Post by WitchRolina on Nov 3, 2018 16:49:40 GMT
When creating a character's class tree, there are several ways to go about doing it. In addition, large sections of the Golden Sun fandom, most infamously the Temple of Kraden, are open to the idea of adding light and darkness to the element system, so it's worth considering whether one's character will be using the standard 4 Element version, or a 6 Element interpretation of Golden Sun's Class system.
To begin, we will look at what Golden Sun itself uses - not what the fandom commonly believes it uses, but what it actually, technically uses. This system I call the Overflow System.
The Overflow Method relies on three core concepts. First: The only truly unique classes a character has are their Innate classes. Second: Advanced classes all require the use of an adept's Symbiotic Element - a concept I call Symbiotic Resonance. Third: An adept is able to access "Overflow" classes with the right set of djinn, allowing access to classes normally only their neutral/opposing elemental counterparts can access. Examples of this include Ivan being able to access Ninja, or Isaac being able to access the Shaman and Druid classes.
Generally speaking, there are two schools of thought on this process - most people I have encountered consider this to be a programming oversight, as they consider classes like Shaman and Druid to be Ivan's classes, not Isaac's. These people tend to prefer the Resonant Method as a result. Far fewer people take a more purist approach to the class system - to date, I have personally only interacted with one or two of them. These people see overflow classes not as a flaw in the method, but as a strategic option.
There is also some debate about what I call Semi-Shared classes. Classes such as Isaac's Apprentice and Garet's Page class lines are nearly identical - they share the same stats, and the same Jupiter Spells. The only spells that differ are the ones that use the adept's innate element. The two primary schools of thought in regards to this set of classes are either that they're technically unique, citing how Isaac's Crusader line is objectively superior to Garet's Swordsman line due to access to more potent spells, such as Revive. The other side believes that they're only not considered a shared class by technicality - that these classes might as well be the same, because nothing about the adept - not their base class, not their stats, nor even equipment proficiencies - seem to matter at all when differentiating these classes. The only thing that makes them different is element, so they might as well be considered the same class. While this view is less popular, it is the one I personally hold, and because of that I have separated these classes into the Semi-Shared category, and provided two numbers in party statistics - one for when they're counted as unique, and one for when they're counted as shared.
The strengths of the Overflow Method are few, but obvious. It is the purists' method. It's the go-to for those who don't care how unwieldy it may be, or how it actually relies on shared classes (thus negating the possibility of individual class trees). This is what Golden Sun itself uses, and by golly they're going to use it.
The weaknesses are many, and also obvious. As anyone who tries to use characters in tri-elemental classes and they'll say that only two elements ever matter - Jupiter, and Venus, but especially Jupiter. Mars and Mercury only exist to support the elements that matter, and Sheba and Piers get the leftover junk. The reason for this is obvious - an adept only gets access to one in the games. There is no version of Samurai that uses Mercury instead of Jupiter, and no version of White Mage that uses Mars instead of Venus. This puts an odd emphasis on Venus and Jupiter djinn in the game, and makes it very difficult to optimize a tri-elemental setup. Then there is the issue of Overflow Classes themselves - use the wrong djinn in a dual-element class, and the character suddenly switches to a completely unrelated class. The main cause of this? The game doesn't actually calculate class based on what djinn are equipped, but rather based on what the character's Element Level is.
The fandom, of course, is far more practical in how they view and understand classes. Most fandoms also love to propose fixes to perceived problems in the things they love. The Golden Sun fandom in general tended to follow a different method in practice - one that was based not on Element Level, but instead on equipped Djinn. I call this system the Resonant Method, after the Symbiotic Resonance it's based on.
The Resonant Method has all of the same basic structure as the Overflow Method, but makes two major changes. First, overflow classes are removed entirely. Second, the classes that Samurai and White Mage fell under were given their respective counterparts, solving the uneven importance of djinn. This also opens up a massive pro for the method - the option of characters having their own whole class trees. If the assumption is made that no classes are shared at all, then suddenly the ways that a team of adepts can be customized expands drastically.
The benefits of this method are simple - it is relatively easy to understand, each character gets a nice set of 8 class lines to use, the flexibility of choice between shared or unique versions of the method is available, and there aren't so many classes that they become difficult to name.
The cons? The method relies on the djinn required based on the Overflow Method, which aren't exactly intuitive. The tri-element classes seem arbitrarily late in learning, as one could argue they look like they could have earlier tiers of availability. Tri-Element classes seem oddly strong statistically compared to other classes of relative availability as well. Finally, the emphasis on the symbiosis seems a bit odd at times. There are many who find it odd that only Symbiotic classes get a 6-Tier set of classes, and that there's so much emphasis on the symbiotic elements with tri-elemental classes.
I, personally, always thought it odd that given how much emphasis there was on elemental balance, that the balance should be emphasized rather than the symbiosis. When working on my Gradient Soul system, I made my own set of classes using the same class building ideas as the originals, but swapped out Symbiotic Resonance for what I call Harmonic Balance - creating the Harmonic Method
Two core ideas exist in this system - first, it should be easy to use and understand. For this reason, it ditches the elemental level-based approach to djinn requirements in favor a more simple approach. Second, the idea of balance is preferred over a preference of any other particular elemental relationship. Tri-element classes are designed to play with this idea, having one element take the lead in a pair of classes designed to take advantage of changing classes on the fly. There is also a Tetra Class line, embracing the use of all four elements to create new type of class line only previously seen in Item Classes in The Lost Age.
The strengths of this method shine in its ease of use - each class category has its purpose. Innate expresses an adept's personality through their spells. Dual-Element have an adept express their own version of an ally's strengths and fighting style. Tri-element classes are about tweaking the balance of the elements to take advantage of the class system on the fly. Finally, the Tetra-Element class uses all the elements to create that adept's take on a balanced approach to fighting.
The cons of this method are also somewhat obvious. This method does not allow for shared classes, and has the most classes per adept of any method - so many in fact that naming each individual class is unwieldy. For that reason, only the class lines are named, rather than the individual classes, but in doing so it takes steps away from some of what gave Golden Sun its charm. It's also very clearly not Golden Sun's class system, but one based around it, so purists are likely to take great issue with that. Finally, this system fully rejects shared classes in its entirety, so those who enjoyed that aspect of Golden Sun's class system aren't even given the option, as it would completely negate the strengths of the system.
Both the Resonant and the Harmonic Methods have strengths and weaknesses that the other tends to cover, and with that in mind one final set is created - one that goes for the more balanced approach of the Harmonic Method, while also embracing the Symbiotic Resonance that Golden Sun's class system is built around. This system is called the Balance method.
The Balance method uses the class lines present in the Resonant Method, and from the Harmonic Method expands classes to a logical early accessibility, balances the relative strength of more advanced classes, and adopts the more user-friendly djinn requirements. This results in a method that feels more balanced and easy to use, while still very much keeping to the core concepts of how Golden Sun builds its classes.
The strength of the Balance Method is its ease of use and familiarity. There aren't significant changes to the system that Harmonic has, and what has changed can merely be considered a logical expansion on Golden Sun's class system.
The weaknesses? It gets very close to the same too-many-classes-to-name issue that Harmonic faces. While it's still feasible, especially if using shared classes, the option of keeping names only for class lines instead of individual classes is likely going to appeal to those who find the task of naming a full team's class lines daunting.
To begin, we will look at what Golden Sun itself uses - not what the fandom commonly believes it uses, but what it actually, technically uses. This system I call the Overflow System.
The Overflow Method relies on three core concepts. First: The only truly unique classes a character has are their Innate classes. Second: Advanced classes all require the use of an adept's Symbiotic Element - a concept I call Symbiotic Resonance. Third: An adept is able to access "Overflow" classes with the right set of djinn, allowing access to classes normally only their neutral/opposing elemental counterparts can access. Examples of this include Ivan being able to access Ninja, or Isaac being able to access the Shaman and Druid classes.
Generally speaking, there are two schools of thought on this process - most people I have encountered consider this to be a programming oversight, as they consider classes like Shaman and Druid to be Ivan's classes, not Isaac's. These people tend to prefer the Resonant Method as a result. Far fewer people take a more purist approach to the class system - to date, I have personally only interacted with one or two of them. These people see overflow classes not as a flaw in the method, but as a strategic option.
There is also some debate about what I call Semi-Shared classes. Classes such as Isaac's Apprentice and Garet's Page class lines are nearly identical - they share the same stats, and the same Jupiter Spells. The only spells that differ are the ones that use the adept's innate element. The two primary schools of thought in regards to this set of classes are either that they're technically unique, citing how Isaac's Crusader line is objectively superior to Garet's Swordsman line due to access to more potent spells, such as Revive. The other side believes that they're only not considered a shared class by technicality - that these classes might as well be the same, because nothing about the adept - not their base class, not their stats, nor even equipment proficiencies - seem to matter at all when differentiating these classes. The only thing that makes them different is element, so they might as well be considered the same class. While this view is less popular, it is the one I personally hold, and because of that I have separated these classes into the Semi-Shared category, and provided two numbers in party statistics - one for when they're counted as unique, and one for when they're counted as shared.
The strengths of the Overflow Method are few, but obvious. It is the purists' method. It's the go-to for those who don't care how unwieldy it may be, or how it actually relies on shared classes (thus negating the possibility of individual class trees). This is what Golden Sun itself uses, and by golly they're going to use it.
The weaknesses are many, and also obvious. As anyone who tries to use characters in tri-elemental classes and they'll say that only two elements ever matter - Jupiter, and Venus, but especially Jupiter. Mars and Mercury only exist to support the elements that matter, and Sheba and Piers get the leftover junk. The reason for this is obvious - an adept only gets access to one in the games. There is no version of Samurai that uses Mercury instead of Jupiter, and no version of White Mage that uses Mars instead of Venus. This puts an odd emphasis on Venus and Jupiter djinn in the game, and makes it very difficult to optimize a tri-elemental setup. Then there is the issue of Overflow Classes themselves - use the wrong djinn in a dual-element class, and the character suddenly switches to a completely unrelated class. The main cause of this? The game doesn't actually calculate class based on what djinn are equipped, but rather based on what the character's Element Level is.
The fandom, of course, is far more practical in how they view and understand classes. Most fandoms also love to propose fixes to perceived problems in the things they love. The Golden Sun fandom in general tended to follow a different method in practice - one that was based not on Element Level, but instead on equipped Djinn. I call this system the Resonant Method, after the Symbiotic Resonance it's based on.
The Resonant Method has all of the same basic structure as the Overflow Method, but makes two major changes. First, overflow classes are removed entirely. Second, the classes that Samurai and White Mage fell under were given their respective counterparts, solving the uneven importance of djinn. This also opens up a massive pro for the method - the option of characters having their own whole class trees. If the assumption is made that no classes are shared at all, then suddenly the ways that a team of adepts can be customized expands drastically.
The benefits of this method are simple - it is relatively easy to understand, each character gets a nice set of 8 class lines to use, the flexibility of choice between shared or unique versions of the method is available, and there aren't so many classes that they become difficult to name.
The cons? The method relies on the djinn required based on the Overflow Method, which aren't exactly intuitive. The tri-element classes seem arbitrarily late in learning, as one could argue they look like they could have earlier tiers of availability. Tri-Element classes seem oddly strong statistically compared to other classes of relative availability as well. Finally, the emphasis on the symbiosis seems a bit odd at times. There are many who find it odd that only Symbiotic classes get a 6-Tier set of classes, and that there's so much emphasis on the symbiotic elements with tri-elemental classes.
I, personally, always thought it odd that given how much emphasis there was on elemental balance, that the balance should be emphasized rather than the symbiosis. When working on my Gradient Soul system, I made my own set of classes using the same class building ideas as the originals, but swapped out Symbiotic Resonance for what I call Harmonic Balance - creating the Harmonic Method
Two core ideas exist in this system - first, it should be easy to use and understand. For this reason, it ditches the elemental level-based approach to djinn requirements in favor a more simple approach. Second, the idea of balance is preferred over a preference of any other particular elemental relationship. Tri-element classes are designed to play with this idea, having one element take the lead in a pair of classes designed to take advantage of changing classes on the fly. There is also a Tetra Class line, embracing the use of all four elements to create new type of class line only previously seen in Item Classes in The Lost Age.
The strengths of this method shine in its ease of use - each class category has its purpose. Innate expresses an adept's personality through their spells. Dual-Element have an adept express their own version of an ally's strengths and fighting style. Tri-element classes are about tweaking the balance of the elements to take advantage of the class system on the fly. Finally, the Tetra-Element class uses all the elements to create that adept's take on a balanced approach to fighting.
The cons of this method are also somewhat obvious. This method does not allow for shared classes, and has the most classes per adept of any method - so many in fact that naming each individual class is unwieldy. For that reason, only the class lines are named, rather than the individual classes, but in doing so it takes steps away from some of what gave Golden Sun its charm. It's also very clearly not Golden Sun's class system, but one based around it, so purists are likely to take great issue with that. Finally, this system fully rejects shared classes in its entirety, so those who enjoyed that aspect of Golden Sun's class system aren't even given the option, as it would completely negate the strengths of the system.
Both the Resonant and the Harmonic Methods have strengths and weaknesses that the other tends to cover, and with that in mind one final set is created - one that goes for the more balanced approach of the Harmonic Method, while also embracing the Symbiotic Resonance that Golden Sun's class system is built around. This system is called the Balance method.
The Balance method uses the class lines present in the Resonant Method, and from the Harmonic Method expands classes to a logical early accessibility, balances the relative strength of more advanced classes, and adopts the more user-friendly djinn requirements. This results in a method that feels more balanced and easy to use, while still very much keeping to the core concepts of how Golden Sun builds its classes.
The strength of the Balance Method is its ease of use and familiarity. There aren't significant changes to the system that Harmonic has, and what has changed can merely be considered a logical expansion on Golden Sun's class system.
The weaknesses? It gets very close to the same too-many-classes-to-name issue that Harmonic faces. While it's still feasible, especially if using shared classes, the option of keeping names only for class lines instead of individual classes is likely going to appeal to those who find the task of naming a full team's class lines daunting.
Golden Sun's class system is quite flexible - there are many ways to structure it. The four outlined above were worked out and analyzed by me many months ago for the Golden Sun amino, and we're going to be using one of them as a seed for the system we ultimately use. It is important however that we keep several things in mind:
- This system must be internally consistent. Try to have lore-related purpose behind the structure, rather than designing on whim alone.
- The system we use should be familiar to Golden Sun fans. While we could create something wildly different, it runs the risk of alienating our target audience.
- It needs to be different enough to avoid being at risk of litigation. We don't want to be shut down the way AM2R and Pokemon Uranium were. If we can make small changes that keep us similar, but distinct, then that's what we should do.
The first thing we're gonna do is pick one of the four to be our base, and make our case for them. Many on the design team have already done so, but now that we have a forum we can have a centralized location to post our cases. We should also discus whether we will have shared and semi-shared classes as exists in GS, or if we'll have separate classes for each character. Essentially, this is a choice between being true to what Golden Sun does, and prioritizing player freedom.
Personally, I am partial to the Harmonic Method. It operates on similar principles, separated into "basic, advanced, and tetra-elemental" classes. The idea is that different class lines support different strategies. Mono- and Duo-element classes are the Basic classes, and have the highest elemental stats and allow for the least intrusive method of summoning. Tri-element classes are designed in pairs, and are designed for more advanced play. The idea is strategic use of class changing mid-battle to expand the player's options. Tetra-elemental classes are more about taking advantage of their higher stats and balanced spell layouts. Of all classes, these would have the greatest raw statistical power.
It should also be said that I will always prioritize player freedom and choice to blind loyalty to a game - so you can trust that I will almost always stand on that side of an argument. The only time I'll fight against it is if it comes at the cost of the game's identity.
So, that's our first task - before we discuss the stats or spells that make up the classes, before we talk of character types and training, we discuss this mechanical cornerstone of our game.
