GrandeRampel

So with the new heroes banner revealed, this is once again a controversy. I'm kidding, when are Heroes OCs NOT controversial? So I decided to make a poll to get the feel of how the Serenes Forest community feels about this topic. Original Characters have been a part of this game from the beginning with Heroes!Anna, Alfonse and Sharena being among the first characters available. They were given for free. Since Book 2 things changes a little for OCs. One is given for free each book, but the others are summonable in some way. OCs given for free are also summonable. This is a reality that is not going to change, we have to accept it. That said, just because we accept that they are gonna be summonable, it doesn't mean we can't have a discussion about how to implement them exactly. In this poll I have listed the three ways Intelligent Systems has made OCs available to the players (in their regular forms. Alts like Spring!Bruno are a different matter entirely and are not considered here). 1. The Helbindi way. Being summonable in a regular heroes banner. This means they are in the regular pool, but it also means one of the 14 or so New Heroes Banners a year will be used for Heroes characters. With no demotes no less. 2. The Mirabilis way. Being summonable in a regular heroes banner like the Awakening one. However they won't be added to the regular pool but rather the Mythic/Legendary one. We don't know if such banners will have demotes or not. Peony's banner didn't have any demotes, but Mirabilis banner has Mustafa. And also we can't say it's a pattern yet so take it with a grain of salt, but as of right now everytime such a banner happens another character from that game is given to us as 3*/4* or in some other way. It happened with Tanya and 3. The Eir way. Being summonable in a Hero Fest/other special banner. We have only one example to base this on but it appears that a character added in this way joins the Legendary/Mythic pool. Then I added a 4th option. The option of OCs joining neither pool. They are available on their debut banner, and maybe on some other special banner later, but they are otherwise very rare. Like Duo!Ephraim. If you feel like OCs should be rare like Duo!Ephraim this is the right option for you. Then I added another section for your own ideas. You can come up with another way to make the OCs summonable and we will discuss it down here. Without further ado, I can't wait to hear your opinions.

I'm sorry but a banner that gives us Say'ri, Gangrel and aka three of the most important Awakening units left to add is in no-way a contender for worst banner over Adrift which has literally all alts + a Mikoto. Even if you don't personally like Anna and Mustafa, which is fine you do you, the three I mentioned redeem the banner on their own. At the end of the day the most important thing is to make a great number of people happy. And if we are talking Awakening Anna, Say'ri and they are good choices because they were very requested making their fans happy. Mission accomplished. And also we really need to talk about Heroes OCs. It's plain to see that you don't like then but you have to be constructive in your criticism here. Simply saying that you hate them and they should disappear isn't constructive. The game isn't made for you, it's made for everyone including those who love OCs. And there a lot of them. Look at the number of votes OCs get in CYL. Look at the people that RIGHT NOW are saying they don't care about Awakening but will pull for Mirabilis. Look at how people complained when Altina came out because it meant Lif was pushed further away. How people are currently complaining because they waited so long for Hel. Are the developers supposed to just ignore a part of their audience? To me it's clear that they are struggling because they don't know how to best implement OCs. And they listen to the complaints. Book 2: the OCs are either on their own New Heroes banners or occupy Legendary/Mythic slots. IS: Hmm, people are complaining. Let's try something else. Book 3: the OCs only occupy Legendary/Mythic slots. IS: Hmm, they are still complaining that OCs are "a waste of a precious mythic slot". Let's try something else. Book 4: the OCs now come in Banners for other games. The 4th unit from that game they took the spot from is given to the player in a different way. IS: They are still complaining... Like, Olivier try to see things from their perspective for a second. Pretend to work for them for a minute. If you know how to fix the issue they are all ears, send a report to them, there is a button in-game that does that. But if the fix is simply "enough with the OCs regardless of which type of banner they come with" you are just being unreasonable and selfish not only to them but to the side of the fanbase that suffers from the opposite problem.

GG to team Masked Marth, I was with Sirius but you guys won fair and square.

Oh yes that's true. In hindsight we should have suspected something like this. We already knew that Mirabilis had a sword and we had the Peony precedent. We could have connected the dots.

And that's fine. I think it's good that everyone has different tastes and preferences. And by making every book different from the previous one they all feel unique which is good. Personally Book 4 is my favorite book because of the theme. I love otherwordly stuff and being trapped in a dream narratives.

Yeah I only now read it, sorry.

It could be a blessing in disguise for Tellius fans. Think about it, IS decided it was time to mark the second half of Book 4 and give us an OC in a new heroes banner. It this was Tellius, we would have gotten one less Tellius character to make space for Mirabilis. Would you have liked it if the banner was all the remaining Greil mercs except ONE to make place for Mirabilis? Or all the Crimean knights except Kieran to make space for Mirabilis (Makalov as the demote)? Now whether or not the new Tellius banner is next month or in September it is guaranteed to have only Tellius units in it since I bet they are planning to have the next New Heroes banner with a Fairy at the end of the book. Isn't that better? IDK I guess we could call this half filler. Half of it was minor characters (who still have fans. I gave seen plenty of people happy for Anna and Mustafa) but the other half is two playable characters who have huge roles in the story. With Gangrel and Say'ri in we are only missing Basilio, Flavia, Validar and Emmeryn. Arguably Yen'fay. And sure just because a character isn't important to the plot it doesn't meam they have no rights. I really want the remaining shepards. But if we are talking plot importance two of the four characters were excellent choices.

Yeah after Peony and more, and now this I guess they are planning to start putting OCs in new Heroes banners instead of hogging all the Mythic spot for them. If it is a good move or not can be argued. I think it's a good thing if the slots for Mythic don't go to OCs since that way it would take forever to get characters like Ashera, Anri and Athos in the game. And I guess a shiny OC can help sell a banner with relatively unpopular character. But Say'ri is not unpopular, she does ok in CYL. And Anna is Anna. But then again I see people in this very thread say they don't care for the new Awakening units but want to summon Mirabilis so maybe IS is onto something. The choices for the banner aren't bad. Gangrel, Say'ri and Awakening Anna are all requested characters but Mustafa is definitely a weird choice. Not a bad choice, just weird. I always want more minor characters like Leila and Rinea in Heroes and Mustafa fits the bill. As of now Emmeryn and Severa are definitely two big holes in the Awakening roster. They will probably be the Star of their own banners in a year or something. And Validar can be the GHB.

There are some similarities, but there are just as many differences. For example a similarity between the two is that in their first appearance on a map they have to be pretty much avoided because of how strong they are, they show up multiple times and they always say something along the lines of "we are not ready/the moment hasn't come yet" until the final battle. But a thing that makes them very different is that you feel a personal connection between the BK and the protagonist, like they are designed by fate to be eternal rivals (and in a sense they are, twin swords and everything). With the DK you at best feel like they have an interest in the protagonist, not a connection/shared destiny. Valter had a creepy interest in the protagonist, in a similar way to the DK IMO. I guess we could argue about this for hours, and it's not the place for it. What I'm trying to say is that in a series that actually recycled the name Black Knight two times (Camus, Ares and then BK) and has some actual clones of previous characters (Bord and Cord from Archanea/Wade and Lot from Elibe. Cordelia, Gaius and Tharja/Caeldori, Asugi and Rhajat) it's to be expected that some characterization and story will be recycled from time to time, and that's fine as long as you change enough to be compelling and unique. Which they did with the DK, IMO. You can tell that they took inspiration from the BK, and a bunch of other villains, but they also did enough unique stuff to make them not a carbon copy. Which is why I don't like to see them called a carbon copy, it's just not true.

Honestly I hate all the comparisons between the two just because the names are similar. BK and DK couldn't be more different. One is a serious, refined villain who incites fear with their mere presence and a few words. The other is a deranged serial killer who has completely lost their marbles. Even the way they go about the "twist" of who is behind the helmet is completely different. With Black Knight we are first introduced to the enigmatic figure and only way later we meet the person behind the helmet. With Death Knight it's the opposite. We met the person behind the helmet near the beginning of the game and only after a while we discover that a weird knight is kidnapping people. I know asking people to stop comparing characters in the new games to characters in the old games is too much, we are the FE community after all, we invented archetypes exactly to compare every villain with a shred of honor to some blond dude in the first game who ironically was the original Black Knight. But atleast let's compare them to the right character. If DK is similar to anyone in personality and role, that someone is Valter from SS. So Death Knight is Diet Valter.

Imho it's gonna be either Claude, one of Seliph or Sigurd, or Corrin since the Omega Yato still isn't in the game. And it's an iconic weapon, they even use it in Smash. But a pipe dream of mine would be Legendary Mist with Florete and a horse.

Nice to finally get Mila in the game and that C-skill is sure something. I'm definitely pulling colorless since I also don't have Alm. Red will be my back-up color.

I'm joining Death Knight, one of my favorites from 3H.

Which is fair. It's obvious that not every game is in the same boat and Echoes or Awakening don't really need to get 1 banner a year because they have a lot of the cast already in the game. They can slow down new heroes banners from those game and maybe compensate with the occasional mythic or even some alts. But Genealogy and Tellius are in a similar boat of having a lot of big players not in the game, so it felt fair to compare them. You bring up a good point about people wanting particular characters more than they want particular FE games, even if they often say they care about reps. Like mentioning that Blazing is long overdue for more reps and only after having said that they add the details about which characters they want. Others cut to the chase and straight up namedrop which characters should get added already without much tact. I suppose it depends on how shameless you are and how much you are the type to bring up objectivity and data to justify what you want. Of course I have my own preferences for which characters I want added even if I'm type who uses the reps arguments. But the way I personally go about it is hoping for the best while being prepared for the worst. There are no characters from Binding that I want more than Dorothy and Saul, but I fully accept as a fact that they have no chance of being on the next two FE6 banners because other characters are more important and will be added first. For Tellius I really like a bunch of characters like the Greil Mercs, Jill, all the Laguz. But if the banner was literally the Dawn Brigade but without Fiona, Volug and Meg (the ones I actually like) and without the Jarod GHB that I really want, I'll probably get mad for a little bit, but not much. It's not worth it to get worked up over a videogame and it's not like IS decided to specifically screw me over. They had no way of knowing the banner wouldn't satisfy me. It would be better to be positive and use my energy to congratulate that one user who really loves Edward instead of being grumpy about it. And the silver lining is that they can only dance around the characters I care for so many times before they are literally the only ones left to add.

Oh absolutely, but I have a problem with the concept that this doesn't satisfy the desires of Tellius fans even a little. I made peace with the fact that some players care about seasonals and others do not, and I have seen people overjoyed for Rafiel and Nailah to be fair. I just the Tellius fans as a whole don't come out of this situation looking like spoiled jerks. Like, even if you don't appreciate the gift, in a way IS has made a nice gift for you as a Tellius stan whenever they do a Tellius seasonal like this one. And to treat the attention with mockery or coldness because it's not exactly the one you wanted can feel a little ungrateful. I'm not accusing you of doing it, but if we get that new heroes banner in June I can see some people going "fuc**ng finally. It's been a year since Out of Gallia. IS must have an anti-Tellius bias, we got literally nothing for a whole year". Meanwhile Altina, Ilyana, Rolf, og Sigrun, NY!Lethe, Rafiel and Ashnard: "so we are literally nothing, uh?" Meanwhile Genealogy fans who have gotten zero resplendent heroes vs Tellius' two. Zero mythic characters introduced vs Altina and Yune. Are in a similar situation as far as number of new heroes banners received and not having representation at launch compared to Tellius. But don't get characters introduced as alts like Greil to ease the wait: "oh wow, that's terrible. How can IS shaft you so much? I can't relate to you at all with all the constant love I get." Heck even something like NY!Lethe who was mostly met with a big WHATEVER from the Tellius fans would have made the Genealogy fans' day if it was Tailtiu or something. A classic example of a man's trash being another man's treasure.

If the June banner ends up being Tellius new heroes this whole argument will look so silly. We would get 5 new characters + Ashnard and Rafiel, essentialy an ideal scenario. We are complaining about getting new characters like Ashnard and Rafiel, because of a baseless assumption that this somehow disqualifies a full Tellius banners from happening. As if last year we didn't get full Tellius banners, after full Tellius seasonals, after full Tellius banner back to back. Ironically, getting only the New Heroes banner, and that being it for a while, which means less Tellius content overall, would have been better received because the fanbase has become trained to expect the worst from even good news. What a pessimistic way to look at the game. IS: GOOD NEWS! Tellius characters are coming with the next update! Aren't you happy Tellius fans? Tellius fans: How dare you!?

Okay, what's with Bride banners and giving Tellius a lot of love? I see a pattern here, and I can't predict if it will be broken like all the others or if we really are going to get Bride Altina next year. They decided to focus even more on canon couples/characters you can hook up together this time around, which is a thing I don't care about. I consider the Bride banner (and the Valentine banner) a silly theme like all the others. A festival that involves wearing wedding dresses. And it annoys me when people start overthinking it/getting grossed out because they apply real life logic to what should be a thing done just for fun. Plus it provides unnecessary fuel to the shipping wars because "they are in the romantic banner together. It means IS recognizes that this is a canon pairing". I feel for the people who are starting to get worried about Chrom getting a duo alt. It would be for the best if it was with Lissa or something. Not that LissaXChrom isn't shipped. People will ship everything, it's the first rule of shipping. And I guess this is the worst of them all, since all the characters present can be paired together in a clearly intentional way. NailahXRafiel, MicaiahXSothe, OboroXHinata. While previously you would have AlmXCelica, FayeXSilque, but then what to do with Rudolf and Conrad? PentXLouise and SigrunXTanith, but then what about Fjorm? IkeXSoren and TitaniaXGreil but Mist is left out. I prefer it that. I would prefer it even more if we could stop being so concerned about shipping, and all units on these banners came from entirely diffent games like the first two Bride banners, but that's unlikely to happen. I honestly think few people agree with me, since if anything people seem to be mostly happy about units being paired together in these banners/demand even more units that can be paired together like AresXLene. Still this is my opinion and I'll stick to it. It doesn't make other opinions less valid. But wow, I talked so much about how the banner is perceived by the fanbase and shippers that I had little time to talk about how good they all look. The art for Bride banners has always been top-notch IMO, and this year is no exception. They all look good and are good choices since they all don't have alts except Micaiah who is a lord that needed to complete her Micaiah Emblem theme. Also, getting two new unit types with green beast infantry and colorless tome flying is nice too. I think I will do full pulls untile I get something since I like everyone on this banner. I think Yune blessed her, just like Ashera blessed her champion Altina and made her a flying unit.

Honestly, I don't agree with this at all. The tone of Tellius also doesn't match goofyness but we got Halloween Rolf and Ilyana. The tone of Archanea doesn't match goofyness but we got the bunny whitewings. The tone of Elibe doesn't match goofyness and we got Summer Lilina and Wolt. I stand by the fact that there's nothing wrong with getting say Coirpe as a cute bunny, Patty enjoying the beach in a swimsuit or Ares dressed as a vampire for halloween.

I have two desires for the banner: 1. Characters from Jugdral. The meme about them having no seasonal alts needs to die and people often say this theme is one of the few that are good for them. I don't agree because I don't see what's wrong with for example Winter Santa Oifey and Reindeer Fee, but it's the opinion of the majority. 2. Characters missing from Heroes. I'm also among the ones who have no problem with a character being seasonal only, especially if the alternative is nothing. Last year's Bride Banner brought us 4 brand new characters out of 5. And I'd like that trend to continue.

IMO Idol Tiki, Barry and Maiko have an higher chance of being refreshers since they already were support characters in TMS. Or at least I hope. Idol Tiki would be a great boost for Tiki Emblem.

You accidently used Hardin, Wolf, Malice and Fergus twice. But other than that, pretty good list. I like how you used Duo Heroes. Not too much and mostly for couples that make a lot of sense (I really want Duo Elena+Greil in this game). Also I like you Gazzak idea. If getting all possible refreshers is the goal I would also pick Arete (Azura's mom) who would probably be a singer. Also that one singer NPC from Fates you can vote in CYL, Layla. Lorenz deserves to be in the game, but the slots are so limited T.T If Diarmuid in a Thracia banner is cheating, then call me a cheater too. Think you meant Lance Cavalry with that Petrine there. Nice way to get the last Sacred Twins in the game with the Legendary Banner. And I agree 100% with you sentiment about New Heroes banners. May this game last 5 more years. 7) Nice pick with Renault. He is really cool, but being a bad unit+obscure unit+old man doesn't really do him any favors in Heroes. 10) I see a lack of women here. You are in violation of rule 5. DIE, INFIDEL! STRIKES YOU WITH ASHERA'S JUDGEMENT TOME Ahaha, nah it's cool, man. I will spare you this time. Let's just say that banner 10 is actually a 7 person banner and put Vika on it. 19) Something tells me you are a fan of the Wolfguard. 24) A starting weapons banner? Not a bad idea for a theme. There would be complaining because of "another alt for Lyn/Hector/Ephraim/Ike" but the game is ending, so who cares? And nice to see another Elimine supporter. You are the first to request Caeldori. Good for you. Still no Asugi anywhere tho, RIP. Also Marcus really also needs to be in the game. So many characters, so few slots. Legendary Anna would be dope. 10) Oooh, Kyza is a rarepick if I've ever seen one. Cool choice. I also really want Fiona to be good at least in this game. If KARLA can be good in Heroes, why not her? 12) Aaaand I spoke too soon about Asugi. 14) Bernadetta is already in the game. 17) A mixed Warriors/TMS banner? Uhm, I'll allow it because it sound cool. 18) I don't know why, but I'm starting to think you may like Griffon Riders xD 19) You. You my friend are cool and valid, for remembering Phile and Mustafa. 20) I think you accidently wrote Cyril instead of Dorothea as the dagger user. 21) ......uh. Well I guess this can count as your Adrift like banner, a banner with alts based around a theme. But what a weird theme indeed. It's unique if nothing else. You are right, Reinhart emblem is a necessity. Also, a few people were confused like you, so let me say this again. Heroes who lose their memory/get possessed and as a result create a completely different identity like Zeke, Eyvel, Hardin and so on count as different units and not alts. Heck, heroes who willingly fabricate a fake identity don't count as alts, IMHO. Which means Black Knight, Flame Emperor, Death Knight, Sirius, Odin, Selena and Laslow. And obviously Annas from other worlds don't count as alts of Heroes Anna. This is all fine and dandy, and it's a unique idea, but I feel like it's a bit off topic. The point of all of this was to showcase which decisions we would make in this situation. By using the RNG you are essentialy deciding to not decide, and I don't know if that's in the spirit of this topic. I decided to let other people come up with their own rules and limitations if they want, but even then what you did is a bit of an extreme borderline case. I know it must have taken some work to run all the numbers, and I don't want to discredit it. But I still feel like it could be its own topic more than anything. "Let's make future banners by using CYL result and a number generator" or something like that for the title. I don't think you idea doesn't have its merits, but it's different enough that it should be its own thing IMO.

I actually meant in this thread. If you want to make it a separate thread you must first ask permission to the mods. I think there is some rule against having similar threads up at the same time. Uhm....I thinkyou forgot to post your list. Okay, I will change the title. Nice list @Anomalocaris Some very intersting choices that I like there, like Jake, Acheron (lol), Kellam, Gareth, My Girls Mozu and Dorothy and TMS Medeus. And Brave Reinhard! How could you say something so controversial yet so brave? And wow, I can't believe I forgot about Warriors Anna. I have to edit the OP because what I said there is factually incorrect.

I see. Than what about you make you own last year of Heroes with 25 banners 5 characters, and explain your own reasoning and rules. And then other users can decide if they want to follow my rules, or yours, or their owns?

Uhmmm. I see... Which rules seem too restrictive to you? Maybe I can remove some like no alts, or the need to make GHBs and TT+ character and change it with a generic "make banners with six characters"? Maybe I could also remove the need for it to be 24 banners, it is a lot. Something like, "as many banners as you feel are needed for the last year, but a minimum of six and maximum of 24"? The only rule that I don't feel like changing is the "at least" a banner about every single Fire Emblem game, since that was the first one I thought of. But let me know what you think, the topic just started so it's not like everything is set in stone. What do you think of this as a title "what if there was a year worth left of banners to plan before the game ends, and you were in charge? But with some restrictions"? I don't agree with this. Every single GHB in Heroes is either a villain or someone that you find as an enemy unit at some point (Haar, Heath, Naesala, Cormag, Navarre, Astram, Oliver) and can recruit. Only three cases don't really fit: Female Robin, Male Kana and Conrad. And three out of how many GHBs we had feels like weird exceptions more than anything. To say nothing of the fact that some people found some explanations for even them (such as Female Robin being a stand-in for Grima). But the GHB rule might be going away entirely or becoming a soft rule, since the topic is still changing. EDIT: Wait, I remembered another weird case. Panne. Heroes broke his own rules about GHB more times than I like. Alas, let's make the GHB rule a soft one and be done with it. The reason it exists as a rule is that if it didn't nothing would stop people from making GHB Emmeryn which IMHO doesn't make sense in any way. That was my reasoning for the rule.

Which is fine. I guess this topic is more for crazy people like me who find planning out banners for every single game (more or less) fun. Do you feel that the title is misleading?