Why Fire Emblem Supports Gotta Go

[@Dakress23]

They do have to find a way to make supports less intrusive, I agree. Also it's insane how FE9 found a way around handling supports and the devs just... never used it again (also this is very unrelated, but the Lufia 2 music is on point).

[@Rush_Coil]

The amount of chapters two characters need to be together in FE9 is so high that it's more restrictive than the GBA tedium where you can plan to get a support in 3 or so chapters guaranteed. On top of the support limit, the most reasonable way to see the bulk of them is still to look them up on KZbin, leading to the same result as the GBA games.

[@A_Person_64]

Intelligent Systems 🤝🏿 Gamefreak: throwing away mechanics after using them once

[@Localsoupeater]

​@@Rush_Coil Dude, FE9 supports are way less tedius than the GBA games, you don't have to grind and apart from some specific supports (like Ike and Titania) I don't remember them taking that many chapters

[@JackVolt]

@@Rush_Coil You aren't supposed to see all or even most of them in a single playthrough. Being restrictive is intentional, so that your playthrough is defined by the choices you make. Otherwise you end up with crap like 3H where Ignatz falls in love with 3 different girls at once and none of them bring this fact up to him.

[@Rush_Coil]

@@Localsoupeater The average FE9 support for characters from the early game takes 10 chapters. Even characters who join in the mid game need around 10 for certain supports. The game has 28 chapters. If you are trying to see a plethora of supports, you have to make so many accommodations by bringing the same units for so many chapters that it actually negatively impacts your ability to do what you like with a chapters party, which is way more annoying than finishing a GBA chapter and hitting end turn over and over after the actual gameplay pre-objective is finished. These are both bad systems. That's why they both were dumped.

[@arachnofiend2859]

It's actually really funny to see you bring up Persona 5 as an example; that game has a *much* smaller main cast, and still reduces its characters to their gimmicks when they have their obligatory main plot lines, something that Three Houses was meme'd on for doing in every pre-battle cutscene. These characters get their actual development in the social links, a mechanic that shares many of the same problems that support conversations have. The problem with supports is just an emphasis on quantity over quality; Bernadetta would not be nearly as much of a problem if she only had one or two supports with characters she's unfamiliar with, and the rest are people she can approach with some level of normalcy in the C support. You can see this with the overall much higher quality supports in Three Hopes, where they don't feel obligated to introduce you to a character's gimmick with every C support and can focus on their relationship with the narrative and the politics of the situation.

[@dyrr836]

Yeah I don't think P5 is a good example at all, because the characters basically lose all their interesting writing in the main story the moment their arcs end.

[@A_Person_64]

​@@dyrr836that first arc with the volleyball coach worked really well because every playable character had their own personal gripe with him and many side characters did as well. Afterwards is simply just the cast helping out the character of the day against their arc villain (or in one case, themselves).

[@Oznerock]

This is why P3 is the best persona game - party member supports not being for every party member and the ones that have them having them very lategame means main plot developments with them happen all the time.@@dyrr836

[@moondragon5630]

Also, Persona series does it better since it evolves their personas and they gain new skill that helps in the battlefield, while FE does not do anything with their supports.

[@Jdudec367]

I mean no in P5 they are still actual characters in their main plot lines not just gimmicks. Like I don't see what you mean really.

[@RangerJackWalker]

Three Houses did a lot with being able to talk to characters in between chapters and having them respond to relevant events. I haven’t played Engage but what from what I’ve gathered, IS did not do nearly as much with contextual dialogue in the Somniel. I would love a game with TRS/Vestaria level of depth in the dialogue/events but with the freedom to approach it at your own pace via a home base.

[@GRK_2024]

its been a while since i played engage but i think only certain people will get new dialog depending on the chapter its indicated by text bubble

[@ivanbluecool]

Mekkah: remove romance. Add capture system to every game. I rest my case. Jokes aside i would love it to be a feature to get enemy units with unique sprites as fates did it best like their amiboo system

[@TuskyBaby]

Its crazy how Path of Radiance figured it out and they just... changed it immediately for the sequel

[@jouheikisaragi6075]

Isn't that just Tellius in a nutshell? "We finally found a way to make this mechanic/plot style work" *proceed to scrap it afterwards*

[@TuskyBaby]

@@jouheikisaragi6075 I think Radiant Dawn at least improved on the Skill and Bonus EXP systems. Def not a perfect game though.

[@arachnofiend2859]

@@TuskyBaby Oh my god I miss bonus xp so much

[@gameboyn64]

​@@TuskyBabyradiant dawn's change to the support system was a pragmatic choice. The format of changing armies, rapidly changing character availability and viability, and 73 playable characters made the previous system completely unviable.

[@A_Person_64]

​@@gameboyn64Its funny because RD support convos remind me of the paired up event tile quotes in Awakening, just less robust. But base conversations and the (numerous) boss quotes in RD are a good substitute imo.

[@legacytag]

Ironically, Three Hopes ended up just doing a lot of what you're saying while adapting Three Houses supports in a way that confronts a lot of the characterization issues that game specifically had with them (It helps that a lot of the 'comical' aspects to characters are in general toned down in Three Hopes). Since Three Hopes all takes place after the Timeskip AND they have base supports that can ONLY take place before or after specific chapters or routes, it allows for them to comment on events going on in the main story. They also have a lot of interactions that happen on the battlefield depending on what character is deployed during what chapter and who fights/recruits who. Most story relevant characters will have some form of dialogue if they remain alive as well!!!! (Take Shamir in Golden Wildfire, she's prominent in the early game's story and still makes minor appearances in the late game despite being a side character). It also helps that this is one of the few instances where the same writers--and in this case voice actors--got to come back to re-do a role once more. The devs said they wanted to take this chance to flesh out personalities and the world as a whole and they used these supports to really drive that home. And the VAs had both additional voice direction and now experience with all of these characters to give much more authentic reactions to every scenario presented whether lighthearted or serious. In terms of grinding it out...Well, it's a Warriors game, there's just gonna be differences there, but the other aspects of it I think they really nailed and I hope it can be seen as a good example for the future.

[@pandabanaan9208]

Glad to see people acknowledge the things three hopes did well, it really bothers me when people give engage credit for things three hopes already did like making the hub world smaller or having a talking protagonist

[@WingedArcher1]

Sounds like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Like others have said, if you throw out supports and just have the characters talk about what's happening in the story you don't get moments showing what the characters are like outside of battle. A lot of people act differently compared to when they are at work and when they are relaxed and feel safe, and you'd miss out on what characters can be like outside of war with no supports.

[@lanceknightmare]

Like how Fredrick from Awakening makes sure to walk the path ahead to remove loose sticks and anything else someone might trip over. Dealing with any threats he finds along the way. He tends to the clothing and weapons of the army. Also making sure to keep up with his own training. On the battlefield he says stuff like, "pick a god and pray"! He tried to protect those around him in the scenes in between chapters. His caution over Robin being a possible spy at the beginning of Awakening is one example of that.

[@dontstealmydiamondsv3156]

I mean, there can still be context dependent events for that kind of thing. It's not like every event in chapter 5 would be obligated to talk about the fact king poopyshorts just died or whatever. They can, but they don't _have_ to.

[@maltheopia]

@@lanceknightmareWow, no offense, but I haven't played much of Awakening and... that sounds dreadful. Basically wasting peoples' time with 'but what is so-and-so's favorite color??' fanservice. Writers thinking that kind of thing is interesting and needs to be explicitly shown is why Star Trek's writing kept getting worse and worse after DS9.

[@gregoriahthanielsonward]

there's no reason why supports are the only thing that can showcase what characters are like outside of battle. base convos could do it (and they already did when they were used), regular story cutscenes could do it---other rpgs do it just fine; there's nothing special about supports that gives them implicit monopoly over more story-independent characterization.

[@mihaimercenarul7467]

Disagree heavily

[@Briver64]

I can agree that it would be nice to have characters talk in story scenes, but I don't think the support conversations need to be dropped for that. The weakness you mentioned about not being tied to the context of what's happening is also one of its strengths. These conversations can fit anywhere and they are a great opportunity to explore the characters outside of the immediate battle. They can talk about their pasts or their thoughts on any topic or even something as simple as a food they like. And you wouldn't get that if everything was tied to what's currently happening in the story. I'm pretty sure you're not saying that you want literally every line of dialogue tied to the current events, but I want to point out that these unrelated conversations have their place and their advantages just like dialogue about the topic at the time. And supports, when done well, really help add that extra stuff to flesh out the details of a character. If anything my biggest gripe with modern supports, especially in 3H, was just how much there was. The pacing there is really bad. But that doesn't make the system bad, I think it just needs better execution, and at that point it can be used really well for the things it's strong at.

[@vonithipathachai8449]

Hi, Briver

[@A_Person_64]

Same. It was like, after every mission, you had a ton of dialogue to sit through (support convos, monastery convos, etc). Honestly from Tellius and onward, the preparation phase of FE slowly became the longest part of the game instead of the actual SRPG phase. We don't need to go back to GBA/DSFE levels of cutscene -> battle -> cutscene -> battle, but they could trim the fat. It's funny, we went from memeing that characters barely speak in the older games to now characters just...never stop talking.

[@thomasquesada7248]

If you wanted conv related to the story there’s nothing stopping IS fro bringing back base conv on top of support or expand the post-battle exploration by letting unit have a dialogue with the main characters or just in-between them hopefully tags not every unit every chapter because I’d feel like it’s gonna end up like the monastery where it’s just one line that doesn’t add mud and I’d prefer a longer more meaningful conversation

[@Briver64]

@@vonithipathachai8449 lmao I was just thinking "Um, okay, hi?" Then I read your username and realized I know you. Hi to you too, hope you're doing good.

[@dontstealmydiamondsv3156]

The key here is to not overly rely on just one system. Supports would be fine in conjunction with more context dependent events and more inclusive character involvement in the story. Take persona. Its social links are structurally very similar to supports, but i'd say they work a lot better since they're far from the only avenue of character development for the main cast. (It also helps that they're seamlessly integrated into the core gameplay loop, but that's for another discussion)

[@Greideren]

Supports aren't bad, they're just badly utilized. They're at their worst when they have to give 3 supports to every pair of units and an S rank afterwards (Azura x Hinata support, I'm looking at you). When they are limited, better planed and actually have something to say they can be incredibly good. They just have to change a few things. Not forcing each support chain to be 3 conversations long would be a great start, and is something that 3H even did well with the occasional support that ended after just 2 conversations when they didn't have anything else to say/do (the Dorothea and Ingrid support for example). And some supports would benefit from being 4 conversations long if the theme is interesting and the characters complement each other well. And finally my most desired change: make supports between 3 or 4 units at a time. There are some fun interactions that we might be able to see if more than 2 characters talk to each other, specially when it involves friendly banter. Think of a support between Ingrid, Sylvain and Felix where we see what they're usually like with each other, hear some of the antics they got into as kids and see Felix's softer side towards his best friends. Or one between Dimitri, Dedeu and Felix where Felix is trying to insult the other 2 as usual, and while they take the insults to themselves they get absolutely livid when Felix is trying to insult their friend (Dedeu gets mad when Dimitri is insulted and vice versa). There's quite a few things they could do with something like that.

[@rebelblackstone6066]

Another person who read Felix and Dedue's supports completely wrong, no surprise, but at least you didn't try to call Felix a racist🙄. Felix and Dimitri's relationship and thus supports go so much deeper than that as well. But group supports would be nice, there would need to be break offs for paired ends of those happen. I would also like to pick my endings instead of having to avoid getting/viewing a support rank; but I'm also fine with marrying Felix again just to complete all of his support chains in the library. I like the support chains as is aside from group supports being a great idea and I prefer for them to be viewed at player's leisure instead of forced, that way I can end a grinding session with some downtime, start my next play session with something cute or funny or watch them simply to kill time waiting for something else. Games, especially ones like this, really need the social system otherwise it's empty and its characters are flat. Dragon Age has its own that more or less works but it isn't as filling to the group. And there aren't supports but since there is a lot of running around on open maps, the characters will talk to each other based on who's in your party and that adds so much for something minor as wondering The Hinterlands. It'd be very hard to do for Fire Emblem but some changes would not kill them.

[@auraguard0212]

So Engage did it best?

[@antarath517]

I definitely agree that for people who don't mesh naturally, adding a third person into the support convo could be a really good way to make things less contrived. I also think that, aspirationally speaking, each support should try to address different facets of a character, rather than redoing the same threads. This both makes the support conversations more interesting and lets them feel more natural in any order that they happen

[@PeterGriffithOfTheHawk]

Not related to your main point but I openly laughed when I saw you bring Hinata/Azura up, because I paired them together in BR. I personally liked it a lot, because Hinata's the _exact_ kind of person who would propose to somebody with a bag of vegetables. Plus, I'm doing Festival of Bonds convo translations for Fates, so there's that too.

[@flippyflapperson872]

Some fusion of FE9's and 10's Base Conversations with traditional Supports would be ideal in my opinion. Like maybe there's two characters who have some chemistry together. You could still give them have 4 separate base convos over the course of the game, maybe with some added requirements (like them having gained a certain amount of levels each, saving all of the houses from being destroyed in one of those character's home towns, retrieving one of the character's mementos from an NPC thief etc.) That way you could still get a lot of character and relationship growth that is consistent with the pace & events of the story.

[@JonoabboFE]

I agree with some of the points made in this video, but I always liked that supports are separate form the main story or plot threads, or only tangentally mention them. I think it makes the world feel more three dimensional, like the characters we are using have lives and passions and hobbies outside of fighting on the battlefield, they have long term ambitions and goals that go beyond the scope of the game. I think this really helps characters feel more real, and less like... well... video game characters. The have every day human lives going on beyond the scenes, and I think that's a good thing. I also feel like you overlooked the fact that the monastery conversations in Three Houses allow characters to talk with each other about the events of the plot. It's not like that game ahs a lack of characters commenting on the story, and they will make remarks regarding previous missions, upcoming events, or even speculating on what is to come, with varying degrees of accuracy. I'm not sure if I'm alone in this, but I also don't want every character to be plot relevant. It makes sense for central figures, or those who have plot relevant motivations, for example if you play Verdant wind, characters like Lysithea and Hilda have some involvement in the overarching plot, but this is lessened for characters like Raphael or Leonie, and I think this makes sense. A lot of peoples motivations for fighting, of course, will be relevant to the lord's goals and aims, and as a result, the plot. But Raphael just wants a safe world for his sister, Alois just wants to go back to his family, and so on. This is present in other games too. I don't need Brom or Garcia to have huge roles in the story, because their reasons for being a part of your party are personal, they are inherently fuelled by their own lives, rather than the plot itself. Moreover, having, what, 40,50,80, however many story relevant characters just from the playable pool, on top of another pool of NPCs, villains, etc would just massively dilute everybody's involvement in it, and make it almost feel like a sea of cameos. While I have to agree that every iteration of the support system has had it's flaws, I still think that supports have made every game they are in better, and lead to players getting way more invested in the characters they are using. I would argue that supports are the main thing which take the cast of their games from being "Units", and make them "Characters". Lastly, I think saying "It doesn't work any more" when supports are a massive reason that the cast of Three Houses is one of the most beloved across the board in the series requires a lot more explanation. It's flawed, sure, but supports absolutely work in terms of building inter-character relations, and getting the player attached to the cast. There are a lot of things with supports that could be done better for sure, but I think the conclusion that they gotta go is off.

[@absoul112]

For as much as I would love TRS style scenes in a future game, I think it's very optimistic to assume IS won't still take all kinds of short cuts if they did a different system. Also it's a little funny that Persona 5 was shown since Confidants/Social Links are like that game's version of supports.

[@troykv96]

I also think that the TRS System has the little detail that the opportunity to improve supports it's very specific, if you lose an event, the support is lose forever.

[@mafiousbj]

Persona manages the "dating sim" aspect very well. Don't know why hardcore FE fans like this channel hate them, those things attract more sales from casuals and allow us to keep getting more games. Supports are entirely optional they just give boosts, but I agree they could tone down a bit the anime waifu bait characters 😂

[@DigitalStarry]

After I got into the Tales series I wished FE would use their skit system, where characters can have both silly fluffy chats but also comment actively on the plot. Most are time sensitive and some have variations depending on how you play as well as ones that unlock based on doing certain optional actions. And abstracting the conversation behind 2D portraits (until Arise that is) that bounce and move around lets them hide how cheap they are, kind of like how most people didn’t really point out how cheap Support conversations are until 3H when they made them fully 3D. Plus they can involve the entire cast, or select groups of people instead of just one on one convos. I do wish they would change things. Its so unnatural that every character has to reset their development for each support chain and they can’t comment actively on the plot unless its past events. They have to be stuck in time from the moment they’re recruited and never involve more than two people. I often in 3H just let the game play supports on auto read while I multitasked, because watching 20+ min of dull dry looking supports outside of the voice acting is so boring.

[@0y1on]

This is FE4 and it's convo system is perfect. You even get little bonuses for the talks.

[@A_Person_64]

Hit the nail on the head with the Tales skit comparison, because of how animated it is, you get immersed enough to not realize its just portraits on a background. 3H/Hopes and Engage lost at this because its two models shifting through stock animations (the Bernadetta arm flailing got old FAST) on a panoramic background (I think it's at its worse in the Byleth - Gilbert support when the two kids flat out walk behind Gilbert like they're exiting a stage play) Its like the devs looked at gameplay of The Sims for 5 minutes, saw two sims just standing, talking and doing different animations at random and decided "yeah that works, model it off that!." And never looked back. More dynamic actions during conversations like a character sitting, reading a book, exercising, swimming, ACTUALLY SPARRING OR COOKING INSTEAD OF TALKING ABOUT IT (I stg there's at least one food/cook support in every game), etc would be cool since that's what actual people do...talk while doing activities (multitasking)

[@DigitalStarry]

@@A_Person_64 I think its mostly because up until 3H, they had been animating supports entirely in a 2D space with sprites. So the cheapness is just easier to hide because its a lot more abstract and you dont need to see sprites moving because its implied and you can imagine it. But with 3D models in a 3D space, you cant abstract it like that anymore since its more closer to realism, but Intsys keeps doing it anyway since its cheap and easy to just make some stock animations and plop them in a jpg background.

[@arachnofiend2859]

The equivalent to the skit system would just be the base conversations in FE9. There have also been games where characters can Talk with each other if they meet on certain maps.

[@vivil2533]

​​@@arachnofiend2859remove support convos, and instead have special base convos that only unlock when two OR MORE characters have certain support ranks, between certain chapters. For example imagine a base convo between thre character that's only available between chapters 6-8 but only if they all have c ranks between them. The support rank would just be a letter grade that increases no convo necessary.

[@interestingmaneuver]

I think you identified the problems, but the solution feels less concrete. I would honestly favor a return to the FE9 support system with base conversations included - that gives a nice intermediate without taking away the system entirely. Giving every side character at least one base convo and multiple voiced supports would be very achievable in the modern FE era, and in fact, may be exactly what we see in a Tellius remake.

[@Ultimabuster92]

Are supports perfect? No, there are always supports in between that are boring and suck, but IN MY EYES, it is not a problem that most supports don't focus around story elements. That's what the STORY is there for. Supports are for the characters, to flesh them out and to give them personality and while i agree that it's nice from time to time when supports reference important story bits, it is not essential, at least to me. What i DO find annoying, as you mentioned, is that the characters have almost no screentime in the story after they joined, but that's not the fault of the support system. The support system can be improved. For example, it would be nice if sometimes more than two characters talk to each other. But it mustn't go away entirely

[@samkeiser9776]

I think character moments and story moments aren’t mutually exclusive, it’d be bloated if a large roster had unignorable supports, but I think the story should act as context to supports even if only by explaining setting. The characters might be in a city in time for some kind of festival, and that could provide context for that particular support.

[@rdrouynriv]

The argument is that removing the requirement of writing, animating and voice acting close to 600 support scenes would open development time for a better system that isn't an obligation and can be connected to the story. (like base conversations).

[@Ultimabuster92]

@@samkeiser9776 But then you have to make time for said festival during the story. You could do this with Sidequests, of course, but we already have THAT in FE3H. In a story with so many characters, we talk REALLY many characters, you can't make time for every single character. And even if you manage to do it, that time will be very limited for each character. You have only so much time in a FE Story, you don't have 50+ chapters. But i get what you're trying to say and i basically agree with you

[@Ultimabuster92]

@@rdrouynriv Yes, base conversations were pretty neat, i agree, they would solve not all, but many issues.

[@samkeiser9776]

@@Ultimabuster92 FE3H’s paralouges are ok, but they don’t really do enough, in terms of character content they add about a support conversion’s worth. it’s not like FE needs to implement side quests specifically, just it needs to actually care about the stories of characters besides the lords. I think my go to example is Tearring Saga, where support equivalents happen automatically at certain points of progression, though that game admittedly has pretty bloated cutscenes, they could cut those down by making the side character content require triggers, or at least have them be skippable. Also, FE games do have room for characters to have downtime FE’s writing just squanders it. SoV is a relatively good example, FE3H is like canonically 95% downtime, the cast in Fates go to tons of theoretically interesting places and presumably they have to sleep and eat, so they have excuses to stop places, awakening has a 2 year period of peace the game just doesn’t show us. Not to mention the characters undoubtedly have time not spent as fighting, that they can absolutely use to have conversations of any variety. Also I don’t think it’s so much about screen time as it is about character content, the advantage of characters reacting to the world and events of the game is that it’s in general more effective than the random comvos that are supports. Yeah it’s probably more difficult to integrate a lot of characters well, and I don’t think FE should necessarily try to equally develop its entire cast, but I do think what is there should at least be good, and that it should include characters that are definitely side characters with their own motives and arcs, and who can just die. And I don’t want to feel like FE just writes its characters capable of dying out, or forgets about them. Like I don’t think Rapheal’s story is as involved in FE3H’s themes as lysethia’s is, so if it came down to it, I’d axe a lot more of his content, but I also don’t think the game shouldn’t care about Rapheal. Imagine an alternate timeline where there’s a map in the GD route where you’re protecting a town from the empire and/or TWSITD, and it just so happens to be Rapheal’s hometown, post battle if he’s alive he comments on the state of the town depending on how well you protected it and talks about how terrible it was to have a fight there. And he has the opportunity to talk to his sister. Rapheal’s motivation is to protect his sister and a story scenario like that would give him the opportunity to show that and not just tell it, and it’d allow his little sister to actually get screen time and be an existent character. That might be all he gets, but I think it’d still make him feel more involved with the actual conflict, instead of him just commenting about random stuff after every battle, being a lovable idiot in supports, and beating everything to death because you trained him to and he’s a soldier.

[@appelofdoom8211]

Bring back base conversations. Supports have their own function not every conversation needs to be about the current events

[@Maroxad]

Nah, supports should remain. HOWEVER they need to be reworked. You could do with a lot fewer of them, maybe 3 or 4 per character. Permutations based on who is dead also works. Fire Emblem 7 and Path of Radiance both do this. Such as the scene where the two kids are kidnapped. And the dialogue changes based on which brothers are alive. Supports add an interesting mechanic around positioning. But this kinda goes away when everyone is BFFs. Likewise, they can change relationships so instead of people being buddy buddy, we can have more relationships that are rivalries and such, with distinct bonuses (sorta like elemental support bonuses in the GBA games)

[@Ctrybpkm]

I do think the support system needs an overhaul but not to be removed all together.

[@foxmccloudizsexy]

I don't think it does, just work around the FE9 support system. FE9 was a decent upgrade from GBAFE that reduces grinding them and being outside the battlefield. Modern FE has way too many characters that can support each other and have support limits removed. This makes too many relationships with characters not having chemistry and just overwhelms the writers.

[@TerminaFE]

Well that's certainly an algorithm attention grabber of a title.

[@Cutter-o5f]

A few PoR supports change depending if characters are dead or alive. Tormod & (pretty sure) Sothe for example. Tormod referencing Muarim adds something along the lines of "when he was alive." Also, the part 4 base conversations in RD can change depending on who's in which army. So the flags for different scenes wouldn't even be a ground-breaking concept for the series.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

OK, but Amelia and Neimi looking for fruit trees on the Phantom Ship has to be one of my favorite moment in Fire Emblem! (More seriously, Pent and Louise "support" conversation is really good honestly)

[@Zandaruss]

My favourite moment is Lance and Lott playing chess WHILE they are in a battlefield.

[@mousefire777]

I was kinda shocked when I first played Super Robot Wars, and they actually like.... had characters talk during the story. Like, all of them. All 30+ characters would chime in, interact with each other, have character development, during the actual story. It solved the context issue perfectly. And SRW basically ripped its formula straight from Fire Emblem, as a strategy rpg, so there's no reason FE couldn't do that aside from permadeath

[@renanmarcilio4677]

The reason IS won't do this is because support is almost a synonym with romance/shipping, and they can't have that go away. I feel like supports could stay as in passive bonuses with different levels (also, bring back leadership stars), but save the actual conversations only for core characters or unexpected pairings and have them both be locked by story progress/map deployment. At least, that's how I'm planning to do in my SRPG game. Imagine, in SoV, Alm starts with C-tier with Celica and the villagers, because they've been friends for years. After saving Silque, she and Lukas have a C with him as well. After rescuing Claire, she and Clive have a C with Alm, too. After liberating Zofia Castle, the villagers, Lukas and Clive are upgraded to B, and the whole deliverance gets at least C. And after each major story point, the relevant characters upgrade in support as well. You can even show, after the sluice gate opening, how Alm and Celica went from C to B, after Alm's promotion flag cutscene on Celica side go from B to A, and after the "trust in the Falchion" cutscene, from A to S. Their passive support bonus is absurd, and having this long, slow build up would make that "sudden" +20 crit on the final map feel way more impactful. And about the other part: what if Alm and Zeke had some conversations after each map after his recruitment, ala Pent and Louise from FE7, of Alm asking him about the Emperor or the Gradivus, or Zeke asking about the mark on Alm's hand or about the legendary Sir Mycen... instead of the bread and butter out-of-context conversations he (and most characters in FE) has? Very few supports I feel like add to the characters, instead of being "I'm X trope and I'm acting like X trope" and ending with "I'm X trope and I've learned a valuable Saturday's morning cartoon lesson" or "I'm X character and I want to marry Y". In newer FEs, I hope they can dial down the amount of characters and customization (the SRPG I'm planning has only one character for each class, and no reclassing) so that they feel more like characters and not units (something Mekkah talked about before as well), instead of being a ragtag bunch of "mandatory tropes for an anime-esque game"...

[@asafesseidonsapphire]

A bit of the fun of the FE games comes from customization and how you use your units. I would argue that Fates is where customization and uniqueness are on it's peak, as each character can do some unique thing, while still being able to be covered by other character.

[@renanmarcilio4677]

@@asafesseidonsapphire I agree that customization can lead to interesting strategies. In 3H, I feel they were this close to nailing it, but with a little bit of time anyone can be a Wyvern Rider, it didn't really worked... Restrictions need to exists, both because it helps bringing innovation, but also because *real* characters can't suddenly learn magic or how to ride horses. For me, this level of customization makes me feel that it's not a character, it's a bunch of stats in a trench-coat. Imagine if in 3H some characters couldn't learn things they don't like (for that, the setting shouldn't be a school as well, but I digress), or having the boons be way more impactful. Of course Felix will level up swords faster than anyone, because that's what he likes. And what if Hilda only had 5 or 6 possible learning topics "because the school didn't let me pick *none of the above*"? For a fully strategist game, we have the Advance Wars series (and Wargroove 2 that just released this month), with nameless troops and literal cannon fodder. For the character based games, we have JRPGs with things like "I refuse to do this thing I don't like" or "I can't learn that kind of magic", which makes the character feel real (and not a bunch of numbers) and FE is lacking. It's trying to be a lot of things, and not really being a cohesive one, and that's my worry...

[@vonithipathachai8449]

Fangame maker here. I absolutely agree that the normal Support conversation system feels too "canned" and needs to go. Having personally experimented with this some, I think the best thing to do going forward is to simply have Base conversations or a similar type of context-dependent scene supplant dedicated C-B-A Support conversations entirely. Even if not every character is able to squeeze in substantial screentime in the main story, a more fleshed-out Base conversation system that isn't so rigid can at least let them react to and grow from story events more organically. Not every Base conversation needs to raise Support values, while some can. Certain characters can be given pre-existing Support bonuses with each other that vary in strength depending on how close their relationship is. They can be given as many or as few Support-boosting conversations as needed without having to artificially stretch interactions across an arbitrary number of said conversations. Some Support-boosting conversations can even involve more than two people at once.

[@vivil2533]

My thought is don't have support convos at all. Instead have Base convos that have support rank, and chapters as unlock conditions. For example imagine a base convo that can be viewed between chapter 6-8 but only if three characters have c rank support with each other.

[@zaarongaming8174]

Fe7 implemented your third solution in one of the most savage and underrated scenes in the series. If you go to the Dread Isles and Matthew is dead, rather than having him mourn the death of Leila, Hector replaces his dialogue and says "we'll bury her next to Matthew." It's not a lot of dialogue, but is it ever brutal.

[@ZycheCiorre]

I honestly don't want supports to go away, but I would rather they were like they were in FE9. More than any of that though, I would love base info conversations to come back. In FE 9&10 they were full of character, it was a good reason to not want any of my characters to die, just so I could see if they had an interaction later in one of those.

[@MugenCannon97]

I get that you're a gameplay guy at heart, and so am I to a degree, but I think you undervalue supports, especially the simpler ones. Supports are a series staple for a reason, and while they can be a bit intrusive, for people that enjoy the characters a lot, they're worth looking into. In fact, I think a better way to make my point is to use an example to get my thinking across. A very basic support that just gets boiled down to just "pies lol" is Chrom and Sumia's. However, this is down to people who don't really like to engage with writing, it's mechanical function for information distrubition, or its' ability to craft an important theme in Fire Emblem that Shozou Kaga likely baked in from the beginning :Man vs Man in relation to Man vs Monster. (Which is arguably still a fairly surface level thematic to Fire Emblem as a whole) In the Sumia and Chrom support, we can get some very vaulable information, that, when combined with other Supports, and story dialogue, allows the game's internal consistent world to be further built, then reinforced. The main takeaways from the Support is this: Chrom and Sumia both know a character named Nurse Nan, whom they both share a history with. Chrom mentions being wetnursed, and growing up without parents, and House Ylisse has a tradition of wetnursing. Nurse Nan, therefore, was likely this wetnurse, or a former wetnurse who took on a motherly/grandmotherly role, as her name, Nan, is an English dialectic shortening of Grandmother, or Gran, starting in the country's northern area before moving down. Though it may also come from Nanny, the association with an aged woman still applies. This indicates her older age, and provides context clues to her relationship to Chrom, Lissa, and Emmeryn. Not only that, but as Sumia states, she learned from Nurse Nan as well, so she was a mentor to her. In her Gaius support, he refers to Sumia as a noble, and given her armour and status as a mounted knight, like Sully who is also from a noble house that serves as knights to the Exalt, it makes sense that Sumia would be at the castle, and be mentored by someone who cares for royalty, as she would have to serve as a charge to them, and Nurse Nan may also be preparing her for wifely duties, given the obvious romantic leanings Chrom and Sumia's support has. We also learn that Chrom dislikes Rhubarb, yet Sumia bakes him a Rhubarb pie that he likes. Given Nurse Nan being referred to in past tense, and her assumed older age, she may very well have either retired, or passed. Meaning she no longer makes these pies, as Chrom remembers her doing. This means Chrom may not have had one since he was a child, and so as an adult, his tastes may have changed to appreciate both Sumia, and Nan's cooking, which is a nod to Chrom's obvious maturing into a man during the first arc through the second and third arcs, as seen by his leadership and fatherhood. What did we learn? Well, by getting one other support (a dastardly, ineffecient use of valuable low turns, I know) we can see Sumia's status, and familairity wth the royal family, her shared history wih Chrom, her mentor, what her mentor's role was to that family, and how Sumia now takes on a parallel role to that mentor figure within this family as she potentially joins it. We also learn that Sumia can cook (big surprise) and that Chrom has food preferences, that his enjoyment of his disliked foods has gone up, that he is maturing, even early into the game, as well as a nice life tidbit not to overdo it with the meat when you're tired ;). We have a foundation for a relationship between the two, through the backing of a character we never meet, but can infer much about by stopping to think about the other pieces of the worldbuilding provided in other dialogue. This relationship obviously brings on the themes of motherhood, wifehood, shared history, maturation from boy to man, and a simple domestic scene amidst warfare. That last part does also tie in to Fire Emblem's Man vs Man, and Man vs Monster theme. For the former, though Chrom and his army fight mostly other humans, Risen aside, they are fighting their fellow man, and while the obvious bonds of friendship and trust carry them through, it's small, humanising moments of domesticity, warmth, reminiscence, and mutual experience that realy preserve our humanity, doubly so for the leader in charge. Similarly, for Man vs Monster, it keeps the monster within at bay, represented by Chrom's father, a man who became a monster through his own actions and inability to keep himself grounded in humanity, and the literal monsters that Chrom fights, from the undead Risen, to a bitter warmongering Gangrel who rejects the connections with others and thus loses the warmth of simple human interaction, to the cold but determined Walhart who inspired many but similarly let no one in and became a monster not unlike Chrom's father, and finally Validar and Grima who reject humanity altogether, and whose shared history lacks any warmth or comfort, but insteas is a bond of hatred towards humans and Naga. In the end, Man, Chrom and his allies, defeat Monster, their various enemies, through utilising the qualities found in their supports that invite simple humanity into their lives. Even the goofy ones. Supports are deeply important to the thematics of Fire Emblem both as a video game, and as a story. The additional worldbuilding, the information we learn about our characters, the different sides of them we see (part of why I actually prefer the Chrom/F!Robin support over the M!Robin one is down to it showcasing a wider emotional range and capacity for the two characters and providing more building information to greater understand their characters as a whole) and the ways in which it humanises our units in contrast to the enemy ones allows us to explore the wider themes applies to works of fiction depicting open warfare between nations. There is a lot to value in supports, for fans of the characters, as it allows for an important slice of interaction the main story cannot afford, and uses what are effectively self contained side stories, to flesh out its world in small ways, and reinforce the roles and places of its people, allowing each setting to really come to life the more you replay the games, no longer just seeing a map as a set of tiles, but as a real place, and eventually allowing the stakes of saving the world to settle in with a greater attachment to it. Also sorry for the essay lol hope ur having a nice day bro :)

[@FirstLast-qq9zh]

On the topic of 3Houses timeskip supports, while some are locked to post-skip, none are locked to pre-skip (which makes sense, the player missing supports would suck).

[@Lex_Araden]

Actually you are definitely wrong about some C supports not being locked. This is not an exhaustive list but these supports must be done early or you miss the window (I know because I am continuing the same file with new game + and trying to get everything). Byleth + Constance Byleth + Hapi Ferdinand + Constance Ashe + Marianne Ashe + Hapi It is definitely the exception rather than the rule, but I missed the window on these supports and have had to get them on my most recent run of the game.

[@FirstLast-qq9zh]

⁠@@Lex_Aradenhuh, I haven’t done a full main game run with the ashen wolves. Didn’t ever notice, my bad

[@Lex_Araden]

@@FirstLast-qq9zh No worries, I didn't know either, but it is not exclusive to DLC characters either. I also ran into this with Ashe + Marianne.

[@renren5660]

This is not true. Mostly byleth c-support is locked in pre-ts. Faculty x student c-support is available in post-ts.

[@VJ-Vice]

Unironically the solution is a lot of high quality base conversions and don’t make it so each character just blurbs a line to the expressionless avatar after each chapter but you can write whole conversations between different characters and time it for when certain events take place. You can even make decision trees where you can have certain characters react if another character dies in battle

[@vincentthelego7967]

I know this is tangent to thw video, but i have to say that's one thing I really like about FE7, Path of Radiance, and Echoes. They really paid the most attention to whether or not a character was dead, or simply not recruited. Simple things like Hector reacting to Matthew dying after finishing "Another Journey", or even Legault giving a little advice to the Lords in "four-fanged offense" really goes a long way in fleshing people out even more than I originally thought. If I had a personal take, I think future titles could play around with how many tiers of supports everyone gets with their partners. It's always 3 or 4, with very minor exceptions. I say play around with that. Characters who hang around longer, get more, or like in ike/titanias case, are spread out more.

[@valtinryu8147]

My headcanon workaround for the "Bernadetta problem" is to think this: the time that a support conversation took place is before or at the time that I unlocked/viewed it and after the earliest time it could happen (whether it's after when the previous convo took place or whatever plot moment blocks it.) For example, if I watch Bernadetta's C support with Felix after watching her B with Edelgard, in my mind, the Felix conversation didn't necessarily happen prior to the Edelgard one. The Felix C can take place anytime between chapter 1 and the time that I view that support, whereas the Edelgard B can take place anytime after the C was available and the time that I view that support. Point being, though I as the player saw the Felix convo after the Edelgard one, I fix the continuity issue by assuming the Felix convo happened before, and when I'm effectively viewing a flashback. (Also in case it's not clear, I'm not saying this method applies only to Bernie supports, I refer to supports by any character where the same trait is portrayed in every C)

[@mutegamingstuff9120]

I think Berwick Saga does character development for less essential characters the best because everyone gets their own side mission, as well as many city conversations as your progress through the story, and everyone who can promote has an "event" promotion (though it's not locked to only a specific time). Having characters just sit in nondescript place and talking about thing that is completely irrelevant to main story while having no actual aim to the conversation other than two dudes are just there makes supports difficult to get interested in in FE.

[@rdrouynriv]

Expecting this level of creativity from IS only leads to disappointment. I think they continue with the support system because it can be easily compartmentalized from the game and handed over to an outsourced writing team. Adding scripted story events like those in Kaga Saga requires development effort, planning and creativity. I don't see that level of passion from the current Fire Emblem team.

[@ramones1314]

idk I liked supports in 3 houses a lot. the clashing personalities, the funny interactions, the showing of how real life and hobbies still carry on even during war, lore drops, etc. sure some of them are a lil repeat or revolve around 1 silly thing for 3 whole supports, but there were so many theres bound to be bad ones.

[@quinnviandsej]

Wait, 3H actually has 650 supports? That's nuts, I'd never thought to count them before.

[@A_Person_64]

And that's not even getting into the main/side story cutscenes, monastery dialogue, minigame dialogue and all the quotes in battle...Then you realize they had to do this for four routes too...

[@gregster1016]

Honestly the way Tear Ring and Berwick Saga do character development is very good, and it often gives us stuff that couldn't be done justice in a regular Support system. Arthur's whole sidequest in Berwick Saga for example could not be able to be achieved in a support chain.

[@TheAether666]

All four Kaga Saga games and Path of Radiance are supports at their best.

[@ferrishthefish]

It's perfectly legitimate for the characters to talk about things other than advancing the main plot. That's one of the defining characteristics of arias in opera, and also of the songs in musicals (the descendants of arias). Yet the arias and songs are what people remember and take away as the best part of their respective media, even though they are literally _filler_ content from a plot perspective. If you want your audience to understand a character on a deeper level than just witnessing how they react to main plot events, you _need_ to separate them from the main plot for a bit. There is nothing wrong with that.

[@Mekkkah]

This is true and I don't disagree! Not every conversation has to be "on-topic", so to speak. But not every one has to be off topic either.

[@NorpBorp]

You make some good points, but personally I think the conclusion is a bit too strong. Saying the *current incarnation* of the support systems needs to go, I can agree with, though. The real problem is just that: over the titles since Awakening, IS has fallen into a fixed formula w/ the support system and isn't iterating on it anymore. One of the things that's always drawn me to FE as a series is that the devs continue to experiment with new ideas, to change the mechanics around in interesting ways. And they're still doing that, but need to remember that narrative elements, like the support system, should be included in that effort.

[@NoNameTheFirst]

I'd like to see a hybrid between Path of Radiance and Three Houses support system. Characters should have a limited number of units they can support with like in PoR and the gba FE's. That way, we don't have the garbage that is Bernadetta being socially awkward for the upteenth time. The supports should build when both units are deployed, but they should also have an expiration: if 2 units do not support by a certain point, they can no longer build more supports. This will allow conversations to be tied to ingame events and better reflect the combat growth of the units. I think this is fairly common sense, and it's surprising IS hasn't improved the support system since PoR.

[@monadoguy7807]

I love the people blatantly not watching the video and going "erm, supports are what saved the series"

[@monadoguy7807]

Do people like, think FE would've died with Awakening had that game done a good job of implementing characters into the story or something instead of having conversations completely detached from anything happening? OFC Supports worked out in the modern FE games but pretending there isn't a better way of giving characters moments in the story is absurd.

[@A_Person_64]

What "saved the series" (God this meme still existing in current year is stupid) was having actual marketing and being on an RPG dry system near launch while all the games people were expecting weren't there yet. All awakening did was show IntSys accepted their fate and realized to aim for the otaku/weeb crowd with waifu/coombait because that's who votes with their wallet. Meanwhile poor AW fanbase is jumping with joy after getting bread crumbs and tap water for dinner after what, 15 years?

[@DarkSol13]

Yeah, gotta love the tourists and their baseless assumptions, when they get drunk with power and act like they know better simply because what caters to them happens to sell well. Absolutely hilarious. Kind of reminds me of a certain other jrpg fandom which is very familiar to you, only there the problem is MUCH worse. Much more painful for me personally, too. And do people honestly believe that in the modern VG industry that absolutely LOVES churning out remakes and remasters of old games everyone would just forget about Fire Emblem? I'm so sad Tellius wasn't the one to become a huge hit instead of Awakening. But even then, tbh I would much rather the series 'died' after Tellius with its artistic integrity intact than have what we have today, which is a franchise that caters to depressed fragile otakus with no standards. Personally, from that scenario, I would only regret losing Echoes.

[@monadoguy7807]

@@DarkSol13 What

[@DarkSol13]

​@@monadoguy7807 I was agreeing with you, sort of. But also ranting waaaaay past the point you made originally. I often get carried away like that, so, my bad if this seems nonsensical or out of the blue. Never mind me. This is just me screaming into the ether as I'm wont to do.

[@sjk8495]

9:00 The interesting thing is that Three Houses kind of has that cast participation in the main story, especially the Golden Deer who feel like active participants in the war such as Ignatz helping Claude to deliver a letter or Lysithea telling him and Byleth about TWSITD. And as for the supports, I don't think they need to go, but I am fine with improving the system in ways such as making C-supports somewhat less repetitious, or locking them behind story events. My only condition is that regardless of the changes, the playable casts are still excellent and highlights great characters. Ideally, I'd like future casts to rival or surpass the Three Houses cast, aka the best FE cast in my eyes and one of the best in gaming (not necessarily the game's support system since as discussed it can have issues).

[@Gerd0]

I do still think the just have important characters retreat cop out is fine. IS would really have to balloon the amount of writing (potentially beyond what they're otherwise "wasting" their time on with normal supports) to account for every possible permutation of important characters dying with every scene they're in. Careful allocation of screentime could make this feasible, but at a certain point it'll become obvious that the writers are intentionally avoiding extra work. I dunno. Feels like a go big or go home kind of thing to me. Might be more viable in a shorter story? Leaning toward base conversations as the main characterization delivery mechanism is pretty compatible with permadeath. It gives a way to write scenes that tell you that the characters actually are invested in the plot, and you're left with the real simple solution of scenes with dead characters just don't happen. The way to fix supports is to just do FE9 again. I don't necessarily agree that a lot of supports being divorced from the actual plot is inherently problematic, because a lot of them are entertaining and give you a chance to appreciate the characters in a more laid back manner. But on the other hand, having some or a lot of those supports does not need to be mutually exclusive with just doing the FE9 system.

[@gameboyn64]

This is what i would do to fix supports. Get rid of the restrictive abc structure and reduce the number of support options. Instead characters build support points for participating in battle together, doing base activities, and specific actions during battle such as standing next to each other like radiant dawn. There are chapter specific base and map conversations that become available if given conditions are met that can include but isn't limited to the support point total. These conversations can sometimes result additive character specific support bonuses such as +3 hit, +1def, +5crit... ect. It can even include very difficult to obtain conversations that alter the story or give the player rare items.

[@brober4502]

This is what I'm aiming to hopefully implement in my hack. Fe9 style support building, and already I have a lot a lot of scenes that "check alive" for units other than the main cast so that they can have scenes, and actually DO STUFF. Main limitation of GBA is the mid combat convos, in a perfect world I' have a hub for base convos. Also within GBA theres ways to limit when supports can trigger via flags so for example support X can't trigger until chapter X, or support Y can't trigger until support Z with these other units has.

[@xenofes2]

I think one of the biggest problems in modern supports is that they're unlimited. Part of the monastery slog in Three Houses is feeling the need to progress supports after every chapter, which ends up taking forever, and showcasing a lot of similar supports, one after the other. For example, Bernadetta's C supports might all be funny, but watching multiple of them back to back is not very fun because you're getting the same jokes on blast repeatedly. When the number of supports you had was limited, you might not see everything about a character in a single playthrough, but the player would secretly be saved from a ton of repetitive conversations. FE9 really did do supports as best as the series has ever seen. There's also the modern games that require S supports to be written for every possible pairing, which often doesn't naturally follow the C-A supports. Every time I think about support problems I think about Mozu marrying Kaze because he taught her a better way to peel potatoes.

[@benjip7414]

The blue lions had the advantage of most of the characters in that class being childhood friends or they knew each other beforehand. As a result it felt like the supports for those characters were not just two strangers meeting and having a random conversation. The black eagles and golden deer did not really have this advantage. I also thought it was pretty lame how each pre chapter and post chapter scene had each character in the class have one sentence to say about the current situation in turns with no dialogue really being shared. To be fair Fire emblem has never done this in any game before.

[@gameboyn64]

It felt like the blue lions was the first route written before the team realized they may have bitten off way more than they could chew. Besides most of silver snow making more sense in the blue lions point of view, it's the only class where you can draw a relationship line that connects every character, except maybe ashe. Kind of felt for the other 2 classes, they just created a bunch of characters and threw them together giving some of them a buddy.

[@lingenberry]

I actually would prefer if death affected the story writing more. I always loved how the first couple of chapters in FE9 could be really depressing if you just keep losing Greil Mercs. Not just lines get changed but the tone is changed with different sadder music playing sometimes after a battle. Some supports even change really drastically when certain units die (one example being Tormod saying he wants to make friends his age with Sothe in honor of Muarim’s memory as opposed to Muarim just telling him to to do so). And yeah supports often feel repetitive with how many there are. I feel bad but I skip a lot of voice lines because they’re long and often repeating essentially what I’ve heard before. I feel like characters in the last two games support way too many characters too. I think that increases the repetitiveness and decreases quality of the writing as well.

[@peste4592]

embrace tearring events

[@Ashunera468]

I think Shadows of Valentia was on the right track - limiting supports to developing relationships and having character check-ins. There just could have been a lot more done there (like adding base conversations for example). Supports can fill a niche, they’re just slapped onto every character because we gotta have supports

[@jonunciate7018]

The quality vs quantity argument I think applies here too. Less supports can allow more focus on better writing. Yet another reason I need to play tier ring saga.

[@baclaba12]

10:58 FE9 already does this funnily enough, most people just don't really know about it since we tend to reset anyway, characters will even reference that a character they know is dead. only people this doesn't really apply to is titania and soren cause they are still technically "alive" when they die.

[@ecbrd8478]

If you've never seen the early cutscenes in FE9 with characters dead I would seriously suggest that you look it up because this I think is a perfect example of how things could look if you did the replacement cutscene thing well. The cutscene with Mist and Rolf in particular has a *completely* different tone when both of Rolf's brothers are dead

[@zaneheaston8254]

I understand that the amount of support conversations can be overwhelming, & I know that no sane person would ever want to grind them all out However it’s nice to have new scenes to discover on repeat play throughs, it keeps things fresh Your arguments are valid but I don’t think axing an entire section of the game is the solution

[@Jekuma]

FE2 was actually kinda the first game to have a support system even though it is even more obsccure than in fe3 - When Alm and Celica are next to each other (which only is possible in the finalsection), they get passive bonuses.

[@leargamma4912]

Celica gets increased avoid by like 5 or 10, and alm gets a guaranteed crit if adjacent

[@Jekuma]

@@leargamma4912 Yeah, I forgot what they specifically got, thanks.

[@aclashoffireandice4084]

@@leargamma4912 In case anyone is reading deep into the comments like I do, this isn't accurate. Alm gets the Triangle Attack effect of both a guaranteed critical and +5 to the damage he deals (applied before damage is floored to 1, but after flooring (Atk - Def) at 0), while Celica gets nothing at all.

[@rdrouynriv]

Completely agree. So much effort goes into supports that are completely wasted with bad, cliché writing. Also the way you unlock supports in 3 Houses is so painful. You unlock like 5+ supports at a time and have to sit through them all, and it gets very repetitive. I almost think replacing this with story relevant base conversations would be less work overall. The only reason to keep the support system is for legacy reasons. (which is also the same reason they keep permadeath around even though they've added so many mechanics that trivialize it.)

[@2tehnik]

I’m a bit confused by the reference to persona 5. I mean, of course there you have a typical jrpg party that comments on the stuff in the main story all the time. But Persona’s social links also often get criticized for their lack of contextuality, or rather, the fact that the lack of contextuality means that character development in social links can’t effect the way they behave in the main story. Kind of how C supports tend to be the same because they have to assume you haven’t read a different C support of the same character. Removing contextless conversations altogether fixes the discrepancy, but it also ends up removing any such source of character development that doesn’t make sense to be directly tied to the world/its events.

[@nesmontou2393]

The solution is obviously to do like Utawarerumono and have a massive portion of the narrative be hours of slice of life moments between every battle (it's peak)

[@ZephyrK_]

hell no, monastery & stuff already ruin the flow of battle. Incorporate it into the story like most other games.

[@arcanemaster8722]

Genuinely couldn’t disagree more. Support conversations are usually just skippable, and for those who want to learn more about the character or their lore, it’s just an extra treat to grow attachment. I’d rather them not bloat story as a way to flesh out core characters, and at the same time I would love a way to learn more about the less important characters. There are ways that it can be improved of course. I do think they can be a bit more dynamic or interesting, but I don’t think that’s too important to me at least. I’m mostly interested in the content of the supports, and I feel like they would invest in making less supports as a result like Valentia. I genuinely prefer quantity over quality with supports, since it’s more conversations to read and see with subsequent playthroughs. I’d rather see more interaction between characters but with hopefully more variation between how the characters are. I also don’t think that every support needs to contribute to the story and be discussing trauma or the war or all that. Personally, I found a handful of those supports in 3H boring. Sometimes I want to see them be stupid, be silly, expand on their traits. It adds charm, it adds personality. I love a good balance, and I think that’s necessary. I feel like recency bias aside, these supports are the main reason why so many side and less important characters in modern FE games are so favored and have wide fan bases outside of just gameplay. Too many early game characters are just hollow shells without ANY personality, and I don’t think a few cutscenes will really cut it.

[@conicalmug]

I think the makings of a good support system are there. They just need to be tightened up a bit. Firstly, I agree with the people saying characters should have less supports in general. I can understand that there can sometimes be disappointment when two characters don't have a support with one another, but I would rather have a handful of meaningful, developed supports between characters than a huge number of same-y fluff supports that we often see in the more modern titles. I also think they should double-down on the Three Houses approach of locking certain support ranks until certain story points, and also locking you out of some supports if you didn't reach them in time. This allows the writers to have supports that rely on certain past/upcoming events and also provides an incentive to pursue supports that the player is most interested in rather than throwing everyone into a deathball and seeing which supports you unlock at the end of each chapter. Supports with more than two characters would also be neat, even if they were limited in number. Perhaps if characters X, Y and Z all had a certain support level with one another, a group conversation could be unlocked using all three of them. Lastly, I think it has to be said that support writing just... needs to be improved in general. Supports are almost always a notable downgrade from main story conversations for a number of reasons, such as the lack of context, the repetitive C -> B -> A pattern and the emphasis on exaggerating certain character traits. I think the rank system for supports should be scrapped completely so that support conversations can be independent of one another.

[@Yue451]

Imagine having 20 characters chime in after you clear a map.

[@A_Person_64]

The TRS info dump experience, just like Kaga intended

[@zaneheaston8254]

Project X Zone had this, & it was so tedious to get through because EVERY SINGLE character has to give their thoughts

[@Edgeperor]

I think it’d be good if there were different tiers of supports, where you had to get at least one support from a character in the previous tier to be able to get supports from the next one. That way, characters could get the chance to actually develop throughout ALL of their support convos instead of doing the Bernadetta thing

[@zeonlucid7059]

I get the issues with support conversations in Fire Emblem, for one it feels a bit out of place when characters talk about silly haha things while something awful happens in the main story line. At the same time, I think it's alright for some of these conversations to be like that, because honestly during some break one would rather talk about their niche, silly hobbies than talk about the war going on for the 100th time. I don't mind if those supports have their own bubble and focus on something else than the main story, I feel like the main story should tell the story, as stupid as it sounds. I do agree that more side characters should be more involved in the main story and have them have their moment to shine or whatever, but with the cast size of some of these games, I don't think it's that easy to implement. While I do think what FE9 did with the supports is a great thing, I don't think all supports have to be story related, maybe for some of the "important" main characters. I don't think I would love this series for what it is if the supports were removed entirely. Sure, they are not always consistent if you look at it as a whole and not every support has the best writing. What it needs is an overhaul and maybe a different approach or a different way to access them.

[@kylegrefe4399]

Yeah no. The main thing that keeps me playing are supports. I want to see them. Particularly when well written, like in Sacred Stones, or Three Houses.

[@verhiptblits3551]

Honestly, I see your point, but the thing I personally like about the fire emblem support conversations is that it's a way to naturally learn about the backstory of most characters. You can get insight in a characters relations, and hobbies aswell without breaking the stories flow by having them clunkily mention stuff like that during important story events,,, like,,,Dorothea for example has a really compelling backstory, but most of it wouldn't really be able to get mentioned during the main stories events. While I do believe it needs some reworking with stuff like the Bernadetta supports for example. But I don't think they should go all together. My solution would be to 1: have less support convos, like, limit the characters to have between 4 or 6 different support partners 2: Go back to the fe9 deployment support system so the characters can comment on current events as well And 3: to give the convos different unlock requirements as well, like for example; if a support convo is about food have a requirement be for them to eat food together in the hub. Or if a support is about the struggles of war have the characters kill enemies next to eachother. Hell you can even have to make it so you have to kill a boss with a specific unit to unlock certain supports. Idk, I do agree with the sentiment of this vid that the support system should have some changes, but I don't think it should go entirely

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

The only two fire emblem games I played were Fates and 3 Houses, and it was very specifically because I like social sims a lot (I specifically haven't picked up Engage because I heard the writing took a backfoot). At this point I am definitely feeling a desire for more depth. I don't want to see the social sim element removed, but it is hard to imagine how they can keep such massively large casts and have a better system.

[@give_anna_an_alt1744]

This is where I feel Valkyrie Chronicles gets it right, VC4 "support system" stands out. Doesn't involve the main characters for the most part. Important characters either retreat but can still be redeployed next battle or give you a game over if it's a defeat condition. Also the supports involve side characters with one another on a map with no other allies. And completing their side story turns one of their negative traits into a positive one. I'm in a rush for time otherwise I would go into more detail but also VC4 gets past the permadeatch block by allowing you to revive allies for cash after beating the game while the side characters might appear in some cutscenes even the animated ones, but not be important to the story

[@r.c.3813]

idk if supports need too go or not but i think they could be improved. Also i'm glad somebody else defends fates supports.

[@RedRyuSmash]

I'm 50/50 on this. On one hand, one of the reasons I dislike Shadow Dragon so much is everyone is a blank slate with no personality. I only really like Gordon because of the old OVA movies with the memes. Otherwise, I have zero attachment to these characters. If I want something like Chess or Advance Wars it is fine to have blank slate units but the Characters are part of the big appeal of Fire Emblem to me. This is what Supports do for me and I love them in the newer games. The scope part of them not being fully animated is 100% a-ok in my eyes. Scope creep is real and I'd rather they did not put all of their budget into full FMV cut scenes for support. I'd rather that go into the main game and other areas. I agree that the context issue with some characters is a problem. Bernadetta is the classic modern example of why this doesn't work. She can A support with one person then go back to screening and running away in a different C support. This is why my friends like Engage's supports better. The development in one is more self-contained but can also show many different aspects to these characters. I agree I wish characters were more involved in the story but at the same time it can be hard to perma death and these different modes to do this, I personally do not like it when characters will retreat and leave to not be deployed but still involved in the story when "killed". I agree if done it needs to be very very rare when used. Personally, I think I would like to keep some form of supports since I think this is better than absolutely none but some shake up or improvement to the system would be ideal.

[@crimrwby9784]

I think you came with the solution to supports without actually realizing it. You said that one of the major issues with 3H's support comversations involved the context itself. Which is true. You also mentioned that 3Hs sort of fixed the issue by adding in locks before you can obtain a certain supports. The very thing that created this issue was the timeskip. This is a problem that can actually be fixed. By simply changing the support convo after the timeskip, you can fix that because the character's development involved in the support. Or possibly build upon that. This does mean that you may have two versions of a specific support. But it ultimately fixes the issue that you have a problem with, which is the context. Its why I HIGHLY disagree with this take. The objective should be for us to improve the support system. Not just throw it out the window. This system was made so that there's more of a connection made between these characters. JRPGs can have a bad habit where if a character's development is finished, they're just left alone for the rest of the game. This is what the support system is for. And its even more impactful because FE does have a perma-death system. I can understand what you're trying to go for. But I just don't agree with it. Edit: At best, I can understand a rework. Because there are admittedly visible flaws with supports. But completely taking out the support system entirely is pretty crazy.

[@Hambs23]

The story dynamic can go two ways in order to support actual permadeath while being reasonably easy to develop: Either you're forced to deploy story relevant characters and you get a game over if any of them dies, and side characters only getting an extra dialogue line on stories with maybe some secret paths/chapters if they're alive and reach certain conditions (like be at a certain level or be present in 'x' number of battles). Or you're handled such a small pool of characters that you deploy important characters out of convinience. I can see both leading to very samey team compositions, which kinda goes against the very customizable armies the franchise seems to strive for at least in the newer games. I don't think permadeath should go away, because as you said, it can lead to very interesting narrative developments that would not be possible otherwise. And I also think the support system is, even with its flaws, very uniquely from FE and offer some extra character interactions and backstories that would be annoyingly intrsusive if they were put in the middle of a regular cutscene, tho I wish they were more group focused and not only 1-on-1 romance stuff. They don't mesh very well with each other, but I think in order to maintain both, one needs to be vastly modified.

[@vivil2533]

I think the support system is good, but they should separate the support rank from the convos. Make support convos, base convos like in fe9. You can then make restrictions on when they appear, for example, a convo for two characters could only appear between chapter 4-7 but only if they reach c support. This does mean you could miss out, but it would allow the writers to make better convos between characters. Also as base convos you could even have trio convos. Imagine the typical Pegasus trio have a base convo that only occurs if they all have A rank supports with each other. Separating support rank from convos like this also makes replays less tedious, as you don't need to skip support convos every time it goes up. You also could easily have characters start with established support ranks with each other, without missing out on content.

[@xxzildjianxx]

I find your ideas intriguing, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[@majespectorkuro8630]

I don’t think I’m gonna agree. Supports to me are a very impactful part of fire emblem. They add a ton to characters, that otherwise have very little. For example, without supports 3H would be much worse. For all its sub par supports, have some that add incredible story beats.

[@mihaimercenarul7467]

Disagree

[@LiquidOrcana]

While I completely agree with some of the points brought up, there's something about supports currently that really works for me personally, honestly I really enjoy the tactility of the way they build up, and while not entirely serious, the more trivial dialogue can be a fun break from the gameplay; but I completely agree with some of the ways it feels like it's holding back characters being more involved in the plot or main events. I do wonder if we'll ever really see a proper middle ground between FE9 like supports and the more modern metered system

[@laggalot1012]

It doesn't have to go away, but it should change. Use the PoR method as the foundation and make adjustments from there. Obviously ditch the 5 supports per unit, per playthrough limit. If you deployed Ike and Titania in every chapter they can be together, it's nonsense that you are not allowed to have their A support, just because you got the Soren A support first. I think this alone is already quite close to ideal. Doles out conversations at a steady clip, without flooding the player, and allows them to reference recent story events without having to account for a bunch of what-ifs. (Although PoR supports do actually so this on occasion as well.) Bonus feature for a more lenient implementation, have a system that allows units to catch up on support points if they are behind the curve, but without allowing them to get ahead of their intended max for that part in the game. So, say, you didn't want to deploy Titania in the desert map, so you're behind an Ike/Titania support point. You'd be able to use this system to catch up that support point. But you would not be able to have any extra beyond that. It should come at some kind of cost to do this, though, just so as to not trivialise the intended weight of supports, be it an effort or a resource cost. Maybe both. And one more thing, have more characters with pre-established support ranks. This is also something the Tellius games sort of did, through bonds, but it may deserve a little more acknowledgement to feel more significant. Also Micaiah/Sothe literally starting with an A support, that's cool, that's what I would like to see more of, but that was of course in the rather boring buddy system...

[@TheAppsMann]

I don't think changing the cutscenes depending on who's alive or dead is all that difficult (especially if you remove the hundreds of support conversations, as Mekkah said). My favorite example of this is Matthew from FE7, which we got to see in Mekkah's Ironman of that game (even the cutscenes in 11H & 12H are different if he's dead). If a character absolutely has to be present for a specific chapter, you can have that unit retreat when "killed" in battle and then kill that character off in a later cutscene.

[@Meanlucario]

I remember that the Awakening Frederick/Cordelia C support mentions the deaths of the elite fliers even if it hasn't happened yet, if my memory serves me right.

[@jouheikisaragi6075]

I don't think so? Because IIRC, Cordelia joins in the same map where those elite flyers die. Or I'm thinking Erynes in FE4.

[@Meanlucario]

@@jouheikisaragi6075 FE4 most likely. Cordelia joins in the mountain path map where Emmetyn gets kidnapped afterwards, and Phila dies in the map where Emm does a swan dive.

[@gameboyn64]

​@@Meanlucario ch7 post battle script. Phila: Cordelia, what are you doing here? ...Tell me the border remains secure! Cordelia: That I could, milady! But it would be false... Gangrel himself led his might against us! The end was upon us when my knight-sisters begged me fly and warn the exalt... I should have stayed... I should have stayed! Ah, gods, I can still hear the screams...

[@Meanlucario]

@@gameboyn64 And Phila's team is the "elite fliers" I mentioned.

[@gameboyn64]

@@Meanlucario first of all, cordelia never mentions or acknowledges phila's death. Second, the veteran knights that she references are the ones that died before she shows up in ch 7. Third, the support that references death of pegasus knights is the robin support. Fredrick c is him complementing her and telling her phila probably wants cordelia to succeed her. It never says anything about anyone dying.

[@Mash_Z]

I agree that PoR is the best support system we’ve had. But I don’t think that they should go at all. They’re not only instances to flesh out characters but for world building as well, the supports of Jill and Lethe comes to mind for me.I agree that they should be more context sensitive and work around the same characters trait reappering, in fact I think they should open up paralogues, like if character A and B has X support level unlock an extra stage where you can learn more about them, instead of having them tell every other unit about their stuff.

[@MrSyltphademus]

FE9 has like 6 different variations of some of the earlier scenes based on if certain units were alive or dead, so they've definitely done something similar to what you've said before. I think another possibility is to limit supports (as in like the GBA system, where certain units have a set number of supports with a select number of other units) and then make those supports just something that is unlocked as the game progresses. So for example Dimitri and Felix could have their B support unlock after chapter A, which contained this specific event, and they can discuss and talk about it if needed. Or make them unlocked by paralogues or something that only unlock at certain points of the game.

[@Baritocity]

@9:40 An example game for handling perma-death are the Devil Survivor games, 2 moreso than 1, I think. Scatted throughout the games are moments of dialogue that will acknowledge character deaths. As for the dead character's own lines, they often simply won't get said, but sometimes another character is set to stand in or say something to a similar point, depending on the scene's needs. Keep in mind that characters can die only at specified story beats, and both games are built around cutscenes being available for limited times.

[@lunasperidot8760]

I know this is a hot take but i actually quite like a lot of the "silly" supports. I do think that they could be better but i do like them as they are. An idea that i think could be cool is intertwining some supports with paralogues like have supports lead directly into a paralogue, or use time restrictions more and have them comment on events surrounding them. Idk. I definitely don't think they should be gotten rid of.

[@fishyfinthing8854]

The way I think may work best for support: -Less is more: Have less support conversation, nobody like to read hundreds of dialogue. -Less tedious building: Have character build up support passively when deploy in the same battle, not being near each other. Support building shouldn't be a grind. -Special event: Having some special events to speed up or give unique support and bonus is great. -Interesting bonus: Have some support give interesting bonus. Such as some character grant other character a new ability, a new class, a new weapon skill, or a valuable item. Bonus should allow interesting play style. Andaron Saga did this well.

[@chrisgarbutt1893]

I do agree that supports in Fire Emblem have become dated. The main problems like you said is that characters are completely disconnected from the main story and the crazy amount of support convo's over extends the characters personality and personal story's. Combine this with the massive scripts developers have to write, it takes time away from developing the main plotline. A potential solution for future Fire Emblem games could be to take inspiration from Triangle Strategy's Character Story system. I found that Triangle Strategy utilizes it's environment in it's story telling and each story tells you enough about the characters personality and goals. Compare that to FE support system, while you can have serious conservation like with Lysithia/Edelgard most among the games feel hastily put together in awkward situations. Fates, Awakening, and Engage are the main culprits here. I still love the idea of romance and child units, however Fire Emblem needs to change it's support system to focus on the quality of the characters story.

[@thegamewoods8473]

The big issue I have it rather simple. How will you squeeze in those scenes in time? You mentioned Persona 5 in passing but that cast is like, a fifth of an average FE cast. An issue i see quickly happening is each character gets maybe one or two scenes and that's it. How do you give all 30~ characters multiple times to shine without bloating the main story?

[@Mekkkah]

One way to do it is a smaller cast. Another is to divide the cast into groups of units that have a known relationship to one another, and have them be the focus for 4 maps, and then the next. A lot of FE games already do this, but I think they could do it in a way that's more interesting than it's been done so far.

[@thegamewoods8473]

@Mekkkah Isn't that just 3H? 3 groups of 9 units divided up. If you don't recruit out of house, you have just 10 characters to work with from beginning to end. Radiant Dawn, Fates, and SoV all kinda do this but to various extents, but truthfully I've grown tired of the route splits in general. A smaller cast begins to run into the issue of sacrificing FEs identity to make it more in line with the rest of the genre. Honestly I say why not have both? 3H and Engage both kinda flirt with the idea of base conversations, even your idea of "Alfred dying in one chapter causing characters to react the next" we have the framework there, it needs polish. Though 3H and Engage, and SoV now that I think about it, mainly just have post battle dialog, if they put in base conversations ala Tellius, both styles could coexist. Really the answer, as boring as it sounds, is just better writing. Not that FE writing is bad, but more so in the vein of stopping characters from regressing between support chains.

[@rainingrotom]

there's just so many supports in modern games I can never be pressed to read them all. Really makes the appreciate SoV's supports where I can read all of them and get to love all of the characters without spending so much time grinding and reading.

[@DylanBeaudry]

I removed the support system from my game. Just had info conversations and banter before and after every chapter you can view. It was so liberating. Here are some of the advantages. You can have conversations between more than two characters. You can have characters actually acknowledge current events, without conversations having to take place in a vacuum. You can have one-way support bonuses (for example, giving +4 hit but not receiving it.) An example of how good this is. Imagine if in Radiant Dawn, Edward, Nolan, and Leonardo had an info conversation every chapter of the Dawn Brigade. That would've been cool.

[@givecamichips]

What I'm getting is that every jRPG should just switch to using the Tales series' Skit system

[@seymourflux747]

As superior as Tales skits are to the rest of them, that would just homogenize the genre which is also a bad thing. Each series should keep their unique systems, but a lot of them just need so much fixing like FE Supports

[@LUIGI4480]

I think my favorite support on how silly it is, its between Female Robin and Frederick in Awakening "yo, help me eat some bear meat, can't afford being picky in a war" "holy moly, bear meat is so goddamn bad" "yo, wanna marry me?"

[@MitoRequiem]

I like some of your arguments but I think using Persona 5 here is kinda funny cause modern Persona has the same issues that FE does imo, just not AS egregious, I don't really enjoy important story stuff being put to the side in optional content, This wasn't really an issue in Persona 1-3

[@Docaccino]

Honestly, I'll take anything other than the C/B/A/(S) support system because with how many of them there are in post-FE12 games and the frequency at which you unlock them they're genuinely stressful. I skip a few because I don't feel like watching them at the moment and then they start piling up to the point where they're beginning to become overwhelming.

[@givecamichips]

3 Houses made a good attempt at patching the hole Awakening's system made in the the FE6 system, but I think New Mystery's base conversations were decent. A combination of Genealogy and Radiant Dawn could easily have the best system, combining the lovers' conversations with base conversations to keep romance, character meet ups, strategic talks, and story integration

[@Ozymandias_Canis]

I like the idea of having alternate scenes on player death, but it could get very messy down the line without some guarantee of some units retreating instead of dying. I whole heartedly agreed that it would immediately lend itself to a more engaging story. If these scenes are geared around character developments, they could even be omitted instead of replaced as further encouragement for player to keep units alive. As for the support system, they could lock support levels until or after certain chapters, when a character's development should be happening in the story. Preventing players from getting new Bernie C supports after a certain chapter and unlocking B supports then would promote her actually developing as a character and you could even tie it in with the first idea of having these units in the story more and developing, and locking/unlocking supports when they arrive at a new milestone.

[@hyperm8]

I'm personally a big fan of the Three Hopes support system. Most of them aren't even 3 conversions, some of them are even just one, later supports are locked behind the story and some of them even feature more than 2 characters. In a more mainline FE game, this could work like a charm.

[@llukelcs]

I kinda agree. But I feel that the support is also very very characteristic of what a FE game is. I've actually ever felt the support system is an amazing narrative feature, but is almost always under explored! For example, Lyn and Rath's support in FE7 didn't frustrate me just because it is so awfully written (and because Lyn kinda loses character there), but because it could be so much more and it just stayed in the surface level. This support leads Lyn to leave Caelin after the endgame and go back to the Plains, which is a very radical outcome from her other possible supports. Given that she is the last member of an extinct sacaen tribe, she approaching the Kutolahs with Rath should give (or at least project) some more development to the Sacaen story overall, but it doesn't. So it felt to me as under explored potential! To me, the best support system are in the Jugdral games, especially FE5: from one hand, the characters already have strong bonds with each other to the point that they work better in the battlefield togheter (tha makes sense), but all the convos are separate from the supports themselves. That is, you don't need to be annoyed by having to build the support, because the characters already share stories that are autonomous from you (the player or the lord). For example, it's genius (in my opinion) that Olwen and Reinhardt share a support that affects their stats in combat even being in opposite armies! You can park Olwen there with Dire Thunder, give her Vantage and a Magicka buff and watch her obliterate her brother's army by being buffed by him! He is buffed by her too (which is dangerous) but, despite what he says to her in the convo, he won't attack her no matter what! That struck me, you know? That was amazing character development. I haven't played FE3, so I can't say if it is exactly the same thing. But I loved how FE4 and FE5 just flooded the game with lots of conversations that are separate from the "building" of the charcters supports. The characters already shared a bond previous to the events and are (with all this shared bagage) sharing yet another experience in the present of the game.

[@samuelflores2219]

Was that motherflipping Trails music i heard?!

[@Trans4Hire]

Big agree. Most FE games I only bother with supports in are ones with pair up or sharing meals cause it's easy and they expect it but I skip past the convos. In GBA the only characters I ever pair up are ones I really like with paired endings like Raven/Lucius. But in Path of Radiance I almost always use supports, they feel easier to build, easier to utilize in combat, far and away the best version of the support system we ever had

[@Baby_boodle]

I haven't reflexively disagreed so strongly with a video title in a while, and I'm glad I watched! You bring up a lot of solid points where this system really strains the story, pacing, and character development. Honestly, the story tends to be one of the most important aspects of the game to me, and at the same time I adore silly little supports that are a breather from heavier stories of conflict. I really hope that a Fire Emblem game comes out that lets me have my cake and eat it too with some kind of overhauled storytelling methodology.

[@matiastorres2553]

in the game dark deity (same gameplay as fire emblem) when someone reach 0 hp in the map, loses some stat (like -2 hp or other stat) and retreat, the next chapter u can use the character but the stat lose is permanent

[@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502]

Like others, i can agree with the idea that the current form of supports needs to go, but doing away with it entirely is gonna get rid of a lot of good things that come with them.

[@MetalGearRaxis]

Then you have Engage, where there's several supports in which the characters will address off-screen NPCs who are clearly not actually there. At least 3H actually put the NPCs the character is supposed to be talking to in the scene.

[@TechnoFall42]

The fact that whenever supports are criticized the same tired counterarguments of "too much text" and "you can't integrate everyone into the main story" get regurgitated is honestly pretty tiring. Supports are already a huge, mostly filler blob of script with extremely inconsistent quality. And no, duh, obviously making every playable character important to the story is silly and would take way too many resources. You know what wouldn't? Giving units at least a minor arc of their own, that meaningfully develops or characterizes them on their own terms and actions, rather than being faceless yes-men outside of narrative black holes that are support convos. Plus, have some variation on how these arcs develop for a few characters. There are a ton of ways of implementing such arcs: side objectives and events on main maps, paralogues, events in the hub, base convos, etc. The toolkit is huge, as is the potential of a fully developed cast. Unfortunately, doing all that, rather than practically outsourcing writing all the characterization to some side writers and interns, who probably barely even interact with the main story writers, would require IS actually having coherent direction and effort put towards the narrative side of their games... Which they seem uncapable of for probably over a decade at this point. And yeah, having extensive epilogues rather than just ending slides would be a massive improvement. Seeing all characters' arcs fully fulfilled or not, depending on the player's actions, would add so much satisfying closure over what we have now. But honestly, I'll take any kind of experimentation over the current status quo, which we've been stuck at for over 20 years. I've seen so many people talking about how fresh every new FE feel gameplay wise, but for me that's spoiled by the fact that the storytelling has been stagnant ever since basically RD. Even the unkillable "main characters" get practically all their characterization in supports, meanwhile they're all basically faceless nobodies with interchangeable lines sucking up to the protag or doing the planning for them for almost the entirety of the main story, which is laughable.