Plot and Character Feedback

Plot design concept:

Angels and Demons are just alien races, for the best possible and quickest comparison: consider Angels to be Protoss, Demons to be Zerg, and Humans to be Terans (all from the Starcraft universe, and this just a lose comparison.)

Angels began cultivating a space in the Abyss, the void between all worlds, to be a new outpost directly over Hell and soon bring an end to the Infinite Conflict, a war Angels and Demons who are natural enemies as they respectively serve as agents of order/law and chaos/freedom. For approximately five thousand years, a series of floating islands were crafted carefully, and humans unknowingly relocated to these islands once they were complete. The humans, being the inventive sods they are, founds numerous new ways to live when they realized they were in a peaceful land with almost no natural resources beyond the seemingly overwhelming presence of magic and incredibly large amounts of wood. From creating a civilization out of almost entirely wood to enchanting stones to allow them to 'cloud hop' from continent to continent in this new world, they quickly adapted with a few generations.

Now in the twentieth generation, humans of this new world, dubbed Everdawn, are convinced they're in the promised land of Heaven, as the sun never sets and conflict never plagues them, even wildlife is generally benign. However, and this is where the game itself begins, things are starting to go downhill. An angel attempted to steal what powered the rituals that prepared this land for the coming of the Angels, due to occur in another two or three thousand years. The Solar Spheres, artifacts of immense power, were lost in the coup attempt, and the only survivor of the rebels, the player character, must retrieve all of the Spheres. Four in all are scattered throughout the continents of Everdawn, and the now mute PC, silenced for her crimes, must obtain all of them - although what she choses to do with them will decide the future of an unquantifiable number of lives. Will she return them to their proper place and throw the humans of Everdawn into servitude to their Angelic superiors who've had a past of enslaving lesser races - or will she keep the power of the artifacts for herself and grow even more powerful? What would she do with this power - force all of Eternity onto it's knees, or defend the freedom of all sentient creatures?

Features that will be implemented for sure include:
Yanfly's skill equip system - PC begins play with four slots for skills, and consuming a Solar Sphere will allow her to carry an additional skill into combat. This power will not benefit other characters in the party, and while this makes combat easier, it will render an alternate ending unobtainable in the play-through.
Some form of day-night cycle plugin - I haven't decided on one, but I'm thinking on plunging Everdawn into darkness and have one day cycle be an hour of gameplay, which can be skipped by sleeping in an inn. Precise timing not allowed, but I think 6:00, noon, 18:00, and midnight are acceptable presets.
ATB battle system, because I never liked DTB all that much.

Possible features to be included:
Item crafting - Yanfly is my favorite plugin developer, okay? I'm thinking about letting the player harvest wood on their own, maybe open a 'combat sequence' where they attack trees just to make it take some time for their effort and possibly allow them a very small amount of experience for harvesting wood.
Item Augment system - Yanfly I fudgin' love you, okay? Item augment system would use items that are purchasable, lootable, and of course craftable, and provide stat boosts to an item and alter other things like damage element. Magic crystals can be readily mined from the lands and bought from merchants to alter the damage element of a weapon, and runes can be crafted but will not be removable once applied - for the tradeoff of being quite potent.

Hows that for a plot and plan? Any critiques?

"Evil turns on evil" is a classic storytelling concept. Since (I would guess) all of them are out for absolute supremacy, it's only natural that eventually they'll want to subdue the other demons, as they are direct competitors.

Btw, I'm wondering about the demon of "darkness". All your other demons have action or emotion as a concept, and darkness doesn't strike me as particularly evil. How about "Deception"? A Demon of Deception might also have an easier time to trick the heroine into an alliance, perhaps with the argument "I'm the Demon of Deception. Of course I'll trick my brothers! You? Nooo, I'm absolutely honest with you..." (we all know humans have a fatal history of believing tricksters).


Hmmm. I'm not certain whether you haven't yet thought of all the details or just left them out for sake of brevity, but reading your summary left me with a lot of questions:

1) "only survivor of the rebels" - which rebels? You don't mention them otherwise, and I thought all humans were happy?
2) "silenced for her crimes"? - which crimes? Rebellion? Who judged her, angels or other humans?
3) I guess the angel stealing "what powered the rituals" is the "coup attempt"? So he wanted to reign supreme only over the humans or the other angels as well?
4) Are the Spheres "what powered the rituals"? If not, what is? And what happened with it?
5) If the Spheres can grant this kind of power, why are people running the risk of having a convicted criminal fetch them? And why isn't everybody else out searching for them? And why don't the angels stop this if they risk losing their position once the Spheres are found?
6) If the opposites are "law" and "freedom", does this mean that choosing "freedom" in the end would result in anarchy? And does it necessarily mean siding with hell? It sounds so...

(Also, I'm not really sure why you included the technical features in a thread about plot and characters. Makes the post a little messy.)

Now that's interesting. Because they all are a bit tricksters. Obviously, any bargain they make will be in the end in their own interest. Darkness is definitely the less original in the Demons, but he would manifest in the Mortal realm as unusual penumbra that would absorb almost all light. Yes, all Demons manifest in some way when they invade the Mortal Realm. I can hardly imagine the Demon of Deception standing all together while all demons are a bit deceptive.

Nonetheless, thanks for your feedback!

@Anthony Xue
I did shorten things to as small as possible to keep reading brief.

To add further detail to the bullets you remarked on:
1) The PC was a turncoat partway through the conflict that was an effort to steal the spheres, 5) although it was noted she never killed anyone of either side so the Angels created a binding agreement with the PC - she'd face no further punishment if she retrieved the Spheres.

2) Angels, naturally. The humans were never aware of the spheres, nor what exactly created or powered their world. They've never knowingly met an Angel, as Angels avoid dealing with any race they deem lesser than themselves - and even if they have to, they appear nearly identical to humans, with only a few physical features being different.

3) The spheres were stolen by an npc to prevent the enslavement of any other races - Angels had a history of finding creative ways of binding others to their will in one way or another. Partly through the string of conflicts that led to the theft of the four spheres, the PC joined the rebels' side, finding the forced servitude of other races unappealing.

4) Think of the Spheres as lemons, and Everdawn as a glass of water. The word 'ritual' was used loosely. The energy they radiate 'sanctified' the world, but only when they were in the appropriate points in the Void around this manufactured world - from within the confines of Everdawn, their power will quickly irradiate the area they are in, although too much too quickly has the negative impacts of some of the following: with Hell being adjacent to Everdawn, the odds of it's denizens realizing whats happening grow exponentially, most forms of life cannot handle the energies released in such high doses and could wither and die, and the Humans might locate the Spheres and take them for their own uses.

6)Law is dull and while it's exceptionally stable, it's horribly restricting when taken to the extent that the Angels would go - whereas the Demons hold no restriction on any aspect of life, and they do what they will, finding life to be short but enjoyable - exceptionally short when they fight each other for no apparent reason at times. Both sides exemplify polar opposites of strict rules and absolute freedom.

And the features were just a good way to spit out a couple of extra details such as the economic and material state of Everdawn.

Trying to come up with a poem that hints at where the eight magic gems in my game are. Still a WIP:

So there's this half baked idea in my head that I kinda want to make: Sim-Resistance.

Theme: Medieval Fantasy
The General Idea: The head of the Resistance, betrayed by one of his own during a critical mission, was publicly executed by the Empire along with his best and brightest commanders. The remnants flee to their final secret stronghold, but are so pathetic as to be no longer considered a threat. You are his heir, called to lead the Resistance way before you are ready, with the task of rebuilding the Resistance, finding the betrayer, and defeating the Empire.

It will play somewhat like Suikoden (or its RM counterpart Legion Saga), but with more emphasis on overall management of your base and your armies rather than just leveling up your heroes.

This idea was inspired by Fairy Tail, of all things. For those of you who read it, imagine if during "that" arc, the main characters didn't come back and the second rate guild members had to truly start over. And you get to lead something like this.

So my questions:
1. Is this something you would want to play? If not, what could be a twist that would make this better?
2. What do you look for in a sim game like this? In other words, what makes it fun for you?
3. Right now it's still this really cliched and vague Empire versus Rebel thing. Any better ideas?
4. Which is better: Resistance finds new Legendary Heroes to replace those executed OR Resistance wins with existing mediocre heroes?

Feedback appreciated!

Resistance with existing mediocre heroes wins hands down for me. Heroes that are legendary from the off are (imo) boring. I want to see character development as well as power increasing, so having mediocre heroes ("how the hell am I going to lead this lot when I can't lead a herd of cows to pasture?") gives much more scope for this. It leaves open possibilities of sometimes winning by ingenuity rather than prowess. Comments from NPCs can be more wide ranging. Much more flexibility all round.

You have my attention!


1) Yes, but are you removing ALL of the hero combat oriented gameplay or just striping it down to 'Hero punches monsters for ??? Vase appraisal for bath/castle decoration farming'? With a little combat, recruiting blacksmiths and sharpening weapons can still be a thing.

2) Suikoden was fun, for me, because of the where's waldo collecting of people and the varied ways they affected the power functions of the game (Army strength in big battles, strength of characters in duels, 108 star story bonus, etc).
In a 'Sim-Suikoden', I'd want:
~Growth of Power: (such as) Army squads/units lead by the mediocre/growing heroes, Equipment management for each individual soldier or their unit, upgrading/researching/finding 'better' gear, maybe unique special power gear, training said units (quests, missions, etc) and growth of the stronghold.
~Recruiting: Exploring old and new areas to track down all the misc characters to recruit to insert into the above power growth activities.
~Decorating or other decision aesthetics: Cause what's a sim game without color palettes and deciding where exactly that knight statue is located?

3)Crumbling economic empire that has a strong military-industrial complex that subjugates it's agrarian towns/farmers like bandits, Empire leaders are corrupt disconnected peeps shored up by military personal that don't want to lose their power... wait, isn't that Suikoden one's story? *shrugs* Maybe a third faction is manipulating the Empire's leaders for personal gain? Or Aliens/demons. It'll probably be easier to make it a straight forward Oppressors versus the common folk revolution, unless you write a good moral grey tale of some sort. Emperor ends up being the Protags mother or some such rot.

4)I second Kes; Existing heroes grow into Legendary. Maybe have the legends of the legendary be a guiding mold for the player to imprint on their subordinates. Maybe, late game, they can find/recurit a Pesmerga/Yuber if the universe you create has those type of eternal characters. Mediocre heroes will help drive the underdog story that is a bit inherent in all resistance tales.

Anywho, there's my shotgun of ideas. Good luck and Have fun!

So the back story I have for my game, "From Ashes to Dusts"
Hundreds of years ago eight queens ruled a vast rich landscape.
Seeking to have their greatness reign eternal eight queens commited a grave sin by ascending their bodies to embody what the believe in the most.
The High Queen
The Queen of Heroes
The Queen of Darkness
The Queen of Light
The Queen of Death
The Queen of Purity
The Queen of Wisdom
The Queen of Courage
Their treacherous act created a rift that sank most of the world beneath the ocean, and allowed monsters to flood into the remaining land and reek havoc. The monsters were lead by one known only as "The Sailor" the Queens managed to stop the flow of monsters, and only weaken The Sailor, leaving the people to do their best to survive a harsh new world.

Jump to the Present.

Miasma is spreading in the world and killing what little there is left. Eight Demon Princes are arising to commit the same sin as the Queens in a bid to ascend even higher. The Sailor, is once more moving about the world. The Queens have disappeared, and only by traveling the world to get stronger can Violet hope to solve all these crises.

Jump to the Spoiler

And that's all I got so far. I'll probably update more if necessary. Please feel free to ask for elaboration.

'General Discussion' is not for feedback on individual projects, it is meant to be more wide ranging than that.

[mod]I am merging this with Plot and Character Feedback[/mod]

This will be my first game and i want to try to keep it small, but still keep it interesting.



Background was inspired by a couple Light Novels/Web novels I've read.

I'll probably make MC a Swordsman (tank) while CF will becomes a Spearman (dps), while other volunteers will complement the rest of the roles in the party.

Story seems pretty decent to me, yet I feel that the character development while exploring the dungeon will go stale (to much fighting, not enough dialogue). I might want to add some moments where party is camping in a save spot inside the dungeon and talking to one another to deepen the characters.

Also i don't know how I want to make the town remote, either place it on an island where the main form of transportation is by boat or just simply a town in a remote location far from the general population, occasionally visited by merchants to trade regional resources.

I hope you people can help me flesh out this idea.

@VeggetoSSJ Is the MC's friend male or female? Their character development can change depending on their gender. If you want to flesh out the characters, especially in a dungeon, I would suggest that you have them talk among various things while they are resting. The conversation could be about the well being of the country, what's going on in town, their ideal waifu, or how good and bad their cooking is. It's the little things like that that can make them more memorable.
Regarding the town's location, that also depends on the overall story you are planning. Would this town play any significant role in the story whatsoever? Is the villain going to attack it? If it's a big city, then a monster attack can be a big deal.

Here's what I plan for my story, hope to get feedback. :D

- The story is about a nerdy girl who constantly gets bullied by her classmates. The only friend she has is another nerdy guy who has a crush on her, but he's unable to fight against those bullies. After some conflict with her father, the girl lost all sense of reason and decides to take revenge on her bullies. She killed one of them, and then coerced the nerdy guy to work with her. She invites the bullies to her mansion, which is located in a remote place. They set up traps around the house and kill the bullies one by one.

You play as a detective who was sent to the mansion to investigate the bullies' disappearance. Some problems I have:

- How do they determine the location of the mansion? I could hand-wave this by having the police trace back their phone signals before they disappeared. They realized there's a mansion nearby, and sent the MC to investigate. On the way there, the MC got separated from the other officers after the bridge that he crossed collapsed. Due to stormy weather, it would take a while for a chopper to get there, so he has to go in by himself.
- How should I tell/show the player how the bullies died? At first, I planned to have them playable until the moment they die, either by traps or killed by the duo. But then the detective, in universe, would be clueless as to what happened. I am thinking of fixing this by having him check bullies' phone, see their text messages and videos. Before their deaths, the bullies wanted to capture videos of them getting trapped in the mansion as evidence, but they all die before they can escape. This way, the MC in universe would be able to figure out what was going on in the mansion. But this, I am not sure if it's sensible. Checking text messages is fine and all, but that can't tell him everything.

I am still thinking how I should make the story progress, and how to flesh out the story. Another headache is the puzzles. o_O I can just have the player walk around, investigate things, avoid some traps and incoming attacks, but I'm not sure if that will be enough to make the game satisfying. I wanted to make just a short game, but here I am, complicating things again. XD

@Mr. Detective Thanks for the feedback.

I was thinking of making the MC male and he has a honorable and serious character, he definitely wants to become a knight. As for CF, I'll probably make her female. I'm still uncertain about her story. I either think of making her have a more manly character due to always having hung out with MC and laid back or keep her more female and a bit mischievous, making fun of MC from time to time.

The town is a hunting and logging town, the surrounding woods are filled with regional animals that have high quality fur/pelt and the wood gotten from the trees is ideal construction material (might even have magical properties). I wanted to make the town remote as to force the mayor having to set up this militia/volunteer group, because the town doesn't have enough guards to go defeat the dungeon. and the nearest large city from where reinforcements could come is far away. This is all to make the story concentrate on the town and the dungeon. The town loses resources because the dungeon has appeared, making it hard for its townspeople from either hunting or logging in that forest now.

I was also thinking that at first, the order is to destroy the dungeon core as to clear it from the forest and allow the townspeople to once again start logging trees/hunting animals. But as the militia explores the dungeon, they come across plenty of resources that can only be found in dungeons. As the militia reports this, the Mayor might be inclined to capture the core as to use the dungeon to train it people and harvest resources, making the town more prosperous.

The demon stays in the dungeon and manages it, creating monster and resources that are beneficial for the demons. The town has to quickly create their militia to prevent the area around the dungeon from overflowing with monsters and possible attack the town.

---

As for your story.

How does the first bully die? where? May sound cliche but perhaps have a fake love letter from the boy/girl the bully likes and come to a bridge or rooftop, where the nerdy girl pushes the bully off?

The mansion could be a vacation house of the family located near a lake or other vacation-like place.

I do like the idea of the detective checking the bullies phone to see how they died. You could do it so that once the phone's video start playing, you get control of the bullies and actually play out their deaths.

As for puzzles, you could make the clues themselves puzzles. Maybe a picture that is distorted and is a slide puzzle that clear the picture as you finish its puzzle. or perhaps a puzzle to figure out how a trap killed the bullies?

Hope that helped and thanks again for you feedback :D

If the MC is going to be serious, then the sidekick has to be somewhat opposite. Think of either X/Axl and Zero, or Vegeta and Goku. I don't know what direction you want to take the game in, but I would make the sidekick feminine and mischievous to make some room for comedy. But if the MC is always serious, then you should be careful not to ruin his seriousness too much when you make jokes. If you want to go the extra miles, have her act silly, but only as a facade to hide her sadness. It could be a tragic past or whatever, then the MC finds out, and cheer her up. Something like that. XD I'm just throwing it out there. Depends on what kind of game you want this to be, it might or might not be a good thing to do. :rolleyes:


Sounds like the town has some unique resources. That's definitely going to attract merchants and tourists from other parts of the world, no? Maybe heroes and warriors are going to come to town and offer help or something like that.


The first bully dies in the school's backyard, at evening where no one noticed. I actually got this idea after reading a manga. I was thinking of doing something like that, too. No, not a rooftop. He's going to fall down a pit and get buried alive (maybe). :cool:

Yeah, the mansion is located in a forest.

I planned to do that, but would it be logical for someone to take videos of their situation before dying? Conveniently? It's not like the captured videos can tell everything, and I want the player to understand all that happened. Maybe I'm worrying too much. :biggrin:

I'll try to think of something for the puzzles... Making this game stays within the realm of reality is kinda hard. :stickytongue:

Geez... I wish we have more people giving feedback in here. :smile:

Plot concept

Long ago, great beasts roamed the earth, and humans were the minority.
Most of these creatures were hostile toward humans, preventing civilization
from gaining a foothold. Humans had little means of fighting back and were
thus forced to live in small groups as nomads. Some groups managed to fend off
monster attacks, and form small cities, but most were not so fortunate.

Things would change once a mysterious object descended from the sky. Its inhabitants were attacked by monsters soon after landing, but they were quickly dispatched. Those humans who witnessed the event would dub their mysterious saviors "Azurans", because of their appearance from the sky. A handful of these "Azurans" (specifically females of the royal bloodline due to their race's higher magical affinity) possessed a unique ability to adapt a monster's power as their own.
They set up a city-state known as the queendom of Fethmia, after their home world. The Fethmians had little contact with the outside world and generally looked down on humans as inferior, often enslaving them.

As time went on, human civilization began to flourish and larger towns and cities
quickly sprung up. Present-day Fethmia is ruled by Queen Leota alongside Sir Zefram and their daughter, the princess Zeota. Zeota possesses the same ability to use the powers of monsters just like her mother and previous generations, and is also a very capable physical fighter.

However, a kingdom known as Viryllia began to rapidly gain power and influence, and sought its sights on Fethmia. One day, the Viryllians invade Fethmia, but suffer massive casualties. Not before capturing Zefram and Leota, however. The Viryllians use them as test subjects in an effort to replicate their monster-absorbing powers and create an army of warriors known as blue mages. They experiment on several soldiers and prisoners, turning some of them into monsters. Zeota and the family's loyal retainers, Ricard and Zesh, depart in search of her parents. Along the way, they meet Portia, a dancer and leader of an underground resistance, and Sandor, a former Viryllian scholar. As Zeota seeks out her parents, she cannot help but feel that an all too familiar hand pulls Viryllia's strings.

Party members

Zeota Fethmora - Age: 23 in appearance - The princess from the queendom of Fethmia. She is the daughter of Zefram and Leota. She looks down on the humans, believing that her family was the only reason they were able to establish themselves. Like her mother, she posseses the gift of acquiring the powers of fallen enemies as her own. Zeota doesn't get stronger by the traditional means of leveling up (she does level up, but her stats don't go up like the others). Instead, she gets stronger by feasting on defeated foes and the abilities she obtains from them.

Ricard - Age: 32 in appearance - Long-time manservant to the Fethmora lineage and master in unarmed combat.

Zesh - Age: 21 in appearance - A young assassin and chief intelligence officer.

Portia - Age: 22 - Leader of a resistance force disguised as a traveling dance troupe. She trained to become a dancer at a young age and also learned to incorporate magic into those moves in order to defend herself. Able to buff and heal as well as debuff enemies.

Sandor - Age: 52 - One of the brightest minds in the world, well-versed in the arts of magic and alchemy. He harbors a deep-seated guilt for the recent series of events. Portia's uncle who is incarcerated for voicing his opposition to the creation of the Blue Mages. Your typical offensive mage with some support thrown in.

Stephano - Age: 46 - Former Viryllian engineer and Portia's father. Retired after Portia's mother fell ill and subsequently died six months later.

Plot time!

10 years ago, three people working for the government were sent on a mission to bomb a castle known to contain a strange paranormal force.

The people sent on this mission are Jason, the cleric, Clarisse, the bruiser, and Remdall, the mage. During the mission, Clarisse and Remdall are caught, and while Jason manages to free them, the mission must be aborted.

When the group gets back from the mission, they must report the council of the Peacekeepers. The Peacekeepers unite all of the empires of the world and take action against the empires and nations who refuse to become peaceful. The council decides to fire Clarisse and Remdall. While Remdall leaves quietly, Clarisse just about yells at everyone she sees. Jason is the only one not fired over the course of the next 2 years, he becomes the head of the Peacekeepers.

Fast Forward to the events of the game: Reyna, a young talented mage, is slowly reflecting on the events of the last 2 years of her life. 2 years ago, Jason, who is now the king of the Peacekeepers, dies of a rare disease. The Peacekeepers only manage to stay alive for 6 months before it's all came crumbling to the ground. Reyna was a investigator for the Peacekeepers, but since she lost her job she has been doing freelance work.

Suddenly Reyna has a idea. She visits Mr. Kaguru, a kind and rich man who formerly tried to employ her. Reyna's idea is that provided Mr. Kaguru is willing to help with financials, and get his niece Lisanna to help manage the base, Reyna suggests they should build the Peackeepers back up again, under the title New Peacekeepers and no more councils.

Reyna somehow is able to convince him to to go along with her crazy (and illegal) plan, and somehow her idea works. Lisanna is also very happy to be doing this, so that's a plus. Where does Reyna come in? Well, Reyna runs Black Moon, a special forces group tasked with recruiting and protecting peaceful nations, and destroying corrupt or evil ones. Over the course of the game, you will be running all over the world completing tasks and meeting people, all the while picking up new clues about the paranormal force that destroyed the relationship between Jason, Clarisse and Remdall.

Game Start.


By the end of the story you will 16 different party members, but I will only list 4 here.

Reyna; The Mage: She is focused on attacking her foes with a barrage of spells with her high M.Attack, but may need to recover due to her medium MP. Equip: Wands, Rods, Swords, Batons, Daggers.

Haruki; The Inventor: Haruki the complete definition of wild card. His attack are powerful, but you never who they might hit, if they even work.
Equip: Guns, Axes, Hammers, Flails.

Sofiya; The Sage: She is support focused character with healing some drains, and buffs. However, low Defense and M.Defense could be your downfall. Equip: Wands, Rods, Batons, Flails

Matthias; The Fighter: He uses spells to imbue his weapons with magical power for a little extra elemental damage. Notably: High M.Attack and High Attack. Equip: Swords, Bows, Axes, Daggers, Lances

Thanks for reading!:uhappy:

So, I've recently come back after a move and a broken computer, so I've had ample time to adjust and plan things out, and I feel like I have the combat designs for my characters finished. That being said, I wanted to get a bit of feedback, and know what people think of each party member for the most part having a "unique" mechanic and feel to them. So in the game, there's 6 Party Members, and a Party Limit of 4. If I had to define them as Classes, they're a Gunner, a Knight, a Berserker, a Monk, an Elementalist and a Dark Mage. The way I have them working now, is that those who use MP use it under different names and so I haven't been using MP restore items like Ethers in my game. I'll be putting down what I have working right now in a Spoiler tag below this if you're interested in giving feedback on them.

Now for the questions. Do you guys think stuff like this is fine for a standard, 4-man Party, turn based RPG. Do you think its overly complicated? What are issues you forsee with a system like this? How would you run something like this. The pros, the cons. I want to hear it all before I cement it, or if I need to evaluate certain things.

Best way to evaluate is by playing it yourself and see what you think of it. You deem the Knight and Dark Mage to be boring, so maybe look into spicing those up so that they aren't boring?

One thing I'd probably consider is some more cross-class support, because as of now, it's like every guy is on his own (apart from the Monk who heals). Like, give certain classes synergy with others so you can kind of build a party that feels like it's actually working together as a team, rather than putting individual units together that only do their own thing.

One thing I've just recently came to analyze, is the "storytelling through gameplay mechanic" factor.
What I mean is, the game is not just combat, or flashy animations on screen at the time of combat.
There should be a story behind it, and if you match that story with your characters' personality, the way they behave in combat will match their design and background.
With that, you *can* have a super-OP character, and a super useless character..... IF their backgrounds state that they should be super useless or super OP, then it's logical that they are.
I have a sort of super-OP character in my roster..... what did I do to fix it? (spoilers) I killed him.
Like, as his skill set is established, and the players will grow to rely on him in combat, I take him away from the party.
And that is reflected in the story, as later on there would be instances where there would be a need for a healer, or a powerful wizard, and you won't get any...... until, several scenes later, when you get that breath of fresh air in the form of a new dedicated healer which makes death and injury not a problem anymore, so you can focus on using the other characters (because, the healer alone won't kill the enemy and won't win the battle)
Another character is completely useless in combat (he's a minor cleric), but there will be instances where you have him in combat, and if you lose him you won't have him available for later missions where he serves as a diplomat, which can get you allies or areas where you can improve your party.

it's not wrong to be too good or too bad for the task, as long as there's a reason to it.
if there's a character that is too strong, put that strength to the test... isolate them, or put them in a no-win scenario, just to vary the gameplay.
it doesn't have to be a total no-win scenario.... you can design it so that it's meant to be failed, just to show the players how much that one character can take.

I'd agree with @Milennin that you need to do more than leave boring classes as boring and also allow them to have greater synergy with the others.
I think the simplest way to do it as of now would be to allow the Knight to gain MP by taking damage, thus encouraging the player to put them in a defensive/tanking role.
As for the dark mage, maybe go really out there and use Yanfly's Skill Cost Items plugin to make all of their skills cost items. Bonus points if those items are also usable for other uses such as consuming Potions to deal massive fire damage, as this would force the player to weigh the pros and cons of using up potions for damage rather than healing.

The most important thing in my opinion is to also consider what a character can do in battle rather than merely how they do it. I think you've almost got it with the elementalist, but right now, the only difference I can see between the gunner and the knight is that the gunner needs to recharge every few turns via skills, while the knight recharges via just waiting.
While that may seem different now, you'll probably find that it's not interesting enough to keep the character's feeling different.
So diversify a bit, maybe make the gunner a class oriented around debuffs, and the knight a protector class. It'll work especially well if the character's niche feeds into how they gain MP.
An example of this would be giving the gunner several skills that deal more damage if used multiple times in a row, say a skill that has a 10% chance to stun the enemy, but the change goes up by 5% every time you use it, but resets if you spend a turn without using it. Because the player is forced to use the same skill consecutively, having to keep using skills to keep up the advantage, having to spend a turn recovering bullets can prove to be a great point of tension especially if it does something like heal the character. Now, we have a dilemma, do I heal and reload now and lose my consecutive attack bonus, or do I press a little harder.
Again, maybe that's not what you want to do, but the general idea of linking a character's in game abilities with how they regenerate MP is important to making character's seem consistent.

Regardless I'm really interested in how this will go, I have some ideas for other MP systems and characters you could add, but I don't want to send unsolicited advice.