I don't feel entirely satisfied with the current direction of FE

[Augestein]

Maybe it would help to not think of it as forcing yourself. I consider no-grind a playstyle a more fun way to play the game, not a forced attempt to make it interesting, because it passes up on help that consumes time and isn't needed (and feels cheap to you).

It's very easy to ignore Fates' skirmishes, although they are annoying in Awakening when they block your shops.

This. Fates does it well. Sure the map looks pretty bad now comparatively to Awakening, but at least they don't block the damn shops.

[shadowofchaos]

An option to turn off EXP like how Conquest does it in My Castle battles would have been nice to let me get support points in a no-grind.

However, I do support their approach to Conquest that allows newcomers a way out of getting stuck if their skill level isn't at a level that will let them enjoy the story and characters if that is what they are playing for.

The difference is that I wouldn't be able to change the conditions once I began without making an entirely new save file. With a self imposed challenge in the form of what we currently have, I can technically break the rules at any time and that cheapens the challenge for me.

Then it's on you.

Most if not all challenge runs in the FE community are self imposed.

Edited November 13, 2016 by shadowofchaos

[Pixelman]

I voted "Good but flawed in some ways". I'm pretty much satisfied with what I got from Fates, though I do recognize its problems. I enjoy its story but it's not good. At all.

As long as gameplay is good (and this goes for any game I play) I don't care much about the story. The only exceptions to this rule are like the Phoenix Wright games.

But TBH I don't care which direction the FE games go next because I don't give a shit. The fanservice can be Queen's Blade level of fanservice and I still wouldn't care.

EDIT: It would actually be pretty hilarious to see the reaction of the fanbase if fanservice in FE actually went down that road

Edited November 20, 2016 by Pixelman

[Topaz Light]

Er, you do know that there isn't a single Fire Emblem game in the series where it's literally impossible to grind, right? Even the Tellius games still allow boss abuse grinding in some chapters.

[TheVinceKnight]

Yeah of course Fates is a bit gimmicky it a lot of ways, and Conquest is hell especially if you play it blind, but gameplay wise it is pretty solid.

Sure I would like the idea of weapons with Con to restrict everyone from using the same weapon in the same way or something like that and while I am biased for Telling it was far too easy.

It would be nice to see something different because I'm not the biggest fan of the pair up system and it's a little sketchy.

[Harvey]

It would be nice to see something different because I'm not the biggest fan of the pair up system and it's a little sketchy.

I thought the pair up is improved in Fates and a lot more balanced imo.

Even though I highly dislike Final Fantasy Tactics, I feel the IS should observe that game or even Blazing sword to that matter and just make more chapters simply because it can help in not rushing the story up and polish it better and that it helps to offer map varieties rather than simply giving long maps most of the time.

I don't mind long maps so long as it is the way its done in Conquest since battle saves are available and all and that most players will most likely play it on Casual mode due to its high difficulty, but by doing those, you limit the amount of chapters the overall game can have and those chapters can easily rush the story and ruin it.

While some can argue that the amount of chapters doesn't really ruin the overall story, in Fates case it kinda did because it left out so many questions that ended up being plot holes...like what Garon used to be before he was ruthless so you could get to see the good side of him like how Zephiel was explained (granted, you need to play both Blazing Sword and Binding Blade to get his character but still.)

[Harvey]

Or...just add new mechanics like the dragon veins.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Harvey

[Harvey]

Oh...and bring back weapon durability as well as it more challenging and balanced than not having that but having stat changes...

Edited November 26, 2016 by Harvey

[Quintessence]

Man, triple posting is a no-no. Hit the edit button on the first post to add the text in the 2nd and 3rd post, and then request a mod to delete them.

[henrymidfields]

Actually, I just had a thought:

If the IS team is to bring back weapon weight, can we improve weapon constitution capability a bit? Instead of relying entirely on Constitution (which makes smaller units constantly suffer attack speed penalty) or on Strength (which is probably not going to do mages (or even speed-oriented units) any favours) can we combine the two? Such as:

Attack Speed = Stat Speed - (Weight - (Constitution + Strength/N))
(N: choose whatever divisor appropriate for gameplay balance. I personally say 3-4 for the GBA games. Maybe 2-3 for Binding Blade, considering the generally low stat growth of the player's recruits?)

Because surely there are small people who are ALSO strong weightlifters, no? Plus, for units in the GBA games who otherwise have to contend with holding an Iron Sword/Lance all the time due to low Constitution, the above equation potentially gives them a chance to use stronger weapons without the AS penalty, or at least with a smaller one. For tomes, the Attack Speed capability should be running on Magic instead.

Edited December 5, 2016 by henrymidfields

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Seriously the idea of constitution as weapon weight buffer never ever worked in my eyes. In the GBA series and some hacks some units are automatically disqualified because of their low con and their speed reduction as the result. The reason is that the weight of most weapons is way too high. It can't be that a mage can't even use a fire tome (Lute) without speed reduction. Iron weapons, flux and fire have to be used by EVERYONE without speed penalty. Otherwise this system kills the point of existence of certain units, and so we have the same result like in FE10 in a different way.

If I could change the weapon weight system, then I'd do it like here.

FE14's idea of speed (de)buffing as fairer since it affects everyone. However it'd be nicer if double attacks with some weapons still were possible.

[Rollertoasteur]

They also added too many gimmicks in general, Dragon Veins & Rev as a whole. Less of those would be great.

I actually enjoyed Dragon Veins for the most part. They made certain maps feel more dynamic and added an extra layer of strategy to some chapters. Other chapters though... well, that Camilla chapter in Birthright that basically turned into the world's worst game of "red light, green light" was a bit of a low point.

[ping]

Seriously the idea of constitution as weapon weight buffer never ever worked in my eyes. In the GBA series and some hacks some units are automatically disqualified because of their low con and their speed reduction as the result. The reason is that the weight of most weapons is way too high. It can't be that a mage can't even use a fire tome (Lute) without speed reduction. Iron weapons, flux and fire have to be used by EVERYONE without speed penalty. Otherwise this system kills the point of existence of certain units, and so we have the same result like in FE10 in a different way.

Yeah I pretty much agree with this. Low Con feels far too punishing in the GBA games, especially because it tends to punished classes that were supposed to be speedier than comparable ones. Peg Knights vs. Wyvern Knights is probably the most obvious example.

Another possible implementation I could think of: Make the weight more unified across the different weapon types. Iron weapons can always be wielded without speed loss, Steels reduce speed by 5, killers by 2, silvers by 3 (just to throw out some numbers) and the Con stat (going from 0 to theoretically 5, but in reality almost never more than 2 even for the bulkiest characters) can buffer these numbers the same way it does in the GBA games. That way, weapon weight wouldn't be as influencial, but unlike the Strength-based system in the Tellius games, it wouldn't be completely irrelevant by the midgame.

Or, y'know, just keep the Fates system because it seems just fine and maybe it's not a good idea to just add more and more parameters to the combat mechanisms. ;)

[Jotari]

Actually, I just had a thought:

If the IS team is to bring back weapon weight, can we improve weapon constitution capability a bit? Instead of relying entirely on Constitution (which makes smaller units constantly suffer attack speed penalty) or on Strength (which is probably not going to do mages (or even speed-oriented units) any favours) can we combine the two? Such as:

Attack Speed = Stat Speed - (Weight - (Constitution + Strength/N))

(N: choose whatever divisor appropriate for gameplay balance. I personally say 3-4 for the GBA games. Maybe 2-3 for Binding Blade, considering the generally low stat growth of the player's recruits?)

Because surely there are small people who are ALSO strong weightlifters, no? Plus, for units in the GBA games who otherwise have to contend with holding an Iron Sword/Lance all the time due to low Constitution, the above equation potentially gives them a chance to use stronger weapons without the AS penalty, or at least with a smaller one. For tomes, the Attack Speed capability should be running on Magic instead.

I like this idea. Doesn't screw over mages (assuming tomes don't get ridiculously heavy which they sometimes do) and doesn't completely destroy light weight units. However, since constitution is a less utilized stat I feel it should be given more importance over strength (and it's likely to be quite a bit lower than strength starting from midgame) so I'd have the divider apply only to strength. Of course it would need extensive testing to figure out exactly what works, you don't want it so nobody ever loses attack speed either but I think you're on the right track by combining both systems. And it also probably goes without saying but Con should have a small growth rate like it did in Thracia.

Yeah I pretty much agree with this. Low Con feels far too punishing in the GBA games, especially because it tends to punished classes that were supposed to be speedier than comparable ones. Peg Knights vs. Wyvern Knights is probably the most obvious example.

Another possible implementation I could think of: Make the weight more unified across the different weapon types. Iron weapons can always be wielded without speed loss, Steels reduce speed by 5, killers by 2, silvers by 3 (just to throw out some numbers) and the Con stat (going from 0 to theoretically 5, but in reality almost never more than 2 even for the bulkiest characters) can buffer these numbers the same way it does in the GBA games. That way, weapon weight wouldn't be as influencial, but unlike the Strength-based system in the Tellius games, it wouldn't be completely irrelevant by the midgame.

Or, y'know, just keep the Fates system because it seems just fine and maybe it's not a good idea to just add more and more parameters to the combat mechanisms. ;)

Nonsense. Dozens of small parameters you wouldn't even notice are awesome! Bring back the biorhythm!

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Biorhythm was terrible in FE10's hard mode without the weapon triangle. It could even revert the weapon triangle if you fight with an unit (with weapon advantage in easy and normal) who has worst biorhythm against someone with best.

Honestly Idc for it but in my eyes biorhythm was just an artifical mechanic to increase the luck factor in this game.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Ayama Wirdo

[CappnRob]

Toot toot, old time fan here who hasn't been able to play any of your new fangled Fire Emblems because games were better when we didn't have fun with them.

Jokes aside though, while I haven't been able to play any FE past Path of Radiance and therefore can't really comment on too many MECHANICAL changes the series has gone through, I've stayed in touch at least with FE's development over the years and there are things that.... don't please me, at all.

1: AVATAR characters. I don't strictly dislike these on principle, however I feel that they have been handled completely irresponsibly in the games they've been featured in. I rather liked The Tactician in Blazing Sword, because he was something of an outside entity that functioned as a player surrogate for experiencing the story. Main characters "talked" to you, but the Tactician's "character" was wholly expressed through you playing the game - he didn't have any dialogue, he didn't have any pre-set character traits that detract from the "player character" experience. That's my beef with characters like Corrin - they are, functionally, for all intents and purposes, a MOSTLY pre-written character. So what's the point is being able to customize them and make them your own, when you truly can't? I really dislike this trend in RPGs where you have your feet in two ponds - you are neither a total blank slate to work with, nor are you a pre-determined character that you simply guide the choices of. Pick one or the other, don't mingle in both. If future games are to include avatars, I would want them to be more like the Tactician - a silent, passive role in the story whose actions are defined by PLAYING THE GAME. And don't even get me started on Kris, who apparently caused retcons in Mystery of the Emblem's story to accommodate them? Either way, Fire Emblem, imo, is not YOUR story - its stories about lords and commoners, kingdoms rising and falling and the people caught up in between. Keep player insert power fantasy heroics out of it.

1.2: An addendum to above because it counts as much as its own thing as it does part of the Avatar Problem: DATING SIMULATOR SYNDROME. When characters could pair up and have kids in FE4, it mattered because those kids had to carry on the legacy of their fallen/defeated parents. There was weight to them existing mechanically and narratively, and the whole game was BUILT around that. Now I love supports in Fire Emblem (Blazing Sword is my favorite in the series just for how well written the Supports are), and I love me some shipping in Fire Emblem too (one of the few things I actually care about it in), but Awakening and Fates seem to have just degraded this into "muh waifu" nonsense. I suppose part of this is more of a change in the culture of the FANDOM than the games themself, but it does feel like the weight and importance of forming bonds between characters has been diluted in favor of fanservice, especially because the Avatar characters can literally ship with literally anyone it seems. Again, its player insert fantasy, something I feel is absolutely out of place in Fire Emblem.

2: RECLASSING. Now I like some ideas behind reclassing, namely I liked the branching promotions that Sacred Stones offered.... for the most part. But the recent trend of being able to change anyone into anything and repeatedly promote them over and over just.... feels absolutely un-Fire Emblem to me. Now yes, I don't know the specifics of how this works mechanically - I am sure there is some means of preventing abuse - but the IDEA is still wrong, to me. Characters are a certain class for a reason. Oswin is an armor knight because he's a stalwart vassal of his noble house and has a tough, stern, stubborn disposition. Classes are both an important part of forming your strategy and a reflection on the character's... well, character. Oswin would never ditch the heavy armor so he could run around shirtless and hit people with swords.

3: SPECIAL SKILL CREEP. Now I LOVE the skills system as a concept, however I think its become REALLY bloated over recent years. In Genealogy of the Holy War, while yes some skills were stupidly balanced (hellloooo tying double attacks to pursuit, helllooooo the OPness that is Moonlight/Meteor Sword), they worked as a concept because skills were generally small things that helped diversify characters and make them special. Only a handful of people had Nihil, or Continue/Adept, or Wrath, etc. The Tellius games I think brought in the just right amount of new skills: provoke was really good, as was its counterpart, Shade. But all the stuff in Awakening? The skill bloat is REAL: almost EVERYONE has skills now, and a LOT of them, and theres SO many weird niche ones like "do EVEN BETTER with axes" or "fight EVEN BETTER indoors" that just dilute the tactical appreciation I have for skills. They're less special nuances to how a character functions and now are just straight up means of stacking power creep to make everyone a super badass. And yes, FE4 G2 did have that in theory as well: a large part of the pairing meta is getting kids with great skill combinations, but at least there the pool of skills was still rather small, AND concise. Plus, the G2 half of the game really amps up the difficulty to make having all these skill combinations interesting and useful.

4: This is my big one, personally. PRESENTATION. You know what I miss in Fire Emblem? The old artwork, specifically the Elibe-Magvel-Tellius stuff. (I guess the DS remakes of FE1/3 fall into here as well). While anime influences have always been apparent (one need not look farther than the og Lord himself, Marth, to see that coif of blue on his head), it has always been generally subdued. Fire Emblem has a very strong western influence: its medieval European influences are as plain as day (or Roman Empire ones if you're talking Akaneia Saga hue). No, it was never SUPER REALISTIC, and you had plenty of unarmored swordguys being awesome at fighting with their long badass swordsman hair, but there was a balance. People never looked "anime cool", like a Final Fantasy character. Fire Emblem, while not often very realistic, FELT realistic. It was about armies of men coming at each other, fighting over differences in culture and values. Sure there was almost always an evil demon god/dragon/wizard/combination of those therein that was pulling the strings behind the scenes you'd ultimately go fight, but they didn't dominate the scene even when their influences were most blatant. When Hadrian was blatantly possessed by the goddamn devil with his red glowing eyes and spiky red armor, there was still an element of humanity at play here because Hadrian was still Marth's old comrade and friend, because the men he was throwing at Marth were still just loyal soldiers to their cause and it was you or them. That vibe has been lost in Fire Emblem, I feel. Now yes, I know Awakening was a big huge kind of tongue in cheek game that was never meant to be taken too seriously, and yes I know some of the designs in Fates are actually quite good - but there's still shit like Camilla. Camilla and her goddamn jiggle armor. Camilla and her goddamn BATTLE THONG. Camilla and her goddamn coronet that looks like cat ears. The otaku/weeaboo/whatever you want to call it pandering, the fanservice, in modern Fire Emblem, is undeniable. Characters feel less like characters, more like fetishized exaggerations of characters. The art is just not as good - not for lack of detail, on a technical level, Fates and Awakening's art is rather nicely drawn - but on an EMOTIONAL level. There's a lot of bland moe sameface going on. Everyone's "cute". Few characters stand out. Compare to FE6/7/8/9/10's characters: they don't evoke popular design trends of their times. They're daresay timeless. Fates and Awakening however, are doomed to be "extremely mid-late 2010s" in design. Ok yeah, sure, the super old FEs had some dated designs too (Everyone in FE4 has a serious case of 90s shojo prettyface going on, and to say nothing about Deen and his supermullet from Gaiden), but at least those designs remained sensible to the setting: Cuan and Sigurd dressed like poncey ass pimps with capes because they were noblility having to look their best. Ardan wore full armor because he's a simple common knight. Ayra wore exotic robes and light armor because she's from Judgral's local not-Asia, Issach. Maybe I'm dragging this out a bit. Maybe I didn't express or word my complaints about the art and presentation as clearly as I'd liked. But it is what it is, and I dearly miss that most low-key, sensible character art design from the mid-2000s games very much.

Wew, that was a lot to say.

[geraq]

Well, I haven't myself played FE11-14 but I have seen/read about them, so I can only agree with what CappnRob said.

[Quintessence]

@ CappnRob lol nope, there are zero means that any FE game has to prevent abusing reclassing. I hate reclassing, it's dumb how it's handled nowadays; imo it adds more garbage to the game rather than make it a more enriching and diversifying experience. The best reclassing I've seen is TMS#FE and SS, and this is the point where I like the concept, but not the convoluted revolution of class change in Awakening and Fates.

[shadowofchaos]

I agree with a lot of CappnRob said with varying degrees.

However the one thing I will contest is skill bloat. It began in FE10 with Mastery Skills and Nihil/Fortune + Luck HP recover that is Mantle boss spam at the end of the game.

[CappnRob]

Like I said, I haven't played any FE since 9 because I don't have the needed hardware (poorlife yo), I just assumed Radiant Dawn would have the same skills as PoR. Apparently not, though!

[Jotari]

Like I said, I haven't played any FE since 9 because I don't have the needed hardware (poorlife yo), I just assumed Radiant Dawn would have the same skills as PoR. Apparently not, though!

Mostly it is the same skills but the key difference is that everyone automatically gets a mastery skill when hitting tier 3 and the mastery skills in general were buffed to basically kill anything in one round. To balance this all the major enemies were given a skill to negate enemy skills and in turn the player would need a similar skill to safely engage them leading to a strange type of power creep.

[eclipse]

This is one of those times I say "try it before you knock it". Reclassing gives a lot more flexibility to the player, even if it is at serious odds with the story (see: Hardin decides to lay down his lance for a staff). Learning how to use it properly gives the player some hilarious choices. IMO, it's a good thing, and the reason why Shadow Dragon is listed as my favorite FE game.

Also, FE games up to 12 can be emulated, which means you don't need to deal with the hardware issues. We can't tell you where to get the ROMs, but that's what your search engine of choice is for!

[Magical Glace]

Reclassing needs to go tbh, I was optimistic going into FE11, but niether it nor any game after it did it well. FE11 didn't properly limit it, FE13 just made the whole thing broken by adding the infinite levels and skill tying bit.

It also causes story problems at times.

[CappnRob]

In my opinion Fire Emblem isn't SUPPOSED to be flexible. It's supposed to make you work with what you have. What's the point of working hard to keep your healers safe if you can just transform one of your tanky characters into a healer? You have a finite amount of characters who serve distinct, pre-determined roles, and its using those characters effectively and efficiently that forms the core of success in Fire Emblem.

[Quintessence]

In my opinion Fire Emblem isn't SUPPOSED to be flexible. It's supposed to make you work with what you have. What's the point of working hard to keep your healers safe if you can just transform one of your tanky characters into a healer? You have a finite amount of characters who serve distinct, pre-determined roles, and its using those characters effectively and efficiently that forms the core of success in Fire Emblem.

So very true, I agree with this BUT I think it can be healthy to have a small dose of flexibility with class change. FE surely isn't (or shouldn't be) the classic game where you have 10 or 12 classes and you can do whatever you like with your units and jump from one job to another, because that's another type of game despite still being an RPG, and it also kills FE's essence. However I think a unit can have the chance to promote at max into 2 options intimately related but with slight differences, and not options that are polar opposites like Paladin vs Dark Paladin/Knight. Why? Because classes themeselves have a pre determined role and a defined personality, and there's no coherence that a character with a noble attitude, that protects someone, defends the defenseless and fights for justice comes to be a knight whose main role is channeling destructive spells, use magic swords and be quite fiendish; or a natural healer that becomes a sorcerer expert at casting sofisticated magic while its role is to be sort of a White Mage or something. I think opposite promotions work well in games like TMS#FE where characters are highly developped and one can understand them playing different roles. But in a cast of big numbers where the character development is not touched in the same way, it is better to stay into 1 promotion option or 2, at best.

Reclassing needs to go tbh, I was optimistic going into FE11, but niether it nor any game after it did it well. FE11 didn't properly limit it, FE13 just made the whole thing broken by adding the infinite levels and skill tying bit.

It also causes story problems at times.

Lol yeah my issue is also the visual part. First, characters get a standard outfit and second, their portrait and artwork doesn't change and it feels off seeing Kellam wearing a heavy armor while in the animation you see him as a battle monk.