KOFF'S PROFILE

Personally I think I like the Chrono Trigger approach where half the team has good healing spells, and everyone can use at least a small amount of healing/defense. That gives the player enough real options that they don't feel boxed into any one setup. And if you combine that with bosses that punish excessive turtling, then the player doesn't feel compelled to make a team that has all the healers.

I don't really think the FF9 method (two of your eight characters are great healers, a third one can become a good healer extremely late in the game, no one else can heal at all) is satisfactory. I'm not actually sure what I dislike about it. Maybe it was just that the two main healers were extremely similar and so it didn't really feel like a meaningful party choice. But somehow I feel like giving everyone the ability to heal is a good idea.

I like the Chrono Trigger approach, too, more than any other approach for a choose-your-own-party game, because of how much flexibility it gives you. If you want the burden of healing to fall entirely on one character, you can do that. If you'd rather have multiple characters split the load, you can do that too. If you're really worried, you can have a dedicated healer AND two supplementary ones - or you can have none at all and just go all-out on offense. It gives the player the fullest degree of freedom in delegating the roles in his party, allowing him to play however he pleases. Also, since healing is a situational consideration (unlike attacking, which is always necessary), a typical i cast cure and that's about it white mage finds herself with nothing useful to do 75% of the time, which, as we all know, is boring. CT clearly avoids this by having complex and versatile healers who do more than just cure - even Marle, whose offensive options all suck iirc, can still augment the party's damage output by way of her dual techs, and thus finds herself with a use even outside of healing-intensive boss battles.

The FF9 method, on the other hand, pales because it only gives you one option: entrust all the healing duties to a single character. Even though you get two different white mages, the division of labor is the same - one person heals full-time, the other three dish out the damage. There is only one play style. And unlike in Chrono Trigger, FF9's healers couldn't do much besides restore HP. Their summons were mediocre at best, largely inhibited by low damage/cost ratios, and their support spells were, of course, of little value in regular encounters. Thus if you wanted any substantial healing on your team at all, you had no choice but to carry around the dead weight of a situational character. Ultimately I think I picked Eiko since, late in the game, Holy and Half MP gave her something handy to do between Curagas.

Giving everyone the ability to heal is not a bad idea, I think, but you have to be careful about how you do it. If healing is too widely available, it ceases to be a consideration for the party-building process, which means that choosing your team is a more simplistic, less meaningful task. This is especially true of games like FF6, wherein any character can cast the best heal spells at relatively little cost (as opposed to, say, FF5, wherein the privilege of White Magic will cost you a precious ability slot). Restorative spells are so abundant and accessible in that game that the player, in picking his teammates, need never worry about who exactly is gonna keep his party alive. It's luxurious, sure, but it detracts from the diversity of the cast, the importance of party-building, and the challenge of the game. Frankly I'd avoid either extreme (the other being the dedicated healer) and stick to either the Chrono Trigger model (limited healing distributed between characters in different amounts) or the FF5 model (unlimited healing, but at the cost of other abilities).

If the dedicated healer (or any dedicated character at all, I suppose it could be said) has any place at all, I think it's in games like FF4 wherein you have no choice over who's in your party, or like FFX wherein every character is situationally useful and you are expected to employ each of them as circumstances dictate. In either case, you aren't punished for not using the healer because you can't not use the healer; they're always technically in your party.

edit:

Why waste someone who does healing and damage equally on just healing, when you have someone who can heal much better than they can do damage, if they aren't going to be damaging anyways?

One thing I disliked was that white mages in FFT had access to holy. An attempt to diversify the role perhaps, but it was one of the strongest attacks it the game and hit the final boss for maximum damage. I'd rather be punished on the offensive end than have a role that does everything.

Mm, I take back what I said about dedicated healers not having a place in choose-your-own-party RPGs. I sat in on my friend's economics class and her professor was actually saying something along these lines. I forget all of his fancy economic terminology, but what I gleaned from him is that, for instance, a White Mage with Holy makes a worse healer than one without it, since for the former to cast a recovery spell, he has to give up all that damage that Holy would have done. The Holy-less mage's cure spell is relatively much cheaper, since he doesn't have to give up nearly as much.

So I guess the idea behind the dedicated caster is not just that their healing is stronger than that of any other character's, but also relatively cheaper. Any character who opts to heal instead of attack chooses to sacrifice damage for health; dedicated healers merely have the benefit of the best exchange rate.

Uh, I don't really know where I'm going with this, now. Guess I'm just musing. Hm.

damn, i was afraid of that. i guess i'll have to find a way to make this work without mp regeneration... or maybe with regeneration but without caps. hmm!

thank you kindly for the prompt and thorough response! o/

h-how dare you post dkc2 and omit mining melancholy, what blasphemy is this :<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70jMX8qK7dY

and while we're on the topic of melancholy mines, let's throw this haunting gemstone on the pile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRCXjDQeHnU (final fantasy: crystal chronicles - in the gloomy darkness)

author=Jericho
valestein castle

oh god, i can't believe i forgot about ys3, that game is nothing but wicked dungeon themes. i prefer the snes version myself (i am not partial to electric guitars) but you have won my love just the same

a few of my favorites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyFr_HSbdnc (clock tower)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_YdtsAr-_g&feature=related (eldam mountains)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4udktU6rgMA (lava pit)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_NT0DyllDk&feature=related (outside of area)

apologies for the hold-up
frankly i blame k-hos!

2. The cop now needs to spend a night investigating you instead of a potential witch.

that's silly, why should the cop do that? no witch would be dumb enough to claim that role. as long kitsune's partner confirms him and nobody tries to counter-claim, there's no good reason to believe he's scum. investigation was never part of the plan.

edit: i agree with the post below.