What would your ideal Fire Emblem multiplayer experience be?

[Knight]

Fire Emblem is a series that I always thought would have great potential in multiplayer, but to date I don't think any game fully got it right. The DS FE's were really close, but I didn't really like the way it was set up and people could easily hack the crap out of their team's stats. Awakening had a multitude of multiplayer features, but it missed the most important one. How do you think the Fire Emblem series should improve on its multiplayer and make it more enjoyable?

Personally, I'd like the same thing as FE11, maybe have more units on your team and have it be a straight up capture-your-opponents-fort style of gameplay with tons of maps instead of a king of the hill game.

[Arrout]

I'd like to have various modes, such as cooperative gameplay, where your team+ally team beat the shit out of an enemy. Deathmatch, where you just need to wipe enemies, this mode could have more than one-on-one, could be stuff like 1x1x1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 8 Player free-for-all, and stuff awesome like that. Other mode that'd be REALLY awesome if we could have a Conquest mode, like Genealogy of Holy War, capture all the castles, and hold out your own, this could make battles hours, even days long, but hell, it would be astronomically awesome. In terms of balance, I think the characters for multiplayer should be multiplayer-only, for balance sake, gold you have should also be multiplayer-only. You pick your team made of units of each class, you could have different teams, each team should have 8 characters, each unit has it's growths set, or at least it's growth rates, to balance out. Statboosters would be available to buy, they should be expensive, for it to not be game-breaking, it also should have a limit for statboosting one character. Gold would be in your general account, you could buy stuff for you other teams with gold you won with one team. You win gold by match, obviously victories give more gold. Also there shouldn't be Brave Weapons... they're evil... I think iron, steel, silver, killer, reaver-type and slayer-type weapons should be sold, also Javelins, Wind Swords, and Hand Axes.Thieves should be useful too, there would be chests in some maps with random loot, things like gems for more gold, Spear, Tomahawk, Storm Sword, and other stuff.

[X-Naut]

If you're going to use player characters in multiplayer, then give them the option of maxing their stats during the game. Adding a team preview would also help players gauge their opponents' stats.

In addition, more options to allow/disallow things such as legendary weapons, forges, support bonuses, etc. to cater to different players' preferences.

[LunaSaint]

2 players vs AI.

I really don't enjoy how FE works from a PvP point of view. That said, a procedurally generated campaign would be pretty damn cool.

[AnonymousSpeed]

I think the idea of a large map with chests and castles sounds interesting, and it would be huge indeed. I've spent some time with the SF link arena stuff and I think another thing like that could be interesting, maybe if it took place on a map so unit moving/terrain also plays a role.

I really like the other idea where you playing one side on a map and your opponent playing the other side, like regular chapters but against a human, and the need to save/obtain resources could make thieves quite useful, though I don't think a gold mechanic would be needed for it.

The two ideas are similar but the second has more to than the first while the first would be like link arena but on a map.

[The Geek]

Maybe something kind of like what League has? As in both teams start at level 1/1 with E-Rank weapons, but through killing a bunch of AI enemies they can level up and get better stuff then go after each other.

[Jotari]

I'd like to have various modes, such as cooperative gameplay, where your team+ally team beat the shit out of an enemy. Deathmatch, where you just need to wipe enemies, this mode could have more than one-on-one, could be stuff like 1x1x1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 8 Player free-for-all, and stuff awesome like that. Other mode that'd be REALLY awesome if we could have a Conquest mode, like Genealogy of Holy War, capture all the castles, and hold out your own, this could make battles hours, even days long, but hell, it would be astronomically awesome. In terms of balance, I think the characters for multiplayer should be multiplayer-only, for balance sake, gold you have should also be multiplayer-only. You pick your team made of units of each class, you could have different teams, each team should have 8 characters, each unit has it's growths set, or at least it's growth rates, to balance out. Statboosters would be available to buy, they should be expensive, for it to not be game-breaking, it also should have a limit for statboosting one character. Gold would be in your general account, you could buy stuff for you other teams with gold you won with one team. You win gold by match, obviously victories give more gold. Also there shouldn't be Brave Weapons... they're evil... I think iron, steel, silver, killer, reaver-type and slayer-type weapons should be sold, also Javelins, Wind Swords, and Hand Axes.Thieves should be useful too, there would be chests in some maps with random loot, things like gems for more gold, Spear, Tomahawk, Storm Sword, and other stuff.

That's a great idea. I imagine online in order to keep a really long match going without having to sit in front of the game for hours, they could do a wait and play type thing. You determine what moves you're going to make and what attacks you perform. It sends all the data to the server. Then you disconnect and go do something else for a few hours. Come back online and see if you're opponent(s) have made a move in response to yours. Matches could potentially last for weeks with a lot of time to to fully calculate and plan out each turn. Though of course there would have to be a minimum time limit on how long you can wait before making a move. Something under or near 24 hours. in fact if you could select the minimum wait time you could determine how fast paced a game could be too. So if you wanted to just spend six hours fighting someone on a large map you could set a two minute time limit to each turn.

[Roivann]

It should have multiple game modes. One would be an X-COM: Enemy Unknown style competitive mode, using FE10's fixed growths system and a set number of "points" to build a six or so unit squad (spending points to decide their level and purchase equipment for them). The real problem with FE11/12's multiplayer was in balancing: players would have good or bad units based on the RNG in-game. A second multiplayer mode would be what I hoped FE13's double duel mode would be when I first saw it: two players take their armies and fight against a large AI army.

[Elieson]

I think the idea of a large map with chests and castles sounds interesting,

to further this, I'd like to see a Barebones sort of arena, where you can build a team going in to battle, but have to find/buy equipment and stuff as you go along (Everyone starts with say, Iron [WEAPON] / Base [TOME], and there can be little enemies along the way that you kill for Gold (immobile enemies). It becomes a...

wow, this really is like League

[Shin]

Map based with a handful of proper units and a bunch of generics would be kinda cool. Say having Doga, Hardin and Gordin as your "commanders" gave you a small squad of generic thwomps, cavs and archers. Just some sort of idea, it makes sense considering how many units are on the field in regular play.

[Rehab]

I agree that both XCOM: Enemy Unkown units-buying style, or cooperative PVE, like a couple of you guys mentioned would be cool.

And yeah, I agree that using one's own homegrown units in combat is kinda spotty, because raising units in Fire Emblem is a much different beast from raising them in Pokemon or something- there's very few practical limits to your resources in Pokemon relatively speaking, whereas in FE limits have often been what defines the game (for better or worse, depending on your opinion). And just using top-level units in FE against each other isn't generally as interesting to me as it can be in Pokemon.

Whatever they do, I think thought-out map design would be critical. I also like the idea of varying objectives more than the average game does (at least in execution). I think you guys may have already taken it farther than I Had in my head in a couple ways, haha.

[sirmola]

I think that masive, multicastle maps would suffer from the same problem fe4 had: the armeis are really small in comparicon to the map, exept that the opponents are going to take advantage of this (unlike in fe4 where the ai did not), and constantly try to flank each other, play in this kind of map would be more strategic and less tactical in character then in almost every other fe map (exept posibly fe4 chapter 9). I would expect this kind of map to play less like a battle and more like a mideval campaighn (where the battle is decided less by in battle tactics and more by strategic decisions made before battle is even joined, like advancing in a way that looks like you will attack either of two castles, and deciding which of the two at the last moment. The effect would be even more pronounced with fog of war enabled. Actualy, strike that, that's not a "problem", that's awesome, if rather unlike standard fire emblem gameplay.

Edited June 15, 2014 by sirmola

[Ewan101]

I liked the multiplayer in Awakening, but I also want real-time battles. Train up your team, set their inventories, and take turns on a map duking it out. it'd be cool if you could design your own maps, too, but I can see how that could end up really broken.

[Nik]

For sure i'd want a 1 on 1 match, but maybe a coop missions mode (or a coop story mode) would be cool too. Also i'd implement a balanced matchmaking so anyone could use their own charachters instead of having default, mp only ones. Multiple matches(2v2, 4 players free 4 all) would be cool too.