RPG Characters

[slitz]

Think FFVIII had something like that, or maybe it was FFVII 8)

[Camerous]

Yes FF had it. You would kill monsters and as you killed more and more of them you would gain points. These points would go into the materia you had equipped. The materia gave you different skills/magic/abilities/stats so you could change your job just by changing out the materia that was socketed in your stuff. Was a GREAT system. As the materia gained lvls it would also give you new skills. When you filled one to max it would replicate and give you a lvl 1 empty stone of the same materia.

[Chrisb3]

Hes talking about FF6/9.
You would equip an esper/peice of gear and you got to use any spells/skills linked to that item.
So Siren Esper(FF6) or Woolen Robe Equipment(FF9) would let you use Cure 1.
These spells/skills also had an AP number linked to them, each kill would give you 1+ AP so after killing 20 enemies with Siren or Woolen Robe equipped, you would learn Cure 1 and be able to use it even without the right items equipped.

In FF9 this made the game boring and shit because you had to equip crappy stuff to learn things, especially with the characters you get late in the game. Every character was the same by the end, no customisation at all. You could pick to use different characters, but many of the skills where shared so it didn't really matter. You had the one time only choice of which whte mage and knight you where going to use and thats it.
Compare this to FF7+8+10 which had far more customisation options.

FF6 had the same problem but it's an older game so I can forgive it, also this system only starts 1/2 way into the game so it's harder to learn everything as you get most of the espers at the same time.

I'm sure if it's done 'correctly' there's a way to make it work well, but I would just use materia

EDIT: haha typed that last sentance without reading the above signature

[Fogel]

There was way more distinction between characters in 9 than in 6/7.

[Goltana_R-Zek]

Chrisb3, what you described is also eerily similar to some aspects of Lost Odyssey - which also became somewhat tedious if you wanted to learn everything.. but they improved the dynamic a bit by making certain characters automatically rated a certain way - faster cast, stronger cast, stronger dmg, more life, faster attack, larger mana pool.. etc. It would at least leave the characters more unique, even if they shared the same type of spells/abilities (perhaps leave some innate skills that is specific to a character).

I liked the idea of a character that sacrifices life for damage - to relate it to the Sacred Warrior "Huskar" of DOTA if you've played him/it. Basically, some of his attacks sacrifice his life in order to do dmg to an opponent. In addition, the lower his life gets the more attack speed he has, and he gets a regen spell that functions on his hp (lower - it heals quicker/for more, higher - slower/less). I could see balance issues with the class, but I thought it was a pretty unique take on a class, reminds me a bit of the EQ Berserker if memory serves. Basically a char deriving his damage based on the strength of his regenerative qualities.

[Froofy-D]

Just to clarify the Espers thing, I'm playing through FF6 on the DS now. It has Esper items that:

- equip an Esper item to give your character a new spell/ability
- your Esper ability starts out weak and you must level it up by defeating monsters
- you only have 2 Esper slots so choose your Espers wisely for synergy with the character you put it on
- if you swap out your Esper to a new one you must level the new one up from 0

For example, you could give your Rogue an Esper that enables him to cast Cure spells. It definitely gives you a big range of options on abilities.

DAOC Artifact items had to be leveled up to gain powers/stats, which is similar.

Oh and Goltana, I'm pretty sure Lost Odyssey had one of the FF developers as its main designer (probably more that worked on FF as well). So LO has a ton of similar mechanics to FF games.

[Chrisb3]

Originally Posted by Fogel

There was way more distinction between characters in 9 than in 6/7.

Yeah but in 7 you can actually choose what to use as the game goes along to a certain extent, there are only so many materia slots.
It's a common problem in many FF games, job system/sphere grid style things need to be used more.

[Ritley]

Originally Posted by Chrisb3

Yeah but in 7 you can actually choose what to use as the game goes along to a certain extent, there are only so many materia slots.
It's a common problem in many FF games, job system/sphere grid style things need to be used more.

I personally think Materia was a great system, the only downfall of it being that there wasn't much difference between characters. There has got to be a way to use a system like materia and still have character distinction.

For FFVII, what it came down to was whos ultimate limit was best when determining your final group.

[Szlia]

Personally I would take the problem from the other end and ask myself: What will the players be able to do with their characters in my game? Once I have a (temporary) answer to this question, then I can design a characterization system that fits the needs and spirit of my game.