Final Fantasy Hacktics

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I should start this thread with the following disclaimer:
"I love red mages, but they still suck"


Then, I have to follow that with an explanation:
Red Mages in many games of the series were unbalanced and in some cases served as utility classes.  Despite this, I actually really enjoyed the challenge of still running them end game.  Fun fact, FF1 for NES came out when I was very young, and the original description (direct from the original game book) was so appealing:

Quote from: Original NES BookThe Red Magician has the ability to learn some of both black and white magic spells and is a fairly good fighter.

To a small child, words like "some" and "fairly" hold no weight.  As such, I ran 4 Red Mages, and soon learned the error of my ways.

First and foremost, what is a Red Mage?
The Red Mage has been a Final Fantasy staple since the dawn of FFTime.  When it debuted in FF, it existed only to suck.  Most people would argue and say "you're wrong, old school!  They used white and black magics, a wide variety of weapons, and heavy armors!"  To this, I usually grunt or roll my eyes.  I like to think I'm an expert on the topic, having made a huge mistake my first go round at the age of 5 and playing 4 Red Mages.

End game Red Mages couldn't use any armor, plateaued in their stats, lacked the best white and black spells, and had a crappy selection of even mage gear.  Later games introduced cool stuff like spell proficiencies, dual-casting (the Red Mage trademark), enchanting weapons like the FFV Sorceror...  This did a lot for the Red Mage, and serves as the foundation for my Red Mage.

If you think I'm full of crap, you're not wrong.  My spouse's ex would absolutely agree with you.  I do rely heavily on my experience grinding Red Mage JP/XP, as well as the incredibly thorough stuff at https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Mage.

I wanted to show my appreciation to Lijj & Cheetah as early in the post as possible, so it's worth noting that several Red Mage sprites exist (http://ffhacktics.com/sprites.php?search=red+mage) and in addition to my son who loves Red Mages, served as inspiration.  Thanks, Lijj, Cheetah, and Nightmare Child!

What do they wear?
Red Mages have seen a lot of changes over the years as games evolved.  Unfortunately, none of those changes made them great.  They just have cool hats.  Originally, Red Mages used knives, swords, rods, staves, and a few other miscellaneous items, and wore armor and light shields, but ended up just being a crappier version of its black and white counterparts as the black and white robes were exclusively for their respective mages.  In FFIII, however, they became slightly more versatile with the use of a few bows.  True to the Red Mage form, though, the best bows were reserved for real Light Warriors!

Does FFT support Red Mage Mechanics?
  It depends on your preferred flavor of Red Mage.  To Nyzer's point, the Red Mage doesn't have to suck, but the early releases in the FF series didn't know that.  Your Red Mage can be anything, but because I prefer the genuine vanilla experience, I prefer the early Red Mage, which I can then augment with other class magics (Time, White, Black...).  If you still want traditional Red Mage but want more power, that brings us to Dual Cast.  The general consensus at present is that the level of effort would most likely be astronomical due to the fact that FFT does not support multiple commands in a single turn.

FFXI was also kind enough to bring us skills from an actual awesome job (Sorceror), stealing them instead for your Red Mage.  FFT doesn't support the elementally charged strikes without heavier modding.  That brings us to enfeebling spells.

What Red Magics already exist?
All of them!  Red Magic was a mix of white and black magics.  It's really about how you want to make your Red Mage unique.  I personally try to avoid duplicating any skills across classes.  It's just... lazy.  Good news, there's an even crappier job than the Red Mage, and that's the Oracle!  If you pair up White Magic and your new Red Magic skillsets, you have a healing, enfeebling, useless in end-game, magical warrior.  Just an example.  You can save yourself something like 14 (fourteen!!) ability slots by getting rid of the most notoriously worst class in Final Fantasy history.  No, I'm not an advocate for the level down cheat.

This is not the only Red Mage flavor, but because it's mine, I'm going to pass it off as the best.
Awesome, old school!  I'm going to jump in and make one!
Unlike my post about the Blue Mage, I really think this is a worthy addition, and I'm honestly disappointed in Square for not having done it initially.  Even better, the only thing you really may want to change is the PA multiplier.  Remember, like the Oracle, the Red Mage is supposed to suck.  Just up the multipliers, add a few weapons types, and you're good to go with your crappy, sorta versatile, new Warrior of Light!  But, for the love of God, please don't give them armor and knight swords!


I'd love to hear your Red Mage designs in the comments below.  This post is oozing with seeming disdain for Red Mages, but they are my favorite class, and how you'd make them not suck is interesting!

Suggested Red Mage Flavors
It is recommended that you explore your own creativity, but here are a few to get you started.  Feel free to mix and match to your heart's content, and if you have an idea that is worth sharing, add it in the comments below to have it featured.

If you feel your idea has been misrepresented, please contact me directly so we can collaborate and get your idea out here properly.






Resources:

• Sprite Sheets

This post has been made possible by the members of this site.  Special thanks to:
Lijj
Cheetah
Nyzer
Nyzer
Nyzer
Nyzer

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There are several posts expressing interest in the Blue Mage.  Some ask for help, others... help, I guess... this one is for collaboration, as there are some things I've figured out, and others I haven't (and likely never will).

First and foremost, what is a Blue Mage?
While the Blue Mage has seen several iterations, two things have remained consistent...  monster magic and versatility, albeit after a lot of completionism and vulgarity.  A great number of resources can be found at https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Mage.  The oldest, and arguably most badass, Blue Mage was made available in FFV, and gained a wide array of magics, including Aqua Breath, Aero 1-3 (also sometimes categorized as White Magic), Parasite, Exploder, ????, White Wind, and many others.  This gave the Blue Mage some of the most powerful non-elemental spells, and access to efficient, potent buffs and curatives.  They also are able to hold their own with physical prowess, so like a Red Mage, but better.

I wanted to show my appreciation to Kagebunji & Mando as early in the post as possible, so it's worth noting that a Blue Mage sprite exists (http://ffhacktics.com/sprites.php?search=blue+mage) and, in addition to my son who loves Blue Mages, served as inspiration.  Thanks, Kagebunji, Mando, and Nightmare Child!

What do they wear?
Blue Mages, in their earliest incarnation, used Knives, Swords, and Rods, and wore Shields, Hats, Robes, and Clothes.  FFT and FFV maintain a pretty strong 1:1 in gear, save bells, boomerangs, and maybe one other.  Later Blue Mages were limited to sabers, drastically reducing coolness.

Does FFT support Blue Mage Mechanics?
Yes, "Learn on hit".

In FF6, Strago started with Aqua Rake (Breath), Revenge, and Stone.  To start with spells in FFT:

• Set JP cost to 0
• Uncheck "Learn with JP (Player)"
• Check "Learn on Hit"

For the spells you want to have your Blue Mage learn through combat:

• Set JP cost to 9999 (or possibly any non-zero value)
• Uncheck "Learn with JP (Player)"
• Check "Learn on Hit"

The rate is up to the modder.  You may want more powerful skills to be lower %, missables to be 100%, or both.

What Blue Magics already exist?
Luckily, Mr. School has provided a table with a ton of Blue Magic/Lores/Enemy Skills to cross reference.  Some spells exist only in name, while others are ready to go out of the box.



Awesome, old school!  I'm going to jump in and make one!
Whoah, slow down.  First off, your enthusiasm is a little off-putting.  Second, here are all the things that have driven me to a life of self-loathing, courtesy of the Blue Mage:

1. The animations are super weird, since humans aren't monsters
When I Mimic Titan a guy's face off, my guy does a weird sword dance.  When I Exploder my best friend mid-battle, my guy does something that takes me back to middle school gym.  There is allegedly a method to reassign animations or have 2 sets of animations.

2. Blue Magic costs MP!
...but monsters' skills don't.  This creates a low degree of complexity but if you start to think "bro, I can't Osmose (FFV throwback, anyone?) a monster normally!" or "dude, Difference doesn't hurt monsters because no MP!" you start to get a feel for the unintended consequences of the re-balancing process.

Additionally, If a skill costs MP, the monsters will not use it if they lack the MP to do so (despite not requiring MP themselves to use them).

Don't care?  Then on to...
3. MP wasn't the beginning!
Human/humanoids have very low stats.  In contrast, their spells are very powerful.  Monsters, on the otherhand, have very high stats and weak skills.  If you are thinking weak human + weak skills = work, you nailed it.  How much work though?  If your second thought was to boost the stats of your Blue Mage, then you would deal tremendous damage with any other skill relying on the MA/PA stat.  Additionally, like with MP consequences, reducing the MA/PA of your monsters drastically increases the effectiveness of PA/MA breaks.  If your attack would have broken say... 6% of a monsters stat, maybe now you can break 18%.  That means weaker monsters that are more susceptible to a slightly larger array of FFT skills totally undermining the game's mechanics! 

In conclusion, to successfully implement the Blue Mage, you would need to
Rebalance all the stats of your monsters, accounting for MP consumption and MA/PA consequences
Get a nice list of versatile monster magics to fill your skill set (and make some of your own!)
Figure out how to
    • do conditional animations
    • animate them all as magics for player and monster, or
    • give up and still feel good about your crappy Macarena looking deal you do before blowing away a foe
Come up with a cool name!


Resources:
Sprite Sheets
Spreadsheet for Rebalancing Assistance
Spreadsheet for Alternate Animations