I think a big problem with FEH is the unwillingness to rehaul systems that are old or outdated in any way whatsoever. They either leave things to persist as they are forever (see Arena Scoring), add bandaid fixes to halfway resolve bigger issues (like dragonflowers), or just neglect them entirely (see Relay Defense). Remixes and refines are the closest we've gotten to overhauling things, and again, this is just a bandaid fix, because some units are dead on arrival, while some luckier ones get their relevance for a few months before something new comes out that counters their entire gameplan.
I believe that the current state of FEH is on Nintendo's blame. They clearly are not interested in making moble games anymore, so right now probably the development budget on FEH goes to artists, voice actors and skeleton crew, who keeps the game running and makes some updates, but cannot rebuild the game as a whole. I think people should just let it go, and accept that FEH wouldn't get better, and when the last whale will left the game, that is when this game will be cut from life support.
Dragonflowers aren't even useful for old units anymore cause units just a year or 2 old can already use 15-30 themselves. Each generation used to get at least 5 more flowers usable than the next, but they capped it as well it needed to be capped, but there really isn't a good way to earn a lot of flowers for a specific unit you want to improve, and there are so many units that NEED them to be remotely viable with investment that it almost makes investing in any character feel not worth it cause you know today's characters are gonna be able to receive that investment in just a year or 2, and likely will be totally outclassed even with that investment in that time. I mean, man, remember when a unit with 40 speed and swift sparrow was considered fast? Or 55 ATK was the strongest attack in the game? It's just too much power creep and the things they implemented to help have only added to that power creep at this point
big yes to "PvP over PvE" as the biggest and final segment. Easily IS's biggest mistake with this game from day 1 was putting Arena and all subsequent PvP modes into the spotlight.
And even the PVE content is just utterly boring and exhausting...the incredible Tower, as I know it from Sacred Stones was so much fun and most importantly it was challenging. FEH tower = sit down once a month to grind those damn 15 wins for each category to got those petty orbs...
Hard agree. The biggest names in gacha gaming now are largely focused on PvE (made this comment halfway, glad to see TOK mentioned it). PvP focus is now pretty antiquated...
PvP in gacha games, will ALWAYE ALWAYS be bad idea, cause people can just PAY to beat u, any game like that will always go bad......the most popular gacha games likw all the hoyoverse games are all PvE, and that is the best way to do it
Or just co-op or just have a function that only pits whales against whales and f2p vs f2p or at least at least let players choose to pvp whales or pvp f2p and if they select to pvp f2p make bans on the latest powercrept units as well as latest powercrept skills from the last 6 months to a year or only allow certain gen units to be selected while at the same time banning certain units from certain gens as well as certain skills. The same mechanics that I already mentioned for pvp can also be applied to aether raids and arena with regards to choosing to vs aether raids and arena whales or vs aether raids and arena f2p. f2p like to play but don't like getting completely curb stomped all the time by the latest most powercrept units that whales pretty much the major majority of the time have and use.🤔🤨🧐
Wow this is so spot on it actually hurts. I wish Negligent Systems would care about their game at least an inch so that they could fix some of these issues...
As someone who’s silently quit the game, thank you so much for making this video. I know how risky it can be to bite the hand that feeds you as a feh content creator, but it’s so important we make it known how we really feel about the game before it’s too late. I don’t think I could’ve said it better myself.
The fact that we the player are in Askr, the world of opening doors, makes that fact that we don't have way to communicate with other players very ironic.
All of this is exactly why I autopilot this game when I'm bored and haven't touched a competitive mode in several months. You're especially right with them focusing on PvP, which alienates the core audience. Most people (like me) who play FE are in it for the story, characters, and the PvE maps that bridge all of that together. I even stopped making FEH videos because of how IS kills the enjoyment of this game. It's just not fun to me anymore, and it leaves me feeling like, "I could literally just be playing an actual FE game right now." Thank god for phone emulation, lmao
Same here, this is exactly me. I use to play competitive because it was achievable with the units we had then it got too insane with duos textbook skills exclusive skills money invested units to fight against that it became unfair unbalance and not fun. So once i couldnt build units to counter these canons, i played less and less. Now I open the game every once in a while to see where the story is at as I really enjoyed it, the trio and book 4 being peak iirc with death.
Back in 2017 when this game first came out I was hooked. I adored everything about this game and heavily invested my time into different builds, combos and engaged in every aspect of the game up until late 2019, by then tho, I had take a small break and came back to a meta I couldn't keep up with. Feel terrible investing so much time and effort into a unit I love, only to get 1 tapped by the latest unit with the latest skills. I don't wngage with any of the pvp any because of this, which is a shame because I loved doing Arena and Aether Raids in the early days. Game needs a huge change
For more character interaction, something simple they could add to various PvE content is to have unique VS dialogue when certain characters battle certain bosses. In mainline FE this make these encounters more memorable and in feh it could give meaningful dialogue to characters not from the askr trio including heroes that are not otherwise involved in the story.
A much needed video. I really hope a dev from either IS or Ninte. see this video and wise up to the ongoing problems the game has. I'm a big believer of new players having a hard time adjusting to complexity being the biggest issue in FEH. Here's to hoping for a better next year in FEH. I've already tweeted this to anything Nintendo and IS related to get the issues made aware of.
Infernal and Abyssal in the main story and paralogues should have happened by now. Give the old units newer skills in those levels to help players get ideas for building those units themselves.
One of my biggest gripes is that as generous as FEH is with free orbs, they need more to keep up with the fever pitch at which they've been releasing new heroes. With your suggestion, an Abyssal difficulty for the main story maps, not including paralogues, you're talking 445 free orbs. Another thing I can think of is having Version Banners. Like you won't see heroes released in Version 2 in a Version 1 banner and the Version banners would include Special Heroes, as well. That would be phenomenal.
They need to power up older units not just give newer skills to them because dagger old units are a big weaklings plus they have to make weekly revival banners less useless to summon on because I'd never at this point touch any for more than redeem and they need to calm down with releasing units with insane endurance and right next month or tempest trial in the same month gives the intended great endurance piercing units because I get annoyed every single time they give some unit I start to think I can completely rely on that it will secure me a victory and than it get easily and fastly pierced by a random new unit with piercing special and even very big attack and also omnitanks mostly can only really survive if they have godlike reflexes as special skill and have now day gambit as their B slot skill lol
I haven't interacted with the FEH community in like 2 years, so your call to action must have worked. I was a day 1 player with preregistration and participated in the first CYL and I have a ton of fond memories in the game. Like figuring out how to counter base game Takumi, making a 4 horsemen team. Going ham for every fallen banner. Abusing the shit out of Fallen Edelgard and Claude. Playig older FE games because i liked their Heroes art. Even though I was F2P I could usually get the Heroes I wanted, but very little else, and after the first week or two of Aether Raids I knew I could never get a high score even if I could play perfectly. I would always watch PM1, ZeShado, or the Gamepress guides for all new units, knowing that I could almost never make use of them in any PvP mode. It's amazing that QR3 is STILL not on a 4 star unit.
As a lifelong FE fan, when I first loaded up FEH I was shocked at how small the maps were. Even Conquest maps are smaller than most maps from the mainline games, save maybe the GBA training maps. IS needs some LARGE map PvE modes, where survivability and strategy are key. Where major plot points are revealed in-battle. Where free units are only given out if objectives are met. Chain several of these maps with "permadeath". Heck, go above and beyond and let players design and share their own campaign maps (Even a huge feh map takes up almost no memory.) Give players the ability to have that classic FE experience on their phones.
AR being competitive enough that me making a good map can ruin someone's day is the only reason i refuse to engage with what is by FAR my most wanted feature in FE. I guess i just want a FE maker, but this just stings. I want to make some cool stuff not leave people bitter in my wake. @@Oblivionknight
I feel this, but, at the same time, the original concept for this game was to be a pocket sized Fire Emblem, simplified with smaller maps and the removal of accuracy. Now you read the skills and get more shock from it than a GOAT era YuGiOh player being shown pendulum synchros for the first time with how much text a single weapon or skill might have. 1 Arcane weapon can have more text and effects than an entire kit from year 1. I agree, they've reached the point where they could easily expand on the size of the maps, but they've already completely betrayed their design impetus and that's pretty annoying. I can't believe the 3 main heroes of the main FEH story are still so weak and useless. It's crazy to me that they do nothing to directly buff old units after they get power crept. Like let Alphonse and Sharena get new weapon forges at the very least, or have something happen in-story that grants them and Commander Anna +5 to all stats, minimum. They really need a lot more than just that, but it'd at least be something. Also, a skill shop please. Even if it's a super limited currency like dragon fruits, where it takes weeks or months to save for a single 4* skill, just add in a way to get skills that doesn't rely on foddering new 5* units
I picked this game up day 1, waiting for its release. I'm a massive FE fan, and it released in the middle of my math class during my second semester junior year of high school. I remember getting my first 5 star, which was a Marth. Followed very quickly by a 5 star Leo. My friend who also got the game was fuming that I walked away with more than one in my first summons. I played the game seriously all the way up until the end of 2019. I sunk money into the game, loved the game. I ended up dropping it for several months, close to a year. And when I came back it was like everything I'd worked for didn't matter. The hundreds spent on the game didn't matter. My Brave Ike, my high plus Michaiah, all of my other units with the skills I'd spent a lot on to get and grinded for. They just didn't matter. I went into arena and literally couldn't beat the newest banner units. Not even my corrupt Robin if anyone remembers that guy, who was plus attack, could deal sufficient damage without being left seriously crippled. I had to stop. I couldn't sink more money in to catch back up just to keep drowning everytime another new banner dropped. I wasn't able to go grind for orbs on old chapters, I'd cleared those long ago. The new player experience in this game is bad. But the returning player experience feels worse. You've less resources to tap into than a new player yet have the same grind. And I couldn't do it
There is nothing worse than pulling an at-the-time 5* exclusive hero that's worse than the shittiest bottom of the barrel new-gen Grand Hero. I wanted a 5*+10 Sanaki so bad. She's one of my most favorite characters in the franchise and the fact that right now she's a clown unit locked behind 5* summoning sessions is an incredibly cruel joke. 4* Special drops have fixed none of this, it only made matters worse because they put these extremely degenerate, equally worthless 5* exclusives LIKE Sanaki into that pool as well, so when you get a 4* Special and expect Sanaki you get fucking 5* Luke, the character nobody remembers from New Mystery.
Hard agree on the community improvement aspects. Even if it's something as simple as adding a community tab where you can share in-game pictures of your summoning session, AR-D map layout, unit's build, or barracks can go a long way in making the player know that there is someone else out there that can resonate with their most painful and joyful moments with the game. Also adding a Co-op feature would be nice in bringing more people together, and would help improve people's perspective on whales as whales could help those who may be struggling on specific pieces of content. Nevertheless, great video addressing the numerous issues that really do need mending in this game!
Hmm yes helping people to compete against others properly and with more wins would be nice but the issue is summoning rarity like even if you can get a helpful advice you cannot make it be like it that's what I find community be completely useless about because even if you can get a skill list of units you wanna use you cannot make them look like that if you don't own skills to inherit or if you don't own a unit who you don't really need that much that have the skills you need to inherit that you can inherit and also that if you have a unit with 1 set of skill inheritance line that you can also take a full skill scale
@@Oblivionknight I have already left a massive wall of a comment with this included but if IS added a real-time co-op gamemode to FEH I'd literally be playing that regardless of how shit the rewards are. I used to play hundreds of hours of Bloons TD5 co-op just for fun and having that experiance of sharing your stupid character builds with other players INSIDE OF THE GAME instead of on discord servers would be so much fun. I really like co-op multiplayer games. One of the reasons I enjoyed SD so incredibly much for the first week or two when it came out was because instead of having developed some brutal bs meta everyone was just having a good time trying shit out and it was amazing. I really hope they manage to make a mode that can give me that kind of enjoyment again.
As someone who's been on this game every day since release and competes at the higher levels in every PvP mode sans Summoner Duels, I agree with every single point you've made. Amazing analysis and hope they change the direction of this game soon
I think its absolutely STUPID that not every banner has a spark. I summoned on Duo Laegjarn's banner and I summoned 120 times for a SINGLE COPY of Laegjarn. I only summoned 3 5 star units and it was the most painful experience. I just wanted a single copy but since there is no spark I lost MONTHS of resources for basically nothing.
I remember i also lost a lot of resources for those banner features that were limited to the feh pass or banner types because i couldn't tell whether i should or shouldn't be able to use it. And I still can't get over all those times because i would spend 30 days of orb farming to end up not winning one focus hero and also losing up all the meanings to farm hard for the next banner focus. I love gachas and FEH, but as a F2P my actual relationship with this game is almost masochist, and this saddens me a bit.
It also doesn’t help that a lot of the PvE gamemodes that exist are limited time only. They should make a game mode for PvE that sticks around for more than a week. Grand Conquests comes around like once a month, and when it does it stays for 4 DAYS. I used to love that mode because I found using an army of my friend’s units fun! Now I always see that I miss it happen and roll my eyes.
100% agree. Grand conquest is one of my favorite game modes and gets treated like crap. And it's in favor of other events like sdr and sds, which aren't even popular
The problem with GC is tht all the powercreep hurts in that kind of levels, I used to sweep maps with my Escape Route AFlorina, Ratatoskr will now annoy me but there are a 1000 of heroes that can one-shot or tank in 0's the 80% of the game, so or you are misserabily swept or you sweep. It's not a mid point.@@Oblivionknight
I LOVE this content. Not because I crave for negative things, but because I love Fire Emblem´s IP and FEH as a (mobile) game. Videos such as this one highlight the problems of such a game without sugarcoating anything. And that by a great fan. I returned to the game in september of 2023 after a 3 year hiatus and took the effort to re-learn the game once again. I still love the game, but yeah, there are problems with it and i am interested in all of your thoughts once I watch the whole video. I wish nothing but the best for this game, but IS and Nintendo need to change things up for the better.
100% everything I say here is out of love for fire emblem and feh. I think its always important to critique the things you love, especially when they are making poor decisions
Re: skill accessibility. They need to just make you inherit the entire skill tree (which is available at the time of unit's release). Literally no reason to inherit just a lv1 or 2 skill.
As a newer player who started playing FEH as of March this year, as well as having FEH be their first true gacha game... This video was everything I wanted to say after playing through these last eight months. The new player experience is absolutely dreadful considering how you can't lift a candle to veteran players even if you tried due to how many time gated resources FEH holds from you, and how little FEH aids you in trying to learn about the game. (Heroes Path is absolute trash and needs a massive rework.) Add that with FEH's obsession with publishing light novels on every new unit's skill and weapon description, and it's no wonder so little new players wish to play. Even Fire Emblem diehards refuse to ever touch this game due to the culmination of every one of these issues. I hope an IS intern watches this video and forwards it to the main FEH dev team. FEH really can be so much more, but right now it feels like it's just stuck on neutral until IS begins to listen to the dedicated fanbase.
I downloaded it in December last year for two reasons: Ascended Fjorm, and story/characterization! Sadly, the former was outdated even before I got into the game, but at least the writing is there...
I've been playing Feh since launch, and it kinda speaks volumes that the only content that I've had fun with and genuinely look forward to is Seers Snare, which was added this year in April. To be honest, I find myself playing Touhou Lostword over Feh more often these days. Another thing I would add is how certain materials are just hard to get. For example, Infantry Flowers and Forma Souls. I have plenty of infantry units I want to invest more in, but they demand so many flowers to be at their absolute best like Adult Tiki, who needs 3000 flowers at this point. Them with this HoF right now, I really want to use this opportunity to upgrade my Marcia with new skills, but I'm hesitant because I only have 1 Forma Soul and they could potentially put something I really want. Either way, I agree with all your points, especially about summoning. Christ, I started out gathering everything to build Ricken earlier this year. We're at the tail end of this year, and he's still sitting at +9 because I just can't get that final merge.
I originally had a whole section complaining about dragon flowers, florets, etc but it got cut the cus the video was way too long lol. They absolutely need to address it though
@@Oblivionknight In my opinion dragon flowers should just be farmable at this point. So many units I would like to build but can't because they require too many infantry flowers which means I'm far less tempted to pull for skills and arcane weapons for those units. I would love if one of the main draws of a new PvE mode was being able to grind for dragon flowers. In fact, I would like to see them replace training tower with some kind of dungeon crawling mode when your goal is to find treasure chests and an exit within a fog of war map. I had an idea for a mode like this awhile ago but the full details are too long to post here. Basically, it would have its own story and boss battles related to that story after a number of floors. We would get a new dungeon story somewhere between every three mouths or twice a year depending on how much effort is put into it. Being able to farm infinite dragon flowers from this was one of the main draws, but they could also have skill manuals and such as 1 time rewards for each story. Giving out meta skill manuals only usable by the askr trio would also help them out a lot. Finally, the dungeon story would allow for more cross game interactions for characters not exclusively from feh. For example, my fist dungeon story idea involved a victorious version of Duma invading askr at full power. While Alm, Celica, and Alfonse would play major roles in the story, so would other logical character choices from other games, in this case I picked Awakening Tiki, Marth, and Edelgard to also get notable roles in the story. The bosses for the first dungeon would be Jedah, Fallen Berkut, Fallen Celica, then finally Duma. They would all be buffed with large heath pools and enemy exclusive Prfs for this mode. Duma for example had an effect that makes him nearly immune to damage unless you have dragon effectiveness.
@@SadFace229 adding an additional hard mode after you beat it the 1st time. That way you can use all the cool skills you got through the 1st play through
The game definitely needs much more pve content. However, I would add, that they shouldnt abandon PvP entirely if they do add/improve PvE modes. Another game I play has almost completely abandoned PvP over the years to chase the casual audience and what it has resulted in is the further erosion of not only PvP, but all engaging content entirely as the devs chased the easy new player money to the detriment of everything else. What I mean by this, is that IS needs to do both. Ensure their existing players are happy, while also looking at ways to bring in more new players (and make other players happy too). The issue as I see it is that, the gaming industry (not necessarily the devs, but the companies and management) have gotten extremely lazy as a whole and lost sight of what makes a game good. It's all about the revenue and how cheap and quick that can be increased, not about the player experience... So I doubt we will see anything meaningful in the short term (next few years). It's a scourge that is industry wide and needs addressing fast.
Completely agree. I don't think they should abandon pvp at all. They've already spent 7 years working on it. It can easily be maintained with what they are currently doing (occasional new maps, captain skills, new mythics). And you're absolutely right. This is a industry wide problem that has been getting worse and worse
The guy pulled actually 21 Ginnungagaps, but it's nothing compared to Patty ojisan with their 60~ Halloween Flayns for 22 Pattys or the Lapis fan and the 31 Diamants they got to max merge Lapis.
I agree. Some new, fun PVE game mode is needed that can be accessible for new players. Alphonse and Sharena and Anna need a second refine, or some kind of upgrade that you can unlock for them because I hate having to use them in quests because they are so underpowered and I just haven't invested the dragon flowers into them to keep their stats relevant.
Acsended alts were *Right There* when Askr (and Ash) where introduced. IntSys originally defined acsended as "units who gained power from a god" and abandoned that with Joshua. They even couldve been part of the book 6 story with lord Askr granting power to Alfonse and Sherena and made them free units (hell, add them to the cycle of the askr trio)
Something I’ve realized is that in every Fire Emblem game the main lord gets a sick promotion class (some too late *Roy*). Why haven’t Shareena, Alfonse, and Anna gotten their’s yet? I’d kill for them to be upgraded into legendary units with new movement types, weapons, and skills.
I've always been a huge advocate for more community features, I can't understand why anything like a guild/clan system hasn't been added yet despite all these years, It wouldn't be so game changing but the fact you get to share your builds or help guide new players would be so amazing. Not only could it be just for the coummity too but it could also implement PvE modes around it. They could go a Clans of Clans/Clash royale route with clan wars where instead of each other fighting we'd have our two clans compete against each other for whoever can get a top score for like Tempest/Rokkr Sieges as an example. Also a huge gripe but why are all the cool PVE modes we have limited?? like why couldn't Seers Snare be avalible all the time? Just have the rewards update every three months or so, like Favor in SD. (also pls make Tap Battle be a pernament mode ;-; ) I'd also like to say that they really missed the mark on Arcane weapons, we should've just gotten a new menu outright to have modular weapons, this would be so much better than having to rely on favouite units becoming relavent from only from their refines. Imagine being able to pick and choose what effects weapons provide for say a set amount of points each; for example, weapons come with 10 points for modifiers, adding +3 to all stats could cost 1 and by how much caps out depending on the heroes version (for obvious reasons), adding DC/CC can cost 5, NFU could cost 3, -1 cooldown costing 2, etc.
Agreed to pretty much all of those points. I'm looking to get more involved with the game myself, but even I've had to binge watch content from you and other FEHtubers just to understand what the heck I need to do in this game to be even slightly competitive. I would love for IS to be more open to player feedback, and perhaps add in a co-op game mode or two, which I'm still shocked they haven't added into the game after 7 years. I would play the heck out of co-op content and it might put FEH on top for me. Hopefully someone at IS sees this video and they can come up with some solutions.
I actually love your idea of key words. There are many, many effects in FEH, but they're honestly not as imposing as many think at face value. Shortening them via key words makes it so much cleaner and efficient.
Shout out to the legendary/mythic abyssal maps, they are genuinely where the game shines the most. They're nice challenges that aren't hit by power creep near as much as PVP modes.
The glossary idea would be absolutely fantastic. Start there and then work on the PvE modes. Competitive updates or new modes will most likely be controversial.
Very nice video, the last point really made me realise what makes FEH different from the mainline game. I think changes I'd be most ecstatic about would be the summoning changes (mostly the pool and skills found within it), the skill inheritance cap (with either getting rid of it or increasing it to something like 5 or 10), some cooperative game modes, and maybe also the way they pace the story. (also, thanks for including me in the amazing roster of FEH content creators you had featured🥰)
I hope IS sees this video and takes it to heart. I fell in love with the series with FE7 on the GBA, and it was the PVE, and the character interactions that made me fall for the series. Being grounded in their own logic, and taking themselves seriously enough that I could believe what they were selling was one of the major draws. Right now, Fjorm is my favorite FE character, and I really enjoy how she keeps getting more to do, but even I can recognize that the other OCs need love too. Heck Book three made me completely reevaluate Alfonse, and gave me a really close connection to him! Sharena got less love in "her book", and Anna has completely become a background character. I think the last good male OC that hasn't died was Hrid! There is so much potential to work with, and I hope IS will absolutely turn things towards building up this game I have loved since launch!
Theres a reason in mainline FE games there isn't much emphasis on multiplayer at all... Fire Emblem has ALWAYS focused on PvE I think Summoner Duels is the mode that cemented the games lack of growth. It is the MOST PvP centric game, the least F2P friendly, has the highest barrier of entry and honestly new units became designed specifically for this gamemode (look at a unit like HAnna).
I just feel like if Intsys put heart into feh (or anything) the game would be actually pretty fun to play but everything is for profit and not for the sake of actual fire emblem fans
There's a reason people get so excited by the Refines/Remixes of old Heroes--because so much of the game revolves around the competitive aspect people get really excited for their favorites to finally have a chance of being relevant again, like a balance patch they will only ever get *once*.
It's so heartbreaking when that one chance comes out undercooked or doesn't play to how you wanted it to go. Suddenly your favorite unit may as well be dead forever or relegated to a cookie cutter arcane build.
RIP Dancers and Demote Healers refine though. Between the fact only Legendary/Mythics Dancers getting ones, Phina getting snubbed and the fact Azama got a Resplendent despite his subpar stats, you could tell November 2023 will be forever known as the one of the worst months of FEH's history.
What I want is a weekly PVE mode that works like a tower (also found in other games) This tower would contain many stages that get harder as you go up til you can’t make it anymore. You would then collect some rewards that get reseted with every week. I just want an actual pve gamemode you can actually play every week as I’m usually just collecting daily orbs and then closing the game again. So pls is, do something this December xd
I'd like to touch upon your skill glossary point. While everyone knows it would be an amazing change and would help weapons being much more easily digestible, I think people do underestimate how much of a massive undertaking it would be to do this in all languages. We are talking about near a thousand characters needing to be adjusted(it's probably over a thousand if you include prf skills which would also need this change), and that's no simple feat no matter how you look at it. I am in the camp that thinks it would be very worth it in the long term, but I can understand their hesitance to go through with such a big change on such a massive scale.
This is actually a really good point. And something I was thinking about a lot. I'm always trying to consider things from the developer perspective (including the financial side), because it creates a more grounded perspective. But just like you mentioned, even though it would be a massive undertaking it is necessary at this point imo
I’m also glad that you bought up tactic drills. While yes, they have a beginner mode that can teach new players things like weapon triangle, effective damage etc, the issue is that every new hero banner gets an intermediate level, where the game expects you to already know how every skill,weapon, effect works and interacts with each other. Now this mode can be a fun add on for more experienced players however when new heroes come with new skills with new effects (which is as inevitable as death and taxes at this point.) and no one knows how they work, instead of giving us beginner tactic drills to teach us how the new skill works for even us veterans who may not understand, they’re thrown into the intermediate levels right away, giving new players or just anyone no chance to learn how these new skills work, thus we all just wait for phoneixmaster to make his video where he just does the steps for us and we follow along, and even through this we don’t even get to learn what the skill even does. I thought tactic drills were a neat idea for the reason of teaching newer players the skills and mechanics, maybe even be a little handholdy with them like the tutorial at the very start of the game is, or even have pop ups that give the glossary definition of skills and effects, and then tell players how they can access it if they forget. So much can be done to make the game mode that has a beginner difficulty more beginner friendly, and the fact that sentence even exist is baffling.
It would also be nice if tactics drills addressed team building and not super specific scenarios that you probably couldn't set up on your own if you tried.
I played feh for abt 4 years as completely f2p, officially dropped it like 3 months ago - literally every 2 weeks a new "meta defining" skill Is being released, it's completely ridiculous I just dont have the time to keep up with the power creep
I think this video really gets it. I was all in on getting some +10 units from 3-4 pool in the early game and trying new skills on heroes in PvP, but somewhere before Fedelgard I gave up. I think seeing how crazy AR could get turned me off. I came back to Arena just in time for Fedelgard to arrive, and quashed any thought about trying PvP. I can’t play with my favorites while everyone else is armor-save/canto/damage reduction buff, with the novel of text for weapons and skills. With the onslaught of stupid skills on super buff units, I do just as you said: I don’t really play much of the game anymore. I play TT, I play arena (on low difficulty because I’m only there for the summon ticket), I get my 3 auto AR matches for the rewards, and I move on. GC? I auto one at a time for the HM farming, but even then does it matter? My old joy of finishing a unit’s HM is dashed every February. The Pokédex can’t be completed (not realistically, anyway). I came into FE during Awakening - stubbornness kept me from playing earlier as I loved the Advance Wars offerings from IS - and I’ve logged in every day since launch, but sometimes I feel like I’m only clinging to FEH waiting for the End of Service announcement. Again, great video, and best of luck with pvp as the game moves forward 👍
This video sums up pretty much everything I feel. The PVP gamemodes are too difficult to get into, getting fodder is far too much of an annoying process, newer units pretty much overshadow some older ones... I just wish that the game had some sort of PVE content to keep me locked in. It'd be cool if there was a permanent Forma Tower game mode, similar to Integrated Strategies from Arknights, but with your own units. I'd love to do that...
Agreed. I did dislike AR and SD, a lot. But powercreep is the reason I quit over the summer. I had my favorite units, year 1-3, all +10, max dragon flowers, with tier 4 skills. And I couldn't even beat the seasonal maps on lunatic for the quest orbs. That was it. My invested units couldn't kill a Summer Fjorm and survive the map to get the 1 freakin orb. I quit the map, and then the game. I spent so many orbs, paid orbs, getting my favorites to +10 with all the skill fodder, and it wasn't enough. I just wanted to use my favorites to beat the PvE maps, and IS made that just near impossible.
As someone that joined midway through Book 5, I think point 1, 2 & 8 are by far the most damning when it comes to make FEH bleed it's playerbase while gaining little to no few players. Every one of the new hero type additions Book 5 onwards are heavily aimed towards players who have invested in old units and want to make them work. And given how the most recent ones run on FOMO syndrome just to they may carry newer banners, that gives potential newcomers not actual reason to... summon at all, more so since the game's been adding lately 1-2 new 5 star units into the main summoning pool, whom are by comparison more newby friendly. Point 2 is pretty much straightfoward, but it just can't be understated given how much 3H showed how much narrative and character writing matters into a "collect the character" sort of games (like, just see CLY 4 & 5 as an example). And given how FEH has its own OC which the devs want players to pull for... Finally, complexity creep is just flay out intimidating and not fun to try understanding without testing stuff yourself. And that's a problem when IS wants people to pull for even more complexity creep by trying to make giant walls of text as a selling point (character appeal is YMMV). Have IS adress those 3 points, and I can legit see the state of the game improving quite a bit, which can then allow them to adress other stuff like the disparity between PvE & PvP content.
I’ve seen some people make the point to be worried about that because around the time they increased the inheritance cap to 4, Tier 4 skills were introduced. It would help, but at this point, Tier 5 skills look more and more possible as much as I hate to admit it.
I was watching this while doing auto battle on Forging Bonds xD anyway, as someone who suffered a lot of bad results from recent summoning (like 0-1 5* Hero in 40 summons outside the spark) and is on the verged of uninstalling the game for a while, I do appreciate this video a lot. And I do agree with the points you've talked about. Even I though I started to focus on just building up my favorites (mostly 4* demotes) ... the skill creep and power creep (from new 5*) really kills my motivation to play. Not releasing the bridge skills into the 3*~4* quick enough to make easier access to the tier 4 skills and the recent "enticing/encouragement" to spark twice on recent banners (despite giving us not enough orbs) frustrates me. It reminds me too much why is quit games like King of Fighters All Stars and Shin Megami Tensei Dx2, despite playing both for a very long time... In those games, anything other than 5* gacha locked exclusives is nearly useless which is something I that I started to see here as well. The complete lack of PVE contents without the heavily inflated stats is another discouraging thing that I see more often.
we need a krafting system like Hearthstones where you could get ANY heroes you want in manual feature for merge or fodder for additional resources cost related to book’s year. that way you could merge your favorite heroes and new ones by saving. the only way to get heroes is bound to summoning ON SPECIFIC banners which sucks. the skill inherit system is still my biggest gripe with this game.
I think it would be really easy to fix the 3-4 star pool problem. Take all year 1-4 demotes and old 5 stars and create a daily pull pool called the "Friend Point Summoning" its something Fate Grand Order does. What they could also potentially do is have it where this friend point pool has skill books as well, so everyday you click the summon and it automatically display's 5 units/skill books. This would solve multiple problems at once and it could also add to the community element. Have more modes where your friends use your units and you will get friend points each day, and add friend point daily quest. Its really not hard to solve many of these problems, I just think IS doesn't think its worth investing anymore time into this game which is insanely sad.
I was there for the longest time even when my friends stopped playing the game but lately it just feels like waaaay to much of a chore to handle. Too many new game-breaking skills coming ever week, units I enjoy building become obsolete so quickly and it's just not fun anymore. It all feels like a race to see how fast can you make your favorite unit good before they become irrelevant in a month's time. At least it's a good way for more amazing art for FE as a whole, I do tune in to see trailers just to see my favorite characters get added and see the amazing art they get when they're introduced.
This video definitely called out to a lot of my feelings. As someone who started only a few months after its release and played it for many years, I slowly started to not login and play the game anymore with the release of Fallen Edelgard, watching more and more units coming out with new skills and realizing the fast progression towards a powercreep I wasn't sure of. Its crazy now seeing the skills that have come out in just the one year I've been out of the game, and being glad I dropped it if mostly for my own sanity. The pressure of needing to pull new skills to keep my favorite characters consistently updated and being able to get surprised by a banner for a favorite unit of mine became exhausting, and it seems not much changed in those terms. I hope they fix more of the issues for current players, and I appreciate the effort you put into this video confronting the issues the game has.
You got me at the start with the new players. I've been playing FEH since year one and fire emblem since sacred stones. I was able to adjust to all the new complexities it added. I've told people when asked what I'm playing because it looks interesting, "I'd introduce you to it, but it's so conplicated at this point, you wouldn't know how to move forward." So i just show them my collection of hereoes, and they're usually satisfied with that 😂.
I agree the story is way too undeveloped and plus don't help that the writers who work it on are not that good like they don't intice u to be attached to the new characters or like doesn't give them a good development like instead of these stupid monologue line a character on banner say they could easily replace this by adding more dialogue about the story or like show us what the book protagonist background or them and askr trio are thinking and planning. Or like show us the antagonists talking or discussing a plan to attack or something that would be cool and let us see what the villian is about and their purpose or like show us Abit of background about them like Letizia elm njodord was really waste like they didn't give them time to develop or show us their background lol like that would be a really good startegy to let the players actually enjoy each new book! But yeah great video overall Oblivion really nice ur discussing these cause they need to be said and heard so really fantastic job at this so well made!^^❤ Also u forgot to talk about training tower and each month training tower stupid orbs which is so exhuasting and annoying to do it's no fun and ur just doing it to get orbs like c'mon make something with the training tower it would make gaining those orbs more fun like seriously most feh players doesn't even bother getting them of how boring it is. 🥱😬
ive recently restarted the game. the free summons and all the story orbs really do help start people but i still agree that sacred seals are such a grind to unlock and upgrade
I agree with the new players thing. Its very overwhelming for a newcomer. It throws a lot at you the moment you truly start. It's not just a new player issue either. If you're a returning player that hasnt played in a very long while, it's also a little overwhelming. You really have to commit to the game for a while.
There's a video where a business bro talks about behavioral psychology and the monetization of mobile games, and what he says sheds light on many of the choices that are made with FEH. For example, he lists the main sources of income as follows: 1) monetizing progress, 2) providing competitive advantages, 3) customization, and 4) providing content. The first one is not an issue in FEH, but the second one is pretty much the main lure of the game nowadays. The interesting thing is that the dude talking recommends not putting too much emphasis on the competitive aspects, lest you risk creating an unbalanced game. He also mentions that providing content is just not worth it (Too expensive, and takes too many resources/time) and that kind of explains why IS puts such little effort into the story, but also why so many PVE modes are underbaked and some haven't changed or evolved in the last 5+ years. Anyway, I'll stay in this sinking boat until we get a meta Dimitri, after that, I'll be out. Great video btw! a much-needed one.
One thing I would add that I think would help tremendously would be to lower the price of orb packs considerably, and increasing the value that FEH pass brings. While I would gladly help support FEH monetarily, one thing that always stops me is the absurd cost of orbs; I just can't justify spending the price of a brand new game for an old forma (that I can't afford the dflowers it would take to make them viable) and MAYBE one new hero of my choice if I'm lucky. Only the tiniest percentage of players would. If orbs were more affordable I and many others would gladly spend frequently on orb purchases feeling we're getting our money's worth. Same goes with increasing FEH pass benefits. Rather than catering to and relying on a few whales (and what happens if they quit?), it would be far, far more lucrative (and wise) to cater to a much larger percentage of their players who would spend on affordable prices. This would also create a healthier and happier community because more of us would be able to get what we want and not feel the unfairness of having to compete against whales.
Really true one firend of mine wanted to start playing i was not sure but maybe give him a try i tried to explain in a sense to him so he could feel confortable i explained the inheret, skills, stats, gameplay and all he played for like 3 months and then he siad " there is too much going on i feel like what i do is doing nothing" and then he quit the early game is sometimes unforgiven because you dont have acces to the best heroes now even if you do there is some people will struggle and also they should really increase the gap of ingereting skills only 4 is too low for what skills we are getting at this point i wonder if we gonna get tier 5 skills next year
Starting in feh in 2017 was fun at first but overtime, the game got more competitive and more meta while becoming less and less about playing with your favrotite units and this video goes into detail exactly on the issues that many in the feh community has pointed out to IS yet both nintendo and IS seem to ignore any feedbacks they recieve which is why Feh is just isn't fun as it used to be. They need to collectively fix a lot of the issues, especially the summoning pool and adding the feature to have six inhertiance skills because the way I see it Feh isn't gonna last too long if they don't start making changes to their game that would benefit both the new and veteran players.
I agree with the need for community interaction and I've been asking for a true co-op game mode (voting gauntlet and rival domains don't count imo) for years now. Even if it was piss easy and only came by once every month or two I think being able to play alongside other players in real time towards a common goal (like a rokkr-esque raid boss or Engage style tempest trials) would be something to look forward to.
At lot of these points I agreed with, but wow the last point is very true. I only play arena because it gives orbs and do the 3 free day things I AR. We need more PvE
I've been wanting to watch this video for a long time but never got around to it until now. This is definitely one of your best videos. Not just the structure and content, but the title and thumbnail too. It's sad that even though I love FEH so much, I find myself getting frustrated by it at lot as well. Many of my friends have quit just because they couldn't keep up the grind. The PM1 Tactics Drills joke was also one of the most relatable things of all time. I hope he gets plenty of ad rev for those videos since nobody else is willing to solve them on their own. I really wish they'd create more interesting game modes like Seer's Snare - or just anything that is more F2P/new player friendly. Anyways, great video essay. Keep up the good work 0blivion!
It's criminal that IS hasn't put a fire emblem-like game mode into the game. Seers Snare/Tempest Trials is the closest they have come but imagine a game mode that plays like Hall of Forms, but the map is something like 16x16 (Similar to Resonance Battles) with a defeat boss objective instead of only route objectives. You should be allowed to build your own team for the event, but all units start at lvl 1 with no skills with bonuses coming from specific titles for some team diversities. Every 2 levels or so, the unit will gain one random (or you get to pick) skill one level at a time (atk/spd clash 1, then atk/spd clash 2 etc. not imediately jumping to atk/spd clash 4). During the event, if a unit falls in battle, they are gone for the rest of the run, however, you can gain prebuilt units every 7 or so levels. These units can be created/tuned by IS to be similar to units that join mid game in FE. They could make units that are already leveled and have some decent skills equipped or give you a unit that is really low level but has insanely strong skills that they can learn. At the end of the game mode, you can spend a forma soul or something similar to obtain a unit that you leveled (that way IS has a way to monetize the game mode). I believe that something like what is mentioned will not only draw in FE players, but also draw in new players as they have the opportunity to use units that they have never seen before. Tag on for any critiques or questions that you guys may have as a FE-like experience could really save the game.
Co-operative PvE modes with better integration and features of the friend list would be nice. The Seer's Snare mode was such good fun, but it appears so far and few between, and it doesn't have any long-term progression like with Aether Raids.
Seers snare should at least be once a month. And I would love if they added a hard mode you could play after the 1st round, so you had a real chance to use all the crazy builds you just made
While I don't mind having so many Heroes in FEH, as Fire Emblem is a franchise with a massive preexisting roster, there is an issue that I do feel like is worth addressing: Bloating, especially in the normal Heroes Banners. Having different versions of the same character is cool and all, in fact, one of my favorite types of battles to witness feature different versions i.e. "Lucina Emblem", but it doesn't inspire a lot of good faith when it gets in the way of adding unique characters. Take the recent "Attuned: Peony & Triandra" banner: 2 OC alts, 1 Valentia alt, and 1 new Hero; 1. Sure we also got Marla and Hestia through quests and GHB, but it's all the more jarring because neither of them were primary in the accompanying Forging Bonds. I get it. SoV has a small number of remaining characters, and hardly any who could be considered "green", but Jesse/Deen and Nomah are right there. And to add insult to injury, there wasn't a Colorless Hero in that banner.
I have played pretty casually since 2018, I didn't even know how arena/AR scoring worked until probably 2021 when I started watching PM1 on RU-vid to clear the tactics maps and I stumbled upon other videos and creators. Before that I always just looked forward to Grand Conquests. I don't study every team when I play arena or AR and manage to consistently get thrones with the same strategies. I like the PvP and think AR is the best game mode for sure, but I think larger more strategy based PvE needs to be implemented. You almost need someone who actively plays to give you a class when you start to understand how to strategize summoning and explain the game modes, plus a huge start up bonus. Like 5k orbs or more. Community is definitely needed, I don't know anyone who plays the game and have no one to discuss with about it outside of watching RU-vid videos. I don't have the time or patience to focus on summoner duels events but it's a great concept and I'll play every once and awhile.
I remember when the game came out I was excited because I thought I didn't need a GBA emulator on my phone to play a fire emblem game. I still remember struggling against Takumi and Hector in arena. I remember when people just worked with the random 5 star units they happened to summon. My old team was Sheena Kagero Corrin and Olivia. But yeah I wish there was SOMETHING other than the Friends List to interact with people. Maybe Clans or something, but knowing this series, they'll probably nintendofy it where you can only chat using predetermined messages or something -_-. Even then tho I think it would be fun.
If we turn time a little bit back, There was a Gamemode Introduced called Seers Snare, if I remember correctly this gamemode was well received by the audience of Feh, they can do and have pulled off PvE events, Rokkr Seiges is also another good example tho it got blown to bits with everyone’s favourite Hero by force, Bridal Catria
Sees snare is only mode I don’t like because it prevent you for using duo or harmonic skill or save skill , while on arknights Integrated strategies you can abuse it to your heart contend picking op units like Texas alter , Yato alter both triviaze the entire mode , Golden Glow only triviaze ending 2 because skill 3 turn her range into global and kill the boss even her is frozen by the boss passive
I played Feh since the beginning mainly because it was like an introduction to me to the fire emblem series (I am the kind of fire emblem fan who became one because of he was influenced by smash bros). I never really play Feh competitively and just chill with the game and mainly summon on banners that either has some units with interesting gimmicks or has some of my favorite characters. Also I do find it annoying on how IS shoves a yellow border skills every new banner but I took it as a reminder of how annoying the inherit skill slots because they keep releasing these new skills and still only allow us to inherit 4 skills.
One of the biggest show of lack of clarity in the weapons/skill effect is perfectly shown in the in game battler calculator which will shown one unit do 75×2 dmg to an opponent which will somehow get only 3 hp dmg and you're like "you tell me I inflict 150 dmg to the dude but the dude receive 3 dmg"
Power creep is pretty much the parent issue to the barracks issue I think. As a pretty casual player who pulls for favorites instead of for meta, I usually end up sinking orbs into old seasonal banners. I love Chrom, and I think he’s adorable in his santa outfit, so I pulled for winter chrom. I don’t regret pulling for him, but I have very little opportunity to use him because he’d get absolutely rocked against newer units, even in PVE modes. So instead I have the meta team that I use for basically everything, and then a few teams I use for the training tower quests every month (even though they usually have old heroes who get obliterated if Lucia happens to show up).
I'm a bit different breed of player, I'm a lore person, I can literally play a gacha for the story if it's good and pull for characters if they are well written. And in the way they "care" about the story, worldbuilding and lore in general, you can see that from the very beginning, the game was not supposed to be about having its own quality. Everything was designed around justifying why characters from different FE titles can exist in one place so IS can monetize on it. The main cast and the whole first book is just tools to get there. There is no depth, the world makes NO sense (especially the moment different variants of the same character appear) and you can see that they don't care at all. They (probably accidentally) gave few OCs hints of personality, and the fanbase being as loyal and used to do it all by itself as it is, took that almost nothing and built on it. Now imagine if the characters were actually well written and had a development... If the world had meaningful rules and a progressing overall story... I sort of hoped (for a long time) that they would pick it up after seeing that the game gained traction and just... do something with the mess they had created. The quality of the characters and storytelling is fluctuating, some are better (usually connected to Kozaki doing the art for some reason) some worse and the latest book was an absolute disaster (and a weird fanservice to Japanese hikikomori whales if you ask me). We had this small group of feh OC/lore enthusiasts and over the past two years any interest or hope for feh has just died off. We used to show our pulls and be happy for others and nowdays we usually don't even mention it in text, because those pulls just mean nothing in this game anymore. We all moved to Genshin and are having a great time. The difference in attitude of these two developers (Hoyoverse and Intsys) is abyssal and made me realize how badly I was treating myself by sticking to the terribly low standard IS is providing.
@@Oblivionknight Same. Feh would do great with 1/10 of that effort but it only gets pretty ladies to sell most of the time :( What bugs me here is knowing that the developers don't care about the world I WANT to care about. They are just squeezing it for revenue. It is not as obvious until you play a game made with love :(
As you talk about Summoner Duels matchmaking system, I get paired up against someone with a rating 4x higher than mine... Jokes aside, all of the things you said in this video are completely true. As a returning player whose only been playing for about 2 weeks now, I die a little inside every time I go up against someone with extremely high merges or just have a more complete and coherent team than me with "RANDOM SHIT, GO!" If I see another Ninja Claude, Legendary Hinoka, or Brave Corrin, I will legit explode. I have been an FE fan since the beginning of time. I have played all of the spin-offs and main games, done many LTC runs and absurd challenges, and I did play FEH on release for a while before I dropped it. I came back because I recently started my 3H playthroughs again and FEH randomly crossed my mind. Since there's been so much powercreep, I opted to make a new account since I would have access to all of the F2P orbs and still keep up with new releases. That aside, I really hope they make everything a lot more accessible for newer and older players alike. It's so difficult to look into all the competitive aspects especially when I have to watch through all of these videos before I even have a slightest idea of the best possible thing I should do. The fact that this game has been on for 7 years and there are still so many adjustments/new content they still need to add is absolutely atrocious, but I'm still gonna keep playing since I'm a diehard FE fan even though TECHNICALLY FEH is not a Fire Emblem game lmao. And honestly, it's a lot of fun trying out all the characters.
I agree with everything you've said so far, except kind of the story chapters, but that's only because I do them *exclusively* with the Askr trio at as low investment as I physically can, which I think says more about how bad they are than anything. (for the record every map seems to be beatable except for the book 7 braves, go figure). I genuinely think the glossary feature would solve the complexity issue almost completely, but the only other thing I would say would help is just... Letting us see how many stats they'd get when they initiate/we initiate without actually having them do it. These things already get calced and displayed so it wouldn't be that hard, it would just be a matter of adding 2 little buttons to the ui. A lot of feh gets obfuscated by just the UI being too simplified, which made sense at one point, but not anymore. Feh is honestly more complicated at times than mainline FE, and the UI doesn't reflect that. Honestly, this is a universal problem for FEH, so much of the UI is just not descriptive in combat, or tedious outside of combat. Why is it that if I realise I need to spend grails or grab a unit from my reserves for fodder, I have to abandon the setup and search I was already doing to go do it? I feel like every time I comment down here I have to mention Pokémon Masters EX, and today I have to do it again. Their ally growth menu is excellent because all of the things you could need to do can be done in the same menu and swiftly. There's nothing stopping FEH from doing it other than not wanting to use any dev resources for any reason.
Heck not even a new player here but a returning player (that new guy for book 8 looks so hot I had to see what’s going on) I feel like everything you said is spot on. I don’t remember the exact day I left but It was somewhere around book 5, but coming back and seeing the wall of text on basically everything, skills, weapons, it was just crazy! Also my highly invested characters at the time being basically almost worthless in PVP content was crazy. I mean I wasn’t even fully invested in PVP when i was still an active player from day 1, however I didn’t get smacked by one character in like 3 turns! At least my characters back then would put up a fight but now it’s hilarious how fast I got rolled!
I totally agree with all the points you made. But I'm afraid that IS won't invest resources in PvE modes cause, like you said in the video, the playerbase is shrinking and they're probably afraid that an old game like FEH won't atract more players even if they appeal to casuals. And thus we have a self perpetuating problem where they keep squeezing the whales at the detriment of casual players, it would require a tremendous effort from the community for the studio to listen and course correct.
I still remember when people were clamoring for a REAL pvp mode for years, then SD dropped and they hated it will burning passion... lol While I get that IS butchered SD since the very beginning mainly because of how stingy they are with the rewards, it's still a tale about people don't really understanding what they want, instead is just people demanding what they don't have.
I used to spend hours theorycrafting builds and AR set ups. I loved AR, but the pace of powercreep was too much and I hated saving for merges. Many of my favorite units were infantry, so I invested an insane amount on infantry pulse defense teams, and at one point it was only good against outdated offense teams who don't care anymore.
The fact that there is no dedicated, fun, Co-Op mode in FEH after six years of player feedback saying “Hey, a co-op game mode would be kinda fun.” tells you everything you need to know about I.S.’s direction for this game.
Tfw when every single issue listed contributed to me dropping this game Skill accessibility, summoning issues, game is too punishing, scoring systems. The game just punishes me for not having money and not summoning all of the time, and I'm so done
Great video! I Played Feh since launch and quit a few months back; couldn't keep up as free to play with the powercreep of the game and the intensity of the PVP game modes. This video captured a lot of the frustrations I felt.
At this point idk, i just come back to read the story that its kind of fun, and to pull for a new tiki alt...but just that (my team for a year has been the same) Also, i really like the rythm game, i think it should be always up, not just for events.
One of the things you just barely said at around 28:00 is the "super hardcore" fanbase. Those people envelope the pvp community, and since they are hardcore, they will by far spend the most money on the game. The "I wanna summon who I like" will just have spikes every once in a while, or never, depending on what character they like. Its tough but, balancing making money and player enjoyment is a really big problem with gacha games, or games in general. So as much as I would wanna say "I would make PVE content if I were making a fire emblem mobile game", sadly there isnt much money in it
This type of video is totally my jam. I really wish IS paid more attention to this sort of thing because they have so many clear paths to extend the life of the game and make it more enjoyable to everyone (encouraging spending) but it's so frustrating that they completely ignore the biggest problems the game has. The biggest thing I've wanted for years and years on end that they never give us is a nice consistent PvE mode to use our enormous barracks in. The extensive focus on PvP content drives people away because Fire Emblem in not primarily a PvP series to begin with and it's not why many of us are even here. Was nodding my head the entire time when you finally got to number 1 and it was exactly what I expected. Honestly AR would be a very good starting point to make a good PvE mode that still utilizes player created content. The tools to have player created map challenges are right there, they just need to remove the competitive aspect from it. Couldn't agree more with everything about summoning and skill availability/inheritance complaints, it's all a dumpster fire. I honestly am in agreement with the entire video but I'd be here all day if I typed about everything. Absolute banger video.
>"Grand conquest: Dont" felt that, honestly is crazy how many amazing gamemodes they have designed to then screw them up by adding PvP, I still remember how hype everyone was with the reveal of Pawns of Loki; FEH auto chess? that is awesome, then it became PvP, everyone optimized the crap out of it and now you just do it quickly because there is so little control on the result unless you have the units and the investment needed
I've never seen your content before but I've been in FEH since day one to seek out the ultimate builds for my favorite villains, since you never get to use them in-game outside of Sacred Stones and Awakening (at the time). Zephiel was my first +10 and he felt so, so incredible to use, and I was only able to push him so far without Grails but BOY I MANAGED. But now the game is, as you said, only something I play to build fun characters, and I nearly completely ignore all PvP modes. I don't touch summoner duels, I haven't touched aether raids in an eternity, and I haven't spent money in forever. Sanaki from the ninja banner feels like an "End of Service" character to me. She nukes everything possible in sight, and now all PvE is trivialized. I have not failed to kill anyone in the entire game since acquiring her. All of the Abyssal maps were cleared on the first try. What the heck is the point anymore lol FEH has legacy and potential - but I'd argue we might need more than just a drastic shift in direction. They might need to reboot the entire game instead of just Book 8 fixing stuff. Allow us legacy players to carry over these characters to the sequel/reboot with all Dragonflowers active (merged into them permanently, they should have never been something we earn, just a free boost automatically given out to keep them all relevant) and revamp the entire summoning pool. This game is 100% screwed if they do one more book without anything drastic. I cannot see it lasting more than one year.
Thank you so much for making this video and especially for the last section about how the draw of the mainline games is PVE. My whole life I've almost exclusively played PVE games, and if FE had been a PVP series, I never would have gotten into it. Sure, the core reason is that I'm not a particularly skilled or competitive person. But I love video games, and I do still enjoy playing with people when it's up against friends and family. What I don't enjoy is playing against strangers on the internet who are often cutthroat, whaled out, and incredibly critical in and out of game. It's fine if you enjoy PVP games, but for me I find them frustrating and stressful. And as you explained extensively, both the meta for FEH as well as the PVP game modes offer little fun or reward for all you'd have to do to stay competitive. I also appreciate you touching on story and characters. There's been this debate that's gotten really heated ever since Fire Emblem Engage came out, about whether or not story and characters matter more or as much as the combat in a FE game. And the answer is, uh, yes, story and characters absolutely matter and they are half of what makes Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem. If story and characters didn't matter, then why does the very first FE game name your units and give them dialogue? They could have just been called Paladin and Thief and Mage and Lord if the game thought you shouldn't care about them. So it's frustrating that the story in FEH is also...that. Any of the terrific moments in the main FEH story are so often kneecapped by the game's format. Also, I'm thankful for Forging Bonds and Paralogues, but why are characters from the mainline games irrelevant to the main plot? When Xander was the only guy in the room it was just...weird (and now he's just gone). I'm one of those collect-characters-and-that's-about-it players. I still breeze through certain modes to get my feathers and orbs, but I don't know when I'll ever touch Summoner Duels or Aether Raids again. But even for a player like me who likes to collect, merge, and build there are frustrations. I joined FEH during Book Four, and now I'm often thinking about the feathers and flowers I missed out on by joining that "late," because FEH doesn't give new players enough resources to catch up. Whenever I beat a mainline game for the first time and gain a new favorite, if they're an early FEH unit then I'm swiftly disappointed in the fact that there are almost no good or interesting inheritable weapons outside of rearmed weapons. Same with skills - it's hard not to just default to the same, limited, inheritable premium skills over and over. I could go on and on, as so many of us have. This video is awesome and really sums up so many of my complaints. I don't want FEH to die but man it sure would be nice if it changed for the better.