Think Dark Knight will have any HP-sacrificing abilities, for Solo or Off-tank roles?

[Krr]

Then again, he was just a protagonist who had to go alone for most of his dark knight time. He had to survive. A tank that doesn't protect, is not a tank;

Okay, RPG history time:

The term 'Tank' originates from the role-playing game's derivation from the wargaming hobby; a 'tank' is, as it was in history, a slow, heavily-armored unit capable of controlling a lot of space around it due to its battlefield presence. Warriors, Paladins, and your general "fighting-man" character were designed as analagous to this 'tank', whereas spellcasters were analagous to artillery units, thieves to lighter infantry and more mobile vehicles, and so forth.

Tanks do not and have not "protected allies by distracting enemies". They control the battlefield with their presence; threat is an abstraction of this presence.

[Tanathya]

Stuff

Alrighty

[Krr]

Now that that's over with this is the part where I note that an FF4/XI/X-2 Souleater hasn't been un-confirmed as a DRK ability, only that the developers haven't finalized the full DRK kit yet and that they're still considering if it can be included or how. So we might still get it, just not as the universal job mechanic.

[TruebladeNuke]

Snip.

Must have been one of the later FF4 remakes. There's like... 3 versions of FF4 in existence. The way original release dates back to the SNES (renamed FF2 for whatever reason), then one for the GBA, and then finally for the Nintendo DS. The later 2 versions incorporate the Dark Knight abilities onto Cecil. (Different between the GBA and DS versions too) I have no idea if there are more versions beyond that.

Heck, there's actually 4 versions if you count the Steam release of FF4, but that's pretty much the DS version for the PC, lol. In the way original release of FF4, Cecil only had two commands as a Dark Knight. "Fight" and "Item". ... that's literally it, lol. This got tweaked in the later re-makes of the game though, giving Cecil his Dark Knight powers. His allies also got additional abilities in the remake. Most people don't seem to know this though. o.o



Everything else you said is certainly true though. Just... wanted to add to the whole history lessons going on here, lol. Dark Knights were indeed awesome in X-2. Plowing through foes like they're nothing in that game.

Ok, I'll stop with the history discussion and focus on the thread topic again.

On topic, given that it IS the Dark Knight, it wouldn't surprise me if there was some sort of sacrifice ability in there. Still though, it's just too early to tell. We need moar info. o.o

[Krr]

Re: Cecil's ability lineup, wasn't the PSX one just a terrible port of SNES Hardtype? He had 'Dark' in that one too. Or did they do an FF1 thing where there was a Wonderswan 'upgrade' or something?

RE: A souleater/Darkness move in FFXIV, something like a 60-120s cooldown along the lines of "Your next weaponskill consumes 10% of your max HP, and [crits/affects enemies near the one you strike/has increased potency and enmity generation/ETC]" would actually be a nice homage to have at the very least.

[TruebladeNuke]

Re: Cecil's ability lineup, wasn't the PSX one just a terrible port of SNES Hardtype? He had 'Dark' in that one too. Or did they do an FF1 thing where there was a Wonderswan 'upgrade' or something?

I finally caved and consulted Wikipedia for any missing knowledge I may have had on FF4. Didn't realize it had THAT many remakes. O.o

So strange. In the SNES game I played of FF4, he didn't have Dark abilities at all. Just Fight and Item. If he somehow did have Dark Knight abilities in the original release of FF4, I certainly never saw them. Or maybe I don't remember them being there in the original.

Oh. Nevermind. Found this little webpage. Version differences explained in full.

[Krr]

Oh. Nevermind. Found this little webpage. Version differences explained in full.

Ha! So the localization team thought that Cecil's Dark command in JP SNES was so situational, that it was either useless or Americans wouldn't understand how to use it? Amazing what they thought of us back then...

(No, really, that's the same logic was to why V and III never got western releases.)

It's pretty interesting that Protect and Shell were removed from even JP Easytype, given how fundamental buffs were to playing older FF games when under-level. So basically, Easytype wasn't just easier, it was a mechanically simpler "For kids" version we got an even simpler version of in the west.....

It's a shame that the only "true" classic version of FFIV JP normaltype is the awful PSX port. With the full battlesystem and only Easytype's "bugfix" patches it seems like it'd be the "best" version. But load times....

[TruebladeNuke]

I know right? No wonder why I remember the original SNES version as Dark Knight not having access to Dark abilities. It's not that it was never included... they removed it from the version I played.

... well now that just makes me grit my teeth a little, knowing that I played a version that had abilities removed from the game. >_<
Makes me want to play the DS remake again.

... ok. NOW I'll stop discussing history, lol.

[Delta041]

All I want from Dark Knight is a enmity generating shoulder tackle instead of a shield lob/tomahawk equivalent.

[Yukiko]

Just to throw in: Is SMN a real SMN?
Same discussion we already hade, but SE did not change a single thing!
DRK have to live with it too *evil grin*