MajorMajora Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 THIS IS ACTUALLY SOMETHING I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT LET ME GET MY NOTES---- Ahem. Sorry about that. I really think a lot of things around supports, specifically in GBA vs. Awakening, are interesting. Ask yourself: Why was there a cap on supports in the GBA games? Because supports were based on proximity, and could therefore stack. Having 5 A supports near someone just makes them too strong, unless you nerd supports, but that hampers the people who were using them as intended. So what changed in Awakening? Well, how supports worked changed. They affected dual battling as opposed to simply proximity based stat boosts. This meant supports do not stack, so there is no gameplay reason for a limit. S supports were added so that now characters could choose a love interest in the same way previous games let you. However there was an unintended side effect of this (admittedly quite awesome) addition. With S supports, there was only 1 person you could get to the max with, and therefore that one person will always provide the best stat bonuses. I mean, if you have an S support, why even get another A support if it's never going to be as useful? One of the great things about multiple A supports was that you could pair up people in different combinations throughout the game, but S supports ruin that. My suggestion: have it just like Awakening, but have there be no gameplay benefit for S supports vs. A supports. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Geek Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 My thoughts: -Limited supports: Being able to support anyone with anyone else in Awakening was fun, but it was obviously a stretch trying to make so many unique conversations while keeping the characters' core personality traits. -No per playthrough limit: Only being able to get 5 conversations per character per playthrough was dumb. -Affinities and bonuses: Obviously, being able to get so many supports will make support bonuses broken unless something else is put in. Either nerf support bonuses or make it so that only the character's highest rank support partners give bonuses. Or you could simply lower the support bonus cap that was already in Awakening (which was ridiculously high: +20ATK/AVO/CRT/DGE) -Pairing: If children are a part of the game, the two highest rank support partners have a child like in Awakening. If not, they simply get a paired ending (this could open the way for more non-romantic and same-gender paired endings) -More siblings: This is more of a character request thing, but there need to be more siblings in the game. Seriously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florete Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 So what changed in Awakening? Well, how supports worked changed. They affected dual battling as opposed to simply proximity based stat boosts. This meant supports do not stack, so there is no gameplay reason for a limit. S supports were added so that now characters could choose a love interest in the same way previous games let you. However there was an unintended side effect of this (admittedly quite awesome) addition. With S supports, there was only 1 person you could get to the max with, and therefore that one person will always provide the best stat bonuses. I mean, if you have an S support, why even get another A support if it's never going to be as useful? One of the great things about multiple A supports was that you could pair up people in different combinations throughout the game, but S supports ruin that. My suggestion: have it just like Awakening, but have there be no gameplay benefit for S supports vs. A supports. ...This makes very little sense. An S support with one unit isn't always going to provide the best bonuses for either due to how support bonuses work, and even if it did, how is having one partner be a little better than the others "ruining" anything? You can still switch partners around at will. -No per playthrough limit: Only being able to get 5 conversations per character per playthrough was dumb.This existed because otherwise you could have a unit running around with 5 A ranks getting maximum bonuses from all of them. This wasn't the case in Awakening because the raw stat bonuses in Awakening required pairing up, which is obviously only possible with one partner at a time. Of course, this is basically confirmed to be the system returning in the coming game anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NekoKnight Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 My thoughts: -Limited supports: Being able to support anyone with anyone else in Awakening was fun, but it was obviously a stretch trying to make so many unique conversations while keeping the characters' core personality traits. -No per playthrough limit: Only being able to get 5 conversations per character per playthrough was dumb. -Affinities and bonuses: Obviously, being able to get so many supports will make support bonuses broken unless something else is put in. Either nerf support bonuses or make it so that only the character's highest rank support partners give bonuses. Or you could simply lower the support bonus cap that was already in Awakening (which was ridiculously high: +20ATK/AVO/CRT/DGE) -Pairing: If children are a part of the game, the two highest rank support partners have a child like in Awakening. If not, they simply get a paired ending (this could open the way for more non-romantic and same-gender paired endings) -More siblings: This is more of a character request thing, but there need to be more siblings in the game. Seriously. Good ideas, especially the bolded. If two people are equal ranked, maybe the relationship that is more 'natural' would be selected. For example, Lyn was close friends with Florina so if Lyn had the same support level with Rath, Florina would be selected first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajorMajora Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 ...This makes very little sense. An S support with one unit isn't always going to provide the best bonuses for either due to how support bonuses work, and even if it did, how is having one partner be a little better than the others "ruining" anything? You can still switch partners around at will. Think of it this way. Why do S supports exist? Well, as I said, the new dual system no longer requires a support cap. However, when we get rid of the support cap, we also get rid of a character only being able to get max rank (A) with 1 person at a time. This left the narrative of the game rather scrambled since, theoretically, a male unit could get a romantic A support with 3 girls at once. This makes no sense. Now arrives the S supports. You can get to A support with everyone you like, but only 1 S support! This way a person can only hook up with one other person. My problem with this is that one of the biggest advantages of having no support cap is that, if a character could support with a greater number of people, then there are a greater number of people you could put them with in battle without having to worry about missing out a support bonuses. This then encourages creativity with your strategies. S supports providing a greater bonus than A reduces the incentive to experiment with who you pair up. I mean, how often do you separate 2 units after they get S support? I know I never do, and a big part is because I'm afraid of the stat decrease, however marginal it is. Will anything be lost by lowering the stat bonus of S support down to A support level? The S supports very role in the game is purely for story purposes, so I see no reason to have it hamper the gameplay experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Book of Ereshkigal Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 (edited) How they were used 10 years ago isn't my concern though. FE7 wasn't 10 years ag.... ... I feel old. (I know I am not old) (I also realized we're talking about FE4. I think.) Edited March 3, 2015 by L95 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florete Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Think of it this way. Why do S supports exist? Well, as I said, the new dual system no longer requires a support cap. However, when we get rid of the support cap, we also get rid of a character only being able to get max rank (A) with 1 person at a time. This left the narrative of the game rather scrambled since, theoretically, a male unit could get a romantic A support with 3 girls at once. This makes no sense. Now arrives the S supports. You can get to A support with everyone you like, but only 1 S support! This way a person can only hook up with one other person. My problem with this is that one of the biggest advantages of having no support cap is that, if a character could support with a greater number of people, then there are a greater number of people you could put them with in battle without having to worry about missing out a support bonuses. This then encourages creativity with your strategies. S supports providing a greater bonus than A reduces the incentive to experiment with who you pair up. I mean, how often do you separate 2 units after they get S support? I know I never do, and a big part is because I'm afraid of the stat decrease, however marginal it is. Will anything be lost by lowering the stat bonus of S support down to A support level? The S supports very role in the game is purely for story purposes, so I see no reason to have it hamper the gameplay experience. I don't, but that's because I don't typically have characters try to support more than one person at a time. That's another problem with what you're saying: when will you want to have a character build support with a 2nd partner in the first place? And again, due to the way support boosts work (class-based), if your character has multiple partners already, switching will be based on which partner provides the bonuses you want, and that might not be the S rank partner. Have you actually looked at what S rank alone brings to the table? It's not as big as you're making it sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roflolxp54 Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 FE13, to me, pretty much has the support system down pat though some of the writing could use some work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radiant head Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 FE13, to me, pretty much has the support system down pat though some of the writing could use some work. Yeah, but there's arguably a tradeoff between quantity and quality of support convos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckc22 Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Yeah, but there's arguably a tradeoff between quantity and quality of support convos. That's a pretty easy fix - especially if children don't return. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Respite&Nepenthe Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 That's a pretty easy fix - especially if children don't return.I don't imagine children returning. It's cringeworthy if they do, especially if its by time-traveling, a concept I've personally never been especially fond of... And I don't think they'll age-progress all the characters by, like, sixteen years after marriage so the children can join...and most of all, I'd hate to jump from using only the parents to only the children. I get too attached to abandon units like that (but, thankfully, with the inclusion of an avatar, it seems unlikely), and with all that's going on in the world, I'm not sure I'm emotionally equipped to handle that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwon Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 Well w/e system they use to get the support conversations, I imagine it wil be more like Awakening. My personal favorite was the PoR system but I wouldn't be too bothered either way. That being said, i kind of wish that the characters didn't simply romance each other simply because one was female, and the other male. It would be nice to see men and women just be friends (i'm well aware that S rank is optional). But with the children system set up in awakening, it was necessary for all male-female supports to have an S rank. someone said that a lot of the support conversations in awakening mainly played on the character tropes, rather than actually developing the character. And I would have to agree that most of the conversations were like that. It's like there had to be SO many support conversations that they were slowly running out of ideas. So half the conversations ended up being about cooking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NekoKnight Posted March 5, 2015 Author Share Posted March 5, 2015 That being said, i kind of wish that the characters didn't simply romance each other simply because one was female, and the other male. It would be nice to see men and women just be friends (i'm well aware that S rank is optional). But with the children system set up in awakening, it was necessary for all male-female supports to have an S rank. One thing they could do is use S rank to mark paired endings, whether they are romantic in nature or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wallhadrian Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 Ehh, Henry's supports with Cordelia is him being a super Nice Guy until Cordelia renounces her Chromosexuality and instantly falls for Henry. It's rather cringe-worthy. I'd like to blame that on pretty much all of Cordelia's supports, not Henry's. Seriously. She was such a great character, and then they just made her romance into a mess. Kind of ironic given how her name in the Japanese name is Ti amo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NekoKnight Posted March 7, 2015 Author Share Posted March 7, 2015 Here's a new idea, what if some units gave each other items after reaching a certain support rank? Two mages are helping each other with research and discover some Spirit Dust. A senior Swordmaster rewards his student's hard work with a rare sword. Stuff like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckc22 Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 Here's a new idea, what if some units gave each other items after reaching a certain support rank? Two mages are helping each other with research and discover some Spirit Dust. A senior Swordmaster rewards his student's hard work with a rare sword. Stuff like that. I'd rather them teach each other their last skill slot or something but that's what I was getting at for keeping some character building in S ranks even without children. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Respite&Nepenthe Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 Personally, I'd prefer receiving rare items in a support to teaching each other skills. That could get kind of confusing... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor Odinson Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 Definitely not GBA in terms of point-gathering; It was far too slow and other than the super mega fast pairs I have to go out of my way to get any support points to happen which sucks. Something that combines FEA and 12's would be nice. Ideally in terms of realistic interactions you'd be able to talk to everyone you want to talk to in a friendly manner, but romance a specific person(s) depending on the characters attitude towards romance. But I also see it hard to pull off in the FE support system in terms of sheer amount of writing, since you'd have to write alternate supports for romance options after someone gets to A/S (depending on system), etc, if certain supports clearly hint towards a romance from the start. On top of that, the sheer number of supports sometimes meant that the character development a character gets in their A support is suddenly lost when talking to someone else's C support -- though this could be ameliorated simply by having more diverse support content. The 5 support limit works a bit better for consistency, but the reason it works like that is that it's limited in terms of what you get to see from the character, and I'm fond of reading supports. I do like the whole elemental affinity thing, though. It's a hard balance to strike; I'm still trying to figure out how an optimal one for my tastes works myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NekoKnight Posted March 8, 2015 Author Share Posted March 8, 2015 I'd rather them teach each other their last skill slot or something but that's what I was getting at for keeping some character building in S ranks even without children. I don't think people would enjoy that because it would force you to support 2 people just to get the skill set you want. What support bonuses you want to get and skills you want to get are separate strategy elements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckc22 Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 (edited) I don't think people would enjoy that because it would force you to support 2 people just to get the skill set you want. What support bonuses you want to get and skills you want to get are separate strategy elements. How is this different from Awakening? Personally, I'd prefer receiving rare items in a support to teaching each other skills. That could get kind of confusing... Items just usually feel replaceable - especially in Awakening. I don't think it would drive any optimization/character building. Edited March 8, 2015 by ckc22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NekoKnight Posted March 9, 2015 Author Share Posted March 9, 2015 How is this different from Awakening? That has more to do with the production of 'optimal' children, not their relationship with each other. You shouldn't need to support with anyone to get the skills you want for that individual, is what I'm saying. For the record, I'm not in favor of children being in the next game. Items just usually feel replaceable - especially in Awakening. I don't think it would drive any optimization/character building. The way I see it is the item would be a bonus, not the point of the characterization. Awakening really went overboard on the item acquisition... The rewards should be something genuinely rare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckc22 Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 That has more to do with the production of 'optimal' children, not their relationship with each other. You shouldn't need to support with anyone to get the skills you want for that individual, is what I'm saying. For the record, I'm not in favor of children being in the next game. The way I see it is the item would be a bonus, not the point of the characterization. Awakening really went overboard on the item acquisition... The rewards should be something genuinely rare. Obviously if you're not making someone "optimal" you can pair them with whoever - and its not like there wouldn't be multiple people with the same skill to pass. And everyone would still have their classset and variety of skills also. Ehh... I feel like we'll be getting another Loot dlc so I'm thinking it wouldn't be that special. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florete Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 I don't think people would enjoy that because it would force you to support 2 people just to get the skill set you want. What support bonuses you want to get and skills you want to get are separate strategy elements. It doesn't "force" anything unless you particularly want a specific skill set, in which case that's just how you're playing and you probably don't much care about anything else. Different choices bring different results. Which characters support with which others has always resulted in different strategic outcomes for as long as the system has existed, and people rarely, if ever, complain that their favorite pairing isn't the most optimal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlipFlopMist Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 You know what'd be great to have less of? Dialogue in supports. It's really gross and distracting most of the time, especially with the forced "I love you's" that the voice actors tend to say on the S rank convo's. I love the VA's, they're really good when they're speaking sentences and in cutscenes, but when the game uses a stock "On it." line that's speaken in a monotone voice and barely connects to the situation at hand it, like, three times in a row, I find myself turning the volume all the way down so I can try to enjoy the text being thrown at me. It's a shame because I love FE's music... Persona Q kinda does this too at times, but more often they'll either just be completely silent or speak the entirety of the dialogue and rarely do this "Gah." "Oh, Lucina." "BWHAHAHAHAHA." bs that happens every few seconds in awakening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Respite&Nepenthe Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 You know what'd be great to have less of? Dialogue in supports. It's really gross and distracting most of the time, especially with the forced "I love you's" that the voice actors tend to say on the S rank convo's. I love the VA's, they're really good when they're speaking sentences and in cutscenes, but when the game uses a stock "On it." line that's speaken in a monotone voice and barely connects to the situation at hand it, like, three times in a row, I find myself turning the volume all the way down so I can try to enjoy the text being thrown at me. It's a shame because I love FE's music... Persona Q kinda does this too at times, but more often they'll either just be completely silent or speak the entirety of the dialogue and rarely do this "Gah." "Oh, Lucina." "BWHAHAHAHAHA." bs that happens every few seconds in awakening. Ideally, supports would be completely voiced, but that would be too expensive, I guess. I would definitely prefer silence to the overused voice clips, though. Maybe sound effects, depending on what they're doing in the support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.