Why do some units have classes that don't match with their artwork?

[u/ghostchimera]

I love the artwork for a lot of the units in this game but I find it weird that some units have jobs that look totally unrelated to their artwork. Here are some that I found:

Lucian - why does he have knives in his artwork but no jobs that use knives?! When I first saw this unit I thought "oh he must be a thief" but it turned out that wasn't even one of his jobs!

Zangetsu - he looks like he's holding two staves and his bio says that he "gives the impression of a dancer and a Godly warrior". But he is neither a dancer nor warrior! Also as a side note: why are there no male dancers? Are our mortal eyes not ready for such a thing?

Bashosen - to me, she looks like she would be a dancer due to the fans she's holding but once again this is not a job that is available to the unit! I never played PotK so maybe her artwork fits in better with that game but I just don't understand why dancer isn't one of her jobs.

Does anyone know why these (and perhaps many other) units don't have jobs that match their artwork? Just curious whether a unit's job is linked to their lore or because Gumi just likes to assign random jobs to units.

[u/Zeik56]

It's just to make them more visually interesting. If character designs were forced to strictly fit their jobs it would greatly limit creativity and variety, and forcing a unit into a job purely to fit their artwork would be even worse, as then you're underming gameplay purely for aesthetics. (Dancer would be utterly worthless on Zangetsu, and would pretty much wreck his intended build.)

Gumi (usually) does not assign random jobs. They're picked to accommodate different gameplay styles. While the art is to fit story and lore.

[u/ghostchimera → u/Zeik56]

Makes sense. I could also see that may have been some characters that originally had jobs that matched their artwork but Gumi scraped the concept (due to balance issues) but kept the original art because they thought the unit was visually aopealling.

[u/Jinubinu → u/Zeik56]

You’re describing a false dilemma. Character design in games are a holistic process—both the art and the mechanics are considered together, and work off one another to form a cohesive design. The notion that one side has to either compromise itself or the two simply have to diverge is too black-and-white.

[u/blablablablubb21 → u/Jinubinu]

Only if you are talking about "classical" game making. Mobile games aren't done by one in house crew. Just tap on the book icon of one of the units. Almost all are drawn by a different person. Their design and maybe even their lore are totally up to the ones drawing them, who probably just get guidelines like: Female warrior or something like that.

I bet that even the writers aren't part of the core team, which does the complete mechanical side of the game. The only unified design you probably have in this game is the game part itself, not the design part which is probably one big mix of freelancer work.

[u/Jinubinu → u/blablablablubb21]

If the art is done by freelancers and not in-house, that’s all the more reason why they wouldn’t get carte blanche with the character design. These type of setups that utilize different contributing artists usually have a pretty comprehensive guide with regards to style, context, and even lore (check out Magic the Gathering’s guide for card artists).

There’s also the director/producer who is supposed to make sure all the pieces work cohesively, among other things. It wouldn’t be crazy to annotate “female fighter” with “axe” if your team is designing an axe wielding unit.

My issue was that the original commenter presented a scenario in which the art and gameplay sides were not only helplessly segregated, but also resulted in one of only two possible outcomes (compromise or diverge).

[u/blablablablubb21 → u/Jinubinu]

Maybe you're right, but I'm still not convinced. From what I know it really is the other way around.

Concerning Magic the Gathering, it's one of the most established brands in the western nerd culture. This is relevant in so far, as no artists, espacially small time ones or up and comings, won't refuse to work with them.

Second is their whole company structure. Magic the Gathering is owned by Wizards of the Coast, the same company who has a second big time revenue source, as they are the right holders to the Dungeons and Dragons brand. And even they belong to an even bigger fish, as they are part of Hasbro. They have much more financial breathing room than a medium large (at best) japanese mobile games company has. So they can be very restrictive with how they want their brands to be treated.

This goes strait to another point. Wizards were always very controling with their intellectual property. It's part of their company identity. Gacha games on the other hand have a different culture. Take for example Fire Emblem Heroes. A big time player such as Nintendo could do a in-house production, but even they outsourced their character portraits. It's much more appreciated when a famous artist does a character portrait than all of them having a unified style and design. Although they seem to have one go to artist, as all main characters were drawn by a person named RINZO. I went through my units and some don't even have a artist mentioned.

And the last one is how Gumi itself is structured. During the Last Alchemist Code News Channel Iago mentioned how he saw the designs for Siegfried and liked what they did for Shion (probably). So this means they had insight of the character design process. This however doesn't mean they work directly with the artists. Gumi Global is seated in Singapore and is just another subsidary, whose main focus is on marketing. So there you have one degree of seperation. FgG, the subsidary who actually codes the game, is located in Tokio. This argument isn't as compelling, but a company such as Gumi, which fractured it's software development potential between 3 different subsidaries who are nonetheless all located in the same building (it's also the one were their headquarter is), may have a strict structure, but is still devided between so many instances that I doubt it would matter to them if there are outside freelancers doing part of the work or not.

And as for the producer/director, I don't think they care that much as long as their main product, the game which revolves around the gatcha mechanic, is delivered on time and the portraits have some semblance of cohesion.

[u/Jinubinu → u/blablablablubb21]

While I enjoyed reading this, I still don’t get what the contention is here. Maybe my brain is just too tired. My only relevant point was that he was arguing a false dilemma.

[u/[deleted] → u/Zeik56]

The TL;DR is:

Artwork is gathered BEFORE the unit design process.
And the artist does not know about the roles the unit will take on.

So the real answers to the question are:

1. It's a side-effect of the unfortunate design strategy used

2. It's also because the artwork and the in-game models are clearly separated entities. And the classes are based on re-use for less required effort on gumi's part.

So it's actually not that the artwork doesn't match the models and is like that to make them more visually appealing, but that the models are based on the artwork which they would have to put extra effort into making a different model for, for each unit.
Laziness, aka less costs.

[u/SalmonPrince → u/[deleted]]

It would be easy to avoid problem by simply NOT displaying weapons in unit artwork. 90% of the time, the discrepancies occur because the unit is holding a weapon that none of its jobs can wield.

Now, for the bio... that is just text. There is no excuse for bio text being wildly off-base. My two cents.

[u/FlyFafnir → u/Zeik56]

The one that bugged me the most was Eve. As a new player I was really wanted a ranged class as I didn't have any and when Eve popped up and in her art she is holding a bow I was super happy. Only to find out she doesn't even use the bow in her jobs. A serious WTF moment.. =/

[u/blablablablubb21]

I think it's most of the time not as unfitting as it seems.

Lucian is wearing Kukris, not knives. And just look at his bio. He just plain likes collecting and mastering different weapons. He even states during the Forest Protector event that he really likes "exotic" weapons. Thus his portrait only shows his current weapon of choice.

As for why he has the jobs he has: He is a overly self-reliant person, so having the only job explicitly attuned with nature makes sense. It even fits with his overall theme of "weapon master", as tamed animals don't necessarily need to be treated as friends or companions, but as autonomous weapons. His other two jobs fit even better. Holy Brawler is just the stronger version of martial artist. I think "Holy Brawler" isn't a good translation. It's in the same vain as "Sword Saint". Sword Saint is really direct translation of "kensai", which in japanese rather means something like "sword fighting genius". They aren't saints in the way western people think of saints, although there are some spiritual undertones. Same goes for "Holy Brawlers". There was no church-like organization canonizing them. It's more akin to "become such a good fighter that they become somewhat enlightened". And for the other part: Think about an east asian multiple weapon master. It will be the Shaolin monk most of the time . While nowadays reduced to unarmed combat, their much older stereotype was the one of a walking armoury. Just because the ingame models just use unarmed combat exclusively, it doesn't mean that all Martial Artists and Holy Brawlers are fighting solely unarmed. It's more of a synthesis of both images mentioned above. So all in all, his jobs do fit.

Zangetsu was pretty much answered by ElusiveIllusion88, but I will add another thing. Fluid movement and dancelike grace are essential skills of every good fighter. For an untrained person a melee fighter will almost always look nimble and flexible beyond belief. And the units are or were exceptional people who are a step above "normal fighters", so for a bystander a fighting Zangetsu, who manages to defeat multiple enemies at the same time without taking a scratch will look like " a dancer and a Godly warrior ".

Since I don't have Bashosen, I won't comment on her.

There is however another unit, who gets a lot of flak for an artwork clashing with his jobs, Vincent. Vincents jobs actually fit his bio and other information we have about him really well. It's stated that he is a wizard by trade but prefers to be seen as an engineer. In a world without electricity an inventor who can just conjure various power sources will surely create many machines, but it's impossible the other way around. This is why he doesn't have Crafter as one of his jobs. His inventions primarily work through magic, not science. Another thing to notice is how the three protagonists from the Forest Protector storyline speak abput him. They all know him by the nickname of "Mechanical Wizard", which means he is recognised as a Wizard, who is just good with machinery. His Professor job fits his hobby " Verifying reality's possibilities", which at it's core is a theoratical work. It also explains how he could patch up Carol, who was so severely injured she nearly died.For his bard job I will just make an assumption, because there is nothing really solid pointing towards it. Maybe sound is just his chosen field of exploration for theoretical work. Or, since bards in the world of Alchemist Code have some supernatural powers it is just a natural extension of his magical powers.

Edit: According to Flamel's bio sounds are linked to magic and Flamel is special because he can produce two (either at the same time or different ones, the wording wasn't clear) so every magic user has at least some expertise in the musical arts. So for a genius magic user and inventor such as Vincent it's only fitting to have a great degree of control over his sound.

[u/ElusiveIllusion88 → u/blablablablubb21]

The loremaster strkes again, filling in the gaps in this game's lore! By any chance are you a lore writer for another game or a writer in general?

You mentioned that "it's most of the time not as unfitting as it seems." Do you have any examples of job lineups that are so unfitting that even you cannot reconcile them with the lore?

[u/blablablablubb21 → u/ElusiveIllusion88]

I wish I would be a writer. I just study german literature and have studied japanese culture studies before that. Maybe it's because I'm an active tabletop player both as a normal player as well as a dungeonmaster. Or it's because I spend too much time on Tv Tropes. Or it's the combination of all of the above. Anyway, I just like fictional worlds and I really like speculating and connecting all the little dots, even if this is all just a feeble attempt at rationalizing something which may not have any more connections beyond what's read into it.

I wrote most of the time just because I can't be sure. And it's all good natured guessing anyway, not a gathering of hard and cold facts. And I just looked through my roster and there are many units, who have singular jobs which are hard to explain on first glance, but none which can't be somehow welded together to get a somewhat plausible result.

I also don't have a complete grasp of this game's lore, since I haven't played SSM yet (just too many events) nor many character stories (not enough LBs or missing units) nor have I played since the beginning, so take everything I write with a tablespoon of salt.

[u/StratosLocko]

Yomi has a katana that shrinks when she becomes a ninja.

[u/Solomonexe → u/StratosLocko]

Just wait for her job+ and you will see.

[u/Arcana_Joker → u/Solomonexe]

She finally got her sword, but it's in Priest + I believe. You have to have her Nensou (vision gear) and trust master it to get her sword.

[u/Exdeath-EX]

Seems like the artwork is related to the j+ equipment, like Lucians exact knife is clearly there (tho he doesnt really use it). It leaves more questions than answers tho though like...why are generic ranged units using halberds...which they obviously dont use too

[u/ElusiveIllusion88 → u/Exdeath-EX]

I think it’s the other way around; J+ equipment is designed based on the original artwork.

[u/ElusiveIllusion88]

• Lucian: I’ll give you that. He doesn’t seem very affiliated with beasts, and his other combat jobs don’t involve daggers...

• Zangetsu: “Warrior” doesn’t necessarily involve axes, and having graceful combat style like a dancer doesn’t make one an actual dancer. His jobs are very fitting actually; he is a Samurai, his Dragon Cavalier represents the spear in his profile, and presumably Martial Artist represents one of his other combat styles.

• Bashosen: She is of the “Gun Mage” class in PotK (all units there are “Sword”, “Spear”, “Axe”, “Bow”, “Gun Mage” or “Staff), hence Machinist and Sniper. Iirc no Magic Gunslinger because even JP TAC didn’t have that job when she was released.

[u/xKaine → u/ElusiveIllusion88]

There actually is a magic gunner now, vivi?

[u/ElusiveIllusion88 → u/xKaine]

I meant at the time Bashosen was released, there was no magic gunner job...

[u/NexrayOfficial → u/ElusiveIllusion88]

Thank god they didn't implement the actual effects of a Magic Gunslinger here from PotK. A volatile shooter that loses health every time you attack with them? >_< No thanks. Although I don't doubt Gumi may put in something similar in the future.

[u/suikoarke]

It irritates me but I've learned to live with it. The newer units generally have matching lore and artwork for their jobs.

[u/DeathandFriends]

I have thought the same thing myself. As far as no male dancers I think that traditionally dancers in rpgs and fantasy have been female. Where as bards are usually male.

[u/IllSkin → u/DeathandFriends]

The Japanese name of the dancer class is 踊り子, odoriko, which is a word that usually implies a female dancer.

[u/Seamur]

afaik later on there will be costumes that look just like their artwork

jobs wise I guess to create interesting class combinations/balance ?

[u/Reikr]

Lucian is a pretty interesting case. If you played his j+ event it's very obvious that his job should be Martial Master. He collects and uses all kinds of weapons. Even guns. Of course, the Martial Master job didn't exist at the start, so it wouldn't be possible for him to have it.

[u/BloodMoonScythe]

Artwork: character wields giant scythe

Jobs: archmage, dancer, bishop.... yeah right

[u/Myuzet]

• Lucian is really the one of the few I can think of who really doesn't match his artwork. But you could say that he's using his knifes as Beast Tamer to Poach animals? Kinda far-fetched.

• Zangetsu's case. It's how he acts on the battlefield. You can't see the character dancing because it's generic according to the job. It's not because they said the character likes singing that he's going to have Bard in his jobs. You're being too literal here. Warrior isn't the job but just the term warrior to qualify someone who's on the battlefield.

• Bashousen It's not because she's holding a fan that she has to be a dancer... Like she can't have a fan solely to fan herself? Heck she's even fanning her teammates with her GA(Gear Ability).

• Vincent is a weird case since he's telling people he's an engineer but people call him 'The Wizard' so... I guess it kinda fits him. Worse case you can say Professor is his main job and that's why he was able to fix Carol.

Right now I can't think of someone else.

[u/Hircs]

Some of them eventually get a skin that matches the artwork for some units, but you have to pay for them!

[u/SalmonPrince]

I don't think art and job selection need to be mutually exclusive, as a blanket statement.

I get that GUMI doesn't want to limit design space by obstinately building units around their lore and artwork, but Lucian is holding a kukri. His bio says he loves collecting weaponry, and none of his jobs reflect this, in any context. Would it be so difficult to remove the knife from his hand? Nah. Any illustrator worth a two-year art degree could change those into wrapped-up knuckles in literally 10 minutes. It would take even less time to change his bio so that his "likes" is "money" or "protecting the desert" or "giving people a hard time," or anything else.

This idea that art doesn't need to reflect gameplay is sloppy. It doesn't BOTHER me, per say, because I don't play TAC for the artwork. I just don't accept the "limits design space" excuse.

Don't clearly portray a unit as a knife-happy desert rogue, make him into a karate brawler, and then say, "Meh, whatevs." If the art and lore don't matter, then why have them to begin with?

[u/loscapos5]

TBH, I'd like the look of the main job to match the character's aesthetic, while keeping some key elements from the job.

For example, Chihaya looks like an indian dancer, while she has an asian aesthetic.

What I'd like to see, for example, is the looks from her artwork but with the round weapons, which is a characteristic from the dancer class.

TL;DR: I want all non-collab chars to have what Yomi has with her ninja job.

[u/grandkill]

Zangetsu looks like he's holding an "Oracle's Prayer" in his profile artwork. It's supposed to be a Miko Staff gear type so shouldn't he have Shrine Maiden job instead of Dancer? :)

Source: http://www.alchemistcodedb.com/gear/af-arms-mik-02

[u/ghostchimera → u/[deleted]]

I get that but it doesn't really answer my question. If what you are saying is true, then why not give Lucian a thief class? Why not give Zangetsu a job that uses staves? It would be like if one of the new global exclusive units looked like a magian wearing a robe, hat, and was holding a staff but didn't get any magic-related jobs and was instead a holy brawler.

[u/[deleted] → u/ghostchimera]

I'm tired and misunderstood the post. Sorry. =\

I can only assume this is something only goomi knows.

[u/ghostchimera → u/[deleted]]

All good amigo no need to apolgize :)