DOOMED2DIE'S PROFILE

author=JosephSeraph

author=doomed2die
I was just saying that there are a lot of commonly seen archetypes that should be obvious beyond the warrior/mage/cleric trio that we should address.

Your classes basically end up being that, albeit mix'n matched.
For example paladin is just warrior + cleric. I see no innovation there. Also no need to adress overdone classes because they're already overdone. Unless, of course, you intend to change them in a meaningful way.

Yep, misinterpretations.


But on the point of the Paladin Class, I beg to differ. Paladins sacrifice offense for defense and they can tank on behalf of allies, not typical of the warrior class. On top of that, the versatility of a mixed class is meaningful. Often times, games would be excruciating without the backup of a "white mage" class. This averts that pain by giving you alternative options with, what I see as, meaningful gameplay differences.

Also, "attack" skill subsets generally re boring and frustrating. Attack is cool because it's reliable. Don't make it unreliable, just make the skillsets actually interesting.

Depends on execution really. I wouldn't nix an idea just because you've seen it poorly executed as opposed to well executed. It's really not that different from a game where "Attack" doesn't exist as a command only skills are available. The ideas I gave, were again, sort of just proving the point. There are other attack ideas available that I'm just not getting into.

I see your intentions but you're doing it wrong. These classes aren't fun and they're poorly balanced.
If the thief's higher SPD gives him actual extra turns then he might begin to become useful...

Again, interested in how. I mean, there are a lot of factors that go into balance too. Who are your enemies and their skillsets? How much do which stats affect what? It'd be pretty ahrd to say a concept is inherently overpowered (short of like invulnerability, instant death too easily, etc.)

author=LockeZ
Well, the reason no one was listing very commonly seen archetypes was probably because they are very commonly seen. Ten classes at once is way too many to respond to with any sort of intelligent reply anyway, so I'll just give feedback on two of them.

I was just saying that there are a lot of commonly seen archetypes that should be obvious beyond the warrior/mage/cleric trio that we should address.

Your thief class has no rhythm, and isn't very good at what it does. You gain the ability to steal exp in exchange for losing the ability to actually get strong after gaining exp; lame. Then it steals MP but can't use MP. Stealing items and equipment makes more sense, because you're sacrificing the ability for the thief to do anything useful now in exchange for gaining the ability for all your characters to be better later. It has some punch when you steal equipment, but the rest of the class doesn't seem to have much to do with that punch. By punch I don't mean offensive power; I just mean something that makes you think "Hey, cool, that was useful, this class is good for something." And what I mean by rhythm is to give it some buildup and tension to get to that punch point, or at least give it some control over when it happens and make sure different things are happening on different rounds that lead into each-other. So overall it's not bad but there are better ways to make a thief; try either building on the true purpose of the class (sacrificing short-term power for long-term gain) or figuring out what the point of the other abilities is and making them more interesting, and I think it'll be more fun.

I agree. I almost wanted to give him/her the ability to steal health and stats (for the duration of a battle) and sort of weaken enemies and empower himself and then just wreck for the last couple turns of a battle but I felt that it seemed to vampiric in nature and that it was just either overpowered or meh overall in concept but typically a thief class is just massively useful for the long term game. I just tried to give him some utility beyond that. You'll notice thieves with minimum battle power still get used frequently (FF V, Disgaea, etc.)

Meanwhile spellsword is a ridiculously shitty and boring class, all it will ever do is normal attacks. Ugh. Just delete this one, and move its three meaningful skills to another class. No one will miss it.

Yeah I know the class has a lot of monotonous aspects to it. Personally, I've never been a fan of the "Attack" command aspect; I always said if I ever got around to making an RPG, the "attack" command would be replaced by an "Attack" skill sub-set (double strike, quick strike, heavy strike, jump attack, etc.) that all do different things or have stat variations useful against different enemies and/or for different purposes (for example, doublestrike would be extremely useful for the spellsword but quick strike might be necessary against agile enemies. Maybe you want to try the heavy strike and take 'em out in one turn but you'll likely miss... So forth). Which is where the class would be less monotonous (but still relatively monotonous compared to individuals with the attack subskillset on top of the class skillsets). But I think there's a lot of potential and while I focused on elemental attacks, there's a lot more that can be done (steal health, steal mana, deal aoe damage, chain lightning, fire damage over time, etc.) that I probably should've addressed instead but I was focused on showing the sort of variety there are to classes and kind of did quantity over quality.

But I'd like to point out that overall, the classes are unique unto themselves and most of them would serve quite a useful battle purpose (maybe warlocks would be iffy to balance with bosses and summoners need a task to do once they've summoned but I mean, no class is going to please everyone).

For example, look at the Assassin class; they deal massive single target based on Speed and Strength. In an ATB combat form, they'd be immensely more powerful (might need to nerf damage to compensate). In a regular turn based combat form, they'd always attack first; maybe clear out an enemy before they attack and manage to deal massive single target damage to bosses.

Or conversely, the paladin which can heal his allies (not very well), attack (not very well), and tank on behalf of his allies. He's able to serve multiple purposes (mediocre physical attacks, healing and buffing...) if you want "punch." A very defensive class which focuses on protecting squishier damage dealers (obviously stat balancing on those characters has to change to compensate). But the design is overall, a defensive master that isn't completely worthless offensively (unlike the Cleric).

author=Craze
has there ever been a game where having more than four damage elements was meaningful or worthwhile or anything other than fucking stupid

(FINAL FANTASY VI/FINAL FANTASY TACTICS*: HALLMARKS OF shitty GAME DESIGN)


*fft only has a few elements but its classes are about as interesting/useless as doomed2die's

Meh I was just really addressing elements overall.

I have to wonder about the classes being "useless" and uninteresting though. Why say that? How would you approach it differently really?

It's interesting because I really liked FFVI and FFT. And FFVI really had about 5 elements (physical, water, ice, fire, lightning). I also like SMT gameplay (never played one full through admittedly but mostly because I have never owned one) which apparently you liked and some of the ideas are arguably derived from some of the gameplay designs of both types.










Reasoning behind classes then:
Thief- Just an archetype I felt needed addressing; not much rhyme or reason put into the design. Like I said, I considered making someone capabale of stealing even health and stats (stats probably temporarily or for the duration of the battle) so that he weakens enemies and strengthens himself to do more towards the end of prolonged battles. But I felt that might be overpowered in nature and/or too much outside the design philosophy of a thief, being that a thief is designed to do little in the battle but contribute the battle preparation (with the new items they get you). I may be misinterepting the design philosophy though.

Warlock- An archetype of just assailing enemies with status ailments; I added nightmare (and wanted to add more variations of utilizing pre-inflicted enemies but didn't want to overuse the concept) so that they do more once these status ailments are inflicted. Also, by weakening enemies, they naturally contribute to both the defense and offense of the team but in exchange, they can't do any direct damage nor can they help allies directly (healing, buffs). This time, I wanted to show the potential diversity of the Warlock class's status ailments but didn't add more gameplay skills into it. Which I could but whatever; I feel nightmare displays a bit of the design philosphy behind that adequately.

Paladin- Sort of the ultimate defensive character. He can heal and buff (albeit mediocre) and can physically attack decently (but doesn't really excel at it). But his real use lies in the fact that he can defend his allies (which means powerful offensive characters that die in 2 hits are actually viable, however you may want them). Paladins also would go greatly in a battle of attrition (warlocks).

Bard- A sort of mix between cleric and warlock. You'll notice he's 1 of 2 classes that can heal energy for allies, which gives him a niche role. He can also heal (not very well) but buffs and debuffs all enemies/allies which makes him pretty useful to keep around. I suppose his biggest strength would be his minimal resource use (which I imagine he would use very little energy) and his versatility in switching between offense and defense.

Blue Mage- Another jack of all trades type; didn't bother making skills for it because they could really be any skills. Just felt we ought mention it.

Assassin- Makes the best use of single target offense; definitely a character I'd have in aboss fight. Dismal multi-target power but since he moves first (high high speed), he could take out an enemy (potentially) before they attack you.

Spellsword- A versatile class in elements; again, it really only isn't monotonous when "attack" isn't an Attack command but a skill subset.

Alchemist- Sort of an opportunity for alternate resource development. Again, 1 of 2 classes that can heal MP. He's pretty versatile and does a lot but requires quite a bit of money to maintain. Of course, the skills would be well worth it, especially healing MP for all allies and dealing such good damage.

Summoner- I like the idea of summoning allies; I always preferred that to the FF style of summons being essentially pumped up black magic. I think summons serve multiple purposes (tanks like Phoenix and Goblins can help greatly in boss battle when they're targeted instead of your allies. They can deal great damage like the Dragon or just support your team with fairies and imps). And the ability to switch out between summons depending on the fight is sort of a pokemon deal. The main design flaw here being that once they summon, they're worthless until you want to change summons. I ought fix that somehow.


Sage- This is a weird design choice, allowing someone to cast both lines of spells. I'd probably cap it at like lvl 8 spells out of 10 lvls of spells (arbtirary numbers, proving a point, don't quote me on it). However, the dismal stats beyond magic and the dismal resource pool balance it out some and having to decide, each turn, between supporting your team or decimating your enemies is a big choice, especially since both time and MP are being burned up quickly. Double cast averts one of those flaws a bit but then you're burning MP twice as fast which helps to balance out the ideas. Also, this means you can have less slots to fill with casters and other classes.

So there, design motivations.

The problem with the aforementioned method being that an individual who passes through the boss fight without using the desired mechanic has learned nothing of the mechanic, and therefore, has gained no direction.

Each and every method has issues

-Box Popups: Can be boring, and even a little patronizing but can give the most information without too much of a hassle

-Video Tutorials: Can take too long but manages to add a more aesthetically appealing element to your tutorial.

-Grayoutalltheoptions Tutorial: Forces you to manually utilize the mechanic and discover its properties but can fail to convey the full of the information and takes away any sense of player control

-Forceyoutousetheoption Tutorial: It's merely hiding the fact thatyou're robbing the player of control...


It doesn't matter how you do anything; there are pros and cons. I personally think that the Text Popups are the best for games I play; I'm a fast reader and going through pointless battles and videos to learn mechanics seems unnecessarily long to me. But that may not apply to everyone.

I would love for this to somehow be continued... :( Like Adon said, maybe a team. :(

FFV is probably my favorite (or at least up there in the top 5) RPG's of all time; I'm going to be sad to see what was a very promising fan game go... Well, best of luck in whatever future endeavors!

This is a really nice guide. I've been trying to get myself to learn Ruby for a while now, and this might be just what I need.

However, speaking as another Object Oriented Programmer, I think you could've went over methods a bit more. Like talk about how every object has behaviors which we call methods. These methods illustrate certain actions. In this case, animals breathe. Or something because I know after tutoring this stuff that the concept of classes and methods is one of the hardest things to understand apparently.

Also, you might want to get into algorithms and specific procedures a little if you really want to talk about object oriented, or any sort of imperative, programming. You kind of comment over stuff but being specific is so vital to coding....