WILL Talks GAMES: Playing on the Defense

I just finished playing through what would be the bulk of Knights of Pen and Paper (Which is a gosh-darn glorious retro RPG, if anyone wants to pick it up for a measly $10 here).  The expansive world is easily traversed, the die rolls are a simple but effective touch, the dialogue and cultural references are hilarious, and to top it off, the battles are challenging, in-depth takes on the turn-based standard established by mainstream RPGs.


Early in the game, I encountered something rather problematic: I added the Paladin class to my team.

That Holy Shield spell does sound nice...
It isn't.

Arguably the weakest class I've used in the game thus far, the Paladin is a joke of a character that doesn't come close to living up to its heroic title: the class is slow, doesn't hit hard, and can't use its defensive abilities all that well.  It got me thinking about defensive classes in games as a whole: nine times out of 10, they suck.

Or at the very least, there are always better choices than the Defenders.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, for example - the two defense-oriented classes are (yet another) Paladin, and the Bangaa's Defender class. They're awful - they have low evasion, next to no movement possibilities and pitiful jump height.  Ergo, you can't even get these units to block up what you want them to in order to use their crappy, low-range protection techniques.  They're dead weight and nothing more.

I chose Feca because they reminded me of young Link.
"Oh, I really suck as a class?  M-my bad...!"

How about the popular MMORPG Dofus?  The Feca is the main defense class in the game, and guess what?  If you're noticing a pattern, they suck too.  They start out strong against early enemies because the class has the ability to reduce neutral and earth damage early in the game.  However, once those damage totals get higher, they soon outweigh the reductions of your spells, and as soon as other elemental attacks join the fray that you can't defend well against because of all the spell points you've yet to earn for upgrading, Feca end up being, well...dead weight.  Again.

What's with games and not knowing how to build defensive classes?

Most RPGs are fantastic for building unique and effective warriors and mages, and heck, rogues always have a great trick or gimmick about them to be worth using every now again.  As healing items become a hindrance more than a help, even healers prove to be useful!  Why do tanks and Defenders have nothing to show for?  Let's talk this out, loyal reader.

What are the basic characteristics of a defense-oriented character?  Well, the main merit is prety self-explanatory: they have good defense stats.  Whether that's HP, defense, Special Defense, Resistance, Endurance - there's a million names for the same term.  If you're defending as a role, you take longer to kill than your buddies.

The mindset of most defensive characters in games.

What about their special techniques?  Usually their skills involve redirecting damage to hit themselves, as well as inflicting ailments like stunning, lowering Attack, raising their Defense more, or sometimes to do a sort of Berserk mode attack or something.  In short, defenders are primarily centred around ensuring they take hits so the teammates don't have to worry about taking damage or minding their own defenses.

Those are the strengths of a Defender, but what about their downsides?

To keep it short and simple, basically everything else.

Lower-to-medium Attack, no Magic, sometimes no Magic Resistance, no Agility or Speed...there's nothing goin' for these types of classes outside of Defense(s) and HP.  That usually means the main downside of the defensive classes is made quite clear: these classes can help you win, but they can't make you win.

Your Warrior makes you win by dealing damage and the Mage will do the same.  The Healer will make you win by healing the teammates, on top of Light-elemental spells that can kill undead enemies.  What do Defenders like the Paladin do? They take hits, but at the root of it, they're a crappy mix of Healers and Warriors - they're a jack of both trades, but far from a master in either.

And that's essentially the problem I've come to identify: Defenders are crappy copies of other classes, but try to establish a different identity by being Defenders.  It's half-assed by all designers.

This game definitely needs more bad ideas!

"Make a Defensive-based class?  Alright, let's just slap a high Defense and HP stat on this Warrior. Give it a Rage spell and Healing...good! Perfect!"

No.

I played further into Pen and Paper and started to unlock the "secondary" classes, which are essentially upgrades of the base classes.  There are lots of amazing ideas packed into these classes: the Hunter, the Necromancer, the Bard, the Shaman...they're all welcome additions to the roster!

There was one that stood out to me from the rest, though.  This class continues to be the reason my whole team can stick out the toughest opponents.  What's more amazing is that this character is 10 levels behind everyone else and can still hold his own.  It's probably the best attempt at a defensive class I've seen in any video game.

The Knight.  It's an ingenious name, I know.

This class also focuses heavily on HP and Defense.  However, there are many tricks up the Knight's sleeve it can use to improve on this beaten-to-death model:

• The class focuses on maximizing the chances of Critical Hits, granting the Knight a chance at some extra damage.
• The angle the Knight takes at attacking techniques is to always have a passive ability go with it.  The class' main attack spell allows it to execute a slightly weaker attack, but gives a 50% damage shield upon use.
• The class also focuses heavily on Life Steal - a passive effect that returns a certain percentage of the damage he deals as healed HP.
• Much like the Paladin, the Knight takes advantage of "Threat" - a stat playing into the formula for how likely enemies are to target you.  The higher the Knight's Threat, the more likely enemies are to attack him instead of others.

The last point is by far the most important in perfecting this class.

Life Steal is very important as it's the Knight's only way of regenerating its HP.  The class' low Attack keeps the healing from being that worthwhile, however.  So how does this class address the low healing?

Through synergy with the importance of raising its Crit-rate, of course!

Rest of the team be like:
"GOSH-DARN KNIGHT, WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH."

This whole issue is such a strange one - defensive classes are made the way they are because designers want to maintain game balance.  What happens?  Defenders are underpowered.  How do you make a Defender right?  You give it good HP and high Defense, and balance the rest of the stats.  No making it have low Attack or low Speed or anything.

Give it balanced stats and specialize it in passive areas.  That's all you have to do, I'm being honest here!  Specializing in Defense and taking damage?  That's helping you win.  Raising critical-hit rates?  That's making you win.  It's like the water boy or the cheerleaders at a football game: they're useful in theory, but ultimately useless.  They're helping the football team win with water and encouragement, but are by no means on the field catching the 30-yard downs.

It's a basic guideline to follow when developing any class in an RPG: if the class idea is helping you win instead of making you win, scrap it.  It's useless.  The Bard and Scribe from Final Fantasy are useless, Audino and Alomomola are useless, and the Paladin from Pen and Paper is useless.  They all share this common problem.

"Hi, I'm Will!"
"And I'm useless!"

So challenge my idea and justify "Helping you win" as the backbone for a good class.  What's great about theory ideas like this is that they're exactly what I said: theories. I could be completely wrong or partially right!  But the issue stands: defensive characters are in trouble, and "playing on the defensive" is less and les becoming a viable strategy in any game.  This needs to be addressed.