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If you had the chance to remake FE4 what would you add or want to see?


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3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Crazy idea for a support effect: skill borrowing. Like, if Noish and Alec have a C-support, and Noish is adjacent to Alec, then he temporarily gets the effects of Pursuit and Nihil. This range can boost to 2 for B-support, and 3 for A-support. Kind of like the "lover crits" of yore, but now with an effect that varies from partner to partner.

That would be OP and I LOVE IT. 

 

3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Bold of you to assume anyone's using Marisa, haha.

...Okay, they definitely are, not that she deserves it.

😅🤣

People can use who they want, regardless of how deserving we think they may or may not be!

 

3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Well, even further upstream, the argument was posed that "supporting everyone with everyone else will require too many conversations, so they should limit potential pairings". To which I responded "if they just change platonic lines to C/B and romantic to C/B/A, then there'll actually be fewer supports than Awakening already did". So it's an argument of practicality. I get the whole "three conversations to fall in love" is a little silly, but it's interspersed by the characters fighting/healing/dancing side-by-side. They could potentially receive more characterization through base conversations, events, crit quotes, and the like. And with how short each generation is, I see fitting in full C/B/A/S chains as a tough sell - especially if we're keeping a reasonable limit of one conversation, per pair, per chapter.

Ah gotcha. That's fair. But that does raise another question - why limit supports to one convo per pair, per chapter? Why not pull a Three Houses and have the A-Support only be unlocked after a certain time, but the C & B Supports available whenever? Like, no one can get married until after conquering Verdane or the like, but after that it's fair game? (...unless there's a secret limit to the supports in Three Houses that I didn't know about?)

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1 minute ago, Use the Falchion said:

That would be OP and I LOVE IT. 

Haha, thanks. There could be some interesting exploits here - like, Lex would "cast Paragon" onto any adjacent allies with at least C-support.

...Maybe they should nerf Paragon to a 1.5x boost.

3 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said:

People can use who they want, regardless of how deserving we think they may or may not be!

She can be fun to use, for sure. And I really like her design. But I think it's funny how the game hypes her up, as "the Crimson Flash", even though A) her hair is Magenta, not Crimson, and B) her stats are no better than her generic enemy counterparts; her only standout is the not-Wo-Dao, which any Myrmidon/Swordmaster/Eirika can wield.

6 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said:

Ah gotcha. That's fair. But that does raise another question - why limit supports to one convo per pair, per chapter? Why not pull a Three Houses and have the A-Support only be unlocked after a certain time, but the C & B Supports available whenever? Like, no one can get married until after conquering Verdane or the like, but after that it's fair game? (...unless there's a secret limit to the supports in Three Houses that I didn't know about?)

Some B-supports in Three Houses are time-locked. Most notably, the Professor can't reach B with Caspar or Ferdinand until post-skip, making them harder to recruit out-of-house.

Personally, I like the feeling of some passage-of-time between support conversations. Echoes kind of did this, where some A supports wouldn't be around until Act IV. That way, too, supports have the possibility of tying into the plot. If Alec-Noish B-support can't happen until chapter 2, then they could talk about the ethics of invading Agustra, for instance. There would be exceptions - Finn's overlap with most potential brides is less than 3 chapters, so if we still want him marriageable in Part I, then he'd need an accelerated support clock. Overall, though, I'd rather avoid a situation where the "optimal" strategy is... continually mash "End Turn" before Siezing in the Prologue, so everyone goes into Chapter 1 with B supports already.

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2 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Echoes kind of did this, where some A supports wouldn't be around until Act IV.

Being completely honest, Echoes' supports are some of the worst in the series for me. The only things I felt they did right were the full voice acting and allowing the supports to be seen on the battlefield like older GBA titles. But I do see what you're saying. 

 

3 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Some B-supports in Three Houses are time-locked. Most notably, the Professor can't reach B with Caspar or Ferdinand until post-skip, making them harder to recruit out-of-house.

I forgot about those. And we can't forget Rhea either. 

 

5 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

That way, too, supports have the possibility of tying into the plot. If Alec-Noish B-support can't happen until chapter 2, then they could talk about the ethics of invading Agustra, for instance. There would be exceptions - Finn's overlap with most potential brides is less than 3 chapters, so if we still want him marriageable in Part I, then he'd need an accelerated support clock.

Ah gotcha. I feel that. 

 

5 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Overall, though, I'd rather avoid a situation where the "optimal" strategy is... continually mash "End Turn" before Siezing in the Prologue, so everyone goes into Chapter 1 with B supports already.

Oh absolutely., but I don't see the harm in that if someone wants to do that either. Would it be optimal? Probably not. But I don't think there's harm in it. Overall, I still don't think limiting them to one support per pair, per chapter is the best idea; but I can't come up with an alternative right now to speed that up outside of depending on explorable castles and stuff to do in those. Maybe a hybrid? Where for romance they can happen as soon as two characters join, but for C-B non-romance options, it takes a little more time? I'm just thinking out-loud at this point...

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On 4/12/2021 at 8:06 AM, Use the Falchion said:

Besides, not all of the conversations have to bring up the same thing (looking at you, Fates). 

(I did read the whole thing, but just quotin' this bit for the sake of saving space)

I'll probably go open a whole "Supports" thread elsewhere to talk about this in a broader and more fleshed-out sense, but I'll try to sum it up and provide some examples. I'll also ignore gameplay for now, since that's a more major topic.

Anyways, spoiled for size!
 

Spoiler

 

To me, supports are simply a very poor way of building characters in a wide variety of ways. Every iteration of supports thus far has had at least one major flaw: GBA's being extremely limited and hard to attain, FE9...Well, I get into this one more later, FE13/14 and the awkward spots to break up the conversation, FE15 is another I'll cover later, and FE16's massive inflation of supports in an attempt to better flesh out the cast. Ignoring the quality of the writing of said supports, the flaws I talked about are all ones that come from the system. While different games have addressed some of these issues, the system continues to show cracks. There is one other structural issue I have with 'em, but that'll come up a little later.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with supports is very simple: They're far too limiting in every single game they're in. Supports allow for only one-on-one conversations, must be broken up in similar ways, and don't actually flow with the game. They limit the interactions characters can have, they limit what control over the plot the devs can have, they limit ways to integrate the world into the support.

Regarding the interactions and how they're broken up: Three Houses is the one that suffered from this the most in my opinion, but it's present in basically every game. Three Houses aimed to make every character fleshed out and make sure everyone interacted with everyone. To do this, they had to have so many supports. After basically any given map in the earlygame, you'll have ~10-20 supports to read, and many of them will hold the same tone. Even for characters you like, it can be tiring to see extremely similar interactions occur ad nauseam. This also means that characters tend to become more one-note. Had TH scrapped supports as the characterization system and had instead had Heart-To-Hearts from the Xenoblade series, it would have been much more enjoyable, in my opinion. If you don't know how H-t-H convos work, they're basically supports that feature a variety of characters and interactions. Rather than having to have Hilda say "I'm lazy!" about ten times in her C supports, we could have had a group conversation where, for example, most of the Golden deer house participates. Characters don't need to be in just one group, though-For example, there could be one where all the "bookworm" characters meet up and talk about books they'd read or something, three-way convos between the house leaders, etc.. What's more is that these can be a one-off conversation or permeate through the entirety of part one, to anywhere in-between.

tl;dr, limiting supports to just two people makes deep characterization with the support system a nightmare. One-on-one conversations aren't inherently bad at all, but relying almost entirely on them to develop a cast of 30 characters is a bad idea.

 

Finally, Supports do not flow with the game. There are examples of this in every FE with support convos thus far. Supports that don't match the tone of a moment in a game, Supports that occur way too close or far from other supports in the chain, supports that end up being repetitive, and most of all, are nearly completely irrelevant to the plot. Because the developers have very limited control over when one can view a support, side characters cannot actually grow over the course of a game unless there is a timeskip or something similar. After every support, characters reset their growth. Another thing with this is that it could allow subplots to play out parallel to main story. The main story can be about the lord and a continent-spanning war...But beneath that, we can see the conflict in the life of an impoverished mercenary who fights for the main lord to earn his keep for his family. These events can feature exactly one playable character and have the rest be NPCs, feature multiple playables, or even none. One of the reasons that Berwick Saga left such a huge mark on me is because it does this. The main story is predominantly the main Lord's, as well as a few other prominent characters, but that is merely one story, with everyone else having one as well-Even the random shopkeepers in Berwick Saga's base city, Navaron. Despite the fact that Garreg Mach was a place I could walk around and explore, Navaron felt more like a real place than Garreg because of how it fleshed out everyone in it-Nobles, shopkeepers, thieves, knights, orphans... It was teeming with life in a way that was incredibly special. I could live in Navaron, and I'd know many people in it, not just playable characters.

Things like Paralogues or character events can occur during the main story and be a part of it, rather than apart from it. Three Houses DOES do this every so often, such as with Miklan, but most of the time, stuff like Paralogues are simply just a completely unrelated map, sometimes with almost no story, even.

So, in summary of this little segment, Play Berwick Saga because it's fantastic Supports vastly hinder the devs' ability to create characters with arcs, develop NPCs and build worlds.

 

 

In essence, what I'm trying to say is that supports massively limit how the devs make the characters function and create subplots. They can't truly show a character's growth when heavily leaning on supports, they can't develop NPCs with heavy reliance on supports and they make it so that characters are irrelevant to the main plot and don't contribute to it, barring a few moments. I really did not enjoy the story or cast of Three Houses at all, but the moments where it was at its best were when it attempted to shy away from supports. If the next FE doesn't use supports and instead relies on events that occur, (Conditionally or otherwise) at proper times, I think that it would propel the series to so much more than what it is now.

Supports are merely a burden for what the series is attempting to do with its characters and plots.

EDIT: And I do know that Three Houses does make some things time-sensitive and locks supports behind certain chapters, but that kind of only supports my point that Supports as they are aren't any good.

Edited by Benice
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9 hours ago, Benice said:

(I did read the whole thing, but just quotin' this bit for the sake of saving space)

I'll probably go open a whole "Supports" thread elsewhere to talk about this in a broader and more fleshed-out sense, but I'll try to sum it up and provide some examples. I'll also ignore gameplay for now, since that's a more major topic.

Anyways, spoiled for size!
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

To me, supports are simply a very poor way of building characters in a wide variety of ways. Every iteration of supports thus far has had at least one major flaw: GBA's being extremely limited and hard to attain, FE9...Well, I get into this one more later, FE13/14 and the awkward spots to break up the conversation, FE15 is another I'll cover later, and FE16's massive inflation of supports in an attempt to better flesh out the cast. Ignoring the quality of the writing of said supports, the flaws I talked about are all ones that come from the system. While different games have addressed some of these issues, the system continues to show cracks. There is one other structural issue I have with 'em, but that'll come up a little later.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with supports is very simple: They're far too limiting in every single game they're in. Supports allow for only one-on-one conversations, must be broken up in similar ways, and don't actually flow with the game. They limit the interactions characters can have, they limit what control over the plot the devs can have, they limit ways to integrate the world into the support.

Regarding the interactions and how they're broken up: Three Houses is the one that suffered from this the most in my opinion, but it's present in basically every game. Three Houses aimed to make every character fleshed out and make sure everyone interacted with everyone. To do this, they had to have so many supports. After basically any given map in the earlygame, you'll have ~10-20 supports to read, and many of them will hold the same tone. Even for characters you like, it can be tiring to see extremely similar interactions occur ad nauseam. This also means that characters tend to become more one-note. Had TH scrapped supports as the characterization system and had instead had Heart-To-Hearts from the Xenoblade series, it would have been much more enjoyable, in my opinion. If you don't know how H-t-H convos work, they're basically supports that feature a variety of characters and interactions. Rather than having to have Hilda say "I'm lazy!" about ten times in her C supports, we could have had a group conversation where, for example, most of the Golden deer house participates. Characters don't need to be in just one group, though-For example, there could be one where all the "bookworm" characters meet up and talk about books they'd read or something, three-way convos between the house leaders, etc.. What's more is that these can be a one-off conversation or permeate through the entirety of part one, to anywhere in-between.

tl;dr, limiting supports to just two people makes deep characterization with the support system a nightmare. One-on-one conversations aren't inherently bad at all, but relying almost entirely on them to develop a cast of 30 characters is a bad idea.

 

Finally, Supports do not flow with the game. There are examples of this in every FE with support convos thus far. Supports that don't match the tone of a moment in a game, Supports that occur way too close or far from other supports in the chain, supports that end up being repetitive, and most of all, are nearly completely irrelevant to the plot. Because the developers have very limited control over when one can view a support, side characters cannot actually grow over the course of a game unless there is a timeskip or something similar. After every support, characters reset their growth. Another thing with this is that it could allow subplots to play out parallel to main story. The main story can be about the lord and a continent-spanning war...But beneath that, we can see the conflict in the life of an impoverished mercenary who fights for the main lord to earn his keep for his family. These events can feature exactly one playable character and have the rest be NPCs, feature multiple playables, or even none. One of the reasons that Berwick Saga left such a huge mark on me is because it does this. The main story is predominantly the main Lord's, as well as a few other prominent characters, but that is merely one story, with everyone else having one as well-Even the random shopkeepers in Berwick Saga's base city, Navaron. Despite the fact that Garreg Mach was a place I could walk around and explore, Navaron felt more like a real place than Garreg because of how it fleshed out everyone in it-Nobles, shopkeepers, thieves, knights, orphans... It was teeming with life in a way that was incredibly special. I could live in Navaron, and I'd know many people in it, not just playable characters.

Things like Paralogues or character events can occur during the main story and be a part of it, rather than apart from it. Three Houses DOES do this every so often, such as with Miklan, but most of the time, stuff like Paralogues are simply just a completely unrelated map, sometimes with almost no story, even.

So, in summary of this little segment, Play Berwick Saga because it's fantastic Supports vastly hinder the devs' ability to create characters with arcs, develop NPCs and build worlds.

 

 

In essence, what I'm trying to say is that supports massively limit how the devs make the characters function and create subplots. They can't truly show a character's growth when heavily leaning on supports, they can't develop NPCs with heavy reliance on supports and they make it so that characters are irrelevant to the main plot and don't contribute to it, barring a few moments. I really did not enjoy the story or cast of Three Houses at all, but the moments where it was at its best were when it attempted to shy away from supports. If the next FE doesn't use supports and instead relies on events that occur, (Conditionally or otherwise) at proper times, I think that it would propel the series to so much more than what it is now.

Supports are merely a burden for what the series is attempting to do with its characters and plots.

EDIT: And I do know that Three Houses does make some things time-sensitive and locks supports behind certain chapters, but that kind of only supports my point that Supports as they are aren't any good.

 

Your points are really good ones, but I'm not sure I agree with a majority of them. Supports to me aren't about character growth in every case. They're about characterization, little things and interactions that the game may not give you otherwise, that help expound upon who the characters are, what makes them tick, and what they fight for outside of "I fight for my friends/the bigger picture/my homeland." It's the mix of this and the character arc supports that make a character - and their support system - robust.

Would we know that Ogier had a little sister if it wasn't for supports? Or that Tharja writes to her family? Or that the Charon crest may or may not bring bad luck/weather to Lysithea and Catherine? Or how about the fact that Owain and Cynthia may look like they like the same stories, but really disagree on how such stories should end? Or how Inigo was super shy as a youth? Or how Xander actually may be depressed and/or suicidal? Or the story of Nada Kuya? These things are what make the characters in Fire Emblem so fun. Anyone can like the same five units for their versatility, but it's how units interact that make a lot of units fan favorites. And none of the above things need a subplot or character arc. They're just fun interactions. 

For a non-FE moment, look at the party and after-party scenes in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It's literally just our heroes hanging out with their friends and with each other. No stress, no real plot relevance, and they're easily some of the best scenes in the movie. Why? Because it's people's favorite characters interacting with each other. that's why people like Avengers ensemble movies or the Justice League cartoons or the superhero crossover episodes. (Or the comedy show crossover episodes.) There doesn't need to be an arc or reason or relevance for it, the fun of the interaction is enough. 

Look at Lorenz - we can track his growth all throughout his supports with Leonie, and they're some of the best for the character. He goes on a little arc. But Lorenz doesn't need to go on another arc for his supports with Ferdinand or Claude. Those supports are about characterizing how Lorenz feels about (what he perceives as) his responsibility, not nobility in general. 

Or take a look at Felix and his supports with Seteth. Felix doesn't necessarily learn or grow from it in a major or noticeable way, but we get some nice insight into Seteth on it, something that we might miss otherwise. 

I also only partially agree with subplot and NPC aspect. Fire Emblem is a series that doesn't really focus too much on its NPCs outside of its antagonists. And that's fine. Fire Emblem doesn't focus on making a living, breathing world so much as one that has history and lore. I personally don't care much about the people living in these types of worlds so much as the culture of the worlds thesmelves (i.e. food, stories, folk tales, etc.) Three Houses does a solid job at this. We don't need to worry about the NPCs because that's not who the story is focused on. But even then Three Houses made steps towards correcting what you perceive as a fault. Rodrigue, Judith, Edelgard's mother, Rhea (depending on the route). These are all characters who have motivations, interactions, and characterization beyond what FE has done before. And we can't forget how the dialogue with the NPCs - and even our units - depends upon which route we chose and how far we are in the game. Lysithea says something completely different after the first Part 2 chapter if you're the leader of the Blue Lions than she does if you lead the Golden Deer. Felix has completely different characterization depending if you go Blue Lions, Golden Deer, or Black Eagles. These are great steps. (Although a mostly unnecessary one IMO.) 

Subplots within the overarching story are fine, but they shouldn't replace supports. It's just not necessary. Ogier doesn't need a subplot about finding a way to feed his family because he lost his little sister. The fact he's a mercenary tells us that, and his supports with Lilina tell us something even more precious. We don't need Saleh and Eirika to stop Grado's forces in a subplot that has Eirika recreate the Nada Kuya myth. Hearing about the story is fine.

This isn't me saying subplots are bad - subplots and arcs done well can only help. But they don't replace character interactions. Lorenz's subplot about dealing with Archeron in his support doesn't help us understand his views of nobility, it shows us that the Alliance has a lot of petty squabbles. Felix's subplot helps us understand Felix better, but that's because of Rodrigue, not Felix himself (and should really only be counted as a subplot in the Blue Lions path). 

Also, instead of Xenoblade Chronicle's H2H system, I recommend looking at Valkyria Chronicle 4's Side-Story system. XC1's H2Hs work well with the story because there are basically 6 playable characters in the entire game. Supports aren't necessary when your entire party can show up in a cutscene and each can contribute evenly to the story and dialogue. This isn't the case with XC2, where H2Hs and Blade Quests function exactly the same as supports - they're spotlight moments focusing on the character(s) in question that allow them to interact with people they usually wouldn't. Otherwise, you might as well consider the main characters of XB2 like the House Lords and Byleth in Three Houses. (Although Sothis has noticeably fewer romantic vibes with Byleth than Pyra does with Rex.) 

Instead, Valkyria Chronicles 4 gives us missions to complete using only the given characters and their interactions. Not only does this vary gameplay, it also allows us to see characters interact outside of the story in groups. Fire Emblem should definitely emulate this on some level, but these shouldn't replace supports either. 

 

Ultimately, I see your point, but I simply can't agree with it. Supports when done well allow for more variation, interaction, and fun than subplots would do. Sure, people may ship Innes with Eirika or Vanessa, but seeing his supports with L'Archel is so much fun. Sure, Sully may grow the most in a support with someone like Stahl, but we also can see her doubts and insecurities in the conversations with Miriel. Not everything needs a relation to the plot, and sometimes the best moments are the ones that aren't. Instead of burying the supports, we need to be asking ourselves how to raise the quality of them as a whole, and what that looks like. Does that mean fewer supports supplemented by other things? Or will the standard amount do, but we keep the plot vast and epic to accommodate for this?

 

EDIT: These things vary per game. I don't think subplots would work in a game where the map size is smaller, such as Sacred Stones or Awakening. The supplementation and accommodation should depend on the game, story, world, and characters IMO. This isn't a "one size fits all" solution. In an FE 4 remake, I think your idea of subplots would work better than something like trio supports or possibly even base conversations. But that won't help everything or everyone, nor should it be seen as the only correct path going forward. 

Edited by Use the Falchion
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  • 1 month later...

I think the main thing I'd want to see is advanced combat forecasting.  Due to how the game handles enemy formations and the presence of Battle Canto, not being able to easily check threat ranges (you CAN check them, obviously, but it's quite time-consuming and easy to forget due to not being able to keep range indicators locked after moving the cursor away from a given enemy unit) or target priority/enemy action order (I really appreciated this in 3H, as I'm not really a fan of trying to remember all of a given FE game's AI idiosyncrasies) can make efficiently moving your units around a harrowing proposition (and while I like being able to Save at the start of each turn, actually feeling forced to do so gets a bit cumbersome).

Some other random things...

I'd like to see the Inventory system relaxed, somewhat.  Exchanging money between characters is overly restrictive in the original, IMO; you should be able to distribute funds in increments, and that functionality shouldn't be restricted to just Thieves and couples.  I DO like the idea of each unit having an individual purse with a cap of 50000 Gold, however, and you'd still need to be adjacent to a unit to trade funds (and it'd still fully end your turn), so I'm not advocating just having a massive war chest like other Fire Emblems.  Then, with regard to Thieves and couples, have their new perqs be the ability to actually exchange Inventory items while adjacent to one another out in the field, without having to go through the Pawn Shop (doing this would end the trade initiator's turn without Canto, obviously, just as if they''d initiated a Talk command).  The Steal ability might even allow Dew/Patty to poach certain items (most likely Rings and items normally coded to be dropped anyway) from targets they strike in addition to pilfering from the target's purse.

I would re-do the Pursuit skill so that it merely upgrades follow-up attack ability, rather than it being outright necessary for them.  For example, have the base follow-up check be the attacker having 5 or more effective Spd than the target.  If neither has Pursuit, that's all that's checked.  If one has Pursuit and the other doesn't, the one with Pursuit is not only immune to the other's follow-up attacks, they're guaranteed to make their own follow-up (provided they can counter in the case of the defender), kind-of like the Quick Riposte ability from 3H.  If both have Pursuit, the skills cancel each other out and you go back to the basic formula.

I'd try to do away with a lot of the back-tracking and 'guide dang it'/'gotcha' moments that do not add any sort of meaningful difficulty and/or just pad the game out with moving units around (chapter 2 in particular is notoriously bad about this).  The easiest way to do this is to divide each Chapter into sub-chapters that officially begin and end whenever a new castle's seized, and to force-relocate your units into that castle whenever that happens (so you'd have them re-Sortie each time, afterwards).  This wouldn't change the actual map layout or anything, just prevent some fairly ludicrous shenanigans that punish the player for not spoilering themselves on Chapter events in advance (like the drawbridge, or the Hero Axe/Pursuit Band).

Some re-balancing of the classes to not favor mounts so heavily would be nice.  However, stats/combat ability is not where those balances need to be applied; in fact the foot units are very strong in actual combat compared to the mounted ones.  The problem's that they never see that combat, and they can't Canto away afterwards.  Putting in terrain and alternate routes on maps that specifically inhibit mounted units (including fliers) while still gating objectives requiring swift intervention would enable foot units to see some more action.  There's some terrain in the original, but it's never used as a gate like that; it's always a non-issue to just ride your horse around it, to the point mounts still get to the other side faster than foot units attempting to traverse through it.  Another much simpler solution is to just give everyone a horse, but that's a bit...boring?

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/7/2021 at 11:22 PM, henrymidfields said:

Right! Thanks for bringing this up, that is a good point you raised. 💡‼️ Do you mind pointing out a few examples from history to me? Would it be something like UK, US, and France during World War I/II? Or are we talking about different allied legions in Ancient Rome?

I still don't know if I still want this restriction from a gameplay feature, though - well, at least not sure about 1 to 1. I mean, even with the justification, I still think the restrictions on trading is still drastic compared to other games, and it bring a question on why family members, or people in the same faction within your army can't trade. Perhaps, as you said, maybe allow some form of trade between same factions (say, fellow countrymen) of your army, such as both item and money between family members, or only money between two units that are from the same country/faction. Alternately, maybe lift the restrictions on trading depending on support level (maybe money to a limit on B, money and an item on A, and unrestricted on A+/S) regardless of romance, or the lack of.

Glad you agree with the rescue, Pair-Ups, and I totally agree with the battalions for FE4-Remake. And now that you mentioned it, I think I remember reading somewhere that each unit in the original FE4 were implied to be battalions.... How would you go in implementing the battalion system? Same as 3H (with the obvious exception of names etc), or would we tweak some stuff in the system?

I've had some further thought about GoHW since I last posted, and rethought about the unique gameplay mechanic. I don't want something too faithful, because then what is the point of a Switch remake? You might as well just ask Nintendo to have it released on the VC with the necessary English, French, and Spanish localizations. I mean, I'm mot interested in playing Link's Awakening on the Switch because it's too similar to the original to justify a price tag of approx $60. I've already played that on the GameBoy years ago, and even if I didn't, there's the VC for that which is $5.

I do want some acknowledgement of the unique mechanics, now that I know better about the some of the design decisions and basic narrative behind the game. I now know that GoHW looks at military operations from a more macro scale than most other FE games. What each unit represents in GoHW is essentially what your entire party looks like in most other FE entries. I also now know that batallions/regiments (?) historically had to look after their own equipment, and win their own loot, so I'd like the individualized inventory to stay, but with a couple of modifications for the sake of logic or improving QoL. I'd like purchasing items off each other directly be an option under certain conditions (maybe units from the same faction, or those that have support levels). Married couples should be able to trade freely, as a bonus to further push the whole marriage point for GoHW. Also for what I believe is for obvious reasons, existing family members (parent-child or brother-sister) that are in the player's army should also at least be afforded an option for discounts purchases, unless there's a good in-story reason not to.

Also, did I hear that vulneraries don't exist in GoHW? How much of a problem would it be if we add them (as either purchasables or standard army rations)? How much does the lack of vulneraries in the original contribute to an unwinnable situation?

My opinions on adding battalions for GoHW has remained unchanged since my last post.

As for the story, we might as well add on to the script that is already complete, and add more conversations for the non-Lord characters to further elaborate the characters and the world. Three Houses was good in giving more weight to non-Lord playable units. Not only were there paralogues for the different units, but there were, in general, more appearances and lines for them, and gave a more apparent notion that, the class/team you stuck with actually acts as a team. Paralogues might not be an feasible option for this hypothetical remake (though maybe character-specific sidequests may be), but the increased appearances of non-Lord units should be to both give the feel of an actual history instead of a "insultingly reductive and so slavishly rote" Great Man Theory approach (courtesy of Overly Sarcastic Productions) of FE's story all too often done with most past entries. Related to the previous, Sigurd's personality and flaws should stay intact as is, instead of what happened to Alm in Shadows of Valentia remake. If anything, I wouldn't mind if they rammed his flaws in diplomacy harder than the original.

Edited by henrymidfields
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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm definitely leaning towards the idea of side-quests instead of paralogue for these remakes, but I'd like to see these side-quests pay off in each part of the game, and possibly even have multiple aspects. (Vestaria Saga, Xenoblade 1 & 2, and Mass Effect trilogy are inspirations for this.)

As a roughly and quickly drawn up example, maybe at some point in Part 1, there's a village under attack in Lex's family's territory. It's attacked by a minor noble in the area. There are NPC villagers defending the village, but they won't last too long. Lex and a few other units are sent to deal with the problem, and do so. Despite the outcome, Lex will be spat upon and kicked out of the village. However, the results of this side-quest will shape the items you get in Part 2. 

In Part 2, if Lex had saved everyone, players get a powerful battalion that automatically goes to Lex's children. The reason is that because all of the villagers lived, they gained enough experience to form a fighting force and train others. Now, they're ready for war. 

If Lex saved most of the NPCs, then Lex's children will get a payout. The reason is that while not everyone lived, the village gained enough of a reputation as a safe harbor that more merchants came to town, increasing the revenue. 

If Lex couldn't save anyone, then no rewards are given. 

 

Another quick idea is that earlier in the game, Sigurd and Co talk to a man waiting to hear back from his betrothed via letter. After capturing one of the castles, Sigurd and Co find a messenger in the castle, who was imprisoned on crimes of treason and espionage. The messenger says he's innocent, and all he is carrying is a letter from place ABC to the place where the before-mentioned man is. If Sigurd lets the messenger go, he will deliver the letter...but he will also betray Sigurd and enemy reinforcements will arrive on a later map. However, the man from above will give you something later on. (I'd like to think that the letter was a rejection letter, and the woman betrothed returned her ring. The man then moved on, happily married someone from Sigurd's retinue or something like that, and moved somewhere else. In Part 2, he's happy with a family, and helps children escape the Child Hunts into different countries, which could be a different side-quest. Maybe his children can be NPCs that can be talked to. However, if the messenger isn't let go, then he thinks his betrothed died, and drinks his days away. He becomes a drunkard, and will ultimately betray the players if they so choose to do the second part of this side-quest.) 

 

A small probably DLC side-quest idea is the "open rebellion" idea. In Part 1, a well-meaning noble is harried by commoners to do something or other. Sigurd and Co step in, with Sigurd's non-noble companions providing intermediary support. In Part 2, the same rebellion is brewing, but this time the noble in-question is not as nice. Players can help the Noble and gain gold, a decent battalion, and some other reward; or they can help the commoners, and have one non-noble character given the title of Lord, and reclassed that titular class. (I mean, the character technically doesn't have to be non-noble, and Seliph and Co can make a little comment about not informing the commoners of that fact, but for roleplaying purposes, it probably should be.) 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/3/2020 at 8:08 PM, Pengaius said:
  •  
  • Buff the default gen 2 cast, so that there's an actual reason to use the non child characters (maybe give them some cool weapons or new skills that aren't available to the child char replacements or extra events)

This. Exactly. Making the skill systems more concise and adding some useful and unique skills to the subs. 

Also, the second gen should be able to inherit the father's class so everyone would be able to use the weapons. With that in mind, the subs would also need to have alternative classes to promote and those shouldn't accessible by the blue blood kids so it would give more reason to use the alts:

* Jeanne could have Wyvern Rider as an alternate promotion since she comes from Thracia 

* Charlot could access General or any armour class duo to his relation to Hannibal 

* Laylea could promote to Pegasus Rider since this is the basic alternative promotion to dancers (Azura, Olivia)

* Amid or Linda could promote to Dark Bishop due to their family connections. I suppose they know some dark magic. Or any class related to dark magic. 

 

Idk for the othe subs, but for sure there's a need for more axe classes. 

Edited by Mylady
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On 12/5/2020 at 5:17 PM, OutcastsofRelix said:

Change Lester's hair color because how tf is his hair blue if his dad(in my canon) is Midayle. Did she cheat.

 

Maybe they could show Edain's father in a scene, and he could have blue hair, similar to Chrom and Lissa's family, so Lester took after his grandfather, it happens a lot. That said Lana is also a redhead and apparently no one in the direct family has red hair. 

Or they could just do like Awakening in which the sons have the father's hair colour. This was the initial idea of FE4 developers but they couldn't do it due to limitations. 

Edited by Mylady
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1 hour ago, Mylady said:

This. Exactly. Making the skill systems more concise and adding some useful and unique skills to the subs. 

Also, the second gen should be able to inherit the father's class so everyone would be able to use the weapons. With that in mind, the subs would also need to have alternative classes to promote and those shouldn't accessible by the blue blood kids so it would give more reason to use the alts:

* Jeanne could have Wyvern Rider as an alternate promotion since she comes from Thracia 

* Charlot could access General or any armour class duo to his relation to Hannibal 

* Laylea could promote to Pegasus Rider since this is the basic alternative promotion to dancers (Azura, Olivia)

* Amid or Linda could promote to Dark Bishop duo to their family connections. I suppose they know some dark magic. Or any class related to dark magic. 

 

Idk for the othe subs, but for sure there's a need for more axe classes. 

Charlot would make a pretty terrible general, unless they let him go Baron for magic general (but that would negate his default class since barons can use staves too, though I guess the extra movement would be appreciated).

Edited by Jotari
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3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Charlot would make a pretty terrible general, unless they let him go Baron for magic general (but that would negate his default class since barons can use staves too, though I guess the extra movement would be appreciated).

Yes, at first I thought on the Baron class but idk if such overpowered class would be available to a playable unit, but who knows? Every game has its broken classes and the holy weapons are super powerful as well so why not.

I was trying to think in the classes  related to lore already available the in original game, that could make the subs appealing, but it's quite possible that they add new classes as well. 

Edited by Mylady
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