Soul Mastery/Soul Aspecting System

[TouchandFeel]

I am sure we have pretty much all seen the threads asking for more "horizontal progression”, more ways to customize their character and materia or gear with job specific boosts on them.
While I somewhat agree with the base intent, I have not been able to fully get behind any of the suggestions presented on how to do this as of yet.
This idea then came to me as a potential way to move towards providing these asked for elements, while hopefully avoiding potential problems that could easily be introduced by trying to add in the desired elements into the game.

So here is my general breakdown.

How Does It Work?
-The player acquires/unlocks and is able to assign a “Soul Aspect” to their job’s soul stone.
-These “Soul Aspects” provide a small constant buff to the player while assigned.
-They are job specific and the buffs they provide are meant to enhance specific aspects unique to that job, for example a PLD Soul Aspect could provide a +% chance to block while a BRD Soul Aspect could provide something like a slight increase to MP restored through Mage’s Ballad.
- There are a variety of different Soul Aspects available for each job that enhance different abilities or aspects of the job, allowing for slight levels of customization.
- The “Aspects” are assigned/equipped to your Soul Stone from the list available and will stay assigned until a new one is assigned (only one at a time).
- They can be swapped out at any time that changing gear is possible and will also be saved to gear-sets, allowing players to assign different “Aspects” to different saved gear-sets.

How Do You Get Them?
-Upon reaching level 60 (or whatever level deemed appropriate), a quest becomes available that unlocks the ability to acquire Soul Aspects, similar to how Dyeing and Glamours are unlocked.
-Upon unlocking the ability to get them, a new menu becomes available where you can see all the different Aspects that can currently be gained for a job’s soul stone. In this menu it will say the names of the Aspects, what they do and if not acquired, provide a checklist of sorts as to how to acquire them.
- The tasks necessary to acquire the different Aspects could vary wildly, but will pretty much always be related to doing things associated with the ability that they enhance, for example the PLD one that provides a bonus to block may require the player to block X number of attacks before that Aspect is unlocked. Keeping the requirements simple allows for the players to either hunker down and grind them out more quickly or to unlock them more organically by just playing the game.

What Is The Lore Behind This?
-A new breakthrough has been discovered in the research of soul stones, in which by “following in the footsteps” and reenacting the deeds of great heroes of the past, you are able to imbue an echo of that person’s soul into your soul stone, increasing the power and knowledge stored within. Sound familiar to those that have done the Zodiac Braves Relic questline?
- A little blurb on the hero from which an Aspect is gained is given in the list (or somewhere), providing a nice little bit of extra lore to the world.
Ex: Aspect of Iron Mountain – Increases the PLD’s block chance by 5% <-- arbitrary number
Iron Mountain is commonly regarded as one of the greatest defenders to ever serve the Sultanate. The tale of how he foiled an assassination attempt at a dinner party with only a serving dish to use as a shield is a favorite amongst the children of Ul-Dah.

What Are The Pros Of This System?
-It provides a layer of horizontal progression and customization for players that can be added on without having to rework or alter other systems currently in the game such as materia.
- It is expandable, so that more “Aspects” could be added on later down the road, especially when new class/job abilities are introduced.
- Doesn’t promote gear bloat like variant gear would. Inventory and Armoury space is limited enough as it is.
- Once you have an “Aspect” unlocked, it is never invalidated like gear with specific bonuses would be.
- Increased flexibility over materia, as they can just be swapped out as players want and can be saved to gearsets so you have more freedom to create different setups for your jobs with gear and aspects.
- They provide more stuff for players to do and strive for to increase their character’s power, similar to unlocking cross-class abilities.

P.S. This is a very off-the-cuff first draft of this idea and may need some refinement.