Trading Art for Help on Character Classing

[Ben]

My Name is Ben...
Im not screwing around here,
Im serious about my game, AND YOURS!


So Ive been messing around with RPG maker for the last few years....Since I was young I have been working on The concept of a Graphic novel with a Fantasy theme....and Over years, I have been perfecting the Universe behind the story....And Now that I have some RPGmaker experience I would like to Adapt alot of this Storyboard Into RPG format.....

So after toying with alot of Ideas, and Scrapping a million Projects, and toying with Every Version of RPGM I could find, I am Now setting Up all of the Database Crap for my Game.....

The Format of the Game world Has too many similarities to the final Fantasy Franchise for me to Pull off without seeming like a Coy ripoff, so I am Being Blatant About it, and Have started Making the Game a Final Fantasy Tribute Game...This way I dont have to feel so bad about Using game clichees....
(For the Record, Clichees are abundant in this game, as with any other Final fantasy Installment.)

I am a Professional Artist. I run a Tattoo shop here In canada...In Exchange for Game help, I can provide Custom Game art, and The like in Exchange for some help......It may take me a couple of weeks to get finished product, as I am a busy worker by day, but the time is worth it for the quality of product....

Im trying to make a game with alot of Replayablility.....I have 5 character classes, All standard Final Fantasy classes, but some have slight twists, and Im having problems figuring out how to set up, and Establish My Database/General Character building engine......

Ive read tutorials, and tried to retain what I can, and My desktop is full of notepad documents, full of tutorials, but Alot is still Hazy, and Incredible Inefficient....So In hopes of Getting Insight or Assistance I will Explain the Character Classes and all that crap...
The storyline is all ready made, so I wont bother anybody with it unless they want to know....and ask to know....
I will make all of my animations, and Game Art Public....And If anyone wants to Help me with creating my finished Masterpiece, I will gladly Return the favour with stunning Artwork for your Game/Project.....****, Ill even design you a tattoo if thats what it takes...Keep in mind that I have a hard time grasping Variables....I have yet to hear it Explained in a way that sinks in.

So without Further Ado....The Game Info

The Name: Final Fantasy: Gemini Effect


Character Classes:

Fighter:    Run of the mill standard.....I am Having No problems with this....No help needed.

Theif:
I dont want to focus on Steling Items with the Theif....I would, However, Like to Focus On Stealing Abilities/Blue Magic...Im slowly figuring out how to do this, I think, but Somwhere along I always screw it up....Alot of tutorials are Hazy, and Fancy ***....I want a Basic as hell Bluemagic/Ability Theiving System that wont Confuse the Hell out of me...
Id also Like to Incorporate Stolen Abilities that Allow the Theif to In turn, Steal the Enemies Weapon/Armor/Items, but Only after the Ability was stolen and Learned.....
Im thinking that Id like the Ability to Come In the form of an Item, Like a Stone or Gem, That was stolen For the Enemy, and the Ability would be Actually LEARNED untill the Stone were used by a Character...
So in Turn...
Theif Steals the Stone for the Enemy.
After the Battle, The Stone can be used to Teach a skill.
These Stones Could Teach Certain Abilities to Various Classes...

The Theif is the Class Im having the Most Problem with, and In turn, Need the Most Help with.

White Mage: Ive Got this Covered....Very Basic.

Black Mage: See Above.

Summoner: The Focus for this one, right now for me is in the Animation of the Espers in the First Place....
I have alot of this part covered, but could use some constructive Criticism or Input....

I have 8 Espers that Can Be summoned....
Each Esper Has 3 different Summon Spells....3 different abilities/Attacks ie....Ifrit Has "Hellfire" "NullBlaze" and "Elemental Imbibe"....Each Esper Has One Offensive attack animation, and 2 support or Defence Animation...They are all coming along very nicely...Im doing them all from Scratch.....This is all Under controll....
But Ive been toying with the Idea of trying to figure out a way to Make all of the Attacks for One Esper Co-Related....As in, The Esper itself Would Level up, Like In FF8....I dont have a Clue as to How to Do this, So As of now its just an Idea.....I have a feeling it would be a super complicated Procedure....




That Being Said.....


Each Character Class Has a Guild/Class Office, In the Various Towns, Where One can Complete Missions....the Characters In the game are, in the Spirit of Clichee, Part of An "Adventurer for Higher" Group......But Id like So that There Were a Set of Experience points for the Guild....Like a Guild Level, and The Higher that Level, Certain Switches Would Unlock New Items and Abilities....Im not sure How to Make the guild points though.....


Im still Researching Ideas For Minigames....
Im Open To Ideas....I would Not like to Drastically Alter My class System, asnd the Storyline Is already Set in Stone.....

Any Help is Appreciated......And Reciprocated.......

I can Be Reached on this thread, or my email address and MSM handle are : knives_are_quiet@yahoo.com

If anyone would like to Join my Team of One on this project, I will in turn, Gladly Lend my services to your Project team......


werd.

[Darkfox]

Don't topic kick.

[Ryos4]

Keep it in mind that this is just my opinion and is in no way an direct attack on you, and is not ment to offend you.  It could be that i didnt get what you meant.

Interesting if im getting this right your combining a blue mage and a thief.  "Blue thief" lol.  That idea is a lil strange and unorthodox, because thiefs are not normally endowed with any magical abilities or the ability to make any use of them.  If you played ff10, you could make Kimahri or w/e into a strong mage or a strong warrior, though a mixture of them both would make him useless in battle, having no strenghts, if you did make him strong in both then this class would be dominate over the other classes.  And would essentially be a red mage with a twist.  

And about the art of stealing, its always gonna be long and repetitive coding.  As a matter of fact stealing would probably be the most time consuming coding in your entire game.  Since you have to do it for every single monster.  Idk if you should make the thief need to learn steal commands from an enemy, what kind of thief is he, not know how to steal enemy items.  

About the summons, the games had differnt names for the summons, i think espers, aeons, or just playing summon.  Why dont you call them like deities or something.  As for the lvling of the summons, you could make it easy on yourself by having them lvl with the guild lvling, for each guild lvl your summons gains so many lvls.

What would be interesting is if you had a long range class.  Maybe an archer, engineer type thing that uses guns, or even ninja/assassin class that just throws stuff to attack (kinda like yuffie w/out the huge shuriken).  It could have instant kill moves or status altering skills. That way your black mage wouldnt have to learn skills like sleep, poison, death, ect,which tend to be ignored in games.  Ive never had my black mage use those magic spells.

And about your class system, your not gonna make each character generic are you.  Hopefully you make it like ffX-2 where each character has thier own look for each class.  And its not all the same costume on your entire party.  And if you could, have like a secondary class skills for your character. Where you could have the characters main class as a warrior and still able to use magic skills from other class he once was.  He wont learn anything new but can still use what he has learned.  Im not really sure how you could do that, probably with a CMS that involved equiping skills like FFTactics.  This way you could have the redmage class built into your game without having the actual class, though the mage wouldnt be good with weapons.

I would enjoy seeing some of your charset you got done. I kinda wanna see what you consider being a god at idraw, though i just use paint. lol.

Oh yeah and i think dark fox wants you to use your edit button, rather then triple posting.

[Ben]

God was perhaps an Egaggeration....But  Im Compitent.
I should Elaborate....


The Blue-Theif Thing is pretty much Bang On...
There is another Class I havent Mentioned yet, I didnt mention him before but I guess I shouldve...

A Robot/Purchased Upgrades Class.....This is Where I would Fit  in a Gunner, Or Archer type Ability...But the Robot, In the Game is Like a Hired Party Member...
In the Opening Chapter Of the Game, The part that Im working on now.....Centers Around The 5 Main Characters, All part of a Adventurer For hire-Type Group that gets involved in some heavy shenannigans....However, The Other Chapters of the Game Follow the 5 Characters As they go On separate Paths, Hiring Party Members/Robot Class Characters, And Accompanied By the Supporting Playable Characters in their Respective Chapters....So.....

Chapter One, Follows the
Fighter, Summoner, Theif, White and Black Mages...
Chapter Two Follows:
The Fighter, as He progresses through His Part in the Storyline, and the Characters He Has to Join With on His Quest..
Along With 2 Robot Characters, that would Be Upgraded to Suit the Needs Of That Party, througout the Chapters...

And so on With the Other Classes As they Proceed through the Story.

Every Character Gets A Graphic.....Except For Low level Robots....But They will Change As you Upgrade them


The Tedious Job Of Programming the Crap for the "Blue-Theif" Im prepared For.....Its Just a Matter Of Understanding (Having Sufficiently Explained to me) What the Steps Are, And what the Hell Im Doing, Or Getting A Fill-in-the-blanks Format system Going.

Only Key Enemies Would Have The Abilities Or Items to be Stolen....I Was Thinking Of Having Some Kind of Prompt Appear When An Enemy Uses An Attack That Can Be Stolen.....


The Guild Points Being Alligned With The Summon Level Is A good Idea....the Other Characters (Non-Summoner-class) Would Only Have One Or Two Key-to-the-storyline Summon Spells To learn....

The Summon Names Vary Kindof, In Respect To Their Names...
For Instance....

The Chocobo Summon Spells Are Simply "Call" Spells.....
When Cast It would Be "Called Chocobo"

As With The Mog Family of Summon Spells...
Ifrit, Shiva, And Ramuh, Are "Guardians" and Would Have A command Like "Summoned Guardian: Ifrit"

The Later Ones Are Espers, This Is Where Im Fitting In
A Seraph Family of Summon Spells....

And the Stupidly Strong ones (Bahamut, Tiamat,Leviathan etc) I havent really Thought Of a Stickable name for yet.....

[Ryos4]

So where are your charsets. lol. (Use the attachment section at the bottom of the options).   You think so highly of yourself, im just curious, i dont consider myself to be really great at it, but i am told that i am.

Your game doesnt really seem to have a class system, since your characters dont seem to have the ability to change class (which would add more replay value to your game).It seems more like a combination of the Seiken Desetsu III(sequel type thing of secret of mana) and Saga Frontier.

[Meiscool-2]

Well Ryos, as a pretty decent coder, I can safely say that all those things are possible, and that your idea about stealing being very hard to script isn't as bad as you'd think. But, it will be very hard, so I would suggest not even trying the steal armor/weps/etc thing like FF tactics had.

As to the blue magic/theif, why don't you try something that steals points? Like, steal strenght, steal defence, etc etc. You can also change basic blinding spells to "steal sight" or something, and if you're blind it takes it off of you and passes it to them. Steal voice, etc etc. You can still make different skills for item stealing and gold stealing, but that's about it for pure theft.

[Ben]

Thats a really good one.....
Disguising support magic as a Theif.....
I think that would be the way to go....
I really like the Idea of "Steal Voice" and "Steal Sight"
I could Make a really cool Battle Animation for that too..

The Ability Theiving is Detrimental to the storyline however, so I really would not want to stray too far from that.

How I assumed I would have to do this is as so..(This is probably not correct, but this weekend, I was planning on Getting my Theif Class Perfected, so this gives me time to plan an attack)


A common event " Steal Ability"....the Event would be a switch.

The Enemy with the Ability in question being present In battle,
Would Activate Another Switch....


These Two Switches, When Activated, would  Add the ability (for the record, the theif would be stealing Items, Containing the Abilities...A book-type Item....This is so that the Theif Could Theoretically, Steal a rare fighter ability, only available by theiving...alas I digress.)

This sounds alot more simple than the Blue Magic Tutorials and Theif Tuts....Wich makes me think Im neglecting something...

Using this logic, asuuming this Idea Worked...The Ability would Be stolen 100% of the time.......

(Is this Method Practical?
Beacase the tuts seem to make it sound way more complicated...

I dont mind having a simple system.....What Im lacking in Class-complexity I plan on making up for in skill development and storyline.

Im trying to give a real 1992 feel to it....with a storyboard, and replay value on par with todays standards....And I would like to make it a fangame for the old-gamers looking for a really catchy fangame)

 I need to have a restraint on this...a bit of chance or circumstance needs to come into play....

I can Give the "steal Ability" skill, an MP cost....

Or I would be required to have some kind of a check in place...A fork condition....Checks the mHP, for instance.....

Im assuming that the MP cost would be  more simple of an option.
If I did this....I would Then Have a Few Levels of "Steal Ability" so that If, by chance, a Green player happened upon a high level Monster with strong asss blue magic to steal, The theif could not steal that ability with the version of "Steal Ability" he posesses...



Is that retarded? I think I could make it work rather nicely, but input is nice...

Ill finish off Some of my cinematic-stills from the game and post them tonight....most of my product is still very much unfinished...
I have a wierd Neurosis....I never show anyone my work Unless it is fully presentable, and Damn near Finished...It stems from my work...."Never let a Customer leave the Shop with a Tattoo that is Obviously Unfinished...."

Im not just blowing hot air, rest assured.
Im sorry, I most likely came off as far too cocky in the beginning posts....
Its a habit.Im not a braggart,
I am However Very phocecious. (look it up, bitches!)
Im a very competent artist....established in my area....
Im still learning alot about digital Media, but I learn quickly...

And I really enjoy helping other people get ideas out of their head, and onto a surface.....
Im an artist, for the people, by the poeple.....

I really like to help.



PS....the Theifs Stolen Abilities, Arent So much Magic Based in theme. It would be silly for a Theif to be casting "Firaga"...Mostly Attacks, And Supporting Skills.....He would, However, Be stealing Abilities on behalf of other party members...A theif Could Steal Say "Red Amber" wich would teach an Ifrit Summon to the Summoner....









For curiosities Sake.....How hard would it be to make a "Morpher" type Class.....As in FFTA....I dont plan on it, but The concept eludes me.

[blaze_shinigami]

you use big words... but I think I understand what your saying. I wish i  knew coding.
I don't think today's game have much replay value though. most of the new games i get I don't even want to finish they're so boring.

but hey you do tattoo's? Can you please tell me a little bit about that if you feel like it? how hard is it? I was wondering cuz i could probably do it as a side venture.  How much did it cost you to start up such a business?

[Ben]

Send me an Email and Ill tell you all about my Work.
This probably isnt the place to talk about work...
Yeah, its kindof hard...it cost me 10 grand to get my shop running.

[Ben]

Thae Character sets are not yet completed...But The summons are (Almost....By tonight) and Ive got a monster/Animationstill Ill post untill then

[Lighting Half Dozen]

Looks similar to a Hollow, a dead human curupted by sin and evil. Good job with the concept and art work.