I continue to randomly daydream about my own turn-based RPG that I'd like to develop one day (Castle of the Moon) and I will say that I did enjoy the ability to evolve my class into an upgraded class. That was one of the cool things that happened in FF1 that sort of got thrown out the window in subsequent RPGs.
All of a sudden instead of a THIEF you have a NINJA who is the only class that can swing a katana and your worthless THIEF can finally do some damage now (and a little black magic as well). The mages became wizards. The FIGHTER >> KNIGHT, and the BLACKBELT into a MASTER (highest damage in the game once leveled up while still completely unarmed).
So I came up with some ideas for starting classes and what they could evolve into. I decided it would be fun to pay homage to this game that today is objectively not very good but still created formative core-memories memories during my childhood nonetheless.
The idea behind a lot of these evolutions is pretty simple: which path has your character chosen? Did they focus on defense or offense? Did they become a little bit more evil or a little bit more angelic? The Fighter evolving into the Knight means it can be used as a main tank and go head to head with vicious bosses while mitigating high damage. The Berserker would be a higher DPS character who might be able to kill and tank lots of lesser enemies more efficiently. The Knight is more honorable, disciplined, and good while the Berserker is more jaded and easily justifies his severe brutality. Both have an affinity for killing demons. One is a bit more enthusiastic/psychotic than the other when doing so.
In Castle of the Moon, the Thief would actually be a good class, especially considering the hardcore nature of the game (if you wipe all 4 of those characters are destroyed along with all their items). The Thief would be an expert in laying traps and figuring out how to engage the enemy in covert ways rather than face-tanking a horde of zombies. This class would be quite good at tactical retreats and luring enemies into bad positioning. It could also be used to avoid fighting entirely in certain situations and simply steal all the loot without getting caught. Their main weakness would be getting ambushed/surrounded before they have time to come up with a solid plan.
The Thief would then evolve into either an Engineer (defensive) or a Rogue (offensive). The Engineer would be a highly tactical off-tank that can't really do a lot of damage but is really good at crowd control, while the Rogue would be extremely stealthy with massive single-target DPS (Knights and Rogues make a good team against bosses). The Engineer is more good/honorable while the rogue has chosen the darker path. All have a certain understanding and ability to neutralize mechanical threats.
I like the idea staying true to FF1 and having a martial artist class but I haven't totally flushed this one out yet. Clearly the Monk would be a more defensive and solitary holy character, while the Brawler would be extremely aggro and ready to throw down for like any reason. Unlike the rogue, the Brawler would have zero stealth and completely lack any concept of self preservation, making their best friend the White Mage. Like FF1, they would all be extremely low-maintenance characters, making them very useful in a game where you can die and lose everything. All these classes would get a bonus when fighting humanoids.
AI isn't doing me any favors on this rendition.
One of the big personalities that FF1 is missing is the ranged physical DPS class. Weak in melee combat but also good at staying out of it, the archer just hangs back and fires volleys of arrows at the opponent. The Hunter upgrade being the defensive path and the Ranger being more of a mercenary sharpshooting assassin. These guys have an affinity for animals; good and both training beasts as pets and taking them out before they become a problem.
The ultimate support class; focused on healing and mitigating or preventing damage entirely. Don't leave town without one! The White Mage is the only class that doesn't get an offensive evolution; both the Cleric and Paladin are defensive in nature, with the Cleric's focus being pure support while the Paladin serves as a healing off-tank. However, no one is better suited to eliminate the undead, as healing these abominations feedbacks into critical holy damage.
Master of the arcane elements, the Black Mage is the most offensive class in the game. Being a squishy glass cannon makes them a huge target so don't let them get one-shot by the boss. They pair quite well with off-tanks that can crowd control a lot of baddies at once in order to AOE them. Their preferred partner in crime, as it were, is the THIEF >> ENGINEER as they personally find these other religious fanatics to be tedious, boring, and perhaps even dangerous.
Similar to the White Mage only having access to defensive evolutions, the Black Mage only has access to offensive ones. The Wizard values discipline and knowledge above all else, while the warlock craves power and turned to to the dark arts to get it. The Warlock can do the most damage in the game by far, but is limited by time. Affliction stacks take a while to build up (Damage Over Time). This means mobs die slowly and painfully, but can still lash out and inflict injury before they are slain. This is an attrition-based strategy and works very well on boss-fights that were going to last a while anyway.
The Wizard, on the other hand, specializes in tactical burst damage designed to divide, conquer, and sow chaos throughout the ranks of the enemy. The Wizard knows his strengths and weaknesses, and understands that the best enemy is a smoldering corpse, and not one that is writhing in agony; who would do anything to make the hurting stop. To the Wizard: the best defense is a good offense, whereas the warlock has no defense whatsoever and revels in the vast superiority of their own dominating power.
Being experts of the arcane, they all excel at countering elementals.
Last but not least!
This class excels at balance and taking on any role in the party that may be lacking. Unlike many other classes, they are fast-on-their-feet dynamic thinkers and able to maneuver out of ambushes with ease, while still being swift to counterattack. They get along quite well with the Wizard and have a lot in common, but often step on the Warlock's toes unless acting as a personal bodyguard.
The Red Mage can act as a healer, tank, or dps, but has only mastered what they would argue are the most effective forms of combat and defense. This limits their healing ability to single-target HOTs, DPS to single-target burst, and single-target off-tanking. As long as the party is not being completely overwhelmed this class is an extremely solid addition. Their weakness is being swarmed. They excel at single combat and are the only class that the Brawler fears. Something about speed-enhancing magic and swords that can freeze people solid being "unfair". But the Red Mage would tell you they never fight because they're such good friends.
Their preferred mode of attack is up close and personal with their dynamically enchanted sword. They are the only class that can consistently deal any type of damage they want by changing the enchantment on their weapon. This further adds to their efficiency and utility during combat. For example if they're fighting fire elementals, an ice enchantment to the blade will do the trick just fine.
In the Red Mage's quest to manipulate time and space they naturally begin to understand how to control gravity itself. This is not easy and baffles even the Wizard. Through these small manipulations the Red Mage focuses their studies on bending either light or time. Light-bending leads down the path of the more defensive Illusionist, while time-bending lends itself to becoming the most powerful SpellSword the world has ever seen.
These classes have an affinity for dragons, dragonkin, and other birds of flight such as the phoenix.
I was thinking about Barbarian, Necromancer, Alchemist, Sorcerer, Priest, Ninja, Assassin, Dragoon, blue-mage, green-mage, and even blood-mage. Realistically the black-mage could just be renamed to Sorcerer, white mage to Priest, and red-mage to Bladesinger or Battlemage to cut ties to the bland Final Fantasy references.
The green-mage would be the easiest to add because the evolutions would be Shaman (DPS) and Druid (Tank). The blue-mage was supposed to be the time/speed based illusionist and spellsword, with the red-mage focused more on enchanting/tanking/healing... but I realized I didn't really have any ideas for what the red-mage could evolve into so I cannibalized the blue-mage and combined them together (plus blue mages are apparently already a completely different thing; a copycat class that uses enemy skills). And then a blood-mage would evolve into something like a Vampire || Masochist... but alas it's just too much.
As you can see here I've already thought of 7 base classes that would then evolve into 14 end-game classes total. That's arguably already way too many and pretty difficult to balance and further develop, but I have some ideas about why this would be doable because of the economy of a hardcore-mode ecosystem. Essentially overpowered builds would be insanely expensive and you could still die and lose it all. It would also work if classes don't have a ton of abilities like they would in a traditional MMO/RPG while maintaining very specific niches.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion leveling system
Another question I keep asking is if I want the game to be skill-based or level-based. Should players be able to decide what their character evolves into or would it be based on the actions that character has taken up to that point? Should skills get more powerful based on how much they are used, or everything just gets more powerful across the board as the character levels up? Probably a level system as that is the standard for RPGs but I do wonder if it could be done the other way. But now I'm slowly creeping out of the scope of this post.
The fact that I was even able to create 14 separate categories for all these classes is pretty decent, but that doesn't necessarily mean that overlap doesn't exist. Some of these classes could be inferior to others given whatever meta and cookie-cutter strategies gamers come up with. There would also need to be a big distinction between "off-tank" and "utility" crowd control. But I suppose I can pour over that nuance in some other post.
I will say that categorizing them like this was actually pretty useful. I can see just by looking at them now how certain classes would need to operate. The Brawler for example would need a rage or blood based resource bar; able to pump out more damage as it gets hit and making it synergize super well with a Cleric. There also needs to be a strong distinction between the Monk and the Paladin. Both are melee combat holy warriors with heals but perhaps the Monk can only heal himself and is better at suited single-target encounters and crippling his opponent 1v1, while the paladin is more suited to larger crowd control and throwing out emergency heals to the glass-cannons.
Clearly this would be a massive project but I find it fun to speculate about from time to time. Good to put these ideas to paper so if I get around to creating a game design document I already have a lot of ideas to pull from like what I've just laid down here.
Next post I do on this topic will probably cover the economics and item RNG combined with skills to show how it's possible to stop cookie cutter builds and strategies from dominating the meta when perma-death acts as the ultimate resource sink.
