What do you like the most in supports?

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Supports does three things :-

  • It shows the character’s personality (eg. Edgy, shy) in detail and how two people interact with each other.

  • Sometimes it also depicts some of the most interesting lore which adds up a lot of meaning to story. (Eg. A maniac killer’s cursed lance.)

  • It provides characters with combat boosts like avoid, crit etc. and it effectively increases one’s combat efficiency.

So, what’s your most favourite part out of the three ?

  • Character interaction
  • Story exposition
  • Combat boosts

0 voters

There’s also something about paired endings which I want to know. Suppose, if there are multiple female characters for a male character to support with and all of the supoorts have their respective paired endings. Now, what if there was a cannon paired ending or love story that was a part of the plot. Generally, this would happen with a protagonist. If you have played Four Kings then you’ll better understand what I mean.

Anyway, don’t forget to cast your vote. Every bit helps.

  • A canon paired ending with one character
  • A paired ending which you can choose from multiple characters

0 voters

EDIT : Basically the canon paired ending would have more interaction and appearances to make them viable. If it’s canon and related to the story then it can probably show a better development of bond with some struggles and other stuff.

But logically, it will take a very high effort to execute the said thing in an appealing way.

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I’m a wee bit obsessed with character interaction, so that.

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Love to see character interaction

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definitely interaction

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I want real, legitimate character development in my supports. How do different people see things, how do they grow after talking to people different from themselves. How have they changed since the story started. It may be nostolgia, but I feel PoR set a high standard in what I look for in a support. Whether it be Mia+Rhys or Rolf+Turaneo, or Boyd and whoever it was that he explains his family situation to. Even after a decade every time I play that game I learn more things about the world and characters.

With a game like Fire Emblem I feel like you have such a huge cast it’s difficult to give them each story pieces. Supports are the game’s best way of navigating around this and I die a little every time I read a support along the lines of

“Hey, what’re you up to?”
“Oh nothing much, just reading”
“Oh I like books! My dad used to read me one about a dragon”
“No disrespect intended, but shove off” (leaves)
“Sheesh, I was just trying to be nice…” (Support ends)

And then you get the popup that says:
“Edgelord mage and Niceguy Archer now have support rank C!”

EDIT: (I don’t know if cuss words are against forum rules)

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Three things: One is that I get to see their character in more detail when talking to others. Two I get to what was their past like. Example their childhood, their friends, their family, etc.
Finally paired endings cuz SHIPS for ETERNITY!!!

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I agree with that and I’m going to add one more poll in the OP regarding paired endings. I request everyone to vote their opinions.

Edit : The poll has been updated.

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I’d say Combat bonuses/support speed, although it’s a close one.

Support bonuses can really make or break a character, and are often overlooked when rating a character.

In FE6 for example, you have Wolt and Marcus with double Ice. You get both in chapter one, and both tend to fall off. However they have a quick double affinity support with each other, which can give them up to +3 DEF, +15 hit, avoid, and crit avoid, at A rank, potentially making both of them quite bulky and accurate, which can be really good for chapter 7. They can stay very relevant to your army, without using up support slots on units you really care about.

FE8 Garcia is another good example. He has 2 pretty quick supports withs Neimi and Ross, all of which are fire affinity. Which can quickly net you a whopping + 5 ATK, +25 hit, avoid, and crit, combined with Garcia’s good bases this can make him pretty much RNG proof.

Same goes for FE7 rebecca, although i find it matters less here because of how stingy fe7 is with its deployment slots on HHM.

Or take FE6 Barth. Normally mediocare with a couple of issues, he actually has some of the overall quickest supports in the game, all of which give him double hit (+25 hit on full supports, aka the equivalent of 12 skill!!!) , and enough crit avoid where as his low luck doesn’t matter. Combined with his huge defence, he can pretty much trivialise a good amount of Sacae with supports.

Or FE9 with it’s Earth supports making Oscar nearly completely RNG proof (Double Earth support with both Ike and Tanith) for a whopping +50 avoid.

What i’m trying to get at here is that supports can make certain character very unique gameplay wise, and really make or break some characters, which l prefer since my favorite part about FE is the gameplay, and this adds more gameplay depth and variety.

Other than that i obviously also enjoy supports for their writing and telling you more about the lore. My favorites however would have to be the funny ones. The Hack shackled power really hit the nail in this department.

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What’s important to me in a gameplay sense is that they grow fast and more organically than just ‘standing next to each other’. I almost never get more than a couple of supports in any of the vanilla GBAFE games; I’m just not going to compromise an attack or a defensive posture just so that Wil and Dart or whoever can rub noses. Furthermore, while variant support bonuses are fun, it feels really bad when the people whose dynamic you want to develop have really incompatible affinities with regards to their bonuses; just look at vanilla Wind/Ice, which ends up not really giving you much of anything. Needless to say, I changed both in my hack; all affinities give attack and crit avoid, and the individual elements dictate which two of the other four they give as well.

In terms of story, I think they, along with prep screens in general, peaked in the Tellius bases. Sure, it isn’t really hard to imagine that characters are talking about little things in a lull in the battle, or that the talk is displaying now but it actually happened last night, or whatever… but it’s still best if it’s handled in actual downtime periods, I think. That’s something I wish I could change in my hack, but I don’t love the options for base sections that you get within the GBAFE framework.

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Sorting out that problem can be a trouble. The best course of action would be to remove affinities but if all supports had the same gains then it will be lackluster.

If it was with just one character or say a cannon paired ending like I mentioned before then the affinities could be adjusted to give maximum gains but when there are multiple characters then it becomes a problem.

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Character interaction and story exposition are my favorite aspects of them, and what drew me to this series. I never cared much about the bonuses in combat (even if they’re helpful).

I think it’s more fun to have multiple pairings, since the different couples have varied dynamics and you can pick your favorite based on that.

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The interactions, for sure.

When I support two units, I like to think about who those characters are and what they could bring out in one another. I followed a similar philosophy when writing my own, where you think “huh, what side of the mysterious warrior would be brought out by a pacifistic cleric?”

The interactions help to shed some light on who these people are, how they respond to certain stimuli, and most importantly, possibly gives me a reason to care about them.

In real life, you get to know a person by spending time with and talking to them. Supports should reflect that very simple fact.

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Question 1:

Yeah, it’s the interactions between characters that really matter. Combat bonuses can be given in several other ways, and villages and gaiden chapters can do a lot for worldbuilding, but only conversations between characters bring out the different sides of them. Supports are one of the better ways to implement them, as they usually follow a consistent storyline, can be directly pursued by the player, and are fairly clear about how to unlock them, at least to experienced players. (Not to say the other ways aren’t good, for example I recently finished a hack that had talk conversations between two units that were like stat boosters, which I understand was present in some earlier games too)

Question 2:

I don’t really agree solely with either of the poll options, so I guess I’ll elaborate here: I like how FE7 did it. Hector and Lyn were basically cannon, as were Eliwood and Ninian, but there was still the option (which I always take) to pair up Eliwood and Lyn. There should be a favored pairing, but we should be left with other options in case we like it better.

Despite my definitive statements above, there are ways to make an “only option cannon pairing” for main characters, and it’s fine to not favor anyone for side character couples. For example (Not saying I’m a good writer, but whatever), in the fangame I’m working on, I’m going to force one of the two protagonists and one of the non-protagonist main characters as a couple, and then there’s going to be a five-year timeskip, and then the non-protag gets offed. The fact that he gets offed is a major plot point, and then there’s going to be a paired ending or two afterwards (By which I mean a coupled up ending, so not including the paired ending between, e.g. The protag and her kid, or the two protags [brother and sister, no subtext]). Also see Pent and Louise, who are already a couple when the story starts.

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That’s what I was planning but in a different way… For a sacred stones remake. Not with some major character like Tana or anything.

But killing the lover of the protagonist is a pretty good way to motivate the MC. Kinda reminds me of Colm and Marisa support.

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…Or the antagonist… Hehe

I may have gone overboard with the plotline deaths, as depending on the route there’ll be up to three, and one or two characters who end up becoming antagonists as a result thereof.

And I guess while we’re on the subject, to bring it back to supports, I think there’s a lot of untapped potential when it comes to how one can use supports to inform other parts of gameplay. This could be big things, like child units, or smaller things like some NPC aid in a chapter if the protagonist supports with some royal or something. I’m not going to write in so much a “route split” so much as changes to major story beats based on previous actions, including who’s supporting who.
As an example I’m making up on the spot, CharA becomes an antagonist because he fears ProtagB is losing his humanity, and wants him to stop before he crosses the point of no return, but if they get an A support (before said event), ProtagB becomes more stable and CharA stays in the party, so AntagC takes his place as an enemy, if that chapter is played at all.

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which option do i select for food dialogue

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Character interactions are the best part about supports since you dont typically get good character depth with the cast otherwise (with the exception of main characters).
Combat bonuses are nice but theyre typically not the main reason why i choose to pair up certain characters

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As far as romantic pairings go, I usually don’t see enough story depth in an FE style game to merit a single canonical option.

In Tales of Symphonia (A game which allows the player to choose), There is really only 1 pairing which gives the most impactful version of the story. There is a second pairing which gives more information on the game’s lore, but I recommend trying this pairing in a second playthrough. In a game like this I think it is best two have 1 pre-set pairing, and the others can be split into little side conversations, but in Fire Emblem having the choice between different partners is usually the better option.

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As for canon pairings, I like FE7’s approach of making Pent and Louise start with rank A already, and get their exposition on their joining chapter and ending, but the downside is you don’t get as much text interaction.
You can also very well do the 3H thing of limiting support levels on a per two character basis. In a hypothetical FE6+7 remake, say Pent can have S rank with Louise, but nobody else. I think it’s reasonable to assume not all characters need As with all other characters, maybe some just don’t get along.

This is ignoring combat applications, because honestly? I still don’t quite know how to make them balanced. 3H’s is light enough as to allow dozens of support bonuses, and I liked how pair ups implemented supports.

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Hmm, at the end of the day I’ll probably be decently satisfied as long as the sum of a character’s supports paint a clear enough picture of who they are. That being said, there are a few things that come to mind regarding what I think makes a support work well:

  • Exploring interesting personality dynamics. imo, Shelby-Ron is one of the strongest support convos in 4K, and it mainly works because of how their personalities mesh with each other (a person who’s overly concerned with how others perceive him meets a person who doesn’t care what others think). James-Mide from DLATMOL or Ruslan-Kir from VQ are other good examples of this.

  • Granting opportunities for characters to react to important story events in a way that doesn’t slow down the pacing of the plot. When done well, this helps a given support chain feel like it’s in less of an isolated vacuum (a trait which probably stems from the core mechanics of the support system, as supports need to be able to fit in any point in the story) while also adding more narrative weight to the events in the plot. Desmond-Stefan in TMGC explores the longer-term effects of an early event in the main plot, and it’s one of my favorite support chains in that game as a result.

  • Evolving character growth arcs, or something that makes the character feel like they’re going through their own personal journey. In terms of supports, Raimon from DLATMOL, Eileen from Shackled Power, and potentially Tiberius from BoB are good examples of this. A general sense of narrative progression, even if it doesn’t come with actual character growth, can add to this effect as well (i:e many of Ty’s and Mide’s supports in DLATMOL, both of whom feel like the heroes of their own tales). This point is particularly important to me, as I really love the Tear Ring Saga-esque philosophy of building a story where almost anyone could be the main character with a bit of reframing. That said, I also feel this needs to be done carefully considering the general format of supports, as writing this way may create a feeling of a regression of character development depending on the order in which supports are obtained.

  • Bonus points for providing statistical storytelling through subtle details. In Shackled Power, Hute’s supports subtly contextualize why his base defense is relatively low, along with why his speed growth is so high for a knight. The aforementioned Eileen and Ty also do this wonderfully in more intricate ways. Explaining in-lore justifications for skills or Prfs might also fall under this, but I feel that’s a bit harder to do without coming off as blatant or heavy-handed.

In terms of pairings, I’m pretty impartial to either option as long as they’re written well, but I think fixed pairings tend to have a bit more wiggle room to be explored in an FE setting, so I think they’re a bit easier to execute soundly.

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