With combos need special positioning for weapon skills, and some weapon skills having additional effects when at a special location relative to the enemy, I was think, why not have something, that in some cases contradicts that (you would have to break formation to position yourself for your weapon skills additional effects/combos), and in others can support that (if your already behind the enemy and the ws is prime for that position).

Battle formations would be relative to a single target, and would provide different benefits based on the formation. Usual criteria would be:

1) You would need 2+ members.
2) All people in the formation would have to all target the same enemy.
3) All those participation in the formations must be in active mode, AND be in the same party. (this would give mages more of a reason to go into active mode)

Ideally, you would have have to actively select which formation your using, and the effects would be active (shown by an icon) as long as you meet the aforementioned criteria, HOWEVER the effect would not be instant, and would require a few seconds for the effect to become active.

Some example would be:

1 = player 1
2 = player 2
3 = player 3.....(etc)
X = enemy
< = To show what direction the enemy is facing in.

Formation 1: This formation would grant higher enmity to the player 2, while player 1 would receive reduced enmity

1 2 <X

Formation 2: This formation, both players would receive an accuracy bonus, and player 2 would also receive a higher chance to land a critical attack on the target.

1 <X 2

The reason I've showed these two examples is so that I can explain another piece of this system. If you have enough member, and the party is current eligible for multiple formations such as:

1 2 <X 3

This could go one of three ways. The first way, players would receive each benefit that they them selves are eligible for in which case 2 would receive benefits from both formation 1 and 2, player 1 would receive only the benefits from formation 1, and player 3 would receive benefits from only formation 2.

The second way, each member of the party would receive the benefit from all formations currently active for against the target.

Or the third, this set up would create an entirely different formation, one with either enhanced effects of one of the first two, or completely new effects.

The effects would range from all different types, everything from accuracy or +crit rate to MP Regen and enhanced magic potency.

Thoughts?