Three ideas : TO skills upgrade system / season journey / replay story battles?

[Armorvil]

Seeing what some of you guys are capable of (this is incredible, can't thank you enough for making the game even better after all these years), I was wondering if those ideas I have would be doable (well, I guess almost everything is doable given enough knowledge/know-how, time and will, but you probably see what I mean) so here goes.

1) I played the PSP version of Tactics Ogre recently (I started with Reborn but it was more like Advance Wars than FFT so I changed midway through), and there is something that I really liked : new, more powerful versions of abilities you already have that you can buy with your skill points, and I was wondering if the same thing could be done with abilities you learn with JP in FFT. Imagine if that Squire ability that boosts your PA by 1, "Focus" (or Accumulate on the PS1), was instead called "Focus I", and once you learn it you wouldn't get a "Learned" indication in place of where the JP cost was, but the whole ability would instead be replaced with "Focus II", with perhaps a higher JP cost. That ability would do the same thing as "Focus I" but would also have a small added bonus (like it would also restore 10HP or something). Then after learning it, not only would it replace the "Focus I" you already learned, but you would also be able to learn "Focus III", "(and afterwards Focus IV", etc). Each would only be a small improvement over the previous one so they wouldn't break the game, but they would still be upgrades that you would want, and that would allow the players who choose to do so to really focus on certain jobs and keep upgrading them. Not only would it add more choices to the game (currently almost everyone cross classes), but I've also always thought that it's sad that when you learn all skills for a job, you're kinda done with that job's progression. Spending JP to learn abilities is very fun, and it's always a bit sad when you're done (the same thing happens in FFXII about the licenses by the way, you usually learn them all halfway through the game and you're only left with the search for abilities and equipment and the basic and boring 1 to 99 level-ups to improve your characters. Why did you take the license boards away from me so soon, game? No fun allowed?).

I guess this would require heavy coding to expand the number of abilities available in the game, as well as the number of abilities any job can learn... "Thundaga II" could perhaps have a slightly reduced MP cost compared to "Thundaga I", same with "Thundaga III", "Steal Weapon II" would have a higher chance of success compared to "Steal Weapon I", "Stasis Sword II" would have a higher range than "Stasis Sword I" (at least a higher vertical tolerance), etc... Actually if replacing the abilities isn't possible or too hard to do, just multiplying the number of abilities by at least 4 and making the ability lists of each job much longer would be enough (that would increase the time you spend in the menus to scroll to the ability you want, but who cares about that).

2) I'm currently replaying the game, reached end-game, and thought about all the content I didn't experience because they are random battles. I could now go to each green point, one at a time and from different directions, but it doesn't sound very fun and compelling - more like a chore -, so I was wondering if random battles could be implemented in the story somehow, to increase the length of a playthrough / make it meatier. Even better if they could also provide the player with another sense of progression. This idea comes from playing a season in Diablo 3. In D3, in your power-leveling journey, called "adventure mode", the game gives you a list of tasks : you have to level up your artisans to level 10, level up your character to level 50, craft a weapon, kill a certain boss, etc. and I was thinking that something like that, tied to story progression, would be interesting in FFT (meaning you wouldn't be able to access the next story battle until you'd complete a task - ideally randomized). Completing these tasks would make the path to the next area appear (instead of it appearing automatically as soon as you complete a story event or battle, like in vanilla) or it could turn the area red so the story battle/event can trigger. Tasks could be :

**examples of early-game ones**
- unlock the White Mage class on 3 units
- have someone learn the Knight's "Weapon Break" ability
- kill 2 goblins
- collect a treasure chest
- collect a crystal
- have Ramza reach level 4
- have 7 units in your roster
- win a battle in the Zeklaus Desert by attacking from the north

** example of late-game ones**
- recruit a panther (you would be free to fire the creature afterwards)
- steal an accessory
- have someone unlock the Bard job
- ...

Basically these tasks would force you to play at least 1 random battle before the next story mission, otherwise you wouldn't be able to continue with the game at all. Alternatively it would be cool if the Brave Story menu kept track of random battles you completed, area by area. I imagine a list like : 
- Sweegy Woods
   West entrance
Rare Battle
Battle1
???????
Battle3
???????
   East entrance
???????
Battle2
...

and the "?????" would turn into "Battle[ID]" once you beat that battle once.

You could tell me :"hey, if you want to fight random battles before each story point, why not just do it by yourself? Why do you need the game to hold your hand / force you into them?" but here is the thing : when you play a random battle when you don't really need it, it's a bit aggravating / annoying. You keep telling yourself the whole battle "why am I spending 10 or 15 minutes fighting those monsters again? I should have continued with the story instead" So, if it wasn't possible to progress without doing them, then I wouldn't have those annoying thoughts anymore because they would become part of the normal progress through the game. Even better if you have specific goals during those fights.

3) the ability to replay any story battle in the end-game through a menu. Some battles can be very brutal and you might have had to rush the boss target or even cheese them to complete them. So it would be fun to try the Belial battle again for example, but this time by trying to complete it "correctly" by eliminating all Ultima Daemons before killing the boss, keeping all your characters on their feet, etc.

That's it! Thanks for reading 

[nitwit]

Are you the FF6 hacker Armorvil? I enjoyed your work.