What are the Top 3 Things you want in the next FE Game and why?

[ciphertul]

Just now, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

How about a new, male-exclusive mount? Depending on the setting, this could be anything from Bears to Camels to Elephants, or even an oversized Komodo Dragon. Ideally some creature whose terrain interactions differ from the standard horse.

Just use Griffons like a ton of people want.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 minute ago, ciphertul said:

Just use Griffons like a ton of people want.

I'm not against Griffon Riders returning, and being fleshed out a bit more as their own thing ("say, why did Minerva get hairy all of a sudden?"). But its suitability may depend on the stylistic setting. If the next game were to take a cue from the Indian subcontinent, for instance, there's a ton of mythology and modern biodiversity they could pull from when if comes to classes.

[DoomRPG]

Just now, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

How about a new, male-exclusive mount? Depending on the setting, this could be anything from Bears to Camels to Elephants, or even an oversized Komodo Dragon. Ideally some creature whose terrain interactions differ from the standard horse.

Oversized Komodo Dragon sounds. Amazing!

Anyhow, that I guess is fine if the komodo Rider would be just as useful as pegasus. Again, I repeat, in general I think segregating class choices is a good thing. Giving omni-access makes characters samey. (3H compounds this issue by making classes samey.)
But at the same time. Specifically gender segregation strikes me as incredibly stupid and arbitrary. I'd only "like" it if it was a full-fledged setting thing. But as I earlier mentioned. I'd hate to be in a main line game. It be better as a spin off.

(Also griffons are suggested and I'd be happy with them too. Males get flying griffons. Gals get Flying Pegasi. Both get wyverns who are just superior to both. As it should be. Dragons > Everything else.)

[Jotari]

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

How about a new, male-exclusive mount? Depending on the setting, this could be anything from Bears to Camels to Elephants, or even an oversized Komodo Dragon. Ideally some creature whose terrain interactions differ from the standard horse.

The only solution to sexism, is more sexism!

[DoomRPG]

42 minutes ago, Jotari said:

The only solution to sexism, is more sexism!

As far as I'm concerned. When it comes to gameplay. This is practically unironically true. Now hurry up and quote me out of context so I look like a horrible person.

Of course. When it comes to gameplay and story. The ideal solution is "none at all." For both story and gameplay reasons.

I'd rather 100% of the game mechanics be sexist than 50%. And if I can take it. 0% is the perfect solution that leaves me a satisfied customer.

[AnonymousSpeed]

When people try to solve all the world's ills and the oversights of God:

45 minutes ago, Jotari said:

The only solution to sexism, is more sexism!

[Use the Falchion]

An additional thing that's linked to the conversation of mounts - armored tank-like enemies. 

Like, imagine having to fight a highly-mobile, multiple health-barred enemy sort of like the monsters from Three Houses, only for this enemy to spit out reinforcements once the big boss is defeated. For example, an Elephant Rider unit wouldn't just be the Rider, but it could consist of 2-3 ranged unit on the backs of the Rider. Players could have options on how to take it down: 

take down the ranged units and just leave the elephant alone;

kill the elephant and have the units inside take damage or possibly be killed;

Try to scare the elephant and cause it to rampage so that it will be as much of a threat to your enemies as it is your allies. 

 

More traditional tank-like enemies would work a little different, but that's the gist of it. ...if this sounds like Valkyria Chronicles, it's because it is similar. It would be different and add its own FE mark, but I think adding tank-like things could be an interesting development for a game or two. 

Players would of course gain one or two of these tank-like units, but the enemies would always have more. 

 

[Shadow Mir]

On 1/2/2022 at 1:25 PM, DoomRPG said:

Vantage is a good example. It is among the best skills in whatever FE game its in. Especially if Wrath can pair with it, creating a unit who is nigh-guaranteed to be unkillable unless they get OHKO'd (Or extremely unlucky)

I would argue Thracia as a counterpoint to this, because Vantage and Wrath have negative synergy in that game (the way it works is, Wrath allows the user to automatically get a critical hit when counterattacking, assuming they hit of course. Vantage allows the user to always attack first. Because of the way they work, the former gets negated by the latter). Also, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, and Three Houses (Radiant Dawn nerfed Vantage by making it a chance to attack first, and Wrath requires 30% HP or less; Vantage is okay in Awakening, but Wrath got nerfed, with its critical chance boost lowered to only 20%; Three Houses makes it too inconsistent, as Wrath now needs you to be attacked while at half HP or less, and there's too many things that counter it, as gambits don't give you a chance to counter [and they rattle you if they hit, which is really bad if you were hoping to rely on that, as now your unit likely isn't killing even if they crit], as can siege weaponry, and you also have to watch out for anything that you cannot kill in one hit, particularly monsters, which often have barriers that negate critical hits entirely, or increase their evade. It doesn't really help matters that Vantage and Wrath are tied to mastering specific classes [Mercenary for Vantage and Warrior for Wrath; Hero has innate Vantage, but it's male-exclusive]).

Edited February 6, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 2/4/2022 at 5:57 PM, Jotari said:

The only solution to sexism, is more sexism!

Well that depends on how the problem is phrased. If it's that "female units have exclusive access to this one class", then a male counterpart class doesn't solve that. But if it's that "female units have access to more classes", then a male counterpart class does solve that.

[GlitchWarrior]

I've never been opposed to Pegasus Knights being female-only. It's only a problem in games that have reclassing- something I've never been too fond of anyway.

[henrymidfields]

Speaking of sexism:

1. For the love of Sothis and everything good and holy under her, enough with the double standard slapped on the stories with Female Lords.

Now this is something that Three Houses have gone in the right direction. If nothing else, I like the fact that Dimitri faces setbacks and consequences like Micaiah and Celica did. And I believe this is the first time since Sigurd where a male counterpart actually faces in-universe problems he needs to deal with. And unfortunately, this was something that was missing with both Ike and Alm. On the flipside, the CF route of 3H features Edelgard with a bigger sense of agency with her story, unlike how Micaiah and Celica's story gets hijacked by their male lords. Anacybele mentioned this sometime ago when she discussed how Tellius prevented the female lords from being protags in their own right. Silver Haired in the same thread mentioned how RD's story would be improved if the story was more about Micaiah, Elincia, and Sanaki, or "[a] trio of female leads, exploring the difference in their mindsets and how they rule and how they respond to situations."

Many mention how 3H has an incomplete story, but I don't know. People consider Tellius to be the gold standard in story-writing, but I think its still has cut corners like the above example (especially Ike just being Superman instead of, you know, an actual person limited by the politics and physics of the FEverse), or the lack of actual character-building supports (esp Dawn Brigade), and a portion of the story being cut in the localization.

2. Make Male Lords not-Superman.

This is related to the above, but also for the love of Sothis, why on earth did it take until Dimitri to actually write a male Lord that isn't an invincible Superman? Or more acurrately, why are male heroes returned to, and stayed infalliable in-story after Sigurd and until Dimi?? If actually featuring Micaiah in what is supposed to be her game wasn't an option, then at least Ike really should have gone through another set of character development. Make him have to negotiate Crimean and Begnion, and have him realize that his past heroic actions doesn't always translate well, and that he's at the mercy of the Senators or else. Give him another actual story for him to have a good hard look at himself, and make him more wary of the supposed allies he's working with. Or at least make all of this more obvious. Same with Alm: he should actually face consequences and undergo character development like Celica did. Otherwise we might as well just contend with Alm's story as a single route, and forget about the supposed divide between Zofia vs Rigel.

Alternately, I wouldn't mind if the next male lead was more like TMSFE's Itsuki or Persona's Yu/Minako and actually backs off to let the other characters shine. Actually, now that I think about it, much of Persona's story is moved forward by other characters. Three Houses part 2 has a bit of that, with non-Lord units having more conversation lines in cutscenes than most of the game prior. I wouldn't mind that either - it would make it more obvious that waging war is a team effort, and this too would portray the Lord less as a be-all, end-all. And if the extra script required to account for possible permadeth means having to wait 5 years instead of 2-3, I actually don't mind that.

I'll write the rest somethime later.

Edited February 9, 2022 by henrymidfields

[The PaperCrafter]

12 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Now this is something that Three Houses have gone in the right direction. If nothing else, I like the fact that Dimitri faces setbacks and consequences like Micaiah and Celica did. And I believe this is the first time since Sigurd where a male counterpart actually faces in-universe problems he needs to deal with. And unfortunately, this was something that was missing with both Ike and Alm. On the flipside, the CF route of 3H features Edelgard with a bigger sense of agency with her story, unlike how Micaiah and Celica's story gets hijacked by their male lords. Anacybele mentioned this sometime ago when she discussed how Tellius prevented the female lords from being protags in their own right. Silver Haired in the same thread mentioned how RD's story would be improved if the story was more about Micaiah, Elincia, and Sanaki, or "[a] trio of female leads, exploring the difference in their mindsets and how they rule and how they respond to situations."

Ike had to spend the entire first act running from an army he couldn't possibly defeat, he could have easily died defending the fort if the Laguz didn't intervene and he had lost two of the Greil Mercenaries' strongest fighters by that point. He also lacks knowledge on the world that nearly got him executed. There have been males lords after Sigurd who have struggled. Leif spent most of his game just trying to survive and made decisions that led to the death of his allies. Eliwood spent part of the game searching for his father only to see him die and he killed the love of his life. Hector was forced to become marquess at 17 and he wasn't exactly qualified to be marquess and he ends up being destined to die. Micaiah never seems to face any consequences in her story. She has an entire loyal cult willing to do anything for her and forgive her wrongdoings, she was born with a superpower no-one else has and the one time she faces consequences can be avoided in a second playthrough.

12 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Many mention how 3H has an incomplete story, but I don't know. People consider Tellius to be the gold standard in story-writing, but I think its still has cut corners like the above example (especially Ike just being Superman instead of, you know, an actual person limited by the politics and physics of the FEverse), or the lack of actual character-building supports (esp Dawn Brigade), and a portion of the story being cut in the localization.

Three Houses' story was incomplete as shown here: https://tcrf.net/Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses/Unused_Dialogue#Reclaiming_the_Capital_Battle_Conversations

12 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Alternately, I wouldn't mind if the next male lead was more like TMSFE's Itsuki or Persona's Yu/Minako and actually backs off to let the other characters shine.

Stop talking.

This post seems to be very dishonest or you never played the games and were given false information. You blatantly ignore the struggles of male lords who came after Sigurd. When you call them supermen, you can't seem to tell the difference between the lords as units or the lords as characters. I will concede that there are some male lords that can be considered supermen such as Ephraim and Male Corrin. This post can be summed up as "Women good, men bad."

[Jotari]

11 minutes ago, The PaperCrafter said:

I will concede that there are some male lords that can be considered supermen such as Ephraim and Male Corrin. This post can be summed up as "Women good, men bad."

I wouldn't say Female Corrin is any less of a superman than Male Corrin. Unless you're taking the man part of superman overly literally.

[henrymidfields]

12 hours ago, The PaperCrafter said:

Ike had to spend the entire first act running from an army he couldn't possibly defeat, he could have easily died defending the fort if the Laguz didn't intervene and he had lost two of the Greil Mercenaries' strongest fighters by that point. He also lacks knowledge on the world that nearly got him executed. There have been males lords after Sigurd who have struggled. Leif spent most of his game just trying to survive and made decisions that led to the death of his allies. Eliwood spent part of the game searching for his father only to see him die and he killed the love of his life. Hector was forced to become marquess at 17 and he wasn't exactly qualified to be marquess and he ends up being destined to die. Micaiah never seems to face any consequences in her story. She has an entire loyal cult willing to do anything for her and forgive her wrongdoings, she was born with a superpower no-one else has and the one time she faces consequences can be avoided in a second playthrough.

This post seems to be very dishonest or you never played the games and were given false information. You blatantly ignore the struggles of male lords who came after Sigurd. When you call them supermen, you can't seem to tell the difference between the lords as units or the lords as characters. I will concede that there are some male lords that can be considered supermen such as Ephraim and Male Corrin. This post can be summed up as "Women good, men bad."

Okay, I do have to admit I've gone a bit overboard. Leaf and Eliwood are good cases in things not going so well at all, I get that. And this is probably not much of a problem in single-lord games.

But it still doesn't change that narratively, Male Lords had a pretty good run overall in telling their story, particularly in cases where we have a game with a supposedly double-billed pair of Lords. We still only really had one case of Female Lord with her own story without any interference from a Male Lord. And the few other times there was a Female Lord, she's not really allowed much agency, whether for narrative purposes or in-story, compared to her male counterpart. And this is despite that ads supposedly portray the double-billed games as such, despite the fact that they aren't. It's usually the Male Lord comes in to bail her out, or shaft her narratively by portraying her in the wrong etc. Edelgard in CF is arguably the exception, but that's it. Is it too much to ask to keep reversing the past general trend that is increasingly problematic?

I mean Samus has been a thing since the 90s. We had female protagonists in Pokemon since Gen 2, and female Champions since Gen 4 (and Cynthia is much beloved by the fandom). Persona had a female protagonist in 3, although sadly one of the head creators kinda disowned her and thus 4-5 didn't see a female protag.

I've given you Anacy's thread as one example. Here are a couple others below which discusses the disparity. I mean, do me and yourself a favor, and either read the relevant posts below, or do a search on FE Female Lords, Mary Sue, or Gary Stu in the in-forum search engine. The discussion comes up every now and then. I'm not the only one who thinks the gender-based narrative double standard in supposedly double-billings like the Radiant Dawn is a real and actually-existing problem. "Women good, men bad." is a gross oversimplification, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't dismiss my (and a number of other member's) concerns as "dishonest".

Sunwoo's post also mention the problem in the particular reply.

And this one has some posts talk about Mary Stu vs Gary Stu with FE Lords/protagonists and also discuss some of the narrative double standards that come with them:

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by henrymidfields

[drattakbowser]

- Fix difficulty. Make Easy, Normal and Hard or Beginners, Intermediate and Expert.

- Delete Casual mode

- Change maximum level 99 to 50

 

Honorables mention : No master class

[Dark Holy Elf]

5 hours ago, drattakbowser said:

- Delete Casual mode

 

Please no. Speaking as someone who never plays Casual mode, this is an absolutely awful idea. I've lost count of how many acquaintances I have who disliked or refused to play Fire Emblem who were finally able to get into it when Casual was added to the series. Not everyone has the time or desire to re-do a map because their fave died on turn 12, and some people find worrying about that very stressful in a bad way. They deserve a mode to experience all the good things Fire Emblem has to offer. For the rest of us, if we don't like it, we don't have to play it.

 

On 2/9/2022 at 8:38 AM, henrymidfields said:

But it still doesn't change that narratively, Male Lords had a pretty good run overall in telling their story, particularly in cases where we have a game with a supposedly double-billed pair of Lords. We still only really had one case of Female Lord with her own story without any interference from a Male Lord. And the few other times there was a Female Lord, she's not really allowed much agency, whether for narrative purposes or in-story, compared to her male counterpart. And this is despite that ads supposedly portray the double-billed games as such, despite the fact that they aren't. It's usually the Male Lord comes in to bail her out, or shaft her narratively by portraying her in the wrong etc. Edelgard in CF is arguably the exception, but that's it. Is it too much to ask to keep reversing the past general trend that is increasingly problematic?

 

Yes I agree with all of this. I think Eirika does all right for herself - we can debate her merits as a character (I like her, but I get why some might not), but she doesn't really feel particularly overshadowed by Ephraim; if you choose her as the protagonist she'll be the protagonist, with the story unquestionably focusing on her more than her brother. But even that's only an equal case, while Celica is clearly overshadowed by Alm and Micaiah is definitely pushed aside for Ike late in RD in a frustrating way. I have my doubts that we'll ever get a Fire Emblem with a clear, unambiguous, only-female protagonist, in the way that the vast majority of the first nine FE games had men, but at least we can continue where 3H left off.

I also agree with you that a lot of FE's male protagonists have been extremely boring, and some of them absolutely do feel superman-y, becoming extremely revered figures in the game in a way that I dislike.

[Metal Flash]

6 hours ago, drattakbowser said:

Delete Casual mode

Hard disagree on this one. Casual mode helped me get into the series and I know that is also true for others. While I understand that some people don't like this mode, they aren't forced to play it if they don't want to.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

if you choose her as the protagonist she'll be the protagonist, with the story unquestionably focusing on her more than her brother.

I'm actually kind of disagree with that. Well, sort of. Her route kind of comes across as filler. She has the goal of getting to Raustan that she never really accomplishes. Instead getting waylaid by subplots with Innes and Carcino. She half accomplishes her goal accidentally when L'Archel reveals she's princess of Raustan, but even that doesn't actually mean anything in the plot as L'Archel's reinforcements just sort of vanish and Eirika ends up going there with Ephraim anyway. She gets a tiny but in the lore department with Caer Palyn (or however it's spelt, I suspect I might be using a Final Fantasy IX name there), but even that is mostly just talking about Myrrh, a character that is actually with Ephraim (well sort of, they're really talking about Morva and just don't know it). And when your finished all that filler Ephraim turns up and we discover he single handedly toppled the entire empire while Celica was busy getting lost in the mountains. It's such a big thing to leave off screen. I expect not everyone would agree with me, but I think Celica actually comes across a bit better if you choose Ephraim's route. She might not accomplish any more when it's her turn to be off screen, but at least then the story is structured in such a way that its like the two protagonist took turns being the central plot rather than Eirika playing second fiddle in what has been ostensibly a story focused solely on her.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ephraim's off-screen conquest of Grado is remarkably unimportant to the story told in Eirika's route. All three of the Evil Generals, as well as Lyon, are still waiting to be fought, and Ephraim mentions that Vigarde turned out to be just an irrelevant puppet. Selena's the only notable character who disappears on her route, but the same's true of Glenn on Ephraim's. Meanwhile, the main story stuff is about Eirika's character growth, her relationship with Ephraim, and her relationship with Lyon... and that comes across just fine, and is centred on her. She's the one who gets to deliver the big speech to the Demon King before the final battle, while Celica and Micaiah have no such luck.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Ephraim's off-screen conquest of Grado is remarkably unimportant to the story told in Eirika's route. All three of the Evil Generals, as well as Lyon, are still waiting to be fought, and Ephraim mentions that Vigarde turned out to be just an irrelevant puppet. Selena's the only notable character who disappears on her route, but the same's true of Glenn on Ephraim's. Meanwhile, the main story stuff is about Eirika's character growth, her relationship with Ephraim, and her relationship with Lyon... and that comes across just fine, and is centred on her. She's the one who gets to deliver the big speech to the Demon King before the final battle, while Celica and Micaiah have no such luck.

She certainly has more focus than Celica and Micaiah, but the entire war or less being resolved while she's lost in the mountains is a bit of an issue. Her entire character with Lyon is built up solely through flashback prior to being reunited with Ephraim. The secondary cast are indeed more integrated into the story in Eirika's route (which among other piece of evidence has me pretty convinced that her route was made first), but that's more stuff that happens around her than to her. Most of her real character development prior to the Lyon stuff comes from her introductory chapters when she decides to rescue Ephraim.

[Shadow Mir]

Other things I want to see in future games:

If a unit has a rare class, make sure they can actually show us the appeal of said class: It sucks when a unit has a rare class and sucks to the point they cannot show us why we should consider the class in question. Case in point: Rinkah. She's the only natural oni savage, and while this would theoretically make her valuable as a wife or bestie, it... doesn't.

No status staves: Far more often than not, status staves end up being overly niche at best and outright useless at worst. Or they're far more useful when used against the player than they are when used by the player *cough HEXING ROD hack*. It doesn't help that, as is typical of RPGs, the stuff you'd really want to hit with them tends to be, if not outright immune, hard to hit with them to the point where you probably won't bother.

[Metal Flash]

Some more points I came up with recently

 

Debuffing knives: I think having weapons that have low damage output but weaken the enemy is a great concept. It can give some units a unique niche, hell, the Jagen could be one such unit, weakning enemies to help your other units get experience. However, any other ways of debuffing stats would need to be limited, or else we end up the Conquest Ninja Cave all over again

 

Limit romantic partners: While Three Houses was better about this than Awakening and Fates, I feel like the GBA/Tellius games did this the best. By giving characters two-three potential romance options, they can make each relationship more unique and better written

[ciphertul]

29 minutes ago, Metal Flash said:

Limit romantic partners: While Three Houses was better about this than Awakening and Fates, I feel like the GBA/Tellius games did this the best. By giving characters two-three potential romance options, they can make each relationship more unique and better written

Looks at Ross who’s only romantic option is Amelia despite having supports with Lute and Marisa.

[Metal Flash]

4 minutes ago, ciphertul said:

Looks at Ross who’s only romantic option is Amelia despite having supports with Lute and Marisa.

That is also fine, some characters can only have one potential partner. As long as the number is limited I am satisfied.

[ciphertul]

5 minutes ago, Metal Flash said:

That is also fine, some characters can only have one potential partner. As long as the number is limited I am satisfied.

I’m gonna have to disagree, it feels like a massive cop out. Especially when you have limit conversation available. Getting Ross and Lute to A ruins both of them, they can’t get together and it prevents them from having a paired ending.

If you’re gonna have a male/female support where both are straight or bi then there is no reason to not have a paired ending. Unless one is already taken.

Edited February 28, 2022 by ciphertul