Officially Unofficial Ideas

Admin Posts : 9 Join date : 2008-01-07 Age : 34

The Officially Unofficial list of things to be added, removed, or otherwise changed. Feel free to ask questions and add comments. That's what this is here for.

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MAPPING:

MONSTERS:

CLASSES:

ITEMS:

OTHER:

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In depth about Classes

Most of the ++ classes are broken right now. What that means is that they're much more powerful than their normal counterparts. 'Broken' is gamers-terms for game-breaking. Digression aside, they should rightfully be a little better than normal classes, especially after the work you have to put into unlocking them. But I think most of the classes need some degree of balancing.

So, by class. Normal ones first.
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Dark Knight
Changes:

Tweak Dark Wave to make sure it does solid damage to all targets (no damage spread).
Summary: Ahh, the infamous Dark Knight. The class 70% of FFL's population plays. Nothing much to say here; the class is good to go as long as players have a reason to attack regularly every now and then.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>This class is fine as indicated above. Ultimately, it's an easy class for beginners with its ability to solo through most of the game via Dark Wave and endless potions, but later on it loses ground to some of the other classes in terms of efficiency. (Ex., Mature Caller's summons will blow Dark Wave's damage out of the water at later levels) So I feel it is balanced.
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Paladin
Changes:

None yet.
Summary: Class is fine the way it is, for now. Only changes may be minor stat tweaks and additions of the ability to use specific equipment (certain Knight Swords).
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>The same. This class has a good deal of defense, offense, and hit points by endgame, and though most of its White Magic is pointless, it at least gives it a little variety. Plus, Exit is handy as fuck when you don't want to run back through a dungeon after beating a boss.
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Dragoon
Changes:

Evade boost while jumping. It will be very possible to hit them, just harder to do so.
Summary: Not much to say here. The evasiveness is bound to glitch, but I'm willing to give it a good try.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>I can't really say much here since I was never a big Dragoon fan, but it does seem like Jump was always a bitch to program correctly. Otherwise, they're the bigger melee class with having no magic whatsoever, and maybe we could even go so far as to boost spears' damage a little to compensate for it.
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White Mage
Changes:

Summary: The only complaint I've ever had about White Mages is how powerful Prayer is. With a chance to fail like in the original game, though not as frequent as failure was in the original, it's significantly less useful. Also, they're not as useful as they should be due to Sages and Lunarians, so they get Cure 4. It's been pointed out to me twice that Cure 4 was in the game, but nobody ever used it because nothing above Cure 3 was necessary. So there will probably be some rebalancing of the spells. I'm thinking about some kind of white magic equivalent to Meteo, as well. I like Jace's 'Fade' idea below, but don't care for the spell name. Damn Squaresoft's lack of creativity.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>The ideas above are pretty dead-on, though I can't help but feel like Cure4 is already in there. Huh, maybe I'm imagining things. Anyway, in regards to the White Magic equivalent of Meteo, we could always just go the clichè route and make one titled 'Holy2'. Holy, but hits all enemies? Or if we wanted to go back to roots, the White Mage in Final Fantasy 1 had a white spell that hit all enemies (not just undead) called 'Fade'.
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Young Caller
Changes:

Summary: Not a terribly useful class in the first place. If it does exist, it won't be allowed to learn all of the summons and will be very limited in White and Black magic. It's not supposed to be powerful, and there really isn't anything I can do to make the class special except make it faster and more evasive or add summons that only Young Caller gets.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>My suggestion for this class is divided, but I do agree with the idea of boosting its speed and evasiveness at least. I don't really want to remove it entirely though, but we could always just make it so that its an optional class that has to be unlocked elsewhere or something. But anyway, maybe we could do some switching around of summons, like taking away the minor ones (Bomb, Imp, Flayer, but not Chocobo [its a staple]) from the Mature Caller and giving them to the Young only, and maybe just give it 'Red Mage' qualities in terms of spells. Typically, Young Caller can only learn the first three white spells, and all of the black, but if we give it a moderate amount of white and black, and maybe stave off its ability to learn summons after a certain one (I'm thinking Titan would be a good one to end at), it feels at least somewhat variable in its abilities, while not being too high in any one thing. And if nothing else, people are always looking for someone with Teleport, so they don't have to walk the world to get everywhere.
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Mature Caller
Changes:

Summary: Sylph is overpowered when it can do 9999 damage and heal for half that, percentage based or not. The thing is, that's not terribly useful in PVP due to opponents having only 9999 HP max. Learnable summons makes sense, but I get the feeling that it may piss some people off. Questionable on both fronts. Meteo and Flare removed so there's more reason to play Sages and Lunarians.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>I agree with limiting Sylph's damage and drain effects, though maybe it could be elevated to just a slightly higher degree than was in the latest FFL release (Unoriginal-whatever-his-name-was). Removal of Meteo and Flare is also a good idea, since her focus should be of summoning, not black magic. And I've added suggested places where summons can be learned in my Timeline revision, too, such as the Magus Sisters and Calbrena. Maybe we could even leave Bahamut in as a learn-by- level summon, and have Bahamut Zero (FF7) learned upon beating him in Bahamut's cave on the moon.
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Black Twin
Changes:

Summary: The only real use in the Black Twin will be to boost the use of a White Twin. In this way, the Twins support one another. Comet should make up for lack of Meteo.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>The Twins might take some thought as far as editing goes, but my suggestions are that maybe Twin can still be used even without the correspondingly-colored accomplice in the party, at a penalty of reduced damage or maybe even higher casting time. This is just because if a Twin can't use their namesake abilities, nobody's ever going to want to play one if it doesn't seem like there's always one of the other on to group with. I also feel that Comet should be solid damage instead of spread out, because it seems really silly not to; it was in FF4, and it really ought to be in here, too. The removal of Meteo and Flare is also a good idea, as is the idea for new Twin abilities and some of the spells not currently implemented.
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White Twin
Changes:

Summary: The only real use in the White Twin will be to boost the use of a Black Twin. In this way, the Twins support one another. Light should make up for lack of Holy.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>Most of what I said in the class above applies here, too. There was also a spell that White spellcasters never received due to its pointlessness and silliness, too; "Mini". It would follow-through on the suggestion of giving Black twin "Piggy" and "Toad".
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Admin Posts : 9 Join date : 2008-01-07 Age : 34

Sage
Changes:

Summary: As far as the story goes, Sage should have less MP than a Lunarian. In fact, I toyed with the idea of giving them a low MP cap. But the idea is to make the player have a reason to play a Sage. As far as what Jace says about Cure 4 and Meteo, I've got a sort of lopsided agreement. Meteo was a forbidden magic anyway. More detail in next class summary.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>I agree with most of this, though I would think it more sensical if it wound up not being able to learn Meteo instead of Cure4, maybe even base it on some lore of how Tellah killed himself with it, and thus it became forbidden amidst the further generations of sages on down the line.
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Lunarian
Changes:

Summary: As far as the story goes, Lunarian should have more MP than a Sage. The reason I'd want to weaken the Lunarian is to give players a reason to play a Sage. It's for variability because they're pretty much the same class. It's either that or you start messing with the spells they both get. Now, my agreement with Jace is on how one of the two classes should be focused on defensive spells instead of offensive spells. It seems to make more sense to me the opposite of the way he stated it, though. Lunarians, or at least the guy the class is based on (FuSoYa), seemed to be the type of people to focus more on defensive and supporting spells. On the other hand, Lunarians are played out, as far as I understand, to be more powerful beings than vanilla Earthlings. So they should rightly have more MP than the Sage class and probably be able to use more spells, on all levels, than the Sage. Unless someone can come up with a good reason for me to tone down the Lunarian (we can always come up with some bullshit in the story about Lunarians growing weaker somehow), I'm actually leaning toward making this a special, unlockable class. I'd still like to have a reason to play Sage over Lunarian even in that event, but we can't have everything we want.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>The same with the class above, except remove its ability to learn Cure4 and give it Meteo instead. Giving it less HP and MP than a sage also kind of gives it an idea that Lunarians are slightly more fragile physically than Earthlings and thus attributes to that state, but have more of an attunement to destructive magic, being able to learn Meteo and all. Or, you know, something.
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Ninja
Changes:

Summary: Just minor tweaks to the Ninja. It's all ready pretty balanced.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>'Nuff said. Just boost the Ninjitsu spell line a bit in terms of damage, and it should be well enough. The only major complaint anyone really had with this class was its Throw command that was never implemented.
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Monk
Changes:

Summary: Claws will give attack multiplyers, most likely, as opposed to actually boosting attack. That way it's not too far-fetched. As far as kick.. I'm still working on that one. I approve of Jace's idea, make it stronger (like Dark Wave) but make it take longer to charge.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>Agreed. I like the idea of claws just giving attack multipliers instead of outright damage itself. We could take kick down the line that Dark Wave's damage follows, maybe, except giving it a slightly longer "waiting-to-use" time to make up for the fact that it doesn't damage the user.
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Bard
Changes:

None yet.
Summary: I'm debating the existance of the old Sound Wave ability, only I plan on making it do minimal damage and inflict random status effects on the enemies or something. Also, I'm thinking it will have to be learned by an NPC instead of leveling.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>I really don't have much to say on this one. I don't know anything about the old abilities, and I had even less interest in this class than Dragoon. I guess I'll leave this class up to Ferios to tweak as he sees fit.
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Engineer
Changes:

Able to use some of their weapons as items, like the Earth Wrench.
Summary: The only thing I can really do to these guys is give them weapons that can be used to produce magic effects. Otherwise, the only reason to play them is their 9999 HP and decent attack. About Jace's suggestions, I do like the Use command idea. I'm also ecstatic about the Tools idea. My only qualm with Tools is that this is FFIV. While we've talked about putting in summons and other spells that didn't rightly exist in FFIV, whole abilities from other games is something I don't really want to use in a class that existed from that time. So, for now, I'd rather save Tools for a special class.
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<(-=Jace's Suggestion/Quip=-)>I like this idea, yes. 9999 HP + Heavy Defense/Offense or not, this is an extremely boring class to play with only 'Peep' as an extra ability to utilize. So, what we COULD do it give it an ability to 'use' an item and have it do whatever effect it inherently has (not the same as using an item via the 'Item' command, obviously), OR, we give it a 'Tool' command, and drag it down the Edgar-from-FF6 line. I think that's a really neat idea, myself, and would give people a LOT of incentive to play this class.
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And now ++ Classes.

Swordmaster
Changes:

Summary: To be honest, I fell in love with this class the way it is now. Unfortunately, the class doesn't make much sense that way. Most of it's Magic Sword abilities are useless. There's a reason for that, though. It isn't a Magic Knight, so it's not focused on honing their skills. It also has Dark Wave. Why? Because it's supposed to be a combination class, right? There doesn't seem to be much point in that if it sucks at both abilities. The real reason the Swordmaster was awesome was the Holy Sword skills it had, the ones that were taken from Holy Knights in FFTactics. But that doesn't really make sense for the class either, does it? There are lots of ways this class can go. It could have Dark Wave and Light Wave, with Dark Wave obviously being stronger but Light Wave draining HP. Or it could have Holy Knight and Magic Knight moves, with an emphasis on neither. Or it could have Cyan's skills (Dispatch, Slash, etc) from FF6.

Lunar Knight
Changes:

Tone down all of it's skills.
Summary: This is another cool class. It's also one of the most broken classes. Not only is it freaking fantastic in parties, it's abilities allow it to solo anything that doesn't have a 9999-damage instant death move. It's a walking Inn, being able to fully restore HP and MP of all party members. Ridiculous. It hurts me a lot to tone it down, but it's really too powerful to leave this way.

Ancient Caller
Changes:

Summary: This class will essentially be changed so that it's the switch-side of a Mature Caller, with White instead of Black. White is limited slightly just like Mature Caller's Black. I'd still call them more useful than a Mature Caller, but now there's reason to play one over the other.

Fiend
Changes: [list]Make sure they take more damage from Ice spells.[list]
Summary: I consider Fiend a sort of upgraded Ninja. They keep their dual katana equips, get Scorch instead of Throw and Black Magic instead of Ninjitsu. Scorch does SPREAD damage. Also, they absorb fire, so they can cast Fire 1, 2, or 3 on themselves to heal. I see no immediate reason to change them, unless to make them only use magic of the Fire element.

Black Knight
Changes:

Add a new Black Summon, Calbrena. It only makes sense.
Summary: Their class-specific summons are very powerful, but they don't have very much MP and are average on attack power and whatnot. I think they're supposed to be the true opposite of the Paladin class, and I see no reason to change them immediately. If I make a Necromancer or Dark Caller class, then they'll lose their summons and be cut back to low black magic, making them useless like the Paladin. Not sure if people would like that or not. Frankly, I argue that an evil Rydia would be hawt.

Hero
Changes:

Summary: He can do anything. The hero would be a badass if he was actually good at any one thing. He has all White and Black, yes, but he gets the most powerful spells really late (95+), sucks at actually dealing magic damage, and doesn't even have much MP. He also isn't great at attacking or defending, though he can use almost any equipment (allowing for partial specialization by utilizing equipment with stat bonuses), and he's only got average HP.

Crusader
Changes:

Summary: Just adding new equipment and making sure they're named Crusader. Nothing else to say about them; they should be just as balanced as a Dark Knight.

Magic Knight
Changes:

Summary: Nothing much to say about them. They're Paladins, statwise, with the ability to hit a little harder due to their Sword spells. I never liked this class. It's existance is debatable.

Dragooness
Changes:

Removal of this class OR Lance ability from FFV (I believe).
Summary: Someone pointed out that this class should have Lance, but I did play it before and it had Attack, Jump, Parry, and Item. Anyway, with that setup, it makes for a useless class. But with the HP/MP drain of Lance, which may or may not spread across the party, they would be much more formidable.
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Extra Class Ideas

Dark Caller
Abilities: Attack, Black, Summon, Item.
Summary: Essentially just the Mature Caller class with the dark summons from the Black Knight class and perhaps the ability to cast Flare and Meteo. Faster than Mature Caller, stronger physical and magical attacks, but less physical and magical defense. Slightly better HP gain and slightly worse MP gain than Mature Caller.

Red Mage
Abilities: Attack, White, Black, Red, Item.
Summary: In order to make them more than a Sage/Lunarian, they also have Red magic which contains a lot of enemy spells. It should be called Blue magic by Final Fantasy's records. Why Red Mage instead of Blue Mage? The answer is simple. The pimp hat.

Princess
Abilities: Attack, White, Black, Blue, Item.
Summary: If the Red Mage flops, this is my counter. She's supposed to be Sara from Final Fantasy III, and I haven't really thought it through much more than that. Limited White and Black due to focusing on Blue. Blue spells will be stronger than regular Black ones, but also cost more.

Crystalmancer
Abilities: Attack, Crystal, Item.
Summary: Crystal magic. It's Culex from Super Mario RPG. All of his spells (most of which will be custom because he didn't do anything fancy in Super Mario RPG) will require a catalyst, which will make him a pain in the ass to script if I decide to bother. Inferno, Blizzard, Tornado, and Earthquake will be some of his spells. The latter two are subject to change since they already exist, I was just trying to come up with natural disaster-type names for each of the crystals' elements.

There's also an unfinished class in the source called a Card Mage. I haven't looked into it yet, it was just pointed out to me.

Extra dungeon ideas:
The only one I've really concieved beyond the GBA dungeons is the Crystal Labyrinth. This is supposed to contain the other FFIV bosses you don't have to fight along the story in FFL, such as Zeromus. It would also contain bosses from other games, like Kefka. The Crystalmancer class will also be unlocked at the end of this dungeon, provided you can defeat Culex himself. If I decide I don't like the class, Culex will still be there to provide gold, perhaps a key crafting item, and bragging rights.

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Posts : 2 Join date : 2008-01-07 Age : 35

My take on the starting classes thus far (I'll get to the ++ soon):

1. Dark Knight: It's fine as is, aside from the tweak. Damage spread made it so that it wasn't worth it as a DK, but with solid damage as well. Might look into the FFIVDS DK ability of "Darkness", which gave the DK an attack boost for the battle at the cost of life (not sure on specifics). Otherwise, fine as is.

2. Paladin: He's fine. Doesn't need a multi-target attack because of his insane stats. All-around good class. I'd keep him the way he is, or maybe change his White Magic to give him a couple more of the very weak White Magic spells.

3. Dragoon: Even though the classic Dragoon has always been one to practically molest a target from a distance with a nigh-unavoidable attack that makes him unhittable while doing so, I feel that when it comes to solo'ing as one, he fails in comparison to other classes. Jump is nothing more than the command Uber Fight, and it makes the class boring. When you break it down to the other physical classes, Dark Knight has the multi-hit Dwave, Paladin has the ability to Cover and minor White Magic, Monks have their nifty x2 attack, x2 def and multi-hit abilities, Bards have Sing and Medicine, and Engineers fuck their stats hard (plus the proposed tools). I would say "He's good with a 1-target attack since he's powerful like that", but the other classes that only HAVE 1-target attacks get a plethora of other fun abilities (Sing/Medicine/White Magic/Cover/Scan/Tools) to make up for it. It at the very LEAST adds some variety even if you never use those abilities.

I'm not sure what to suggest for a multi-target attack or set of attacks though. Giving him a JumpAll command would just make the Dragoon even more of a monster than it already is when it comes to the Evade&Damage meter. If we take a look at other Dragoons, abilities like Lancet (variable HP&MP absorption) and Breath attacks come in. Having "Thunder Breath" from Kain sounds fucking weird and might introduce the concept of giving a Dragoon MP, but it's not as far-fetched as it sounds. They could have a low MP period, get their Breath (elemental most likely) few and far between, and the damage could be based off their physical attack power, still making them a Melee class, but giving them all-hitting weak-to-medium damaging elemental attacks. Plus, it'd give them a reason for Lancet. Sure, 50 to 150 HP when you have 5000+ isn't that much, but when your MAX MP is like 50 - 150 at high levels, leeching that much makes it effective. (lol giant wall of text)

4. White Mage: Prayer is too powerful in the context that it always works and it's relevant to your level. You never needed to use the Cure spells due to Prayer (which is a drastic contrast to the game, where Prayer sucked and even at high levels did as much as a Cure1). Making it miss half the time, but having the power-level of it be relevant to your level makes it better in my opinion without it losing it's flavor.

As for the multi-target Holy, Fade is a crappy idea but hey, that was twenty years ago. We get like what, seven letters to fit in there right? Something along the lines of Purify or Armageddon, Judgement, ect. It could fit.

5. Young Caller: Speed/Evade+, Magic Power/Defense- compared to Mature Caller. Red Mage-styled magic sounds good (going up to about the -ras/2s) and Titan as a max (Chocobo/Bomb/Imp/Flayer/Cockatrice/Titan), it'd work out. People are gonna ditch it for the MC anyway, so it's good to have an early-game Jack-of-All-Magic-Trades.

6. Mature Caller: I agree on pretty much everything here. Make it so that her main magic is Summons, with some Black Magic to back it up. This gives the Summons more reason to be around, and gives a chance to have more variety with more original Summons than just beefy elemental-all attacks. (Besides, the 3s were more powerful than their corresponding summons).

7. Black Twin/White Twin: Outside of the concept of the Twin Magic, he and his sister are useless with what is proposed. No one uses any of the "sillier" spells because quite frankly, they don't do jack shit. Warp never worked, the status magics never worked and the %-to-work spells never worked on enemies (Tornado/Death for example). BT was a Black Mage with some minor bonuses that were inferior to his abilities. WT was Rosa who focused SOLEY on healing and buffs.

Out of all the standard classes, I dislike these the most because of their basis in the game: Palom got outclassed by Rydia in the end (summons), and there was never a need to use Porom for a healer because there was Rosa (unless you wanted to use cheapo-Twin Magic). What made them better than the two ladies though was their devotion to their single strength: Their magic. Palom raped Rydia when it came to Wisdom, making his attack magic better(Bahamut still wins though), and Porom was much better at healing than Rosa (who on the other hand had average-to-decent attacking ability with a good bow and Aim).

It's always annoyed me that they've been in the game instead of replacing Palom with a standard Black Mage and removing Porom outright, because they clog up too much space with useless abilities and being outshone by others. Plus, it never made sense to me that every single Black Magic specialist in the world was a 7 year old male with an identical female twin.

8. Sage/Lunarian: Here's where I really start to get bitchy. I understood why Tellah and FuSoYa were in FFL (they were in the game), but they just didn't seem to fit to me. In FF4, they were severely restricted as far as statistics go because they were the only two to have access to the full potential of BOTH schools of magic. It made sense: They were weak as hell, but they could cast Cure4 followed up with a Flare or Fire3 and it actually did half-decent damage when it came down to it. FFL decided to ignore this in favor of having Tellah be stronger in Black, FuSoYa stronger in White, when both utterly sucked outside of their spell selection. At Lv. 99 in FF4, Tellah barely had 1,000 HP, no STR/DEX/CON and ONLY 90MP, reflecting his abilities: Master of magic but NO stats to back it up. It balanced out.

When they brought in the Lunarian, FuSoYa was a beefier version of Tellah in the sense that his stats were adjusted to fit the fight at the time: Stronger enemies, more power, and the fact that he's a different species than the old coot who suicided. However, the FF4 developers still limited him as well because of the POWER that he had in spell selection. Someone with Rosa or Rydia's stats having access to both schools of magic would have broken the game outright, so it gives it a sense of balance.

Ultimately, I never thought both should have been in the game. FuSoYa replaced Tellah (Tellah 2.0 if you will), but still sucked in the stats department. Having both in FFL was for one redundant due to how similar they were, and two broke most of the magic-user conventions. Why bother with Palom/Porom/Rosa when you could have slightly lower stats in favor of casting a whole other spectrum of magic? Suddenly, the kids and ladies don't seem to be that powerful anymore. Sure, Rosa could get 20 more Will than FuSoYa, but she couldn't go Haste -> Cure3 -> Tornado -> Earthquake, could she? Unless someone wanted to bother playing as a dedicated healer, or just wanted to spam Mist/Bahamut, there was no point in playing the twins, Rydia, or Rosa. And the final descision-making choice betwen Old Man 1 and 2 was whether or not you wanted the shitty Remember or the shitty/awesome SpiritWave. Remember was a plot-device because Tellah was frickin' old and didn't remember all of his awesome shit until later, and Regen in FF4 was just plain HORRIBLE. FFL-wise, Remember was just as bad, and SpiritWave made long fights broken since you were nigh-unkillable.

If I had the choice, I would remove both (or Lunarian if just one). The Sage's stats would be adjusted to reflect the fact that he could go back and forth from Cure3 to Flare, and the fact that Tellah killed himself with Meteo wouldn't be affected here. ONE Of the damn classes has to learn the spell, whether it be the Sage, or a Black Mage. If both were removed, I'd replace them with a Red Mage, which pretty much sums up why they get limited magic in two schools: having full of both makes it broken. Having a class that goes about mid-way in both schools of magic and still have decent fighting ability (a'la classic Bard or better) makes more sense than incredibly powerful old man clones.

9. Ninja: Ninja is awesome. Some all-hitting elemental magic that's slightly above the -ra/2 spells, decent physical stats and Throw round it out as an awesome class. Outside of what is posted, I don't have a problem with it.

10. Monk: I emphasize the statement of having the Claws give SOME sort of attack bonus. Playing a Monk was tedious up until the point where his STR went through the roof, and buying the Claws was redundant since the elements & statuses didn't work and they costed a fuckton. Make Kick have a longer charge time than Darkwave, and keep the damage solid and strong, thus giving someone a reason to use Kick without the command being cheap. Kick was NEVER useful for a Monk unless you were fighting enemies severely under-leveled compared to you. Other than that, they're rounded out nicely. All-hitting attack, 2x dmg attack, 2x defense command. S'all good.

11. Bard: Bards are awesome. Their stat growth in FFL was unique too, they gained 1 point in everything every level. So at Lv. 99, you saw 99s across the board, giving them good fighting strength, HP and decent magic defense. The Sing ability was awesome too, provided you actually got the USEFUL Sing commands at early levels: The negative statuses never worked and you didn't get the STR buff for awhile. Updating or rounding out the Sing command to be decent would be pleasing as well as having the ability to multi-target with certain ones.

12. Engineer: Oh god, if there was ever a class NO one played in FFL, it was the Engineer. Sure, it had powerful stats... but that's it. No abilities WHATSOEVER. Paladin beat it in all aspects: Powerful stats, the same equips, and Cid's only non-basic command was just ONE of Cecil's spells (or not, but you get the idea), despite the fact that he was a genious inventer of the technological shite. He could build an airship, and a remote control to his latest model, but he couldn't build bombs or guns to use in battle? Honestly.

Having the introduction of a Tools command a'la Edgar seems a much better option here than having them produce magical effects by using their weapons. Disregarding the fact that "Use" has always been an Alchemist's key command, it just seems like a minor enhancement. Engineers weren't about invoking the magic of their battle maces, they were about creating machinery to beat the enemy into a pulp, and I can see Cid using an Auto-Crossbow or a Drill more than casting Quake via his Hammer's power. There's no limit to what you can imagine. If something seems too advanced or powerful, ditch it. Otherwise, try it out. Part of the fun of inventing is seeing what works and what doesn't, after all. And if this is taking place in the future of FF4, I don't see why technology WOULDN'T have improved.

Starting the Engineer out with things like a shoddy Grenade, a weak Auto-Crossbow attack, and various other mechanical oddities, then as he progresses in level learning how to make more things like Dynamite, a Rifle (AC-upgrade) and even wacky things like Exploding Sheep would be a fun and unique twist on a staple class. And just to prevent it from being broken, there could be a system that when X Tool ability is used, Y Items from the Engineers inventory are used in the making and use of said Tool. Hence, Engineers would have to reload their guns, replace the shells and powder for grenades, buy more vials of mustard gas for their Gas Blasters, ect. It'd be a costly, yet powerful physical class that I can see people actually USING compared to the past FFL versions.

Admin Posts : 9 Join date : 2008-01-07 Age : 34

I've actually toyed with the idea of starter classes. Just basic classes that lead into the others. For example, a basic warrior or knight class that would, through training, allow one to become a paladin or dark knight. Fighter to monk or engineer, and some sort of 'white pupil' and 'black pupil' or other trainee crap that can become one of the mages in their respective spell category. That allows for use of the white and black twin sprites, should their classes be removed, and also gives more reason for the young caller class. It makes the game a bit more realistic, which is either good or bad, and allows us to get even further away from the vague Plaguebearer trash, plot-wise.

The only thing I'm concerned about as far as this sort of thing goes is whether or not it's preserving the FFIV aspect of FFL. Plus, if we do go this route, there are probably going to be a lot more things throughout the game that will need changed. Lemme know what you all think.

Posts : 6 Join date : 2008-01-07 Age : 40

I'm just concerned about how much more work will need to be put in if we do decide to have 'starter classes' preceding all the normal classes currently in-game, followed by the kind of welcome it'll receive from the players we get once we go live. For some of them, we might have to outright make and fully code ourselves, and if the players don't like it, it'll feel like a waste of time. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just staying at work on the maps until we have ALL the areas in for the game itself, then I'll come back here and worry about classes and their quirks. I tend to get frustrated easily when I feel like things are overwhelming, so if I only focus on one thing at a time, it doesn't feel like as much work.

That said, however, it does feel like it would be a little bit easier to go with a separate plot than what they currently have if we did, though. The whole 'Light Warriors' thing hasn't gotten old yet, since you still see bits and pieces of it in even some of the newer Final Fantasies since 3.