This is the third post regarding the overhaul of battles in Innocence Seekers. This post will focus on the character classes, as well as weapons and weapon proficiencies.
So far, I haven’t fully decided on what character classes will feature in the games. Actually designing a class system requires a lot of thought put into it, as a poorly thought out system will simply result in a lot of underused, if not useless, classes and a single overused class (or at most, four); a problem found in most SRPGs, particularly those that are inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics (which did get it right, if only in the first half). What I have in mind is that each class has two special abilities (not spells or techniques), of which one is non-transferrable, and the other can be transferred by mastering the class.
Here are some of the classes I have thought out (this is not exhaustive):
- Martial Artist: Good with fist weapons, bad with everything else. Capable of countering before the enemy attacks, and of inflicting damage simply by being attacked.
- Warrior: Good with melee weapons.
- Magician: Good with staves and books. Specialises in a specific type of elemental magic.
- Healer: Good with staves. Specialises in healing magic.
- Archer: Good with bows. Capable of raining status effects on enemies from far away.
- Gunner: Good with guns. Their strength is the ability to guarantee that either their attacks or that of their allies always hit.
- Thief: Not that good with weapons, but can use ranged weapons well enough. They have a higher chance of stealing items from enemies than other classes.
- Alchemist: Not that good with weapons, but can use ranged weapons well enough. Specialises in item use, increasing their potency and area of effect.
- Shinobi: Good with fists and swords. Possesses extremely high evasion, and also deals status ailments from close range.
- Knight: Good with swords and spears. Capable of blocking or parrying ranged attacks, and preventing any damage from affecting units behind the Knight.
Note that in the actual games, you won’t be able to recruit these classes directly. The Innocence Seekers video games will only allow you to recruit new units of the “Student” class, which is a useless class that exists only to be changed into a proper class (however, they can equip any weapon regardless of proficiency or mastery, even rank 100 weapons).
Another thing I should mention is that only females can be recruited. If male playable units can be recruited, they will be limited to unique units, and most likely be limited to the post game or New Game Plus. This means that there will be no gender-specific effects.
(A side note: the class list has “Shinobi” instead of “Ninja” for precisely the reason that only females can be recruited, as “ninja” is a term that exclusively applies to males. The term “kunoichi” is used for females; however, because it has sexual connotations, I felt it inappropriate for Innocence Seekers, considering that the recruitable units are around the same age as the main characters, who are themselves preteens.)
Someone on the Internet suggested that each class be hard countered by another class (that is, barring a significant level/stat difference, status effects or low HP, the outcome of an engagement is almost always determined by class). While the rationale is that players shouldn’t be able to simply rush a game using a single class, I’m not even sure if it is practical, or even possible, to implement such a system. However, I can try. Not counting support classes such as Healers and Alchemists, each class is best used only in specific situations and against particular classes. For example, Gunners can easily nullify a Shinobi’s evasion ability, but she herself cannot get through a Knight’s shield. Likewise, a Shinobi doesn’t bother with trying to bypass a Knight’s high DEF and RES, and instead will try to poison her (via the Poisoned Water transferrable ability, which bypasses the Defend command). On the other hand, a Knight can tank dozens of bullets, and use the natural advantage melee weapons have over ranged weapons to deal massive damage to a Gunner. To complement the first example, Archers can also easily defeat Knights, despite the disadvantage ranged weapons have against melee weapons, again because of their use of status effects (and the Pierce transferrable ability, which among other things allows the Archer to bypass the status effect resistance the Defend command confers). However, because Warriors are more mobile, they can get from outside the range of an Archer to melee range in a single turn and deal massive damage. Conversely, Warriors have low RES, and magic has an advantage against melee weapons, meaning Warriors are vulnerable to Magicians. Magicians, on the other hand, have low DEF, leaving them prey to Archers and Gunners, whose ranged weapons have an advantage against magic.
Beyond classes, each unit has their own particular traits, which I plan to have decided completely randomly. These traits are magic colour, preferred element and preferred weapon. Magic colour and preferred element are crucial for the Rainbow Grid battle system, as they determine the unit’s damage capabilities based on panel effects (ignoring these factors can easily see your unit deal 1 damage where she could be doing 20,000 if these factors were taken into account). Preferred element also determines the element of a unit’s non-elemental attacks, as well as the spells a Magician learns (some preferred elements, namely metal, wood, light and darkness, make for poor Magicians as this means that they won’t learn any elemental spells naturally). Preferred weapon affects weapon proficiency outside of the unit’s assigned class.
These traits are decided randomly because, apart from the Magician problem, there are no significant advantages or disadvantages to each trait. Magic colour does not usually confer an advantage as panel effects are randomised at the beginning of each battle.
On to weapon proficiencies. Each class has a set of up to four preferred weapons (separate from the unit’s preferred weapon, with the exception of unique units), and these weapons have weapon proficiencies ranging from 70% to 100%, in intervals of 10% (this represents the percentage of Weapon EXP obtained, and also influences the number of weapon skills that can be used and learned by that particular class). The other weapon proficiencies, apart from the unit’s preferred weapon, are between 10% and 50%, again in intervals of 10%. If the unit’s preferred weapon is not one of the class’s preferred weapons, then said preferred weapon has a proficiency of 60%, and regardless of class, the unit is able to use (but not necessarily learn) all weapon skills for that particular weapon.
Weapon EXP contributes to weapon mastery, which ranges from 0 to 100. This determines the maximum rank a unit can equip for that particular weapon type, meaning that having 0 in a weapon type’s weapon mastery means that the unit is unable to equip any weapon of that type, unless if the weapon type is one of the class’s preferred weapon types (in which case, they can equip rank 1 weapons of that type even if weapon mastery is 0). The unit’s preferred weapon and the Student class is the exception; as mentioned above, Students can equip any weapon regardless of rank, while all units can equip their preferred weapon, up to rank 24 (further ranks require weapon mastery).
So far, I haven’t determined the formula for weapon mastery, although I’m leaning towards making the increase in the required Weapon EXP per rank be constant.
Finally, the weapons themselves. I’ve decided not to have “healing sticks” or staves that improve ATK, as I feel them to be redundant. This will leave staves as the only weapon type that does not come in both attack and magic versions. As I’ve mentioned before, the weapon types have their own base stats, which are listed below:
- Fist: 65 ATK, 65 SPD, 1 range, ~15% critical (25 INT)
- Sword: 75 ATK, 1 range, ~10% critical (50 INT)
- Spear: 50 ATK, 25 DEF, 2 range, ~5% critical (50 INT)
- Axe: 100 ATK -5 HIT, -20 SPD, 1 range, ~20% critical (25 INT)
- Hammer: 110 ATK, -10 HIT, -25 SPD, 1 range, ~10% critical (25 INT)
- Bow: 55 ATK, 55 HIT, 4 range, ~10% critical (50 INT)
- Gun: 55 HIT, 55 SPD, 5 range, ~10% critical (40 INT)
- Staff: 75 INT, 30 RES, 2 range, ~10% critical
- Book: 50 ATK, 55 INT, 1 range, ~10% critical
While I had said that axes and hammers are treated identically, this is in relation to their general in-battle mechanics (up to and including the effect of weapon techniques). Statwise they are slightly different. The stats in parentheses indicate the stats that only appear on magic weapons.
With that said, each weapon type has its own strengths and weaknesses one must consider when equipping units. Fists, swords, spears, axes and hammers are classed as melee weapons, while bows and guns are ranged weapons and staves and books are magic weapons (even if some books deal physical damage). Melee weapons deal 20 per cent extra damage against units wielding ranged weapons while dealing 20 per cent less damage against units with magic weapons. Ranged weapons deal extra damage against units with magic weapons, but less damage against units with melee weapons. Magic deals extra damage against melee units, but less against ranged units. This effectively forms a rock-paper-scissors relationship between the categories.
Among melee weapons, axes and hammers are treated identically, and deal normal damage against each other. Fists also deal normal damage against all melee weapons, and do not have any resistances or weaknesses against other melee weapons. On the other hand, swords, spears and axes/hammers form an additional rock-paper-scissors relationship identical to the melee-ranged-magic relationship. Swords are strong against axes/hammers, which are strong against spears, which are strong against swords.
Swords have the ability to parry melee attacks. The chance of parrying is dependent on both the attacker’s and the defender’s HIT, and is increased by the use of the Defend command and reduced by flanking bonuses. Parrying halves incoming damage, and the Riposte transferrable ability (from the Warrior class) allows a free counterattack in the event of a successful parry (provided the attacker is within range). Likewise, spears have the ability to block melee attacks. Unlike parrying, blocking is only effective if the defender is attacked from the front, but it nullifies all damage. The chance of blocking is dependent on the attacker’s HIT and the defender’s DEF, and is increased by the use of the Defend command. Only Knights have the ability to block or parry ranged attacks, provided that they are equipped with the appropriate weapon (and even then, Pierce prevents blocking and parrying), and magic, for obvious reasons, cannot be blocked or parried. On the other hand, weapon skills from melee weapons can be blocked or parried.
Bows and guns deal normal damage against each other. However, guns can only fire at targets in the four cardinal directions, and any obstacle or unit between the wielder and the target will not only itself take full damage, but also severely reduce the damage inflicted on to the target based on the obstacle’s DEF (in many cases, reducing it to zero). Bows do not have this weakness, and can fire over obstacles to the target, as well as hit targets in diagonals. Both ranged weapons have “sweet spots” when it comes to damage and accuracy; bows have their damage sweet spot at range 2, meaning at range 1 a bow’s damage is reduced to 50 per cent, while guns have their damage sweet spot at range 1, meaning a gun deals full damage at point blank range. Their accuracy sweet spots are both at range 3, with stiff accuracy penalties at range 1 (which may be ameliorated or nullified by flanking bonuses). Beyond the damage sweet spots, damage is reduced by ten per cent of the current damage for every panel the projectile advances. Note that weapon skills do not have “sweet spots”, and deal full damage regardless of the distance between the attacker and the target.
With regards to weapon skills, the seven normal techniques will be learned at weapon mastery 1, 3, 7, 12, 20, 30 and 50. The two Secret Skills will be learned at weapon mastery 75 and 100. Of course, whether a unit or class can learn such skills depends entirely on their proficiency with said weapon. All nine techniques can only be learned if weapon proficiency is 100%.
The following lists the proficiency requirements for each technique.
- First technique: 20%
- Second technique: 30%
- Third technique: 40%
- Fourth technique: 50%
- Fifth technique: 60%
- Sixth technique: 70%
- Seventh technique: 80%
- First Secret Skill: 90%
- Second Secret Skill: 100%
That will be it for now. I’m not sure what the next topic will be, though.
Edit (2018-12-13): Some information on how weapon mastery works with staves:
- Because staves have no weapon techniques, weapon mastery instead improves aspects of spells.
- At weapon mastery 1, 7, 20, 50 and 100, range increases by one.
- At weapon mastery 3, 12, 30 and 75, the available area of effect choices increases by one pattern.
- At weapon mastery 15 and 60, range increases by one as long as the unit is equipped with a staff. These improvements can be gained regardless of weapon proficiency.
Thus it is important to improve staff mastery for magic-using classes and units, even if they are better with books (such as Mirai [100% compared to 90%] and Magicians [ditto]). I should note, though, that these improvements are dependent on staff proficiency; even a mage with 90% staff proficiency will not be able to unlock the final range improvement (although for a class/unit’s preferred weapons, that isn’t something the dojo cannot fix).
For Innocence Seekers: Akari of the Light, the following lists the unique units with their preferred weapons and associated weapon proficiencies:
- Akari: Sword (100%), Fist (90%), Axe (70%)
- Michiru: Staff (100%), Spear (90%), Hammer (70%)
- Yayoi: Bow (100%), Sword (90%), Gun (80%)
- Hiyori: Gun (100%), Fist (80%), Axe (70%)
- Mirai: Book (100%), Staff (90%), Hammer (80%), Axe (70%)
- Sakura: Staff (100%), Book (80%), Bow (70%)
- Mizuki: Axe (100%), Spear (80%), Hammer (70%)
- Inori: Fist (100%), Spear (80%), Sword (70%)
- Sumire: Book (100%), Bow (80%), Staff (70%)
- Himawari: Sword (100%), Spear (90%), Bow (70%)
- Yuri: Staff (100%), Bow (90%), Sword (70%)
- Kaede: Hammer (100%), Axe (90%), Fist (70%)
If you’re wondering why Mirai is better with books than with staves, even though canonically she primarily uses a staff, it is important to note that, firstly, books aren’t weapons in the traditional sense, and secondly, they are the go-to tool for summoners (books deal damage through the objects/monsters they summon). Thirdly, Mirai’s stats actually emphasise ATK (as well as DEF and RES) in addition to INT (INT is her highest stat, but not by much), and she can be developed as a decent physical attacker who happens to use magic (her main disadvantage is her low HIT and SPD), which books can facilitate.
With that said, I’m planning to re-distribute the stats of the unique characters of Akari of the Light, partially as a result of the general overhaul (before the overhaul, guns were pure HIT, for example).
Although this is off-topic, I’ve been thinking of implementing an ending where Akari decides to “end it all” using Gakran’s ship. This will thrust the player into a hopeless battle, where you have to fight eight “Aspects of God” and eight “Fragments of the Ultimate Evil” at the same time, with all sixteen of them having 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 HP and their stats maxed at 999,999,999,999 (and of course all of them will be level 65,535, way over the level 100 of Gakran’s final form). Needless to say, you’re not expected to win.
On a final note, I may increase the player HP cap further to 999,999,999,999,999 (one short of a quadrillion).