This is a discourse on strategy-RPG theory. These are games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, Disgaea, Tactics Ogre, Shin Megami Tensei, Luminous Arc, Kartia, etc. There are lots and lots of games in the genre, though it is mostly a niche (this has been changing with the advent of more mainstream entries, like FFT Advance, but I'll deal with that later). I'm not writing this because I'm a fan of those games. Instead, I'm writing this because all those games are essentially exactly the same. The genre has not changed at all in the 10 years since the revolution which was FF Tactics (still the best of all those games mentioned).

In fact, I'm also writing this because, in addition to not changing, the genre was faulty from the beginning. FFT is the best of those, and one of my favorite games overall, and still I believe it to be fundamentally flawed. This is because of an ignorance on the part of the designers as to what they were actually doing--the philosophy behind their design. The game itself, the implementations like art and story and characters, could have been vastly different, could even have been better (though it was exceptionally good), and it would still be flawed.

But they were close. They introduced some excellent mechanics and ideas, which have since largely been dropped even within their own franchise. FFT was not exactly complex, by my standards and as you'll soon understand more clearly, but it had the potential to be complex--though it did very little to realize that potential. The others in the SRPG genre have essentially copied FFT's implementation, and thereby managed to miss the subtlety of its design. They have no true strategy. They are not difficult in any way. They lose their replayability quickly. And, most tellingly, they could never be made into any sort of successful multiplayer game. What other strategy game, in any medium, could not be played against a human opponent? These games have all failed to require any actual strategy on the part of the player.

To illustrate what I mean, I'll use the example of the comparison of FFT to its "sequel," FFT Advance. I will tell you from the beginning that I do not consider FFTA to be a true sequel, a position which is largely corroborated by its developers. Because the game was created for a portable console, they wanted it to be accessible to all audiences. The result is that they dumbed it down, and to teach you the mechanics of the game, instead of fighting against a former ally (as in the original), you have a snowball fight with some kids from school.
That is not to say that FFTA didn't try to solve any of the perceived issues with FFT. They give you 4 races, with lots of Job classes; they check your ability to break the game from the beginning by forcing you to learn skills from weapons which you can only acquire later in the game. They introduce a clan system, so that, instead of always fighting random monsters, you will often fight rival groups of units just like yours. To make things easier on you, all magic and skills are instantaneous, without the charge time from FFT.

Now I will dismantle those changes. The races offer more Jobs, but they also tend to share the same classes, and in the end, the classes all essentially just deal different flavors of the same damage, with no change in functionality. The result is that the races are a superficial change, and make no actual or necessary difference. The weapon-skill system makes training tedious and keeps you from being able to strategize fully for most of the game, because you don't have access to all of your skill options. And even with the check, once you get an Assassin with the instant-death ability, you only need one unit for most battles, and it'll even be faster. The clan system is decent, but the arbitrary law system limits your strategy, rather than enhancing it.

And the worst of all, the thesis of this series of notes and essays, is the loss of the active time system. In FFT, character movement order is determined by speed. Spells and some abilities must charge for some time before being executed. In FFTA, characters move in a constant order throughout the battle, and all abilities are instant. The result is a complete lack of strategy. And the sad part is that no game I've seen uses FFT's active time system. This is the basis of strategy in an SRPG. I'll explain why.

SRGs are not about the units. They're about the units' positions, the distances between them and relative to other objects on the field and things of that nature. The spell is not what kills you--it's being where the spell falls that kills you. If you are, for whatever reason, not where the damage lands, you can't be hurt. That's the important thing about magic (the charge time), that's the important thing about physical attacks (the lack of charge time), and that's why games like FFTA are so much worse by comparison (they have no charge time, so no prediction or timing, so no strategy). That's also why TG Cid from FFT was so broken (the sword skills bridge the gap between magic and physical with absolutely no weaknesses; they take the best from both, and give you distance without charge time or MP cost or reliance on Faith).

So the position is the important part. But that's only part of the problem with FFT's basic theory. Also to be considered is what to do with the damage which is being dealt. In FFT, you only need one unit: TG Cid. It is actually faster and easier to send him into a battle alone than to send a full party; he can easily kill most things in one hit before they reach him. This illustrates very clearly that no strategy is required for this game, because of its implementation, but also, less obviously, because of its design. Suppose Cid were weaker to magic. He's a physical character, who relies mostly on swords, so he should have to get closer to a unit to be able to really damage that unit. So if he were weak to magic, and had to get close to a unit to damage it, wouldn't you be able to counter him very well with a unit which relies on magic attacks?

This shows you why Cid's abilities were detrimental to the system as a whole. He had no weaknesses. He never needed to get close, and therefore never had to worry about taking any damage himself. He never had to worry about not being able to hurt an enemy, because his skills were instantaneous; they were unavoidable.

What is needed in an SRPG is a careful balance between two offensive forces, the magical (ie. black magic) and the physical (ie. basic attacks with a sword). You accomplish this in several ways. First, you make magic-dependent classes weaker to physical damage, and physical-dependent classes weaker to magic damage. But this introduces a basic inequality, because magic can strike easily and powerfully from a distance, so a defensive magical unit would always win. The check lies in the active time system, which forces the unit to charge his magic attacks. This is where the third fundamental force enters: movement, the changing of position. The physical unit may move before the spell activates. Or, another unit may move that physical unit out of harm's way. The magical unit's partner may then find it necessary to cause the physical unit to be unable to move out of the way. This constant struggle over position and timing is the basis for true strategy.

Both the original Job Points system and the FFTA weapon-ability system are inadequate. They both attempt to check your immediate progression, as is arguably necessary for a single-player game implementation, but go about it in a flawed manner. One of the most radical changes I make to the traditional SRPG is to introduce a skill tree system, like that of Diablo II. Here, instead of purchasing/learning a skill instantly, which is easily abuseable, you earn (in various ways) class-specific skill points which are distributed into the desired abilities. So, whereas in FFT you would buy Rock Throw for 100 JP, in my system, Rock Throw might be a basic ability, and you would gain use of it at the cost of one skill point. However, you could then add in up to a certain number of points, which would make the ability stronger and possibly change some of its effects. Some abilities might require the unit to be at a certain Job level, and/or might require him to have already distributed points in prerequisite skills. In the same way that higher-level Jobs require experience in lower-level Jobs, the more advanced skills would require points in the less advanced. As such, there are limitless ways to customize a single class.

The Job classes should not begin as names, to be filled out later with mythically/traditionally appropriate abilities. A class should begin as a potential solution to a niche necessity or possibility within the system. A class should have a purpose, in addition to an engaging persona. Its abilities should be structured in ways which make it versatile and potent and uniquely interesting. In this way, every SRPG has failed, including FFT. A Dancer is a gimmick; she is not useful, she is not versatile, and she cannot be controlled in any way, and thus has no strategic ability. The notes following this one will be dedicated to the formulation of new Job classes within the potential I have seen for the system. The names of the classes are unimportant; when you read about them, I wish only for you to pay attention to their functionality. That being said, in a professional game environment, their implementations would also be important, so I have given some effort to making each superficially interesting.

When I began designing my classes, I did so with an understanding that there were at least six essential functionalities necessary for this system: 1) offensive magical, 2) defensive magical, 3) offensive physical, 4) defensive physical, 5) offensive movement, and 6) defensive movement. Offensive means taking the initiative and actively attempting to force some desired effect; defensive refers to handling the events which occur. I started to some degree with these functionalities, but they are not all which I would wish to see in my game, so I have done other things, as well.

These things comprise the fundamental philosophy behind my conception of the SRPG genre. Because I see that they have not previously been fulfilled properly, I view what follows as a reinvention of the genre. Most of my Jobs would seem severely out of place within any existing game. But a game built around them would have true strategy, it would be complex, it would be more interesting than any of the others, it would be accessible while allowing unprecedented depth for the hardcore gamer, and it would be a game which you could play in a competitive setting against other humans. For these reasons, I have written this note and all that follows. Take none of the class descriptions as final, and certainly don't assume that I won't want to change them a week from now. They're only meant to show you what I think these Jobs should be doing and how they could be doing it.

Read them all, keeping in mind the basic points I have outlined here.