Change 3 things about Three Houses (and one thing about Cindered Shadows)

[Jotari]

*Make the route choice take place half way through White Clouds with rotating armies for each prior chapter. Cutting out half or White Clouds on repeat playthroughs would be a god send and picking which house you want to join after you've genuinely got to know them would be way more meaningful.

*Make Edelgard gay instead of bi. Not only for the reasons stated in my S support ruins gay characters thread, but also because this would make for a very powerful statement about Edelgard. If she's gay then it's implicit that she will never give birth to her own child which goes in excellently with her rebellion against the very idea of birthright and crest inheritance.

*Give Byleth a better spell list. Already made a thread about that.

And for Cindered Shadows;

*Involve Jearlt in the damn plot. It's all about him. The fact that he doesn't appear at all is downright bizarre. Then final battle would have been an excellent time to finally make him and Rhea playable.

[Yexin]

i would

3) completely rework how Byleth interacts with what's around him, basically turning him into a proper main character, instead of an avatar

2) make a new VW route, giving it an actual reason to be Claude's route

1) make Rhea playable

CS) make the story dlc available for purchase alone at a lower price, instead of forcing players to buy the whole pass

 

there are MANY more things i'd change (class system, battalions, map design, etc.) but these are my main 3+1 issues with the game

Edited October 19, 2020 by Yexin

[Jotari]

10 minutes ago, Yexin said:

i would

3) completely rework how Byleth interacts with what's around him, basically turning him into a proper main character, instead of an avatar

2) make a new VW route, giving it an actual reason to be Claude's route

1) make Rhea playable

CS) make the story dlc available for purchase alone at a lower price, instead of forcing players to buy the whole pass

 

there are MANY more things i'd change (class system, battalions, map design, etc.) but these are my main 3+1 issues with the game

Wait what's this now? What DLC is there aside from Cindered Shadkws. Death Knight was patcheed into the game for free I'm somewhat sure. I know there was so kind of alternate costume stuff going there. Is the Onsen? Do you have to pay for that? Or maybe the Special classes. Though it's be a bit weird to get Cindered Shadows and not also have them.

[L3xandr3]

1. Give Crimson Flower 2~4 chapters vs TWSITD after you kill Rhea

2. Extra Classes (Halberdier for Infantry Lancers, Griffon Rider as a flying Swordie, Trueblade as a good Swordie Master Class, Etc.)

3. Actually trying to balance the classes (QR on Fortress Knight, No gender lock, either no Speed penalty on Cavs or a Speed loss on Wyverns, Etc.)

CS. An actual story. That's the only problem I have with it.

[Yexin]

36 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Wait what's this now? What DLC is there aside from Cindered Shadkws. Death Knight was patcheed into the game for free I'm somewhat sure. I know there was so kind of alternate costume stuff going there. Is the Onsen? Do you have to pay for that? Or maybe the Special classes. Though it's be a bit weird to get Cindered Shadows and not also have them.

yes, stuff like petting dogs and cats, onsen and other stuff is part of the season pass, and i couldn't care less about them
that's why i still haven't played CS

[lenticular]

Probably not the top things I'd change if I thought about it more, but the ones that first came to mind for me:

1. Make Byleth less of a silent protagonist/avatar and more of an actual character.

2. Get rid of the character epilogues. Trying to give everyone a satisfactory send off in one or two sentences of text felt so forced and underwhelming for a game which has so much story and characterisation, with most of it being fully voiced. It worked fine in earlier games in the series when story was less of a focus, but by this point I mostly find that the epilogues feel jarring, especially given that characters can have multiple A supports, so the epilogues mostly end up feeling random and arbitrary. I'd much rather have the future left to my imagination than get a shitty one-liner about how the character I liked went off and did something inane based on that one support of theirs that I didn't care for.

3. Make choosing Black Eagles less of a trap for first time players. Having characters you've invested in leave your party sucks. For instance, I had a friend who, on her first play through made Flayn her dancer, and ended up having to play without a dancer. Having your main Lord leave you is potentially even worse, and it's possible for people to miss the requirements to go into Crimson Flower. It's also really difficult to advise people on how to avoid without devolving into spoilers, so at this point I recommend to any of my friends who get the game that they start with eith Blue Lions or Golden Deer.

CS. Completely rework the final boss fight map. I found it long and tedious without ever being even a little bit threatening or interesting, and it's tied with Feral Frontier from Path of Radiance for my least favourite map across all the FE games that I've played. I very nearly didn't even bother finishing it, I found it so boring.

[Glennstavos]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

*Make Edelgard gay instead of bi. Not only for the reasons stated in my S support ruins gay characters thread, but also because this would make for a very powerful statement about Edelgard. If she's gay then it's implicit that she will never give birth to her own child which goes in excellently with her rebellion against the very idea of birthright and crest inheritance.

You can be a heterosexual woman and not want kids for those reasons. She can definitely say as much and still have an S support with men, because marriage doesn't have to mean baby making. Especially since the game ends before the S support and this isn't FE4. If you want Edelgard to be a lesbian, just make her one. You don't need some grand in-universe explanation. I like to think we're past the point of believing that lesbians are just a bunch of men haters that religiously reject the stereotypes and gender norms of the female experience.

[BrightBow]

Hurl Byleth into the sun and get rid of boob plates.

[Sooks]

Oh, we’re supposed to pick our own. Ignoring realistic-ness (for the first one) then:

1. Make each route very unique with their own stories and very few shared maps, I’ve never had a problem with white clouds the way it is so that’s fine. This would also include bumping up CF’s chapters. Silver Snow can be left untouched in terms of maps and stuff since that’s what they were designed for but the other routes need reworks.

2. Make Rhea playable on SS, although her being something of an Athos on AM and VW would have been nice as well.

3. Give us way more cutscenes and animations actually showing what’s happening or what life is like or something instead of just telling us.

Cindered Shadows... hmmm maybe let us pick which student comes from each house along with the leader?

[NaotoUzumaki]

1 : make CS a separate options to buy as a stand-alone DLC. 2 : make Byleth their own  MC instead of an Avatar. Intys made the mistake of marketing Corrin as an Avatar when they had their personality set in stone but made the opposite problem for Byleth. They don’t talk but are set in stone too much in the world. Make and avatar a mute with a customizable appearance. I’ve had friends that got disappointed because of Those false advertising. 3 : Jeralt shouldn’t have died period and he dies when the fusion with Sothis is close to happen.Make Rhea not put on mission outside the monastery with Byleth to avoid telling Byleth the truth. Especially since CS exists now. Make Rhea force him on near death mission as a believable way than the under utilized Kronya 

[epilepsyduck]

I am, to be frank, not very fond of 3H, and some of my ideas would end up radically altering the game in ways that would basically make it completely different (Byleth wouldn't survive such a rewrite, for starters). Getting away from those, here are some smaller (but still significant) tweaks:

1. Get of of TWSITD. Like pretty much all the evil conspiracy-cults in the series, they add very little of interest to the story and take time and attention away from actually interesting and cool antagonists so we can see a really ugly dude cackle about how evil he is for "tricking" people into doing shit they'd have done regardless. These guys particularly suck, in my opinion, and they're also somehow even more superfluous than usual for their archetype.
2. Add more shit to do in the monastery. If I'm gonna have to wander around this gargantuan building at least once a month, I'd appreciate if there was more stuff to actually do there, or at least if the existing activities weren't mostly "watch a character do a canned animation and say generic dialogue, then gain some tiny-ass benefit". As it stands its an interesting novelty that starts to wear out its welcome by the War Phase, and really wears out its welcome by your second playthrough.
3. Properly frame Edelgard as the main antagonist of Verdant Wind and (especially) Silver Snow. The latter in particular annoys the shit out of me, since it's not like the two battles in Silver Snow following her defeat are interesting or fun; it feels like the most afterthought-y of the routes, even compared to the nearly identical Verdant Wind. Also, as a corollary, make Crimson Flower the proper villain route and not an ode to Dictator-Chan and how much she loves you.

As for Cindered Shadows...

• I literally don't know, it's honestly pretty uninteresting but not in a way that's particularly different from how uninteresting I found the rest of the game. Maybe make it so its events aren't in their own weird little timeline divorced from the rest of the game?

[Captain Karnage]

1. I'd redesign the monistary to work more like how my castle worked in fates. I honestly found the monistary to be the worst part of the game since it takes so long to actually get from place to place and use up your free time. Having a 2D map would make it a faster part of the game.

2. I would have an option to turn off voices for support conversations since I can read much faster than I can listen.

3. I'd rework the cutscene to have actual backgrounds instead of whatever they did

I haven't gotten any of the DLC so I can't say anything about it 

[vanguard333]

1. Make Verdant Wind more about the Leicester Alliance and the countries outside Adrestia; maybe even make it that Claude forms alliances with Sreng and Dagda in addition to Almyra. 

2. Make Crimson Flower just as long as the other routes.

3. Either get rid of TWSITD or seriously downplay their role in the story so that they are just one faction rather than the people secretly behind everything. 

I don't have the DLC so I can't offer anything for changing it. 

 

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

*Make Edelgard gay instead of bi. Not only for the reasons stated in my S support ruins gay characters thread, but also because this would make for a very powerful statement about Edelgard. If she's gay then it's implicit that she will never give birth to her own child which goes in excellently with her rebellion against the very idea of birthright and crest inheritance.

Wouldn't that actually take away from her statements about not letting a child of hers succeed her by birthright? If she's not going to have kids anyway, then it's not a big statement; her statement that she isn't going to pick an offspring as a successor because of her ideology is made more impactful by the fact that she could end up having kids than if she's not going to anyway. The English Royal Family deciding now, when the immediate line of succession is all guys, to switch from prioritizing male heirs to absolute primogeniture (firstborn regardless of gender) took away any impact it could've had either in practical terms or as a statement. 

Plus, Edelgard isn't exactly bi; her only all-female paired ending that's explicitly romantic is with F!Byleth; the others are platonic. 

[Benice]

1. Reduce the customization a lot. The game was not scaled to be difficult to prevent softlocks. As a result, it is mindlessly trivial on Hard and normal and completely unfair on maddening. Give people only certain options to go into classes or use DSFE reclassing. This actually lets the devs relalistically balance the game and make it more well-designed and airtight from a gameplay perspective. In addition, change the reclassing system because at the moment all it does is slow the game down for not really good reason. For good measure, have Jagen who starts in a class that ISN'T 4 MOVEMENT LOCKED so that the maps don't take forever. And chapter 13 can be deleted.  (No ambush spawns in any difficulty as well.)
2. Limit everyone to 6-8 ish supports or fewer. (A few in-house and a few out of house?) Every single time I finish any chapter, I have about fifteen supports to read, and it is just too much. Especially since many supports didn't make much sense in terms of the characters involved. 
3. The story. I am largely indifferent to Byleth, (just a generic avatar who is universally loved, nothing new) but the rest of the story drops the ball in numberous ways. First off, show, not tell, as usual. Secondly, all the events are really choppy-it's always "And then" rather than "because" or "therefore." Which made the story feel weird-what happens in the story after the map frequently has nothing to do with what happened. Such as *spoilers for White clouds*

Spoiler

Jeralt's death. It was really, really poorly done in multiple ways. My genuine reaction to it was,  "That was a pretty generic ma-okay, dad just died, that's neat." Because there was basically nothing leading up to it. They foreshadowed Monica quite well, but the death was just completely out from left field, and not in a good way. It has literally nothing to do with what you just did, nor does it have any relevance. Byleth is never shown to hold affection for their father, and there isn't an important plot point that he was a part of. He just died randomly.

Next, a controversial one, the characters. They're not awful, but they really aren't as good as everyone says they are. A large portion are still one-note. In addition, I would completely scrap VW, because it just took resources from every other route without adding much itself. I like Claude, but his route sadly deracted from the game to me.

The worldbuilding was also really quite lax in TH and was only a scoosh better than Fates'. It wouldn't hold up well if you compared it to other games in the series. Everything we do know, we are told, and we aren't really seeing what the world really looks like to different people.

Speaking of which, Paralogues. Oh good gravy, these were astoundingly disappointing. They were just grind maps with a tiny bit of story, (which most of the time barely existed) and nothing came from them. I expected them to be like Berwick's paralogues-the character becomes the main lord of their story, and it is about them, their family, how they see the world, why they fight. They have real effects that last on the story and add so much. They paint an eloquent picture about the world during wartime from every perspective-bandits, civilians, nobles, the impovrished, the artisans, the enemy nation, the enemy church, your church... but nope. Petra goes to Brigid, does stuff with Bernadetta for some reason and returns to Garreg mach with basically nothing being added to the plot. Some add to the plot, but those are rare and I haven't yet seen them do that on a profound level.

 

Haven't played DLC yet, so got nothing to say there.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Benice

[Anomalocaris]

1. Nemesis is now the final boss of Silver Snow (and properly foreshadowed there). Verdant Wind is completely changed to actually be about Claude and the Leiscter Alliance/Almyra, instead of fighting against the off-topic Agarthans and Nemesis.
2. No gender-locked classes. Males can become Pegasus Knights, Falcon Knights, Gremories, Valkyries, and Dark Fliers; females can become Brawlers, Grapplers, War Masters, Dark Mages, Dark Bishops, and Heroes.
3. On New Game Plus, after the five-year timeskip, a new option is added to the renown shop allowing you to buy Einherjar versions of certain characters. These replicas do not appear in the story and do not have supports, but can be used in battle just like any other unit:
   • Jeralt (Cleared any route)
   • Rhea (Cleared any route) [includes Seiros costume if Crimson Flower has been cleared]
   • Sothis (Cleared any route)
   • Kronya (Cleared any route) [includes Monica costume]
   • Solon (Cleared any route) [includes Tomas costume]
   • Thales (Cleared Verdant Wind or Silver Snow) [includes Arundel costume if Azure Moon has been cleared]
   • Cornelia (Cleared Crimson Flower or Azure Moon)
   • Lonato (Cleared any route)
   • Miklan (Cleared any route)
   • Kostas (Cleared any route)
   • Pallardo (Cleared any route)
   • Metodey (Cleared any route)
   • Acheron (Cleared any route)
   • Gwendal (Cleared any route)
   • Ladislava (Cleared Crimson Flower)
   • Randolph (Cleared Crimson Flower)
   • Nemesis (Cleared Silver Snow)
   • Rodrigue (Cleared Azure Moon)
   • Judith (Cleared Verdant Wind)
   • Nader (Cleared Verdant Wind)
   • Aelfric (Cleared Cindered Shadows)
   • Edelgard, Hubert, Jeritza, Dimitri, Dedue, Gilbert, Claude, Hilda, Catherine, Cyril, Flayn, and Seteth may be purchased as well, but only on routes where they are not normally available, and only if you've already cleared a route where they were available.

Cindered Shadows: I dunno, I thought it was pretty perfect as-is. I guess if I had to impose one change it'd be removing Constance's split personality gimmick, and making her purely her haughty "indoor" version, but that's more of a change to her general characterization than the mode itself.

[NobodiePichu]

a) just make edelgard the main antagonist and rival she was initially conceived as, since so many of the games plotting problems can be traced back to broad handed strokes meant to make her more 'waifu' appropriate. You can even still include the twisted for those arvis parallels if ya must, all it really takes is just committing to whats already in the text instead of dancing around it and have characters call her out on her BS when appropriate. Personally id go as far as retooling the ending to SS and having a dragon crest beast abomination edelgard be the final boss instead of randomly rampaging rhea [due to edelgard overtaxing aymr causing the relic to consume her and react violently to her two crests due to its more artifical nature/use of the crest of the beast in the relics design. A visual embodiment of her ambition and hunger for power taken form and stripping her of the humanity she professes to value so much.]

c) complete retool of VW. as it stands its basically shitty SS due to its almost complete absence of emotional stakes and character relevance, only held up as it is by so many people because of claudes meme status [and the potential character that is there but unrealized by the plot itself]. For a retool, if i couldnt add any additional battle maps anyways, id have it so that you romp in the alliance to pick up allies instead of a volcano, claude sidesteps fort mercurius entirely using the almyran navy to sneak into enbarr through the port, and instead of shambhala [which would now be SS exclusive] claude has to butt heads with a rival prince from almyra whos trying to capitalize on fodlans weakened state, and then have zombie nemesis show up, which forces a stalemate and cooperation between almyran and fodlan forces in order to bring the old man zombie down. its more unique, it capitalizes more so on claudes personality and portrayal, it wrings more character out of him by having to actually confront the whole almyran prince thing to his allies on screen, and it plays to the theme of cooperation which was otherwise tacked onto VW.

b) Give each house a customized WC that better plays to their part II. blue lions for instance, they get to keep the lonato and miklain missions since those missions are most relevant to them. golden deer however would instead have say a mission where you need to deal with criminal merchants in the alliance or solve a dispute between rival nobles better emphasizing what leicester is like and helping to differentiate the golden deers WC from the blue lions WC.

4) reimplement the weapon triangle into the rest of the game. CS proves that doing so greatly benefits the overall gameplay of three houses tremendously and that removing it at all was a terrible mistake. 

[Etrurian emperor]

1. Let Rhea be present in Azure Moon

The story is essentially about one's bad traits and lust for vengeance utterly corrupting them. This goes for both Dimitri and Rhea which makes her presence very valuable. She could either spiral down into insanity along with Dimitri, or try her best to help him because she had once already gone through that road and knows where it leads to. 

2. Rework the Slitherers. 

I'm fine with the presence of a wacky evil cult. Its pretty much a Fire Emblem tradition at this point. Their problem is more that they are both incredibly boring and highly incompetent. Giving them more interesting traits and making them into competent villains would help them a lot. 

3. Give the Adrestian nobles a role. 

The rebellion of the 7 was supposed to be very important but at the end of the day they are pitiful. All of the adrestian nobles exist only off screen and Duke Aegir is so pitiful that Edelgard can casually slap him down in seconds. Giving them actual screentime and a rebellion against Edelgard would be much more interesting. A playable count Bergliez would be cool too. 

4. Have Jeralt be in Cindered Shadows. 

Duh. 

Quote

In addition, I would completely scrap VW, because it just took resources from every other route without adding much itself.

I'm not sure if VW took all that much resources. Pretty much all stages in that route could be found in Silver Snow and Azure Moon. The cutscenes are obviously done on the cheap so the only real extra expense would be the voice acting. Personally I'd sooner scrap Silver Snow since its a more empty version of VW. 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Etrurian emperor

[ruruo]

1. Make CF longer. Have Tailtean Plains and Fhiridad early in CF, like deal with Dimitri, and Rhea within the first 3-4 chapters, and spend the rest of CF exploring the lore/mystery behind the Slitheries. Oh and give them Ladislava and Randolph as replacement for lost faculty units. 

2. Have more units you can recruit during battle. 

3. Make Gronder work as an actual Fog of War map

4. Give M!Byleth the Sothis Regalia he deserves, cowards. And boob windows

5. Either Tailor White Clouds to each house better, or do a Branches of Fate thing, where it lets you skip to post-timeskip. 

6. Have a mode/section that lets you choose and play every map with a end file of your choice after completing the game. 

 

[Pengaius]

I'm tagging @Saint Rubenio because I love his 3H takes, and because he has played enough of the game to properly criticise it. (I've only played VW) 

1. Reduce Reclass options: The whole certification exam was a neat concept, but because of how many options you have to reclass, its potential never got used. A individual unit should have 2-3 reclass paths, with the 3rd possibly being hidden behind budding talents, that have different pass ratios for each student (keep weapon ranks increasing pass odds tho) where say brawler Raphael has a 20% base for brawler and a 40% base for Knight or something. Not. Everybody. Should. Be. Able. To. Fly. 

2. Have Individual Maps: I get that seeing the same place across different routes is cool, but when every forest paralogue is on the same map (Dagda and Edmund, looking at you two) the maps get boring. Every map should have been individually designed, ALSO include villages and houses instead of just random ass chests in the woods. ALSO ALSO missions should have been more House based, with some common missions, instead of the first 12 maps are always the same. Have only the Blue Lions fight Lonato, and have the other houses do other shit like defend a Village in the alliance from Demonic beasts, or “keep the peace" between two imperial lords bickering over a border villages taxes while some opportunistic bandits pillage freely. 

3. Have missions on set days of the Calendar: so instead of having everything on the last day of the month or whatever, some missions could take place week 2 or week 3, maybe even lead into missions on the last day of one month and the first week of the next. This way it's not just take over a fort, fuck off back to Garrag Mach for 4 weeks, take over fort near the other one. This would help better pace the game and avoid those whiplash moments of wait outside the Palace for a month. 

 

I havent played Cindered Shadows, so I cant judge on that, sorry. 

[Florete]

1. Remove all gender locks on classes.
2. More same-sex marriage possibilities, including with non-Byleth pairs, and add the paired endings to the support library.
3. Let Armored Lord and Emperor use magic.
4. CS: Make Constance the house leader.

There's honestly way more than this needed to make the game as good as I want it to be but these are just some small things that would go a long way for me personally and are realistically within the scope the game already has.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Florete

[Saint Rubenio]

54 minutes ago, Pengaius said:

I'm tagging @Saint Rubenio because I love his 3H takes, and because he has played enough of the game to properly criticise it. (I've only played VW) 

Why, thank you! Though I disagree with that last thing. I've only beaten AM on hard. I dropped Madenning!VW on chapter 13 (more on that later) and Hard!CF out of boredom (again, more on that later).

Still, here's the main three I've got. Everything else, I could live with, but these are the main changes that would make me like the game. This is going to get long and negative. Blame Butterman for summoning me:

1- Better difficulty. This is the big one. There's two difficulties in Three Houses: piss-easy and bullshit-hard. A crass description, I know, but it feels like that to me. Hard is way too easy. Aside from the Death Knight and the bullshit divine pulse bait moments, there's basically nothing that can challenge you on this difficulty. And the worst part is, it's not the quality of the enemy units - it's the player units that are the problem here. Due to how Three Houses is designed, they had to account for even the wackiest class-character combinations. This leads to everyone becoming so hopelessly overpowered that nobody can do anything against them. And, well, I get there are some people who like that, but for me, that's just boring.

Then there's Maddening. Maddening is difficult for all the wrong reasons. Untelegraphed ambush reinforcements with Pass? Enemies that only Catherine and Shamir can really keep up with? Sure, thanks. It's clear that they didn't really playtest this difficulty. This is even more terrible to me now that I've played FE12 Lunatic. That difficulty is so well done. Even with ambush reinforcements, it's so well done. So what happened here?

This is the real reason I can't ever finish my Three Houses runs. Hard is boring, and Maddening is just plain unfun. So what do I do? How can I get any enjoyment out of this game? Better designed difficulties would go a long way to making this a better game. Even with the (in my opinion) painfully mediocre map design this game has, it could be at least decently enjoyable if the difficulties didn't both suck so hard.

 

2- Remove Verdant Wind. I know, I know, everyone loves Claude. Well, whenever I see him, I can't help but wonder how the other routes would've looked like if the devs didn't have to waste some of their already meager time and resources making a shitty SS ripoff route. Claude has little character development, he's completely unrelated to the main conflict and themes of the game, his final boss makes no sense, his title is "schemer" and yet he never does anything like that...

Claude did not deserve his own route. They're both a huge waste of potential. He's little more than a glorified secondary. I mean, just look at what he does in the other routes. In AM, he fights Dimitri's forces like an idiot, gets rescued by then, then leaves the plot after giving him the super bow. In CF, he's a one-off boss who can be spared for no reason. In SS, he's a one-off NPC who disappears. He never does anything, because he just doesn't matter. And yet they gave him a route. Because why the heck not, I guess.

Personally, I think it would've been better if he and his guys were put in the other houses. That way, people don't lose their dear Claude, and the rest of the game gets to be better thanks to more time and resources to be spent in the places that matter. Maybe.

 

3- Reunion at dawn. Burn this map. Trash it. Kill it with fire. A map like this has no business existing in a game like Three Houses. In a game that encourages customization, experimentation and freedom of choice, a map so absurdly restrictive as this one so late into the game feels like a mockery. Oh, what's that? You don't really like the characters in your starting roster? You'd rather use these students from other classes? You like Hanneman, Catherine, Shamir and Alois better than the kids? You made everyone a mage to challenge yourself or something? Lord got RNG-screwed? You're Ironmanning and lost the wrong units? Too bad! Softlock it is! You don't even get a prepscreen. How cruel is that?

I'll admit that on hard it's not that terrible, but on Maddening? All it took was a RNG-screwed Claude, mages Ignatz and Byleth, and dead Hilda. That's how my maddening run ended. It was completely impossible to do anything. This map right here is the most clear sign that they didn't even play through their own difficulty before releasing it. It is far too easy to become unwinnable. Thanks a lot, game.

This one map. Unavoidable on all but one of the routes. It's so bad, I would go as far as to say it kinda kills the game. I can't Ironman, I can't do faculty-only or out-of-house-only, I can't even do weird class setups, I can't even get RNG-screwed, because then Reunion at Dawn ends the run. Or, I could play hard and make it bearable. But then I bore myself to tears with the rest of the game. There's just no winning with this map.

 

CS- Uh... Y'know, if this wasn't almost half the price of the base game, maybe I'd consider getting it at some point of my life. Everything else the season pass offers is useless fluff. I mean, seriously? Paid cosmetic outfits in a singleplayer game? The worst unit in the game? A couple classes? Please... None of that is worth diddly-squat. I'd give them 10 bucks for CS, at most. 25 is just ridiculous.

 

That about covers it. I have problems with the map design as well, but with a better difficulty it would be tolerable. I'm sorry for all the negativity. Three Houses has always infuriated me, because it has enough things I like that it annoys me how much I dislike it. I don't even mind the monastery that much! It's the fact that battles on Hard difficulty last 15 minutes and pose no threat that grinds my gears!

Edited October 19, 2020 by Saint Rubenio

[Interdimensional Observer]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

*Make Edelgard gay instead of bi. Not only for the reasons stated in my S support ruins gay characters thread, but also because this would make for a very powerful statement about Edelgard. If she's gay then it's implicit that she will never give birth to her own child which goes in excellently with her rebellion against the very idea of birthright and crest inheritance.

It's possible to have children and still oppose birthright. I know very well a fictional person who, despite being born into generations of privilege and talent, has an insatiable desire to see the world turned into a meritocracy -if that is what Edelgard also stands for, as I know her not. (One could -half-jokingly- call said character gay too, due to their obsession with strength causing them to develop an intense attraction to the main character.)

Edited October 19, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Anathaco]

1 hour ago, ruruo said:

6. Have a mode/section that lets you choose and play every map with a end file of your choice after completing the game

1. This, please, I wanna use my OP save file on more than just replaying the Nemesis fight over and over. I’d also, alternatively, like an option where I can buy my old units to use in different save files.

2. Give Dimitri a slight rewrite in Azure Moon to make his suffering even after Gronder more clear- the main problem I see is people criticising Dimitri for recovering too quickly after Gronder. Putting information like his “I’ll probably still hear voices for the rest of my life” from his S Support in the main story would go a long way to showing the player, not just telling us, that Dimitri has only really resolved to push through and attempt to recover from his trauma. What we got instead shows us that he’s almost completely fine and then tells us at the last second that he isn’t.

3: This is a weird one but remove the 99 cap on stats. I want to go even further beyond, please and thank you. Besides, other people have already mentioned stuff I agree with like moving Nemesis to SS and killing HBD in a fire, so.

CS: add more class options for the Wolves. None of them are really screwed over by their class or anything, but I’d like to have more options to use them as. Stuff like Hero Balthus, Bishop Hapi, Swordmaster Yuri, honestly idk for Constance, Warlock kinda feels like a massive downgrade, but I guess that.

[sinfonic18]

I love Three Houses but the Cindered Shadows side story is just so, ew. So aren't the characters. When I bought the DLC it honestly kind of ruined one of my favorite games this decade. I thought it would elaborate more on the main story and what exactly happened before Byleth was born and why he had such a distrust for Rhea.

That's what I would change about Three Houses. I would add more to the game in order to make the story seem a lot more sense, because playing through it even all 3 routes, it just seems like a ton is missing plot-wise. I'd also like to see Edelgard's story have more chapters but I guess that's in the past now.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

You can be a heterosexual woman and not want kids for those reasons. She can definitely say as much and still have an S support with men, because marriage doesn't have to mean baby making. Especially since the game ends before the S support and this isn't FE4. If you want Edelgard to be a lesbian, just make her one. You don't need some grand in-universe explanation. I like to think we're past the point of believing that lesbians are just a bunch of men haters that religiously reject the stereotypes and gender norms of the female experience.

Seconding that Edelgard could simply choose not to be a mother, independent of her sexuality. Or if you really want her not having kids due to factors beyond her control, you could say that the Cresperimentations left her infertile. Not that this would amount to any thematic message, though... Anyway, more strictly gay/lesbian characters would be good, as would getting asexual characters. The rationale here is just odd.

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

*Make the route choice take place half way through White Clouds with rotating armies for each prior chapter. Cutting out half or White Clouds on repeat playthroughs would be a god send and picking which house you want to join after you've genuinely got to know them would be way more meaningful.

One idea I remember is having the game start over a "summer break" - a program where just a limited number of students are at Garreg Mach (the route-exclusive ones: Edelgard, Hubert, Dimitri, Dedue, Claude, and Hilda). Byleth is still the main character, but as a knight, not a professor. And Jeralt is playable, as something of a Jagen. Some Faculty/Knights could appear as green units in each map. After 3 months, the "third Professor" disappears, and Byleth is elevated to the role - at which point, they choose their class. The remaining 9 chapters are the Part I we know and tolerate, just compressed somewhat. That'll be my change #1.

My change #2 is a common one - make CF longer. But instead of adding the Slitherers at the end, expand it near the start of the post-skip. Basically, after 5 years, Edelgard has a rebellion on her hands. The war is at a standstill, and many want peace with the Church. In this context, Duke Aegir and Count Varley escape house arrest, and become figureheads for the anti-Edelgard front. In the new chapter 13, you must defend Fort Merceus against Count Varley and his troops. By the new chapter 14, the tide has turned - you corner Duke Aegir in the "generic Empire city" map, and defeat him to earn the Ochain Shield. Once the rebellion is supressed, you find that they were fighting with Alliance-made weaponry. Thus leading naturally into the Bridge map, now Chapter 15.

As for change #3, I would alter how the reunion is handled. Now, Byleth returns to a totally desolate Garreg Mach. They walk around... and start to find people! Their former students! Their locations can be relevant - Marianne near the stables, Raphael in the Dining hall etc. Each one has reunion dialogue, reflecting the five years passed. But the only vital one to find is the main lord, in... wait, where did you meet them? The Third Floor? The Goddess Tower? Whatever. After this meeting, Hunting by Daybreak can now be challenged - you're limited to the usual 9 units (SS now gets Flayn), but with the chance to do normal Preps.

Finally, how would I change Cindered Shadows? Treat it like it's 0% growths. Units don't gain experience or level up, but they can gain Weapon Ranks, Authority, and Class Mastery (say, at 2x NG pace, to facilitate the campaign's short duration). Each unit starts with at least 1 class in each rank (except Master), so Dimitri would have Soldier and Cavalier, for instance. More batallions would be for sale, too, if you get your Authority up high enough. While you can get, and assign, new skills and combat arts, thanks to ranks increasing. Getting MVP now grants skill/class ranks, rather than levelling.