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Why are supports still considered to be a good form of storytelling in FE?


Benice
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I'll probably go open a whole "Supports" thread elsewhere to talk about this in a broader and more fleshed-out sense.

Carrying over from the "hypothetical FE4 remake" thread, as well as several conversations I've had with people around these forums and elsewhere, I pose a question!

...And if you read the title of the thread, you know what that question is already. Note that this thread is about the impact of supports on Story, not really gameplay.

 

Anyways, something I hear very often when people talk about enjoyment of FE and what they hope to see in future FE games is supports, namely hoping that there are more of them. However, I do not really understand WHY this is. To me, Supports are extremely limiting in a variety of ways, are overly formulaic and cause a host of problems that are largely just products of the way they function. In exchange for that, I find that supports provide very little in terms of characterization over other methods. To shamelessly quote myself from the FE4 remake thread: (Spoiled for size, apologies about formatting...)

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To me, supports are simply a very poor way of building characters in a wide variety of ways. Every iteration of supports thus far has had at least one major flaw: GBA's being extremely limited and hard to attain, FE9...Well, I get into this one more later, FE13/14 and the awkward spots to break up the conversation, FE15 is another I'll cover later, and FE16's massive inflation of supports in an attempt to better flesh out the cast. Ignoring the quality of the writing of said supports, the flaws I talked about are all ones that come from the system. While different games have addressed some of these issues, the system continues to show cracks. There is one other structural issue I have with 'em, but that'll come up a little later.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with supports is very simple: They're far too limiting in every single game they're in. Supports allow for only one-on-one conversations, must be broken up in similar ways, and don't actually flow with the game. They limit the interactions characters can have, they limit what control over the plot the devs can have, they limit ways to integrate the world into the support.

Regarding the interactions and how they're broken up: Three Houses is the one that suffered from this the most in my opinion, but it's present in basically every game. Three Houses aimed to make every character fleshed out and make sure everyone interacted with everyone. To do this, they had to have so many supports. After basically any given map in the earlygame, you'll have ~10-20 supports to read, and many of them will hold the same tone. Even for characters you like, it can be tiring to see extremely similar interactions occur ad nauseam. This also means that characters tend to become more one-note. Had TH scrapped supports as the characterization system and had instead had Heart-To-Hearts from the Xenoblade series, it would have been much more enjoyable, in my opinion. If you don't know how H-t-H convos work, they're basically supports that feature a variety of characters and interactions. Rather than having to have Hilda say "I'm lazy!" about ten times in her C supports, we could have had a group conversation where, for example, most of the Golden deer house participates. Characters don't need to be in just one group, though-For example, there could be one where all the "bookworm" characters meet up and talk about books they'd read or something, three-way convos between the house leaders, etc.. What's more is that these can be a one-off conversation or permeate through the entirety of part one, to anywhere in-between.

tl;dr, limiting supports to just two people makes deep characterization with the support system a nightmare. One-on-one conversations aren't inherently bad at all, but relying almost entirely on them to develop a cast of 30 characters is a bad idea.

 

Finally, Supports do not flow with the game. There are examples of this in every FE with support convos thus far. Supports that don't match the tone of a moment in a game, Supports that occur way too close or far from other supports in the chain, supports that end up being repetitive, and most of all, are nearly completely irrelevant to the plot. Because the developers have very limited control over when one can view a support, side characters cannot actually grow over the course of a game unless there is a timeskip or something similar. After every support, characters reset their growth. Another thing with this is that it could allow subplots to play out parallel to main story. The main story can be about the lord and a continent-spanning war...But beneath that, we can see the conflict in the life of an impoverished mercenary who fights for the main lord to earn his keep for his family. These events can feature exactly one playable character and have the rest be NPCs, feature multiple playables, or even none. One of the reasons that Berwick Saga left such a huge mark on me is because it does this. The main story is predominantly the main Lord's, as well as a few other prominent characters, but that is merely one story, with everyone else having one as well-Even the random shopkeepers in Berwick Saga's base city, Navaron. Despite the fact that Garreg Mach was a place I could walk around and explore, Navaron felt more like a real place than Garreg because of how it fleshed out everyone in it-Nobles, shopkeepers, thieves, knights, orphans... It was teeming with life in a way that was incredibly special. I could live in Navaron, and I'd know many people in it, not just playable characters.

Things like Paralogues or character events can occur during the main story and be a part of it, rather than apart from it. Three Houses DOES do this every so often, such as with Miklan, but most of the time, stuff like Paralogues are simply just a completely unrelated map, sometimes with almost no story, even.

So, in summary of this little segment, Play Berwick Saga because it's fantastic Supports vastly hinder the devs' ability to create characters with arcs, develop NPCs and build worlds.

 

 

In essence, what I'm trying to say is that supports massively limit how the devs make the characters function and create subplots. They can't truly show a character's growth when heavily leaning on supports, they can't develop NPCs with heavy reliance on supports and they make it so that characters are irrelevant to the main plot and don't contribute to it, barring a few moments. I really did not enjoy the story or cast of Three Houses at all, but the moments where it was at its best were when it attempted to shy away from supports. If the next FE doesn't use supports and instead relies on events that occur, (Conditionally or otherwise) at pro

per times, I think that it would propel the series to so much more than what it is now.

Supports are merely a burden for what the series is attempting to do with its characters and plots.

EDIT: And I do know that Three Houses does make some things time-sensitive and locks supports behind certain chapters, but that kind of only supports my point that Supports as they are aren't any good.

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If you didn't want to read that unnecessarily long tirade about supports, or it was more incoherent than I am aware of, I am essentially complaining about how they restrict characterization of NPCs, require massive amounts of supports to fully flesh out a cast of 30+ characters and how they frequently appear at...awkward times, as well as characters being largely unable to actually have a full character arc due to how supports reset development at each C support. I am aware that Three Houses did try to move away from the whole "supports arriving at a time that makes more sense", but that kinda proves that the system is fundamentally off-kilter and that non-support systems function better. Even looking at other series that take great pride in story and characters, they don't require supports to function.

 

But a conversation with oneself on a topic you agree on isn't very helpful! So, from the perspective of folks who do prefer supports as a method of characterization over events and whatnot, why is that? Or, if you don't like supports or my suggested replacement for characterization, what sort of system would you implement?

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for me personally, supports were never about "storytelling".

rather than expanding/developing the game's plot further, they were used in previous titles mostly to either create/push forward a relation between characters, or eventually let the player know some details about a unit's past.

long story short: game storytelling is one thing, expanding/creating characters lore is another.

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This is why Gatekeeper is the best character.

This is also why permadeath needs to vacate the FE premises; supports are used because characters who can be dead at any given time would get little to no characterization without them, since they're not allowed in the story proper because...well, they could be dead. Yeah, I know that's sacrilege, especially coming from someone who's been with the series for 20 years, but the further the series gets, the more it shows that permadeath just doesn't belong.

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41 minutes ago, Florete said:

This is also why permadeath needs to vacate the FE premises; supports are used because characters who can be dead at any given time would get little to no characterization without them, since they're not allowed in the story proper because...well, they could be dead. Yeah, I know that's sacrilege, especially coming from someone who's been with the series for 20 years, but the further the series gets, the more it shows that permadeath just doesn't belong.

I don't think they need to sacrifice permadeath. Supports are just an easy quick fix, and while they work... okay, the more you look into them, the more obvious it becomes how self-contained and limited in scope they are. But they're not the only way you can do it while still accounting for permadeath.

Berwick Saga, for instance, conveys each character's arc in the form of events as the game goes on, and most characters get good amounts of characterization from them without needing to sacrifice permadeath for it (the events just don't happen if they're dead). That feels much more organic, and since these events aren't as massively restricted as supports are, they can include more than two characters - even NPCs - and aren't necessarily limited to just being conversations. They can also involve doing certain things in the gameplay with the characters.

In a few words, this system allows for much more freedom to tell the stories of the characters. It's not perfect, but it's quite good still, and far better than supports, in my humble opinion.

Of course, a different matter is if we want all 30-something characters to be constantly involved in the main plot and in every cutscene. That, I think is a bit of a pipe dream. Some people are just not as important. Let them just be soldiers in the army that the lord doesn't constantly speak to. Personally, I believe that's fine, as long as the game takes some time to explore their personal backgrounds and aspirations.

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I think the GBA supports are fine because they didn't start trying to do arcs or as much character growth. They were just about learning more about the character. But as time went on especially in Three Houses they started doing arcs which don't gel well with supports. One example of this to me is Marianne who in her paralogue has some great character growth, but because it is post timeskip no support ever shows us that Marianne again. 

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I like supports because they require a certain degree of player choice and effort. Like, I'm choosing to have these two people fight alongside each other, so they get to know each other better. In an "event" system, the role of player choice is diminished - whether an interaction occurs is largely at the characters' discretion.

I think the issue of "character backsliding" can be solved with an Echoes or Three Houses style of approach - that is, of locking certain support conversations into narrower timeframes. So by the time I'm getting Bernadetta's B-supports, she'll be locked out of getting any more C-supports (or, any more C-supports she get will be with late joiners, and more mature in tone).

Or go one further, and do a hybrid system - conversations occur as opt-in events, at a specific time, but only if you've built up enough "support points" between the characters by that time. I think this could be a good way of doing the inevitable Genealogy remake, for instance. Say, Alec and Noish get a support event between chapters 1 and 2, but only if I've used them together enough.

2 hours ago, Gannondworf13 said:

One example of this to me is Marianne who in her paralogue has some great character growth, but because it is post timeskip no support ever shows us that Marianne again. 

They should've locked Marianne's A-supports behind completing her paralogue. Kind of like how Dimitri's A-supports aren't obtainable until after Gronder II.

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Well, supports aren’t supposed to tell the story. They’re supposed to flesh out those two randos you picked up a couple of chapters ago if they’re not dead. I wouldn’t say that they’re bad for characterization or anything, but they could definitely be much better. The main problems for that are resetting character arcs between supports and being locked out of a good one because the other guy died. I like these systems suggested/mentioned in this thread a lot, but that doesn’t make supports bad. We just have a lot of potential for a lot more, which I wouldn’t blame on supports.

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I am less invested in supports than I think the typical Fire Emblem fan is. Hell I don't think I can think of a single support that made me go "Wow, I'm really invested in these characters." Maybe Ike and Soren in Path of Radiance or some of Felix's airing of shit in Three Houses, but largely I see the points of supports not providing all that much in terms of story. However, I think supports work because they prevent this.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/e/ea/RalphFE5.png

Who the hell is that? Well it's Ralph from Thracia 776. But who the hell is Ralph!? He gets like zero lines in the game. And that's the advantage of supports. It gives some degree of guaranteed characterization to every playable unit in the game that would be really hard to do otherwise. Now it is a bit disingenuous to use an old SNES game as an example of the standard, but then we can also just compare and contrast how underdeveloped people find the Dawn Brigade to be in Radiant Dawn. And of all games in the series I think Radiant Dawn does by far the biggest job of trying to integrate more of the playable cast into the story. Yet still most of the characters who didn't have the chance to get characterized in the previous game feel like cardboard cutouts here. I see people throwing around the number 30+, but that's not the small end of Fire Emblem. Gaiden and Sacred Stones have the smallest casts at 32 and 33 respectively. Typical fire emblem games have 40-50 characters, 50+ if we go by averages since some games go above 70. I have no doubt it's theoretically possible to build a game with a cast of around 40 that are as fully integrated into the plot as Path of Radiance Jill while still being theoretically optional and providing the most valued gameplay niches, but it ain't easy. Supports are. It's a nice little corner outside of the main story wherein characters can just exist and display their characterization without it interfering with events or making the story bend over backwards to accommodate a disposable cast the size of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

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I find supports necessary in Fire Emblem for one simple reason. They’re basically the only way Fire Emblem stories really achieve any tonal balancing. Like Persona is id a pretty dark game about the corrupt political system of Japan from toxic student teacher relationships, assassination, drug trafficking, extortion, exploitation of minors, etc. and it’s able to tell that darker narrative without it getting tiring and with a cast of fun likable characters because in between all those darker moments you have more light hearted and fun moments like the school trip, fireworks festival, beach episode, etc. times when the characters are just able to chill out and be themselves which helps with characterization cause it’s not doom and gloom all the time and shows sides of these characters we wouldn’t otherwise see in a more intense scenario. That’s kind of what supports are in FE. Most FE stories from the ones I’ve played are pretty on the rails in terms of structure and rarely ever deviate from its chosen trajectory. It’s mostly just constant tension and conflict with hardly a break in between. Supports act as that break. That light hearted break in between battles to remind you that these characters are human and have different sides to them. It just helps break up the monotony.

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Supports are a good method of characterization. They're not perfect (as mentioned in the original post, one-on-one interactions only is a bit limiting), but they still really help in fleshing out a larger cast of characters.

Compared to some other games I've played I particularly like how FE is willing to have supports between two characters, neither of whom is the main. I've played a number of games which use the same concept but only for interactions with the main character which feels extremely limiting. In Fire Emblem supports, we get to see different sides of characters depending on who they interact with. There's a lot of supporting FE characters (especially in Three Houses) who feel likely extremely fleshed-out, fully realized characters based on how their supports paint a complete picture of them as a person, and they'd be shallow with just their limited contributions to the main narrative and/or a single support with the protagonist.

I'm certainly not attached to supports being the only way to achieve characterization (in particular, yes we absolutely need to have more venues where characters can interact in groups larger than 2 but smaller than "the entire group"), but they've been an effective way, and it's no surprise to me that the FE games with richer and more numerous supports have dramatically more popular supporting casts than those which do not.

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Considering the generally large casts (or larger casts than your typical jrpg) and the possibility for units to permanently die off, I think supports were and are the best way to handle characterisation and extra world building without sacrificing permadeath. While it generally does break the rule of 'show don't tell', it's kind of a sacrifice that needs to be made so units don't feel like empty husks with a recruit quote, death quote and maybe a line or or two outside of that like they did in kaga era, RD's new cast and ds era FE (and arguabley FE6 too but I'm not going to go into that since I'm not very familiar with FE6).

I think SoV does it best, having some supports be locked behind progression walls, so that they will only be unlocked when the time is right and also, by virtue of SoV, having the potential for units to appear in villages and have monologues and we learn extra bits about them. SoV also has the benefit of having one of the smaller casts in the series as a benefit.

PoR and Three Houses also have progression walls too, but some of Thee Houses (like all of the A supports that take until the time skip to unlock and Leonie's B support with Byleth being poorly timed are...).

Overall, supports aren't perfect, but I think they do their job right for what they need to, being that they can give characterisation to characters who wouldn't have it either ways and also allow for world building, even if it does end up being rather shallow, it's still something.

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I'm going to echo that supports are perfectly fine the way they are, barring minor tweaks here and there. The one serious issue I have with them is that of C-supports "resetting" characterizations, but that can be addressed by not trying to shove an entire character arc into three or four 1-on-1 conversations.

I've been on an FE7 kick recently, and I think it had a good way of adding story-relevant characterization without tying it so closely to the plot that permadeath becomes a problem.

  1. Certain characters talk to the tactician if they're deployed in a certain chapter. Often this just involves someone who was in Lyn's story remarking on meeting you again in Eliwood or Hector's, but other times it's more in depth than that. The first time you reach the Dragon's Gate Sain (Eliwood's story) or Kent (Hector's story) asks you to let them take the lead so as to get revenge for Lord Hausen and Lady Lyndis. Or for a more minor character, if you deploy Rebecca in the chapter where you get Dart she asks you if the two of them have anything in common, hinting at their all-but-stated sibling relationship.
  2. There are a decent number of Talk conversations between units in certain chapters, i.e. Pent and Louise's "supports". These essentially function like supports while still being able to refer to current events in the story.

I don't know how to solve the problem of these all being 1-on-1 other than reintroducing Tellius-style Base conversations.

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On 4/24/2021 at 1:43 PM, Benice said:

But a conversation with oneself on a topic you agree on isn't very helpful! So, from the perspective of folks who do prefer supports as a method of characterization over events and whatnot, why is that? Or, if you don't like supports or my suggested replacement for characterization, what sort of system would you implement?

i've never thought support has this much problem before reading your entire paragraphs (yes, i do read all of it). but its not like i couldnt see it all this time, just dont want to see it 😅

something like this has always been on my mind about support (sorry if you already point it out)

  • the ill-timed support that oftentimes doesnt reflect whats going on at the moment or at least the ongoing event.
  • how it has to be one versus one (sometimes others could also appear (?), but barely affect or add anything to the conversation/situation)
  • it has to be dictated by grading and leap so much in terms of relationship stage and atmosphere between those grading that feels like a big gap
  • no effect to storyline except ending text slideshow (boring)
  • sometimes too much variety or deviation on characterization depending who you choose to support.  its like everyone has many sides to them and can become anything while also not at all at the same time at different playthru (So which one is their true character, really?). more modern FE suffer more from this except SoV in my opinion.
  • are those characters realize they are in the same army or not? it feels like not, because of support limitation

Soo...i dont regard the current support as the ultimate form of characterization either, but what other choice do we have that wont affect the gameplay? i dont have solution to it, so i mostly stay away from antagonising it. i could only think of alternatives such as:

"making a chapter thats not paralogues, centering around a select numbers of cast that separated from the other cast for plot reason." it has pros of character socializing more in with people while tackling the situation, but also has the cons of -you can only make them so often- which lead to uneven focus to side character. prime example of games that do this: Valkyria Chronicle 1 and Suikoden. both not only have very large pools of character but also very noticeable favoritism between the cast.

"making skits ala Tales of series" forego the grading, the (sometimes) overly serious, and 180 degree mind-changing conversation. just make it so they dont really change personality wise, but comes to know others quirk or personalty

"make side character more involved" seems plain obvious, but before battle and after battle we can see them interact with each other more. 3H does this, but its still hearing bigshot talk then make a one-liner reaction. its not wrong per se, since its important discussion between leader and tactician where grunts dont have a say, but what about talks between soldier and soldier?

but all those things clash with permadeath. so theres that....

------------------------

tl;dr not a big fan of it, but still think its way better than nothing. "necessary evil" for lack of sweeter term

Edited by joevar
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RD's base conversations are the best variant of the support conversation mechanic. They can include as many characters as you like, they don't rely on specific deployment or gluing characters together, they're unlocked at X chapter so they can integrate what's happening in the main plot. I haven't played the Xenoblade series but the Heart-to-Hearts sound similar to them.

15 hours ago, Florete said:

This is also why permadeath needs to vacate the FE premises; supports are used because characters who can be dead at any given time would get little to no characterization without them, since they're not allowed in the story proper because...well, they could be dead. Yeah, I know that's sacrilege, especially coming from someone who's been with the series for 20 years, but the further the series gets, the more it shows that permadeath just doesn't belong.

Permadeath as a gameplay mechanic doesn't preclude non-lords participating in the plot, just treat important characters as being wounded, such that they can't fight any more, instead of killed.

For example, characters like Marcus and Bartre don't die in FE7 because they appear in FE6. But if their HP is reduced to 0, they are considered dead and can't be deployed.

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What's been nice about the past 2 Fire Emblem games is actually how much of the storytelling happens outside of supports. In Echoes, you get characters popping up in every town and shrine and reflecting on what's been going on, their whereabouts, other characters etc. You even get some character arcs this way, like Tobin basically airs his grievances towards Alm near the end, Gray thinks back to Ram village when they're in Rigel and gets some class consciousness. It's very organic and feels similar to the base conversations in Tellius.

Then Three Houses of course adds mountains of non-support dialogue because everyone has something to say every chapter. That came with some good and bad (I realized as Raphael talked about food for the 11th time), but again it's a lived-in world and the player gets to choose how much of this characterization they see. 

Of course, both these games still had plenty of support convos too. I don't think they'll ever go away as they're a franchise staple at this point. But more writing in addition to supports is something I can definitely get behind. If Tellius games do get remade, I'd love a free-roaming base exploration mode similar to Garreg Mach, but not rooted in one spot this time.

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Supports are the best. They just need a quality over quantity approach - only a select few per unit. They don't need to make friends with everyone, and they certainly don't need to make babies with everyone.

 

As such, they should really be separated from any gameplay benefits. Something akin to the "closest allies" system from 3H would be a good way to assign stat bonuses, while support ranks could be just that - support conversations unlocked by reaching certain points in the story.

 

 

I'll also second that permadeath doesn't belong. 

Edited by Fabulously Olivier
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1 hour ago, Hasechi said:

@Benice I don't clearly understand what your post about.  So you think storytelling through supports is a good idea or not?

I do not like Support conversations, no. Simply put, I feel like the things people like about the system aren't things that supports do exclusively, and the restrictions* and limitations that supports force just aren't worth it. At least to me, I feel like Supports are generally popular due to the fact that they're what the series has done for a long time.

7 hours ago, Baldrick said:

RD's base conversations are the best variant of the support conversation mechanic.

I actually agree with this fully, at least within FE! RD's base conversations weren't perfect, (it by and large didn't do a great job of characterizing the new characters) but they are a very good base for what I feel like characterization could be like.

22 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

In a few words, this system allows for much more freedom to tell the stories of the characters. It's not perfect, but it's quite good still, and far better than supports, in my humble opinion.

...Next time, I'll just ask you to make this thread so that you nobody has to see my rants at the top of the page...

20 hours ago, Gannondworf13 said:

I think the GBA supports are fine because they didn't start trying to do arcs or as much character growth. They were just about learning more about the character. But as time went on especially in Three Houses they started doing arcs which don't gel well with supports. One example of this to me is Marianne who in her paralogue has some great character growth, but because it is post timeskip no support ever shows us that Marianne again. 

I agree in general, which is actually one of the reasons I'd like to see supports be dropped or be largely reduced in number in favor of other methods. The series seems to really want to have a focus on characters and story, so the support system as-is seems to be a hinderance, at least to me.

On 4/24/2021 at 12:45 AM, 𝙵ᴇɴʀᴇɪʀ said:

for me personally, supports were never about "storytelling".

rather than expanding/developing the game's plot further, they were used in previous titles mostly to either create/push forward a relation between characters, or eventually let the player know some details about a unit's past.

long story short: game storytelling is one thing, expanding/creating characters lore is another.

At least to me, I don't see why they have to be segregated, at least all the time. Events occurring alongside the story and sometimes intertwining is not a problem, nor does it stop a character's character from taking centre stage. Regardless, even if one were to keep the two segregated for any reason, supports still don't have to be there when other options work more smoothly.

17 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I like supports because they require a certain degree of player choice and effort. Like, I'm choosing to have these two people fight alongside each other, so they get to know each other better. In an "event" system, the role of player choice is diminished - whether an interaction occurs is largely at the characters' discretion.

Yeah, player choice over interactions and pairings (when applicable) is kinda nice. That said,

17 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Or go one further, and do a hybrid system - conversations occur as opt-in events, at a specific time, but only if you've built up enough "support points" between the characters by that time. I think this could be a good way of doing the inevitable Genealogy remake, for instance. Say, Alec and Noish get a support event between chapters 1 and 2, but only if I've used them together enough.

Something like this would work a lot better, I agree. Something that Berwick Saga did is a "Happiness" system, where units that you deploy would gain Happiness. (Amongst other things, like giving them a meal.) Most events regarding that character such as promotion, development as a character, etc. would only appear if a character had enough Happiness at that point in time. (Not all events are based off of this, though.)

Maybe I'm too much of a Kaga Boomer to really appeal to people who are fond of more recent FEs, but I kinda like the idea of the player not necessarily knowing what triggers what event, and instead they experiment with different deployments and different units to use. (Although to make it easier, they could maybe include a menu that shows a list of characters that have to be used together to get events?) Of course, Genealogy is its own beast, so my idea wouldn't work for that. Assuming that FE4R would be a faithful remake, Love points are sort of a Supports-Lite thing, so it may work better just with straight supports.

17 hours ago, Sooks said:

I like these systems suggested/mentioned in this thread a lot, but that doesn’t make supports bad. We just have a lot of potential for a lot more, which I wouldn’t blame on supports.

Well, my stance on supports is simply that other systems being better than supports means that supports either should change or vacate the premises, if that makes sense. They are, in my opinion, a hindrance to what the series seems to be attempting to do.

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

It's a nice little corner outside of the main story wherein characters can just exist and display their characterization without it interfering with events or making the story bend over backwards to accommodate a disposable cast the size of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

That is very fair and you make a good point, but supports aren't foolproof for this-Characters like FE16 Anna and the FE13-14 avatarsexuals get very little. Supports aren't the only way a little corner outside of the story that characters can exist, it's simply that, at least thus far, supports keep characters in this little corner outside the story. I don't think any system is truly one-size-fits all, so different things would work for different games.

16 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I find supports necessary in Fire Emblem for one simple reason. They’re basically the only way Fire Emblem stories really achieve any tonal balancing.

I think I'm starting to sound like a broken record again, but I don't see why this is something that supports alone can accomplish for the series. Having lighthearted events occur between missions is something totally doable and is far less restrictive.

12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Compared to some other games I've played I particularly like how FE is willing to have supports between two characters, neither of whom is the main. I've played a number of games which use the same concept but only for interactions with the main character which feels extremely limiting. In Fire Emblem supports, we get to see different sides of characters depending on who they interact with. There's a lot of supporting FE characters (especially in Three Houses) who feel likely extremely fleshed-out, fully realized characters based on how their supports paint a complete picture of them as a person, and they'd be shallow with just their limited contributions to the main narrative and/or a single support with the protagonist.

Broken record Benice is back in the house to annoy everyone again!

But yeah, I am not for removal of characters and interactions, but rather for improvement in the vehicles for them, if that makes sense. Maybe my standards are too high, but I just really didn't like Three Houses' cast because of the amount of supports there were. The characters themselves were fine for the most part, (I mean, my favorite was Raphael, so...) but because of the limitations of supports, it all ended up feeling very thin. I do not know what your stance on emulation is, but I would recommend trying out Berwick Saga, just to see the sorts of things I'm talking about in terms of interactions. It's a game from almost exactly the same time as Path of Radiance (December of 2005 IIRC), but at least in my opinion, the cast felt much richer, despite the age differences. I personally also really loved supports for the same reason as you (as a whole, at least), but Berwick kinda made me realize that it could be so much more. But to try and sum it up, the way that everyone in the city it's set in is given an arc (except for the axe and spear vendors?) and several events all to themselves, in addition to everything the characters had. It felt much more whole, and every character much more deep. With supports, something like that wouldn't really be able to be matched, in my opinion.

10 hours ago, Azz said:

Overall, supports aren't perfect, but I think they do their job right for what they need to, being that they can give characterisation to characters who wouldn't have it either ways and also allow for world building, even if it does end up being rather shallow, it's still something.

That actually is kinda my whole point. They're there...But the other options allow for more. I don't feel like settling for less is a good thing when other option could even involve less total dialogue* that goes a lot farther.

*For something on the scope of supports of TH, that is. SoV doesn't need less dialogue.

7 hours ago, KMT4ever said:

I don't know how to solve the problem of these all being 1-on-1 other than reintroducing Tellius-style Base conversations.

Well, that's basically what I'm pushing for here. Instead of everything being 1-on-1, we get a lot more variance and options as to what these events actually do.

7 hours ago, KMT4ever said:

've been on an FE7 kick recently, and I think it had a good way of adding story-relevant characterization without tying it so closely to the plot that permadeath becomes a problem.

Regarding the first one: Having subtle and small things like that is all good, but it's just not very much at all. Removing supports as the primary function to characterize units allows more deep interactions to occur, either with NPCs or the lord/avatar.

As for the second, while they are basically just support conversations, I think that something like that is far stronger than normal supports.

7 hours ago, joevar said:

(yes, i do read all of it).

I am sorry for your loss.

7 hours ago, joevar said:

something like this has always been on my mind about support (sorry if you already point it out)

  • the ill-timed support that oftentimes doesnt reflect whats going on at the moment or at least the ongoing event.
  • how it has to be one versus one (sometimes others could also appear (?), but barely affect or add anything to the conversation/situation)
  • it has to be dictated by grading and leap so much in terms of relationship stage and atmosphere between those grading that feels like a big gap
  • no effect to storyline except ending text slideshow (boring)
  • sometimes too much variety or deviation on characterization depending who you choose to support.  its like everyone has many sides to them and can become anything while also not at all at the same time at different playthru (So which one is their true character, really?). more modern FE suffer more from this except SoV in my opinion.
  • are those characters realize they are in the same army or not? it feels like not, because of support limitation

I agree with all of this. Except maybe the deviation bit, but I could be misunderstanding you.

7 hours ago, joevar said:

tl;dr not a big fan of it, but still think its way better than nothing. "necessary evil" for lack of sweeter term

I aree on better than nothing, but there are other easy to implement other options that solve all of those things.

7 hours ago, joevar said:

making a chapter thats not paralogues, centering around a select numbers of cast that separated from the other cast for plot reason." it has pros of character socializing more in with people while tackling the situation, but also has the cons of -you can only make them so often- which lead to uneven focus to side character. prime example of games that do this: Valkyria Chronicle 1 and Suikoden. both not only have very large pools of character but also very noticeable favoritism between the cast.

"making skits ala Tales of series" forego the grading, the (sometimes) overly serious, and 180 degree mind-changing conversation. just make it so they dont really change personality wise, but comes to know others quirk or personalty

Both of those seem like really good ideas to me. As for the chapter one, if the chapter would be focused on a unit who is dead or something, you could just omit that character's place in the story for that map or something.

5 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Supports are the best.

Why, though? They don't offer much that other systems can't provide and have a pretty big opportunity cost.

23 hours ago, Florete said:

This is also why permadeath needs to vacate the FE premises; supports are used because characters who can be dead at any given time would get little to no characterization without them, since they're not allowed in the story proper because...well, they could be dead. Yeah, I know that's sacrilege, especially coming from someone who's been with the series for 20 years, but the further the series gets, the more it shows that permadeath just doesn't belong.

Removal of supports would still help with this if the series keeps permadeath, since we could have characters have arcs alongside NPCs rather than just playables who can die.

6 hours ago, Lynsanity said:

What's been nice about the past 2 Fire Emblem games is actually how much of the storytelling happens outside of supports. In Echoes, you get characters popping up in every town and shrine and reflecting on what's been going on, their whereabouts, other characters etc. You even get some character arcs this way, like Tobin basically airs his grievances towards Alm near the end, Gray thinks back to Ram village when they're in Rigel and gets some class consciousness. It's very organic and feels similar to the base conversations in Tellius.

I agree with a lot of this. Especially with SoV, the supports did feel more like supplements rather than the only way of characterization.

6 hours ago, Lynsanity said:

Of course, both these games still had plenty of support convos too. I don't think they'll ever go away as they're a franchise staple at this point. But more writing in addition to supports is something I can definitely get behind.

I agree, although mostly the other way around-Supports in addition to more writing. I am not enamored with TH's cast, (mostly because of supports, but that's kind of a story for another overly long reply post. Probably) but I agree that seeing more outside of supports is a good thing as a whole.

Sorry 'bout the slow responses, spoiled for size because BOY did I get carried away with this one.

Edited by Benice
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@Benice So what's your solution? Isn't remove supports make the game less diversity?

I think my problem is opposite with you. I want all charaters in the game have supports with each other. Like only Robin can support with Anna, Say'ri, Emmeryn. Really? Emmeryn is Lissa, Chrom's big sister & she can't support to them? Only Robin can? Wth?

I think support conversations  play its part. Example in FE:Awakening, after we recruit Yen fay. The game can't really pop up his face through the main story cause he is not-talk-much type. But in his support with Robin, we know what he's thinking,

About limiting the supports. I think it is understandable cause not everyone want to talk to everybody. I don't mind they have support conversation with each other or not, I just want the support stat bonuses when they fight along side with each other. Cause that is a original part of Fire Emblem games to open more cool strategies 

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2 hours ago, Benice said:

That is very fair and you make a good point, but supports aren't foolproof for this-Characters like FE16 Anna and the FE13-14 avatarsexuals get very little. Supports aren't the only way a little corner outside of the story that characters can exist, it's simply that, at least thus far, supports keep characters in this little corner outside the story. I don't think any system is truly one-size-fits all, so different things would work for different games.

And to that I'd say that I do think Three Houses Anna and the avatarsexuals are done dirty by having virtually zero supports. Anna in particularly is a good case as I feel like she has virtually no character in Three Houses (and Fates), she costs minorly off of her established greedy Anna archtype but to actually express herself as an individual she's left to just her own paralogue and minor flavor text which I think fails to make her compelling (it doesn't help she kind of sucks in terms of gameplay too). {side note individualized paralogues would be a good alternative, but personally as much as I enjoyed the paralogues of Three Houses, I think they're a bit of a source for the feeling that the game was unfinished, since giving every single character in the game their own paralogue is a bit of a herculean task that will probably bring down other parts of the game unless managed pretty well}.

And on avatar sexuals, I really do feel like I know the likes of Rinea and Shura less than the other characters in Three Houses, Reina particularly. Awakening's avatarsexuals pull it off much better as by and large they are the plot important characters (Say'ri, Flavia, Basillio, spotpass villains) so they have the main plot to establish themselves in. By far the biggest loser there is Priam who has virtually no characterization beyond looking like Ike.

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2 hours ago, Benice said:

At least to me, I don't see why they have to be segregated, at least all the time. Events occurring alongside the story and sometimes intertwining is not a problem, nor does it stop a character's character from taking centre stage. Regardless, even if one were to keep the two segregated for any reason, supports still don't have to be there when other options work more smoothly.

to clarify: what you want is characters development that doesn't have to be tied to supports only, but rather be related to the game's story or as additional events happening when needed? well, that's the thing: it probably wouldn't be a FE title if it didn't had supports, wich are pretty much the main "exclusive" feature that the franchise started to offer/trend after the release of Genealogy.

i think the problem is not about supports by themself though, but rather about how they've been handled so far. avatars and lords have always been taking the spotlight story-wise for obvious reasons, however secondary characters have been limited mostly to supports because of another feature: permadeath.

that's probably why you don't get to see that much characters development outside of supports: because they could die in any chapter. from a developer's perspective, it kinda makes sense to keep that approach in terms of story-telling, all things considered.

i understand your point of view though, don't get me wrong. i know that it may be considered dumb to just let two units stand beside each other for X amount of turns just to trigger some additional lore, but sadly that's the way it is. i agree that it would be nice to have more "natural" characters development through story progression rather than by supports, but considering all the past entries of this serie, i doubt they'll change that concept simply because supports have become an integral part of these games.

37 minutes ago, Jotari said:

By far the biggest loser there is Priam who has virtually no characterization beyond looking like Ike.

probably because Priam has no impact whatsoever on the story beside being a Ike's cameo, rather than a truly new character. sort of a "bonus" spotpass unit, with the difference that it was actually included in the main game for some reasons(maybe to glorify PoR/RD?), rather than being yet another DLC version.

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15 minutes ago, 𝙵ᴇɴʀᴇɪʀ said:

to clarify: what you want is characters development that doesn't have to be tied to supports only, but rather be related to the game's story or as additional events happening when needed? well, that's the thing: it probably wouldn't be a FE title if it didn't had supports, wich are pretty much the main "exclusive" feature that the franchise started to offer/trend after the release of Genealogy.

i think the problem is not about supports by themself though, but rather about how they've been handled so far. avatars and lords have always been taking the spotlight story-wise for obvious reasons, however secondary characters have been limited mostly to supports because of another feature: permadeath.

that's probably why you don't get to see that much characters development outside of supports: because they could die in any chapter. from a developer's perspective, it kinda makes sense to keep that approach in terms of story-telling, all things considered.

i understand your point of view though, don't get me wrong. i know that it may be considered dumb to just let two units stand beside each other for X amount of turns just to trigger some additional lore, but sadly that's the way it is. i agree that it would be nice to have more "natural" characters development through story progression rather than by supports, but considering all the past entries of this serie, i doubt they'll change that concept simply because supports have become an integral part of these games.

probably because Priam has no impact whatsoever on the story beside being a Ike's cameo, rather than a truly new character. sort of a "bonus" spotpass unit, with the difference that it was actually included in the main game for some reasons(maybe to glorify PoR/RD?), rather than being yet another DLC version.

Indeed. So Priam loses out on the double whammy of not having any presence in the main story and having no presence in supports. We get a very bare bones recruitment chapter with him and then a single conversation with either gender of Robin. He's probably the least developed playable character in the series this side of Thracia.

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My take is that Supports can and should stay but their presence and the emphasis on them should be lowered, they should exist alongside other storytelling aspects to create a cohesive whole:

  • Alternate scripts and Special Events: Tear Ring Saga does this i hear, where there are multiple scripts for a main story chapters based on who is alive and who is not, as to allow for more story presence of the game's cast, as well as special in-map events that can occur in chapters if you bring the characters who are most related to the story events of said chapter;
  • Base Conversations: Conversations that happen in-between chapters, but they can be situationed so as to allow for characters to actually talk about things relating to the current events compared to Supports that, by necessity, require that they happen in this weird time bubble that can range from "beginning of the game" to "minutes before the final boss", they're also more flexible, allowing for more than two participants at a time, and hopefully do it for actual story reasons rather than how RD does it where they feel like they all exist for meta-tutorial talk that is on the level of Lyn Mode dialogue (Seriously IS, if you want tutorial dialogue for players, just use houses or a Tips mechanic);
  • Memory Prisms: They can shed light and allow us to see aspects of the game's story that can not fit the events of the game or in a proper flashback, so as to help develop aspects that the player might be interested in but the game's story does not have enough time to flesh out in greater detail;
  • Supports: The final piece of the puzzle, they should not be large in quantity, and they should only happen for conversations that are both stationary and supplementary in nature, an extra bit of characterization, something you don't need to get the full picture but does provide helpful extra context for the characters involved, and that could also happen at any time in the game's story and not be super jarring, they should also do what Three Houses does and not have them all be 3-4 parts long, be dynamic with the Ranks;
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2 hours ago, Hasechi said:

About limiting the supports. I think it is understandable cause not everyone want to talk to everybody. I don't mind they have support conversation with each other or not, I just want the support stat bonuses when they fight along side with each other. Cause that is a original part of Fire Emblem games to open more cool strategies 

That's exactly how RD handles it's support mechanic. It maximises the gameplay side of the mechanic, and the characterisation is handled elsewhere so they don't have to contrive reasons for two characters to interact.

1 hour ago, 𝙵ᴇɴʀᴇɪʀ said:

it probably wouldn't be a FE title if it didn't had supports, wich are pretty much the main "exclusive" feature that the franchise started to offer/trend after the release of Genealogy.

I'd only say that's true since the series pivoted to being first and foremost a dating sim.  Anyway, RD demonstrates the support mechanic does not need to be the only or even the primary method of developing minor characters.

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26 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

That's exactly how RD handles it's support mechanic. It maximises the gameplay side of the mechanic, and the characterisation is handled elsewhere so they don't have to contrive reasons for two characters to interact.

I'd only say that's true since the series pivoted to being first and foremost a dating sim.  Anyway, RD demonstrates the support mechanic does not need to be the only or even the primary method of developing minor characters.

That is a gross exaggeration. The "dating sim" aspects of the game are still incredibly minor. Until you literally win the game by getting into Dorothea's once-missing panties, it isn't "first and foremost a dating sim."

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