So, as someone who has a ton of class ideas, I was wondering the best amount of base classes to have, assuming that each class has one promo and there’s a magic split. I know that there’s other things to keep in mind, so I’d like to discuss other elements that may contribute to choosing the amount of classes for a fangame!
I currently have 23, excluding the lords. Since there’s only one promo per class, I feel that leads more room for unique unit builds, but as someone who mostly just goes for what I like, I may not be correct. What are you guys’ thoughts?
Really depends. Something to of course consider is gender. Depending on your cast, you’ll need duplicate versions of classes and that can add up quicker than you’d expect.
Once that’s all handled I’d consider how much these new classes would differ from the base Fe ones. Are they simple to learn, or more complicated? How do they interact with other new systems you’ve added? All that said, so long as their balanced and don’t share too much overlap with other classes I’d say you can add as many as you like till you hit the max. A good 10 though would already be really cool, plenty of hacks don’t really add any classes at all.
pretty sure data wise “one class, custom anims per character” is, uh, worse. Unless you can assign anims per character+class combo… which okay actually that might actually be even worse because then you have generics to mind. Getting rid of those tiny differences in caps and growths by gender does sound like the way to go, though.
I don’t think there’s a golden number. Echoes makes like six class sets work. It’s all about what you want to design around.
I will say that with HC’s fairly stripped-down set, I did find myself missing unpromoted sword cavalry, slowish cavalry and slowish melee infantry, which would have been helpful in enemy placement. So while I’m committing to HC’s being what it is, I’m expanding the class set again for DoR.
At the same time, I don’t think there should be too many. It’s good for the audience to be able to recognise and memorise a few distinct stat profiles. I don’t think there needs to be more than two of a given unpromoted class with a given combination of Weapon and Movement Type, and those two should have distinct stat profiles. Vanilla having thief/myrm/merc all basically do the same thing is wasteful; same with brigand/pirate/fighter.
However many you need. I think it’s far easier to get carried away than people think.
Just add what classes you want.
My hack has sword/lance/axe soldiers, but no bow soldiers, but has classes for all 4 physical weapons for cavalry and armors. It’s all about wat you think you might need for gameplay reasons. And if you want to make personal classes for unit flavor, then go ahead too, it’s your project, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.