Favourite ability system???

[lady yunalesca]

whats everyones favourite system for learning abilities???

i love materia and the sphere grid (especially filling the empty nodes for hours on end in the monster arena) i wasnt a huge fan on 8s system (drawing drove me nuts). i love the exp/ap and getting to lvl 100 and having all your abilities you possibly can gives you such pride!!!!!!!:mog:

[TheSpoonyBard]

Click here.

My favourite is the materia system, followed by junctioning and dresspheres.

[lady yunalesca]

[QUOTE=ForestOwl]Click here.

i was not aware of that thread

but i am new and this will be a chance for newbies (and vetrans) to have there say!!!

[TheSpoonyBard]

That's alright, no harm done. That thread was on its way out anyway.

[Slothy]

I prefer the old Job systems. Either set job classes for different characters or the job system in FF5. I just find it a lot more interesting when I can't equip every ability in the game to every character at the same time. It makes things a little more interesting to me when each character is different.

[Shin Gouken]

whats everyones favourite system for learning abilities???

i love materia and the sphere grid (especially filling the empty nodes for hours on end in the monster arena) i wasnt a huge fan on 8s system (drawing drove me nuts). i love the exp/ap and getting to lvl 100 and having all your abilities you possibly can gives you such pride!!!!!!!:mog:

If you knew how to refine items then you wouldn't need to keep drawing magic from monsters

I prefer the old Job systems. Either set job classes for different characters or the job system in FF5. I just find it a lot more interesting when I can't equip every ability in the game to every character at the same time. It makes things a little more interesting to me when each character is different.

Being able to equip every character in the game with the same things actually gives you the choice to customise them differently. Just because you CAN give every character everything, doesnt mean you have to.


FFV job system is my definite favorite nothing will top that in my opinion (except what FFXII plans to do ) The junction system comes in second, it was a breath of fresh air, learning how to use it and learning how to abuse it was incredibley fun. It's unique and totally different and i think personally a work of genius. Materia system comes in a default third. But that's coz the sphere grid was a pile of........*stops right there* in my opinion, the dress speres were a cheap version of the job system, and the esper/magicite system was only so so.

These are the opinions of one man. Please be nice and don't rip

[raskerino]

I divide this into to categories, in battle and before battle setup:
Battle Setup:
FFVII gets the cigar for me, it was abusable but I love to have customization control over my characters.
FFVIII gets second as the junction gave a lot of customization control and a much more in depth system.
FFX, the spheregrid was enjoyable though I wish I had international so I could customize my characters better.
FFIX had a very well done abilities equipping system.
FFT was also pretty good for this.
No other FF had a very good battle setup system, I'd probably go: FFV, FFVI, FFIV, FFI

In Battle
FFT utilized the strategy rpg system beautifully, it would have been nice if more strategy had been involved though like in Vandal Hearts.
FFVIII/X-2 These games both show the ATB system near it's best. FFX-2 allows everything to occur at once and FFVIII has the perfect timing between every turn to really make fights enjoyable.
FFX performed the wait system excellently.
FFV had an extensive job system allowing for very different parties to use in combat.
After this the games aren't as strong but the order would go FFIX, FFVII, FFI, FFIV, FFVI

[Slothy]

Being able to equip every character in the game with the same things actually gives you the choice to customise them differently. Just because you CAN give every character everything, doesnt mean you have to.

I've had similar debates with people about this before. No you don't have to equip characters with all the same abilities, but the fact that all abilities can be equipped to all characters in my experience has typically led to a cast of characters with no real advantage over one another. There's little differentiation in terms of unique abilities, and therefore every character feels the same. FFVII and VIII were the worst offenders in my opinion (VIII in particular though). Even though you can just equip different abilities to the characters though, I've found games like FFVI, VII, and VIII tended to just plain be balanced more towards favoring one certain setup for every character that would be the best in all situations, whereas with say FFV, I always had the desire to experiment, and there were numerous class and party setups that were easily just as effective as one another in different situations.

That's not to say that I hate all the battle systems in the other FF's, when in fact I like all the battle systems (just some more than others). And I'm not saying you're wrong that the player can engineer there own classes in some of these games. I just found that the class based systems, especially in FFV, were more condusive to the use of planning and strategy than the other systems since you had to work within set limits. At least that's how I see it anyway.

[Shin Gouken]

I've had similar debates with people about this before. No you don't have to equip characters with all the same abilities, but the fact that all abilities can be equipped to all characters in my experience has typically led to a cast of characters with no real advantage over one another. There's little differentiation in terms of unique abilities, and therefore every character feels the same. FFVII and VIII were the worst offenders in my opinion (VIII in particular though). Even though you can just equip different abilities to the characters though, I've found games like FFVI, VII, and VIII tended to just plain be balanced more towards favoring one certain setup for every character that would be the best in all situations, whereas with say FFV, I always had the desire to experiment, and there were numerous class and party setups that were easily just as effective as one another in different situations.

That's not to say that I hate all the battle systems in the other FF's, when in fact I like all the battle systems (just some more than others). And I'm not saying you're wrong that the player can engineer there own classes in some of these games. I just found that the class based systems, especially in FFV, were more condusive to the use of planning and strategy than the other systems since you had to work within set limits. At least that's how I see it anyway.

No, your absolutley right. It's very easy to equip every character the same in FFVI VII and FFVIII. But you having identified this, can now play it and give a character a job class they should stick to.

Personally, i see a game like FFIV and cannot play it because there is no character customisation. The characters progress in one direction and you get what you are given.

FFV is by far the best. You can give all characters a job class with a second ability and have no character the same as another. There is a reasonable choice of jobs with limitation to the abilities you can equip. Thus you can change your party over and over throughout the game having a different party everytime. (Or if you want to stick with jobs and master them, then there is huge replay value as every game played can be played differently.)
I think it's the only job system without faults. And ffxii's version of this looks set to be the greatest job system of all time ever and ever

[*~Endless Night~*]

I like FFX with the sphere grid.

[Dreddz]

Materia or Junctioning...

[Lost Number]

Materia is my personal favourite, the double edged sword factor was nifty.

[~SapphireStar~]

Junctioning and dresspheres for me.

[Starboard Regulator FlareNUKE]

I - It was all right
II - Yeah, it was good
IV - Umm... Typical RPG system
VII - Cool, but soon there's too many materia
IX - AWESOME
X - Cool

[Gilthanes]

Materia was prolly the easiest, most enjoyable, and fun to use system imo. Junctioning was just annoying. Honestly, you find a monster with Flare, then you spend the next 20 minutes spamming Draw to get all 3 characters to 100? Yeah thats fun :rolleyes2

FFVI was fine, learning your spells through magicite (prolly 2nd best)

FFIX was a similar system to that and I liked it also

Stupid systems:
FFIV (pure leveling for skills sux.. dont get me wrong tho, the game rocked),
FFII (Realistically it makes sense. Use magic, you become better at it. The original release it was bulky, time consuming, and easily exploited as well)
FFVIII (Spamming Draw =| fun)
FFX (I'm sorry, grid system was ok for first half of game, but then when everyone started overlapping.. it was just a "Oh boy heres another 200hp to add onto my already 10k+ total".)


*sigh*, I also loved FFTactics for some reason. Build up Job Points, and spend them to learn a new ability for your job, in no particular order i.e. if I wanted to learn Flare for my Black Mage before Dorter Trade City, I'm free to do it (tho thats not very realistic, its a choice!)