Quote Originally Posted by Cyric View Post

But if you just follow the "obvious path", it pretty much defeats the purpose of Customization at which point the Sphere Grid is much better, because you can see EVERYTHING on the grid, and you have the option of clearing spots as well to put whatever you want in it.
You leave out the fact that most of the special spheres that even grant these privileges are generally available at the end of the game. Whic makes this a moot point cause end game-wise in XII you should have unlocked most of the License grid and can customize everyone to do pretty much any thing you want.

It would've been MUCH better (like the Sphere Grid), if they just showed what was on each square (greyed out), and then just activate the immediate surrounding spots to learn. I guess the way the License Board is wouldn't be much of a problem if they made License Points less of a pain-in-the-arse to get in the first place. For instance, if you find out you made a "mistake" earlier on the board, it wouldn't take hours upon hours, and hundreds and hundreds of monsters killed, to get back to where you want to be.
The greyed out areas Vivi22 mention I feel gives you enough information to plan out a character to a certain degree. Like old school FFs, you basically get placed with equipment and spells befitting starter FF classes like Thief, Warrior, and the three mage classes (Black, White, and Red). After you get farther in the board, weapons and augments that belong to higher level classes begin to open up. Sure you can't start the game as the Ninja's but it would probably get boring quickly and you would give him a sub class like thief or Green mage eventually.

Sphere Grid doesn't even give you real preplanning, you get to see that after you get past 40 more nodes, you can get Curaga cause its at the end of Yuna's sphere path. By the time you collect the special sphere's to allow you to get their faster, Yuna is probably almost on top of it anyway so you might as well just grind your way to the ability naturally rather than waste the sphere on learning it a few level early.

Not to mention X is so ridiculously easy that using return or teleport sphere's are a waste of time cause god knows the Killer Bees in Macalania Woods are so difficult that using Wakka or Lulu's level two magic isn't enough. We need Flare to fix those nasty things. :rolleyes2

Besides, who seriously changes peoples classes mid-game in FFX? Besides Kimarhi I don't see a point in changing Auron into a mage or Tidus into a thief mid game? Its not like you need two Black mages or healers in X.

As for getting License points in XII being hard... How? A few mark hunts fix issues in the beginning and about the time you hit the middle of the game you are practically swimming in them. Most people complete the license board not out of sheer tenacity for completion sake but because its relatively easy to do cause the board is small and the LP are easy to obtain in droves. Hell, you will probably build enough LP just by grinding for cash to purchase the magicks and equipment you need in the first place.