Collect Quests In FE

[bethany81707]

In FE3 and FE6, the true ending and final boss was locked behind a collection quest. In FE3, it was the Starshards needed to repair the Starsphere. In FE6, it was the S-Rank weapons wielded during the Scouring. While the idea of locking the true ending behind something like this is hardly a beloved mechanic, I wonder...

If we made the reward for doing so smaller, would you find a collect quest engaging? What kind of reward would you want? How would you alter the act of collecting the treasures to make it more fun?

[Magical Glace]

I actually like the mechanic and hope it's done more.  

Rewarding the player for trying to get everything and just playing better in general is always a good thing.  I don't mind if the true ending is locked behind it, in fact I think that's a good thing to put as a reward.

So yeah, I actually don't have many problems with the way FE6 implements it, at least.  Dunno about 3.  The only thing I'd really change is maybe make what you need to do clearer, because some of the requisites (keep Miledy and Zeiss alive up through Chapter 21, for instance) aren't very intuitive.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I believe Berwick Saga actually does have optional collection quests. Either you steal from/capture/receive as a drop rare items from enemies, or you have step on a certain space to acquire a special resource. There are even a few quests that have other requirements. Gold is the most common reward, but you also get a slew of nice items too.

[Extrasolar]

I'm not a big fan of collect quests in general. Now, part of this could be due to me playing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker at a young, impressionable age and practically crying in strange, unsure confusion and rage at just how tedious and stupid the whole ending fetch quest was (I still love that game, and it's still one of my favorites), to the point that I didn't actually finish it until years afterward. b=But wow, do fetch quests tend to be tedious and awful.

Also not a big fan of ending lock based on something arbitrary, like "you failed to collect [x] of [y], so you don't get the true ending, but a sup-bar and underwritten ending so that you'll have to play the game from the beginning to unlock! Teehee, have fun!" Okay, okay, I'm done ranting about it. I'll admit that fetch quests by their principle tend to bring out a lot of salt within me.

But... I guess if you absolutely must do a fetch quest (why do it, when you can write something so much more interesting to lead up to a climax...), I'd say make it easy to complete as to cause as few headaches as possible, and make the items actually interesting and varied. Something like the Scouring weapons I definitely like flavor-wise, since not only are they legendary artifacts in and of themselves, but the hunt for them could lead to more plot building of those neat legendary heroes that we at times don't get enough development from.

[Reality]

I think SRPGS are a bad format for this kind of ending. I mean if you put random sub-bosses on maps for collecting the stuff, it would be awkward that way, and if you overlied on route splits/ gaiden chapters for it, then you'd have that problem. 

I mean, you could have goofy optional sub-map objectives. (Level at least twice with archers, capture units, reduce an enemy's weapon durability to 0, protect the green units,clear in X turns, etc) but that might leave a bad taste in people's mouths especially if you program the green team to try and help you attack instead of running away

Also the common ending itself and the true ending should probably both give some kind of validation to the player. Having your party die, or the bad guy escape instead of dying are not really a good way to go about this, even if there is precedent.

[Refa]

17 hours ago, Glaceon Mage said:

So yeah, I actually don't have many problems with the way FE6 implements it, at least.  Dunno about 3.  The only thing I'd really change is maybe make what you need to do clearer, because some of the requisites (keep Miledy and Zeiss alive up through Chapter 21, for instance) aren't very intuitive.

FE6 almost does it perfectly.  They're in Gaidens so they don't interfere with the main maps and provide additional gameplay (I personally don't enjoy a majority of the Gaiden maps, but that's neither here nor there), they give you some sick ass rewards even if you don't collect them all, and they provide the player with additional incentive to recruit all of the characters (or at least, the ones that matter) and keep them alive.  I also like how they don't force you to use the required characters in the chapters themselves, which they could have very easily have done and it could be a huge PITA if you were forced to field a weaker character that you hadn't trained.  My only issue is that they should have made the requirements clearer, such as what you said AND the turn count ones as well (for the turncount ones, that should just be displayed on the UI somehow IMO).