RDM: You only have yourself to blame, if you expected something else

[Duelle]

You keep talking about turn based mechanics, not specifically FF games.

Indeed I have. And my point continues to stand, since just as you tried to argue against the examples I presented the last time we had this conversation, I presented examples in the context of hybrids and you either never responded or I never saw your response to my response.

At any time in the 30 year history of FF SE could have made rdm focus more on melee.

Not when the entirety of physical damage was limited to the Fight/Attack command. Especially when you take into account that they limited classes to a special command (which were all, in complete honesty, gimmicks) and Attack, Magic and Item. We didn't even have the luxury of a secondary skill sets per class (like the skills with limited number of uses seen in Phantasy Star IV) until Final Fantasy IX, and SE to my knowledge never really took off with that idea. Doesn't help that for the games where SE did make use of it (FFX-2 comes to mind), RDM was not one of the jobs available.

They could have given it double attack

Multi-hits didn't become a thing until FFVI, to my knowledge (and even then, it required a relic). A bit late since RDM stopped appearing in the numbered FFs at that point (aside from the stream of remasters we've seen since the 90's).

They could have given it mystic knight's blade enchantments

The console Mystic Knight had the Attack animation with an extra effect as its special command. Connected to my point above of most special commands being gimmicks, it'd make little sense to pin that on RDM (mostly because you wouldn't need Black Magic on your spell list if SE had straight out given RDM Magic Sword, on top of losing one job with which to pad the list).

they could have changed double cast to double action(basically allowing you to do a melee swing and a cast in the same turn)

Chances are the reason they didn't do that would be due to the potential of Double Action being even more insanely powerful when cross-classed than Doublecast was. I could see it happening in a game where the characters have fixed classes, but we haven't had that in a long while. Much less one where a RDM is part of the cast.

As fun as my discussions with you on this are, we're falling into the pattern of me saying something, you claiming I'm wrong and presenting examples that have nothing to do with the context of what I'm talking about, and I reply with something. In the spirit of this, here's a list of mechanics that I look for when discussing hybrid gameplay:

- Procs: Melee strikes generating an effect that does something to spell-casting. This could be removing cast times, or increasing their power, or reducing/increasing MP cost in exchange for something. Assuming no combo system in place, this would be a RDM using a weapon skill and having the chance to gain the ability to cast the next spell instantly.
- Stacking buffs: Similarly to the above, but much more controlled. A weaponskill generates stacks of a buff that reduces the cast time of the next spell by 33%, entirely removing the cast time at 3 stacks.
- Synergy: Melee strikes weakening the enemy to magic, or magic spells weakening the enemy to melee strikes.
- Alterations: Using a spell after a weaponskill changes the behavior/effect of that spell (hard-casting a spell makes if behave like a regular ranged nuke, but used after a weaponskill it becomes a close-range spell that applies effects or deals a different amount of damage). Or using a weaponskill after a spell is cast changes the properties of that weaponskill (the most obvious one here would be using a weaponskill after a spell enchants your weapon for 20s to deal additional elemental damage).

If you know of any turn-based RPG (and I mean real turn-based RPG with either attack rounds or ATB) that has any of the above, I'd appreciate you pointing me to them. As I've said, I've been looking around and trying to come up with a system within that framework for a while, and have come up short.

[Yorumi]

If you know of any turn-based RPG (and I mean real turn-based RPG with either attack rounds or ATB) that has any of the above, I'd appreciate you pointing me to them. As I've said, I've been looking around and trying to come up with a system within that framework for a while, and have come up short.

Nothing you suggested has anything at all to do with turn based combat. Turn based combat is entirely related to the speed at which combat plays out. So again we have bait and switch, invalid arguing. Turn based combat doesn't even relate to how many actions a character can perform in combat. Many turn based systems allow for multiple actions. Either you're intentionally engaging in bait and switch or you just have literally no idea what you're talking about.