Game Mechanics

[kablizzy]

Mord: the idea I had was for the Ninja Knives to be roughly between regular knives and swords on the damage continuum, but you could dual wield them. That gives you the benefit of dealing more damage than you would with knives, but doesn't quite give you the "200% compared to Knights" thing that FFT has, which is extremely hard to balance.

Aye, this was an enormous problem for FFT.

FFT's inability to name weapons really shouldn't influence us all that much. HoI had no problem coming up with distinct weapon names without drawing heavily upon mythology (which the Lancer did).

The intent is for each weapon to have a distinct purpose, a very specific job. A Lancer who uses a halberd loses his shield, but he does more damage with Jump and hits harder on just about everything else. That's the point. It offers the player a choice of saying "I want to be tanky" or "I want to post big numbers." It's about a degree of player choice that's absent in FFT and HoI.

And this, I'm okay with. We can have two-handed Spears and one-handed spears, I suppose the thing I'm confused on is why they have to be a specific type of polearm instead of a class of just 2-H Polearms.

I, for one, see no reason to include Knight Swords. They're just really goddamn powerful swords that are restricted to really goddamn powerful characters. And there's literally no reason that Defender can't show up later as a regular sword (or, hell, as a spear). Fell Swords I'm drawing a blank on. Are we talking about Blood Sword, which has an extremely niche ability?

Fell Swords were yet *another* sword type Square added in WotL. I think they also retconned the name of the class to Fell Knight for some reason. Basically, just another type that doesn't need to be there that only Dark Knights can equip. But therein lies my point, I suppose my question is this - Why can't we just have 1-H and 2-H swords instead of dividing them into further subclasses? I guess with Claymores, I can understand the distinction, but aside from "Class A gets access to Weapon B," I guess I'm just lost on the need for more weapon types than just 1-H and 2-H of those weapon classes that would require it (I guess mostly melee-class weapons).

See, that's the problem. Tertiary classes add nothing to the game. In order to justify their inclusion, you need to make the player suck hard at them. This means that class-defining traits are suddenly no longer available. I mean, what's the point of taking a Ninja tertiary if you only get one Grapple ability out of it? The Ninja's ability to throw people and things is a huge part of the class I designed, but you, as a Knight/Archer, don't get access to it... why, exactly? Because someone drew an arbitrary line during development?

I disagree, and maybe that's a point we'll just have to leave up to contention. They added an entire extra dimension to character building, and further helped in defining a character's skillset. As I postulate later in my commenting here, why don't people get access to their secondary until level 15? Because someone drew an arbitrary line during development? I dunno how better to elaborate on the concept than what I already have. If, hypothetically, we were going the P/S/T route, you'd obviously not develop the classes as linearly. It'd be an entirely different approach to the concept. Classes wouldn't be standalone and static, they wouldn't need to stray from class definition, because they would get to dip into another class anyway. Which, in a roundabout way, reinforces your point. Why should we develop the Knight to have two roles when he's supposed to be doing one? Why should Thief dilute its class definition when the simpler solution is to just allow him a bit of utility in another class? Again, this really has nothing to do with the P/S/T dynamic, and everything to do with the concept of classes. There's simply no actual, tangible downside to giving a class some extra utility. Simply stating that your third class requires you to have every single class defining trait is silly and counter-productive. You choose your primary because that's your class. I could see a decent argument as to why your Secondary Class may have access to all abilities, since growth rates affect that stuff anyway, but insofar as a Tertiary option, all it is is extra utility. I don't see how adding something to a character is limiting that character in any way. I suppose to make a similar argument to yours, why can't a character have access to those low-end Tertiary abilities? Because someone drew an arbitrary line between two and three classes during development? Point being, we can go back and forth on what a class is "meant" to do and discuss on the "spirit of the game," but what it boils down to is do we want characters to have access to more utility or less? If the answer is "more," which it should be, we should at least consider the concept. If the answer is "less," then you're limiting the characters, which is fine, but the argument could be made that that is acting less in the spirit of FFT than JP caps.

Look, I get the intent, but it's wrong. At no point should we say "you can take this as your secondary, but you're going to suck at it." That's not fair to players. It's bad enough if you're doing something ballsy and original like Knight/Priest, but it gets considerably worse if you want to take a class from each of the three trees. All we're doing is arbitrarily limiting character growth.

Again, I disagree. To dismiss something like this entirely as just straight-up wrong isn't okay. Especially considering that we are *currently* saying "You can take this as your secondary, but you're going to suck at it," in exactly the same conceptual terms as you're talking about. In our current system, if you do Knight / Priest, you're going to suck at Priest as well. Why is this okay and other versions of Priests sucking not? I elaborated quite well why there were JP limits, and how they affected character decisions, as well as the reasons why access to certain skills being limited is a decent balancing tool, and telling me that I'm straight-up wrong isn't okay. You can disagree just fine, but we're not going to abandon the concept because you dislike it. In fairness, I don't actually see a difference between Primary / Secondary and Primary / Secondary / Tertiary (With JP Caps), mostly because there isn't much of a difference. With the exception of giving the player some extra utility in exchange for a couple high-end abilities in their secondary. So instead of asking why the character can't have access to "arbitrary" levels of abilities, I'll ask you why the character can't have access to that third class. It's the same concept, and not limiting to character growth at all. So, I fail to see the unique wrongness about the P/S/T system that doesn't also exist here. 

And to top it off, HoI's tertiary classes were almost entirely useless. You'd take it, get an extremely minimal stat bonus (wasn't there a class that offered just HP +10, which is utterly worthless at that level?), and that'd be about it. As I see it, that's a fundamental and irrevocable betrayal of the class system. The class system is about letting you mix and match and make combinations that otherwise wouldn't make sense -- all with the express purpose of doing some really cool stuff. But you can't do that with HoI's system, which basically says "you started as a knight, leveled as a knight, and anything you do that isn't explicitly knight-related is going to be goddamn terrible." HoI did not reward players for trying something as ambitious as Knight/Priest. They just punished you. Unless you got a really good Paladin-esque prestige, you were terrible at that secondary role.

The system simply didn't work properly. That's reason enough to not copy it.

The system worked exactly as it should have. Putting a negative connotation to it doesn't dismiss it entirely just because you disliked it. The concept was to add some utility to classes that otherwise would have no access to said utility instead of forcing each class to have extra abilities that don't go along with that class, because we wanted to preserve class identity but not pigeonhole characters into a single role, and in reality, it functioned exactly as it should have. I don't understand how that's a betrayal, or not functioning properly, or wrong, or any of the things you seem to think it is. The class system is what we make it. Hearing your comments, I'd assume that you were a fan of being entirely true to the FFT 'choose all classes at all times' dynamic, so I suppose I don't understand the benefit of telling a player that he can only be "These two classes and nothing else." That's exactly the same logic upon which you're criticizing a similar system based upon similar restrictions. The only difference, at the core, is that you're getting a few higher-end abilities in your second class in exchange for some utility and perhaps a bit more cleanliness of bookkeeping. Is it worth it? Well, that's up for debate, but it's definitely not an absolute.

In addition, it's not about handing a player a full glass and then pouring out most of the liquid in punishment. It's about giving them a full glass, and then a half full glass of another substance, and then a third glass only slightly full with a third substance. I suppose I should phrase it another way - Why choose Knight as a Primary class? Probably because you want to be good at Knight things. But what if you run into something that kills Knights by yourself? You die. No questions, no options, you just lose. If there are classes that beat Knight (Say, Ninja / Archer), no matter what you do, you will always lose to that, always. So, how is giving the player an extra couple options to deal with that actually giving them less? Quite simply, it isn't. 

Then the game was designed improperly. Skills must always be evaluated in the context of every other skill in-game. This is necessary to both balance them and make sure that players simply can't stack overpowered abilities on top of one another. This is exactly the reason we cut Speed Save -- it's one of those abilities that is so easy to get completely out of control.

Well, that's exactly the point - instead of waving something like Speed Save (Or entire classes like Squire and Chemist) off, there were ways to keep the abilities in -and- not having them be broken. This was done, in part, through JP limits. Alone, most abilities were just fine. Paired with other abilities, we noticed that there were a handful that didn't play well in one or two circumstances. And while this wasn't the primary reason behind the JP limits, it sure helped development when most of us said, "Man, I wish ____ wasn't insanely broken in this one really limited instance." This is what development is, really. It's finding a way. And there are always multiple ways to look at everything. Demanding that there's only one way to do this and that all other ways are stupid and wrong and unacceptable isn't going to get us to a finished product. 

You also spend a lot of time talking about secondaries and how classes should be less capable at them. That's how it's going to work here, too. If your primary is a Geomancer, to use your example, you level on the Geomancer's stat growth template. When you choose Ninja, you probably get a decent one-time bonus and a small increase to your level-by-level growth. But no matter how you cut it, that Geomancer will never have the stat growth to compete with a pure Ninja. He simply cannot be as good as the Ninja by virtue of different leveling templates, specifically the one that puts Geomancer speed growth on a lower priority.

To then say "as a secondary, you can only spend so much JP on a given ability," you're basically smacking the Geomancer with two separate penalties -- he doesn't grow as fast and he can't get the same wtfgood abilities (because, and let's be honest here, HoI's top-tier abilities were always wtfgood -- and this poor balance was used to justify restricting their availability).

Again, it can't be looked at as a penalty. Your stat growth is based upon your primary class, because that's the class you picked. If you wanted to be a Geomancer, then be a Geomancer. If you wanted to be a Ninja, then your choice probably should have been Ninja. This applies to the game regardless of whether we allow a Primary and Secondary, or Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. The reason he doesn't get the same wtfgood abilities is because that Primary Ninja also doesn't get the same wtfgood abilities that Geomancer gets. So, the Geomancer is good at Geomancer things, and the Ninja good at Ninja things. If the Ninja were to take Geomancer secondary, he wouldn't get the good Geomancer stuff and wouldn't be as effective as someone who made the choice to be a dedicated Geomancer. Maybe my Libra is broken, but that seems like an entirely flat, fair playing field, full of balance and equality. In addition, the system that we're "replacing" the P/S/T system with is a P/S system which limits the characters in the same fashions, except tells them that if they want access to Tanking and Healing and Status Effects, that they're probably going to be shitty anyway at the one they didn't pick first, and the third one they can't pick at all. So how in the world that's less limiting than the alternative of allowing them to pick all three at a slight disadvantage in their secondary is absolutely beyond me.

And if the argument is then that one particular class got an ability that no other class got, then you're entirely right - that's poor balancing. And taking into consideration that balance was never done for v2 classes, that's entirely possible and probable. But again, that has no bearing upon giving the player some extra utility in exchange for a couple more wtfgood abilities.

This all goes back to the class concept in FFT. In FFT, certain classes are better because they take longer to unlock. The Dark Knight will eat the Geomancer for lunch every day of the week. But we don't have that system. You don't have to play an Archer to unlock a Thief. It is therefore illogical for certain classes to get wtfgood abilities. All those abilities do is dilute the class' identity (Rune Knights just become "spam your super-imbue as long as you have mana" rather than "imbue your weapon tactically to reflect changing needs on the battlefield") and force us into a system where we have to establish arbitrary JP cut off points.

Again, this has nothing to do with the P/S/T dynamic, and everything to do with poor balance. By this notion, what you're basically saying is that if everything were balanced, the P/S/T dynamic would work perfectly, no?

The idea was that you'd master one class and then immediately embark upon another. I doubt it's going to be easy to balance it with two classes obtained earlier. But that's a discussion worth having.

It seems to me that this is exactly as arbitrary as telling a player that they can't spend more than a certain amount of JP on a skill. Why? Because level 15 is why? Because balancing would be crazy otherwise? These are exactly the reasons behind JP caps and tertiary class choices. 

Basically, all I'm saying is that there are different ways to do the same things that we're doing with some added benefit. I don't mind if you think it's silly, but let's at least try to approach it from an open mind standpoint while we're in development. It's just like Squire and Chemist - give 'em a chance. If we decide at that time that the Primary / Secondary system is better, then that's the way we'll go. The more I analyze the similarities between the two, the more I see that they're almost identical with the exception of some emergency abilities in exchange for a couple class-defining abilities in the class that isn't even your Primary anyway.

[Schwerpunkt]

And this, I'm okay with. We can have two-handed Spears and one-handed spears, I suppose the thing I'm confused on is why they have to be a specific type of polearm instead of a class of just 2-H Polearms.

"Halberd" was chosen entirely on a whim as the name for the second class. We can call it "Polearm" instead, provided there's still a clear line between one-handers and two-handers.

Fell Swords were yet *another* sword type Square added in WotL. I think they also retconned the name of the class to Fell Knight for some reason. Basically, just another type that doesn't need to be there that only Dark Knights can equip. But therein lies my point, I suppose my question is this - Why can't we just have 1-H and 2-H swords instead of dividing them into further subclasses? I guess with Claymores, I can understand the distinction, but aside from "Class A gets access to Weapon B," I guess I'm just lost on the need for more weapon types than just 1-H and 2-H of those weapon classes that would require it (I guess mostly melee-class weapons).

The reason for the claymore class is that there are a whole mess of classes that can equip regular swords that probably shouldn't be given claymores (Geomancer, for instance). Likewise, it lets us restrict what prestige classes get to equip, so we don't have a Dark Knight running around with a claymore doing wtfhuge damage (because the claymore, logically, will have more WP).

And I didn't finish WotL yet (only just got Orlandeau and Ramza as a Dark Knight), but that just sounds silly to me.





Alright, I really want to respond to all that, but the size of this disagreement has been increasing geometrically and I'd rather not spend an entire hour crafting a refutation, only to have you spend an hour an half, thus forcing me to spend two hours. It's just not worth it to continue down this road.

So here's my position, simplified as much as I can make it.
[*] I do not think tertiary classes add much to the game, especially given how little a role they played in HoI.
[*] As presented in HoI, tertiary classes were most valuable for their extremely minor stat bonus (especially if it was a class like the Lancer, which gave you +1 Jump). This is not a system I want to copy.
[*] I maintain that, between primary, secondary, and prestige, we have plenty of options for any character. Note also that, unlike HoI, we're not restricting secondary classes to the same 'tree.'
[*] I don't like the notion of JP limits restricting what you can and can take from your secondary, since this system directly encourages the inclusion of a tertiary class to fill in the gaps of skill options.
[*] I think 'Knight/Spellsword/Priest/Shrine Knight' is extremely clunky. I would greatly prefer to see 'Knight/Priest/Shrine Knight,' since I feel that this gives a better sense of character progression.


As I understand it, this is your position.
[*] Gating skills behind JP caps simplifies the balance process because we won't have to worry about Knight/Spellsword/Priests dropping Holy on people.
[*] The tertiary class allows characters more flexibility in choosing what they want their build to be.
[*] The tertiary class gives a broader option of abilities because you're drawing from three different tier 1's as opposed to two different tier 1's.



So, at present, what we need is for Ilium to let us know what he thinks and we can move forward from there. Otherwise we're stuck arguing the merits of our respective positions to someone who probably won't change his mind.

[kablizzy]

"Halberd" was chosen entirely on a whim as the name for the second class. We can call it "Polearm" instead, provided there's still a clear line between one-handers and two-handers.

Oh, Hell. I was getting stuck on Halberds specifically. Good enough for me.

The reason for the claymore class is that there are a whole mess of classes that can equip regular swords that probably shouldn't be given claymores (Geomancer, for instance). Likewise, it lets us restrict what prestige classes get to equip, so we don't have a Dark Knight running around with a claymore doing wtfhuge damage (because the claymore, logically, will have more WP).

And I didn't finish WotL yet (only just got Orlandeau and Ramza as a Dark Knight), but that just sounds silly to me.

It's really retarded, but in either case, I'm okay with all of that.

Alright, I really want to respond to all that, but the size of this disagreement has been increasing geometrically and I'd rather not spend an entire hour crafting a refutation, only to have you spend an hour an half, thus forcing me to spend two hours. It's just not worth it to continue down this road.

So here's my position, simplified as much as I can make it.
[*] I do not think tertiary classes add much to the game, especially given how little a role they played in HoI.
[*] As presented in HoI, tertiary classes were most valuable for their extremely minor stat bonus (especially if it was a class like the Lancer, which gave you +1 Jump). This is not a system I want to copy.
[*] I maintain that, between primary, secondary, and prestige, we have plenty of options for any character. Note also that, unlike HoI, we're not restricting secondary classes to the same 'tree.'
[*] I don't like the notion of JP limits restricting what you can and can take from your secondary, since this system directly encourages the inclusion of a tertiary class to fill in the gaps of skill options.
[*] I think 'Knight/Spellsword/Priest/Shrine Knight' is extremely clunky. I would greatly prefer to see 'Knight/Priest/Shrine Knight,' since I feel that this gives a better sense of character progression.

As I understand it, this is your position.
[*] Gating skills behind JP caps simplifies the balance process because we won't have to worry about Knight/Spellsword/Priests dropping Holy on people.
[*] The tertiary class allows characters more flexibility in choosing what they want their build to be.
[*] The tertiary class gives a broader option of abilities because you're drawing from three different tier 1's as opposed to two different tier 1's.

So, at present, what we need is for Ilium to let us know what he thinks and we can move forward from there. Otherwise we're stuck arguing the merits of our respective positions to someone who probably won't change his mind.

I'm okay with this as well. Apologies if I offended on any points, by the way.

[Mordred]

That escalated quickly. 0_o

For what it's worth, if we were using any variation of the fixed-class system, I think it would be better to have Primary-Seconday, both available but not mandated at level 1, no Tertiary, with no JP caps. I'm not playing politics here, I'm thinking in terms of:

+- If we balance all the classes well, there will be no wtfgood abilities to worry about misusing combinations.
+- It's more fun, IMO, to wield the full might of two classes than the full might of one and the abbreviated might of two others.
+- Picking your second class at any time alleviates some of the buyer's remorse you might feel about your primary class (if there's no mechanic for changing it, which I obv think there should be >.> ).
+- Getting rid of JP caps is just one fewer thing to track, and one fewer thing in the game that isn't in the spirit of FFT.
+- Red Mages suck, conceptually, and this kills them. If you want to be a Red Mage, just multi Wizard/Priest.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, this could be a good compromise between the D&D and FFT paradigms for classes. Permanent Primary Class, with a Secondary Class that can be switched out...? Maybe something to consider.

[Ilium]

I feel I should chime in here.

• Tiles: I prefer square for reasons already mentioned. Simplification of what I'm foreseeing as the most tedious and time consuming part of combat.
  
• Charge Time: I bounced this topic around right when the first couple of people began to sign up here. The exclusion of CT would simplify coding the mechanics and also the creation of strategy for the players. However the cost of this might be too much. We would lose a giant chuck of the 'tactical' aspect of FFT. There can be ways to reconstruct CT to suit our own needs, but the formulaic concepts of the idea should remain in the game.
  
• 1H vs 2H: I don't think we should split up equipment slots by body part like this. There should be Weapon, Shield, Armor, maybe two Accessories, and perhaps a Bag slot. Ninja's Two Hands would add an additional Weapon option for Daggers and Knives, maybe Rods. I know in the Character Creation thread they are split up by body part, but that is because a lot of that thread is just lifted from HoI.
  
• Weapons: I've been withholding my opinion on this topic for a while, perhaps too long. Maybe its because I am not entirely set on my position, but since this issue has come to a boiling point here my input as of today: I don't think we should be including any new weapon types. In fact, the only modifications we should be making to the list is removing weapon types, absorbing different classifications into larger groups. Fell and Knight Swords get absorbed into Swords. Ninja Swords get absorbed into either Daggers or Katanas, or whatever. I don't think we should be trying to complicate our selection at all at this point in the game by adding weapons with slight variational differences. This goes back to my main focus of this game, simplification. We need to produce a simple, streamlined game for the players to enjoy. Right now I can't see the benefits to spending any more of our time on this issue, as there are much more pressing matters to attend.
• P/S/T: Man, that sounds like some incurable disease. Anyways, the option of the Tertiary isn't an issue in my opinion. It doesn't matter that a player can conceivably tackle all of the abilities by level 50. Honestly I couldn't care less if we threw in enough abilities that it took them until level >9000 before they have the chance to get all of the abilities available to them. As long as the Master cap is set to something reasonable, like 6000 JP as described, there is no problem with adding as many abilities as we want. The Tertiary isn't about Min/Maxing your character, its about providing more options for the character to choose from. Its just -that- much more variety we have introduced for the players to choose from. Also, giving players free range of all abilities from their Secondary or Tertiary choices is not going to be an option, for reasons I don't think I need to explain. Two improvements I would like to see here are the lowering of Secondary/Tertiary level prerequisites from HoI, and also removing the tier restriction to the Secondary option. We should also implement a Change Jobs feature for players in their first three levels, where they can transfer 90% of their EXP and JP to another job if they don't like how their current one plays.
  

[Mordred]

Also, giving players free range of all abilities from their Secondary or Tertiary choices is not going to be an option, for reasons I don't think I need to explain.

I'm sorry to press, but could you explain those reasons? Some of us in the audience rode the short bus to school every morning.

[Schwerpunkt]

Weapons: I've been withholding my opinion on this topic for a while, perhaps too long. Maybe its because I am not entirely set on my position, but since this issue has come to a boiling point here my input as of today: I don't think we should be including any new weapon types. In fact, the only modifications we should be making to the list is removing weapon types, absorbing different classifications into larger groups. Fell and Knight Swords get absorbed into Swords. Ninja Swords get absorbed into either Daggers or Katanas, or whatever. I don't think we should be trying to complicate our selection at all at this point in the game by adding weapons with slight variational differences. This goes back to my main focus of this game, simplification. We need to produce a simple, streamlined game for the players to enjoy. Right now I can't see the benefits to spending any more of our time on this issue, as there are much more pressing matters to attend.

Adding distinct weapon classes does simplify the selection process. Runic Blades let us point and say "these sword types have higher FP, which comes at a cost of lower WP." Claymore lets us say "this sword is two-handed, therefore it needs to have higher WP." Polearm lets us say the same thing, just for the Lancer.

If we don't add these distinct categories, we create a situation where we're internally inconsistent. For instance, the Lancer had spears that were one-handed even though most were two-handed. If we build swords with high FP and integrate them directly into the regular sword category, we create a situation where Knights may be competing with Geomancers over "caster" swords simply because the sword in question is technically an upgrade (and, if you ever played an MMO, you know this is a surprisingly regular thing).

Furthermore, these weapon classes give us more balance options. It's much easier to design a well-balanced weapon when we know exactly what it's going to be used for than finding ourselves in a situation like "well, this is a sword, and it may or may not be used by a Spellsword/Geomancer, so we'll give it some FP at the expense of some other rating."

Ninja Knives are also important to include because it lets us purpose-build a weapon for a class that's historically been extremely hard to balance. If we cut them, we either have to give the ninjas katanas (which, if they can dual wield, just makes them unstoppable killing machines) or give them knives (which do terrible damage and render the Ninja's big draw -- front-loaded dps -- essentially dead on arrival). Neither of these options are good.

I get the idea of cutting unnecessary and unwanted weapon types (let's be realistic: we probably can just throw away flails, bags, and books), but a streamlined product is not necessarily a minimalistic product. These proposed weapon classes all serve very explicit, very meaningful roles. Cutting them is just going to give us balance issues.

[Ilium]

Lol, sorry for your, um, unfortunate circumstances.  Giving the character free range over all abilities of multiple classes would create tremendous balancing issues. Min/Maxing, something I would like to stray from here, would be much more prevalent. We are already in agreement to remove tier restrictions to the Secondary. Giving a character free range over the entire Time Mage skillset and Knight skillset would be just ridiculous, dare I say unfair to other players unconcerned about min/maxing their PC. I could only imagine the amount of players who would choose a certain Primary/Secondary build and go straight for the elite abilities of both classes. "Bro, your not going Short Charge-Climhazzard Time Knight? Do you even lift?"

[Ilium]

Apr 30, 2013 21:10:10 GMT -6 Schwerpunkt said:

Weapons

Sorry man, I'm still on the fence on this one. I'd like to see what we can do about integrating and balancing the weapons we are already given from the game, and trying to get those ready before we start thinking about introducing new weapons and categorizations. However if you feel you can expand on that idea in the mean time don't let my opinion stop you from doing so. I'm just not going to worry about any of that at this moment.

[Mordred]

I don't see why a Knight-Time Mage would be broken if Knight and Time Mage are individually well balanced. A well-balanced class doesn't have an overly powerful ability that's useful in all cases (and rightfully locked behind a JP wall), rather, a well-balanced class has a wider array of abilities that are each situationally useful.

One class combo that is often cited as being terrifying to balance is Ninja-Time Mage. If a Ninja Hastes himself, you've got one speedy customer there. But he's not going to roflstomp the Oracle Knight who is wearing heavy armor and hits the Time Ninja with a well-placed Confuse. Nor is he going to OHKO the Priest-Wizard, who can Shell himself and Frog the Time Ninja. The Mediator-Priest will be able to talk the Time Ninja to sleep, or just shoot the bastard while Walling himself. Nor is the Time Ninja going to be slinging Meteors everywhere, because he won't have the MP or MA to make that a viable strategy. The Time Ninja can use the low-tier status magic all he likes, but his entire build exists for the Haste trick.

The key here is making sure each class is good by itself, then achieve new hights of personal character power through diversity: Imagine an Archer-Knight using a bow to sling stat breaks across the battlefield. It's this kind of cool, unexpected interrelation between basic classes that creates new battlefield opportunities without taking the tired approach of "making up a new special class for every gimmick we can come up with." Building such things into these interrelations strikes me as being more organic and more elegant.

If every player has equal access to two full classes, I don't see where min-maxing enters into it. Shouldn't be any need to lift if we make sure there are no deadwood classes.

But what do I know; I rode the short bus.

[Schwerpunkt]

Ignoring for a fact that HoI did not allow you to take a secondary from a different tree (which is a whole separate problem), thus making a Knight/Time Mage impossible, Mord's exactly right that if we balance the classes themselves, there's no reason we can't have a Knight lobbing Flare at people.

HoI sought balance by doing three things.
1. Gating high-level abilities behind JP caps. These abilities were indisputably better than everything else in the class. Even the Squire got some pretty ridiculous abilities (getting all adjacent allies to smack a specified target could see damage posted upwards of 240%, which was really problematic if you were with ninjas or fighting bosses).

2. Restricting class combinations. Ninja/Time Mage was never a conceivable threat because that Ninja could only take Time Mage as his tertiary. [Note: I'm running off memory here]

3. Severely impeding non-primary class growth. If you didn't take a caster primary, you would never be even a semi-passable caster because you simply didn't get the MP and MA for it.

Note that these three penalties stacked together. If you did decide to take a MOJ as your tertiary, you were still more or less screwed because you had almost no access to anything in the class, you didn't have anything close to the necessary stats to make it work, and everything worth having was gated behind extremely burdensome JP caps (500). In fact, if you took Time Mage as a tertiary, you could only get four spells out of it -- Haste 1, Haste 2, Slow 1, Slow 2. The only other ability you could get was Auto-Float.

That doesn't increase character flexibility. At all. It gives a character an extremely crappy tertiary ability and that's it.

I'd much rather see a Knight/Time Mage that can actually do some meaningful stuff (even Stop is a no-go for a tertiary), and has improved level-on-level growth rate thanks to his secondary, than a Knight/Archer/Time Mage that casts Haste 2 once or twice a battle and otherwise runs around shooting people. At that point the tertiary isn't actually doing anything interesting.

Under this system, Knight/Time Mage is still sub-optimal. Even with augmented level-on-level growth, the Knight just doesn't have enough pre-secondary MP or MA to really be a serious caster. But with a minor augmentation (even something as simple as an extra 5 MP per level and reducing the levels required to gain an additional MA by 1), and without JP caps, that Knight can then actually do some Time Mage-esque stuff.

HoI had a lot of Civilians as alternates precisely because it was basically the only class that didn't get hamstrung ruthlessly by the changes. And I firmly believe we'd be utterly foolish to follow HoI's sub-optimal model on this point.

[sunspawn]

How about making Secondary limited to Tier 2 at best and Tertiary to Tier 1 only? Gives you an extra 9(+whatever support/reaction/move you figure can be allowed) abilities without giving the wtfgood Tier 3 ones.

[Schwerpunkt]

That's exactly what the argument in favor of P/S/T is. Basically, "you're less effective at your secondary, but you've got a tertiary you're crappy at, so it sorta balances out."

Thing is, we approached the balancing of classes thus far with "can this create an wtfimba situations in combination with other classes?" and have made our decisions accordingly. So we've cut, rebalanced, and tweaked skills to reflect their capability in the context of the game as a whole -- namely, at least for me, the assumption that you could get each class ability on your secondary.

Including Tertiaries means we're going back and reviewing the stuff we already did (setting us back, what, another week?). Maybe we get marginally more flexible characters out of it, but I don't see the benefit.

[sunspawn]

Sucking at secondary/tertiary makes sense in flavor imo - you just don't spend as much time sneaking around doing ninja stuff as you are being an eldritch bookworm spell-slinger and even less time practicing your spear work and jumping exercises.

I generally prefer the "cut tertiary" idea. Comes too late, when you have prestige class stuff to worry about and doesn't contribute enough to matter. Meh.

[Schwerpunkt]

Well, think about. You level as a Knight and take Priest as your secondary. Even without JP penalties, you're going to suck at that class. Adding JP penalties doesn't really do much beyond further penalizing your low-MP, low-MA, low-FP ass.