When it was mentioned about animations of a spell changing based on level, the first thing that popped to to mind was Square Soft's "Secret of Mana." As you made your spell stronger over usage the spell got stronger and the spell animation changed, even if most of the time it was just a larger spell animation. I'd like to see a "tiered" animation if they no longer use a large repertoire of spells. In FFXI I often casted lower tiered spells before higher ones just to see the change in animations. Using the same spells get a little boring if it's always the same. As for animations to spells, I preferred FFXI spell animations over our current ones. Quake 2, Blizzard 5, Freeze, Tornado 2, Firaga 3 and 4 are among my fav spell animations.