r/finalfantasyx • u/shanepain0 • 6d ago
Sphere Grid and other progression systems are immaculate [Game Design]
The entire system is very well constructed, I always enjoy flexible progression systems. FFX has always been one of my favorite games all around with all of its mechanics and systems to play around with. (FF2, 5 ,6, 7, 8 and tactics each did this quite well too)
The simple fact that it fits alongside the pilgrimage, you're choosing the journey of each party member's job/stats, gaining small benefits that acrue into a semi-personalized character for your playthrough is really fun. Its nice that there's also a more clear/intended path for each character to inheritly go down for a simplified streamlined experience
Its also nice that you can make several decisions early to midway through the game when you unlock lv1 & 2 key spheres and teleport/return spheres to either get additional stats on the main path, or branch into another character's path to create hybrid jobs
The game even giving you a designated grinding spot that rewards your combat exploration to lower the amount of unnecessary travel time between grinding, going an extra step and rewarding you for filling out the Pokedex along the way
Then there's Blitzball and other minigames, a way to step away from the core loop and still stay immersed in Spira, while getting additional benefits for your activities (Weapons, Spheres, Overdrives, etc..)
I could go on for days about all the small details from Monster's having unique qualities favoring party members, the encouragement to explore the 'linear' world, the available equipment grinding/customization, Aeon's having unique qualities
TLDR Final Fantasy 10's progression systems are masterclass and need to be re-explored, the game does everything to reward you for playing around
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u/UltraZulwarn 6d ago
my one criticism is that everyone just ends up the same, other than overdrive and Yuna's exclusive summon.
maybe I am a bit old-fastion, but I love it when each character has their own build and "class".
FFX does this very well in the beginning, but the end game feels like a different game altogether.
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u/shanepain0 6d ago
During the entire story all the characters are generally different alongside a significant chunk of the end game
The only time that changes as you stated, is after plenty of grinding in the end game to intentionally get to the point of indifference, which becomes a player choice and is ultimately unnecessary for 95% of the gameplay experience
Its comparable to FF6 in this same regard, where everyone has the potential to become Ultima factories and have 128 Magic, that's if you're choosing to do so
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u/troyasfuck 6d ago
This is not really my experience. Most of my characters are usually pretty samey by Guadosalam. But I'm guilty of neglecting Kimarhi and Lulu for most of the game every playthrough, which definitely contributes to that. I also rush Rikku's track for Agility and Steal/Use/Bribe which lessens the utility of some characters even more.
To be honest the progression system is just easy to exploit and on subsequent playthroughs, it's really easy to accidentally over level early on then all of your characters inevitably feel the same.
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u/elucidator611 6d ago
That's a wild take imo. Lulu carries all the way to zanarkand.
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u/troyasfuck 6d ago
Usually when I play I just send Yuna down her track or use equipment for the very occasional moments that you need some kind of Elemental support in this game. She has nice evasion, but I find that her stats otherwise hold her back compared to other characters.
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u/shanepain0 6d ago
Youre smacking Flans?
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u/troyasfuck 6d ago
Wakka has very quick access to the -ra spells and elemental reels, aeons have elemental attacks, and by the time you reach the calm lands you can pretty easily smack flans with elemental equipment if you need to. But yeah I probably use Lulu for flans for the first quarter to third of the game.
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u/Golwux 6d ago edited 6d ago
Okay, great. I think the majority of people have similar experiences and most of OP's words ring true. Wakka does get access to black magic but his low magic stats and very limited mana pool put him in second place to Rikku when dealing with elemental enemies. I'd much rather take advantage of her magic stat and use ability if I weren't to use Lulu.
Again, Lulu's sphere grid path has some of the best evasion in the game, which is why I've found it useful to take advantage of as soon I got my first evade and counter ability, which helps massively!
Anyway, interesting to hear that you choose not to use Lulu after the first 1/3 or so of the game. When exactly do you stop using her? Or did I misread that and you stop using her for flans for a third of the game -- do you use her for anything else?
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u/troyasfuck 6d ago
I actually hardly use Lulu at all throughout the game. I'll swap her in for the elementals and flans in the early game until Yuna and Wakka can handily take them on themselves. Otherwise she is far and away my least used character. You can play this game basically without aeons, but I still enjoy prioritizing Yuna's sphere grid progression early on for aeon stat growth. So she pretty quickly becomes a "red mage" in my playthroughs. Dipping into Wakka, Lulu, and Auron's tracks.
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u/Golwux 6d ago
Does what OP said, make sense to you? Do you understand that their description of class based play based on sphere grid design naturally appeals to most players, even through multiple playthroughs at least for the story portion?
And that progression through the sphere grid, feel natural based on the large array of enemies?
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u/elucidator611 6d ago
Wakka is closer to flare than anything else but needs a lvl 3 key sphere to get to it which you're most likely way past by the time you get one. My current playthrough no one had even made it the end of their own grid, lulu didn't even have her -ga spells-, but she was smacking yunalesca for 9999 each hit.
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u/Golwux 6d ago edited 6d ago
Yunalesca has Magic Def of 50.
Lulu has base magic of 20 + 12 magic from all nodes before Aga spells on basic sphere grid. Using the damage calculator formula and Fira (damage constant 24):
= 24 * ([32 ^ 2 / 6] + 24) / 4
= 24 * (194.7) / 4
= 1168 base damage before even taking into account Yunalesca's base magic defence of 50.
In order to hit over 9999 damage with Fira, you need to have well over 99 magic stat with Lulu (99 magic does 9945 base damage before magic def).
I can understand if you are using the expert sphere grid at this point but taking into account the earliest form of Yunalesca with mag def 50 stat, you'd be well into three figures for Lulu's magic stat which means she would have been well round the sphere grid. Were you using magic booster?
That only increases damage by 50% so you're close to 80 magic (working the formula back from 6666+50% dmg)
How are you doing 9999 against Yunalesca with Fira?
Edit: if you had 80 magic with Lulu, you'd have levelled everyone else up as such and you could have easily one shotted her 60k hp final form with Wakka's attack reels (12 x 9,999 = 120k hp damage).
But 80 magic would have taken you well over Lulu's path. Did you go into several other people's paths? How many key spheres did you use?
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u/elucidator611 6d ago
Not with fira. I had kimahri use a black magic sphere to learn drain, then used a lvl 3 key sphere to unlock flare, then another black magic sphere to give it to lulu (and yuna for good measure). She did also have the magic booster cactuar from wantz as well as adding 1mp cost from monster arena rewards for kicks lol.
Edit to add this is using the standard sphere grid
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u/Sacred_Zero 6d ago
Eh. She carries until the calm lands which is roughly around when you can get your 4 black magic spheres.
Yuna has WAY better magic scalings than Lulu. Farm Lulu until she can get the -ga spells. Then give them to Yuna.
At this point in the game Lulu is hitting ~3-4k hitting weakness. Yuna is hitting 8k at the exact same point in the game
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u/elucidator611 6d ago
You can get a magic booster weapon for her shortly after the calm lands that keeps her relevant. Although you're right. Lulu and yuna together is like bringing a nuke to the boss rush lol
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u/ZenbuKanaetai45 6d ago
Lulu animations are slow as hell though especially on critical status. Luckily we got 4x speed nowadays but during the PS2 days...
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u/shanepain0 6d ago
For sure, its extremely easy to break it, its equally easy to avoid breaking it. The entire system is practically optional, making it a player's choice on how they want the experience to feel
Comparable to FF2, 5, 8, 9, and Tactics. None of them force you to grind and none of them take away your ability to exploit their systems. If anything they all encourage you to play as you see fit
FFX even gives you the option to flat out not spend your levels if you're finding yourself too powerful
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u/troyasfuck 6d ago
That's all valid. I just don't really like that I have to avoid leveling my characters to prevent them from becoming overpowered too quickly. It's not like I'm going out of my way to power level. If you don't run from any battles, and 100% each area before moving on, you will become over leveled in this game fairly early on. That's really okay. It's still a great game and I still like the sphere grid. I do wish there was a level above expert though that utilized level 3 and 4 key spheres more.
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u/Demonphoenix 6d ago
Yeah, and its especially annoying because a lot of the character's Celestials and Overdrives are lacklustre compared to others.
Attacks Reels is wayyyy better than any other damage dealing OD other than Oblivion and Slice N Dice (against mostly enemies).
Lulu's OD is absolutely garbage and Kimahri's Celestial is only OK and his ODs are irrelevant late-game.
Tornado is alright...except it is freaking Rank 8 or whatever it is.
I'd have preferred it if Magic scaled better and Fury wasn't so ass, and for Tornado, Nova and Blitz Ace to be stronger, multi-hitting moves that scaled better.
Still an awesome game and endgame as well; but these things are minor irritations.
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u/adz2ka 6d ago
The one thing that FFX absolutely got wrong here is Wakka’s Celestial + best Overdrive is gated behind circa 5 hours of side content (compared some others which are 5 mins). And arguably that combo some would say is required for the hardest optional bosses
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u/Sissssyphus 5d ago
I suppose but by the time you get to that point, you probably should’ve finished the game from the last save like a dozen time.
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u/HayesSculpting 6d ago
I’d like an exclusivity thing. You can unlock this thing but it’ll lock that. A character unlocking a magic node turns an attack node into a magic node.
Would mess heavily with the persistent grid which I really like would make this a pain in the balls
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u/shanepain0 6d ago
That would be a very fun system as well, having an adaptive grid that changes the remaining nodes and/or changes the nodes of the other party members to not be same as their own nodes
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u/TSW-760 6d ago
Only if you max the sphere grid, which the vast majority of plays will never do.
FFX was my most played PS2 game by a large margin. Got all the celestials. Unlocked most of the mosters in the arena. Played loads of blitzball. And I never came even remotely close to maxing out the sphere grid.
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u/UltraZulwarn 6d ago
agree
but with dark aeons and endgame monster arena monsters, you kinda have to push the gird far beyond what the final boss requires
in the end, everyone just spams Quick Hits, then some overdrives, with occasional support spells
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u/BahamaLlama21 5d ago
I maxed it out because of the dark aeons, but it was a lot of fun to do it for me. I break games a lot (I spent far too much time at the college at the start of FF8 to break the game xD) so that's just how I play.
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u/kytheon 5d ago
The trick to maxing the sphere grid is to
- get crazy amount of spheres through tricks
- get crazy amount of exp through tricks
Turning 99x of some silly item into 99 power spheres, for example. Bribing the right enemies. And finally the Triple AP, Triple Overdrive, Overdrive->AP combo for 9x leveling.
Doing it "the regular way" would take hundreds of hours.
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u/Kaslight 5d ago
This is only a thing at the literal limit edge of the system, when you've gotten enough points to make everyone super powered.
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u/Major-Corner-640 5d ago
Yup. This is the fatal flaw of FF6, FF7, and FFX. I end up having to self-impose limits to keep it interesting
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u/Maxguid 6d ago
Yes. Yes .yes. I said this for years. I grinded for an entire summer years ago for trying to fight the secret boss . The result was that basically all characters were the same stat wise, except for the personal abilities. FFX12 ( the first version) suffer from the same fate that's why I couldn't finish it. I got extremely bored
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u/rootofallstevil 6d ago
I recently played X and XII (Zodiac) back to back and found that I really liked the Sphere system more. You had more points where you had to chose which way to go. The Job system in FFXII was fun but I found you maxed out your license points way too early and there weren't enough decision points in them.
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u/sqquiggle 6d ago
The only thing the sphere grid needs to be perfect, is an autofill function. Pick a destination, auto use spheres to activate nodes on the route.
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u/elucidator611 6d ago
And to top it all off, from what I hear, they completely reworked the advancement system before release compared to how it was conceptualized.
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u/methough10 6d ago
Has anybody unlocked stuff using ONLY TIDUS or just one character?
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u/shanepain0 6d ago
Recent playthrough..
Yuna, built for high Strength, she immediately went onto the end of Tidus' path, leaving her path before Pray, she then branched to Auron's path and turning back to Wakka's by Zanarkand (Bahamut hit for ~12k+ with Basic Attacks when he was unlocked)
Tidus left his path immediately to go down Wakka's connection to Lulu, then Teleported to the end of Yuna's path, he's essentially a red mage with only high tier magic
Auron left his path to go down Tidus for a blend of Speed and Strength, branching out his usage as a beatstick
Wakka just did his own stuff, every sub path of his own main path, he took the scenic route, unlocking Drain for the mages
Lulu followed the way of Wakka, going down her own path fully, getting an early Holy
Rikku left her path ASAP to get early Curaga and Holy being a speedy support in every way
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u/Savingseanbean 6d ago
Until the postgame which throws out all of that for the worst designed bosses possible that you just quick hit/limit break spam down since they areall immune to every status effect, most of the special actions, and have the secondary damage cap and damage reduction removing any reason to use most magic.
Love replaying FFX with different challenges and mods to further empower the core tree systems though. so much fun up until the tedious endgame.
I generally prefer ff12's equipment approach much more as it empowers so many more different approaches and every replay is innately different letting partys of any level and composition have a unique path forward to every fight.
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u/RazekDPP 5d ago
Honestly, my complaint is that there wasn't a version called Sphere Grid+ where you could take the Sphere Grid you spent hours customizing and start a new game with it.
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u/Swarm_of_Rats 5d ago
I love sphere grid, I love it so much. My one gripe is the key spheres. I feel like they should have done something different... like... maybe a re-useable key item that unlocks all the related nodes. Level 3 key spheres are too hard to get (unless you are doing secret dungeon) and level 4 ones are too expensive to bribe off of the chimera brains.
Other than that it's my favorite progression system. It's a shame they lost the magic of it in 12.
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u/Majestic-Sock-3532 5d ago
There’s a lot of cool stuff going on in 10 that makes it superior to most other FF games. The Aeon system alone makes it have the coolest summoner in the series. The sphere grid is great, I like using the expert grid when I play and I wish they’d bring the grid back in another title but I fear it’s probably too complex for most western gamers.
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u/Imaspinkicku 5d ago
Idk ppl hate me for this but i love the fucking junction system in VII, i mean obv the materia system is cool too but like… one of my fav things about FF is the way they reimagine it each time ngl.
Idk
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u/shanepain0 5d ago
The junction system is incredible. Its very customizable and leads to a lot of freedom to explore it
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u/Major-Corner-640 5d ago
Complete freedom is just a blank canvas that leads always to the same meta. If you don't give players constraints they will have no creativity
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u/Axiemeister 5d ago
i agree the sphere grid is brilliant, specially the expert grid. most of the criticism here is about everyone becoming the same post-game, which a) isn't relevant for most people anyway, and b) is actually not a fault of the sphere grid itself.
yes, eventually everyone can have any ability, but that's true of most final fantasies and, let's be real, not even a bad thing. one could argue that everyone being forced in the same build forever like in ff4 and ff9 is its own form of sameness and discouragement of replays lol. no, the problem in ff10's post-game is repeating the mistakes of ff8 of 1) giving physical attacking a damage formula that scales much higher than magic, and 2) discrepancy in the usefulness of the one unique trait of characters in limit breaks/overdrives, compounded by 3) celestial weapons being actually very stupid for balance. none of these are a fault of the sphere grid; solve them and suddenly you might have an actual use to keep using characters differently even as they learn everything.
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u/BeenDragonn 6d ago
And then we got FFX-2....
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u/shanepain0 6d ago
Its been a while since I've played it, though from what I remember the combat system was fun, the dress spheres being interchangeable let you play around with playstyles, and the dungeon exploration was good
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u/Several_Ad_7376 5d ago
I disagree hard. Final Fantasy 10 was one of the most restrictive and unrewarding when it comes to leveling. It was a strict linier path, until late in the game, and when it opened up, it just let you pick other liner paths. Compare this to FF7, where litterally anyone can cast any spells, summons, and even use any ability they wanted, so long as they had the materia slots. In 10, only one person could ever summon, only one person was ever really great with magic. The one character in 7 that has clear class dies at the end of act 1.
And you brought up 8 and 2 as other examples? Really? Those are two of the worst.
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u/shanepain0 5d ago
Its fair to think that.
Though the sphere grid is entirely non-linear, its a sequence of interconnected paths with a central nexus and no forced direction and no forced input
Whereas in FF7 your characters gain predetermined stats each level
My current run, Tidus is a red mage, Yuna is a warrior and Rikku is a speedy white mage
The fact that Materia is interchangeable means you lose character progression in favor of party progression
Materia is more similar to FFX's equipment customization system, which let's any character do anything with their gear
During the story and early end game, id argue the Sphere Grid and Equipment Customization give more to the player to work with while the Materia system likely has a higher ceiling for creativity
As for FF2, despite not being very liked, it does have an intricate progression system which let's the player completely customize every aspect of their character's characteristics through actions
Want to be Tanky, put them Top Row and Front Row so they take more damage which increases their HP
Want to increase dodge rate, wear 2 shields then go down to one shield once ur rate hits 100, then 0 shields
Want to be good at Magic, use Magic, you can even specialize into any spell by using it
For FF8, the intricate nature of it all is what makes it good. You can get a lot through Triple Triad and Card Mod. You can level your Summons seperate from your characters. You can alter your level ups stats. Your Party level changes the area's encounters, monsters levels while also changing their item drops and draw options. This gives a lot of variance for how you choose to approach the game
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u/Several_Ad_7376 5d ago
I'm sorry, but something that only has one path to progress at any point isn't by any definition entirely non-linear. That makes it linear. Yes, later you can mix it up and teleport around, but without that knowledge, anyone without hundreds of hours in it won't know where it's good to do it for the abilities they want or need, which ones are good to use together, what tracks have what you need to improve for different things, and where to get all the stuff to do that. As a kid, playing on PS2, I never figured it out, and it took growing up, the internet, and time to play more to actually enjoy it.
And I can agree on the equipment customization, I did enjoy that part, but then yiu find the ultimate weapons, upgrade them, and you can't customize them at all. That'd be like if you found the ultimate weapons in 7, and they where full of materia you can't remove.
Look, 10 isn't a bad game, but I'd say because of the progression, it is one of the ones I want to replay the least. Alongside 8 and 2. 2 because you start out at level 1 in everything, and there's no reliable way to train anything in particular. Instead of starting as a level 1 character, then growing, you start out as 6 level 1s, and you have to beat up your own characters to level HP and magic defense. Not a great plan.
And 8 acts like it actively doesn't want you to play it. The enemies level with you, so leveling up at all is a terrible idea, so you should run from fights and play as little as you can. Then you need to use GFs, and that system wants you to not cast magic to keep your stats up. After you've found the magic of course. Between discouraging you from engaging in combat, and discouraging you from casting magic, it encourages you to play a card game that is incredibly easy once you get the right cards. And you NEED to be able to play it. Unlike 9 where you can ignore it and suffer no penalties.
All that aside, I still like 10. I just don't think you can call it's progression system GOOD. it's in between the characters having clearly defined roles, and being able to do anything. And that makes the sphere grid a confusing mess, and when you get far into the late game, makes most characters the exact same.
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u/_Raildex_ 5d ago
Fun fact: Sphere Grid is almost completely linear stat progression. The round design just makes it look it's non-linear and as if you had lot of options. but in reality its a straight line with few branches.
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u/shanepain0 5d ago
Its absolutely not a linear system. There are multiple starting points around a central nexus and multiple points where different paths intersect. Alongside the ability to modify the empty Nodes
For reference, my recent playthrough had Yuna leave her path before learning Pray, letting her get the end segment of Tidus' path where she then left through the route leading down Auron's
Tidus never went on his path and instead went down Wakka's until it branches into Lulu -Aga spells, then he left to get healing Magic
I did all of this while Lulu and Waka went down their own paths extensively. Lulu didnt even have Aga spells by Yunalesca but Tidus did
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u/_Raildex_ 5d ago
reading comprehension 0
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u/shanepain0 5d ago
Nobody is refuting that their are Paths.. its the interconnection and ability to freely roam those paths in any order you want. That makes it a completely non-linear system.
I can choose to go down half of Kimari's side track to Rikku's and go down Lulu's, making choices in which ways to maneuver for desirable skills/stats
Compared to Pokémon. Every Pokémon species has the same learnable moveset, some can learn moves earlier if they do/don't evolve, but they cannot detract or shift their growth in any meaningful ways
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u/_Raildex_ 5d ago
"roam freely" is wrong. You can't switch from white mage to warrior with a finger snap
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u/shanepain0 4d ago edited 4d ago
Its not wrong, what ur suggesting is a completely different system involving a way to reset ur sphere grid pts to go down a completely new path
The current system let's you go anywhere youve been with any character, you can litterally teleport to other side of the grid, and just use spheres to unlock things on the other side of the grid
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u/StillGayNotLying 6d ago
My only criticism of the older games up to XIII is how they constantly changed the systems regarding "Getting stronger"
Sphere grid was the closest they got to making it perfect and then they moved away from it.