[FE Switch Discussion] The Avatar

[Slumber]

I really don't want an Avatar. If there is one, have it be like Mark. A mysterious person who just happens to be a master tactician that directs the combat in the chapters and manages units. That's the best way to have a stand-in in a strategy game. Having the stand-in be an uber powerful unit with no real personality or a decent story(To be honest, they could fix these things).

IF you're going to do it to where there's an actual unit, do it like Chris. Just a normal-ass unit whose stats and class you can influence at the start.

[Time the Crestfallen]

2 hours ago, Slumber said:

I really don't want an Avatar. If there is one, have it be like Mark. A mysterious person who just happens to be a master tactician that directs the combat in the chapters and manages units. That's the best way to have a stand-in in a strategy game. Having the stand-in be an uber powerful unit with no real personality or a decent story(To be honest, they could fix these things).

IF you're going to do it to where there's an actual unit, do it like Chris. Just a normal-ass unit whose stats and class you can influence at the start.

Kris was still pretty OP though (in my experience at least) and story-wise, Kris is arguably worse than Robin and Corrin combined, so let's not do it exactly like that...

Edited January 25, 2017 by The Blind Idiot God

[Sunwoo]

16 minutes ago, The Blind Idiot God said:

Kris was still pretty OP though (in my experience at least) and story-wise, Kris is arguably worse than Robin and Corrin combined, so let's not do it exactly like that...

Wasn't the problem with Kris's presence in-story the retconning of already existing story events in order to accommodate for and praise a MU that didn't exist in the original? So wouldn't the problem with Kris in terms of story only occur if you added a MU to any remake that didn't originally have one, and do what FE12 had Kris did to make the story about their accomplishments?

[Time the Crestfallen]

38 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Wasn't the problem with Kris's presence in-story the retconning of already existing story events in order to accommodate for and praise a MU that didn't exist in the original? So wouldn't the problem with Kris in terms of story only occur if you added a MU to any remake that didn't originally have one, and do what FE12 had Kris did to make the story about their accomplishments?

It's a lot bit worse than that. I'm exhausted though (pulling down a deck is hard work), so I'm just going to link to two comments that explain in detail:
https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/3126f4/character_discussion_fe12_chris/ (RJWalker's comment)
https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/391ou8/in_this_thread_you_explain_to_me_why_kris_fe12_is/ (Irysa's comment)

 

[Slumber]

47 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Wasn't the problem with Kris's presence in-story the retconning of already existing story events in order to accommodate for and praise a MU that didn't exist in the original? So wouldn't the problem with Kris in terms of story only occur if you added a MU to any remake that didn't originally have one, and do what FE12 had Kris did to make the story about their accomplishments?

This is more of what I meant. Chris in a new game would be fine, since he was essentially just Marth's sidekick. He didn't take front and center, and every single story element didn't revolve around him like Robin and Corrin. It was all about Marth, who was a static character and didn't have to be some faceless goob because he was supposed to be an everyman stand-in with no discernable traits. No, his sidekick got to be the faceless goob. The problems with Chris in the story are mostly because of the retcons, rather than anything that happened because of Chris, if that makes any sense. 

Also, as a unit, Chris is just way more interesting for having a (semi)set role. Robin and Corrin having unique classes and being able to do basically everything is incredibly boring. A Chris built to be a Fighter will be a bad Dark Mage. A Robin built to be a Fighter will make for a decent-to-good Dark Mage. 

But again, my preferred concept is the Mark concept. No battle presence, just make him an actual stand-in for us, the person controlling units on the field. 

Edited January 25, 2017 by Slumber

[Tolvir]

I think the avatar should return for the Switch game. While I agree for the remake of Gaiden, there shouldnt be one, I think dropping the avatar completely from Fire Emblem would be a mistake. It can be a good thing, it just needs work.

Make the avatar take a step back. Lets return to what Robin was before the Grima arc. Tactician/head advisor to the main lord. This way the Avatar is there, but not overly important. Give the avatar dialogue choices, we are on the Switch now it can be done. Give the avatar personality options, more customization options, no dedicated class like Grandmaster and Nohr Noble, no dedicated weapon like the Yato, make them like everyone else. Allow the player to choose a class though, and I would like to see color palette options. No more basic blue for the avatar classes.

 

[AlexArtsHere]

Why not just make any Avatar-specific weapon a morphing armament that becomes the primary weapon of their current class?

[saisymbolic]

2 hours ago, InfinityAlex said:

Why not just make any Avatar-specific weapon a morphing armament that becomes the primary weapon of their current class?

Because people will likely complain that the game is kissing the Avatar's ass, and that the main lord should get the Mighty Morphin' Armament instead.

That said, while it would be quite interesting to incorporate the idea, it might have some balancing issues. If they were to bring back the weapon system of Fates, they would have to figure out a way to make the armament functional enough to be used - so it isn't replaced by a forged Iron weapon - but they can't make it so OP that it invalidates any other weapon.

[OpheliaNohrPrincess]

I'm 100% positive the Avatar system is obviously here to stay whether another main lead Lord like Corrin or one like Robin I hope their personality is definitely to Robin the calm, smooth, suave, intelligent, cunning and strong MC. I for one like FE12s idea of different outfits/portraits base on class or at the very least customizable outfits for real diversity to them. The morphing Armament idea I had for a long time since Fates and goes into my idea of FE12s custom Avatar class system which I feel should definitely be taken into consideration since that has potential and uniqueness into what character YOU feel you want to be portrayed. As also for their Morgan/Kana kid please make them nameable if HM and RF can do it no excuse for OUR character! plus dialogue options for supports would be a dream even if small!

Edited January 26, 2017 by OpheliaNohrPrincess

[Light Strategist]

Since I saw this topic at random, it inspired a unique thought in me.

Combine various aspects or features of existing Avatar characters and see how it helps, but still develop the feature further to better use it in a more satisfactory way to more players.

 

Essentially, I feel that players should be able to define:

Race (Human, Laguz, Manakete etc.)

Appearance (pretty self-explanatory)

Breeding (Noble, Commoner etc.)

Class Access (I do feel that Avatars should have a personal class, but that it shouldn't be their default class)

Weapon abilities (to determine default proficiency with a weapon type)

Unique Weapon (make a few for the sake of variety and have them available regardless)

Personality (could vary dialogue in supports or the story)

Unique Colours (for your favourite classes)

Story Significance (Nonexistent, Low, Medium, High)

Children's names (assuming the feature remains)

and so on, it could be more immersive for those that want a more immersive experience.

 

Alternatively, there could be an option for a completely unrelated story that's sorta like an aftergame story, using an Avatar as the main character but is completely optional.

OR

They could pull a Gaiden and have 2 separate main characters operating at different areas with the Avatar being one of them.

 

Just a few thoughts.

[Anomalocaris]

Oh, one other idea I had, to help make the avatar's personal class a little less exclusive; assuming the children mechanic doesn't make a comeback and give us a mini-me, have one of the unrelated paralogue units be the same special class as the player's avatar, but otherwise an ordinary unit. And make it so that it can be passed to spouses/best friends with Partner/Friendship Seals, instead of the avatar's secondary class choice.

[Light Strategist]

8 hours ago, Anomalocaris said:

And make it so that it can be passed to spouses/best friends with Partner/Friendship Seals, instead of the avatar's secondary class choice.

To be fair, Corrin's wasn't passable because of it being their biology.

[AlexArtsHere]

4 hours ago, Light Strategist said:

To be fair, Corrin's wasn't passable because of it being their biology.

Well...could've worked in conjunction with First Blood. Then again, being able to give any character the ability to transform into a dragon would be pretty boring and stale.

[Anomalocaris]

5 hours ago, Light Strategist said:

To be fair, Corrin's wasn't passable because of it being their biology.

Well, yes. But I'm operating under the assumption that this new avatar's personal class wouldn't be directly tied to their biology.

[Light Strategist]

5 hours ago, InfinityAlex said:

Well...could've worked in conjunction with First Blood.

Interesting concept. That idea could have lead to more Wyrmslayer heavy maps though, which, aside from Chapter 5, I didn't really see many of...

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I'm in the camp of no more avatars and/or no more avatars that are also main characters. But if I wrote an avatar, I'd write them as a member of an enemy nation at first. Have us be captured by the real heroes while playing through prologue chapters as a class of our choosing. Have us be a character written as a devoted, patriotic soldier that witnesses something indefensible that challenges our world view. I want comrades of the good nation to distrust and hate us for the majority of the game. I want moments of key decision making, but not the kind that advances the plot in a new direction. For instance, in Conquest where 

Spoiler

you choose whether Shura should live or die after you've captured him. Letting him live has no drawbacks which is silly given the context of Conquest's storytelling and themes, but at least worked mechanically. Killing him nets you boots, a very good and rare item that makes you seriously consider the choice on hard difficulties. Shura's good, but not overwhelmingly so as a unit. 

I think choices like that one would validate having a role to play in the first place. Oh and no private quarters. You get a bunk like all the other soldiers. Base stuff is A-okay with me, spending millions of time/money on modeling, writing, and voice acting for each character is not okay. Talking to comrades is cool, but leave it in text so that I don't have a tantrum when that content is too bad to justify its existence. 

Edited January 29, 2017 by Gustavos

[Jayvee94]

I know we usually have great knights but I want Axe Cavaliers

[Fly_or_Die]

I actually like the avatar as an idea, and thought Robin in Awakening got pretty close to a good implementation of the concept. I just want the avatar to stay out of the story apart from support conversations so that the main lord is the main character (I think Awakening's story towards the end started getting confused about who was the main character).

We'll just have to wait and see how IS handles the avatar this time around. I really doubt they're going to get rid of the avatar completely ... it's been around for 3 games in a row and Fates even revolved around Corrin.

[OpheliaNohrPrincess]

As me and everyone said already the FE16 Avatar should feel more like a real Avatar especially all the great ideas listed its definitely what I want to see and shouldn't be hard to implement on the Switch! Seriously:

Eye color/skin tone

Keep how secondary class picking is now

(All apply to their kid)

Personality options

More facial marking/tattoos

More hair/accessories (give males accessories and better hair options).

More body builds like Awakening.

As I stated different portrait armor/outfits based on your favored primary class FE12 style plus pallet color choice.

FE12s growth rate choosing via questionnaire (should now determine personal skill as well)

Dialogue options. 

That's fantastic

Edited January 29, 2017 by OpheliaNohrPrincess

[NinjaMonkey]

On ‎25‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 5:06 AM, BANRYU said:

I can't be the only person who's sick of the forced-blue palette of the 3DS games

Having only played Awakening out of the 3DS games, I have to ask, what forced-blue palette?

9 hours ago, OpheliaNohrPrincess said:

FE12s growth rate choosing via questionnaire (should now determine personal skill as well)

Considering that the game never tells what answer corresponds to which growth rates, why would you want that?

Edited January 30, 2017 by NinjaMonkey

[BANRYU]

3 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Having only played Awakening out of the 3DS games, I have to ask, what forced-blue palette?

If you've played Awakening, there's some chance you'll have run into it, tbh. Most characters in the 3DS games have a unique body model for their set classes and/or intended upgrade classes (IE Lissa's Battle Cleric model has a yellow dress, and her Sage model resembles Emmeryn's), but if you switch a character to a class that they don't have a special model for, the clothing/armor color defaults to a pretty generic blue/gray color scheme (going off the previous example, if you reclass someone like Miriel or Cherche into a Battle Cleric, their dress is blue). 

In the case of Robin/the player character, pretty much every class except I think like... Tactician+Grandmaster and Dark Mage+Sorc will have some substantial amount of blue to their outfits. And like... to an extent I get it, since that's probably Ylissean colors? But Fire Emblem has always had playable characters specially-colored without regards for uniforms lol (the whole red + green cavaliers thing happens in most of the games and really makes you wonder what uniform policy is lol), so it just makes me ask why can't we do that for our personalized character too. 

[OpheliaNohrPrincess]

2 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Having only played Awakening out of the 3DS games, I have to ask, what forced-blue palette?

Considering that the game never tells what answer corresponds to which growth rates, why would you want that?

Because it worked before? and the internet plus datamining exists? so it doesn't bother me...

Edited January 30, 2017 by OpheliaNohrPrincess

[Anomalocaris]

Regarding story, I feel like Awakening did that okay. Yeah, Robin starts to take the spotlight toward the end, but that's after two whole arcs of being a secondary character, so it at least feels like an organic development, unlike Corrin being shoved to the center from the very start.

I still would prefer an avatar who remains secondary even toward the end of the game, just wanted to defend Awakening's choice as working within the context of the game.

[IV-Red]

I'm glad to read a lot of people against the existence of an avatar altogether. I, too, think it seriously hurts the story and unless it's DIRECTLY a storyteller character or practically inexistent like FE7's Mark, chances are it'll lead to the same spotlight excess seen in Awakening and Fates.

The problem with a self-insert avatar is that it causes a need for the narrative to revolve strongly against them. It's different from a protagonist. The protagonist is the character who's quest you're watching; it's hard to tell a story without a protagonist or with too many of them because there's no clear start or end, making it hard to have a story climax. But a protagonist still shares the spotlight. Ike, as protagonist of Path of Radiance was the one who's quest we were watching, but wasn't always the most important guy around. Sometimes it was more important to watch Naesala, Tibarn and Reyson's scenes, sometimes what was goin on with other countries was more important than him, sometimes he was quiet because he had nothing in particular to add to the scene, leaving it up to the other characters to have their development, opinions and overall spotlight time. The same goes with Blazing Sword's interesting three-lord approach (granted, in the GBA ones there was less varied-character dialogue, but it existed nonetheless) and many other early FE titles.

It's different with a self-insert avatar. By making it exist to start with, you're forced to give them all the spotlight; 'cause you're telling the gamer "this story is about YOU". It's a type of importance that goes way beyond that a protagonist; they're not the quest person, they're the more-important-than-anybody-else person. This CAN be handled tastefully, but the FE series has proven not to have a neat way to make avatars work. Robin was handled MUCH better than Corrin, but in general hey, can't blame them, that's just what self-insert avatars do to a story. But what is this damage I'm talkin about? What's the actual disadvantage of having 1 character who is more important than everybody else? Why is it bad, when having a character's story (protagonist) be the spine of the whole game is good? Because it absolutely erases the voice of most other characters. That's what it does. In Fates, in-between maps, in the development of the story, who talks? Corrin and their family members, mostly. (Thank god the family members got their share of spotlight!) The other army characters only speak when it's their recruitment chapter or if they're filling a plot-tool role, such as Kaze saving Corrin, but other than that, nothing to say, no opinions, no life, no development of their own. How about Awakening? Did Tharja and Henry seriously have NOTHING to say or do when their god was about to awaken? No character complexity or development from going against Plegia, but then knowing Robin was their actual god all the time? There are no scenes for the others, usually just their first scene and that's that, even when it's something they might wanna have some self-expression in, such as Oboro when recruiting nohrians. Because the avatar must be the one to speak, and their closest of course.

It might have a lot to do with the way supports work in avatar-centric stories. There's a lot more conversations, a lot more writing, leaving less time and space for in-story writing. Though I don't consider it a fair trade, personally I think getting development, participation and a voice in the actual story is much better than having everybody silent and only get to have a personality and their own actions in the supports...

I know it's nice to have a customizable character, I know it's fun, i know it's food for the ego and a real easy way to get people interested in the game, but it's something I really have to reject in order to support a proper story.

But what chances do avatars have of being in the Switch FE game? I've no idea if avatars are present in handheld FE games cause of something to do with the handheld's capacity in some way, or just because they're the most recent ones. I've no idea whether the Switch FE being a console FE influences the existence of avatars or not D: Does anybody know anything about this? Whether avatars are a handheld-game thing or if it has nothing to do with that?

Edited January 31, 2017 by IV-Red

[AlexArtsHere]

2 hours ago, IV-Red said:

Did Tharja and Henry seriously have NOTHING to say or do when their god was about to awaken? No character complexity or development from going against Plegia, but then knowing Robin was their actual god all the time? There are no scenes for the others, usually just their first scene and that's that, even when it's something they might wanna have some self-expression in, such as Oboro when recruiting nohrians. Because the avatar must be the one to speak, and their closest of course.

This is more to do with the death mechanic really. While it would be relatively easy to have an event flag depending on a character's existential state, I can see why IS may not want to write dialogue for characters who may not necessarily be at the event, barring the group rallying cry parts of Awakening and Fates.