Post by Nemorian on Nov 13, 2007 10:21:38 GMT -6
Well, I made a reference to this on another board, mostly as a daft example, but maybe it has some merit if thought out well enough. Perhaps a few bonuses could be recieved depending on the party leader's class.
Take a Whitemage for example, a class that stands for preserving life and obliterating the undead. If a whitemage plays the role of leader, the party could gain a small boost to their max HP, say 5%. Since they're (as much as I hate to admit it) basically a frail class, they would probably attract larger monsters since they would look like an easy target. Also, in a battle any undead opponents could suffer a penalty to their statistics.
I have no idea of the difficulty to set something like this up, but it might add a bit more originality and put a little more strategy into battle and leaders. With that example, a whitemage would be more beneficial to have lead in say, Ranook Graveyard than in the Death Mountains. If anyone's interested thus far, here's a rather vague, simplified list of what I managed to think of... I'll leave out the monster thing though, that might be a bit much now that I think about it.
Fighter: Str bonus, weaker reptile chaotics.
I suppose this would mostly apply to the area around Ruoze... I was just thinking about the dinosaurs around there. I suppose it could be switched to all eaters instead... but that might be a bit much.
Knight: Vit bonus, weaker ogre-type chaotics.
Since Knights are basically built like tanks, I figured the plain old club ogres usually carry wouldn't matter much to them.
Thief: Gold bonus, weakened fast chaotics.
By fast chaotics I mean like those little dinosaur buggers I could never hit. Or for another option you could reduce enemy max hits by one instead. Or give the party a better chance of hitting before the chaotics do...
Blackbelt: Hit bonus, weakened golem-type chaotics.
Do I really need to explain the golem/BB relationship?
Ranger: Encounter bonus, weaker beast-type chaotics.
Rangers are ones with a greater sense of monsters, so they would be able to track them down or avoid them easier. Elsewhere, Rand and Jumin both pointed out that investigators are not generally prone to monster extermination, so the bonus Rangers give would be a slightly reduced encounter rate, not increased. Since they can use the transformation spells, beast chaotics seemed like the natural choice. Lions, tigers, bears... the big, bad wolves. Average fairy-tale fare.
Dragoon: Agi bonus, weaker flying chaotics.
Dragoons themselves are basically flyers in my opinion, so the flyer relationship meets there. Maybe it's not the best choice... in which case, suggest something else. That's what all this is for after all.
Redmage: Exp bonus, weaker plant-type chaotics.
I couldn't think of a blasted thing for redmages to have as a bonus... but exp seemed right since they're normally the slowest class to level last I knew. Not to mention I was trying to think of something other than just stats to boost. Someone who actually knows how redmages work would probably think of something better. (I'm looking at you, Rand.) Plant-type was really all I could think of as well, since I did this one last.
Bluemage: MP bonus, weaker ailment-inducing chaotics.
Like vipers and such. Since Bluemages already control such powers, wouldn't they have a better idea of how to defend against them, and those that use them as well?
Whitemage: HP bonus, weakened undead.
With their disposition toward healing and holy magic, undead seems like the obvious choice.
Blackmage: Willpower bonus, weaker magical chaotics.
By magical I mean anything that focuses mostly on magical attacks, like elementals.
I'm not suggesting these should apply to boss battles as well though... otherwise it would always probably be a whitemage leading off against Val, or redmages against any boss in general. The explanation could have something to do with the level of corruption being worse where they're located, thereby killing the boosts. Or keep them... whichever.
One other thing I was thinking... the bonuses probably shouldn't take effect unless the party in question has 6+ members. This is a social game after all, and it would be another way to discourage soloing or multi-key players. (No offense to those of you that choose to do so, but I've never been all that fond of multi-keyers.) At least this way it would take at least three of them in a party to get it.
You could always add some little bonus to do with beginning race as well, but that seems unfair to me. It would limit your appearance choices too much if you were determined to get the bonus from a certain race but didn't like any of the sprites. So that's an idea I'd like to voice my dislike of before it's suggested... of course it probably has been brought up before during my extensive time away, so if it has, just ignore this part.
Well, there's my little idea... hopefully it isn't overdone. To be honest, I kinda got the idea from Fire Emblem's support system and I think some other game I can't remember... oh well.
Take a Whitemage for example, a class that stands for preserving life and obliterating the undead. If a whitemage plays the role of leader, the party could gain a small boost to their max HP, say 5%. Since they're (as much as I hate to admit it) basically a frail class, they would probably attract larger monsters since they would look like an easy target. Also, in a battle any undead opponents could suffer a penalty to their statistics.
I have no idea of the difficulty to set something like this up, but it might add a bit more originality and put a little more strategy into battle and leaders. With that example, a whitemage would be more beneficial to have lead in say, Ranook Graveyard than in the Death Mountains. If anyone's interested thus far, here's a rather vague, simplified list of what I managed to think of... I'll leave out the monster thing though, that might be a bit much now that I think about it.
Fighter: Str bonus, weaker reptile chaotics.
I suppose this would mostly apply to the area around Ruoze... I was just thinking about the dinosaurs around there. I suppose it could be switched to all eaters instead... but that might be a bit much.
Knight: Vit bonus, weaker ogre-type chaotics.
Since Knights are basically built like tanks, I figured the plain old club ogres usually carry wouldn't matter much to them.
Thief: Gold bonus, weakened fast chaotics.
By fast chaotics I mean like those little dinosaur buggers I could never hit. Or for another option you could reduce enemy max hits by one instead. Or give the party a better chance of hitting before the chaotics do...
Blackbelt: Hit bonus, weakened golem-type chaotics.
Do I really need to explain the golem/BB relationship?
Ranger: Encounter bonus, weaker beast-type chaotics.
Rangers are ones with a greater sense of monsters, so they would be able to track them down or avoid them easier. Elsewhere, Rand and Jumin both pointed out that investigators are not generally prone to monster extermination, so the bonus Rangers give would be a slightly reduced encounter rate, not increased. Since they can use the transformation spells, beast chaotics seemed like the natural choice. Lions, tigers, bears... the big, bad wolves. Average fairy-tale fare.
Dragoon: Agi bonus, weaker flying chaotics.
Dragoons themselves are basically flyers in my opinion, so the flyer relationship meets there. Maybe it's not the best choice... in which case, suggest something else. That's what all this is for after all.
Redmage: Exp bonus, weaker plant-type chaotics.
I couldn't think of a blasted thing for redmages to have as a bonus... but exp seemed right since they're normally the slowest class to level last I knew. Not to mention I was trying to think of something other than just stats to boost. Someone who actually knows how redmages work would probably think of something better. (I'm looking at you, Rand.) Plant-type was really all I could think of as well, since I did this one last.
Bluemage: MP bonus, weaker ailment-inducing chaotics.
Like vipers and such. Since Bluemages already control such powers, wouldn't they have a better idea of how to defend against them, and those that use them as well?
Whitemage: HP bonus, weakened undead.
With their disposition toward healing and holy magic, undead seems like the obvious choice.
Blackmage: Willpower bonus, weaker magical chaotics.
By magical I mean anything that focuses mostly on magical attacks, like elementals.
I'm not suggesting these should apply to boss battles as well though... otherwise it would always probably be a whitemage leading off against Val, or redmages against any boss in general. The explanation could have something to do with the level of corruption being worse where they're located, thereby killing the boosts. Or keep them... whichever.
One other thing I was thinking... the bonuses probably shouldn't take effect unless the party in question has 6+ members. This is a social game after all, and it would be another way to discourage soloing or multi-key players. (No offense to those of you that choose to do so, but I've never been all that fond of multi-keyers.) At least this way it would take at least three of them in a party to get it.
You could always add some little bonus to do with beginning race as well, but that seems unfair to me. It would limit your appearance choices too much if you were determined to get the bonus from a certain race but didn't like any of the sprites. So that's an idea I'd like to voice my dislike of before it's suggested... of course it probably has been brought up before during my extensive time away, so if it has, just ignore this part.
Well, there's my little idea... hopefully it isn't overdone. To be honest, I kinda got the idea from Fire Emblem's support system and I think some other game I can't remember... oh well.