Strange idea for a video game.

[Traab]

So, I was reading more of my gamer fanfics when the thought hit me. Wouldnt it be awesome if a company created an rpg that worked like a gamer story? By which I mean a fairly open ended leveling system where you could keep picking classes as you level them up and unlock them to get skills and abilities you want, and at the same time, you could also jump from world to world as you complete the storyline for them or some major quest. The problem is, finding a company that has legal rights to a large enough number of worlds to make it work. We already have kingdom hearts so we know it can be done, but I was thinking, imagine if a manga company like shonen jump funded it instead of disney? All your favorite anime and manga series where your character gets to take part in the story, either using your meta knowledge to throw things off the rails, or just using whatever random collection of classes you picked to become strong enough to take part in and finish the story. Maybe build up a party gathered from world after world to bring with you on continuing adventures as the power scale slowly grows. You start off somewhere simple and weak like, I dunno, high school of the dead, and things max out around late game dragonball level worlds.

The job system would be fairly straightforward. You start off with say, two choices, a fighter type, and a magic type. Then you level them up to a certain point and that unlocks better versions. So a basic mage class with generic energy blasts to start. You hit level 10 or whatever and now you can choose between white mage or black mage. Level those up and more advanced classes unlock. Eventually you will see classes that require more complicated class combinations like, a white mage and a warrior class unlocks a paladin class etc. Stick with the class till its level is maxxed out and it might even unlock other classes. Or level a dozen different classes to minimum levels and become a jack of all trades.

Anyways, thats just the basic idea, and I wanted to write it down just because I would play the heck out of it if it was a good version.

[Bartmanhomer]

So, I was reading more of my gamer fanfics when the thought hit me. Wouldnt it be awesome if a company created an rpg that worked like a gamer story? By which I mean a fairly open ended leveling system where you could keep picking classes as you level them up and unlock them to get skills and abilities you want, and at the same time, you could also jump from world to world as you complete the storyline for them or some major quest. The problem is, finding a company that has legal rights to a large enough number of worlds to make it work. We already have kingdom hearts so we know it can be done, but I was thinking, imagine if a manga company like shonen jump funded it instead of disney? All your favorite anime and manga series where your character gets to take part in the story, either using your meta knowledge to throw things off the rails, or just using whatever random collection of classes you picked to become strong enough to take part in and finish the story. Maybe build up a party gathered from world after world to bring with you on continuing adventures as the power scale slowly grows. You start off somewhere simple and weak like, I dunno, high school of the dead, and things max out around late game dragonball level worlds.

The job system would be fairly straightforward. You start off with say, two choices, a fighter type, and a magic type. Then you level them up to a certain point and that unlocks better versions. So a basic mage class with generic energy blasts to start. You hit level 10 or whatever and now you can choose between white mage or black mage. Level those up and more advanced classes unlock. Eventually you will see classes that require more complicated class combinations like, a white mage and a warrior class unlocks a paladin class etc. Stick with the class till its level is maxxed out and it might even unlock other classes. Or level a dozen different classes to minimum levels and become a jack of all trades.

Anyways, thats just the basic idea, and I wanted to write it down just because I would play the heck out of it if it was a good version.

I like your idea.

[Rynjin]

I'm...wondering where you think gamer fics got this idea from? It's from games. Games that do this. There are many of them. Most prominently, all of the old Final Fantasy games (and games based on their paradigm, like Bravely Default), Fire Emblem, Heroes of Might and Magic, etc.

[Traab]

I'm...wondering where you think gamer fics got this idea from? It's from games. Games that do this. There are many of them. Most prominently, all of the old Final Fantasy games (and games based on their paradigm, like Bravely Default), Fire Emblem, Heroes of Might and Magic, etc.

Ehhh, kinda sorta. Its been awhile but from what I remember most of the FF games that had class swapping didnt let you combine the classes as you went, you would switch from say, a white mage, to a monk, not a monk who has the spells of a white mage. I also havent played any of the other games so cant speak for them. And the real fun bit for me is the universe hopping, going into various manga universes and playing with the storyline. As for where they got the idea from? Same place as any other self insert fanfiction really. Only with a gamer setup rather than just a normal isekai with some random bs power that let you break the system you were in.

[MinimanMidget]

So...Jump Force? That also already exists.

[Gnoman]

Most of the kinds of stories Traab is referring to that I've read have far deeper and more complex systems than even the most open-ended games. This is due to a fundamental difference between games and stories - an author can introduce new elements at will, have things only work the way they want them to, and is entirely focused on the protagonists. A game (especially an MMO) doesn't have that luxury. Everything has to be designed to work with everything else (there's little room for unplanned interactions except at a very gross level), new content is added in bulky chunks instead of "hey, I just got this funny skill", and everything needs a balance run over it constantly.

[ben-zayb]

Have you played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance? That sounds like it has the job/skill system you want.

For example of a "build", any Viera character can:

• Level up as an Assassin to get the job's great growth across all character stats
• Get Summoner as its primary job to have the most powerful Viera nuke spells in their Action-Ability and to be able to equip armors that best raises magic attack
• Get Red Mage as its secondary job to have the powerful Double Cast ability (effectively doubling the damage potential from summoner spells) and to have access to its versatile A-Ability spells like Sleep, Barrier, Poison, and Cure.
• Temporarily be a White Mage to learn the Turbo MP Support-Ability and further increase the magic spell damage
• Temporarily be either a Fencer, Elementalist, Sniper, or Archer to get their Reaction-Ability

Most jobs have requirements too, like X skills Fencer, Y skills White Mage, Z skills Archer, etc.

[Morgaln]

Have you played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance? That sounds like it has the job/skill system you want.

For example of a "build", any Viera character can:

• Level up as an Assassin to get the job's great growth across all character stats
• Get Summoner as its primary job to have the most powerful Viera nuke spells in their Action-Ability and to be able to equip armors that best raises magic attack
• Get Red Mage as its secondary job to have the powerful Double Cast ability (effectively doubling the damage potential from summoner spells) and to have access to its versatile A-Ability spells like Sleep, Barrier, Poison, and Cure.
• Temporarily be a White Mage to learn the Turbo MP Support-Ability and further increase the magic spell damage
• Temporarily be either a Fencer, Elementalist, Sniper, or Archer to get their Reaction-Ability

Most jobs have requirements too, like X skills Fencer, Y skills White Mage, Z skills Archer, etc.

The original Final Fantasy Tactics already did it like that. Some abilities even were better when you didn't use them on their original class. I especially remember the samurai job to be pretty weak, since it was a physical class but the abilities used the magic stats. If you put those abilities on a magic class, however...

The whole story-hopping thing sounds very much like Lego Dimensions, to name the first example that came to mind. So all of this has been done before, just not in that particular combination.

[Bohandas]

In Dungeoms of Dredmor you can't pick up new classes during the game but you do start out with like six or seven different classes that can be leveled up in any order

[Mechalich]

The later Disgaea games allow any character to acquire (almost) any ability and to switch between classes more or less at will via reincarnation, with a ridiculously lengthy list of personal augmentations, skills, and item customization. And the story bounces from one Netherworld to the next, all of which are nominally different and feature appearances by characters from Nippon Ichi's fairly sizeable catalog. And...the games are a massive grindfest beset by an eternal search for optimization strategies of sufficient power to defeat ever-harder bosses while continually stuck on a grid-based map with decidedly limited permutations (to the point where Disgaea 6 gave up and allowed players to automate the game). While I love the series, massive character customization across huge scales is ultimately just a numbers game and tends to break down accordingly.

[Anonymouswizard]

So...Jump Force? That also already exists.

To me it sounds like Jump Force/Kingdom Hearts with a more complex version of the Dragon Quest VI job system (which I'm not really a big fan of).

As to messing around with stories, eh? If you're going to let the narrative branch you're setting yourself up for a lot of writing work (which is why most games with 'branching narratives' cheat like crazy). If you're not you'll annoy people who wanted to mess about with the story of Holyland in a different fashion. Which means you'll mostly see Kingdom Hearts style retreads and side stories, with maybe the occasional implied consequence for the main narrative.

[GloatingSwine]

I think Final Fantasy Origin does the "unlock jobs by levelling up specific combos" thing.

I'm not sure what the world hopping thing adds to it except on the thematic level of having different anachronistic jobs available (but you can just do that anyway if you want and many FF games do.)