Junction, Redux

[Slothy]

I think the only critique I have is that I don't think your system fixes the imbalance of melee vs. mage in the game.

I'm not sure any system that's going to base stat values on how many spells you junction to them can address this as part of the system. The only way I see it being possible is by balancing enemies well and upping the difficulty. More enemies with elemental weaknesses, or who resist physical attacks (and I don't mean some piddly amount of damage reduction, I mean throw in some guys who take 25% damage, or possibly negate it entirely if you want to be really dickish), and make enemies throughout the game much tougher so they pose a very real threat, forcing the player to rely on magic in some situations.

I'm also curious about where the GF summons and Draw/Cast fall into this whole deal because I feel they would still be better alternatives than sacrificing your own stats, by casting Junctioned Magic.

Simple solution for draw/cast: get rid of it. If you want to cast a spell then you have to use the ones you stocked. That way you can't simply sit on 100 of everything and cast magic with no consequence.

As for the Draw 100 spells the first go around, I feel its still a bit imbalanced, especially with the above critique. Granted you have a good point about it not being of any use until after the battle, but I think its a bit imbalanced that after leaving Balamb Garden, I go into five battles, that only take five minutes top to complete, and now I suddenly have a really beefy Quistis and Squall who can coast until the end of the Dollet Mission if I stuck to melee and summons. I feel a much better alternative is to simply limit the amount of spells you can draw from a monster. Basically, a Bite Bug has 15 Spell charges of Blizzard I can draw from, and then after 15 are drawn between my party, we can't get anything out of him. This would drop battle time significantly while still creating a sense of accomplishment when you finally draw enough spells to make meaningful Junctions, and it would keep refinement as a viable option.

While I don't dislike the idea of limiting how many draws you can get from an enemy (at least after the first one. It may create an interesting dynamic if you can't take a few turns in a battle where you used a spell and re-stock it before finishing the enemy off), I do agree with Skyblade that drawing 100 of a spell the first time you draw it isn't imbalanced, especially if you balance enemy stats with that in mind. That's already going to happen in the game as it is anyway, the only thing it changes is that the player spends five minutes doing it instead of the first 30 minutes to an hour.

I also think that if you solve the issue of making using magic worthwhile, then you can have this system and still keep refinement as a viable option since it can let you re-stock without having to take the time to draw like crazy.

As for GF's, that's definitely a conundrum. Anything that limits how many times they can be used would be good, though it's be nice if you pay some sort of penalty for using the strongest attacks in the game. The idea of their HP replacing yours during summoning so they could actually die was neat, but never really a serious threat. Off the top of my head, I'd say limit summons to once per battle (for each character), and have the act of summoning physically drain the character by causing damage equal to a some amount of HP.