Random obligatory update

I didn't get as much time over the summer to work on game design stuff as I would have liked, but I did at least mull over some ideas that I'd like to share. 

I decided awhile ago that I didn't want to use a traditional level system, which was where a lot of the issues with the battle system were really piling up from. I didn't want to just add some arbitrary skill point system and call it a day, either because that doesn't quite fit what I'm going for. What I've settled on, and I really hope I can get to work properly, is to tie skill unlocks to the relationship system (making it a bit more in depth than just unlocking story paths)  If it works out the way I would like it to,  each playable character would earn a different set of skills depending on their relationship to other characters. I might simplify this idea a bit by sorting the different skills into different "classes" just so it's not a complete mess to deal with.  Even then, there's going to be issues with it, but that's not worth going into here  or now.

I'll probably make a test demo to make sure the system can actually work before trying it in game (I don't see it causing too many issues, since it should only need variables and possibly a couple different common events to work)  I'm not sure if I'll use Veyrra as the test; if I don't I have another idea that could work with the concept as well, but it'd probably be better to keep it to this game. I'll see how I feel about it after I have it more functionally prepared. 

I just want the relationship system to be dynamic because it's not really all that interesting if the only changes that happen are ONLY story related. That's why I'm thinking figuring out something with the battle system so that it feels like there's more character growth visually going on. 

The only big problem with changing things like this is I'm still not strong enough with my coding to be able to change the battle end screen to fit a change like this (especially since I haven't bought Luna Engine yet...) I think instead I may just use one of the fancier looking ones and remove the EXP section from it. 

I'll try to figure out something for showing skill unlocks as well, since obviously there won't be any traditional level up screen to show them on. I'm thinking a quick middle screen prompt with the sprite of the character and a quick blurb about the skill they just got.