The context of the conversation was whether or not 3H should get a new character.
The argument is that FE characters are neither popular nor diverse enough to justify getting in.
It's not going to guaruntee my most wanted but to go through Smash 4 of FE CONSTANTLY getting new stuff while Zelda, Dk, and Metroid got barely anything was ridiculous. Especially for the FE fanbase to still not be satisfied despite getting 50x more content than any other series of its size.
Again, why should I be grateful when FE doesn't give us another clone when it's what we're guaranteed a new(and usually more diverse than FE's) moveset no matter who gets in? The only way this argument makes sense if literally every non FE character were clones.
1) I pointed out to you that, indeed, at least 3-4 of the Fire Emblem characters we have in Smash are popular, or otherwise became popular after their inclusion. If you checked Fire Emblem fan polls, you’d probably regularly find Ike and Lucina in a good amount of them.
2) Game development isn’t just a popularity contest. It comes down to a project plan, which includes a timeline of how much content can get added. Characters are picked based on bringing something new to the game, being a classic or being older. Lucina got in because, like Robin she was from the newest title and was easy to add based on Marth. She was also capable of satisfying fan demand, as there were definitely folks who wanted her. Believe me, I was in the support thread getting wrecked by supporters when I said she wouldn’t be a good newcomer.
3) At the time of Smash 4, the focus was mostly on newer characters. K.Rool, Dixie, Ridley...not exactly new characters. There’s also the fact that it’s been speculated Sakurai didn’t realize how requested K.Rool actually was until the Ballot, which is where the costume and subsequent addition came from. At the time of Wii U, Ridley was seen as “requested, but too big” and made into a stage boss. This clearly changed with Ultimate.
It’s not as if Sakurai can just add whoever he wants whenever he wants. The reason Bayo gets in as the “ballot winner” is because he has the resources at the time to put her in the game (meaning assets from ZSS). He didn’t have assets to necessarily build K.Rool or a playable Ridley from scratch.
4) I certainly didn’t say you had to be grateful for Fire Emblem. Just that whining about it because you clearly don’t like the series isn’t going to change the fact that you’re unhappy with it. It’s also rather hasty to say any particular character from Fire Emblem at this point would be a clone when literally none of them use a sword as a main weapon, but also that a moveset =\= function or archetype. You can play Chrom the same way as Roy because of hitboxes. You can’t necessarily play Lucina the same way as Marth because of hitboxes. They may have similar moves, but they do not have the same function.
If Smash were a gallery that we stared at, I would be more able to agree. But it’s a video game that we play, and the game itself requires careful planning to make it the best it can be. It’s not simple enough that it’s always going to be “popular, fully unique newcomers” 100% of the time. That’s just not how it has worked, nor how it has ever worked.