Thread: 4.0 Ideas

Helps I'm an oldie as well, Yuni, having played FF1 back on the good ol Nintendo.

I never got into Tactics Ogre, to be honest. I loved Ogre Battle; that was a game I lost hours upon hours upon. Tactics Ogre? I don't know why...never jived with me.

Final Fantasy Tactics was my go to because I stayed in that IP. I rarely moved around. Still don't; have a hard time playing other games.

Anywho, just thought about what 'could' work in this game. We haven't had a class yet that can do every role. Maybe Red Mage breaks this, similar to what Druids are in World of Warcraft.

You could honestly help the tanking deficiency by doing this as it allows a person to play any role...

Originally Posted by KrenianKandos

Final Fantasy Tactics was my go to because I stayed in that IP. I rarely moved around. Still don't; have a hard time playing other games.

Final Fantasy Tactics was one of the best strategy games every made, so it doesn't surprise me. It laid the ground work for so many other games that followed it in so many different ways that it's just ridiculous.

As for jobs that can do every role, the problem would be the technical aspect of it in a game like this. Queues require a 4-8 man party composition. The only way to fill this requirement as a red mage would be to establish what role you would want to play in advance of queuing, which means locking several of your skills before even entering the instance. Another problem would be that a multi-purpose job runs the risk of making certain jobs less desirable. Similar to the way WAR completely destroyed off-tanking for Pld and Drk post-3.1. If Red Mage were to be too self-sufficient or too flexible in it's utility, then no one would have a need to play anything else. Party compositions would be fixed with Red Mages.

I don't think it would help the tanking deficiency either. People don't play tanks because they're scared of the role, not the jobs. Proof in the pudding was the introduction of Dark Knight in 3.0. EVERYONE jumped that band wagon, and, for the first time since 2.0, Tank queue times actually exceeded 5 minutes ... for about 1 or 2 weeks. These people weren't real tanks. They just liked the moniker of "Dark Knight." Once they realized that they actually had to dawn the responsibility of a tank by taking up that role, they dropped it like a bad habit.

Originally Posted by Februs

Final Fantasy Tactics was one of the best strategy games every made, so it doesn't surprise me. It laid the ground work for so many other games that followed it in so many different ways that it's just ridiculous.

As for jobs that can do every role, the problem would be the technical aspect of it in a game like this. Queues require a 4-8 man party composition. The only way to fill this requirement as a red mage would be to establish what role you would want to play in advance of queuing, which means locking several of your skills before even entering the instance. Another problem would be that a multi-purpose job runs the risk of making certain jobs less desirable. Similar to the way WAR completely destroyed off-tanking for Pld and Drk post-3.1. If Red Mage were to be too self-sufficient or too flexible in it's utility, then no one would have a need to play anything else. Party compositions would be fixed with Red Mages.

I don't think it would help the tanking deficiency either. People don't play tanks because they're scared of the role, not the jobs. Proof in the pudding was the introduction of Dark Knight in 3.0. EVERYONE jumped that band wagon, and, for the first time since 2.0, Tank queue times actually exceeded 5 minutes ... for about 1 or 2 weeks. These people weren't real tanks. They just liked the moniker of "Dark Knight." Once they realized that they actually had to dawn the responsibility of a tank by taking up that role, they dropped it like a bad habit.

That's exactly the issue I was struggling with while I was writing up the Red Mage class: How exactly do you do it so that a Red Mage could not feasibly do all of the content. Do it make it they're just powerful enough to do the stuff but still at a weakened state?

The only argument I can surmise is you remove the tanking aspect of the class. Period. You make it plausible for them to play either a healer role or a DPS role, and that would be activated when you, say, used your stance of sorts in order to make the game think "You're x or y". And I don't even know if that's even possible in the current coding to allow a player to choose a role. The roles are preset with the jobs you choose to be. I'm not sure how much rewiring you can do.

That's the biggest conundrum in regards to the Red Mage class: How do you keep the lore and the core of the class and allow him to be a jack-of-all-trades type? I honestly don't see it possible unless you decide that you allow to open up all three paths and the game is allowing you to choose the role you want to be. And then, you have to ask yourself: If there is one class that can do it all, why not play that raid?

The only answer is this: You don't see an all druid raid in World of Warcraft, and they can do all three roles. As such, you would think that all three roles to the Red Mage can be balanced enough not to exactly allow you to go all RDMs and do well. I mean, you can do it (Hell, you can do anything) but you would benefit from other classes being there. Class synergies would also come into play too. All Red Mage parties would make you miss out on important debuffs other classes bring to bring up your DPS to par. And if you make it that the Red Mage could 'just' do their role and not exactly 'excel' at it, you're asking to become suboptimal for fun which won't help progression.

I can see how they can fix the whole "Just bring 8 RDMs" easily enough. I cannot see if the coding allows this to be.

For RDM, instead of being able to do all three jobs, its a DPS that gives buffs that benefits all 3 roles in specific ways, while not being particularly strong in its own role.

Originally Posted by Kaizer

For RDM, instead of being able to do all three jobs, its a DPS that gives buffs that benefits all 3 roles in specific ways, while not being particularly strong in its own role.

This sounds cool to me. It reminds me of bard. I also like the way bard doesnt seem to have a rotation. (im not a bard, i could be wrong) I think if they made red mage use whatever it wants without any forced rotation. That would be the coolest job to play imo. I would most likely main a class that includes melee and magic dps and doesnt have a rotation. That just sounds so perfect. If its slightly weak like a bard and buffs others then that would seem fitting so that it wouldnt be op(by having all options ..let them be weak for balance).

Originally Posted by KrenianKandos

I cannot see if the coding allows this to be.

The coding is pretty simple here. Job is based on job crystal that you equip. It changes your flag from, say, 1 to 10 (since there are 9 classes) or from 4 to 14. Each number is obviousely marked under correct "box" and triggers correct methods. Boxes are three- healer, dps, tank. In other words, as you do it with Arcanist, job stone gives you the "ability" to become anything, as long as the weapon (weapon always HAS TO be equipped, that's becuase there is no non-class box nor flag, you have to have a class. weapon declares class. That's why partially we cannot have ninjas with Greatsowrds fancy moveset lol) remains same or is marked as multiple flag, like for arcanist, lets say, 9 and 19,20 (9th flag for ACN, 19th and 20th flags for SCH & SMN).

While coding is not a problem, there is a problem you mentioned.
Who needs a class that can be all 3 roles anytime? Like Arcanist, you either play SMN or SCH. Do you use Physick or Ressurection as SMN? in perfect situation, you shoudnt. that's 2 skills less.
And now RDM who can become anything he wants, just by changing job stone? Let's say that gear and weapon are staying same. As Februs said, you will enter instance as RDM-healer, RDM-dps or RDM-tank.
And that kill the fun or multi-aspected cystal or Red Mage.

A digression!
There is that famous quote:
"Am i Black Mage? Am i White Mage? WRONG! I am plain damn useless!" ~1st Red Mage

So, getting back to the topic. Changing the whole role system would be like letting DRG do a Jump during massive AoE. I doubt that the maintenance would be shorter than 2 weeks to fix the mess that players would make after 3 days of gameplay. Literally. Game would break. Instantly.

Small, Regular changes to Role system or Role funcionality, however, would fix our problems, their problems, and probably future problems;

Because, as i said, i already see Order 66 execution, when Devs give us a hybrid of Innovation and Deadline, in any aspect of the game.

ideally summoner shouldnt have to use res or physick but those utilities can come in handy in alot of situations(well res) physick would get more use if it was on par with scholars but thats exactly how they differentiate these spells by mind and int respectivelyyou could even give red mage clerics to use it backwards from how healers use it(and the potency reduction for healing would never make it an optimal heal in any case so healers wouldnt have to worry too much and just be relieved with a short spot healing if necessary), but to me that would probably kind of be too much for them to balance, maybe not. Smn is sort of a basis as to why i feel like having redmage be a DoM melee/mid ranged caster dps with just a few restorative and utility that wouldnt encroach on the healer role too much, would maybe give it a fairly close resemblance of early redmage. Sure jack of all trades, but it would never get a holy, or flare, or cure 3 or what not, it did come with double cast which could be the job gimmick or just a long cd to improve some abilities like battlevoice works? I never played 11 which im thinking this can be a tank comes from but usually redmage just had medium armor(chain mail) and probably ninja level armor too in ff1 nes, so...im not sure why it would have to be all 3 i never used redmage as a healer just a touch up healer or exit/warp/life outside of battle sort of mage, primarilly used its melee unless a fire based enemy died faster with low level ice spells, etc

The fact they come in handy do not change another fact, that they are no use for DPS. DRG, in example, thnx to lack of Physicks and Rezz, have two other skills allowing to increase damage output (let's ignore the fact, he has Feint skill...).