Some Extra Thoughts on Encouraging Teamwork

                          So after I wrote my last post about teamwork I felt like I had forgotten to add a few points so this point is here to cover the last remaining points that I wanted to make regarding teamwork.

• Increase the number of sub-objectives in a map: If a map has multiple objectives that require the player to move in multiple directions simultaneously that would definitely encourage team work because no matter how powerful your Jeigan archetype is they could only move in one direction and they couldn't be everywhere at once. The final level of Thracia 776 is a perfect example of an anti low manning level. You have multiple tiles throughout the entire level that you need to have one unit stand on. There are 6 tiles throughout the map and you have to stand on all 6 of them before the final boss's dungeon opens up. The map is big enough to where you have to use multiple units at a time and if you want to beat the map fast you have to use whoever is positioned on the side of the map that you have positioned there. It's a great example of the type of map that we need more of in future Fire Emblem games.

• Create an "item capacity" system: You want to know why Seliph is considered to be as powerful as he currently is? It's because the most optimal strategy in the second generation of Fe 4 is to stuff him with as many items and weapons that you can so that he can be uber powerful as quickly as possible. This really bugs me even to this day. If the optimal strategy is to give all your weapons and items to one unit and let them wreck everything then I think there's a major problem.

                   My solution to this problem is to create something like an "item capacity" system. Remember how in the Tellius games there's a skill capacity system? I would like for something like that to happen to items as well. The two most important items you can give to Seliph are the Leg Ring and the Paragon Ring. Now what if you could only pick one of them to give to him? Or maybe you could pick one of them OR have two stat-booster rings instead? This would cause more of a thought process on the part of the player and would require them to distribute the resources among the army, as opposed to giving everything to one unit and letting them solo the game. 

• Tamper with unit availability: So this is probably going to be the least popular idea I present here, but this is something that I've thought about and I want to see what you guys think. Imagine having a Fire Emblem game that decides to go the Game of Thrones route and will unpredictably kill off a player's character. You get no warning and you can't look this up on serenesforest.net or on any other Internet guide / walkthrough. Not only would this be shocking to the player, it could also heavily discourage low-manning. I mean, imagine trying to do a Robin solo in Awakening and all of a sudden the story killed off Robin. Suddenly, your Robin solo just got screwed over and you have to rely on the other units in your army. Some people may argue that this is unfair or it's too punishing, but then again if this aspect was advertised before the game came out and the player knew what to expect I think it wouldn't be as bad. Ideally, it would encourage the player to use multiple units because that way if one unit dies you still have plenty of other characters to fall back on. 

                               Even if you don't use this particular method you could try something like what Radiant Dawn did and split the player's army up into multiple different groups. This would be a lot harder to pull off, but again you would be forced to use multiple different units at a time and it would make soloing impossible to pull off.

                    I could see why someone wouldn't like the last point, but I believe that it's worth at least looking into and exploring.