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Alts need more variety.


FailWood
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The last few seasonal banners with Alts have felt stale, either because of choice of characters, or not being very creative with who they use or reuse.  Female units on Summer banners are the most guilty example, with them only using one of 3 different body types (Average like Tana and Linde, children like Young Tiki and Ylgr or others that purely rely on tits and/or ass like Camilla, Selena (Sacred Stones), and Dorothea), and not having much variety in what they wear.

My question for you all is this: Do you feel the same kind of fatigue from Alts as I do, and if so, what would you like to see IS do to break it?

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I definitely would prefer more variety in characters and body types, but personally I don't put that much thought into alts in the first place. My main concern is new characters, which have slowed down slightly earlier this year with the introduction of Ascended Heroes and the rearranging of the legendary/mythic ratio, but those both seem like they were kind of inevitable with the available pools decreasing. Hopefully things will now be stable for a while.

The biggest thing that disappoints me with alts is when they keep reusing a character's old weapon types, especially when there are interesting alternatives available.

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The alt variety I’m more concerned about is the repetition of color, weapon type and/or movement type.

When I saw this topic, I honestly thought it was going to be about how we’re about to get a fourth blue Ninian or how there’s four sword infantry variants of Marth and Ike each (among plenty of other examples).

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11 minutes ago, Othin said:

The biggest thing that disappoints me with alts is when they keep reusing a character's old weapon types, especially when there are interesting alternatives available.

 

8 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

The alt variety I’m more concerned about is the repetition of color, weapon type and/or movement type.

This is a very good point, and credit to Tybrosion for using Ike and Marth as examples.  I'd also like to throw in Female Corrin for being a dragon in most of her Alts.

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16 minutes ago, Othin said:

My main concern is new characters, which have slowed down slightly earlier this year with the introduction of Ascended Heroes and the rearranging of the legendary/mythic ratio, but those both seem like they were kind of inevitable with the available pools decreasing. Hopefully things will now be stable for a while.

That's part of why I don't like the child banners much.  Giving units steroids that make them stronger at the cost of their age is a bizarre idea.  At least Young Soren and the Young Ike/Mist duo were referencing their games.

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31 minutes ago, FailWood said:

Female units on Summer banners are the most guilty example, with them only using one of 3 different body types (Average like Tana and Linde, children like Young Tiki and Ylgr or others that purely rely on tits and/or ass like Camilla, Selena (Sacred Stones), and Dorothea), and not having much variety in what they wear.

I'm curious what alternatives would you propose? In terms of the females I don't think there's much more in terms of body type variety. There's Meg from Tellius and that capture unit from Fates who are round. At the end of the day they're selling cute and generally attractive characters, mostly females of course. Not to mention the characters need a decent amount of popularity or relation to a popular character.

The cultural banners like the desert themed banners they've done for the last 2 years and the performing arts ones that they do before CYL allow for some variety I feel. It's easy for them to tell the different artists to draw the characters in recognizable themes, like Bunnies and Christmas. I don't know what kinds of cohesive themes they could do to add more variety, and it's not really in their interest if what's being done is already working and sells well. They did that hot springs banner which didn't hold, but there are others like the Children's banner, Pirates, and Ninjas. In a way it's nice that some characters are guaranteed at least one alt among the lords and other popular characters, like Michalis likely getting a bunny alt, and Rebecca if they add Dart on a Pirate banner.

Of course everybody only cares about their favorites, so there's the boredom I guess. For most characters it makes sense to me why there's little variety in their alts, since even though they're alts there needs to be some lore or thematic reason why that unit is their unit or weapon type. I see Marth used as an example, but what else are they going to give Marth? He's gotten an axe and bow before, but any serious Marth alt is probably wielding the Falchion. At least Chrom has Archer and Cavalier as other class options, so they've been going with that. Then with Corrins, there aren't that many dragon units in general, and they could have milked the different Yatos I guess but it's clear that's not a goal that they have.

Personally I'm not really bothered, but I do see the complaints. It's a mix of giving multiple alts to characters that don't thematically have much variety, and not giving alts to other non lords and co. characters. Sometimes the variety for that one unit comes at the cost of another, like Eirika being a tome unit, where apparently there were other candidates. Even for CYL, if it's a lord character I'm not expecting anything crazy. The shining example of this were the 3 houses lords. It seemed like most people were expecting them to be in their final classes, but what other weapons would they use? The same thing with Marth and more that likely Chrom this year. At least Chrom and Seliph winning means that they can't both be sword units.

At the end of the day this is type of game is trying to make money and to do that they need to milk popular characters. And unless a seasonal theme flops, it's in their interest to use what works. Too much complication with themes won't work either since a lot of the art work is out sourced and the characters still need to have their identities

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>looks at Takumi, with 3/4 bow alts, 3/4 infantry alts, and 4/4 colorless alts
>looks at how every non-Xane dragon after Bride Ninian has just been a fucking dragon
>looks at how Ike and Marth have a shitton of alts and yet most of them are infantry sword
>3/4 Edelgards are green and 3/4 Edelgards are armor
>all the Dimitris are fucking blue and 3/4 are infantry

We need more weapon and type variety in Heroes. I mean ... Heroes is a game where you use characters first and foremost, so I'd like to see more variability in them. Micaiah having full color coverage is nice, but she's always been a hard-hitting mage with armor and cavalry effectiveness and basically plays the same. Camilla was almost there with weapon variability because she's at least had a nice range of weapons, but >all flying

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6 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

>looks at Takumi, with 3/4 bow alts, 3/4 infantry alts, and 4/4 colorless alts
>looks at how every non-Xane dragon after Bride Ninian has just been a fucking dragon
>looks at how Ike and Marth have a shitton of alts and yet most of them are infantry sword
>3/4 Edelgards are green and 3/4 Edelgards are armor
>all the Dimitris are fucking blue and 3/4 are infantry

We need more weapon and type variety in Heroes. I mean ... Heroes is a game where you use characters first and foremost, so I'd like to see more variability in them. Micaiah having full color coverage is nice, but she's always been a hard-hitting mage with armor and cavalry effectiveness and basically plays the same. Camilla was almost there with weapon variability because she's at least had a nice range of weapons, but >all flying

Micaiah is especially weird in that one of her two colorless versions could easily have used a staff instead.

Ephraim is another one who stands out, having 4/5 of his versions being lances. Like, I can get on board with giving him an earlygame infantry version with Reginlief and a lategame cavalry version with Siegmund, but it makes his original infantry version with Siegmund look really unnecessary. And even with sticking with basic melee weapons, his winter version could have had a sword instead.

In contrast, a character I do think they handled well in terms of alt weapon selection is Lyn. Her three bow versions are all different colors and movement types, with two of those movement types referencing specific classes (Blade Lord and Nomad Trooper), meanwhile she's also got a sword for her base version and her other three versions use a mix of other weapons across three different movement types as well (staff, blue tome, colorless dagger). She didn't need that many seasonal versions, but at least they have variety.

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Something to consider is that it is kind of easy to be stuck in an echo chamber when asking for feedback, since only people who really care or have complaints would offer feedback. I generally avoid these types of discussions because I simply do not care about the issue, but I am bored and have nothing better to do at the moment, so I figure I might as well be a devil's advocate and offer an alternative/opposing view. As for my answer on the issue, no, I do not feel any sort of fatigue. I do not really care about the artwork or who the characters are. I got waifus and appreciate good artwork just like most players, but I do not care enough about it to affect most of my game play decisions and experience.

I would absolutely prefer all my best nukes and Dancers/Singers to be Edelgards and Plumerias in various skimpy outfits, but I would still use all my best nukes and Dancers/Singers even if they were all Surtrs twerking or doing T poses. While I use Ike: Brave Mercenary A LOT, I just do not care about him as a character even after all these years of using him, and he just seems so bland and boring. On the other hand, I have not used Reinhardt much lately, but I still find him more interesting than Ike even though he is just a minor villain.

What really excites me are the gameplay mechanics. Like ranged Galeforcers are so Naga damned fun to use. Leif: Destined Scions is the arguably one of the best player phase units in the entire game right now. His Galeforce is a Special, so he is not cock blocked by Duo's Hinderance and you can swap it out for a damage Special in Summoner Duels. He also simply cannot die to most counter attacks, so he will generally get his second hit in and bust many tank's ass... You get the idea. You can see me talking about gameplay in the Q&A thread.

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It feels that in the early days there was a bit of a back-and-forth between people (both devs and players) who preferred to stick zealously to canon, and those who preferred to see FEH as a vehicle for experimentation for stuff that's more out there. I'm firmly in the latter camp, since the my position is that if you want to see characters in their canonical form, you can just play the source titles. But alas, it seems the former faction has largely won out. The nadir was the horrific composition of CYL4, and while CYL5 was marginally better, it could hardly have gotten worse.

So what's changed? I don't think it's an arbitrary thing, but more of a conflict about what purpose alts serve. Or rather, a new purpose for alts was created, as a result of powercreep. Instead of reimaginings of existing characters, the prevailing approach now seems that at least half the idea of alts is to create a new, updated version of existing units in order to keep up with the meta.

Now I can't pretend to know the mindset of the average whale when it comes to this. Do they simply want the latest anti-dragon sword unit to counter the new meta dragons every year? Or do they want *Marth* to be the anti-dragon unit specifically? Feels like it's almost like buying a new Marth every year like people buy a new version of FIFA or any other sports game annually. And therefore is IS simply following the money based on their analytics, or is it a neutral decision financially and they're following the design principle of some influential figure in the company?

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2 hours ago, LoneStar said:

I'm curious what alternatives would you propose? In terms of the females I don't think there's much more in terms of body type variety.

That's the problem with female character designs in Fire Emblem, they very rarely branch outside of those 3 body types I mentioned so the lack of something different can lead to being stale (The main series sticking to one kind of Pegasus Knight design until Awakening and Fates comes to mind).  You mentioned Meg and Candice, but another female who's different is Niime, but I don't think anyone is in any rush to want a senior citizen either.  At least with males they branch out more often, having more stocky types like Benny and Valbar, muscular guys like Raphael, FE10 Ike, and Balthus, and even older men like FE6 Marcus, Duessel, and Nomah.

An idea I have for the sake of variety is having someone like Gatrie (Either his  Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn version) on a Summer banner.  He's a beefy guy, and so far the only character like that on a summer banner is Helbendi.  Make him use a Sword.

Another idea is having Oliver on a Winter banner.  I'm surprised that he doesn't have an alt yet, and I think he'd fit in with the theme of gift giving.  Maybe write him to have a new look on life after what happened in Radiant Dawn, and make him a Staff user.

The only idea I have at the moment for a female character is maybe have Candice on either the Pirate or Ninja banner.  Problem is, besides her size being unpopular, she has very little to go on as a Fates prison unit who gets no supports.

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3 hours ago, XRay said:

I would absolutely prefer all my best nukes and Dancers/Singers to be Edelgards and Plumerias in various skimpy outfits, but I would still use all my best nukes and Dancers/Singers even if they were all Surtrs twerking or doing T poses.

Now I want to see Surtr twerking or doing a T-pose.

Speaking of improbable alts, I want to see Heroes do genderbend alts sometime, for the hell of it.

2 hours ago, FailWood said:

That's the problem with female character designs in Fire Emblem, they very rarely branch outside of those 3 body types I mentioned so the lack of something different can lead to being stale (The main series sticking to one kind of Pegasus Knight design until Awakening and Fates comes to mind).  You mentioned Meg and Candice, but another female who's different is Niime, but I don't think anyone is in any rush to want a senior citizen either.  At least with males they branch out more often, having more stocky types like Benny and Valbar, muscular guys like Raphael, FE10 Ike, and Balthus, and even older men like FE6 Marcus, Duessel, and Nomah.

An idea I have for the sake of variety is having someone like Gatrie (Either his  Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn version) on a Summer banner.  He's a beefy guy, and so far the only character like that on a summer banner is Helbendi.  Make him use a Sword.

Another idea is having Oliver on a Winter banner.  I'm surprised that he doesn't have an alt yet, and I think he'd fit in with the theme of gift giving.  Maybe write him to have a new look on life after what happened in Radiant Dawn, and make him a Staff user.

The only idea I have at the moment for a female character is maybe have Candice on either the Pirate or Ninja banner.  Problem is, besides her size being unpopular, she has very little to go on as a Fates prison unit who gets no supports.

Niime is a character I very much looked forward to, personally. Candice would certainly be nice as well.

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I'd say summer banners actually do a pretty good job of keeping things fresh. I know its mostly fanservice, but I think they do a good job of displaying a lot of individuality in the designs. You have characters like Sylvain who look really punchable, while Caspar looks more gladiator inspired and Lorentz...is Lorentz. Same with the females where someone like leonie has a appropriately good looking, but modest outfit while someone like Camilla has more of a Camilla outfit.

But I do think Feh is liking their patterns a bit too much for their own good. Halloween being dragon exclusive or there always being a Macedonian for spring means its a little less fun to speculate about banners. I even did't completely got taken off guard by Kyza being on the new years banner because thats the banner they use to up the beast quota.

And I also feel that sometimes they just don't take advantage of their holiday and have some fun with it. Why don't we have a scaredy cat like Boey or Lysitia for Halloween yet? Or someone having a absolutely miserable time in a spring banner because they have hay fever?

But those are more minor gripes. They only banner I am really tired of is the Christmas one. I always hope none of my favourite characters get on that banner because they just got put in the same boring red santa suit. Its very boring visually and them all being armours does nothing to help me like those banners more.

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5 hours ago, LoneStar said:

I'm curious what alternatives would you propose? In terms of the females I don't think there's much more in terms of body type variety. There's Meg from Tellius and that capture unit from Fates who are round. At the end of the day they're selling cute and generally attractive characters, mostly females of course. Not to mention the characters need a decent amount of popularity or relation to a popular character.

Swim suit Niime!

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2 hours ago, Humanoid said:

It feels that in the early days there was a bit of a back-and-forth between people (both devs and players) who preferred to stick zealously to canon, and those who preferred to see FEH as a vehicle for experimentation for stuff that's more out there. I'm firmly in the latter camp, since the my position is that if you want to see characters in their canonical form, you can just play the source titles. But alas, it seems the former faction has largely won out. The nadir was the horrific composition of CYL4, and while CYL5 was marginally better, it could hardly have gotten worse.

I do not think players who like canonicity are specifically catered to. We still get non canon stuff in New Heroes Foci from time to time, and Special Heroes Foci are mostly non canon stuff.

3 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Now I can't pretend to know the mindset of the average whale when it comes to this. Do they simply want the latest anti-dragon sword unit to counter the new meta dragons every year? Or do they want *Marth* to be the anti-dragon unit specifically? Feels like it's almost like buying a new Marth every year like people buy a new version of FIFA or any other sports game annually. And therefore is IS simply following the money based on their analytics, or is it a neutral decision financially and they're following the design principle of some influential figure in the company?

I am not the biggest whale, but I think I am at least a dolphin. And obviously not all cetaceans are like me, but Ice Dragon's description of me basically sums up what I and players like me enjoy about Heroes: we like power. And having the most powerful units and playing with your favorites is not a mutually exclusive thing either. I just happen to be at one end of the specturm where I care about powerful units but not care what character it is. Some players play like powerful units AND want them to be their favorite characters.

I am pretty sure Intelligent Systems is just following the money as best as they can.

On 5/5/2022 at 9:00 AM, Ice Dragon said:

Investing in your favorites is generally a more satisfying use of resources, and any resources spent on other things are resources not spent on your favorites. The average player doesn't find min-maxing as fun as you do.

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1 hour ago, Othin said:

Niime is a character I very much looked forward to, personally.

I know she has her fans.  Her having A rank in both Dark Magic and Staves at base in FE 6 late game is great.  ...Binding Blade is a game I really want to play.  Played all of the mainline games that made it overseas.

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i honestly don't care about this kind of representation: the only thing i care Heroes does is adding my favorite characters, nothing else, and honestly they've been doing a great job lately, as far as i'm concerned

this said, Duo Bride Meg+Groom Zihark would be hilarious

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1 hour ago, Yexin said:

i honestly don't care about this kind of representation:

Have you bothered reading some of the other responses?  Better points were made, like not wanting the same weapon type on different versions of one character (Ephraim, Marth, and Ike) or not wanting a similar stat distribution across alts (Micaiah).  Besides, what I said at the start was just an example, it's not the only thing.

 

1 hour ago, Yexin said:

 

 

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23 minutes ago, FailWood said:

Have you bothered reading some of the other responses?  Better points were made, like not wanting the same weapon type on different versions of one character (Ephraim, Marth, and Ike) or not wanting a similar stat distribution across alts (Micaiah).  Besides, what I said at the start was just an example, it's not the only thing.

Some of us literally don't care about what units get in the game as long as our favorites get in. That opinion is no less valid than the other opinions in this thread.

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2 hours ago, FailWood said:

Have you bothered reading some of the other responses?  Better points were made, like not wanting the same weapon type on different versions of one character (Ephraim, Marth, and Ike) or not wanting a similar stat distribution across alts (Micaiah).  Besides, what I said at the start was just an example, it's not the only thing.

no i haven't, i was busy and barely got a free minute to write my previous post; also i'm happy that others had the time to make "better points", i just felt like sharing my opinion on the matter, be it "good" or "bad"

anyway, no, i actually do not care about any kind of representation that isn't "every game deserves a moment to shine at least once in a year, especially underrepresented/poorly represented games such as Thracia", but even then, i'd be happy even if just 2 of my favorite characters either get an alt or are added to the game at all, such as Arthur with the latest Genealogy banner or Rhea with the Fallen banner: that's literally all it takes to make me say "ok, this year's been great"

color representation IMHO is the most random thing ever and is purely functional to matters such as color distribution in a specific banner, so i don't think it deserves my concern

same goes for movement types: i personally hate armored units but i have a +10 winter Manuela because i like her character a lot

different body types in summer banners? yeah, never gonna happen: their "sex sells" mentality is just too important not to milk (please laugh) their most visually appealing characters, especially female ones

i don't want to disregard others' opinions, of course, so be free to disagree with me, but this is what i think

Edited by Yexin
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I think seasonals themselves could stand to be mixed up a bit. That's part of the issue that stems from the lack of variety. There's only so much "people in Summer clothes" we can get before it's phased out. LIke we just had Mother's Day in a bunch of countries, wouldn't it be nice to have a Mother's Day banner where we focus on units who are mothers with their children, kind of like they did with the Eliwood and Hector Valentine's day banner (side note, still salty they didn't use the actual Binding Blade designs for that banner). Yeah there's no overlying visual unity for a holiday like Mother's Day, but that just means more freedom for alt designs. Like just drawing them in casual clothes or something. Another one is New Years, kinos are great and all, but why not take some time to explore New Years festivals from around the world and vary up the visuals a bit. And of course it's a crime we aren't getting a Lederhosen Octoberfest banner at least once. Don't tell me such a seasonal wouldn't be perfect for Manuela.

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14 hours ago, Othin said:

Speaking of improbable alts, I want to see Heroes do genderbend alts sometime, for the hell of it.

An idea I could get behind!

Genderbends are interesting to me. If I could, I'd have it that every video game had this as a feature for all playable characters and some villains and NPCs. It's a creative exercise that asks various questions of what is gendered about a character's design, what is not, how does one preserve the spirit of things that might have to physically change in their design? It stimulates the intellect, while being kinda silly and entertaining.

If you happen to know of any good fanartists who draws genderbends, mind putting in one non-FE request for me?

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14 hours ago, Othin said:

Speaking of improbable alts, I want to see Heroes do genderbend alts sometime, for the hell of it.

 

5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Genderbends are interesting to me. If I could, I'd have it that every video game had this as a feature for all playable characters and some villains and NPCs. It's a creative exercise that asks various questions of what is gendered about a character's design, what is not, how does one preserve the spirit of things that might have to physically change in their design? It stimulates the intellect, while being kinda silly and entertaining.

I too unironically love the genderbending idea! I've also thrown out an anti-Fallen banner, or rather a Switched Fates banner based on some Awakening fanart I saw once. Basically, the premise was what if Validar and Aversa were supporters of Naga while Emmeryn and Chrom were supporters of Grima? And recently there's been some fun fanart about the House Lords having different fates. I've seen artwork about Dimitri being the Crown Prince of the Empire who now was white hair while Edelgard is the Crown Princess of Faerghus with her natural hair color. I've seen "post-timeskip" art related to that where Claude was the one with the eye-patch and the revenge-obsessed demeanor. These are things that could be explored in TT+ banners. 

I've also wanted to see Timeskip versions of characters. Like, give me Timeskip Lucina or Timeskip Azura or even Timeskip Roy! Just characters who were a little younger when the series started as 5-10 years older. The Ascended banners are starting to do this, but their changes are not as drastic as I'd like. (In my head, the story would revolve around these characters having been transported to Fodlan, so we get a Student Alt and then a War Phase Alt maybe the next year.)

But the problem with the "Reversal" and Gender-bending is that they don't fix the problem of variety. A male version of Edelgard or a female version of Ike is still likely going to be an Armored Green unit or an Infantry Red unit respectively. And for units with not a lot of alts, this isn't a problem, but for the Usual Suspects, it's probably going to stink. (Camilla may actually be the exception, since her alts are surprisingly varied in terms of weapon choice.) 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Yexin said:

no i haven't, i was busy and barely got a free minute to write my previous post; also i'm happy that others had the time to make "better points", i just felt like sharing my opinion on the matter, be it "good" or "bad"

anyway, no, i actually do not care about any kind of representation that isn't "every game deserves a moment to shine at least once in a year, especially underrepresented/poorly represented games such as Thracia", but even then, i'd be happy even if just 2 of my favorite characters either get an alt or are added to the game at all, such as Arthur with the latest Genealogy banner or Rhea with the Fallen banner: that's literally all it takes to make me say "ok, this year's been great"

color representation IMHO is the most random thing ever and is purely functional to matters such as color distribution in a specific banner, so i don't think it deserves my concern

same goes for movement types: i personally hate armored units but i have a +10 winter Manuela because i like her character a lot

different body types in summer banners? yeah, never gonna happen: their "sex sells" mentality is just too important not to milk (please laugh) their most visually appealing characters, especially female ones

i don't want to disregard others' opinions, of course, so be free to disagree with me, but this is what i think

I had a feeling you didn't read the others before.  I thought the first response from you was going to be one of those kinds where it's just contrarian for the sake of being so, but you came back to further explain yourself.

Apologies.  It's something I face plenty on forums.

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Some of us literally don't care about what units get in the game as long as our favorites get in. That opinion is no less valid than the other opinions in this thread.

I had no issues with their opinion, but I did want more input and my response on this reply to them explains why I did what I did, and I even apologized.  Meanwhile, you come in and try to slam me for saying what I said without contributing anything worthwhile to the conversation yourself or waiting to see if my question to them was founded (which it was, as they said they didn't read the other responses before posting their first response).  Shame on you.

Edited by FailWood
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