How to improve Fire Emblem Awakening

[BANRYU]

3. Magic weapon triangle is useless if its like Tellius. And would mostly be irrelevant even with DS triangle because tomes have so much hit anyway.

I'll beg to differ with you just on one point; the Anima magic triangle would be nice to have back, seeing as all three types of Anima are in the game anyway. Otherwise, what's the point of having so many different types of tomes? You might as well just have the basic shit like Fire for E-rank/Thunder for D-rank/Elfire for C-rank like in the GBA games.

[LuxSpes]

I'd rather not see the game's story artificially extended. They put in enough filler as is.

I disagree. If anything, Awakening's story felt stuffed in too little amount of chapters. A lot of the problems I have with the game's plot are due to the fact that little lore about the world is explained and that the conflicts feels too rushed. Having more chapter would allow for more times to construct the world and the characters in it.

[Czar_Yoshi]

You're right for sure, however i start from the idea that the story was mostly different (and well written, possibly)

If you were a writer for Awakening and the head honcho read a draft of yours and said, "I want a well-written story", what would you do? No writer can make that into constructive criticism.

I disagree. If anything, Awakening's story felt stuffed in too little amount of chapters. A lot of the problems I have with the game's plot are due to the fact that little lore about the world is explained and that the conflicts feels too rushed. Having more chapter would allow for more times to construct the world and the characters in it.

This is largely the fault of Awakening's potentially-the-last-FE syndrome and the devs trying to cram too many different ideas into one game, but is also true. Valm in particular needs more backstory, including actual locations of countries.

Speaking of which, here's something that bothered me: names of locations in Awakening are incredibly bland. Past FEs give you the Taliver Mountians, Bethroen, Tirnanogue, and Lefcandith, while Awakening gives you Southtown, The Northroad, Border Wastes and The Longfort. The capitals of Ylisse and Plegia are named after their countries, and the capitals of Ferox and Valm aren't even named.

[ASR]

If you were a writer for Awakening and the head honcho read a draft of yours and said, "I want a well-written story", what would you do? No writer can make that into constructive criticism.

I'm just answering the question of the topic without entering in details, if i will know that FE writers are reading this, i'll obviously try to explain myself better.

I don't even really know if i can explain this to you with my poor english, but i'll try a bit.

So, feel free to make fun of me

One thing, for example, that has became worse than previous chapter (for me), are dialogues.

They seems too (hope this term makes the idea) "plain" compared to Tellius saga, especially Path of Radiance.

And there are a lot of side/personal stories i found interesting, just mentioned, like Taguel race, Chrom's father, Aversa and the story/mitology of Ylisse and Valm or also the explenation of the connection between them and the old continents.

I would have liked, for sure, different new ideas then the usually dark dragon/master behind a dark cult behind an evil king.

And in the end, i found the story go a little bit too fast.

Written in this way seems i dislike the entire plot, but it isn't so, i would only preferred more in depth and some new ideas (like the time travel of the cildren)

However, i know i played these games in another language, and we are famous for terrible unfaithful adaptation of everything (but sometimes also most epic and archaic, like the Saint Seiya one), and all of these are my personal thoughts that anyone can found wrong or silly.

Edited March 25, 2014 by ASR

[Czar_Yoshi]

I'm just answering the question of the topic without entering in details, if i will know that FE writers are reading this, i'll obviously try to explain myself better.

I don't even really know if i can explain this to you with my poor english, but i'll try a bit.

No worries, I doubt anyone who actually works for IS is reading this.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Airship Canon]

I'd rather not see the game's story artificially extended. They put in enough filler as is.

Actually, that's probably one of the best ways to actually fix alot of Awakening's Story Problems.

It tried to go bigger than what it had to work with. A ~70 Chapter game would've done very well, provided they met it with the expanded writing.

Given more room, more elaboration, it would've rolled great.

I don't want to cite a fanfic as proof, but it works, thus why I am going to. Really check out Invisible Ties- it is downright proof that the core of Awakening is solid enough, and what it did need was some extra chapters.

See the problem comes down to a huge case of rushing to weave things in there and tie together three arcs. What should've been around 70 chapters was done in 27, this makes huge parts feel like filler. It's bad pacing caused by time constraints and a too small of a story.

[BrightBow]

Actually, that's probably one of the best ways to actually fix alot of Awakening's Story Problems.

It tried to go bigger than what it had to work with. A ~70 Chapter game would've done very well, provided they met it with the expanded writing.

Given more room, more elaboration, it would've rolled great.

I don't want to cite a fanfic as proof, but it works, thus why I am going to. Really check out Invisible Ties- it is downright proof that the core of Awakening is solid enough, and what it did need was some extra chapters.

See the problem comes down to a huge case of rushing to weave things in there and tie together three arcs. What should've been around 70 chapters was done in 27, this makes huge parts feel like filler. It's bad pacing caused by time constraints and a too small of a story.

Radiant Dawn Part 2 proves that the series doesn't need a lot of chapters to tell a proper story.

That one had only 5 chapters and worked great by itself. Heck, it probably is the only Fire Emblem story that doesn't feel like it's mostly filler because you can only have so many large scale battles in a single war before it gets silly. It's short length is a strength,

This game doesn't need even more chapters. It simply needs to properly use the time that it already has.

Edited March 25, 2014 by BrightBow

[Sunwoo]

Awakening doesn't deserve 70 chapters anyway. None of the previous FE games got that many chapters and they still managed to work out. If Awakening really needed SEVENTY FUCKING CHAPTERS to tell a good story, then maybe it's too ambitious of a project.

[eclipse]

I'd rather not see the game's story artificially extended. They put in enough filler as is.

Yes and no. I think the first Plegia arc could've been expanded on, and then after a brief respite (where Chrom marries and whatnot), the other half of Plegia could be introduced, then have Walhart's ideas about a world without gods take root as Validar attempts to spread his cult. Or perhaps I'm tired and rambling.

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

Speaking of which, here's something that bothered me: names of locations in Awakening are incredibly bland. Past FEs give you the Taliver Mountians, Bethroen, Tirnanogue, and Lefcandith, while Awakening gives you Southtown, The Northroad, Border Wastes and The Longfort. The capitals of Ylisse and Plegia are named after their countries, and the capitals of Ferox and Valm aren't even named.

Indeed. It's a very different feel from playing any other game.

You could argue that it should've been two games with deeper exploration into the world to tell the entire story, but clearly that wasn't an option for the dev team at the time. Still... have the Plegian war prior to the time skip be its own entity that deals with all the interesting stuff, like the legacy of Chrom's father, that only gets touched upon. Spend some actual time in Ferox getting a feel for the place. Etc. Then have the sequel deal with the Valm adventure and make a real-feeling place out of that, so that Say'ri's role actually matters and we deal with Virion's homeland and the "noble" antagonists like Yen'fay and Pheros feel like something other than obligatory checkboxes being ticked off.

Two problems, though. One, the time-travel babies and all the problems that time travel entails. Two, we have to get back to Plegia so that Validar the Cardboard can take over the plot again. (Really we don't have to, if we're reimagining the plot, but that's a problem in the plot's current form.)

Yeah, I'm gonna go with "there is so much stuff crammed into this game that nothing can fix it without making it something other than it is." And if it were something other than it is, maybe it would've sold about 90K copies. :/

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

1. The weapon triangle system in Tellius is a lot worse than the DS games weapon triangle that Awakening uses.

2. Wouldn't do anything but hurt mages and mostly be annoying and then not matter at all. Weight is bad really.

3. Magic weapon triangle is useless if its like Tellius. And would mostly be irrelevant even with DS triangle because tomes have so much hit anyway.

4. I agree.

6. Rescue drop take was replaced by pair up. It probably can't be implemented in the regular Awakening to improve it. Shove Smite wouldnt work without some sort of con system.

7. So, basically, bring back one of the most annoying things about past Fire Emblems? Those staves are usually insta-game over when they hit, so that wouldnt really improve the game or make it more "tactical".

1. In FE9 + 10 if you have a disadvantage in the weapon triangle, the enemy deals +1 damage and your own unit deals -1 damage. It does not exist in the following games. So it is kinda cheap and unfair to me, that the weapon triangle only gives you advantage boosts in damage but no penalties.

2. Weapon weight kinda punish some units, but it exists in almost every FE game. The thing with the constitution in the GBA-games was really shit especially for mages and female units. But that the strength influences the attacking speed is fair.

3. In the magic weapon triangle the hit rates are not really different than the physical weapon triangle.

7. These staffs are another classic part of Fire Emblem. They are not an instant death, if you have a restore staff.

Most of my suggestions are tactial options and weapons etc., which exist in most of the previous FE games.

Edited March 27, 2014 by MisterIceTeaPeach

[TheBattyOne]

One thing I found lacking in the story was the world-building. I mean, look at the Tellius games (particularly Path of Radiance, since that's the one I remember). You learn a whole lot about the politics and traditions of the people there. It's great for keeping the audience reminded of the scope of the story, you remember the geographical locations because you can assign a political alignment to each country, you feel much more immersed in the story and the characters within... I could go on and on. That game's story and storytelling are far superior to Awakening's, and I think Awakening would have been so much better if we got to see more of the political drive behind the decisions made by the world leaders. But then they would have to consider changing the villains' motivations, as they pretty much boil down to "because I'm the bad guy". Heck, Ashnard was probably one of the most transparently evil megalomaniac characters I've ever seen, yet he put so much time and effort into setting the game's events into motion that the sheer amount of it makes for an interesting story. Even this guy is more than what he seems like on the surface. That is how to write a villain who just wants to watch the world burn.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, sorry. Anyway, Awakening's writers should have put more time and love into the world they built and the civilizations that became part of it.

Also, fix Validar's character design. It looks anatomically impossible for a human and frankly silly.

[MRDRHAWK]

Have every character get a Mercenary reclass option

I will have my army of Heroes, dammit

[Czar_Yoshi]

Have every character get a Mercenary reclass option

Giving every character a certain class reduces the importance of inheritance, which reduces the replay value of the game, which isn't really an improvement. But if you really want an army of Heroes...

Avatar, Vaike, Donnel, Gaius, Cordelia, Gregor, Flavia, Basilio, Priam, Morgan, Gerome, Severa, Inigo, Avatar's other child, Vaike's child, Donnel's child, Gaius's son, and Gregor's child. That's 18, and the most you can ever deploy on one map is 20 (Chrom takes up a slot). If you need more, there are 99 slots in the logbook.

[MRDRHAWK]

Giving every character a certain class reduces the importance of inheritance, which reduces the replay value of the game, which isn't really an improvement. But if you really want an army of Heroes...

Avatar, Vaike, Donnel, Gaius, Cordelia, Gregor, Flavia, Basilio, Priam, Morgan, Gerome, Severa, Inigo, Avatar's other child, Vaike's child, Donnel's child, Gaius's son, and Gregor's child. That's 18, and the most you can ever deploy on one map is 20 (Chrom takes up a slot). If you need more, there are 99 slots in the logbook.

I wasn't being serious you know

I'll do an actual suggestions list in the morning because I'm tired/lazy

[PKL]

1. The weapon triangle in FE11-13 give you only boosts to your unit, if your weapon has an advantage, but no penalties if your weapon has an disadvantage. So it is kinda unfair to me.

2. Weapon weight kinda punish some units, but it exists in almost every FE game. The thing with the constitution in the GBA-games was really shit especially for mages and female units. But that the strength influences the attacking speed is fair.

3. How was the magic weapon triangle useless in the Tellius games? The hit rates are not really different than the physical weapon triangle.

7. These staffs are another classic part of Fire Emblem. They are not an instant death, if you have a restore death.

Most of my suggestions are tactial options and weapons etc., which exist in most of the previous FE games.

1. Wrong. You get Atk and Hit bonuses when you advance that weapon further in weapon ranks. Enemies also get those bonuses but the weapon triangle negates those bonuses whenever you have positive weapon triangle against them as well as getting -10 Hit and -1 MT like Tellius if rank is A. So the DS triangle is stronger than Tellius by far. Even if its not at A, you cancel enough of the enemie's Atk that it is better than Tellius. Those mercenaries that have A sword rank suddenly lose -3 against your lances, if you use a sword vs a barbarian, they lose 1 atk and 10 hit.

2. It existed in previous Fire Emblems, but that does not make it good. IS removed it for a reason and i bet it was because it complicated matters with Attack Speed (need to go to stats screen to check/need to know the weapon's weight, a lot of newer players wont know why they didnt double or got doubled etc its a bad mechanic) and affected balance too drastically.

3. You heard me. It was completely and utterly useless. Wind and Fire had 100 and 95 Hit respectively, combined with biorhythm and skill+lck it always had enough hit to be reliable no matter the disadvantage. Take Micaiah in FE10 for example: Ive never seen her hit less than 90 against an Anima mage ever. It really makes no difference.

7. Again, them existing in previous Fire Emblems does not mean they are good. Sure, status could be viewed as a cool feature to some. To others, it is merely a cheap, RNG based way for one of your characters to die. Note that Sleep can be death in a lot of situations and Berserk is basically a guaranteed death. Not always can your Restore user be there for your unit and it definetely wont be able to Restore said unit in the Enemy Phase, where theyre likely to die.

Edited March 26, 2014 by PKL

[BANRYU]

I will say that I agree with PKL on the principle that tradition should not be repeated for the sake of solely tradition and nothing else; if the game is better off with the traditions being changed, then that's what should be done, nevermind the way things have been done previously.

However, I still disagree about the Magic (Anima at least) triangle. If the Weapon triangle in the DS games was indeed superior to that of Tellius, could not the Anima triangle have been similarly implemented? I maintain again that there's no point to having so many different types of magic (at least IMO) if they don't have specific advantages against one another. Otherwise, what's the point to having any magic other than wind spells and Valflame, if the others aren't effective against anything?

[Airship Canon]

On the subject of CC, Berserk on EP doesn't do anything, so that one is covered completely by Restore. As long as there's a reliable amount of Restore, CC isn't bad in the enemy's hands... provided it has some proper accuracy.

Sleep and Silence can be tanked out, and can serve as interesting obstacles if properly set up [and actually hit, for gods sake. :\]

In the player's hands, reliable CC is far too powerful in most scenarios.

Take FE4, where CC literally removes every key boss fight save for Arvis and Julius: You can Sleep or Silence every other boss (so at your choosing, you can simply deny any and all threat [like people think Langobalt, Reptor, Arione or Ishtar are difficult...lol])! Hell, you can even berserk a fool or two [or watch Arione kill all of his dudes]

FE10, lolSleep,lolIke,Youthought3-13wasanythingbutdefeatboss.

Unreliable CC is worthless.

FE5's CC is satanic.

Poison [the non-CC status] is stupid, it's not threatening enough to warrant its existence, especially when it comes at nerfing enemy strength. It's basically just free healer EXP.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Airship Canon

[BrightBow]

2. It existed in previous Fire Emblems, but that does not make it good. IS removed it for a reason and i bet it was because it complicated matters with Attack Speed (need to go to stats screen to check/need to know the weapon's weight, a lot of newer players wont know why they didnt double or got doubled etc its a bad mechanic) and affected balance too drastically.

I would like you to consider two things in regards to weight:

1. You only have to make those calculations because IS for whatever reason stopped displaying the AS value on the status screen after FE4.

2. IS never explains how weight actually works. It's not in the tutorials, nor is it in the actual manuals. At best, we get stuff like this:

Matthew: An armorslayer! Just as the name suggests. armorslayers are useful against knights in armor. You want to know something? You need to give weapons to those who can wield them. Otherwise, it's just a waste of a perfectly good weapon. Take this blade. I mean, I can use it, but... I'm not too strong, and...I just hate being counterattacked. Anyway, think strategically about who you give weapons to.

It's such an useless explanation. How can I tell by the above who is actually good with that weapon? Or what weapons are difficult to handle? It baffles me how there is so much text, yet no useful info. If it wasn't for SF, I wouldn't have learned how it worked. IS seemed to go out of their way to handle the mechanic as badly as possible.

It's easy to say that a mechanic makes things unnecessary complicated. Technically, removing any mechanic makes the game less complicated.

For my part, I always had the feeling that when IS put some actual thought into the system and what weight to give the weapons, it would work wonderfully. And after playing TRS, I am sure about it.

It added a lot of depth towards who uses which weapon against which target. But it also helps that the game has a variety of enemies that the actual Fire Emblem games never matched, even when counting in the Laguz.

The mechanic had a lot of potential. It's a shame that it was removed.

Edited March 26, 2014 by BrightBow

[RJWalker]

In the player's hands, reliable CC is far too powerful in most scenarios.

Take FE4, where CC literally removes every key boss fight save for Arvis and Julius: You can Sleep or Silence every other boss (so at your choosing, you can simply deny any and all threat [like people think Langobalt, Reptor, Arione or Ishtar are difficult...lol])! Hell, you can even berserk a fool or two [or watch Arione kill all of his dudes]

FE10, lolSleep,lolIke,Youthought3-13wasanythingbutdefeatboss.

Unreliable CC is worthless.

Only in the hands of a player who knows in-depth what they're doing. And when a player reaches that stage, nothing is difficult. Average players have nightmares when dealing with Arione, Ishtar, etc. Continuous usage of Sleep/Berserk also requires proper planning and funds management and again, it's clear from just a glance in various forums that average players do have problems in that area. FE4 and (especially) FE5 are quite difficult for newcomes and not-so newcomers but easy to break for someone who knows the ins and outs of the game. You can see this by the number of everyday players who say that FE4 and FE5 are extremely hard while veterans who played the games many times over will quickly claim otherwise. And perhaps that's how it should be, a difficulty mode that takes some tries to figure out and easy thereafter but still challenging at an appropriate level for newcomers instead of relying on random skill distribution to create difficulty or trying to create a mode that's equally challenging for every plaayer which simply isn't possible. Your condescending attitude to anyone who would find those FE4 bosses is not helping either.

[Czar_Yoshi]

So I thought up something that, while not strictly an improvement, could be fun for a certain people: an extra difficulty that uses NM enemy stats but LM enemy density and exp scaling. The game's already a lawnmower simulator, why not take it to the extreme?

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I have to add: Edit the reclass system and bringing back the 3rd tier class.

The skill system should be similar to FE10, so the unit learns a (mastery) skill after promotion to second/third tier.

But through the reclass system, you can reclass 2=>1tier or 3=>2tier to learn new skills. But the reclass options have to be limited. That for example a general can reclass to a dark mage should be wiped outonce for all!

Edited April 3, 2014 by MisterIceTeaPeach

[shadowofchaos]

I have to add: Edit or drop the reclass system and bringing back the 3rd tier class.

What difference would that make, considering the stats were inflated for this game?

Locked mastery skills? Making your units feel "special"?

Enemies in Radiant Dawn were 2nd tier but had the caps of a third tier because there was no other way to keep your units from being instantly killed.

Edited April 3, 2014 by shadowofchaos

[Airship Canon]

Third Tier was a glorified Second Tier with forced skills.

It adds nothing to the game.

Reclassing is one of the things Awakening does right. It adds a customization factor to the game.

[BrightBow]

Reclassing is one of the things Awakening does right. It adds a customization factor to the game.

It's not a lot of customization.

Base stat differences of classes are about as high as in the old games but the stat inflation renders them quickly meaningless.

This is made worse because the growth differences are minimal. 10% speed growth for Knights and 25% for Sword Masters are about as large as those differences get. They are way lower then in the DS games despite the overall growths being already way, way lower over there.

And skills exist more for collection purposes then anything, seeing how the few skills that actually have a notable effect like the Breaker skills only come into play near the end of the game. They are just an excuse to make a player run several times through the leveling hamster wheel.

Edited April 3, 2014 by BrightBow