I feel like Mania covered most of the things I wanted to talk about this in a much more clear way than what I could probably have managed!

I think the main problem with the original AFC's battle system was that it wasn't very interactive, since in battle, you chose an option and that was it... Unlike Atonal Dreams or even MARDEK, which have action commands to keep you invested even in normal battles. There were a few status ailments or buffs to use, sure, but they weren't impactful enough to make much of a real difference. Because of this, even when I tried to make a quest about battles, it turned into a boring slog to test through that I abandoned it before getting as far as I wanted to with it.

AFC is probably going up against other game making tools in people's minds, so I'd imagine having some form of combat would be expected by the Average Person. Most other makers provide a 2D turn-based RPG, so having this as an easy to use 3D turn-based tactics/adventure creation tool would help separate itself from the other options available like the numerous RPG Makers or SRPG Studio.

I'm excited to hear you're interested in continuing AFC in some way, and I can't wait to see what you'll come up with!