Class Discussion

[Schwerpunkt]

There's a lot in your post.

The 'Gil Eater Classes' by and large are not eating gil. Knights cannot destroy weapons, Thieves cannot steal from players (NPCs though? Totally kosher), Chemists may not even make it into the final cut (I want to just axe both them and the Squire), and Ninja (if I have my way) will not actually throw consumable weapons at people (rather, Throw Shuriken will just consume an imaginary shuriken like shooting people consumes imaginary arrows). You have a good point about Samurai, however, which is why I'm trying to turn Ilium away from his proposal for Draw-Cut to something else entirely. The other sword spirit abilities, however, wouldn't be weapon-specific.

If you want to stay attached to this paradigm where you never change Jobs and you can only cross-class into a secondary/tertiary Job that never changes either, then there's no need to even track JP as a quantity. FFT has JP because you can go through Jobs freely, cherry-picking only the abilities you want. I often visit Oracle with my fighters just long enough to buy the AttackUP Support, then I'm right back to Monking it up. But if I can't switch Jobs, there is *no* reason to track JP. Just award new abilities at XP-level-up like D&D, or be like Diablo and put together some ability prerequisite trees.

JP is involved because it allows players to choose when they unlock certain abilities. Take the Lancer, for instance. If I'm spending a lot of time fighting in Mandalia, Falling Strike isn't very useful to me. If I have no intention of using Reis' Wind or taking a MOJ/HOJ secondary, MP isn't very useful to me and, as a result, I'm not going to want to prioritize Lancet. This would allow me to focus on skills deeper in the tree first, and then either buy those skills later or save that JP for my secondary.

JP is, for all intents and purposes, about player choice.

The RNG should play no role whatsoever at character creation, leveling up, or anywhere else. It's fundamentally unfair. If the RNG's role in character creation is small enough to not make a difference... then why include it? Peoples' characters don't become unique by having tiny variations in statline as compared to characters of the same class/level. Personality comes from RP, not the character sheet.

I agree on all points here, with the caveat that the nature of evasion and hitting other targets forces us to use RNG to a limited degree (just like WotD does in its battle system, basically).

Master classes are necessary without a Job change mechanic because in FFT, diversity builds your strength. You pull R/S/M abilities from multiple classes, you pick your secondary ability and your equipment from a variety of sources to pull off feats a single class is incapable of by itself. But without a Job change mechanic, you can only gain more power from a "Master" unlock, which is inherently unbalancing.

And here's where we differe. Master classes are a thing in FFT; Ramza's Squire is basically an uber-squire. And almost all of them are ridiculously powerful. It's only with very explicit class combinations (Calculator Holy, maybe) that a regular class will beat one of those master classes. And since NPCs are going to show up with those uber-classes, it's only fair to allow players the chance to get the opportunity to play with those really awesome classes as well. Otherwise we're just hamstringing people for no good reason.

Let's face it: lots of people joined the Shrine Knights to eventually get the Holy Sword skillset. Including prestige classes in general allows players to get to the point where they can play these really unique classes. And since we have more classes going around (probably three times as many), the chances that a given character can become unique is much, much higher than if we just let them pick and choose from classes and skills across the board (because, let's face it, no sane person will take Move +1 over Move +3).

[kablizzy]

As for Prestige classes, what people "want and expect" can drown in bleach. Every class in the game needs its own unique niche or you run into balancing problems. Finding that niche for the base classes needs to take precedence over adding Prestige classes just for the sake of having them. Again, automation invalidates the requirement tracking argument.

FFT was unbalanced, you're right. The job progression table I posted is based purely on FFT with some tweaks I made, and it probably won't serve for an MMO setting (which is what this is). However, I still *very* strongly feel that Job Change mechanics are vital to having any kind of game that can be said to be "based on FFT." We need to figure out some kind of progression mechanic to allow people to earn their way through the job tree (or ring or pool or whatever).

I agree and disagree. First and foremost, if we're not doing this for the players and paying them some fanservice and making this about FFT and Final Fantasy and giving them cool stuff to play around with in the FFT world... Then what the Hell are we doing this for? I suppose the Job-change concept is something that at least needs to be explored, especially since the Primary / Secondary / Tertiary stuff is coming back into discussion.

I do agree that jobs need to be balanced across the tiers, but I think a lot of the examples you cited were poor design within FFT itself that could be corrected for FFS. For instance, here's a few observations on FFT classes that desperately need to be corrected for FFS:

+- The Gil Eater Classes: Knights, Thieves, Chemists, Samurai, and Ninja all have skillsets that CANNOT translate from FFT to FFS. Gil is a resource like XP or JP for an adventurer; you get more of it to increase your power. The Gil Eaters require WAY more Gil than any other class as they exist in FFT. Imagine if their abilities affected XP instead of items:

Knights can permanently knock levels off enemies with their equip break skills (NO NO NO)
Thieves can steal enemies' levels and add them to their own (OH SWEET CHRIST NO!!!!)
Chemists spend XP for every potion they toss.
Samurai have to keep a pool of several tens of levels in storage (not helping their stats), and have a risk to lose one of those stored levels every time they use a Draw Out.
Ninjas throw sharpened chunks of XP at people to damage them.

See, these are classes that need to be redesigned to varying degrees. Draw Outs can just be changed to not need you to own the sword in question to use them. Chemists can use items for free if your current main class is Chemist; everyone else who uses Item consumes items. [Hence why in my own idiosyncratic class list, I replaced Thieves with Rogues - I'd rather leave the "Break" skills with the Knight and turn them into Disarms (e.g. "Weapon Disarm" knocks off the equipped weapon until the end of the battle, unless the target has Maintenance or Equip Change), and give the Rogue a totally new skill set.] .

But Ninjas need totally new skillsets, so do Thieves. So do Archers, so do Lancers, so do Calculators, so do Mimes, Wizards, and Mediators. Easily half the classes in FFT are totally unsuitable for FFS, and it's kind of nutty to be talking or even THINKING about Prestige classes when we've only got about 9 functional base classes.

Pretty much every Base class needs to be redone, and I have three main goals for them - First and foremost, balance. I want the classes to be roughly around the same footing. Secondly, uniqueness. Each class should have something about it that no other class has. There should be a unique way to play (And roleplay) each class. Whether or not this'll work out? Eh, we'll see. Third, genuineness. That is, being genuine to FFT and Final Fantasy. The reason why is because I don't want debacles like fire_i's combo-master during v2 development or Lion-O's Caller build, or his Anime Master build. These aren't FFT classes. FFT classes were simple and flavorful. And it's our job to make these base classes simple and flavorful and balanced. Also, did Rydia in v1 make any fucking sense to HoI? Hell no! But did players go apeshit over it? Hell yes! Stuff like that - stuff that makes the sim endearing and fun - That's why I do this.

The only reason anyone needs Master classes is if there is no Job change mechanic. We should build master-level power into EVERY class, not make all the basic classes suck in comparison to an over-tier of uberleethaxxorz. If you have any interest in attracting players later in the game's life, or making the game non-torturous for those who have to reroll due to death, you'll build a decent power level into all the base Jobs.

Again, kinda disagree. I think a decent power-level is great, but if you take any base class from FFT and put it One-on-One versus Cid, that dude's gonna lose. In the face. Hard. Is this a problem with the system? Naw, Holy Knights > Time Mages > Squires. So, the solution is to make every base class competitive with all of the Awarded NPC classes? That's rough, man. I'm not sure if throwing abilities at Squire to make that Squire capable of Holy Knighting someone's face off is the answer. Perhaps adding some of the Master Class abilities into the Primary skillsets would work, but that'd take some extra work and discussion. And while I'm willing to do it, I do have some small misgivings about the concept, when the same function can be achieved as we're going now.

Master classes are necessary without a Job change mechanic because in FFT, diversity builds your strength. You pull R/S/M abilities from multiple classes, you pick your secondary ability and your equipment from a variety of sources to pull off feats a single class is incapable of by itself. But without a Job change mechanic, you can only gain more power from a "Master" unlock, which is inherently unbalancing.

Unbalancing to whom? To the characters who don't have access to Master / etc. classes?

If you want to stay attached to this paradigm where you never change Jobs and you can only cross-class into a secondary/tertiary Job that never changes either, then there's no need to even track JP as a quantity. FFT has JP because you can go through Jobs freely, cherry-picking only the abilities you want. I often visit Oracle with my fighters just long enough to buy the AttackUP Support, then I'm right back to Monking it up. But if I can't switch Jobs, there is *no* reason to track JP. Just award new abilities at XP-level-up like D&D, or be like Diablo and put together some ability prerequisite trees.

I have actually thought about skill trees, but we got into that with Prerequisites in HoI, and it was dumbtarded. If we had a GUI that could support all of this, this'd be magnificent stuff to look into, but here's another concept to consider - Remember how JP was tracked in FFT? If we're being as true to the original as you want us to, we'd track each individual set of JP for each class. But as Schwer said, there's a lot of reason to track JP. 

The RNG should play no role whatsoever at character creation, leveling up, or anywhere else. It's fundamentally unfair. If the RNG's role in character creation is small enough to not make a difference... then why include it? Peoples' characters don't become unique by having tiny variations in statline as compared to characters of the same class/level. Personality comes from RP, not the character sheet.

Heavy disagree, for an innumerable number of reasons. We decided ten years ago that we didn't want player stats to be exact to one another. Why? Hell, I dunno. But every time we've revisited the topic, the verdict comes out the same - No, we don't want character stats to be identical. Asking the question doesn't eliminate the purpose - It's there to give a small amount of difference in numbers. That's it. That's why it exists, and it's small enough so as not to make a big impact. So, if it's small enough to not make a difference, why care about it? Leave it be.

So, based upon that decision to not have player stats be equal, the only alternative is to RNG it at every level-up, and we're not doing that. Personality is personality. I don't know if you remember any of the 'rare' questions that were in the signup lineup, but some of them gave 100 gold just on the merit that they got the question and answered it correctly. Holy unfair ballsacks! 100 gold! That's not fair! +3 HP! Totally not fair! If you crit on a roll, that's also unfair. If you play Yahtzee, that's unfair. Settlers of Catan is unfair. Monopoly is unfair. Any game with any type of RNG used for any purpose whatsoever is going to have the 'unfair' aspect to it. Unless we remove RNG stuff entirely, it'll come up on occasion, but it's not a big enough deal that I care. The RNG usage will certainly ratchet down, and most everything will be standardized, with the exception of Evasion and the like. But wait! That's unfair! Can't have random chance-to-hit! Right?

There's a lot in your post.

The 'Gil Eater Classes' by and large are not eating gil. Knights cannot destroy weapons, Thieves cannot steal from players (NPCs though? Totally kosher), Chemists may not even make it into the final cut (I want to just axe both them and the Squire), and Ninja (if I have my way) will not actually throw consumable weapons at people (rather, Throw Shuriken will just consume an imaginary shuriken like shooting people consumes imaginary arrows). You have a good point about Samurai, however, which is why I'm trying to turn Ilium away from his proposal for Draw-Cut to something else entirely. The other sword spirit abilities, however, wouldn't be weapon-specific.

I'm also not a huge fan of Draw-Cut, but I agree pretty much entirely with this.

JP is involved because it allows players to choose when they unlock certain abilities. Take the Lancer, for instance. If I'm spending a lot of time fighting in Mandalia, Falling Strike isn't very useful to me. If I have no intention of using Reis' Wind or taking a MOJ/HOJ secondary, MP isn't very useful to me and, as a result, I'm not going to want to prioritize Lancet. This would allow me to focus on skills deeper in the tree first, and then either buy those skills later or save that JP for my secondary.

JP is, for all intents and purposes, about player choice.

In regards to this, yes, in fairness, we could just tell the player "Pick an ability" at each level-up, but there's only so far that I want to stray from FFT, and only in the ways that make a decent amount of sense for us. Again, I'm on board with this line of thinking as well.

And here's where we differ. Master classes are a thing in FFT; Ramza's Squire is basically an uber-squire. And almost all of them are ridiculously powerful. It's only with very explicit class combinations (Calculator Holy, maybe) that a regular class will beat one of those master classes. And since NPCs are going to show up with those uber-classes, it's only fair to allow players the chance to get the opportunity to play with those really awesome classes as well. Otherwise we're just hamstringing people for no good reason.

Let's face it: lots of people joined the Shrine Knights to eventually get the Holy Sword skillset. Including prestige classes in general allows players to get to the point where they can play these really unique classes. And since we have more classes going around (probably three times as many), the chances that a given character can become unique is much, much higher than if we just let them pick and choose from classes and skills across the board (because, let's face it, no sane person will take Move +1 over Move +3).

I'd tend to agree with this as well. Also, you never got to play as these classes in FFT. So, are we just going to say "Nein!" They cannot exist ever, ever, ever!" Naw. We're gonna give the players some cool shit to play with. I'm 900% more concerned with players getting to live some FFT fantasies that they didn't get to live out in the game than perfect balancing, because perfect balancing is boring. I'd rather see a Squire get a lucky Crit on Balbanes with a thrown rock, knocking him out a window than a proper, non-master, balanced, non-random duel Any. Day. Of. The. Week.

[Mordred]

@schwer: In a fixed-class paradigm, replace JP measured in the hundreds with "Skill Points" measured in the single-digits (a la Diablo 2). Each level, get 1 Skill Point, spend as you like among options for which you meet prereqs. Top level skills still only cost 1 Skill Point, but would have multiple trees of pre-reqs so people can't rush for the best skills. Neat and tidy.

Ramza's Squire should be the template any playable Squire should be built on - I don't see where it's a Master class like "Hero" or the "* Wizards" from HoI. Also, note that I specifically refer to Master classes, not Awarded classes. My hate here is piled on Heroes, not Holy Knights.

The fact that Holy Sword was a skillset only available from membership in a specific faction is one of the most embarrassing things I argued for during V2 dev and I at this point regret it completely.

I'm glad you mentioned Move +1 vs Move +3, because it's retarded design to include all those skills in a game where there's no way for a character to gradually progress from +1 to +2 to +3. Plz let's not do that. In fact, can we just have Move +2 only and leave it at that?

@blizz: What players deserve is a coherent game that works 100%. If it doesn't act exactly according to their wants and expectations, it's their problem as long as the game system does what it needs to do. Crunch has to take precedence over fluff whenever there is a conflict, regardless of how many people expect Sword Saint to be an achievable class.

Again, I'm speaking exclusively of the Master classes, not the Awarded classes. Sword Saints, should they exist, would rightfully rock the face off any lesser class. What I'm saying is, it's bad design if you create a scenario where a guy can sign up 30 turns into the game as a Knight while every other Knight in the game is already an Archknight (or whatever the MC is for Kn). It's one thing for power to be gained with time and participation - that's the natural and proper course of things - but it's entirely another for people to show up and get roflstomped without there being a damn thing they can hope to do about it because their (base) class is inherently weaker than the classes that dominate the field (Masters).

It's like if this were a Fire Emblem sim, people were still signing up as Cavaliers while Paladins were the going standard. They'd be effed from "go."

The JP mechanic of FFT made sense for FFT's Job system. If you're gonna scrap the Job system, leaving the JP mechanic behind is just window dressing. No harm in keeping it, I suppose, but it's a little clunky compared to the most efficient design solution.

So, based upon that decision to not have player stats be equal, the only alternative is to RNG it at every level-up, and we're not doing that. Personality is personality. I don't know if you remember any of the 'rare' questions that were in the signup lineup, but some of them gave 100 gold just on the merit that they got the question and answered it correctly. Holy unfair ballsacks! 100 gold! That's not fair! +3 HP! Totally not fair! If you crit on a roll, that's also unfair. If you play Yahtzee, that's unfair. Settlers of Catan is unfair. Monopoly is unfair. Any game with any type of RNG used for any purpose whatsoever is going to have the 'unfair' aspect to it. Unless we remove RNG stuff entirely, it'll come up on occasion, but it's not a big enough deal that I care. The RNG usage will certainly ratchet down, and most everything will be standardized, with the exception of Evasion and the like. But wait! That's unfair! Can't have random chance-to-hit! Right?

Straw man. A more accurate comparison would be a game of Monopoly where your starting funds are determined by a die roll. Or if in Settlers, your starting number of tiles were determined by die roll. That would rightfully be decried as unfair. Fairness is everyone starting with the same positions, and your decisions influencing the outcomes from there.

If the Word of God here is that RNG at signup must remain, then so be it, but I caution against that affecting PA, MA, or Speed values.

Your example about balancing also doesn't seem to really apply either... The Squire getting lucky and knocking Balbanes out a window is not an example of game imbalance resulting in fun. That's really balance in action, because the Squire's thrown rock is CAPABLE of knocking Balbanes out the window. If Balbanes is such a hulking unstoppable death god that he laughs off rocks, that's the kind of imbalance that I say is bullshit.

[kablizzy]

I guess I'm just trying to wrap my head around this concept, it really doesn't make any sense to me. Like, the concept just confuses me further the more I try to read and respond. Maybe I'm just reading the things you're saying wrong lately, because what it sounds like you're saying is quantifiably kinda crazy. So I'll just kinda respond and we'll chunder through discussion as best we can.

You said specifically that the RNG has no place anywhere... Or did I read that wrong? And it never has affected PA, MA, or Speed values. So that's a non-issue.

Okay, so +100 Gold, that guy doesn't start on equal footing. He's 100 gold in the positive, just on chance. Cool. Let's say some other guy does a proposition and finds a Zodiac Stone as a result of a random roll. Is that unfair, then? What about another character who, by complete luck of the roll, gets 100 Gold a couple turns in? By what I'm gleaning from your post, there should never be any of that, ever, and instead... Stuff like that should be handed out on a staffer's whim? Because that is my concept of unfair.

At what cost, then, do we make things 100% fair to everyone in all cases, under all circumstances? Because if we're getting down to the point where we're nitpicking + / - 3 HP and calling it unfair and suggesting that we rework the whole system so that everyone necessarily starts, progresses, and ends on completely equal footing without ever having access to a bonus or boon or class or skill or ability that others don't, then what about PT results or crafting unique items, proposition rewards, gil bonuses, XP bonuses, fame, weapons, and so on? What about any aspect of the game at all? Because I just don't see a difference between a random roll at startup and a random roll one, two, five, twelve, twenty turns in that does the same thing.

The problem is that we're going to have people sign up 30 turns in. Because even if we don't have Master classes, everyone is going to be X number of levels ahead anyway. If we make each class conceptually Master-Class powered, they're still going to be that far behind. If your dude is 30 turns in and has invested that time in the game, I'd sure hope he's accumulated some cool stuff, whether that be classes, items, or whatever. Otherwise, there's no point to advancing a character whatsoever. The same goes for any type of progression. You class up, and you're better. I don't know a way around this. If you have a dude sign up 3 turns before another, that dude is going to be 3 turns better. If you give him Master-class abilities, and the other guy Master-class abilities, the dude with more Skill Points, JP, whatever, is going to be better at those things. You're just giving them the illusion of equal footing for the sake of 'balance' and wondering why the guy 3 levels behind can't compete anyway. Sure, he can save up some JP to buy the better abilities, but chances are, he's going to be saving for a while for those massive purchases, and losing out on some of the lesser utility abilities, and at a disadvantage there too. So, I don't understand what you want. It seems like change for the sake of change and fooling ourselves into believing that things are more balanced when they're just different.

Also, it seems like you're saying two opposite things - Fairness is starting out at the same place, and also fairness is starting out at the same place as a guy who's been playing for 10, 20, 30, 50 turns? Or is fairness eliminating the benefits of something unique, so all players have access to all things at all times? I just don't understand.

So, yes, we can potentially do away with Master and Awarded classes for the sake of 'fairness'. But there's not been anything said over the past ten years that's given me any concept that higher-tier classes are unfair, since if you level to 25 and take your Master Class, you've put the necessary time into it. By the same token, hitting a secondary class at level 10... would that be unfair? Solely on the fact that you need to be level 10 for it? If I'm understanding you, the answer to that is yes, because a lower level character doesn't have access to that? By that same token, having prerequisite classes like you described in the other thread (Ninja requires level 4 Mediator / Level 4 Geomancer) is also unfair? Because that's how I'm understanding things. None of this makes sense to me. If there were actually a problem, I think I'd be the first one to want to address it, wouldn't you? I just have a very difficult time understanding why some bonuses are unfair and why some are not (mostly because I compare them and they look the same), and more importantly, why it matters to the game as a whole. I know this isn't what you're putting forth, but it sounds like you want everyone to be perpetually at the same level with the same skillset and never gain any JP or XP or have any better armor or skills or anything. Because really, that's what Master / Awarded classes are - better skills. In addition, why are we going to pit a level 4 Knight against a level 33 Necromancer? 

I dunno. It's not as though once you get a Master class, you're automatically better than everything else. You still have to work and purchase the abilities, and those abilities should still be balanced via JP. If that class uses different equipment, you still have to buy the equipment for that class, you still have to progress in that path. You don't just automatically pop in with Shellbust Stab and win the game. Do you have an advantage as a result of being in the game longer and having more JP / XP accumulation? Yes. Do you have an advantage that no one else can get? No. Are you inherently better for having said progression? Yes. Can other characters progress to that point? Also yes. I suppose it just doesn't logic out for me.

Also, I hope you're genuinely not serious about only including Move +2, because that'll be assigned to a single class, and if you don't play that class, you don't Move +2. Unless you want it to be given to the generic skillset, in which case, what's the point? Let's just throw all the abilities in a single pool. Why does a player 'need' to progress? Why is that an absolute, unwavering necessity? From this, it does seem like you're saying that every class should be identical in every aspect so as not to give Lancers the ability to avoid damage by jumping or Time Mages to gain an advantage through casting spells, because no other class has access to those.

By the by, the balancing discussion for Squire v. Balbanes was supposed to be in terms of the RNG. If we don't have an RNG, then that Squire automatically has no chance of throwing a rock at Balbanes' face and knocking him out a window. Again, I may have read your comment on the RNG wrong, but if not, I've got no clue where you're coming from on that.

[Mordred]

Hee, "chunder." I like that word. :3

By "RNG has no place anywhere" I'm engaging in a bit of hyperbole. I mean, RNG has no place in character creation or level-up processes. RNG totally has a place in battle and suchlike.

The alternative to RNG and to staff fiat is consistent, predictable, known returns from predetermined actions. It's the difference between one "Train" action in a PT giving 5-50 XP, giving a number of XP determined by the guy who runs the PT, or a fixed 25 XP. The fixed 25 XP is most fair (because getting un/lucky in a PT does not require any merit on the player's part) and least staff-work-intensive.

People should get access to bonuses, boons, and other special features based on a series of choices they have made along a branching path. The destination doesn't need to be known to them in advance, but if everything is chaos, then even if the outcome is statistically evenly-distributed, the results won't reward players based on their merit. That's, I think, the essence of what I mean by "fair:" is the outcome substantially affected by a player's choice, such that players starting from the same place reach different destinations based on their own merits? If you're going to toss out stuff like giving uber-unique crafting results to people who didn't spend their entire character lifetime buffing up their smithing skills, you're not allocating outcomes based on merit, which strikes me as unfair.

Finding a plot coupon like a Zodiac Stone based on a random roll out of nowhere is also pretty crappy, IMO.

With those clarifications made, I think my objection to Master Classes is a little more clear: Master Classes have their skills built with a higher power level in mind, because if they weren't, there would be no point to taking them. If Master Classes aren't in play, a newly-minted character can rush for their class' power skills and have a chance to not die horribly immediately, but if Master Classes are involved, a new character has to finish their base class progression, however long that takes, before they can even hope to even play the same game as everyone else.

How are you going to catch up that far so late in the game, when the process of catching up is a very long one built inextricably into the system with no shortcuts? You're going to have to end up running two different games, one for the veterans and one for the newbs and rerolls. I don't know about you, but that sounds hard to me. HoI's way was just not to run a game for the newbs at all and cater exclusively to the veterans, which I guess is a solution.

Additionally, now that I think of it, a Master Class is basically a JP cap disguised as a class change... if I recall, you don't like JP caps, right?

[Schwerpunkt]

It was my understanding that the thus-far-agreed-upon sign-up process was going to be selecting a bunch of traits out of a hat and having that be your character. There wouldn't be any element of RNG there because every single choice the player makes results in a specific, set change to the character's final product. Have we changed our minds on this subject?

@schwer: In a fixed-class paradigm, replace JP measured in the hundreds with "Skill Points" measured in the single-digits (a la Diablo 2). Each level, get 1 Skill Point, spend as you like among options for which you meet prereqs. Top level skills still only cost 1 Skill Point, but would have multiple trees of pre-reqs so people can't rush for the best skills. Neat and tidy.

This prevents us from including skills that cost less than one skill point (which, with your system is valued at ~400 JP), prevents us from including skills that cost #50 JP, and prevents us from clearly establishing tiers of abilities without being forced to radically increase their cost (so the tier 3 abilities would each cost the equivalent of 1200 JP under this system). In order to work, we'd have to radically rework everything.

I don't see the gain there. There's nothing terribly complex about JP.

The fact that Holy Sword was a skillset only available from membership in a specific faction is one of the most embarrassing things I argued for during V2 dev and I at this point regret it completely.

That was you?

*shakes fist*








That said, I do agree that we need to do something to make rerolling your character suck less. HoI had you invest literally years into a character and, if that character died (or you got bored of it), you had to start back over from level 1. That's not fair and that especially makes character death extremely undesirable -- this, in turn, gives you a situation where specific players are either douchebags and make it a point to kill PCs or, failing that, PCs become ultra-cautious, to the point where they make McClellan look like Alexander the Great. I want PCs to be able to take a risk.

WotD's heir system, which Mord's indirectly referring to, neatly address these issues. It doesn't mend the fact that a character you love just caught a throwing axe with his teeth, but it does give you a much better position to restart from. Instead of being 30 turns back and stuck at level 0, you might only be 2 turns back (with the opportunity, then, to spend an entire mountain of accumulated JP and XP on an entirely new character build). Yeah, you get a few revenge characters, but on the whole it makes it less of a punishment if you die. Significantly moreso than what we'd have seen on HoI, where even signing up ten turns late was basically a death knell (interesting, despite being 8 turns late to last WotD, I still wound up as one of the top 20 or so lieutenants).

To put it bluntly: characters that cannot die (either for mechanical reasons or because of the way they're played) are characters that do not have tension or suspense. They're safe. They're boring. Let's avoid that shortfall. If a character appears on-screen in this game, they need to be killable. Yes, even Cid. And also Bob McPancakes, Lord-Commander of the Shrine Knights.

[kablizzy]

Mord: I think I get your beef with Master Classes a bit more, and if that's your only objection to them, then I'm not worried about Master Classes at all. There is certainly some room for addressing re-rolls and such. The funny thing is that we want characters to be killable, but when dying is a Game Over screen that you can't get past, there's not a lot of reconciling that. I'd love to hear more about the heir system, that sounds interesting.

And we're in agreement on most stuff here, especially signup stuff.

[Mordred]

May 1, 2013 7:20:06 GMT -6 Schwerpunkt said:

It was my understanding that the thus-far-agreed-upon sign-up process was going to be selecting a bunch of traits out of a hat and having that be your character. There wouldn't be any element of RNG there because every single choice the player makes results in a specific, set change to the character's final product. Have we changed our minds on this subject?

Oh, is that how it works? Well, as long as it's the same hat for everyone, consider my shits safely un-given.

There's nothing terribly complex about JP.

Big numbers are complex enough in and of themselves if there's going to be any manual calculation. But, I suppose most of what we're up to is predicated on the notion that there won't be, so...

WotD's heir system, which Mord's indirectly referring to

I DID NO SUCH THING

/me jumps out window

[Mordred]

May 1, 2013 19:38:52 GMT -6 kablizzy said:

Mord: I think I get your beef with Master Classes a bit more, and if that's your only objection to them, then I'm not worried about Master Classes at all. There is certainly some room for addressing re-rolls and such. The funny thing is that we want characters to be killable, but when dying is a Game Over screen that you can't get past, there's not a lot of reconciling that. I'd love to hear more about the heir system, that sounds interesting.

And we're in agreement on most stuff here, especially signup stuff.

www.simwotd.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7393

Ctrl+F for "Heirs." All shall be revealed. :3

[kablizzy]

That didn't actually clarify much for me, sorry. 

But I do like the idea, definitely. The concept that the work you put in carries over is cool, I don't want to have a dude level to 28, die, and have to start over, that'd suck.

[Mordred]

In a nutshell, the Heir system means that your next character gets all the material goods that your previous character accumulated.

For an adventure sim like this, it would make more sense for something like: you calculate all the XP and JP your character had, then appraise all of his owned items for their Gil buy value. Then your next character gets 80% of all of that.

The Heir system in WotD is accompanied by time bonuses to signup, where we calculated the expected rate of stat growth for a character doing PTs, then every turn gave starting characters about 60% of that just to begin with. Hence, a starting character is never left too far behind an advanced one.

[kablizzy]

Yup, that works pretty well. I like that a lot.

[Diethe]

Couple more suggestions for the awarded faction classes that lack some things:

Besrudio's Braves
Machinist (POJ): Ranged attacks with guns, abilities that apply Don't Move and Don't Act, and the ability to assemble a (weak) Steel Giant for a limited time. Further abilities grant the robot additional abilities.

Scholar: Another FF-sense class. Dunno.

Baert Trading Company
Corsair (POJ):
The Trading Company is basically a roguish high-seas sort of faction so why not a pirate class that probably uses crude guns (Or not). It'll be like the evil version of the Machinist, or at least a ranged ninja-like.

Corpse Brigade awarded classes
Ranger/Hunter/Sniper(POJ)
More powerful version of the archer. Makes sense, lest we forget Agincourt. It's one of the easiest, if not the only way commoners shine in battle.

Onion Knight
At least our balanced version of an onion knight. But yeah, it denotes being commoner...a bit?


There's also interesting classes like Valmafra's Witch of the Coven (Sorta like Morrigan from DA), Sage (A must-have for any FF, sort of like the master of all err...colors? Of magic?), the Parivir (Only unlockable if your race was exotic) and Beastmaster. Are we having red mages as basics?

[Mordred]

May 2, 2013 11:36:56 GMT -6 Diethe said:

Corpse Brigade awarded classes
Ranger/Hunter/Sniper(POJ)
More powerful version of the archer. Makes sense, lest we forget Agincourt. It's one of the easiest, if not the only way commoners shine in battle.

This is exactly the wrong way to go about designing classes of any kind. Prestige classes should not just be buffed up reskins of basic classes designed to make certain basic classes utterly irrelevant.

[Schwerpunkt]

I'd be more concerned about the Sniper running afoul of the Machinist, since the Machinist is probably going to get the Leg Aim skills and stuff. Plus I was thinking maybe adding a miniature Steel Giant as a pet.

The other Braves class, by the way, is CYBORG! (it really needs a new name). Basically, the guy in question starts grafting Worker 8-esque components onto his body and becomes like a (less ridiculously invulnerable) Steel Giant.

Corsair I was kind of hoping would be a master class for the POJs. A shotgun-wielding Thief, maybe.

I think it's a bit early to be trying to figure out prestige classes when we haven't even finished the POJ tree, though.