Why are supports still considered to be a good form of storytelling in FE?

[Samz707]

The "Implied time" matters depending on how the support actually goes.

Fire Emblem 7: for at least the infamous Florina/Hector support (I do agree that at least the B support should have been a C, the A support should have been a B, and then a new A support where they properly talk to each other, or do the 3H thing and have more than an A, B and C for that support, BTW who ever came up with that needs a raise.), they do not get married on the spot, they start working together and fall in love in the time-skip for the actual ending, is it a bit of a cop-out? sure, but I buy it a hell of a lot more than the few Awakening Romances I experienced in My playthrough/read online.

Tharja and Donnel for instance, she makes him get her stuff, this somehow equals both of them wanting to romance each other, these aren't characters I ever really got the impression that they interact between supports, they just have a really basic co-worker relationship and suddenly Donnel is in love with her and she's willing to trick him into accepting an implied to be cursed ring in true yandere fashion (Then go back to being obsessed with Robin again and never mention Donnel again in any gameplay dialogue which totally doesn't undercut this, at all.), so not only do they not really seem like the kind to interact at all outside of the specific situation in their support, they literally get decide to get married on the spot. 

Characters need to actually seem like they'd interact, or at the very least have them sorta get into each other but not full-on wedding bells until their epilogue.

 

[Vicious Sal]

On 5/17/2021 at 12:57 AM, lightcosmo said:

This isnt true, depending on how you look at it, Benice has a good point. FE games dont focus multiple chapters on other characters like Berwick does, it's usually they appear once then disappear into the background. 

Them focusing a few chapters on other characters is actually a good idea, and not really a "crappy" argument. 

 

On 5/17/2021 at 3:39 AM, lightcosmo said:

I wasnt saying this isnt true, but saying the opposite is completely false isnt true at all, and it isnt even close to a "crappy" argument. And replying as such is implying that said reply is just that, rude at least 

Supports have merit, but only within their limited scope, basing plenty of gameplay time around different characters? That also has its charms, ignoring that possibility is silly.

Some people like the more "centered" characterization rather than being "grouped", either way works out, so I didn't understand the rude remark, was all I was saying.

It is a crappy argument since it's an argument based on a lie. Even before my post people had already proven that character arcs are possible and already exist within supports. So the entire basis of the argument falls flat.
I'm not going to buy a house when the first part of the sales pitch is "the building is built on a foundation of plastic straws instead of concrete".

I'm also not against other possibilities like the base conversations that feature multiple people or even supports that feature multiple people. I know I put a Tl;dr at the end so if you only read that, congratulations, you missed everything else and have not read me actually being an advocate of multiple ways of expanding characters. 
The notion however that stuff like that should be done because "supports can't create character arcs" is ludicrous and I stand by my point that that makes for a crappy argument.

[Lightcosmo]

1 hour ago, Vicious Sal said:

 

It is a crappy argument since it's an argument based on a lie. Even before my post people had already proven that character arcs are possible and already exist within supports. So the entire basis of the argument falls flat.
I'm not going to buy a house when the first part of the sales pitch is "the building is built on a foundation of plastic straws instead of concrete".

I'm also not against other possibilities like the base conversations that feature multiple people or even supports that feature multiple people. I know I put a Tl;dr at the end so if you only read that, congratulations, you missed everything else and have not read me actually being an advocate of multiple ways of expanding characters. 
The notion however that stuff like that should be done because "supports can't create character arcs" is ludicrous and I stand by my point that that makes for a crappy argument.

But it doesn't since FE usually has limited support options and the conversations tend to stay limited. Can it? Sure. Does IS capitalise off of it? Not really. 

And small little notations about a character pale in comparison to basing alot of gameplay/story around them. Alot of supports tend to end up missing the right "mood" like the "arcs" have. 

See characters like Kellam to see what i mean.

[Vicious Sal]

52 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

But it doesn't since FE usually has limited support options and the conversations tend to stay limited. Can it? Sure. Does IS capitalise off of it? Not really. 

And small little notations about a character pale in comparison to basing alot of gameplay/story around them. Alot of supports tend to end up missing the right "mood" like the "arcs" have. 

See characters like Kellam to see what i mean.

Wow it's almost as if I've covered all these points and my opinions on them already in my first post. Where would someone possibly be able to read this readily available information?

I'm fine discussing things, but I'd appreciate it if the topics being discusses were things that I didn;t already address in my first post.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Vicious Sal

[Lightcosmo]

1 hour ago, Vicious Sal said:

Wow it's almost as if I've covered all these points and my opinions on them already in my first post. Where would someone possibly be able to read this readily available information?

I'm fine discussing things, but I'd appreciate it if the topics being discusses were things that I didn;t already address in my first post.

The issue is that you used a very little amount of examples as proof. If anything, that proves that Benice has a more concrete theory. 

Supports touch on things you dont know about the characters, yes. But thats...  really all they do. Arcs can do alot more than just scratch the surface. You didn't really address any of that, just used very few examples out of how many supports in the history of FE? That's doesnt prove alot to me.

[Jotari]

25 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

The issue is that you used a very little amount of examples as proof. If anything, that proves that Benice has a more concrete theory. 

Supports touch on things you dont know about the characters, yes. But thats...  really all they do. Arcs can do alot more than just scratch the surface. You didn't really address any of that, just used very few examples out of how many supports in the history of FE? That's doesnt prove alot to me.

It proves it's possible. Which means it's not the fault of the support system, but of the writing not being able to use it.

[Ottservia]

10 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It proves it's possible. Which means it's not the fault of the support system, but of the writing not being able to use it.

My question is more so why target supports with this rant? When the paralogue system is right there which if improved upon could give Benice exactly what he wants. Like imagine a system where if you get a certain support rank with a character or whatever which then unlocks a paralogue that continues the conflict of that particular support chain. This then can lead into a chain of maybe 2 or 3 paralogues with various unlock criteria that allow for the character to have the arc that Benice wants so bad.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Ottservia

[Lightcosmo]

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It proves it's possible. Which means it's not the fault of the support system, but of the writing not being able to use it.

Yeah, but you have to consider that the devs probably wont implement such a system. You cant just say "well theoretically this is possible".

And either way, why not learn much more through a series of chapters rather than a bit of dialogue that usually focuses on one subject for the most part? 

 

[Jotari]

20 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Yeah, but you have to consider that the devs probably wont implement such a system. You cant just say "well theoretically this is possible".

And either way, why not learn much more through a series of chapters rather than a bit of dialogue that usually focuses on one subject for the most part? 

 

That's an entirely different argument though. Like there's loads of stuff in Fire Emblem that can potentially be implemented better. Like the Divine Pulse or Armoured Knights, or like, the actual main story of the game (>.>). The fact that they have been implemented poorly in the past isn't a great argument in favor of them not being attempted at all. Moreever none of the alternate suggestions seem to be in any way mutually exclusive to a support system. We can have base conversations and paralogues along with supports. And in fact we have had those things a long with supports when they've been featured.

[Vicious Sal]

 

1 hour ago, lightcosmo said:

The issue is that you used a very little amount of examples as proof. If anything, that proves that Benice has a more concrete theory. 

Supports touch on things you dont know about the characters, yes. But thats...  really all they do. Arcs can do alot more than just scratch the surface. You didn't really address any of that, just used very few examples out of how many supports in the history of FE? That's doesnt prove alot to me.

I don't need to present a lot of supports as evidence when A) Benice states the entire "supports cannot allow for a character arc" premise as an absolute which is what how the argument has been used and B) when others have already shown multiple other supports that also disprove the statement.
If a premise is stated as an absolute fact it does not matter if there is only one piece of evidence against it, that once piece means that the possibility alone exists. If the possibility is there, it could be used for every support. if it can be used for every support, benice's premise is wrong and thus a crappy argument.

""Supports touch on things you don't know about characters, but that's all they really do" is also a crappy crgument since it once again presents itself as an absolute. If you've been paying any attention at all to this thread OR a B support or A support in generall you'd already know this. 
My first example of Lethe x Jill has:

- Character growth; You get the Ike/Lethe scene early in the game where he says "sub-human"and pisses lethe off, resulting in ike learning and growing. Later you get Jill's talks to Haar about eradicating the subhumans. in the C support you already see Jill trying to stop herself from using the wrong words, since she's beginning to see her entire sense of the world is distorted through her upbringing. 

- Ties in with gameplay and narrative; Why laguz do't feel the need for weapons and shows a scene that normally does not happen this way, a Daein soldier and Laguz face to face in stead of in battle.

Those are just the C support, there's world building lore, character arc for both units and more. 

Then you're just wrong with this whole ""Supports touch on things you don't know about characters, but that's all they really do" nonsense since B and A supports exist. Currently, most supports take the route of ""introduce character and showcase character trait, expand upon character trait and flaw, resolve character trait and grow as friends/person" I'm not saying this is good, or  that only this is good, but B and A supports for a majority of supports literally present known information about a character and interact with that information in one way or another. be it challenge a notion, expand upon or have inner conflict.
Once again, not saying that system is good or bad, just saying you're wrong.

 

You may also have mssed it, but I am not against multiple forms of character interaction. Paralogue's, sure, in base snippets like Awakening's "how was your day?" are nice. Supports, keep em coming, especially if they're set up like how i mentioned them in my initial post. Base conversations, yes please.

I'm not against all that, i'm against people dealing in absolutes and then proposing an almost exact replacement system with a new name and patting themselves on the back for it.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Vicious Sal

[Lightcosmo]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

That's an entirely different argument though. Like there's loads of stuff in Fire Emblem that can potentially be implemented better. Like the Divine Pulse or Armoured Knights, or like, the actual main story of the game (>.>). The fact that they have been implemented poorly in the past isn't a great argument in favor of them not being attempted at all. Moreever none of the alternate suggestions seem to be in any way mutually exclusive to a support system. We can have base conversations and paralogues along with supports. And in fact we have had those things a long with supports when they've been featured.

But Benice isnt talking about supports "in theory" mentioning in FE context, in which they are usually limited. Cause in theory they could be set up the proper way, what with character growth and whatnot, but in FEs context, they arent. Not nearly enough for them to be considered "properly".

[Vicious Sal]

2 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

But Benice isnt talking about supports "in theory" mentioning in FE context, in which they are usually limited. Cause in theory they could be set up the proper way, what with character growth and whatnot, but in FEs context, they arent. Not nearly enough for them to be considered "properly".

So we should examine supports in "FE context" where they do not get the luxury to exist in perfect writing for everyone. But Benice's idea of H2H's and whatnot get to exist in happy go lucky writing world and are not subject to the reality that IS will also fumble quite a few of those and make the new depiction of characters fall flat, borning, go nowhere or any other thing that makesthem less than stellar. Got it.

 

If you're going to judge two systems, judge them by the same metric. They're both going to not have only proper writing. Or in theory they will. Can't have it whatever way suits you the most for one thing and realistic for the other. 

[Lightcosmo]

4 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

So we should examine supports in "FE context" where they do not get the luxury to exist in perfect writing for everyone. But Benice's idea of H2H's and whatnot get to exist in happy go lucky writing world and are not subject to the reality that IS will also fumble quite a few of those and make the new depiction of characters fall flat, borning, go nowhere or any other thing that makesthem less than stellar. Got it.

 

If you're going to judge two systems, judge them by the same metric. They're both going to not have only proper writing. Or in theory they will. Can't have it whatever way suits you the most for one thing and realistic for the other. 

If that's what you got from that, I'm impressed by how wrong you are.

Also, I was giving credit to both systems, clearly. But I suppose cherry picking issues is what some people prefer.

Supports are fine, I never said they weren't, but the issue at hand is how they are limited, not whether or not character growth is a thing or not.

Edited May 18, 2021 by lightcosmo

[Ottservia]

3 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Supports are fine, I never said they weren't,

Yeah but that’s what Benice is saying. His whole argument essentially boils down to “Supports are bad and should be removed because they don’t allow for character arcs and that these systems from other games are better and should be used instead” at as far as I understand things(If I am incorrect in that assumption I apologize). In that regard it’s a flawed argument because

1. Supports do allow for character arcs and we can name plenty of examples of such.

2. The changes he is proposing aren’t that different from how supports already work so using them to replace supports is kind of redundant because they’re already more or less the same thing.

[Lightcosmo]

3 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Yeah but that’s what Benice is saying. His whole argument essentially boils down to “Supports are bad and should be removed because they don’t allow for character arcs and that these systems from other games are better and should be used instead” at as far as I understand things(If I am incorrect in that assumption I apologize). In that regard it’s a flawed argument because

1. Supports do allow for character arcs and we can name plenty of examples of such.

2. The changes he is proposing aren’t that different from how supports already work so using them to replace supports is kind of redundant because they’re already more or less the same thing.

Someone claiming I said otherwise is what bothered me, really. 

I suppose it depends on which games you reference to. FE10 and down are more limited overall as far as that goes. 

I personally think they are fine, I just dont feel that saying someone's argument is "crappy" is respectful at all. I'm sorry, it's just plain rude.

[Use the Falchion]

@BeniceI don't know if you're done with this conversation or not, but if you're not, I have a small challenge for you that may help us see your side of things. Why don't you try to create some H2Hs for characters in place of supports? This may help ground what you're trying to get across not only for us, but for you as well. I know this really helps me when I see potential fixes in the entertainment I consume. It's easy to say "this fix will work better," but putting pen to paper may change some perspectives on that. And there's always the chance your original writings evolve over time - Lord knows my stuff has done that. 

Anyways, for making the H2Hs, I'd challenge you to do one mainly featuring a character who has pretty single-topic supports, like Nyx or Felicia, and then another one with a character who has more varied supports, like Felix or Lissa or even Kaze. 

Granted, I don't think you and me will be able to agree on any of these points - heck, we've already tried to end the discourse between us once before - but I do think this may help me understand your perspective and view on what a H2H-like system means and how it would function in your eyes. 

[Benice]

1 hour ago, Use the Falchion said:

BeniceI don't know if you're done with this conversation or not

I'm not yet, but getting the motivation to write a wall of text is pretty tough. I'll prolly have time on the weekend, though.

[Use the Falchion]

7 hours ago, Benice said:

I'm not yet, but getting the motivation to write a wall of text is pretty tough. I'll prolly have time on the weekend, though.

Take your time! We'll be here. (Although anything directed at me will have to wait until after the weekend for a response...)

[Benice]

...

Forgot that I'm not gonna have internet all weekend, soo...

Yeah. Monday is off, so potentially then?

[Seazas]

It's not. Supports were always a flawed system that stuck around out of the fandom's attachment. You have people arguing that some casts don't have anything going for them just because the support pool happened to be small.

[Ottservia]

8 minutes ago, Seazas said:

It's not. Supports were always a flawed system that stuck around out of the fandom's attachment. You have people arguing that some casts don't have anything going for them just because the support pool happened to be small.

Hey it isn’t my fault SoV supports and characters are more flat and one dimensional than Cordelia’s chest. It’s not the quantity of supports. It’s always been a matter of quality.

[JimmyBeans]

7 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Hey it isn’t my fault SoV supports and characters are more flat and one dimensional than Cordelia’s chest. It’s not the quantity of supports. It’s always been a matter of quality.

hm... It definitely depends on what you consider flat characters, because I found SOV characters to easily be the best characters from the 3ds era. Less lines/interactions doesn't inherently make characters more interesting and can, in fact, drown their good qualities in loads of repetitive nonsense.

There are sooooo many characters that suffer from this throughout the entire series, and 3dsFE is filled with them. Also I disagree that SOV's supports are not quality, but that's a separate discussion.

I also don't think OP legimately thinks that supports can't ever be good, but just limiting. And with that I agree, I never have understood why the interactions have always been locked to just 2 people, it definitely limits things a lot, which is why I often bring up Radiant Dawn and it's base convos being the best system I've seen for this stuff in the series thus far, given that it has a vast mix of 1 on 1 convos, as well as ones involving large groups of individuals. While some of them aren't that noteworthy at least every playable character in the game is in 1 minimum.

[Ottservia]

6 hours ago, JimmyBeans said:

hm... It definitely depends on what you consider flat characters, because I found SOV characters to easily be the best characters from the 3ds era. Less lines/interactions doesn't inherently make characters more interesting and can, in fact, drown their good qualities in loads of repetitive nonsense.

Here’s the the problem with SoV characters. What can you tell me about Gray, Tobin, or Kliff besides their surface level personality traits? Oh right nothing because they’re so one dimensional and boring that there is nothing you can say about them. Where as with Severa or Inigo, I could tell you loads of things about them just by reading only a couple supports. I never really understood this idea that SoV characters are better written than the ones in awakening in fates cause they really aren’t but I suppose that’s a discussion for another time.

[Samz707]

9 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Here’s the the problem with SoV characters. What can you tell me about Gray, Tobin, or Kliff besides their surface level personality traits? Oh right nothing because they’re so one dimensional and boring that there is nothing you can say about them. Where as with Severa or Inigo, I could tell you loads of things about them just by reading only a couple supports. I never really understood this idea that SoV characters are better written than the ones in awakening in fates cause they really aren’t but I suppose that’s a discussion for another time.

While I've not experienced Severa or Inigo, at all. (Since it's tedious grinding in Awakening to get them, let alone get their supports)

I can tell you about Grey, Tobin and Kliff from what I remember. (So there could actually be very much more to them, this is just what comes to mind right away.)

Kliff, while not heavily focused on, clearly (Just as Faye was, even if it's used to make her a shitty one-note joke character in the original Japanese) effected by his near-death experience as a child, he was a "scaredy cat" back then, yet is a detached (Borderline sociopathic at times?) fighter by the time of Echoes Main Game, which makes it pretty obvious that he seemingly trained up/hardened himself, perhaps because he never wanted to feel weak again, to the point of kinda neglecting his friends as seen in his Tobin support, this means Kliff starts out as someone easily frightened but then by the end has the best final boss map quote where he taunts Duma directly.

Grey,  Grey admittingly is mostly just an sword dude,  though he does learn to get less pushy for Clair's affections, which ultimately lead to them falling in love together.

Tobin, Tobin seemingly wants to out-perform Grey and Alm but eventually realizes, and accepts, that sometimes you're just going to be number two to someone better instead of say, feeling bitter about it, which is honestly probably a healthy mind-set to have instead of always pushing yourself to be better than everyone else somehow, (so kinda like Hol Horse in Jojo.) he also fights for money, because he wants to provide for his family who are struggling presumably in Ram, which is normally something usually potrayted as evil in these kinds of stories. (or at least morally dubious.)

Meanwhile, Awakening, to be kinda blunt feels more like "Monkeys with typewriters" like it's an accident when a support actually has anything meaningful since most of them feel like frankly, padding out the support length with almost all of them that I got.

I maxed out Tharja's Female Robin, Libra and Donnel supports (and got one or two of her Noire ones.),  she's obsessed with Robin, gets obsessed with Donnel and Libra for the sake of "gameplay marriage demands it" then reverts back (So if anything, it's a negative.) and abuses people. (As shown with Noire supports/Donnel S-rank.), so for more supports than the Echoes villagers, I learned basically nothing about Tharja except "Wow, she's a terrible person with no redeeming qualities, I hate her.", do I know anything about her past? nope, Do I know why she's obsessed with Robin? Not at all.

And she's the only supports I can actually remember with any real detail, and I played Awakening more recently than I did Echoes, every other support I got felt like filler supports. (Hell even Tharja's romances all felt like filler for the sake of making the children accessible rather than advancing her character in any way, since she reverts back to Robin obsession anyway afterwards, so if anything the game acts like those supports didn't even happen outside of the children, which have mostly recycled supports with their fathers just with the occasional line change.)

Also Echoes Base Conversations are actually kinda meaningful and important bits of dialogue, while Awakening's Barracks conversations are incredibly repetitive copy/pasted wastes of time, to the point where you can easily have someone repeat the exact same dialogue to 3 other characters 3 times in a row.

Edited May 23, 2021 by Samz707

[Ottservia]

53 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Meanwhile, Awakening, to be kinda blunt feels more like "Monkeys with typewriters" like it's an accident when a support actually has anything meaningful since most of them feel like frankly, padding out the support length with almost all of them that I got.

I maxed out Tharja's Female Robin, Libra and Donnel supports (and got one or two of her Noire ones.),  she's obsessed with Robin, gets obsessed with Donnel and Libra for the sake of "gameplay marriage demands it" then reverts back (So if anything, it's a negative.) and abuses people. (As shown with Noire supports/Donnel S-rank.), so for more supports than the Echoes villagers, I learned basically nothing about Tharja except "Wow, she's a terrible person with no redeeming qualities, I hate her.", do I know anything about her past? nope, Do I know why she's obsessed with Robin? Not at all.

And she's the only supports I can actually remember with any real detail, and I played Awakening more recently than I did Echoes, every other support I got felt like filler supports. (Hell even Tharja's romances all felt like filler for the sake of making the children accessible rather than advancing her character in any way, since she reverts back to Robin obsession anyway afterwards, so if anything the game acts like those supports didn't even happen outside of the children, which have mostly recycled supports with their fathers just with the occasional line change.)

Oh look who missed the entire point of Tharja’s character but you know what you do you. Nothing I say is gonna change your mind. All I’m gonna say is that there’s a reason why I feel like it’s more appropriate to catagorize Tharja as a tsundere rather than yandere.
 

1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

Meanwhile, Awakening, to be kinda blunt feels more like "Monkeys with typewriters" like it's an accident when a support actually has anything meaningful since most of them feel like frankly, padding out the support length with almost all of them that I got.

Also would it kill you to show a little respect to creators regardless of your personal feelings towards their work? After a certain author’s recent passing my tolerance for this shit has dwindled immensely.

1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

Grey,  Grey admittingly is mostly just an sword dude,  though he does learn to get less pushy for Clair's affections, which ultimately lead to them falling in love together.

Gray and Clair is essentially just SeveraxInigo but worse in every way and you won’t change my mind on that.