New Weapon Types

[Mordred]

Sticks, Rods, and Staves ought to be separate weapon categories. If Rods and Staves are separate weapon classes, it provides design room for differentiating Priest-Wizards from Wizard-Priests.

Just as a "for instance," I was thinking Staves would mostly be Holy-elemental to strengthen curative magic, thereby making primary Priests better at priesting than Wizard-Priests, Summoner-Priests, or etc. Rods would carry more of the diverse terrestrial elementals.

Also, Ninjas and Thieves are really the only classes that would even want to use Knives, so why don't we cut NInja Swords and just add more Knives to the top end?

Knight Swords have value only because it allows us to keep top-end swords out of the hands of Squires and those who are carrying swords using the Equip Sword skill. I see their purpose.

[Schwerpunkt]

Ninja Knives pretty much need to be in the game otherwise Dual Wield becomes ridiculously powerful. Remember, if we use Ninja Knives as their own template, we can make them weaker level-for-level than other weapons. Conversely, if you give a Ninja just the regular knives and then he gets Equip: Sword (which is entirely reasonable), he suddenly becomes an unstoppable killing machine because his WP has basically doubled.

Note, for instance, that the best Ninja Knife you can buy in FFT has 13 WP and 5% P-Ev. The best knife is notably worse -- 10 WP and 5% P-Ev. The best katana is 15 and 15%, and the best sword is 14 WP, 15% P-Ev, and +2 MA. If our Ninja is mechanically designed to operate on the 10 WP knife, jumping up to the 14 WP sword will yield considerably more damage across the board. This, in turn, will mean that the Ninja becomes way more powerful than we ever intended purely by virtue of, y'know, having Equip: Sword.

The Ninja Knife, as a specific class, must be in the game to allow us to effectively balance the Ninja class. Removing it, while it does have the superficial benefit of reducing the number of weapon categories, is far more problematic than it appears at first glance.

[Mordred]

Equip Sword doesn't have anything to do with Ninja Knives, does it..? If swords are better than Ninja Knives, Ninjas would use them, right?

Anyway, cutting a Ninja's PA is a more elegant solution than adding a specifically-weakened class of weapons just for them that can be ignored with Equip Sword anyway.

Adding more Knives is a bad idea. I'm happy with leaving them as-is and just killing off Ninja Swords.

[Schwerpunkt]

Refer to my draft on the Ninja. You'll note that the support ability is not 'Dual Wield' -- it's 'Ninja Knives.' The Ninja does not have the ability to dual wield whatever he can equip. The Ninja can only dual wield Ninja Knives, and he can only do that because Ninja Knives, as a very specific weapon class, are themselves inherently dual-wieldable.

Basically, a Samurai/Ninja could take Ninja Knives and then equip two Ninja Knives. A Knight could do the same. This is a lot easier to balance, for instance, that the Samurai being able to take Dual Wield and then doubling up on katanas (which, as shown above, higher higher P-Ev and WP).

And yeah, cutting a Ninja's PA is going to be a thing. But remember, we're not just balancing the Ninja as a primary -- we're balancing the Ninja as a secondary. And it's much easier to do so when we're working with Ninja Knives as a distinct weapon class.

[Mordred]

I was about to suggest making Two Swords/equivalent an unlearnable inherent support, but Equip [X] with a Ninja primary makes that unfeasible.

Oh, wait, I got it. If Knives are just plain the only weapon in the game that can be dual-wielded (much as Bows can't be dual-wielded in FFT), there's still no need for Ninja Swords.

[Schwerpunkt]

So we're going to wind up with both Thieves and Ninja running around with two knives equipped?

Look, it's just flat out easier to keep the weapon class. If we cut it, it becomes a bitch to re-balance and re-jigger the entire thing so that we don't have Ninja either being dreadful or completely over-the-top.

At this point, cutting Ninja Swords creates a bigger problem than it solves. It's simply not a viable way forward.

[Mordred]

I think the discussion on Ninja Knives should be tabled until we determine what the heck the difference is between a Ninja and a Thief.

In fact, the item discussion as a whole should be put on hold until we have a finalized class list.

[Schwerpunkt]

We do have a finalized class list.

ffsim.proboards.com/thread/122/general-class-development-discussion

We also have a list of awarded classes floating around somewhere, but we're nowhere near ready for that.

[Mordred]

"Currently, the following is our (very) tentative list of basic classes, separated into three trees - Where we can discuss general concepts about classes, class development, and direction. Further discussion can be found here."

..?

[sunspawn]

You know, you COULD bag ninja blades and just say that ninjas can dual wield knives PERIOD. No Equip: Somethings, no secondary mind games, no munchking or min-maxing - just a plain sentence that allows Ninjas to equip two knives and attack with both. Seems far simpler than custom weapon types or complicated rulings...

0.02$

[Mordred]

Also, I did the math while I had some downtime at work today, and your argument for Ninja Knives just doesn't add up. IIRC, you said something along the lines that you wanted Ninjas to do about 150% the damage of a Knight, right? Let's crunch.

weapons
Ninja Knife: 13 WP
Sword: 14 WP
Knife: 10 WP

characters
Knight: 10 PA
Ninja: 9 PA

damage formula (basic)
WP*PA

math
Kn, 1xSword: 14 * 10 = 140 (100% of Kn output)
Nj, 2xSword: 14 * 9 * 2 = 252 (180% Kn output)
Nj, 2xNjKnife: 13 * 9 * 2 = 234 (166%)
Nj, 2xKnife: 10 * 9 * 2 = 180 (129%)

conclusion
Ninjas don't need a specially-weakened class of items just to moderate their damage output relative to that of a single-wielding class. Tweaking either Ninjas' PA growth or the maximum strength of their dual-wieldable weapons will do the job of keeping them from becoming unreasonably hellacious damage monsters by itself.

Considering that Knights also may have access to higher-WP Knight Swords (or that we may just expand the Sword WP range), we may want to fold some existing Ninja Swords into the Knife class. But, we don't even necessarily need to add more top-end Knives, if Swords aren't going to go higher than 14 WP. Basically, my recommendation is that at any given level of equipment, a Knife should have ~70% the WP of a Sword.

The best solution to the dual-wield problem is to turn the "Two Swords" support into "Two Knives," preventing dual-wielding of any weapon class other than Knives. Further monkeyshines with WP and PA values for Knives and Ninjas can fine-tune the results, but it's pretty clear that Ninja Knives are not the necessary solution to the dual wield problem. If we're looking to cut down on the number of different equip types for the sake of balancing power across weapon classes, then Ninja Swords are pretty ripe for the harvest.

[sunspawn]

^ Gotta give it to the guy, sometimes he makes sense. Especially when he isn't rabid about his P/S/T hate (which I also share, albeit in a smaller scale and intensity).

Basically, ninja blades don't have to exist.

[Schwerpunkt]

I still disagree (especially since higher WP knives impacts more than just the Ninja). We also have to take into consideration the fact that, with two attacks, the chance to miss has effectively doubled along with the damage output. If we assume they're both missing 20% of the time, that 129% drops to 103% while 100% only drops to 80%; the Ninja's losing about 3% more damage for every 10% P-Ev the target has than the Knight is. And since I doubt that crit rates will be high enough to really impact this significantly, that may be problematic.

But in the interest of finishing these goddamn classes before the heat death of the universe: fine. We can drop Ninja Knives.

[Mordred]

Remember the hit-glance damage reduction business? We shouldn't be assuming 20% miss chance because that assumes we're leaving some pretty fundamental and glaring holes in the combat formulae as-is.