So, I came up with a few ideas earlier and they seem pretty good in my opinion.

There are 15+1 for an ultimate weapon 'Ranks' of each weapon type(Short and Long Swords, Axes, Bows, Guns, Spears and Crossbows) and there are 4 different 'tiers' of each. 1-5 is Tier 3, 6-11 is Tier 2, and 12-15 is tier 1. 16 is tier +, which represents an ultimate weapon. For instance, you find a Stick, a Rank 1 Short Sword Weapon.

It has several stats, including ATK bonus, DEF bonus etc. In addition it has 4 slots in which to put skills(known as Weapon Arts) onto it. The higher the tier of weapon, the more Weapon Arts it can hold. How do you get Weapon Arts onto the weapon? As you use a weapon, you will gain EXP for it, and when it levels up, it will not only advance to the next Rank, so a Stick would become a Dull Shortsword, but also give you a choice of skills to "Teach" it. The process continues until your weapon Reaches Rank 15, where you can choose to level it up to the the maximum possible level of 30, where it willl turn into an ultimate weapon. The skills you can teach your weapon arn't random and are determined by the character using it, for instance, the Main Character learns mostly fire and physical attacks, going from Rank 1 to 2 would result in low level fire attacks like Fire Alpha and low level Physical Attacks. Later on, going from Rank 11 to 12 will give much stronger skills.

The higher the tier of weapon, the more slots it has. Tier 1 has 4, Tier 2 has 6, Tier 3 has 8 and Tier + has 12. Tier + weapons already have 4 skills on them, the strongest form of the elemental spell used by the character who was using it at the time, and 3 special skills only on Tier + weapons, one that increases overall damage, one that increases overall defence, and one that increases overall speed. You can imagine that using an Ultimate Weapon increases all your stats by a considerable amount.

As far as armor is concerned, it's the same system, 15 ranks plus a + rank for each type. It cannot learn skills but instead learns the resistance to the "Opposing" Element that the character who has it equipped. If your character uses fire, it will get resistance to water, for instance. It's intended to help those players who, like myself forget I have specific equipment on and leave armor on the whole game. + Rank armor will completely negate the effect of the opposing element.

And now for Skill Customization. There are 10 skill "links" within each element. As I spent several hours pondering this, I quickly whipped together some names. In addition, each Skill has a Alpha, Beta, Delta and Omega version. Once a Omega Version of a skill levels up, it will level into the Alpha version of the next skill. For instance, Fire Omega would become Flare Alpha, so on and so forth until you reach Apocolypse Omega. When you reach this, you'll get an accessory that will boost your fire or whatever damage by 50%. Multitargetting skills have different skill chains even though they are part of the same element.

so yeah, I wanted a bit of criticism on this.

It seems like too much.

Single Target Fire Spell Links/Chains (you're inconsistent with the term, so I'm not sure which to use)

Fire Alpha, Fire Beta, Fire Delta, Fire Omega
Flare Alpha, Flare Beta, Flare Delta, Flare Omega
F3 Alpha, F3 Beta, F3 Delta, F3 Omega
F4 Alpha, F4 Beta, F4 Delta, F4 Omega
F5 Alpha, F5 Beta, F5 Delta, F5 Omega
F6 Alpha, F6 Beta, F6 Delta, F6 Omega
F7 Alpha, F7 Beta, F7 Delta, F7 Omega
F8 Alpha, F8 Beta, F8 Delta, F8 Omega
F9 Alpha, F9 Beta, F9 Delta, F9 Omega
Apocalypse Alpha, Apocalypse Beta, Apocalypse Delta, Apocalypse Omega

Additionally, you then get an accessory to boost fire damage by 50%.

Group Target Fire Spell Links/Chains (No idea on the names of these)

Fire Alpha, Fire Beta, Fire Delta, Fire Omega
Flare Alpha, Flare Beta, Flare Delta, Flare Omega
F3 Alpha, F3 Beta, F3 Delta, F3 Omega
F4 Alpha, F4 Beta, F4 Delta, F4 Omega
F5 Alpha, F5 Beta, F5 Delta, F5 Omega
F6 Alpha, F6 Beta, F6 Delta, F6 Omega
F7 Alpha, F7 Beta, F7 Delta, F7 Omega
F8 Alpha, F8 Beta, F8 Delta, F8 Omega
F9 Alpha, F9 Beta, F9 Delta, F9 Omega
Apocalypse Alpha, Apocalypse Beta, Apocalypse Delta, Apocalypse Omega

You have 80 iterations of a one elemental spell. I mean, you surely must recognise that as excessive.

hmm, yeah that seems too much. Maybe you get a Multi-targettting version at the Delta level of each singular spell? Maybe removing Multi-targetting attacks entirely? Omega level attacks hit all enemies?

You have some good ideas, but it most likely needs to be condensed. I'll try to break it down for each idea.

Weapon System:

If you have 15 different "Ranks" of each weapon "Class", you could have to put a hundred or so weapons into the database! Consider how long your game is going to be. Even if it's a 40 hour epic, that's more than 2 new weapons every hour - way too many. Also, it doesn't make sense that a stick would turn into a sword. It'd actually be more logical if the stick broke after too much use.

Skill system:

So the weapon you have equipped determines the number of slots you have for skills, and as weapons level up you learn new skills. So do you end up in situations where you have more skills than slots (I assume yes?). You may need a separate system to manage your skills, like the materia system from Final Fantasy VII. In that game your equipment gives you slots fo skills, but skills are attached to materia, which you can put into those slots. The materia affects character stats and learns more skills as you fight with it, but you have to have them equipped to use the skills in battle. Also, I don't think it makes sense that weapons teach different characters different skills.

As to number of skills, I would just have 2-4 iterations of each element (Fire, Flare, F3, F4, Holy 1, H2). In my project I had FIre 1 hit a single target, Fire 2 hit all, Fire 3 hit one and fire 4 hit all.


Armor:

I think armor giving you automatic defense against your weakness would make the game to easy. I'd say the more choices the better - maybe each piece of armor can be resistant to different elements, so players may have to make a choice if the want high physical defense or defense against specific elements.


I'd suggest making charts to plan all this out. I could post some charts I made once I get my gallery set up. Good luck!

Well, I made some adjustments.

There are now only 11, Including ultimate rank. In addition, each Ultimate Weapon now has a new effect, rather than simply boosting stats. I also took the time to name them, although no one cares. I decided on only 4 regular Iterations of each spell with 4 different versions(alpha, beta, delta and omega) and the ultimate spells don't rank up at all, instead you get them for meeting certian conditions. Also, I didn't mention this, but each character can use any weapon they want. However Physical weapons rely on ATK where as Bows, Guns and Crossbows rely on your INT/Spirit stat.

Anyway, I need to get back to polishing up the actual plotline.

Sounds good! One thing - will the characters have any unique abilities? If everyone can equip and learn everything, I think that's not so exciting. Perhaps they could have innate stat bonuses that make them better at using some weapons than others?

At first it seemed a bit too much, but now that you've augmented the idea, it seems like something I would be honored to have in my game. Look forward to seeing it in play.

Yeah. Each character has a unique skill branch that levels up through the story line. And yes, each character is better with a specific weapon than others.