NekoKnight

Throughout Fire Emblem there have been a number of magic types and trinities. Wind, Fire and Thunder or Anima, Light and Dark. One problem with these magic types is them not being distinguished enough to warrant a division. So how can we 'fix' this? Fates started to give us a lot more tomes with unique effects and I think we could take that even further to make 3 distinct magic types. For the sake of flavor and lore, I'd like Anima, Light and Dark back in the game. There wouldn't be a magic triangle (the Bow, Hidden, Tome triangle is sufficient in my opinion), just three magic types that share a tome weapon rank. I've decided to draft some ideas for what each 'school' of magic would contain, based on the tomes in Fates. The basic E-A tomes are essentially the same but after that they have unique tomes. Maybe they need better balancing but I'm more interested in their general effect. [spoiler=Anima] Notes: The middle magic type. Reasonably strong and accurate. [spoiler=Light] Notes: The weaker magic type. 2 less might than the equivalent Anima tomes but +10 hit and avoid. Runes are unpassable tiles that last a turn or two. Purge wouldn't be able to target bosses, naturally. [spoiler=Dark] Notes: The stronger magic type. 3 more might than the equivalent Anima tome but -10 hit and avoid. Phantoms are allied units that are a copy of whatever unit that died to summon them with the same equipment but 1 health. Eclipse wouldn't work on boss enemies. Stun and Poison are status effects that function the same as they did in Tellius. Light is the weak but boosting magic type. Reliable team support. Anima is the middle of the road magic type. Reasonable accuracy and damage. Dark is the strong but dangerous magic type. Many spells will make you vulnerable but will blow the enemy to pieces if they hit. It's not just the tomes that would diversify magic, however. The mages would also need some tweaking. I'd like to have Dark Mages be like they are in Awakening, having high defense. Light Mages can be magic walls and classic mages can be a bit stronger offensively but weaker defensively. What do you guys want for tomes/mages in the future?

I'd give 5 internet cookies to the (wo)man who gives that art the Nohr colors and redraws Camilla's head on it. 5 internet cookies! What are you waiting for, artists!?

Unfortunately, I can't recall the script well enough to tell you when and where Ashnard is brought up but the threat of Daein is brought up quite frequently. The Black Knight doesn't exist in a vacuum. He might be more of a face to the Daein threat to Ike than Ashnard is but the overarching antagonist is Daein as a whole, not just the Black Knight and not just Ashnard. Bolded: Generally, that's how a story is structured, the "traditional" way if you will; that doesn't mean a story must follow that exact pattern. Defeating the Black Knight is certainly a personal goal for Ike, something that defines his character arc, but it's not his only goal. Let's say we have a game set during WWII and your character is a French resistance fighter whose village was torched under the orders of an SS officer. Avenging his village might be a character specific goal/accomplishment for the protagonist, but the Nazis are still in power so why stop there? Does Hitler need to have personally destroyed the protagonist's village for him to be an acceptable final opponent? Killing both of them is the goal. One goal is more personal but less significant to the larger picture, and that's okay. It seems like you think Elincia and Ashnard were owed more attention than they got, based on only your subjective favor of those characters. I don't know why you would go as far as to say Micaiah took focus away from Elincia when it was the other way around. Ike in PoR and Micaiah in Radiant Dawn had their own character arcs that were relevant to the greater story being told. Elincia could have been a bigger player but she wasn't shoved out of the way by other characters. She was never intended to be the character the story centered on.

I'm down for making classes more unique. Skill sharing is fun for trying different builds but it would be neat if classes had a "inherit skill" that didn't tranfer to incentivize sticking to that class, and to make class roles (even for classes with similar stats or weapons) more unique. It doesn't need to be an activated ability but each class should be worth something more than just the skills it provides. There could be other base attribute bonuses like avoid/critical avoid/hit/critical hit and special functions like the Acrobat effect, -breaker effect, bonus damage to x-type units, etc. Personal skills definitely need to be balanced. A lot of skills seem to be made for characterization with no consideration for if or when the skill would actually be relevant.

More things I'd change -Make promoted classes have a minimum of D rank in all weapon types -Removed the "can't critical or activate skills" trait on Bronze weapons -make weapon exp grow faster -Give characters non-generic paired endings -Save marriages for the epilogue -Make the 2nd gen characters standalone "1st gen" characters. -Make the cast of Revelations smaller -Make it so you can buy limited equipment from other players My Castles -Make it so the three routes can all be considered valid paths/conclusions -Add a 1-2 range Dragon Stone -Add other dragon types/Dragon Stones Probably a bit more humble. It's hard to say if Camilla's entire design/personality was done with Waifu-bait in mind or if they just ramped up her sexiness for an already determined "cool/sexy older sis" archtype. It irks me that they dumbed down the interface like this. I'd appreciate if they added a more detailed list of what supports we have and what rank. Sometimes I forget who married who because it doesn't say who is related to who. We have a whole second page of useless, redundant information. They wear pants but if you look at them from behind, the stitching on the rear outlines where their underwear would be. It's the same for Dark Falcons too. [spoiler=Belka]

Takumi must be so confused. Marx is a traitor and Nohrian scum but also on the side of Hoshido. What is Takumi supposed to do about that?

Also those two linked chapters in Revelation around mid-game.

Not just that, after he gets defeated by a bunch of nameless nobodies, Kamui completely thrashes his and sends him running home crying. Way to build up your villain, IS. I don't see why this guy survives until late game, considering he's just a stupid attack dog. Valter is threatening from the get-go and actually quite calculating.

New headcanon, every character in game is disgusted by the idea of marrying a child but because Kamui trusts everyone to a fault, he's the only one who believes Midoriko and Elise when they say "I'm an adult." No one dares speak up lest they be "invited" to a non-consensual rub session in Kamui's treehouse.

Fair enough, it is easy to remember when you look at it, but the interface in past games wasn't very intuitive. Why should AS modifiers need to be "overcome"? The Fates weapon system is set up to keep all weapons useful in some capacity (they try at least). Steel weapons aren't supposed to replace Iron weapons, they are to give a damage boost to characters fast enough to ignore the AS penalty. In some games, the limiting stats were Strength + Speed. In Fates it's just Speed. If people literally only use forged irons, then they are underusing their resources but you have to admit, Irons are pretty darn good. They're plentiful, cheap and have no drawbacks like Bronze, Steel and Silver.

I think you are over-hyping the Black Knight here. He's a significant obstacle that Ike must overcome but Daein (aka Ashnard) is still the primary threat that the plot revolves around. You make it sound like the politics and factions are just background noise to Ike's revenge plot but the reality is that Ike is equally driven to stop Ashnard and friends. The Black Knight shows up now and then to remind you of Ike's personal beef but he is a Daein general and must be defeated along with the rest of them. The Black Knight (plot important for Ike) is defeated in Chapter 27, the next chapter is Izuka (plot important for the Laguz especially) and then Ashnard (plot important for everyone) is fought. Not exactly the middle of the story. His difficulties with leadership aren't as central to his character development as they are for Elincia (because she's the ruler of a country). What is central is that he be a worthy successor to his father, and what codifies that is defeating the Black Knight. Shinon was an ass but it was a "jerkass has a point" sort of thing. His gripes with Ike were legitimate, even if Shinon is dislikable on a personal level. If you want a biased narrative, look no further than how Takumi is treated in Conquest. We have a different definition of foils. The definition I go by is any two characters that highlight each others traits by their differences. If you want to call the level-headed characters a foil to Ike's rashness, that's fine too. Regardless of what you want to call it, it's good to have different sorts of characters to contrast each other in the way they handle situations. You say the development should go to Elincia but that's subjective. Why can't Ike be involved in the politics of the setting? Elincia has a more personal connection to the invasion of Crimea, being its princess and all, but that's like every Fire Emblem ever (hyperbole, I know). Baddies come, kill your folks and drive you out of the country. That doesn't strike me as very interesting. I don't think Elincia in PoR was anti-feminist (she does improve a bit, joining the battle near the end after she grows a set of ovaries), especially if you take Pellius into account. He was also a helpless, unknown royalty who relies heavily on others (and he's even less effectual than Elincia was). You have Senaki and plenty of other strong females in the story as well. The climax is already high enough. Ashnard is ruining everyone's lives, not just Elincia's. Aside from the little stint dealing with Begnion's corruption, Daein is an active threat throughout the game. Elincia triggers the "stop Ashnard" plot but it's relevant to anyone who doesn't want a racist, war-mongering psychopath having free reign. Ludvek might not be as interesting as Ashnard but he's exactly what he needs to be for Elincia's sub-plot to work. He's a Crimean rival to Elincia's rule and he forces Elincia to toughen up. He doesn't need to be riding a dragon and hold a ridiculous sword to be the crux of Elincia's character development.

Too much to talk about for story so I'll just say that I wish characters had more unique color pallets. It seems a silly thing to say it reduces my enjoyment but I prefer to use the class that carries over the character's colors. I'm sure Harold makes a nice Berserker but I only make him a Hero because he looks so much better. Conquest!Kamui suffers from this the most, because he acts like all the bad stuff "can't be helped" when we have two other routes that show he CAN be doing something better.

How much of a bonus does a Dual weapon give to its strong match up? +20 hit?

The weapon effects were put in primarily to balance unlimited durability so adding in weapon weight again wouldn't change what your complaining about. It would actually make things even more complicated because now you'd have to factor in the weight of ALL weapons instead of the select few with AS penalties.

It's not JUST being an atypical protagonist but it does help. The character development he goes through is starting out as a shadow of his father, unsure of his own abilities as a leader, growing up to be the man who can lead his mercenary band and to defeat the man not even his father could defeat. Ike's arc was to become and eventually surpass Greil. Just because Ike's personal arch nemesis wasn't the final boss doesn't mean it was insignificant. He shows strain when he can't keep all the Greil Mercenaries together after Greil's death. Him growing as a character is going from "replacement goldfish for Greil" to leader of the Crimean liberation army. As far as Shinon and Gatrie's departure is portrayed, I don't think it was especially negative. Ike is bummed out but he seems to think of as the result of his own lack of leadership skills (iirc). I disagree. Unlike other lords who are graceful and polite, Ike is a rougher sort that doesn't want to wade through political bullshit to do the right thing. That makes him a good foil for the more politically savvy members of the group. Wasn't it a nice scene when he calls out Senaki for trolling Elincia? His occasionally rash but good-hearted actions make him feel human to me. I don't see how his story being mixed with Elincia's was a bad thing. Elincia is a different character in PoR than she was in RD Part two. She's basically a ghost with no leadership skills or political clout. Had Ike not been her pillar of support, it would have been Lucia or Geoffrey. Could she have gone through a similar character arc as Ike? Possibly, but I don't think it would have necessarily been more interesting. Elincia telling Ashnard to piss off wouldn't have been any different than Ludveck because the demands are the same "Surrender or your friend dies". The point of her character development is that by the end of Radiant Dawn Part 2, she's a leader who can stand up to pressure and make the best choices for the good of her people. Mission accomplished.

Basically, the only thing you'd ever not reliably hit would be sword wielders and the Dual Yumi easily compensates for that. I think we can now consider the "Takumi and Fujin Yumi are bad" thing Myth Busted.

I'm all for more classes to play with but maybe don't genderlock them anymore? And patch the game to.make the other DLC classes gender neutral

Isn't Fates more clear in how a well a unit will perform with a weapon? Constitution and weapon weight were never explained in the game so unless you memorize the formulas, you won't know the exact numbers for how AS works. I'd rather have a weapon just tell me how much it modifies my AS.

Everything you list as a weakness of Ike's story I consider a strength. The protagonist being a baseborn mercenary commander is very refreshing after a long line of nobles. "Generic" would be "Prince(ss) of peaceful country seeks aid from other countries to liberate their country from bad guy". That describes more than a few Fire Emblems. In the context of the Fire Emblem series, a coming of age story for a youth seeking revenge (while defending the oppressed) is atypical. Bolded: The Greil Mercenaries are described as being like a family so there is more emotion in considering the new commander. But the game acknowledges your point when Shinon and Gatrie leave over Ike's lack of experience. Radiant Dawn gives you what you asked for in the form of Part 2. We can agree that Ike's character arc was mostly finished by then so it didn't need much more focus.

I can vouch for these two. Velouria was basically her dad but with the ability to double, and Ophelia was a crit monster than could take a hit before dying (something Nyx can't boast of). <Velouria bias intensifies>

This is the longest overdo "I might not know what I'm talking about" disclaimer I've ever seen. I checked my endgame Hoshido team just to see if the numbers matched your claims but Takumi had the best accuracy on the team. And do you know why that is? It's because he has 38 Skill and I'm not even factoring in what his hit would be after Certain Blow. Fujin Yumi (E-rank) has the highest might of any bow below B-rank and it will still hit its target in most cases. I think you need to actually use things before making strong opinions on them.

Radiant Dawn: Micaiah with supporting roles for Elincia, Ike and Senaki. PoR is fine with Ike. Fates: Leo for Conquest and Ryoma for Birthright (screw your sibling parallels).

And then you use a brave weapon, and all the hits proc Astra.

Go for them all (My Castle grinding is the most efficient) if it's your first run. Otherwise, just get kids you know you'll use. Except for some characters (like Elfie and Harold mentioned above), it's going to be hard getting most characters to S rank before the game is practically over if you don't grind.

Hm, then maybe there is hope for another DLC wave. Bold Stance sounds really fun to use.