Do you want the Avatar to stay?

[S_Cero]

So after seeing how IS dealt with creating characters in the past two games, do you want the avatar to stay?

Gameplay wise I am fine with the avatar staying since they are pretty much a guaranteed to be good unit.

Now story wise I think the avatar should be completely absent from the story. The avatar is pretty much plot holes inconsistencies the character (FE13) or worsened/lessened the quality of scenes by being shoved into them (FE12).

[Magical Glace]

No.

It just invites bad fanfics.

Though considering FE13's popularity, I doubt it's going anywhere.

[HK Motendra]

The way I see it, if the Avatar was the lord of the story, with a choice of personality, it could definitely work. If its just gonna be an insert character, then scrape it

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i'd rather not have the avatar back if its gonna be exactly like in FE13.

now if it more like in FE12 then sure.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I like the idea to create an own unit and chose him/her a class. But he/she should not be the main part of the story like in FE13. The avatar like in FE12 would be good.

[Hamicsat]

Avatar should go and stay go.

If he/she/it/them MUST stay, then I'd hope that they he/she/etc. would have little to no plot significance and would be a unit with average bases/growths rather than being able to solo the entire game.

[Nobody]

Either way for me works. I like the avatar.

Yes, people get a bit too obsessive with waifus and shit, but whatever. Why should I let this affect my enjoyment of the game? People just care too much, both the people who get obsessed with this waifu shit and the people who get angry at the people obsessed with waifu shit and don't want the avatar to happen again just because of that.

And I think it should be either a minor character or the actual lord. I actually prefer FE13's avatar to FE12's, because the latter appears everywhere despite having no impact on the story whatsoever and is just sooooo boring.

At least Robin does something for the story, like it or not

Edited April 22, 2014 by Nobody

[Logience]

I say kick him out of the story, but let him still exist, just like in FE7.

[HK Motendra]

Meh. I couldn't really care either way though

[Anacybele]

What Nobody said. I would prefer if we could choose the Avatar's class set and support options so they aren't so broken though.

[Florete]

I like being able to design and name a character, so yes, I'd like avatars to stay. They just need to be implemented better than they have been.

[BrightBow]

Chris wasn't much better then Robin. The Hero of Shadow, the most trusted person in Marth's service who rejected his rightful place in history for the greater good. *blargh*

Back then, I didn't mind it as much because it seemed pretty much like merely telling an old story from an observer perspective. But then they did the same thing with an entirely new installment, creating an entire new world just to kiss the ass of the Avatar and an entire cast whose members have no purpose in life but to bolster her ego, service her fetishes and father her children. An entire setting just wasted before it had to chance to be anything. *double blargh*

But as much as I am sick of the Avatar, if our supposed loveable cast can just casually wipe out hundred thousands of people in the cruelest way possible just because the writers wanted to have yet another opportunity to have everyone tell the Avatar how awesome she is, then I fear that removing the Avatar might not fix that many fundamental problems. Heck, I bet some decent directing could do wonders with the concept if IS wouldn't be content with just using it to pander to the player in the most transparent way possible rather then to show some genuine respect by at least trying to offer something interesting and fascinating instead.

Edited April 22, 2014 by BrightBow

[Logience]

Honestly, I think this series NEEDS an Avatar.

[PKL]

Yes, I want the Avatar to stay, oddly enough. FE13 isnt enough to convince me it is toxic. I do think it needs to be improved drastically though. I want more face options, as I think both FE12's and 13's avatar's look disgustingly generic. They need to be balanced like the other units in the game, not be a lot better than them. FE12's is less guilty of this, but he can still get way more defensive than the other units and gains a few too many levels in Prologue. FE13's can solo the game, which is a big no. I think it should be a good (who would deploy a unit that can cause a gameover when they die if theyre weak as hell?), fully customizable unit, but not be game-breakingly good. I'd prefer choosing his/her class again though despite how much more potential for brokeness it can have. It made him/her that much more awesome to me, to be able to choose whatever class I want from the get-go. Kinda hated the Tactician lock until Second Seal.

[BANRYU]

I feel inclined to say no BECAUSE the character is a bit on the broken side mechanically, as well as because the bland g/mary s(t)ue thing, but I feel like it could be an okay element if it was like given the Bioware Commander Shepard or something treatment. Where like y'know, your decisions in cutscenes or how many people you let die would affect the dialogue or events of the story or something. *shrug*

Also, better customization would be nice. FE12 looked like it had way more options for this than FE13, and while women had some decent options I feel like the male options were pretty bleh. ((EDIT: To be clear I'm referring to customizing appearance here))

EDIT: Actually, I feel a playable tactician could be really interesting in terms of combat as well if it was given more of like a support-unit treatment, like a rallybot or dancer-type role that was more mandatory for his/her playstyle.

Edited April 22, 2014 by BANRYU

[PKL]

I feel inclined to say no BECAUSE the character is a bit on the broken side mechanically, as well as because the bland g/mary s(t)ue thing, but I feel like it could be an okay element if it was like given the Bioware Commander Shepard or something treatment. Where like y'know, your decisions in cutscenes or how many people you let die would affect the dialogue or events of the story or something. *shrug*

Also, better customization would be nice. FE12 looked like it had way more options for this than FE13, and while women had some decent options I feel like the male options were pretty bleh.

If you're referring to FE12, Male had Knight Mercenary Fighter and Lance Cavalier. All of which are extremely powerful in Lunatic.

I like your idea of decisions affecting story and have thought of it before. Doubt IS would implement it though :(

EDIT: Just realized you were referring to looks. If its that, I agree, a bit. Though male has some decent options too. Like DA EYEPATCH

Edited April 22, 2014 by PKL

[BANRYU]

If you're referring to FE12, Male had Knight Mercenary Fighter and Lance Cavalier. All of which are extremely powerful in Lunatic.

I like your idea of decisions affecting story and have thought of it before. Doubt IS would implement it though :(

Oh um actually I was just referring to cosmetic customization .-. Haven't actually played 12, just seen sprite sheets for the avatar customization options lol...

Yeah, I get the feeling that that sort of thing might be too difficult to implement. Morality affecting a game's story and events seems to be more of a thing among western developers anyway.

[Rehab]

Even bad fanfics must indicate some level of investment in the work. I don't think I get that being an actual, significant part of somebody's reason to hope nothing like the Avatar comes back. Tons of cool shit in all kinds of media is begging for bad fanfiction to be written about it, and indeed has had bad fanfiction written about it. Most people have and will never even experience any of it.

It's not even like they need the Avatar to write self-inserts, they can do that already. I think getting more of that is a small price to pay for a great tool to leverage the role-playing part of the whole Strategy Role-Playing Game thing.

And besides, the Avatar also brought us sick-rad self-insert fancomics.

As far as I can tell, there's not really any way to get around that the Avatar is damn popular. I think it's a reasonable assumption that having a customizable character was a contributor to Awakening's success (among many, of course, but I've talked to people who liked the game more for having it). I think that it's a little silly to throw away potential momentum in attracting new players without weighing the concept carefully, and that it's eminently possible to improve on it.

Regarding that, I seem to be seeing a lot of the assumption that any implementation of a customizable unit will be as unbalanced as ever, and in general some assumptions that a future PC would be near-identical to the ones the series got already. There's nothing that will necessarily guarantee that to be exactly the case in the future, and there's nothing physically preventing the concept's implementation from playing out as "a character, among many, whom the player gets to help choose how to define," instead of "poorly-written literal self-insert, referred to as 'you' by the game and blatantly coddled by the story and cast."

Though all that said, yeah, I'd hope they change a lot of things about how they handle the idea's execution if they bring it back. As it is, aside from a couple of opportunities the player gets to make a story-related decision, the Avatar even makes for a pretty poor "self-insert," because everybody's Avatar is exactly the same character as every other player's Avatar except in appearance, fighting style and choice of friends/spouse. It'd fulfill the concept's potential for role-playing better if the player were at least given some chances to differentiate the character's personality from every other character, and to let the player fill in some of the blanks of the character's identity. It'd do that even better by giving the player more chances to drive the story in a given direction.

And they could be less obnoxious in going about doing all that if they made sure not to give the impression that the character is supposed to be the player in any way.

E: didn't check before Banryu posted, repeated some stuff, mea culpa etc.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Rehab

[PKL]

Oh um actually I was just referring to cosmetic customization .-. Haven't actually played 12, just seen sprite sheets for the avatar customization options lol...

Yeah, I get the feeling that that sort of thing might be too difficult to implement. Morality affecting a game's story and events seems to be more of a thing among western developers anyway.

Yeah, I realized it shortly after posting. It was edited before you posted but apparently not fast enough :P

Yeah, it seems really difficult to implement. But it would be so awesome!

[RJWalker]

No, no, a thousand times no.

FE13 basically reads like a bad self insert fanfic. Complete with the self-insery found by the main characters, has amnesia and everyone kisses up to them.

But a self-insert isn't inherently bad. Shepard from Mass Effect is a blatant self-insert that everyone kisses up to yet they can be a compelling character because the choices actually matter (until ME3, heh).

[Refa]

Maybe if the Avatar was a silent protagonist with dialogue options who didn't break the game in half.

[BANRYU]

One idea I just had is for the characters to actually NOT like (or at least be indifferent to) the avatar character when you start out, and a way to affect the avatar's personality/values plus their standing among the other characters would be to support with them (assuming a new game would have infinite supports like Awakening did). That could be an interesting and relatively-easy way to do some of the things Rehab is talking about, IE supporting with Tharja/Gaius/Henry-type characters would cause the avatar to develop as more cynical and possibly slightly psychotic, supporting with Fredericks/Cherches/Cordelias makes him/her more chivalrous and dutiful, etc. etc. It might also be interesting if the avatar's stats were much more malleable to being affected by those of the characters that you support him/her with.

E: didn't check before Banryu posted, repeated some stuff, mea culpa etc.

Nah, no worries, you said most of it more eloquently than I did lol

Edited April 22, 2014 by BANRYU

[Roivann]

I genuinely like the idea. However, I've said before that I would rather have the avatar character just be a customizable unit that would play a smaller or even negligible role in the game's main story, having a more limited set of support options, and generally be just another unit in the main lord's army. Additionally, this character should be able to die without causing a game over.

[BANRYU]

....Actually, I think it's reasonable for you to get a game over if your character dies... not for the same reason as in Awakening mind you, not for plot reasons, but because the avatar is the link between you as the player and the Fire Emblem world. If the character representing you dies, your ties to the world are severed, thus: Game Over. It can still sort of make sense even if the avatar has no real bearing on the plot.

But perhaps that's too much of a nitpick.

Edited April 22, 2014 by BANRYU

[Logience]

Maybe if the Avatar was a silent protagonist with dialogue options who didn't break the game in half.

This.

Also, how do you reply to posts?