How would you like to see hub areas in future?

[lenticular]

Given that we've had My Castle, then Garreg Mach, then the Somniel, I think it's reasonably safe to say that hub areas are likely to be with us for the foreseeable future. So, with that in mind, what would be your ideal implementation going forward?

Personally, I enjoyed Garreg Mach from the perspective of story/world building/characterisation/immersion and would like to see something like that attempted again. But at the same time, if I'm not in the mood to wander around and talk with everyone, then it definitely can be a chore. So I'd like to see a system where everything was accessible either through the hub area or through a menu, with no mechanical difference between the two. Let wandering around and talking to everyone be either something that I do for its own sake because I enjoy it, or something that I can skip without mechanical penalty if I don't feel like it.

[Etrurian emperor]

Maybe have another one each time? Or at least multiple ones for each little arc.

In Three Houses for instance it would have made sense if your main hub changed from the academy to Enbarr, or Derdriu if you picked Crimson Flower and Verdant Wind. This would be better for storytelling while also reducing the boredom of the hub because you get new places to discover and walk around in.

[Capt. Fargus]

Is this supposed to be anything like the world map in Sacred Stones? 🤔

I think its a good thing if it is. Less weapons and stuff you gotta carry all the time

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

MyCastle if absoluetely nessecary, a single screen from where you can manage everything if possible.

[Jotari]

I think they should go right back to Gaiden's style. Explorable villages. No, not the empty fields in Engage, I mean every chapter should have its own hub area. Which means it's not really a hub area, I guess, but we can achieve the same thing. Fishing? Not something you're passively expected to do repeatedly by the game. You get the opportunity to do it once or twice in the game when your army is passing by the port town so you have to decide how much you want to invest in it there. Wyvern riding mini game? Only if you're in the mountains. I feel if they make a Holy War remake they'll kind of have to do this. As that game already has something of a hub area system only you're in a specific location at the start of each chapter. Or they could just ingore that and imagine every castle in the country was built by the same architect and has the same interior design.

But I hope they don't. Imagine staring in Chalphy Castle and having NPCs who knows Sigurd growing up, then you move to Evans. You spend two chapters there, first with the locals being indignant about Grandvale taking their castle but then with them warming up to Sigurd. Maybe wood cutting could be a mini game. Then we're in the Agustria capital where opinions are a lot more mixed. Some locals hate Chagall while others hate Grandvale. We then find ourselves in Silesia where all is calm and quiet and you can ride pegasi (shut up sexism). Then we're in Zaxon castle and there's basically no locals as you've amassed such an army that they fill the castles themselves. Everyone is fired up, but at the same time there's a feeling that you're on your own.

And then (I need to leave suddenly so I'm abridgeding this slightly) second gen stuff you finally finish on returning to Chalphy, the first hub of the game, only now it's been irrevocably changed.

[Jamille]

The main issue I have with hub areas is that both the monastery and the somminel are just a drag to do everything you want to do. My castle was better simply because everything was right next to each other and easily accessible additionally in my castle quite a few of the building you can completely ignore and it won't make the game much harder I will say that the somminel was an improvement over the monastery because many actives were not as important but there was still quite a few things that felt necessary like dragging yourself down to the grotto to get bond fragments felt so helpful and yet so painful. In the future I hope that we can at least zoom out and have all the activities be really close to each other or even just have the option to make it a menu instead of exploring and I really don't ever want items to pick up off the ground.

[vanguard333]

My Castle was largely pointless and interfered with the plot, Gerrag Mach was fun for immersion but could get a bit tiring, and the Somneil made me miss the menu system from the Tellius games.

If hub areas are here to stay, one thing I do hope for is that they don't have all these pointless minigames. Every minigame in the Somneil felt largely pointless, but I kept using them anyway because they provided benefits like extra items and temporary stat upgrades.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I'd prefer just a menu. Shopping, forging, customize units, supports, base convos. No chores between maps.

[Armchair General]

I'd rather have one for every major city or area and make them inaccessible as the story progresses. For example, your castle gets raided and you're forced to flee and you set up camp in the middle of nowhere, an few hours later. Two levels later, you've set up shop in this village that you've just saved, and then the cycle goes on

[Original Alear]

I think Tellius did it best of the ones I've played (though I think Shadow Dragon and New Mystery had a similar approach). I think Garreg Mach was pretty good, but it still got tiring wandering around every day. The camp in Three Hopes was a little more manageable, no big complaints about that.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

19 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

This would be better for storytelling while also reducing the boredom of the hub because you get new places to discover and walk around in.

Building off of this, I found the ability to walk around and explore the battlefield in Engage, after each battle, to be a pretty cool feature. I'd find and notice things that weren't apparent in the usual, top-down play. And it was best when characters commented on the setting.

Anyway, I think a hub that's roughly "Abyss-sized", but dense with all the required interactions, could work well. While the Somniel was a lot smaller than Garreg Mach, it still had a lot of "dead space" between activities, where you're just running around. I'd also like to get rid of the "random glowy items scattered around everywhere". There's no real joy in doing it, but I still have to do it, because what if I'm missing out on something important? Rather, I'd prefer items be acquired in a clear place, for a clear reason - stuff like "I watered the berry bush, so now I can pick some berries there." Boom - if I don't care about berries, then I don't need to do that activity. And if I've done that activity, then there's no randomness about getting something that might just break the game. To Somniel's slight credit, animals were kinda like this, although there was still some randomness involved. TL;DR no more horse manure everywhere. 

Narratively, I'd like a hub that makes sense in-story, but not in a way that the story is obviously bending itself to fit it. "Oh uh we get to inhabit a pocket dimension that jas your very own castle!" Like, at least Garreg Mach was clearly a part of the world in which it was set. Even if, then, it didn't always make sense to travel back between battles, especially post-skip. The easiest answer is a "base camp", made up of tents, but they could also do a "generic castle" framework, that then applies to multiple castles as the story progresses.

15 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

If hub areas are here to stay, one thing I do hope for is that they don't have all these pointless minigames. Every minigame in the Somneil felt largely pointless, but I kept using them anyway because they provided benefits like extra items and temporary stat upgrades.

My diagonal-brained take is, I like minigames, but only when they're quick. Fishing in Garreg Mach? It's fine, just a bunch of timed presses of a single button. Enjoyable in its simplicity, at least when you're not using it to build Professor Rank. Fishing in the Somniel? My hands are suffering abuse, and I feel like I need a degree in Ichthyology to understand what's going on here. Likewise with the Wyvern Ride - not a bad game, but it drags on (heh) for too long. A single phase of it could've sufficed (perhaps with the later phases being higher difficulty levels, instead?). Bottom-line, I shouldn't be spending over 30 seconds at a time on any of this stuff.

[Jotari]

It seems like it's just me, but I felt a lot less compelled to engage with the mini games in Engage than Three Houses. I played Push Ups and Wyvern Flying once to test them out and never did the fishing at all. Even cooking I only started doing regularly as I approached end game and enemies had max stats (though my life in the mid game probably could have been a lot nicer if I had). The stables was the one thing I was checking consistently, but only after I'd cleared even the post game did I realize I was doing it wrong and that you could choose your animals, so I was just getting stuff from the first five animals I'd found the entire paly through. Even Sommie I barely interacted with at all. I do wonder if this hands off approach was because Engage makes this stuff more optional, or if I've just become dead to inter chapter content after playing Three Houses (and Three Hopes) so many times.

[Metal Flash]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

It seems like it's just me, but I felt a lot less compelled to engage with the mini games in Engage than Three Houses. I played Push Ups and Wyvern Flying once to test them out and never did the fishing at all. Even cooking I only started doing regularly as I approached end game and enemies had max stats (though my life in the mid game probably could have been a lot nicer if I had). The stables was the one thing I was checking consistently, but only after I'd cleared even the post game did I realize I was doing it wrong and that you could choose your animals, so I was just getting stuff from the first five animals I'd found the entire paly through. Even Sommie I barely interacted with at all. I do wonder if this hands off approach was because Engage makes this stuff more optional, or if I've just become dead to inter chapter content after playing Three Houses (and Three Hopes) so many times.

Honestly, same here. The mini-games in Engage never held my interest after my first playthrough. Cooking is the only one I have bothered with, as Wyvern Flying is not that exciting, Push Ups got boring quick and I refuse to take part in the fishing. (Between FE and Trails, I am getting sick of fishing mini-games in JRPGs).

Ideally, I would like to have a smaller hub world like My Castle. Walking around is fun the first time, but quickly becomes boring later. Less busy work (checking the green house, picking up materials, etc) would also be appreciated. Having a menu for when you don`t wanna wander around is definitely needed.

I like the idea of returning to Echoes villages or having multiple, smaller hubs too.

[lenticular]

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

I do wonder if this hands off approach was because Engage makes this stuff more optional, or if I've just become dead to inter chapter content after playing Three Houses (and Three Hopes) so many times.

Probably a little bit of both. The monastery stuff honestly isn't all that important in Three Houses. I've done a no-monastery run on Hard Mode and found it very playable. And I'm pretty sure that I remember @Dark Holy Elf doing a Maddening run with very restricted monastery and also reporting that it was plenty playable. But Three Houses really pushes the monastery in a way that Engage doesn't push the Somniel. Three Houses really wants you to spend time in the monastery, makes you want to think that it's more important than it actually is. Where Engage has a little bit more chill. The Somniel is there but it doesn't feel as if the game is judging you every time you decide not to do push ups. I do think that the monastery stuff is more impactful than the Somniel stuff, but I don't think the difference is as big as people might think.

[vanguard333]

20 hours ago, Jotari said:

It seems like it's just me, but I felt a lot less compelled to engage with the mini games in Engage than Three Houses.

Same; I only did the mini-games in Engage because they provided bond fragments, items, temporary stat upgrades, etc.

I think one of the reasons why the mini-games are more tolerable in Three Houses is context; Three Houses was essentially tactical RPG half the time and fantasy teacher simulator the other half, and the mini-games in the monastery reflected the second half. By contrast, there is no real reason for most of the mini-games in Engage to exist. Why would Alear borrow Ivy's wyvern to shoot at targets? Why are there fish in a tiny pond in the sky? I guess maybe fitness training makes sense, but fitness training in most FE games is sparring/tournaments, which the Somneil also has.

I suppose the wyvern flying could've had context if, instead of wyvern riding, it was Alear's dragon form and Alear is practicing being a dragon, but this game is allergic to actually having dragons in it.

 

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

My diagonal-brained take is, I like minigames, but only when they're quick. Fishing in Garreg Mach? It's fine, just a bunch of timed presses of a single button. Enjoyable in its simplicity, at least when you're not using it to build Professor Rank. Fishing in the Somniel? My hands are suffering abuse, and I feel like I need a degree in Ichthyology to understand what's going on here. Likewise with the Wyvern Ride - not a bad game, but it drags on (heh) for too long. A single phase of it could've sufficed (perhaps with the later phases being higher difficulty levels, instead?). Bottom-line, I shouldn't be spending over 30 seconds at a time on any of this stuff.

Oh, yeah; the speed of the mini-games in Three Houses is definitely another reason that they're a lot more tolerable. Answering the questions is on a timer so it's very quick, the fishing is just a few timed button presses, and almost all the rest barely qualify as minigames as most of them are over the moment the characters that will partake in them are selected. The longest mini-games in Three Houses are the tournament and tea.

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 7/9/2023 at 1:07 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I'd prefer just a menu. Shopping, forging, customize units, supports, base convos. No chores between maps.

I'll take a tangential opinion that the "hub" should be something you can run entirely through menus, but maintain a lot of the weird little things recent games have had.

I actually like how, in Fates, different units have different cooking proficiencies, shop bonuses, etc. I'd like to see that mechanic expanded on. Instead of having the chef be random, let me assign units to cooking duty and pick the apothecary for the day. If a task requires multiple people, having synergy between them could boost their effectiveness and they would gain support points from working together. Even a unit who's bad at a task might still be a good candidate if they provide a boost to a more effective unit that you want to build support with.

I'd even like to see it taken even further in that direction. Let me pick what units are dedicated to harvesting which materials, and like with cooking have different fishing/hunting/gathering/farming/scavenging/mining/etc proficiencies. Perhaps have finite allotments of land to dedicate to producing certain resources, so you have to pick whether to grow peaches or cherries or build a fishing pond of whatever.

Basically, I'd like to see it expanded into a resource/labor management game in itself. I still don't want to run around an awkward 3D environment to access these places.

[Shadow Mir]

Personally, I'd like it to be done in a fashion like Three Hopes did. It actually feels like you move around as the campaign progresses. Though there is something to be said about the fact that the base always looks the same despite that.

On 7/9/2023 at 7:39 AM, Jamille said:

The main issue I have with hub areas is that both the monastery and the somminel are just a drag to do everything you want to do. My castle was better simply because everything was right next to each other and easily accessible additionally in my castle quite a few of the building you can completely ignore and it won't make the game much harder I will say that the somminel was an improvement over the monastery because many actives were not as important but there was still quite a few things that felt necessary like dragging yourself down to the grotto to get bond fragments felt so helpful and yet so painful. In the future I hope that we can at least zoom out and have all the activities be really close to each other or even just have the option to make it a menu instead of exploring and I really don't ever want items to pick up off the ground.

I disagree with my castle being better, largely because too many of its features needed resources to get any real use out of, and they're extremely randomized. Everyone and their grandma talks about taking advantage of forging and the mess hall and all that, but it's miserable when you cannot really take advantage of those because the resources you get don't allow it.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Armchair General]

11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Though there is something to be said about the fact that the base always looks the same despite that.

Well the background changes between 3 or 4 different biomes and one of them has the monastery in the background, which is an nice touch.

[Perkilator]

Would the home castles work as a hub of sorts in a Genealogy remake if they work mostly the same as they do in the original?

[Fabulously Olivier]

Small and utilitiarian. Have a camp with all of the necessary progression features in one small area, no instances, no loading screens. And then if you want to have social/non-gameplay features, those can be put further away or in instances.

[Scanman]

Minimal, and certainly nothing like the Monastery or the Somniel.

Fates got it as close to correct as it will ever be, and that was still extra from what was needed.

It was funny how one of the devs said they wanted My Castle to be fleshed out enough that it could "be it's own game".

It'd be a 2/10 game on its own.

Mercifully, it's pretty quick to run through everything between battles with My Castle.