Class Discussion

[Ilium]

Apr 6, 2013 8:16:32 GMT -6 Schwerpunkt said:

So, I mentioned I had an idea for sign ups. Basically, what I'd like to see is what I was going to do with my AGOT sim: having lots of traits that a character takes on sign up. Here's an initial draft.


Cultural Group: Ivalician (No Change), Ordallian (+2 Faith, -2 Brave), Romandan (+2 Brave, -2 Faith), Exotic (-1 Brave, -1 Faith)

Literacy: Unlettered (+3 Brave), Lettered (+2 Faith)

Social Status: Serf (+2 Brave, +3 Faith), Burgher (+2 Faith, +3 Brave), Lord (No Change)

Physical Trait: Dwarf (+4 Faith, -2 Brave, -10 HP), Lean (+1 Speed, -1 Faith, -10 HP), Average (No Change), Athletic (+2 Brave, -1 Faith), Gigantic (+4 Brave, -4 Faith, -1 Speed, +20 HP)

Mental Trait: Savant (-2 Faith, +3 Brave, +10 HP), Slow (-1 Faith, +2 Brave), Average (No Change), Keen (+2 Faith, -1 Brave), Brilliant (+4 Faith, -1 Brave, -1 Speed)

Religion: Church of Glabados (+1 Faith), Apostate (+2 Brave, -1 Faith), Heretic (+2 Faith)

*snip for page length*

You get the idea. The values will need to be tweaked and the options expanded (adding traits like "Struggles Reading," so you don't have to choose between literate and illiteracy), Ivalician potentially replaced with a "province of origin?" question (so you can take, say, Lionel and get a +Faith bonus without needed to be Ordallian), and perhaps add traits that increase/decrease starting MA/PA (which would need to be carefully regulated).

Thoughts?

Ah, this is great! I like this alot. It reminds me of my old DnD days. Its also a good way to create diversity, while also leaving the freedom to choose up to the players. I will mull over this more soon when we begin to focus on character creation.

[silversilvera]

In order to introduce not every class being the same, we could simply opt out of fixed stat growth and instead give stat points. Every level you gain 10. It costs 1 point to raise HP or MP, 25ish points to raise PA/MA, and 75ish points to raise speed.

[Schwerpunkt]

That seems like a lot of work. It'd also be a pain to balance for the speed-oriented classes, which would basically have to take 0 hp/mp growth for 7 turns to get another point of speed. And making the variables more or less expensive based upon the class, which would help alleviate that, would create a whole mess of additional problems.

It's better, I think, to just do what HoI did: each level your core class gives you so many stat bonuses, with your secondary class giving you additional bonuses on top of that.

[Ilium]

Let's try and lay out a template for character creation, to better understand what might be expected out of our classes and how their stat growth will look.

Name
Age (At HoI, is a Brave/Faith modifier)
Gender (In the actual game, males start with base 55 Brave and 50 Faith, while females start with base 50/55)
Zodiac (In the actual game, Zodiacs determined compatibility and effects percentage-based abilities. For the sake of simplicity we can substitute that with more stat modifiers, if we want)
Primary Class

Beyond those primary questions, they will be asked to provide the additional information:

Cultural Group
Literacy
Social Status
Physical Trait
Mental Trait
Religion

To further help create some diversity, we can also adopt the questionnaire concept that is used on HoI. Let's say we give 5 questions randomly from a larger pool.

So from all of the information above, we have a possible 8-14 stat modifiers that are applied at character creation. I think by putting this in perspective, the concept of base stat growth does not seem as bland. If there are more modifiers that seem relevant later on we can add those as well.

[Schwerpunkt]

While normally I'd say "don't make gender have an impact," the actual canon says it does. So I'm all for Males having +5 Brave and females having +5 Faith. It's a small enough bonus that it won't be a huge game-changer. Although, for the sake of balance, we shouldn't rule out reducing it (to something like +2 instead of +5).

Zodiacs are just a pain. Formulae are going to be complicated enough without taking Zodiac compatibility into play. If Zodiacs do wind up involved, you're talking about about something like 78 different permutations of the base 12 Zodiacs before factoring in gender. With gender being involved, it winds up being something ridiculous, like 364 different permutations. I don't even like the idea of Zodiacs being an influence on GMNPC relations.

Other than that, I'd move Religion to the top of the list. It's pretty much one of the biggest defining traits in a game like this. It'd also affect faction affiliation, since the Church isn't going to let a heretic become a Shrine Knight.

[Ilium]

Apr 8, 2013 17:15:37 GMT -6 Schwerpunkt said:

Zodiacs are just a pain. Formulae are going to be complicated enough without taking Zodiac compatibility into play. If Zodiacs do wind up involved, you're talking about about something like 78 different permutations of the base 12 Zodiacs before factoring in gender. With gender being involved, it winds up being something ridiculous, like 364 different permutations. I don't even like the idea of Zodiacs being an influence on GMNPC relations.

The way Zodiacs are implemented in the original would just be too much of a hassle to try and port into this game. I was thinking maybe having each Zodiac have hidden buffs and debuffs, in the way the questionnaire is designed to provide modifiers to a character without knowing exactly how it will be distributed. In that way their would be only a single modifier per each sign.

[Schwerpunkt]

Okay, but how, exactly, does one properly balance that? Even astrology isn't even very consistent on the actual meanings of each sign (shocking, I know, that a pseudoscience is inconsistent).

I wouldn't even bother with it. It's more work with very little payoff. And trying to balance 12 signs across these handful of stats would mean you have lots of overlap between them.

[Ilium]

Basic Class templates are finished. Now we can begin discussing what needs to be changed about the classes for balancing, new abilities, JP cost and if necessary reworkings.

[kablizzy]

I have quite a lot to say on this topic, but I have yet to read the entire thread, so I'll be responding to specific points as I come across them. 

First, we made classes in v1 and v2 specifically good and bad at certain things. The reason you didn't see Calculators primary is primarily because they fit a smaller role, and we wanted to make certain class combinations better and worse at certain levels. For instance, if a character wanted a bunch of speed bonuses, we made taking Ninja tertiary an awesome choice. Also, since we couldn't perfectly balance classes, this is basically the way things had to be necessarily, without making all JP costs and types of abilities the same. This led us directly into certain classes being great primary choices, and some being atrocious, but amazing secondary and/or tertiary. So in terms of making Calculators "better", it just wasn't an option. They filled a specific niche and play style, and that's how we wanted it, since the alternative was "Every class gets X, Y, and Z ability."

I'll be honest, v2's class system was massacred badly (Too many hands in the same jar), and never actually got finished. Dunno what they did after I left, but up to my leaving, it was still in rough-draft mode. Personally, I would strongly suggest standardizing the concept behind classes (What you want classes to do for the player) prior to getting into details and numbers. Much in kind, I would ask myself "Why do we have classes?" and "How many different types of play styles do we want to accommodate?"

If you think about it, you can do all kinds of things with HoI classes. You can rip them straight out of the game, make upgrades based upon class level a thing. You can do what we did with Primary / Secondary / Tertiary. You can make Calculators great at non-combat things. Hell, you can make every class great at non-combat things. Knights can get a bonus to patrolling. Hunters to hunting. You can also make some of these classes Awarded / Unique / Master, or do away with the concept of Awarded / Unique / Master classes altogether. The opportunities are endless, and I'll help you guys along in the process.

Secondly, thievery. This was a huge point of contention during v2 development. And I still don't know how to solve it. Just like Divine Knights and Knights, taking/breaking someone's hard-earned stuff is rough. This is why we didn't include Thief initially.

Also, I'm going to strongly, strongly suggest an automated system of some sort for many if not all of these systems. We had the idea of an integrated php system where you can select all the combatants from the local database (which updates in real-time with their current skills), and just click on what they're using and against whom and even have an interactive battle-map (This is high-level shit, I understand, but the alternative is hand-running stuff, and that's not been doing well for us), and so on.

We had a single coder that did the signup tool, but I wanted much more.

Also, re: classes, one thing I always wanted to do is go through every Final Fantasy game and find some fan-favorite classes and spells / abilities to plug into HoI. For instance, in FFIV, Tellah had 'Meteo', and that was a baller spell. Turned into Meteor in later games, but Polom and Porom both had a version of the spell. They had the 'Twin' ability. Rosa had 'Aim'. Edge had Blitz and Flame and Flood and Image. There are thousands of spells, classes, and abilities in FF canon that are completely unused, and with some skill and a bit of dedication, these things can be merged seamlessly into HoI.

I didn't like the prerequisite thing for skills either. That got into runaway train status after I left.

Instead of a discussion on adding extra classes, I'd rather see a discussion on what classes are needed, what types of classes there are, and how to go about making those unique and interesting while still having room for a bunch of easter-eggs (Astrologer, Engineer, Dragoon, etc.) available to make the search fun. And yes, when I went through my initial class list, we had 430 classes to pick from - 24 initial, 24 master, 60-some awarded / Unique, a ton of Hybrid classes that never saw the light of day, but that I still have, and then all the monster classes and such.

Also, I want to work with HoI, but in terms of 'taking their stuff', I want to work with them and make sure all is copasetic, but if they do have a problem for some reason, I predate all of them, and while I'm not going to pull the 'I was here first' card, but 90% of the current version was brainstormed by myself or by someone on my staff alongside Ish and Kairo and Junts and all of them. Plus, since they're shutting down shop, I wouldn't see a problem either with us taking the site over and using the current board, or using the stuff to make HoI v3 anyway. That said, I want to 100% work with them and make them feel welcome, since they've been running the show for a few years now anyway.

On randomization: Here's what we found out: Randomizing level ups sucks fucking balls and puts way too much on the staffers to roll a level-up. So, what we did, is randomize stats at the beginning using the signup tool, and then make each level-up static so the players can do it themselves. I also highly suggest that this be the case for KTs and such (If it's not already). Again, if we get coding to make this easier, all the better. Also, some folk get bad rolls a lot, and that would suck too. Also, the starting questions were supposed to affect HP / MP, Brave / Faith, and something else, exactly in the way that silvera stated. We also toyed with PTD, because at the end of the day, HoI is loosely based around the sim concept, and I'd like this explored too. Kinda neat.

I do like the idea of everything being instant, with a few exceptions - the current classes are based heavily (And even more so at the master / unique level) on the CT count, speed, and what can happen when. That's how we balanced all of the classes. Yes, Fire 4 can do a massive amount of damage, but it's gonna take a bit to cast. We wanted to stay true to FFT in this regard. So, all it would take is some heavy re-balancing, but keep in mind that classes like ninja (Which are known for their speed) and slower classes like Black Mage / Calculator (And others that have long cast times) would need heavy, heavy re-balancing and there'd be a lot less room for some of the more unique abilities.

I agree 1000% with Schwer, read the BMG, it tells you everything you need to know about why FFT works as a game, complete with classes, charge times, speed effects, and so on.

Also, developing an entire sim from the ground up is probably 15x the amount of work you think it is, and it is thankless and tiresome. This is why I'd suggest getting goals and concepts out of the way, make guidelines as to what you want the sim to be, and only go towards those.

I like Schwer's tiered class concept also. That'd be cool to explore. And I also agree that the number of base classes got out of control after a point.

I also wanted to explain the point of Base / Secondary / Tertiary / Awarded / Master / Unique. So, Base classes were the defining element of your character. What they do. Secondary was more of a "Side-job" type thing - We didn't want all level X characters to be the same, have the same abilities, stats, and so on. Which is why we had Secondary and Tertiary bonuses like we did as well. Tertiary was the cherry atop the cake - We did this so that folk weren't tied entirely to their own tree. We wanted a beefy Berserker / Knight Tank to also be able to dip into some healing if he wanted. While he wouldn't be that good at it, it gave characters a bit of a kick and some intrigue and a lot of customizability. We even toyed with the notion of hybrid classes for certain class combinations.

Awarded was a bit different - They were supposed to be more specific to factions, like Schwer suggested, and also have wacky requirements for some of the harder ones (Kill 50 players was our initial requirement for Assassin, before it was a Master Class). Master Classes were probably the coolest - We had the question - What's the difference between a Black Mage and Black Wizard in the original Final Fantasy? Howabout the difference between a Lancer in FFT and Kain's Dragoon class? Howabout Cecil's Paladin class? Surely, Tellah and FuSoRah weren't just Black Magi. When Rydia went from a Summoner to a Caller, what was that transformation like? And that's when the game really opened up. Being able to showcase OUR game's unique abilities and concepts, what we all had to bring to the table, that was really special. It was where we could do the wacky stuff that no one else thought of doing - Assassin, Caller, Sniper, Dragoon... It was our way of saying, "Hey, this is what Final Fantasy could be." Master classes were also the generic concept of Holy Knights and Divine Knights and Sorcerors and Arc Witches. Unique classes were never meant to be in player hands, and were only meant as plot devices. Lion-O's 'Vampire' from v1 was an example of this. Also, any class there would legitimately be only one of in the world "Impure King" would fall into this.

In hindsight, there were also probably too many abilities with the addition of Master classes, so perhaps shaving a few abilities off each class may make it all less daunting as well. Something to keep in mind. 

I see stat variance being a thing that's contested - and for us, it all came down to workload. Randomizing level modifiers sucks balls. And sure, +7 / -7 at startup may not seem like a lot, but that paired with the Secondary / Tertiary bonuses gave us all the randomization we needed.

Scwher touched on hybrid characters, and maybe that's something you want to explore as well. This is something we wanted to do with the JP caps on each Secondary / Tertiary class - limit what abilities you have access to. So instead of making an entirely separate list for secondary / tertiary, it was all the same, but provided some limitations as well.

I'd also tend to stray away from PTD on level-up, as that wouldn't lessen staff workload at all.

We thought about Zodiac interaction, but threw the idea out early because of what Scwher said - too much work for too little reward. I can't remember if we had Zodiac affect signup at all, though. It was at least on the table for a short time.

Also, apologies for this coming after basic classes were finished. Just ideas to ponder.

[Ilium]

Apr 19, 2013 0:26:44 GMT -6 kablizzy said:

I have quite a lot to say on this topic, but I have yet to read the entire thread, so I'll be responding to specific points as I come across them. 

First, we made classes in v1 and v2 specifically good and bad at certain things. The reason you didn't see Calculators primary is primarily because they fit a smaller role, and we wanted to make certain class combinations better and worse at certain levels. For instance, if a character wanted a bunch of speed bonuses, we made taking Ninja tertiary an awesome choice. Also, since we couldn't perfectly balance classes, this is basically the way things had to be necessarily, without making all JP costs and types of abilities the same. This led us directly into certain classes being great primary choices, and some being atrocious, but amazing secondary and/or tertiary. So in terms of making Calculators "better", it just wasn't an option. They filled a specific niche and play style, and that's how we wanted it, since the alternative was "Every class gets X, Y, and Z ability."

I'll be honest, v2's class system was massacred badly (Too many hands in the same jar), and never actually got finished. Dunno what they did after I left, but up to my leaving, it was still in rough-draft mode. Personally, I would strongly suggest standardizing the concept behind classes (What you want classes to do for the player) prior to getting into details and numbers. Much in kind, I would ask myself "Why do we have classes?" and "How many different types of play styles do we want to accommodate?"

If you think about it, you can do all kinds of things with HoI classes. You can rip them straight out of the game, make upgrades based upon class level a thing. You can do what we did with Primary / Secondary / Tertiary. You can make Calculators great at non-combat things. Hell, you can make every class great at non-combat things. Knights can get a bonus to patrolling. Hunters to hunting. You can also make some of these classes Awarded / Unique / Master, or do away with the concept of Awarded / Unique / Master classes altogether. The opportunities are endless, and I'll help you guys along in the process.

What I would like to accomplish is somehow balancing the classes so each one has at least one ability that would work to make the class viable as a first choice. In other words, Calculator in its current or HoI form would be hard to make a case for a primary choice, however if we could maybe come up with one or two abilities that would translate well to this game, we can make that class more attractive to the player base.

I understand and agree with the idea of giving classes certain perks that would make them more interesting secondary or tertiary classes. However I think we can expand on all of this by creating a base list of what we need each class to accomplish:

• One or more 'standard' combat ability/ies, making the class viable as a primary choice for all aspects of the game.
  
• Like above, however this skill would be passive, or perhaps non-combative. A lot of movement skills from the original game do this well already, and I feel we would only need to make minor tweaks here, or whatever people would see as an improvement.
  
• Expanding on the first two bullets, let's make sure each class has one 'basic' ability available across the board, Primary/Secondary/Tertiary. Likewise, each class gets one 'advanced' ability available to Primary/Secondary, and one 'elite' ability available to Primaries only. Once we are able to find one skill for each tier, we can add more to this list depending on balance issues and variance. This shouldn't be too difficult to do, and hopefully I'm not making it sound like it is. 
• Along with ability choice, stat buffs according to secondary/tertiary choices needs to be balanced well, again something that shouldn't be too difficult.
  

Secondly, thievery. This was a huge point of contention during v2 development. And I still don't know how to solve it. Just like Divine Knights and Knights, taking/breaking someone's hard-earned stuff is rough. This is why we didn't include Thief initially.

I'm of the opinion that Thievery should be a perfectly viable option, and something players need to take into account when facing Thieves. If the Thief faints or if its party is defeated, the stolen item is dropped. Also keeping the Thievery abilities separated into separate equipment choices will help keep the likelihood of thieves running around and stealing everything down. Of course also making the steal abilities a low percentage action will go along way to making players decide if wanting to try and steal someone's pretty sword is a good use of that round, when it could mean the difference between winning and losing (and thus also if you are able to keep the item).

Also, I'm going to strongly, strongly suggest an automated system of some sort for many if not all of these systems. We had the idea of an integrated php system where you can select all the combatants from the local database (which updates in real-time with their current skills), and just click on what they're using and against whom and even have an interactive battle-map (This is high-level shit, I understand, but the alternative is hand-running stuff, and that's not been doing well for us), and so on.

Yeah, that is high level shit. However it is something that is completely doable, and is almost an exact representation of what I envision creating for this game. I might not have the programming done for the beta, but for v1 I plan on having sign ups and PT's automated completely, and once that's done, working on combat automation. I envisioned a program where we just input stats and call methods for certain abilities, and the program would spit out the results. However a database, while being more work, might make this even easier.

Also, re: classes, one thing I always wanted to do is go through every Final Fantasy game and find some fan-favorite classes and spells / abilities to plug into HoI. For instance, in FFIV, Tellah had 'Meteo', and that was a baller spell. Turned into Meteor in later games, but Polom and Porom both had a version of the spell. They had the 'Twin' ability. Rosa had 'Aim'. Edge had Blitz and Flame and Flood and Image. There are thousands of spells, classes, and abilities in FF canon that are completely unused, and with some skill and a bit of dedication, these things can be merged seamlessly into HoI.

That's something I like as well, and something I want to research into. I would like to implement as many 'fan-favorite' aspects about the Final Fantasy universe into this game as possible, so as gain maximum cross-over appeal, while trying to also stay true to the original FFT vision.

Also, I want to work with HoI, but in terms of 'taking their stuff', I want to work with them and make sure all is copasetic, but if they do have a problem for some reason, I predate all of them, and while I'm not going to pull the 'I was here first' card, but 90% of the current version was brainstormed by myself or by someone on my staff alongside Ish and Kairo and Junts and all of them. Plus, since they're shutting down shop, I wouldn't see a problem either with us taking the site over and using the current board, or using the stuff to make HoI v3 anyway. That said, I want to 100% work with them and make them feel welcome, since they've been running the show for a few years now anyway.

I am of the same opinion. I personally haven't contacted any of the remaining staff yet, as I kind of sat out v2 and so I don't have a rapport with any of them. I would have felt weird just going up to them and asking for the keys to the house, however with your support that is certainly more feasible than before. I've also extended the olive branch to them in terms of cooperation, perhaps helping to recreate the game from the ground up would provide them with a fresh perspective. However to this point I haven't heard from any of them, nor do I know for sure if they have even visited these boards. I'm not sure if any of the present staff can be counted among the people you've been in contact with, though.

On randomization: Here's what we found out: Randomizing level ups sucks fucking balls and puts way too much on the staffers to roll a level-up. So, what we did, is randomize stats at the beginning using the signup tool, and then make each level-up static so the players can do it themselves. I also highly suggest that this be the case for KTs and such (If it's not already). Again, if we get coding to make this easier, all the better. Also, some folk get bad rolls a lot, and that would suck too. Also, the starting questions were supposed to affect HP / MP, Brave / Faith, and something else, exactly in the way that silvera stated. We also toyed with PTD, because at the end of the day, HoI is loosely based around the sim concept, and I'd like this explored too. Kinda neat.

Yeah, randomization has been thrown to the wayside in favor for sign up modifiers.

I like Schwer's tiered class concept also. That'd be cool to explore. And I also agree that the number of base classes got out of control after a point.

I am not a fan of the tiered concept in the way that it was explained in the beginning. It would just unnecessarily remove a lot of variance from the game, for no real benefit. If that idea has been expanded on I would love to hear the differences.


I will get to the rest of your post later, for now I have to get ready for school and work....

[kablizzy]

That was a big post, I know. Apologies.

[Ilium]

Continued...

Apr 19, 2013 0:26:44 GMT -6 kablizzy said:

I didn't like the prerequisite thing for skills either. That got into runaway train status after I left.

Its not a bad idea overall, and maybe is still something that we need to look into, for a few abilities. However HoI developed almost a WoW-like tier system with the abilities, which only resulted in less diverse classes for no real benefit.

Instead of a discussion on adding extra classes, I'd rather see a discussion on what classes are needed, what types of classes there are, and how to go about making those unique and interesting while still having room for a bunch of easter-eggs (Astrologer, Engineer, Dragoon, etc.) available to make the search fun. And yes, when I went through my initial class list, we had 430 classes to pick from - 24 initial, 24 master, 60-some awarded / Unique, a ton of Hybrid classes that never saw the light of day, but that I still have, and then all the monster classes and such.

Extra classes is definitely something we can be working on during the beta, if not continuing it into V1. It is not a priority to be considered at this time, however it will be in the future. Right now I like the idea of having only the base classes from the original game, and getting those balanced so that they are all included. I feel their is enough variety amongst those classes as it is to keep the game creative and interesting for a long time, before awarded or specialist classes even become a possibility for them. When that time comes, would you be interested in sharing some of those classes with us? That would make that goal get accomplished much faster.

Also, I want to work with HoI, but in terms of 'taking their stuff', I want to work with them and make sure all is copasetic, but if they do have a problem for some reason, I predate all of them, and while I'm not going to pull the 'I was here first' card, but 90% of the current version was brainstormed by myself or by someone on my staff alongside Ish and Kairo and Junts and all of them. Plus, since they're shutting down shop, I wouldn't see a problem either with us taking the site over and using the current board, or using the stuff to make HoI v3 anyway. That said, I want to 100% work with them and make them feel welcome, since they've been running the show for a few years now anyway.

Yeah hopefully we can make progress with current staff and come to a resolution on this issue. I don't potentially see any problems with us taking the reigns, however who knows. My main issue with taking over the board as is, is that it needs some serious housekeeping. The amount of bots there is unacceptable. That would be a chore in and of itself, however it might not take too long.

I do like the idea of everything being instant, with a few exceptions - the current classes are based heavily (And even more so at the master / unique level) on the CT count, speed, and what can happen when. That's how we balanced all of the classes. Yes, Fire 4 can do a massive amount of damage, but it's gonna take a bit to cast. We wanted to stay true to FFT in this regard. So, all it would take is some heavy re-balancing, but keep in mind that classes like ninja (Which are known for their speed) and slower classes like Black Mage / Calculator (And others that have long cast times) would need heavy, heavy re-balancing and there'd be a lot less room for some of the more unique abilities.

That was an idea that I only entertained early on when I wasn't getting much feedback from here. I was only thinking of ways I could limit my personal workload, however that hopefully shouldn't be too big of a problem now. Full CT mechanics wouldn't be hard at all to code.

Also, developing an entire sim from the ground up is probably 15x the amount of work you think it is, and it is thankless and tiresome. This is why I'd suggest getting goals and concepts out of the way, make guidelines as to what you want the sim to be, and only go towards those.

I've been trying to be disciplined in my usage of time here, as like you my spare time is limited. However now as we begin to create more attention it should be more of a priority to get stated goals down in every aspect of the game. It would make working on the game as a team much more of a streamlined project. I haven't updated the State of the Game thread since I opened this forum, I'll do that soon.

I also wanted to explain the point of Base / Secondary / Tertiary / Awarded / Master / Unique. So, Base classes were the defining element of your character. What they do. Secondary was more of a "Side-job" type thing - We didn't want all level X characters to be the same, have the same abilities, stats, and so on. Which is why we had Secondary and Tertiary bonuses like we did as well. Tertiary was the cherry atop the cake - We did this so that folk weren't tied entirely to their own tree. We wanted a beefy Berserker / Knight Tank to also be able to dip into some healing if he wanted. While he wouldn't be that good at it, it gave characters a bit of a kick and some intrigue and a lot of customizability. We even toyed with the notion of hybrid classes for certain class combinations.

Awarded was a bit different - They were supposed to be more specific to factions, like Schwer suggested, and also have wacky requirements for some of the harder ones (Kill 50 players was our initial requirement for Assassin, before it was a Master Class). Master Classes were probably the coolest - We had the question - What's the difference between a Black Mage and Black Wizard in the original Final Fantasy? Howabout the difference between a Lancer in FFT and Kain's Dragoon class? Howabout Cecil's Paladin class? Surely, Tellah and FuSoRah weren't just Black Magi. When Rydia went from a Summoner to a Caller, what was that transformation like? And that's when the game really opened up. Being able to showcase OUR game's unique abilities and concepts, what we all had to bring to the table, that was really special. It was where we could do the wacky stuff that no one else thought of doing - Assassin, Caller, Sniper, Dragoon... It was our way of saying, "Hey, this is what Final Fantasy could be." Master classes were also the generic concept of Holy Knights and Divine Knights and Sorcerors and Arc Witches. Unique classes were never meant to be in player hands, and were only meant as plot devices. Lion-O's 'Vampire' from v1 was an example of this. Also, any class there would legitimately be only one of in the world "Impure King" would fall into this.

In hindsight, there were also probably too many abilities with the addition of Master classes, so perhaps shaving a few abilities off each class may make it all less daunting as well. Something to keep in mind. 

Those are all great points and idea that you could have so much customization with such a familiar platform and universe to us, was one of the main selling points of HoI. Its something I would like to try and preserve about the original sim. You bring up a good point about too many abilities, that will be something to consider when we delve into balancing the classes here soon.

I see stat variance being a thing that's contested - and for us, it all came down to workload. Randomizing level modifiers sucks balls. And sure, +7 / -7 at startup may not seem like a lot, but that paired with the Secondary / Tertiary bonuses gave us all the randomization we needed.

I'd also tend to stray away from PTD on level-up, as that wouldn't lessen staff workload at all.

Yeah, I've done some experimental rolls with various stat modifiers at start up and I have received satisfactory results. What do you have to say about how I currently have PTD handled in the Character Creation thread. Bear in mind this style of manual creation will hopefully only be in existence for the beta, before we are able to move over to more automated procedures.

Scwher touched on hybrid characters, and maybe that's something you want to explore as well. This is something we wanted to do with the JP caps on each Secondary / Tertiary class - limit what abilities you have access to. So instead of making an entirely separate list for secondary / tertiary, it was all the same, but provided some limitations as well.

I like that suggestion, and it could definitely be something we explore in the future, however there is so much more that that needs to be done now that would take precedence over that kind of project. JP caps make sense, are easier, and accomplish the same concept so I am cool with leaving that idea in place for now. However if anyone wants to work on the hybrid class idea in their free time I'm certainly not stopping them.

We thought about Zodiac interaction, but threw the idea out early because of what Scwher said - too much work for too little reward. I can't remember if we had Zodiac affect signup at all, though. It was at least on the table for a short time.

What I had in mind about Zodiac interaction in this game that I didn't express earlier, is that it wouldn't be like how it is in FFT at all. That would be much too tedious a thing to implement without the necessary pay off for the work. Instead I though of perhaps using the Zodiacs much in the same way the Questionnaire was used in creation during HoI: as basically hidden stat modifiers.

Players wouldn't know how each Zodiac affected their stat modifications, though it would be something low and arbitrary just to divide up the numbers a bit further. Once I look further into actually balancing out character creation (once again, soon), I will develop a table correlating Zodiac signs to their respective modifiers, and then float that idea back at everyone else.

[Schwerpunkt]

Been awhile since I added to this topic. Let's move the sign up discussion elsewhere and return to classes.

Romanda's awarded classes:
Berserker (POJ): I'm thinking like a Geomancer with two handed wielding, bonuses to axes, and lots of really high damage output. They'd have a bit of a randomization factor (since axes were inconsistent as all hell) and be completely monsters if the RNG favored them.

Dark Knight (MOJ): Typically a POJ, I went with MOJ here to balance Berserker and simultaneously emphasize the class's acquisition in-game (where you have to master the Wizard class). I'd like to see some skills cost MP or HP; the HP-consuming skills would be more high-damage, the MP-consuming skills would have more status effects and stuff.

Khamja's awarded classes:
Assassin (POJ): Essentially, a hyper-nerfed version of Celia and Lede. Stop and Poison should be on at least two abilities each. And since it's a super-ninja, dual wield as well. An interesting alternative may be to give bonus damage to main hand ninja knives (so they hit for ~140% or something) and allow them to carry an off-hand crossbow or something.

Warlock (MOJ): Derived from the Mash’ewayad position in the Ordallian Court, the Warlock should have lots of Darkness-element spells, a more effective Bio (perhaps even a Bio + Poison or Bio + Slow), and some useful Oracle sells (Blind, Silence) in addition to a wide variety of reasonably large area of effect spells.

Church of Glabados' awarded classes:
Shrine Knight (POJ): Straight-forward.

Hierophant (MOJ): This class is Priest meets Mediator (without the guns). High-powered healing and, when not healing, higher success rates for CT delays and such. And maybe rods instead of staves, since rods are boss.

Ordallian awarded classes. Ordallia gets five (including a civilian) because it's so frickin' huge.
Zealot (POJ): Divine Knight, essentially. And since breaking someone's equipment permanently is hugely problematic, it'd only be 'broken' for the duration of a battle. The same holds true for any Rend abilities. Also, because they're sociopaths, they'd get a "heal when damage received" reaction ability.

Outrider (POJ): Basically, an archer meets a chocobo with some Machinist abilities sprinkled in. High mobility, some attacks that apply Don't Move, and a restriction to longbows (instead of being able to use crossbows).

Missionary (MOJ): Uber-mediator. Instead of guns, however, they just get really long ranges on their abilities (which have higher success rates). They'd be restricted to shotguns (which deal damage in a directional cone). Failing that, books and rods.

Thaumaturgist (MOJ): Upgraded Summoner, who summons djinni (Ordallian flavor summons) that do different status effects. This class would deal with fairly few nukes, specializing primarily in status changes (Protect, Dispel, Slow, Oil) that other classes would capitalize on.

Emir (Civilian): Improved version of the Civilian, now in Ordallian flavor!

That's what I have so far. We still need custom classes for: Nanten, Hokuten, Besrudio's Braves, Baert Trading Company, and the Corpse Brigade.

[kablizzy]

Apr 19, 2013 4:50:59 GMT -6 Ilium said:

I understand and agree with the idea of giving classes certain perks that would make them more interesting secondary or tertiary classes. However I think we can expand on all of this by creating a base list of what we need each class to accomplish:

• One or more 'standard' combat ability/ies, making the class viable as a primary choice for all aspects of the game.
  
• Like above, however this skill would be passive, or perhaps non-combative. A lot of movement skills from the original game do this well already, and I feel we would only need to make minor tweaks here, or whatever people would see as an improvement.
  
• Expanding on the first two bullets, let's make sure each class has one 'basic' ability available across the board, Primary/Secondary/Tertiary. Likewise, each class gets one 'advanced' ability available to Primary/Secondary, and one 'elite' ability available to Primaries only. Once we are able to find one skill for each tier, we can add more to this list depending on balance issues and variance. This shouldn't be too difficult to do, and hopefully I'm not making it sound like it is. 
• Along with ability choice, stat buffs according to secondary/tertiary choices needs to be balanced well, again something that shouldn't be too difficult.
  

I love this. This should be our starting point for each class, and then expand as needed.

Schwer: I think after all is said and done, we'll actually have more than enough classes to go around, and I'll weigh in on that shortly.

Zodiac stuff would be cool, and again, if we get a tool to run it at startup, all the easier. And with that, I think we can close discussion on randomization of stats, unless someone else has something amazing.

As far as classes, I have all of my original class drafts at my old forum, which has been preserved for my viewing, so I can present those if need be.

[Schwerpunkt]

Using Zodiacs would allow us to do some interesting stuff with the Astrologist class. The twelve Zodiacs are broadly divided into four elemental groups (Fire, Air, Earth, Water -- naturally), each of which has 3 signs. Having a class that casts spells that do damage to some zodiacs and heal others would be very interesting.

Probably hard to balance and work into programs, but still very interesting.



Also, in the other topic I noted that Temple Knights (which are poorly named because Beowulf was a Gryphon Knight) and Ark Knights (Zalbag's version) are basically spellswords... just poorly balanced. In the case of the Temple Knight, they're too good; in the case of the Ark Knight, they're kind of meh (just ranged stat damage).

Broadly speaking, I'd like to divide them into three separate types of spellswords.
Rune Knight -> Here is a class that specializes primarily in placing Runes on the ground. Like Geomancers, the effect of each Rune varies based upon the terrain of the caster; if you're standing on water, for instance, you might create a rune that heals whoever steps on it. If you're walking on lava (and not busy getting Anakin'd), you might drop a rune that deals fire damage. The Rune Knight, for all intents and purposes, is a Geomancer that lays traps that can be activated by anyone (friend or foe). Additionally, Rune Knights are semi-competent tanks, having fairly high HP pools when equipped with armor instead of robes. Rune Knights cannot equip shields and instead receive double P-Ev from their weapon. Rune Knights may wear helmets.

Ark Knight -> This class specializes in inflicting status effects upon enemies, instantly casting spells such as Blind, Drain MP, and Speed Ruin. Additionally, the Ark Knight possesses the 'Short Charge' support ability allowing him to more quickly cast non-class spells. Finally, the Ark Knight receives an MA bonus equivalent to half his sword's PA (PA *.5 = MA), but must equip a sword in order to use his class skills. Ark Knights cannot equip shields but may wear heavy armor and helmets.

Arcane Knight -> This class possesses the 'Imbue Weapon' skill, which allows the user to imbue his sword with the effect of any spell he possesses for a flat MP fee. When imbuing the weapon with higher level spells (such as Fira vs. Fire), the cost of the ability does not increase but the elemental damage inflicted does; when working with status effect abilities (such as Bio 3 vs. Bio 1), the chance of the effect applying is increased. The 'Imbue Weapon' action consumes an Action and adds an effect that persists for caster's next three turns. The Arcane Knight may equip shields, helmets, and robes. If the weapon is Imbued with an element, and the attack lands, the attack will always receive bonus elemental damage. If the weapon is Imbued with a status effect, and the attack lands, a separate roll will be made for the application of the status effect. [Note: Arcane Knight may Imbue his weapon with Break or Death, but will see much lower chances of the status affect applying. Imbued stats effects will apply normally to allies if the Arcane Knight targets an ally for any reason.]

Knight Herald -> This is the 'meta-class' of the spellswords, similar in intent to the Sword Saint. It wrecks faces.

This Rune Knight could conceivably be balanced to work as a basic class, but the other two can't. Arcane Knight requires you have at least one other class (preferably two) to even Imbue Weapon. Ark Knight, basically being a hybrid of Beowulf's Templar and Zalbag's Ark Knight jobs, is definitely an Awarded Class.