VERSALIA'S PROFILE

blitzen, blindmind, far_oz

runnerup: F-G, only because panoramas weren't allowed, and that map would look really good with a cool panorama and a fog overlay or whatever.

Please forgive me for I am about to invoke The Game That Shall Not Be Named.

This reminds me of the desert areas around Morroc. Say what you want about Ragnarok Online, they had stunning map design abilities. There's websites with all the maps on file if you ever need inspiration - I especially like the conquerable castles from each city, because they're designed to be pretty for you to hang out in.

I'll point you to my Persona:Reverse blog in regards to the Sync system I use. Essentially, Sync is a second MP Source (we've all seen this used as "rage" etc). It assigns a Role to each Class, and that class earns more sync than usual for conforming to their role. Aisling, for example, has powerful physical and magical attacks, but her role is that of a Fencer ("dealing physical damage".) Because my game's mechanics are EXTRA punishing in regards to elemental resists, it's obviously not your advantage to use just one element all the time (in this case, physical), and her Sync Role makes spamming Water magic against Water-Weak enemies less rewarding than mixing up the strategy.

Now, in general, I don't think it's an issue if a character has one solid ability that is more often than not their go-to attack. This doesn't mean "best strategy equals spam Firaga," but you need to have forms of attack that are reliable and constant. Etrian Odyssey has a good setup here. They give you a skill tree to progress through, so you build onto the skills you've already acquired. Each new skill allows you to interact with the other skills in a new way. I think that's the key - not necessarily giving players new skills constantly, or even forcing them to use different skills altogether, but forcing them to use the same skills in a different way. (Note that Sub-Classing is key to their use of skill synergies. No one class can use all of their own skills to 100% effectiveness.)

having to actually put thought into the decision every single round is ideal

For a boss fight, maybe; but for normal fights, thinking about every action every round is nightmarish - more Final Fantasy Tactics than I'm usually willing to put up with in a non-Tactics game.

About MP: What if Firaga overwrites Fira overwrites Fire? If the setting is similar to what I've chosen (highly restricted healing inside dungeons), then MP expenditures become far more important. You don't HAVE the option of using the cheapest version over and over. If you play hard rather than playing smart, you'll blow your entire MP pool.

It does look quite lovely, but I'd like to see it in action. AE is right to suspect that it may be too busy, but the proof is in the playing on that one - the screenshot looks great.

I live and work in San Francisco so maybe I'm not qualified to comment hahahaha
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That having been said, I am gay, and the most discrimination I faced in terms of employment was actually from clients. I used to be a stylist and my manager complimented me on my ability to put people at ease, despite being obviously gay in a conservative town (lived somewhere else at the time) and people sometimes being initially uncomfortable sitting down in my chair. Fortunately I'm a charmer, so most of the time it was perfectly fine. But on more than one occasion some big macho douche would request someone else to do their haircut, to which I would brightly smile and gladly transfer their service over to someone else - joke's on them, because I did the best clipper fade :B