Design a Character Progression System

abelard

I got a bit bored and started to think of the various pro's and con's of the way characters levelled up, developed, learned new skills etc in the various final fantasy iterations and thought it might be interesting to see what people's ideas would be for a great system of progression.

What way would you have characters get stronger on levelling up? Would it depend on items equipped, their current job (if they exist in your system), types of monster defeated, types of attack/magic used or something else?

How would skills be learned, again, through items equipped (like ff6/9), some form of magic substance (like magicite/materia), linear progression, some form of board (like ff10/12) or something else a bit oddball (think junctioning)?

There's proabably loads of things I'm not thinking of too, so any bizarre idea should be included.

The idea just popped into my head now so i'll need some time to think of something myself too, but I'd love to hear other people's ideas in the meantime.

Prufrock

I enjoyed learning action from items(FF9). Made your choice of equipment a bit more important. The more powerful the item the more powerful the skill you learn.

Then again junctioning was great. Crazy but great.

Leveling up....eh that's a tough one. The board wasn't bad....maby some kind of system where the more you defeat a type of monster you get less exp forcing you to explore and find new monsters.
Also being able to chose your own job/weapon is always nice.

ec18

i think the one from VII was great very easy and user friendly....basoc and some would say took away from the FF experience but its my favourite

TheBigBiscuit

I thought FF9 was good too, also i know it really only relates to the blu mages but i like the idea of learning spells from monsters which also would encourage exploration to an extent! it was used in FFXI for blue mages but it could be interesting if it was implemented in other ways in the upcoming games! Another thing which i REALLY think shud be used although sorta unrelated to the topic is being able to see the items you equip! each person wud have their own look then there wud be a uniqueness to every1s FF games... just a thought:D:D

seraphimvc

i think i like the system from FF6/FF7 most!

FF6/7 'forbid' you mad leveling before you get some stronger stone,or else will be a waste,but that will be a bad thing too:you will need ages to master your stone(in FF7) or less hours compare to FF7 in FF6 to learn the skill.both give you big freedom of building a characters' skills,like that most!

i dont quite like it learning from weapon /board.
weapon:the timing of getting stronger weapon and learn off the skill are very hard to estimate,if you get a fairly weak weapon with a good skill but get a better damage weapon at the same?it's really hard not to level up while in the main story line,which i normally focus on level up before the final battle-free travelling time.
board:that's just boring really....i seriously dont like the idea of mad leveling....defeating those super enemy in the end only means that you have spent HOURS on the game,not much tactical stuffs involved really.
(except WEAPONs in FF7,i can still remember i defeated them at about 60+ level,highly pleased till now:D)

TheBigBiscuit wrote: »

I thought FF9 was good too, also i know it really only relates to the blu mages but i like the idea of learning spells from monsters which also would encourage exploration to an extent!

it is always been used in the series,so far i can remember Gau in FF6(whole character based on enemy skills,thats really amazing ya see,whole world most enemy's skills can be learn off!),FF7 with enemy skill materia,FF8 Quitis 's limit ,FF9 ya know,FFX kimari...

Retr0gamer

Thought the materia system in FFVII was fairly pathetic since it was so basic and didn't lead to individuality in characters. Fit in nicely with the story though.

I still think that by far the best system is the job system of FFV and FFtactics. It leads to a lot of levelling up possibilities and strategy in how to exploit different jobs and their abilities.