Help With Class Choices & Requirements

[WNxTyr4el]

So in my game I have four starter classes. Typical warrior, Sorceror, thief, ranger classes. I'm using Yanfly's classes system which allows secondary classes. But I'm having a real hard time deciding when to unlock classes and what classes may be pre requisite (if at all) to unlocking. I thought I'd get some suggestions and ideas on class progression and unlocking in games. Here's my list of classes (missing maybe 1 or 2 - turns out to be 5 per base class).

Spoiler

-Black Mage (Sorceror)

-Necromancer (Sorceror)

-Elementalist (Sorceror)

-Summoner (Sorceror)

-Priest (Sorceror)

-Hunter (Ranger)

-Beast Master (Ranger)

-Survivalist (Ranger)

-Marksman (Ranger)

-Sniper (Ranger)

-Gladiator (Warrior)

-Paladin (Warrior)

-Dark Knight (Warrior)

-Monk (Warrior)

-Dragoon (Warrior)

-Assassin (Thief)

-Bladedancer (Thief)

-Soulweaver (Thief)

-Trickster (Thief)

 

[kerbonklin]

Try to base it off your game's plot / story / character design, or doing side-things that involve that class.

 

[WNxTyr4el]

Try to base it off your game's plot / story / character design, or doing side-things that involve that class.

That's a good idea.  With my current story, idk how I'll tie in classes/class changes though.  Maybe make each one have like a "Master" in each village they visit?  Not sure yet.  I was thinking mostly of level progression type unlocking.

 

[atoms]

As it's to do with classes, this would be more based on game mechanics than the plot. It depends on how long in the game it'd take to master those classes, or how long until new classes would be fresh for the player. It also depends on whether you're using JP, some sort of parameter system, whether skills are gained through level up, gold, the length of each dungeon, how many dungeons you plan to have in the entire game, etc.

I think it's great you're starting with at least 3 classes near the beginning though.

 

[WNxTyr4el]

I'm using just Yanfly's JP system with his class system at the moment. I thought up more classes but am still at a loss at how they should be unlocked. I'm thinking just by level but if I think that way I still have no clue what requirements to make :'(

 

[WNxTyr4el]

Still having trouble figuring this out. I have the four main classes and about 5 "other" classes that fall under that same starting class (5 for each starting class). I am using a subclass system so I'm trying to think of a way to have them unlocked and used. Like Sorceror has Black Mage, Blue Mage, Elementalist, Time Keeper, and Cleric. I can't decide if they're all just subjobs or having branches of primary too. It's so confusing. I tried organizing it into a hierarchy but failed. Anyone have any words of wisdom?

 

[Vinedrius]

If your characters' base classes are set by default from the beginning, I would tie the prestige (or "secondary" in your case) classes to class quests. When the quest is completed, that particular class would be unlocked for the party and any character, who had already mastered the base class, would be able to switch to (or equip if you are going the secondary class way) that class.

For example: Eric is a warrior and when he reaches level 10 and learns every warrior skill (unless they are earned automatically at certain levels), he can take on a quest to learn the way of gladiators. Let's say, he goes to the arena, speaks to whoever in charge, that guy tells Eric that he has to prove himself first in the arena. Eric goes into a series of fights then maybe some other quests like "speak to X, learn some tips and tricks from them then i will let you fight Y (so you can progress further in the arena)" and when he finally is the ultimate winner of the arena, the quest starter guy unlocks the class for him. You can even add aditional side quests related to his fame in the arena and in the end he can even learn a special gladiator skill or something.

If your characters' base classes are planned to be changable on the go like Final Fantasy Tactics games, I would go with a class tree system (again like FFT games) or something similar. Also, you do NOT have to have every higher tier class require more than one base class. You can just make it like; warrior level 5 -> monk is unlocked. Problem is, if you take this approach, you will most likely need to turn some of your secondary classes into tertiary or even quaternary classes or create more base classes to match your secondary classes. If you don't want a class tree system or some sort of class related side quests to add flavor to your class system, then you can just make it so that when a character's base class reaches a certain treshold, all the secondary classes attached to that base will be unlocked for that character.

For example; You want Eric to be a Dark Knight. You reach level 5 Warrior and level 5 Black Mage on Eric and as a result you unlock Dark Knight for the whole party as long as they meet the requirements.

However, this system may end up hard to implement depending whether it is easy to relate certain base and higher rank classes to each other or not. It isn't hard to say; "Ok, you already have warrior and black mage as base classes and dark knight as a secondary class so why not just tie those two to dark knight, it makes sense!" but for some classes in your mind, it may not be as easy so you might need to reconsider your class list.

I hope I was of any help Good luck with your project.

Edit: Check this out: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Final_Fantasy_Tactics_Jobs It will give you an idea about branching out your jobs.

 

[orochii]

Why do you want a class system? How do you explain it inside the story? Do the characters just "pop!" now I'm <insert another class here>? What power gives them that capacity?

In Final Fantasy III, classes were given either by crystals or important NPCs (Dorga & Unne). They were the wisdom given to characters by these wise beings.

Final Fantasy V, on the other hand, gave you classes from crystal shards. Pretty much the same, but you knew somehow that your characters were drawing these "powers" from the crystals, which had souls (and wisdom) from ancient heroes. So they really didn't knew anything, until they learned a skill from that class. You can then say that the "Normal" class is "fight with your own power, with all what you've learned".

In the old Ragnarok Online 2, you learned the basics of one with the class instructor (like unlocking that class), then start learning their skills with books.

So I think it's good to set the basis of that system in-game, that way you will have less of a problem putting that content somewhere in the world to be accessed by the player. And the player will have the chance to get clues that make sense inside the game's world.

Salut,

Orochii Zouveleki

 

[WNxTyr4el]

These are both really helpful! Thank you both! My only problem is I feel I can't decide which to make primary and which to make sub jobs. I have a huge list and I was originally going to just do it by level requirements (for primary and sub) but these present whole new options. My only problem with setting level requirements is basically that it inherently says that the class with the higher requirements should be the stronger class (at least within the base class - I.e. blue Mage requires Sorceror level 5, and Black Mage level 10 would be more powerful than a black Mage). Is that not true?

I feel I should have my four base classes locked to each actor (using Yanfly) but their subclass or subjob can be changed on the fly. I could use level requirements or quest requirements. I found a cool script that uses a quest journal and you can track requirements and objectives. That would be helpful if its quest driven. I could go the trainer route, but then that would really eliminate the need for my JP System which I really wanted to implement. I'm just so confused on figuring out how I should do it. It would be cool to have them be story driven but I wasn't planning on doing that lol. I'll post my entire list so far and see if anyone can help me divide them up.

Spoiler

-Black Mage (Sorceror)

-Blue Mage (Sorceror)

-Time Keeper (Sorceror)

-Necromancer (Sorceror)

-Elementalist (Sorceror)

-Summoner (Sorceror)

-Priest (Sorceror)

-Trap Maker (Ranger)

-Hunter (Ranger)

-Beast Master (Ranger)

-Survivalist (Ranger)

-Marksman (Ranger)

-Sniper (Ranger)

-Sharpshooter (Ranger)

-Herbalist (Ranger)

-Mechanic/Engineer (Ranger)

-Gladiator (Warrior)

-Paladin (Warrior)

-Dark Knight (Warrior)

-Monk (Warrior)

-Dragoon (Warrior)

-Lancer (Warrior)

-Duelist (Warrior)

-Arms Master (Warrior)

-Assassin (Thief)

-Bladedancer (Thief)

-Soulweaver (Thief)

-Trickster (Thief)

-Shadow (Thief)

Long list lol. I've been adding to it any chance I get! Thanks for all the help and I hope im not being too repetitive with this. These are great ideas and I will definitely consider them for my project

 

[Vinedrius]

You don't necessarily need to make your higher rank classes totally better than those of lower rank(s). All of them should have niche uses for one part of the game or another and/or some skills that would last until at least end game if not until the end of the game. For example, in FFT, Chemist (the base job for magical jobs) had a passive auto-potion ability that you need for an otherwise very hard battle (or rather impossible afaik lol) and another passive ability that makes you able to find items when you move which you need for the bonus dungeon that you can unlock near the end of the game to collect the very strong loot and Squire (the base job for physical jobs) had a JP bonus passive ability that you used almost all the time unless you had to equip another skill on the same slot that you couldn't pass up for a particular battle.

I will try to make up a job tree with your list in a bit.

Edit: @WNxTyr4el sorry, i couldn't post the sample tonight. i will look into it tomorrow.

 

[WNxTyr4el]

That's a really good point about not making them necessarily stronger. I really liked that info thanks a lot.

A sample job tree would be fantastic lol. Thanks a lot!

 

[Vinedrius]

That's a really good point about not making them necessarily stronger. I really liked that info thanks a lot.

A sample job tree would be fantastic lol. Thanks a lot!

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[WNxTyr4el]

That's awesome! That helps so much! Thank you!

 

[Vinedrius]

That's awesome! That helps so much! Thank you!

You are welcome. I am glad that I could help

 

[WNxTyr4el]

Max level is going to be 50 or 55 so I may space out the requirements a bit but I honestly could not have made that any better than you did. Thank you!

 

[kerbonklin]

This thread is still alive? xD

Anyways, i'm going to quote myself from earlier.

Try to base it off your game's plot / story / character design, or doing side-things that involve that class.

In my current project, my base classes are based off the character's persona. The human guy soldier, the part-demon girl priest, her bodyguard sorcerer, and a part-demon girl assassin. The part-demon people live in a world of magic unlike the human character. Eventually each character can be each job, but the human cannot unlock the magic-based classes until a certain part of the story is reached. The sorcerer character teaches the human how to use magic-based physical attacks. (Slayer class) The priest character teaches the human how to use healing magic stuff (Paladin)  The human teaches the Assassin character how to hold heavier weapons (Ninja) (normally she can only use bows/daggers) Etc. etc.people teach each other.

Classes can be unlocked for all the other characters after certain story plots by spending 500 JP (which spending JP is also used to power up skills) For example my human Soldier guy can save up 500 JP so that anyone else can become the Soldier class.

Each class has it's own permanent stat growth per level that stays cross-classes.Leveling with certain classes more than others determines your end-game stat build. (like FF Tactics)  Each class also has their own perks over others skill-wise, but job combinations like Ninja/Sniper make for the combo "Dual Wield + Barrage" which does devastating damage. (4 random enemies x 2 attacks cause Dual Wield = 8 hits)

 

[WNxTyr4el]

Thanks for that kerbonklin.  Is there a way in Yanfly's script to set classes to only subclasses and only primary classes?  I can't find it in the script

 

[kerbonklin]

If you don't want the player to change primary classes, you can always edit out the Primary choice from showing in the window, at around Line 136

COMMANDS =[ # The order at which the menu items are shown.    # [ :command,   "Display"],    # [ :primary,   "Main Class"],  Comment this out so it does not appear      [:subclass,  "Subclass"],

 

[WNxTyr4el]

If you don't want the player to change primary classes, you can always edit out the Primary choice from showing in the window, at around Line 136

COMMANDS =[ # The order at which the menu items are shown. # [ :command, "Display"], # [ rimary, "Main Class"], Comment this out so it does not appear [:subclass, "Subclass"],

I figured it had something to do with that line!  Thanks!

EDIT: Although, actually trying it...I need to be able to actually SET certain classes to either primary or subclass.  I need to be able to change primary classes.