2023 New Heroes Speculation

[Humanoid]

2 hours ago, Othin said:

I feel like anything involving inheriting their personal skills would make them stand out less than CYL units are expected to. Even if there's no power level change, it would stop being unique to them.

But speaking of Rearmed Hero variants, I've been speculating about the possibility of "Emblem Heroes" who get a duo-style skill that can be inherited in the same way. And that's something they could add to the CYL first place winners without taking any expected things away from them.

Yeah that makes sense. I suppose I'm approaching the subject from the perspective of "why should I summon for these heroes" instead of "why should I use these heroes". And while both are valid concerns, good game design would want to solve both simultaneously even if it's not relevant for me personally.

Relatedly, Rearmed heroes already have a weird disincentive to use them, ironically caused by their very nature. I have three or four Ophelias but haven't foddered off a single one. Consequently I only have a single one levelled up, with a bad nature, and very little incentive to actually use her as a unit (and that's ignoring my personal dislike of the character). This of course is exacerbated by the Rearmed heroes that have no Prf skill such as her, though there's also a Catch-22 there in that if they did have a Prf skill, then their inheritance value is diminished. Can't use Alfred's Canto skill? Then you get basically no inheritance value out of him beyond his weapon.

Finally, I'm against first-placed CYL winners receiving more "stuff" than the second place winners. As much as it's annoying that it's been applied inconsistently over the years (equalisation coming in the year Marth came in, figures), I think it's important to avoid creating a perverse disincentive to vote for characters. I don't think there should be a scenario where you'd rather come in third rather than second, in order to remain eligible to get first place next year instead.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Humanoid

[Othin]

6 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Yeah that makes sense. I suppose I'm approaching the subject from the perspective of "why should I summon for these heroes" instead of "why should I use these heroes". And while both are valid concerns, good game design would want to solve both simultaneously even if it's not relevant for me personally.

Relatedly, Rearmed heroes already have a weird disincentive to use them, ironically caused by their very nature. I have three or four Ophelias but haven't foddered off a single one. Consequently I only have a single one levelled up, with a bad nature, and very little incentive to actually use her as a unit (and that's ignoring my personal dislike of the character). This of course is exacerbated by the Rearmed heroes that have no Prf skill such as her, though there's also a Catch-22 there in that if they did have a Prf skill, then their inheritance value is diminished. Can't use Alfred's Canto skill? Then you get basically no inheritance value out of him beyond his weapon.

Finally, I'm against first-placed CYL winners receiving more "stuff" than the second place winners. As much as it's annoying that it's been applied inconsistently over the years (equalisation coming in the year Marth came in, figures), I think it's important to avoid creating a perverse disincentive to vote for characters. I don't think there should be a scenario where you'd rather come in third rather than second, in order to remain eligible to get first place next year instead.

Personally I use plenty of my Rearmed units, but I'm in a similar boat of not having merged any of the duplicates, since I haven't used Arcane Inheritance from any of them. And yeah, there's a weird tension with the matter of prfs vs no-prfs.

That's a good point about the weird incentives. Although if the benefits don't involve skills personally locked to the unit, I'm not sure it would be as big of a deal. There's already the potential to get stronger stats and skills by waiting, yet no one seems to want that.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I think an Echoes  character for this year's CYL GHB would be best, for sure. Between Deen, Desaix, Jedah, Nuibab, and Rudolf, we certainly have plenty of candidates. Deen should be saved for an actual Echoes banner due to the low number of characters, but any of the antagonists would work.

As for the CYL units themselves, I personally wouldn't want them to be Ascended of Rearmed. Especially not Rearmed. We voted for these characters, so having our fan-vote-winning special character now suddenly being limited and not returning for who knows how long is less than ideal by a large degree.

[Othin]

39 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

I think an Echoes  character for this year's CYL GHB would be best, for sure. Between Deen, Desaix, Jedah, Nuibab, and Rudolf, we certainly have plenty of candidates. Deen should be saved for an actual Echoes banner due to the low number of characters, but any of the antagonists would work.

As for the CYL units themselves, I personally wouldn't want them to be Ascended of Rearmed. Especially not Rearmed. We voted for these characters, so having our fan-vote-winning special character now suddenly being limited and not returning for who knows how long is less than ideal by a large degree.

Yeah, that's the other thing. Lot of risk of backlash.

[Humanoid]

It's definitely a strong argument against them being Rearmed, but not at all against Ascended, who have the same availability as standard New Heroes, and no downsides as a unit.