What constitutes blasphemy? Changing the job tree?

[VincentCraven]

I've seen lots of people change specific classes or increase the amount of levels necessary for unlocking a class, but what about changing the job tree completely.  I was thinking "How does Thief have anything to do with Lancer?"

Of course, changing stuff just b/c it doesn't make sense isn't usually too valid.  But what about changing it so that you have more freedom near the beginning. Something like:

[Start] Squire
Lv3 Squire => Knight, Archer, Thief
Lv4 Squire => Monk
Lv3 Knight, Lv4 Monk => Geomancer
Lv4 Knight, Lv4 Archer => Lancer
Lv5 Monk, Lv4 Lancer => Samurai
Lv5 Thief, Lv4 Geomancer => Ninja
Lv4 Lancer, Lv4 Geomancer => Dancer

What this really translates into is:

Geomancer: Lv4 Squire, Lv3 Knight, Lv4 Monk
Lancer: Lv3 Squire, Lv4 Knight, Lv4 Archer
Samurai: Lv4 Sq, Lv4 Kn, Lv4 Ar, Lv5 Mk, Lv4 Ln
Ninja: Lv4 Sq, Lv3 Kn, Lv5 Th, Lv4 Mk, Lv4 Ge
Dancer: Lv4 Sq, Lv4 Kn, Lv4 Ar, Lv4 Mk, Lv4 Ge, Lv4 Ln

And likewise plan for magic class.  Would anyone object to playing a patch with such changes? Is it better/worse to change the job tree structure?  I figure Thief is too weak to be on the same level as Monk, and the only class it really fits with is Ninja.

[Caliburn]

It'd be interesting to play a game of FFT where the job tree was changed because it would add a little freshness to the experience.

Now a days, you know exactly what you need to unlock Thief, Lancer, Bard, etc, etc. If you made a new job tree it would throw things a bit off for the player and freshen things up a bit.

[Vanya]

I'm shuffling the tree around considerably for my hack. I'm also altering the JPp costs of abilities to compensate for them becoming available earlier or later. That should keep things somewhat balanced.

[Austin]

I've done the same thing for my hack as well so I'd say it's a good idea.

[LastingDawn]

Ohh... I like this! Would you mind if I used it for Mercenaries? I know the Job Tree is in need of some dire assistance and indeed this would bring some freshness to the table.

[VincentCraven]

Not at all, and I would also suggest doing something similar for the magic class. Say, lv3 Chemist unlocks Priest, Wizard, Time Mage. Probably lv3 for Oracle too.  You could even stem Chemist off Squire a bit with like lv2 Squire requirement.

Austin, what exactly did you do?
Vanya, do you know what yours will be?

[Austin]

I used the 2 job trees in vanilla FFT and cut them up into 6 mini-trees. This way its simpler and I have a bit more freedom too. I cut out the calculator for obvious reasons, but I haven't decided what to replace him with yet.

Squire Lvl3 - Monk Lvl5 - Geomancer    
Knight Lvl3 - Lancer Lvl5 - Samurai - - - Geomancer, Samurai, & Ninja Lvl1- Mime  
Archer Lvl3 - Thief Lvl5 - Ninja      

Chemist Lvl3 - Mediator Lvl4 - Bard/Dancer

Priest Lvl3 - Oracle - - - - - Oracle & Time Mage Lvl4 - Summoner
Wizard Lvl3 - Time Mage

[VincentCraven]

It does broaden the options at the beginning, though I prefer to intermingle requirements more than you do.

Here is the whole job tree:

[Start] Squire, Sage, Chemist  (Sg also stands for Sage)

Lv3 Squire => Knight, Archer, Thief
Lv4 Squire => Monk
Lv3 Sage => Priest, Wizard
Lv4 Chemist => Mediator

Lv3 Sage, Lv4 Monk => Geomancer
Lv4 Knight, Lv4 Archer => Lancer
Lv4 Squire, Lv4 Priest => Oracle
Lv5 Sage, Lv4 Wizard => Time Mage

Lv5 Monk, Lv4 Lancer => Samurai
Lv5 Thief, Lv4 Geomancer => Ninja
Lv4 Lancer, Lv4 Geomancer => Dancer
Lv6 Wizard, Lv5 Time Mage => Summoner
Lv5 Mediator, Lv5 Oracle => Bard

Unlock Samurai, Ninja, Summoner => Mime

What this really translates into is:

Geomancer: Lv4 Squire, Lv3 Sage, Lv4 Monk
Lancer: Lv3 Squire, Lv4 Knight, Lv4 Archer
Oracle: Lv4 Squire, Lv3 Sage, Lv4 Priest
Time Mage: Lv5 Sage, Lv4 Wizard

Samurai: Lv4 Sq, Lv4 Kn, Lv4 Ar, Lv5 Mk, Lv4 Ln
Ninja: Lv4 Sq, Lv3 Sg, Lv5 Th, Lv4 Mk, Lv4 Ge
Dancer: Lv4 Sq, Lv3Sg, Lv4 Kn, Lv4 Ar, Lv4 Mk, Lv4 Ge, Lv4 Ln
Summoner: Lv5 Sg, Lv6 Wz, Lv5 TM
Bard: Lv4 Sq, Lv3 Sg, Lv4 Ch, Lv5 Me, Lv5 Or


What this does is allows the player a bit more freedom with the lower classes while giving high level enemies more combinations of expertise to choose from.  Anyone is free to use this or a variation of this job tree.

Sage would need new skills going, but w/e.  You could replace it with Red Mage or Blue Mage and it would work just fine.

[Asmo X]

One thing to consider when making job requirements: too much JP to spend in their own class means AI knights might start using their own supports. Which is stupid. Maybe these enemies should be given a higher "job unlock" that has a knight requirement (Geo or whatever you want to do). That requirement should grant enough JP to start learning a good amount of action skills but should be depleted before reaching the supports (hopefully I understand all of this properly in the first place). You might need to tinker with JP costs/% chance to learn but it would be nice if knights didn't use "equip sword". Same kind of goes for Archers w/equip crossbow but unfortunately they have concentrate in their supports too, which they can actually use.

There are other things, like short charge on characters with no magic but I don't think there's much we can do about that.

[VincentCraven]

>.<

Dang, why can Knight use Equip Sword? It should work like Martial Arts, which cannot be placed on Monk.

Ah well, but I think we can avoid most of that by making "Equip ___" have a low % learn chance.  Are the S/R/M's equipped randomly?  I hope the AI uses some sense in that field.

You needn't worry about Short Charge, since it's only found on the Summoner track, but there are plenty others that could cause problems. If anyone else has a job tree they'd like to post, feel free.  Or just suggestions for particular classes.

[Kourama]

After reading over this topic I was thinking just having 3-4 different job paths and then each character would have to stick to that path. For example,

Squire ---> Thief ---> Monk ---> Ninja
Archer ---> Knight  ---> Lancer ---> Samurai

Chemist ---> Orator ---> Bard
Chemist ---> Geomancer ---> Dancer

Red Mage ---> White Mage ---> Oracle ---> Summoner
Red Mage ---> Black Mage ---> Time Mage ---> Sage (new magic job)


This wouldn't be the final job list or anything but it would make the game harder as well as force people to use different jobs, although also taking away from the major customization. The major issue in regards to programming is making it so that you can recruit Squires/Archers/Chemists/Red Mages from the Soldier Office.

I think it would be interesting to implement this but not sure how well it would work.

[Raijinili]

Set the equip options to innate for the classes which can use them to stop them from equipping those.

Equip Sword on Squire, Knight, Geomancer, for example.

[Xifanie]

huh, doesn't work that easily, Throw Item (on chemist) & Two hands (on ninja) have checks, that means removing the innate would make it impossible to have them on those.

By the same means, Equip Sword won't have any effect if they can already wield swords, else it will just allow to wear them.

[Asmo X]

Raijinili's idea seems to have worked. I set equip sword/shield/armour innate for the knight class, reduced the skills to 0 jp and 100% chance to learn and knights aren't using them. Good idea man.

[VincentCraven]

Genius!  I'm going to implement that and start testing that on my own patch.  I think what happened is that when Knight had learned Eq Armor, it somehow noticed that Eq Armor was already innate and thus did not equip it.  Normally, as Zodiac pointed out, the player can accidentally put on an innate, but...