CRYSTALGATE'S PROFILE

The formula seems unnecessarily complicated.
Math.floor((2 * a.level) + (a.atk + (a.atk * 0.50)) - (b.def + (b.def * 0.35))) can be rewritten as;
Math.floor((2 * a.level) + (a.atk * 1.5) - (b.def * 1.35)) and it should have the same effect.

Also, how does this formula prevent 0 damage? Your text implies that the level times two part of the formula is a minimum guaranteed damage, but I don't see it. Once an enemy has a defense greater than 1.111... times the attacker's attack, the defense of the enemy will reduce the damage to less than level times two. In order for your formula to have its minimum damage, you have to give the (a.atk + (a.atk * 0.50)) - (b.def + (b.def * 0.35)) part of the equation a minimum of zero.

Mind you, I don't think your formula is bad, but I don't see how it does what you implies it does.

author=Malandy
I'd have thought that Alicia was the Healer, actually... But you just can't do it much.

To clarify, I usually did not use Lamar as a dedicated healer, but he can serve that role and occasionally did. However, fact is that he can use a multitarget heal every other turn and a single target heal every turn. Alicia does not have that ability. Enemies started to lay on far more damage once he joined, shifting the gameplay towards healing.

Were you playing on Nightmare?

I was playing on the second hardest difficulty. It wasn't really hard, so the hardest would probably have worked as well.

How far did you advance up Mariam's skill tree? 'Cause Acid Rampage really works for me, perhaps a bit too much... It costs a lot of PSI, sure, but the healing mouths and Alicia can keep that okay...

I did not get that far. The skill before that one was not very appealing, so I didn't unlock it until the end of the 60% version. It does look great though. I'll probably got for it faster if I play this game again.

author=unity
Wonderful! I'm so glad you had a good time with the game so far and that it was tactically interesting. I don't remember the exact thread, but I had been reading some of your thoughts on battle design sometime around when I was making the battle system and I'm sure that influenced the game for the better.

Glad to hear it. Well, if you follow my advice, it kind of follows that I will like the battles.

author=meteomage
If you want to make the battles more interesting, you can check out Yanfly's tips and tricks for ideas on unique skills.

In my opinion, doing that doesn't solve much. It will be fun for a while, but then the player gets used to it and we still have the problem of sameish combat.

Anyway, in order for combat to feel fun, the player has to feel that the options are effective. In general, this means skills have to be good. If the player pulls out the offensive skills, they have to pack a punch. Status skills have to work and not fail 80% of the time against enemies you want them to work on and 20% on enemies that are too weak to be worth using them on anyway. Buffs and debuffs have to make a noticeable difference. Do note that this does not only apply to mechanics, animation and sound effect can also help selling a skill.

On the other hand, the skills will only feel powerful if they aren't used constantly. Black magic that are spammed is for all intent and purposes the same as the attack command (you can have both cheap spamable and expensive situational black magic though). A buff that is used almost every battle no longer boosts your stat, it's a chore the players goes trough to get their stats to the "normal" level. Hard hitting enemies who are always crippled with status effects will be seen as cripples by default.

I can give no specific advice on how to do this though for your game in particular.

Enemies are also more fun if they are different from each other. A JRPG series you can look at is the Dragon Quest series, that series, starting from third title, does make many enemies distinct from each other. Not just distinct as in they use different skills, but also distinct as in you are encouraged to use different tactics. This aspect becomes less noticeable in the newer titles though.

I will add that since the goal is making the gameplay more fun, there's no rule saying you can't make it more fun while sticking to the generic gameplay. Actually doing it will be tricky, but so will making the gameplay more fun while adding things.

That makes Amalie's tanking easy to use again. Even better, it should get even more effective if having the other characters spend their sp reduces their chances of being targeted instead of Amalie.

Something interesting about punishing bad playstyles, it can come of as poor balance. I recall back when the optimal strategy was to stack three Guerilla Vests on all characters, that I found the Chain Mail with Mia and noticed, without even trying it on, that it was complete garbage. I thought it was poor balancing, as in the armor was made underpowered, but you explained that it was on purpose, Mia is not supposed to be good with heavy armor.

Anyway, the reverse targeting algorithm and lowered damage reduction does seem like an improvement, but I'm curious to see how it holds up compared to the old subtractive SP.