NARCODIS'S PROFILE

I think its important to have a skill progression that ties into your story, at least thematically. If you look at final fantasy games, all their skill progressions are directly tied to the story... Materia, Espers, GFs, even the job system is (kinda) tied to the story, as they are inherited from the crystals. The sphere grid is a bit of a stretch, in that regard... The whole game has this fixation with spheres, but doesn't really give the sphere grid a proper place in its story. But still, it thematically ties in, to a degree.

Then again, linear skill progressions, or buying magic at a shop, both those work fine too, as they provide a reasonable progression for your characters without interfering with the plot unnecessarily. Skill trees are cool too, but I feel those are better suited to games that have more "blank slate" characters. I'm not sure how your game is laid out in that regard though.

I hate the sphere grid, personally. I've been replaying FFX recently, and the sphere grid is clunky, slow, and most of all, totally unnecessary. Navigating the sphere grid takes some high level of wizardry to do correctly (just go UP AND LEFT, not jump across three nodes to the right), and for the most part, you're just traversing a linear pathway. It's a chore, and you end up having to do this every 2-3 battles; or if you're like my wife, you put it off, stocking up 10 sphere levels. Then you end up spending the next 10-20 minutes leveling up your characters. When leveling your character becomes a thing you want to procrastinate because it disrupts everything so heavily, it's a bad thing. I hate that stupid thing. Just another flaw amongst a sea of flaws for FFX, though.

Re: your second bullet point Mog, I love non-traditional elements entering into a traditional battle. A monster changing its skillset based on certain actions taken by the character is a rad idea. These are things I really need to brainstorm a bit harder for my own project. I've got a custom battle system that works moderately well, and yet only one boss fight to speak of for lack of ideas T_T . These are some good thoughts though, and have definitely given me something to work with personally.

It's a double-edged sword... Custom systems and graphics will definitely hinder the development of a one-man team, no doubt. But it sure as hell is fun, and will always be appreiciated from a player's perspective.

It's not bad, but takes serious dedication.

Piercing? Or maybe just call it Armor Penetration, for clarity's sake.

wow