|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 19, 2013 18:21:42 GMT -6
This is an exhaustive list of every class we have the ability to pick from. I will have the complete exhaustive list of jobs in a .txt file on my computer-box.
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 19, 2013 21:18:24 GMT -6
So, upon condensing the list into something usable, we see a few patterns. First, we see that Final Fantasy uses the same jobs over and over and over again. This is a good starting point for us. Secondly, we see that there are a few jobs that are used over and over that aren't in FFT canon. So, the following will be a list of every job, and the number of times it's used. Schwer saved me a massive amount of time by pointing me to this exhaustive list, but there's a lot that list doesn't take into account.
The following, I think, are cool enough to warrant a look. These aren't in the list above, but have their own niches for us.
Fencer / Rune Knight / Templar / Temple Knight - I suppose Mystic Knight covers this one mostly. Rapier-wielding warriors, they inflict status ailments (or in the case of rune knights, elemental damage). I think this is a cool thing to explore. These are kinda awkwardly related, in that they all inflict status ailments, but Fencers are more agile and wear less armor. Concept still cool. Present in both v1 and v2 as a basic class.
Necromancer - Just like it says. The Necromancer has had a huge role in the FF series, and hasn't been included in lists like the above. Present in v1 as a unique class.
Pictomancer - I loved Relm's class, and I haven't seen it done since. Also, the concept of artists being able to paint in magic is intriguing.
Pirate / Sky Pirate / Corsair - It's been called a few things, but I like the concept of this. Often, it's been merged with Gambler, but I think the Gambler focuses more on slots and cards, whereas Pirate, I think we could do something unique with. Also present in v1 as a unique class.
Sentinel / Defender / Stalwart - We really don't have anything like this, and I love the idea. Just heavy armor, shittons of HP, and defense, defense, defense.
Illusionist - There are two ways to do these. We did one in HoI v2 to some success, but I think the way A2 does them is also cool. Kind of a spin-off of Dancers / Bards, but with some flavor, I think we can make these amazing. Present in v2 as a basic class.
Bishop - Bishops are awesome. They were present in FFT and FFTA/2, and their skillset and concept are well worth exploring.
Chocobo Knight - Schwer was wanting a mounted-only Awarded class, and I think this is a good starting point.
Shaman - We've done a few versions of Shaman, although the ones from the other Final Fantasy games were quite different. Present in v1 and v2.
And then there are the following, which are all the special classes from FFT -
Holy Knight
Arc Knight
Lune Knight
Heaven Knight
Hell Knight
Duke
Princess
Holy Swordsman / Sword Saint
High Priest
Dragoner
Holy Priest
Dark Knight
Bishop
Cleric
Astrologist
Engineer
Cardinal
Arc Duke
Temple Knight
White Knight
Arc Witch
Bi-Count
Divine Knight
Knight's Blade
Sorceror
Assassin
Phony Saint
Angel of Death
Regulator
Holy Angel
Impure King
Ghost of Fury
Holy Dragon
Arch Angel
Steel Giant
Serpentarius
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 19, 2013 21:41:59 GMT -6
My next post will be an exhaustive list of every skill from FFT games. This will provide fanservice to a lot of old-school FF gamers, and give us a ton of options for each class.
I'll be working on this for a bit.
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 19, 2013 23:05:34 GMT -6
Most of this isn't that helpful because, simply put, it doesn't apply to PCs in any way. PCs cannot become Steel Giants or Holy Dragons. And quite a few don't even make sense in the context of PC classes. Nightblade (originally Knight's Blade -- Izlude's class) takes the support, movement, and reaction abilities from a Squire, the base Rend <Equipment> and <Stat> Break abilities from a Knight, and Jump 8 (Horizontal and Vertical) from the Lancer. That's the entire class. It's a hamstrung Lancer with an auxiliary capacity for being a knight. And then the White Knight, Wiegraf's class, is Agrias' skill set without Divine Ruination. And, of course, there are Lucavi classes here.
Basically, this list has a lot of fluff.
First, the Knights: Holy Knight, Divine Knight, and Dark Knight form the basic trinity. Sword Saint is the combination of those three (and should not be an awarded class unless some dude, like, becomes king and wins the war single-handedly). There's also Temple Knight, which is Beowulf being an oracle on steroids.
There's also Skyseer and Netherseer, the Rafa/Malak classes, that are similar enough we should only include one. These are "Knights" originally, but I'd rather just throw 'em in the trash. I'd like to integrate the theme of these classes (barely-predictable damage that can really become completely absurd if you get lucky) into some Warlock spells.
Viscount ("Bi-Count"), Duke, High Priest, and Cardinal are all "civilian" classes with no skills. Arc Duke and Arc Witch (probably supposed to be Arch in both cases) are similar.
The Nightblade and Rune Knight are both hybrids for bosses that just pull select high-level skills from two classes. White Knight is similar, but only works from one class. Probably so Wiegraf can't confuse you and then violate your corpse. Holy Priest is similar, combining high-level healing with some low and mid-level Oracle stuff. Sorcerer is kind of similar.
Ark Knight's an odd one. It's three separate classes, two of which follow the Nightblade/Rune Knight pattern. Zalbag's Ark Knight basically has ranged versions of the Knight's stat breaks, which are unique spells in their own right.
Ark Knight, Princess, and Astrologist are all one-note classes that are interesting and should be developed further. Cleric is basically the same thing as Princess, only Alma is less selfish.
Assassin is an awarded class regardless (probably with some small influence from the FFTA/FFTA2 build).
Bishop in FFTA/2 is kind of bland. It's basically Priest with more elemental damage (namely Wind/Water) and that's about it. Less healing, too.
Dragoner (Reis' class, right?) is kind of eh. It's dragon-themed damage and doesn't really fit. Maybe we can steal the whole "do elemental damage in a short line" concept for another class, but Dragonkin shouldn't crop up.
And Machinist is in the game regardless.
So we've got the following. Where it's an awarded class, I'll put it in parentheses.
The above classes are basically complete for us and merely need to be refined slightly. From that list of stuff left on the cutting room floor, we can however salvage some stuff.
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 19, 2013 23:18:21 GMT -6
So we've got the following. Where it's an awarded class, I'll put it in parentheses. The above classes are basically complete for us and merely need to be refined slightly. From that list of stuff left on the cutting room floor, we can however salvage some stuff. Dude, thank you. That was exactly my next step. I also agree that Astrologist as a Zodiac-manipulating class is neato. Also, agree wholeheartedly about the Skyseer / Netherseer going into a Warlocky-type class. I'd very much like to see where Ark Knight, Princess, and Astrologist go. I also have my old Astrologist build with full abilities handy. My vote is to keep these and see if we can do something with them, whether they be awarded / master / whatever. Dunno about base classes for any of these, but I'd love to see where this goes. Edit: Actually, I think we had a draft for all of these somewhere. Would you like me to hunt for them for posterity? |
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 19, 2013 23:28:26 GMT -6
I wrote a bit on the Ark Knight (and the Temple Knight) in the other class thread. I was very much just trying to help narrow down the list of classes we're looking at because, quite frankly, that list is downright daunting.
I'll shave a bit more off the comprehensive list of every class in FF ever.
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 19, 2013 23:35:56 GMT -6
Yup, that works wonders. I love these ideas, and there's a shitton of duplication up there. I wanted to explore some of the lesser-known and one-time classes (Lunarian, which just turns out to be Sage with a race attached, Gambler, etc.), but 90% of them turned out to be busts. The only ones that really piqued my interest were from FFTA/2 anyway.
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 19, 2013 23:49:59 GMT -6
Yeah, I did a quick skim.
From FF1 we take Red Mage.
From FF3 we take nothing. Classes weren't really notable here. Also, the Vikings were kind of bland.
In the case of FF4, we can cut everyone. Again, we have all these classes, just with some different names. Exception: Paladin may be worth looking at.
From FF5, we can cut all of them except: Blue Mage, Necromancer. Ranger is a lot like Archer, and I'd like to cannibalize some of their stuff to make Archers less useless.
From FF6 we take Gambler (which is why we cut Cannoneer), Pictomancer (which is just cool), and that's it. I like Terra's Magitek stuff, but it doesn't fit the setting.
From FF7 we take nothing. From FF9 we take nothing. From FF10 we take nothing.
From FF11, we take Puppetmaster, which is simply a really neat class.
From FF12 we take nothing. From FF13 we take nothing (on principle, dammit). From FF14 we take nothing.
Haven't looked at the stuff past that. Basically, what we take from that is: Paladin, Blue Mage, Red Mage, Necromancer, Gambler, Puppetmaster. Problematically, Necromancer and Puppetmaster (as I envision them) are very similar; Necromancer might be more balanced (especially if you can only Raise dead mobs), but it'd probably do a lot of Darkness damage and that puts it fairly close in element to the Warlock.
Paladin, for all intents and purposes, is just Knight + Priest. We can kinda do that with the spellswords in the other topic (and then some). And Red/Blue Mage was probably going to be involved in the first place.
So, all those lists and... Gambler plus Necromancer (or Puppetmaster) to add to the fray.
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 20, 2013 0:01:37 GMT -6
I liked all of those plus Scholar. Viking could easily be Berserker anyway. I love merging Archer / Ranger / Hunter, dunno why that wasn't done long ago (Well, I do, we needed an additional PA class to balance out all the MA classes).
So, if we're compiling a list of possibles, we've got the following:
Scholar
Paladin
Gambler
Necromancer
Red Mage
Blue Mage
Puppetmaster
Pictomancer
Holy Knight (The Church)
Divine Knight (Ordallia, as "Zealot")
Dark Knight (Romanda)
Temple Knight
Machinist (Besrudio's Braves)
Assassin (Khamja)
Skyseer/Netherseer -> Warlock
Bishop
Ark Knight
Princess / Heirophant
Astrologist
Pirate / Sky Pirate / Corsair
Sentinel / Defender / Stalwart
Illusionist
Chocobo Knight
Shaman
About half of which look like they'd pan out. IF ALL ELSE FAILS, we can just eat the spells / skills / abilities from those classes we like and make other classes better. Which I'll be plowing through tomorrow or Sunday anyway.
By the way, what do you think of Chocobo Knight for your mounted class?
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 20, 2013 0:10:45 GMT -6
The mounted class idea was basically to have a hyper-mobile archer (with some limited status effects, like Kneecap for Don't Move) to represent cavalry archers. Not at all like the Chocobo Knight class, which is kind of silly.
What's your take on having the Necromancer be permanently afflicted with Status: Undead (albeit with immunity to "lol phoenix down") and being a full-blown replacement for Puppetmaster?
Also, having Corsair as a Master version of Thief (or something) would be great. Thief + Gun + high success rates = sexy.
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 20, 2013 0:36:01 GMT -6
Oh, actually, we need to talk Master classes as well. I forgot. Lemme see if I can recite all of my Master Classes. Ones that were asterisked, I particularly liked. I can also post all of the builds for these eventually.
Corsair as Master Thief sounds amazing, and sounds exactly like what a successful thief would go into - Gambler / Pirate / Corsair. Have them with some of the Coin Toss abilities and Guns and... Ooh, Gives me tingles.
Anyway, I wouldn't mind having Necromancer be actually undead... That'd be kinda cool. Replacement for Puppetmaster would only depend upon how much actual design space Puppetmaster has. If we come up with something amazing, I'd prefer to keep both, but if not, I'd rather have one good class than two bad ones. Also, Witch Doctor from my Master Class builds below used puppets quite a bit.
Squire - Hero (Obscene Growth Rates, access to 'Anima Effect')
Knight - Lord (Awful name, had a hard time coming up with something better)
Lancer - Dragoon* (Loved this thing, amazing jumping abilities)
Ninja - Assassin* (Some of the Assassin skills from FFT, which are fuckin' cool as shit)
Rune Knight - Templar (These guys were awful)
Samurai - Hatamoto (Also Absolutely awful)
Archer - Sniper* / Sharpshooter (Snipers were fucking amazing, could Aim like Mustadio and do crazy intricate stuff from a distance)
Ranger - Vagabond (Again, awful)
Geomancer - Druid* (These guys were kickass, had status effects based upon where he was standing, really cool elemental abilities)
Mediator - Diplomat (Useless, and I hated them)
Monk - Master (Awful. Based upon some shitty combo system)
Hunter - Slayer (Based entirely around demon-killing, which was cool for v2, but nothing else)
Berserker - Conqueror (Meh. Bland and boring)
Thief - Rogue (Some cool ideas, but Corsair is fucking 400% more awesome)
Chemist - Alchemist (Interesting, had a table where you could mix stuff together to make other stuff, but was a rules nightmare)
Bard - Lyrist (Had no idea what to do with this and Performer)
Dancer - Performer (Again, no idea)
Time Mage - Chronomancer* (Probably the coolest Master Class. Had Slow 3, Slow-All, Quarter, X-Zone, Full-Stop, Counter Teleport, and Teleport 2. Amazing stuff)
Black Mage - Black Wizard* (All the Wizards were freakin' awesome)
White Mage - White Wizard* (")
Red Mage - Red Wizard* (")
Blue Mage - Blue Wizard* (", but also got some amazing Strago Blue Magic, and stuff from other games)
Illusionist - Enchanter (Awful. If the spell needs 6 Paragraphs to explain, it's too long)
Calculator - Genius* (Okay, so. My favorite Master Class. Support abilities like +MA, +PA, and the fact that they were so crappy as Calculators gets made up for tenfold by the fact that they're Sherlockian smart)
Shaman - Witch Doctor (Eh, nothing too special)
Oracle - Prophet* (Another of my favorites)
Green Mage - Green Wizard (Meh)
Summoner - Caller* (Access to Non-FFT summons, like Kirin and Terrato and Bismark and Alexander and all kinds of cool shit)
So, some of these need to change, most of them need to be re-written, as they suck)
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 20, 2013 1:53:56 GMT -6
"All the Wizards were freakin' awesome" [...] "Meh"
But on a more serious note: I don't like the idea of explicitly creating master classes for each class. It sounds good in theory, but in reality all you do is make the base class less cool. In return, you have a few very stand out master classes, a bunch of master classes that are just more powerful than their base class (and therefore bring nothing new to the table), and a whole slew of shitty "upgrades."
I would much rather sit down and say "Okay, Knights and Lancers can become Dragoons, Ninja and Samurai can become Ronin, Archers and Machinists can become Snipers..." and just work like that. Actually, that's a lie: I'd rather just throw master classes in the fires of purgatory entirely, but I doubt I'm in the majority on that one.
As I see it, the fact that we have faction-specific awarded classes means we can cut out a whole mess of the crappier master classes. For instance, the Ordallians get the Thaumaturgist, which is basically an uber-summoner with religious elements (the summons being the djinni rather than guardian forces, eidolons, espers, or whatever the hell the summons are called in FFT). Accordingly, having Caller as a dedicated master class is counter-productive: it's much more interesting to incorporate those summons into the Thaumaturgist build.
The awarded classes I had in mind so far, by the way:
Also, Corsairs (which totally need to be in the game) should get to choose between pistols and shotguns. Shotguns, of course, having a much shorter range (conical, hitting targets 1, 3, or 5 squares to the left or right of the direction you're facing, sort of like that one ability the Dark Knight got in WotL), but potentially hitting multiple dudes. The trade-off there is basically that you give up being able to shoot someone 8 tiles away and instead settle for blasting their face off at point blank range. Combined with an ability like Mug ('Attack regularly the target 1 tile away regularly with a ((YourSpeed - TheirSpeed)*10%) chance to steal a random item'), many lulz could be had.
That's the general idea I had for the Missionary, too (who would 'Talk' at a ridiculously long range, but need to get up close and personal to do serious damage; the Corsair benefits because he's in your face to rob you blind anyway).
But I digress. As you can see from the list of awarded classes (which, at 2 classes per faction and 9 factions, gives us 18 classes; Ordallia gets 3 extras, Baert may only get one, so we have a net gain of 2, giving us ~20 faction-specific awarded classes), it's entirely unnecessary to pursue master classes for every conceivable class.
In fact, it may be better to try and make master classes that cover 3-4 different basic classes at once. Your list has something like 30 base classes (it's late and I'm too lazy to count). If we only had 5 master classes per branch (making each master class correspond to ~3 classes), we'd still have a total of 30 awarded/master classes.
Also, the Druid should have been able to start every battle as a random monster class (the non-horrible ones, anyway; randoming into a red goblin would have been a death sentence). I mean, how funny would it be for some NPC to pick a fight with a druid only to have him morph into a dragon and bite the NPC's head off? That'd be hilarious.
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 20, 2013 9:39:38 GMT -6
Ahahaha. Yup, original Druid could do two things - Morph into critters and animate the land around him to have trees and shit whap at you as you're walking by. But I could totally see Geomancer, Shaman, Hunter/Ranger all having legitimate access to Druid, so maybe that's a thing - Just reveal all of the Master Classes and Awarded Classes at the start, give the players requirements for each (Master your Primary class, talk to some animals, etc.) from the start, and let 'em roll.
By the by, I love Mug. One of the best abilities that's not in FFT. Shotguns, I'd like to see as one of the RNG weapons. Perhaps in chance-to-hit? The main reasons stuff like Caller was there was for fan-service. We got such a huge positive reaction out of Rydia being in v1 (Yeah, I know, Canon and stuff), that we figured we could do more for the players. A few people asked me about expanding Summoner's repertoire of Summons, and we ended up having an entire list of ones that were FF Canon, but not included in the main list. So, that was actually the easiest Master Class to build - Direct upgrade to what you're doing, plus cool nifty new toys. I dunno. A bit redundant? Sure, but the players liked it a ton, and that's all I really cared about there.
The only problem with making Awardeds the only higher classes is that not everyone will get them. If people are supposed to be mastering their classes by level 15, we'd have to give those who don't go for Awardeds something to do. Also, sadly, there's a portion of the playerbase that actually looks forward to Master Classes. Also, let's be honest and call Master Classes what they are - They're made for Timmy, Johnny, and Spike - They're for the kids who never got enough out of FFT, and after level 30, when they had their characters pretty much done, what was there to do? Yell a bunch at yourself and go punch some Red-Shirts. We don't have the broken, repetitive part of FFT, so what does a player do after level 15, 20, 30? When he doesn't have any more JP to spare? And sure, some classes take that long to master, and also, yes, if the game runs too long, what's the point anyway? But there was a big hole left in FFT for me. I saw Arc Witches and Holy Swordsmen and wondered what else was out there. I hated the grind from level 40-99, because it was the same thing - my characters were finished, they were just grinding to get those few extra skills or to hit Mime or what-have-you. They're for the player who wanted more from Astrologist - "Two skills? Bullshit! I know there's more to them than that!", who wonders why Aero is a spell in literally every other game except FFT, for the player who loved FFT, hated Advance and Advance 2, but kinda wanted those classes and concepts to exist in FFT. They're for the player who always wanted to have an assassin, and got really disheartened when Celia and Lede were strictly NPC. It's basically fluff, and yes, it's unnecessary, but I think there's a valid concept to be had for "Whoa, cool!", because we can. HoC and RtK and WotD don't have the opportunity to make a Dragonlancer class, but if we wanted to, balls-to-the-wall! Makes me excited to skim through a list of Final Fantasy spells and go, "Whoa, why the shit didn't they have Pictomancers in FFT?" and try to make that a reality. I dunno, that's my piece. It's a cool factor, and definitely not a necessity, but I like it, and I think the players do too, so I suppose there could be a case for legitimacy through that.
I do agree that most of the Master classes brought little new to the table. However, that's something I want to fix, whether it be having a list of Master Classes like you said, "Knights and Lancers can go to Dragoons," do Hybrid classes, "If your Primary or secondary are Lancer/ Dancer or Dancer/Lancer, upgrade into Lancermancer!", or do a list that everyone can pick from, so long as the requirements are met. That may not be bad, like you said, have 5 Master Classes per Branch.
Also, while we're at it, the list you linked me to separates classes into three trees, instead of two - POJ, MOJ, and Hybrid classes. What say we do a third branch for those Hybrid classes, since there's not much room in either branch for stuff like Red Mage, Blue Mage, etc?
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 20, 2013 10:49:38 GMT -6
Also, updated first post with all of our current jobs for this game - all of the jobs we can pick from for basic / awarded / master / etc. Lemme know if I missed / forgot anything.
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 20, 2013 12:18:59 GMT -6
I'm not hugely obsessed over the notion of having 5 master classes for MOJ and 5 for POJ. I'm fine having 7. Or 8. The problems start when we try to go for a 1:1 ratio, which is when we get really shitty master classes that bring nothing to the table.
I also greatly prefer the notion of gating some master-tier classes behind factions. To me, there's just no sense in having a Holy Knight that isn't a Temple Knight. Every single character we find with the Holy Knight skillset is, on some level, a Templar -- even Agrias spends all manner of time around churches while she's babysitting Ovelia. There's a very clear religious element to the Holy Swordsman class that goes well beyond the name.
And look at the Machinist. That's firmly a Goug thing. Yeah, there's a Machinist working with the Church, but he used to work with Besrudio.
FFT's special classes are all very... lore-based. I wanted to emphasize that here by having meaningful and potent awarded classes for every faction. There was a bit of contrivance in spreading the three uber knights around (that was more for balance purposes than anything else), but on some level they reflect the culture they serve. Holy Knights serve the Church. Zealots (our Divine Knights) are religious fanatics from Ordallia. Dark Knights represent the harshness of Romanda's culture.
And the same is true for the other awarded classes. Ordallia's culture is based in a very big way around converting the heretics and murdering everyone who stands in the way of their religion. They, therefore, get the Missionary job. Since they're the only faction with access to the steppes, they get the in-universe equivalent of horse archers. And on and on.
You're right. Not everyone will get these jobs. I think it's an even bet that we'll go the entire game without anyone picking up the Outrider class; it's such a weird one and, compared to the Zealot, it's not like "wtf this is amazingly OP!" It's not a class that immediately jumps out at you as being obscenely overpowered. It's basically a combination of abilities that simply makes it extremely lethal, not unlike how pende's mediator-ninja turned into complete nonsense in v2.
And yeah, I expect some of these classes are going to be hard to get. It's not like you show up on Johann's doorstep and he immediately anoints you a berserker. But that's the point. Awarded classes are going to be very good, but they're not going to be easy to get. If you join a faction and level to 20 (or whenever we unlock the third class) in that faction, you probably won't have any problems getting it. But that will require actually, y'know, toughing it out and staying in the faction for awhile.
I'm all for making interesting master classes. But, to me, master classes are lazy. "You mastered x, therefore you can now have y" is linear progression. This is basically HoI v3 -- linear progression should be the absolute last thing we want. Master classes should be interesting, and they should certainly be very good, but they should not be the end-all of third classes.
Also, I move we that we refer to awarded and master classes collectively as "prestige classes."
|
|
