabulously Olivier]

This is Fire Emblem. Every new mechanic is controversial.

 

But how about replacing chance-based procs like Luna/Sol/Aether/etc. with Heroes-style cooldown triggers.

[Samz707]

Avatar character who's almost entirely a support character and either can't fight or fights incredibly poorly with a dynamic ranking system so characters will flat out tell you that you're terrible at your job if you keep getting people killed even in Casual mode. (With maybe a non-standard game over if it drops low enough where you're fired.)

 

[Hanes]

Every turn, depending on the map, you are put on a timer to make your move, on the campaign and multiplayer. Basically, like a chess clock.

This brings the possibility for a multiplayer Blitz mode where you get like 30 seconds to do everything on a single turn (time stops during battling).

Edited August 24, 2020 by This boi uses Nino

[lenticular]

Get rid of player phase and enemy phase and have all units have their own initiative order instead.

Collect clothes and accessories, play dress-up with your units, and receive bonuses based on the coordination of your outfit.

Instead of just double attacking if you have 4 more speed than your enemy, if you have 8 more speed you get to triple attack, 12 more speed you get to quad attack, and so on.

Child characters who you can only recruit if they are adopted by two parents in a same-sex relationship.

Get rid of the square grid and instead allow free movement in all directions.

[NinjaMonkey]

You play as the bad guys and you have to set fire to villages, loot them and capture the womenfolk.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Your units betray you if you don't pet their face periodically. I call it Fates Master Quest

[Hanes]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Child characters who you can only recruit if they are adopted by two parents in a same-sex relationship.

Oh this one will piss off way too many people. It'll be seen as forced-representation (though I wouldn't mind)


I have a simple one, if you play casual mode the game will stop you midway through the game Contra 4 style and tell you "Sorry, for the real experience, play Classic"

[Jotari]

Tripping. Every time you move over a square there's a 0.1% chance per square that your unit will trip and end their turn there. If this happens to a cavalry unit they break their neck and die. Finally cavalry and infantry are balanced.

1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

Your units betray you if you don't pet their face periodically. I call it Fates Master Quest

Best title ever.

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Jotari

[Captain Karnage]

How about maps with hexagonal tiles

It would completely change the way units move, our formations, and how we approach the map.

[OuendanCyrus]

• Weapons no longer have durability, but instead have a percentage chance to immediately break per use.
• Units' stats can decrease when levelling up.
• All items in a character's inventory adds to their equip load, and if it exceeds their CON, their Movement decreases (among other stats).
• Every single staff have Hit rates and max range. (Hello Thracia)

[Benice]

45 minutes ago, Captain Karnage said:

How about maps with hexagonal tiles

 

2 minutes ago, OuendanCyrus said:

Weapons no longer have durability, but instead have a percentage chance to immediately break per use.

Kaga did it first! Berwick Saga uses those mechanics.

Anyways, to add to the topic:

Cavaliers having to buy horses if they want to be mounted. Different kinds of horses have different HP bars which decrease as the cav takes damage while mounted, and some even give special bonuses, spears/lances add one or two points to might based on how many tiles the wielder moved before attacking-but this bonus only applies to the first attack. (Also Berwick inspired.)

Accost becoming an menu-activated skill rather than a chance-based one.

Skates, where a unit's weight/4 or something is added to movement, so armor knights aren't useless for once!

[Alastor15243]

Remaking FE4 and having Seliph smash the turnwheel to pieces the moment he gets it after hearing what following its prophecies did to his father.

[Carter]

More same-sex relationships/paired endings and characters that just happen to be gay. And not just characters that are forced representation. I definitely think Three Houses took a step in the right direction with characters like Linhardt, Dorothea, and Edelgard, as opposed to being locked to the creepy characters like Rhajat and Niles in Fates.

It would also be neat to have characters that are just gay, and not bisexual. Like if Linhardt was only for male avatars, or if Dorothea was only for female avatars.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Sci-fi FE. I don't want "fantasy, with a pinch of lasers and giant robots", I want full sci-fi. Going all mecha is unnecessary, because then I'd just play Super Robot Wars. I'd prefer we stick to non-mechanized on-foot combat, I really want lightsabers and plasma guns and maybe replacing shapeshifters or some mages we get aliens or humans who have chosen to adapt to alien biology and environments. Horses and pegasus/wyverns would no longer exist, replaced by futuristic motorcycles and hoverboards/jetpacks. Also, how about android allies who can die and return the next fight no problems provided you pay a significant repair fee? As long as the memory core is intact, you can just upload them into a new robot body.

 

Oh wait, gameplay. How about "open-world FE"? Peak "open world is awesome, let's make games with it while wearing blindfolds!" has past I guess, but FE still hasn't tried it. It works for adventure, action, action-adventure, and RPG games owing to their format, but FE being turn-based on a big grid makes it verrrrrry difficult to see how things could effectively transition. That and SoV's monster battles in dungeons feel mindless and are simple, yet play on Classic and you still have to devote brainpower to them. Considering the flak given to the non-combat aspects of 3H, should FE really have exploring a pretty world involved? 

For FE, I think the way "open world" would work would be with a focus on multiple, unconnected storylines that you could choose to complete. Some stories could have splits in them, or opposing sides you could pick from, but there would be no overarching narrative. I think there would have one particular scenario that serves as the "main" one, something that drives your entry into the world and provides the feelings of a final battle and conclusion followed by credits, but that wouldn't be so predominant over all the others that it feels like everything else are mere side-stories. 

Nonetheless, good luck finding a way of avoiding the bugbear of map-reuse or poor design! FE has tended to stick to ~30-40 battles per game for a reason, and open-world would almost intrinsically surpass that.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[null]

Every item, such as vulneraries, concotions, etc., has a chance of not working.

Certain unmarked tiles on the map have a chance of imploding and trapping your characters for a few turns.

Ballistae have map-wide range.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Captain Karnage said:

How about maps with hexagonal tiles

It would completely change the way units move, our formations, and how we approach the map.

I think that's what Berwick Saga did.

3 hours ago, Benice said:

 

Kaga did it first! Berwick Saga uses those mechanics.

 

Gah. Curse me and my trigger finger.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Jotari

[Yexin]

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

Get rid of player phase and enemy phase and have all units have their own initiative order instead.

 

5 hours ago, Captain Karnage said:

How about maps with hexagonal tiles

now these are things i actually kinda want to see implemented in next FE games, at least to see how IS handles them

how about misandric/misogynist characters receiving buffs when fighing against an enemy of the gender they hate, and receiving debuffs when an ally of said gender is close to them?
i know it's very specific, but it would most likely cause uproars and controversies

[Benice]

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

Get rid of player phase and enemy phase and have all units have their own initiative order instead.

Berwick Saga does this, more or less. (Kaga really did do everything first...) There's only one phase, with the order of unit movement determined by the player-ally-independant-enemy unit ratio.

Speaking of Berwick Saga, I'd like to see this-the kinds of weapons you can use are determined by your level, not your rank. The higher level you are, the better equipment you can use-Also makes Jagens more useful for longer, as their higher level will get them access to equipment only they can use.

3 hours ago, twilitfalchion said:

Certain unmarked tiles on the map have a chance of imploding and trapping your characters for a few turns.

Gronder hill and those chapters in RD and PoR with pitfalls combined sounds very fun ngl. Add in berserk staffs and it's a party!

Edited August 25, 2020 by Benice

[Jotari]

To be serious, I actually really like the biorhtym, and I think I might be the only one on the planet. For one, I like abusing it to give the maximum effect for Ests to kill things and for another I think it just makes the characters feel more real and as if the flow of battle is really affecting them. It also adds some character to certain units like Ashera fittingly having a completely neutral biorhythm. I think the only thing it's really lacking if some control over it before the end game.

2 hours ago, Yexin said:

how about misandric/misogynist characters receiving buffs when fighing against an enemy of the gender they hate, and receiving debuffs when an ally of said gender is close to them?
i know it's very specific, but it would most likely cause uproars and controversies

It might not be based on misogyny, but that pretty much already exists with some personal skills in Fates. In practice it's laughably pointless and unbalanced given how few female generics there are versus male. So, yeah, that would need to change. 

[Etrurian emperor]

You can only unlock paralogues by sacrificing your units to the god of the dead.

[X-Naut]

The avatar (and only the avatar) can same-sex S-support every character in the game. If you think that's perfectly OK then they also have explicit mental manipulation powers.

Enemies on Lunatic all have the Counterattack skill.

Using Shove, Lunge etc. to move a grounded unit over a lava/deep chasm tile instantly kills them. Flying enemies will exploit that on these kinds of maps.

Turnwheel has infinite uses. Locking it to Casual mode is optional.

[ping]

Ironman is enforced: Take the GBA FE "suspend" functionality and apply it to the entire game. Only one save file, overwritten with every action you take.

13 hours ago, Perkilator said:

For me, it'd be to have Critical Hits be a singular attack regardless if your unit can attack twice.

I might actually like that. Combine that with "Crits on a second hit of a double attack only deal x2 damage" so that rolling a crit will always result in 3x damage in total. Makes crit RNG a bit less volatile in its effects.

[RomanFlour]

Bringing back (and re-balancing) the Cantor and Witch enemy types. 

[NinjaMonkey]

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

You can only unlock paralogues by sacrificing your units to the god of the dead.

Shadow Dragon already did that.