Content from playable character deaths.

[The Void]

I have no problem with dialogue changes, but statistical shifts and rewards should be avoided ENTIRELY or else it will become 'kill off everyone you aren't using for the boosts' or 'let absolutely no one die'. The moment you attach stats to it you make it an impersonal matter of weighing benefits, which is NOT how the game should be played at all.

Says who?

Not every player is unwilling to let units stay dead. Not every player is unwilling to send units to a point where they'll be decoys and killed. Not every player goes in blind and doesn't look up the characters and their growths if available (I've done it myself), etc.

And really, I don't recall anybody anybody in this topic saying that a character death would always lead to a stat increase. You could set it up so that just as there are increases, there could be decreases, and it wouldn't automatically happen for every character death so it wouldn't automatically be that you send characters to a point where they'll be killed for the boosts.

Where are you going with this? What, you think the game would be unwinnable without killing the majority of the playable cast? Really, if that game had what we've been talking about, I'm sure it would have content if you went out of your way to keep the playable cast alive. Be it the characters themselves, stages, etc.

What, you think the game couldn't be won unless enough of the cast died?

Edited August 10, 2013 by The Void

[Jotari]

Since the game records each individual characters battle status they could even make so if Matthew (though a better example would be a non theif unit) dies and has participated in enough battles to warrant him a member of the army that people pay attention to (ie the player actually used him) only then do you get compensation for his death. This would prevent people from killing of Matthew just because they don't intend to use him and still want the reward. Alternatively a more clear cut way would be only to give the compensation if you've promoted the unit.

[Snowy_One]

Having a statistical difference for a death doesn't mean that there can't ALSO be a statistical benefit for keeping them alive. Hopefully where the exchange is just balanced enough that the player isn't simply going to reset when a character dies.

The moment you make it a matter of stats you weaken any emotional impact it could have. For example, say having Matthew die gave Hector negative stats. There is clear incentive to keep him alive then, but how many people will keep Matthew alive because they like Matthew as opposed to keeping him alive because killing him off would hurt a unit they are actually using? Conversely, even giving them the KNOWLEDGE that killing units alters stats, positively, negatively, or both will give anyone not playing purely for story/RP incentive to find out and attempt to optimize their characters. Heck, in FE10, my friend figured out the three-stat-up rule for BEXP on his own and just knowing it existed caused him to not use BEXP until a unit, had capped most their stats, and he is far-less of a min-maxer than I have ever been (He didn't even know the formula's for AS, just that more speed helped, and he still went for min-maxing).

I'm trying to say that, in the optimal situation, gameplay and story should work together etc., and the least the series could do is plainly recognize that having somebody die tends to affect the people around them, and the death of even "non-essential personnel" can change the course of history.)

I agree, story and gameplay should work together. Just not on the matter of character deaths. The 'gameplay' mechanic is that you can never use them again. The 'story' mechanic is the acknowledgement of their deaths.

Easy examples from the Knights of the Old Republic: there's a one-off interaction with a single mother who begs the PC to buy a hunting trophy that her husband basically died to get, and which is actually worth a sizable amount, but which she isn't technically authorized to sell to the person who's authorized to buy such stuff. She has nothing left, trying to get herself and her kid a ride offworld, et cetera.

Theoretically, since there's little to stop me aside from the game slapping me with some dark side points, if I took the right force power my character could just coerce her into giving it to me and laugh all the way to the bank, which is most likely the statistically superior option (unless I'm full lightside and absolutelydrowning in cash or whatever). I still don't do that every time I play the game by any means, because then the game makes a point of saying "wow you're an asshole," and it impresses on me that my character might've just made somebody's life a lot harder. Characterization! World-building! Role-playing! Shazam

There's also, of course, an option to give her a good bit more cash than her asking price for the trophy. Not a lot of people are going to argue that's the option to take when power-gaming, because you don't get a whole lot in return except for the warm fuzzies, but I've still taken that option a good amount of times, because I often imagine that the character I'm playing is the sort of person who'd do that kind of thing. (And sometimes for the lightside points, but I wouldn't say those are so hard to get that I need to have a powergaming mindset to catch every LS interaction needed to get full-LS bonuses)

Sure. But ask yourself, how many people took that option because it is the 'right' thing to do? How many took it because it was an easy way to score light-side points? Or because they had so many credits it didn't matter (in my case I was so rich at that point the fee had no impact at all). Likewise, how many people won't kill characters because they legit want to keep them all alive vs. how many kept them all alive because killing them would give penalties? How many people would be utterly frustrated because the 1%/1% crit happened and now their Hector will be weaker for the rest of the game?

The "solution" to making permadeath more significant has been around for a long time. Just stop letting the player reload old saves and savescum. That would be really interesting. We don't need content or achievements or whatever to make permadeath significant, we just need units to actually stay dead rather than just a reset away. And then let me sell my soul to the devil to revive characters. Or sacrifice characters in order to get dark evil powers. Or both. I think I'd like Sumia better if she was an undead abomination. Wouldn't you?

No. This is a horrible idea that would cause a large amount of players to back away from the series due to random **** and bad luck killing characters they liked. If you want to keep this in, self-impose it, don't make it a requirement. Not to mention this would be impossible to enforce without some immense trouble. 'Oh no. Your DS battery died on you cause it was a long car trip? Well, your save file is GONE! So have fun replaying the entire game! What? Did you drop your DS and the card popped out? WELL YOU OBVIOUSLY WERE YOU TRYING TO CHEAT THE SYSTEM AND YOUR ROBIN WILL DIE THE DEATH OF A THOUSAND SAVE TROLLS NOW BECAUSE OF IT!' Yea. Would not go over well at all.

What, you think the game couldn't be won unless enough of the cast died?

I think offering a statistical incentive will result in players keeping characters dead/alive not for any RP reason, but for min-maxing. You can't deny it would happen. The only question, really, is how common it would be. Not to mention that the 1/1 crit would now have far worse implications than a chapter reset/character loss, but now also another character being weaker.

[Constable Reggie]

Not to mention this would be impossible to enforce without some immense trouble. 'Oh no. Your DS battery died on you cause it was a long car trip? Well, your save file is GONE! So have fun replaying the entire game! What? Did you drop your DS and the card popped out? WELL YOU OBVIOUSLY WERE YOU TRYING TO CHEAT THE SYSTEM AND YOUR ROBIN WILL DIE THE DEATH OF A THOUSAND SAVE TROLLS NOW BECAUSE OF IT!' Yea. Would not go over well at all.

Whoa, where the hell did you get this from? Fe6-8 had a fantastic system that autosaved your progress throughout a chapter. I would bet real money that it wouldn't be that hard to use that system in a future game, and simply take out the "restart chapter" button.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Snowy_One]

Whoa, where the hell did you get this from? Fe6-8 had a fantastic system that autosaved your progress throughout a chapter. I would bet real money that it wouldn't be that hard to use that system in a future game, and simply take out the "restart chapter" button.

Yet it was still possible to save-scum through those games. What you're suggesting would have some pretty nasty consequences and would amount to little more than cutting off the nose to spite the face.

[Constable Reggie]

I'm not suggesting anything; I'm simply saying that the idea that Anouleth brought up is totally doable (as shown by 6-8) without these catastrophic possibilities you're thinking of. The "save-scum" thing you're talking about is simply resetting the chapters from the beginning (unless you're talking about some way to cheat the autosave system that I don't know of). Again, it's probably not that hard to simply remove that option in a future game.

I personally wouldn't mind a much more heavily story-focused Fe that doesn't allow you to restart chapters, and splits off into many possibilies from a player's choices and actions.

[The Void]

Snowy_One seems hung up on how other players could play in a certain way.

[NinjaMonkey]

What is wrong with including a "Restart chapter" option, and letting the player decide if they want to use it or not, exactly?

I personally wouldn't mind a much more heavily story-focused Fe that doesn't allow you to restart chapters, and splits off into many possibilies from a player's choices and actions.

So what happens if your Lord character dies? Does the game delete your entire save file and have the player start again from the very beginning of the game?

[Constable Reggie]

I never said it had to be 100% permasave, just that I wouldn't mind such a system

So what happens if your Lord character dies? Does the game delete your entire save file and have the player start again from the very beginning of the game?

Who knows, maybe it leads to a unique story arc. That'd be interesting, wouldn't it?

[Jotari]

So what happens if you keep on killing of the main characters who replace your lords? Could we get a story full of the generic replacement units from Shadow Dragon going on the legendary quest to get an ancient sword that none of them can use. I think it's an interesting idea but it'd be better suited to a bonus difficulty setting rather than a trait of the game.

And to my knowledge one way to abuse the auto save function of the gameboy games is to turn it off if one of you're own berserked characters does something you don't like. Reseting will bring you back to the end of your turn with all the units that did nothing that turn still able to move and rescue anything that might be in trouble from a berserked friend. Though programming wise if they were to do that again it could easily be fixed by just having the autosave feature work at a different point.

[Anouleth]

No. This is a horrible idea that would cause a large amount of players to back away from the series due to random **** and bad luck killing characters they liked.

Well, duh. That's the whole point of death: sometimes it happens to people you like, and there's nothing you can do about it. If you don't like it, play casual mode. However, I want a REAL permadeath mode, rather than classic mode which is a wishy-washy in-betweeny mode.

If you want to keep this in, self-impose it, don't make it a requirement. Not to mention this would be impossible to enforce without some immense trouble. 'Oh no. Your DS battery died on you cause it was a long car trip? Well, your save file is GONE! So have fun replaying the entire game! What? Did you drop your DS and the card popped out? WELL YOU OBVIOUSLY WERE YOU TRYING TO CHEAT THE SYSTEM AND YOUR ROBIN WILL DIE THE DEATH OF A THOUSAND SAVE TROLLS NOW BECAUSE OF IT!' Yea. Would not go over well at all.

In GBAFE, even if the GBA died for any reason, the game constantly kept an up-to-date save file so you could always pick up where you left off.

[Vashiane]

This is an interesting thread. I suppose I better add my own two cents, although I'm no expert at the Fire Emblem series as a whole, so take my suggestions with a grain of salt.

I would love a game that changes depending on your decisions. I was hoping Awakening would do this, but sadly, it didn't - the story flowed on in the same direction no matter what you picked, even for an ending that was just begging for a difficult choice to be made, it wasn't. It was immediately erased right after the credits, which once the initial happiness wore off, was actually disappointing.

And when I say I'd love a game that changes depending on your decisions, I'd like more than two paths to take. Most games claim to offer this, yet they usually end up splitting themselves up into two paths and two paths only: good, or evil. And most of the time, said paths are so obvious you know which direction you're heading in within a few hours of gameplay.

I would REALLY love if your decisions actually had both short-term and long-term effects. For example, you are forced to choose between killing one man and a roomful of people. It seems that killing that one person would be the better choice, except that one man happens to be a prince of a neighboring kingdom in disguise, and his murder plunged the two kingdoms into a feud almost on the brink of becoming a full-out war. On the other hand, that roomful of people turns out to be members of a notorious band of thieves that have been plaguing the town, stealing valuable items and murdering innocent bystanders. In the short-term, murdering all of those people seems like a terrible, immoral decision, but in the long run it ends up actually being the better choice for the sake of the kingdom.

Things like that would be really nice.

Now, as for things stemming from having a character die or not, that's absolutely fine with me. I'd like to see how that would be implemented, really. As an example, the beginning of Fable 3 had a VERY good sadistic choice to make: killing a group of innocent protesters, or killing your love interest. And you were also only give ten seconds to choose, if you let the clock run out, your brother would have BOTH the protesters and your love interest executed. Maybe depending on your choice - or lack of choice - later on you could recruit a member of your love interest's family or maybe even from the family of one of the protesters, torn up and heartbroken by their loss. If the clock ran out, you could then recruit BOTH.

These types of games function because of your choices. If you don't like the outcome you get, you can always play it again. This gives the game a varied, intricate story, not to mention a ton of re-playability, which in my honest opinion would really help the Fire Emblem series prosper.

[Snowy_One]

Well, duh. That's the whole point of death: sometimes it happens to people you like, and there's nothing you can do about it. If you don't like it, play casual mode. However, I want a REAL permadeath mode, rather than classic mode which is a wishy-washy in-betweeny mode.

Then self-impose it. Just because some people like a Nuzlocke challenge in Pokemon doesn't mean that X and Y should make Nuzlocke it's standard, or even an optional, mode. The only way to prevent save-scumming is to erase a save-file the moment it's loaded up and only allow menu-saves (since a player will save-scum the moment they notice something is wrong and try again, and they're probably faster at ejecting the card than the animations). So the only way to 'enforce' such a thing is draconic measurements that would ensure the mode is only played by a select few, a select few that could VERY easily self-impose such a thing with no help from the game required I might add.

Now, as for things stemming from having a character die or not, that's absolutely fine with me. I'd like to see how that would be implemented, really. As an example, the beginning of Fable 3 had a VERY good sadistic choice to make: killing a group of innocent protesters, or killing your love interest. And you were also only give ten seconds to choose, if you let the clock run out, your brother would have BOTH the protesters and your love interest executed. Maybe depending on your choice - or lack of choice - later on you could recruit a member of your love interest's family or maybe even from the family of one of the protesters, torn up and heartbroken by their loss. If the clock ran out, you could then recruit BOTH.

There is also no real consequence either way. I agree, that opening choice was good, but it also didn't have any long-term effects. Fable III on the whole wasn't a very good game for a multitude of reasons, one prime example being how easy it was to break it's 'ultimate' dilemma of paying your dues vs. hording gold. Ironically, in terms of actual 'choice', the Fable series is a poor example on the whole as almost none of your choices have a consequence or are so horribly stilted towards one choice you're an idiot if you choose otherwise (EX: not choosing 'The Few' in Fable II's final choice if you planned on playing the game after beating it).

[CT075]

why are you trying to restrict players from playing the game they want to

[X-Naut]

I said this in Klok's "30 units at the start" topic in ROM hacking and the same could be said here:

That said, I do feel this could work in an Advance Wars-esque setting where there you control a relatively small cast of characters leading small sub-armies, with each one having a different set of classes to pick from. The troops would be generic but have random names/portraits/affinities/personality quirks/small growth variations and carry over chapter to chapter. If they die you can hire a new one and you can discharge units who are not up to par.

In other words it narrows the focus down to a smaller pool of characters and leaves fleshing out the grunts up to the player's discretion. The main problem with tying content to character deaths is that FE tries to treat everyone like an individual, but by doing so it treats individuals as disposable soldiers. This system does it the opposite by treating them as soldiers but allowing the player to treat them as individuals.

Of course, content from deaths would be different in this setting than in standard FE, since you're not talking about individual units. Single deaths wouldn't mean much, so maybe you'd get something from multiple deaths? For example, if a commander loses a lot of units by a certain point in the game you have the option of discharging him from combat and having a new commander join to make up for his incompetence. Or if a grunt loses their A support partner what happens depends on their commander: one might allow their soldier to leave and mourn, and they would return later with better stats; but another might dismiss it as unimportant, only to have their unit abandon the army or even defect to the other side!

[Vashiane]

There is also no real consequence either way. I agree, that opening choice was good, but it also didn't have any long-term effects. Fable III on the whole wasn't a very good game for a multitude of reasons, one prime example being how easy it was to break it's 'ultimate' dilemma of paying your dues vs. hording gold. Ironically, in terms of actual 'choice', the Fable series is a poor example on the whole as almost none of your choices have a consequence or are so horribly stilted towards one choice you're an idiot if you choose otherwise (EX: not choosing 'The Few' in Fable II's final choice if you planned on playing the game after beating it).

Well, it was the best example I could think of off the top of my head. And none of the other games in my reservoir had an example good enough to display, like Knights of the Old Republic, which gave the illusion that you had freedom of will, but immediately shoved you onto a side towards the end of the game whether you liked it or not.

It's merely an example to go off of, they don't have to use something exactly like that, of course.

Oh! Mass Effect would have a better example. Since you can carry your save files over, you could be playing the third game with a choice from the FIRST game still lingering: the decision during the last mission of the first game. That's an excellent source of long-term decision-making affecting you ACROSS games.

[Constable Reggie]

Then self-impose it. Just because some people like a Nuzlocke challenge in Pokemon doesn't mean that X and Y should make Nuzlocke it's standard, or even an optional, mode. The only way to prevent save-scumming is to erase a save-file the moment it's loaded up and only allow menu-saves (since a player will save-scum the moment they notice something is wrong and try again, and they're probably faster at ejecting the card than the animations). So the only way to 'enforce' such a thing is draconic measurements that would ensure the mode is only played by a select few, a select few that could VERY easily self-impose such a thing with no help from the game required I might add.

Why? If the next game is entirely based around irreversable choices/consequences, why should it be self imposed rather than the standard?

Also, why do you keep making up these ludicrous possibilities about circumventing autosave? I'll repeat; fe6-8 had a perfectly fine autosave system that could totally be applicable to the hypothetical game simply by taking out the restart chapter button. That way your progress will always be saved, but you can't go back on something once it happens. The scant few examples of bypassing the autosave system (arena abuse, berserk) are far and few between and likely easily fixable.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[AnonymousSpeed]

Why? If the next game is entirely based around irreversable choices/consequences, why should it be self imposed rather than the standard?

Also, why do you keep making up these ludicrous possibilities about circumventing autosave? I'll repeat; fe6-8 had a perfectly fine autosave system that could totally be applicable to the hypothetical game simply by taking out the restart chapter button. That way your progress will always be saved, but you can't go back on something once it happens. The scant few examples of bypassing the autosave system (arena abuse, berserk) are far and few between and likely easily fixable.

Why should the next game make it so if one makes a mistake or gets unlucky, that they can't try again? The player will just never get a chance to learn and probably rage quit. Edited August 11, 2013 by AnonymousSpeed

[Constable Reggie]

Because the whole point is that you simply can't try again. The game would theoretically branch off from your mistakes and choices.

[1% critted]

What if you play so badly that you get stuck in a point of no return in gameplay, and can't finish the game and have to start all over?

[Phoenix Wright]

that's precisely what restarting a chapter does too.

you want bona-fide permadeath mode? play classic and don't restart chapters. there's no reason at all to take that feature away. there is only a temptation to restart chapters, not an obligation.

it's like the old reclassing feature. i don't understand why optional, avoidable features should ever be taken away.

i am a fan of there being separate endings for lost lords or other major characters, though. seems pretty cool. though, obviously, the characters won't actually die. (chain of command--what if a player loses all major characters? there's no one to progress the story with)

Edited August 11, 2013 by Phoenix Wright

[Constable Reggie]

should have played on the baby's-first-fe-game mode first, scrub

As brought up before, there could still be a casual-type mode. Personally, in my theoretical game that will never exist, I'd have a casual mode, but with none of the events and results from player actions in the regular mode. That way, people can still enjoy the game, but won't get the full experience intended, since they opted out of the way it was meant to be played. Regarding the game itself, it would probably be set up that you can only actually fail the game if you make numerous idiotic mistakes, rather than just getting the lord killed.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[1% critted]

Why not all 3?

The mode that is being mentioned, a casual mode, and the classic mode? That way no one is alienated.

[Constable Reggie]

Since the point would be to prevent restarting simply because you didn't get the desired results. For example, how high do you think the percentage of people is who simply restart an earlier save because the story in "insert typical bioware game here" didn't progress the way they desired? I'm sure there's people who go straight through a game without restarting, but I'm going to go ahead and say it's a pretty fucking high percentage. By removing that option (though keep in mind that the casual mode would still exist so you can still get your money's worth), you form a deep gameplay-story connection that can't be simply circumvented because you didn't like the way things turned out. Adding in the classic mode would eliminate all sense of consequence by allowing the player choose how they want the story to proceed based on how they want it to, rather than their actions affecting the story.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Snowy_One]

Why not go all the way and make classic mode offer 0 growths and an utterly merciless turncount limit? I hear both are also well-liked by certain players.