So much feedback
Alright, let's work through this. You are definitely on 1.2 though, the music option has been present for a while now and some of the bugs/problems I've noticed in this feedback relate to that version. I think in future though it might be easier on the thread to compile it all into a Notepad.
-) Elmyra's Flashback Skip
There is actually a skip for this already in the current NT build. It was designed to blend into the dialogue, unlike older skips.
-) Sleep Adjustment
I think it'll take an .exe modification to do that, and I try to avoid those if I can in order to keep the mod compatible with others.
-) Sewer Save Point
Sometimes I miss possible problems like that because I've been working with the game quite a lot. I think that was my first ever additional save point, but it has a small harmless problem in that reloading from that save plays the jump down/falling into sewers segment again. I'll see what I can do.
-) Iron Bangle
Up until the current NT build, defensive stats are quite poor in making a huge difference to your set-up. Iron Bangle's defence seems high, but in practice it won't reduce damage a whole lot; the reason it was buffed so high here was to make it a viable 'defence' option over the Materia slots given by Bronze and the STR/MAG stat gains given by Titan and Mythril.
-) 69th Floor NPC
That NPC was added because the current save point takes place before you equip your party to deal with the imminent boss. I also wanted the player to be able to fight some battles and gather items, so she has a Inn function as well to restore HP/MP. It was just a convenience thing, just in case.
-) Rufus & Dark Nation
This fight was changed for 1.3, but it's still quite genteel. The reason for this is because Cloud fights it solo, and there's no way to get more items + EXP if Cloud isn't strong enough. I basically wanted to avoid people getting stuck here, seeing as it's sandwiched between Gunners + Motorball.
-) Model Compatibility
I actually want NT to be as compatible as possible, so it's disappointing to see that happen. Not sure why the camera would be off, I didn't make any changes/adjustments to Motorball's position or the camera data (same with the other bosses, for the most part).
-) Nibelheim Flashback Skip
Yeah, this was a very early skip that doesn't integrate into the scene at all. I'm going to look at a way to make it blend in a lot more.
-) Mythril Mines Merchant
Could do, I actually wanted to bring in a pseudo-revival for the travelling merchant that was allegedly cut from the game (it was something to do with the 'letter for daughter' sidequest, and started in Gongaga I believe). Could have him pop up here as the first instance.
-) Mythril Mines Turks
Could add AI when the other gets KO'd, I suppose.
-) Under Junon Store
That guy actually never sold weapons to begin with; he sold Grenades I think, but his inventory was terrible so I replaced it with one that was selling Echo Screens for the upcoming boss fight. I'll change the name of the store + dialogue though. As for Materia, could maybe add somebody else to this store to sell that.
-) Dirty Bombs
These replace the Eye Drop item, the effect for which was moved to Echo Screen (renamed to Echo Drop). I changed it to an attack item because Eye Drops were far removed from the other status healing items in the index, positioned instead next to some attack items so I turned it into a 100% Poison-dealing item and fixed that particular problem with poison-status RNG at the same time. And as PotatoHandle says, it's always a good time to get dirty.
-) Tifa's Slots: Targeting
It's one of those things I'm not sure I can fix, I'm afraid; Tifa's Slots select a random valid target and have no actual targeting interface like other attacks do (the waterpolo thing is a problem in vanilla/default too). I did seriously consider removing certain fights that make use of guest fighters for that reason, but then I figured what the hell.
-) Illuya Wave
I might be able to add a warning of some kind, I'll see what I can do.
-) CPR Skip
In the latest build, this minigame was set up so that one breath, regardless of how long it was held for, will resolve it. Because it's a waste of goddamn time.
-) Jenova Birth's Holy Weakness
One thing I did was 'future-proof' enemies against changes made later, so I made sure elemental weaknesses/resistances were consistent regardless of which part of the game they appeared in. I then consider what the player has in their arsenal and spec for that on top of it, to make sure there's weaknesses to make use of. While there's no Holy attack at this point, there might be one added at a later date so I'm covered.
-) Mamatolis' Petrify
There's an item store in Costa Del Sol. When talking to the proprietor, he specifically tells you to buy Softs, which are the town's specialty (this is the game advising you to carry Softs to deal with the impending Soft-Numb & Petrify statuses). Not something I added either, this has been in default game too. Enemies up on North Corel, like Cokatolis, also carry Soft for steals.
-) Barret's Flashback Skip
I wasn't aware of an issue here if choosing to skip the dialogue. I'd better investigate.
-) Cait Sith GP
That's a very good idea, that would let players tackle some of the Gold Saucer stuff without spending gil/time beforehand; I usually skip Saucer's minigames on the first visit due to that.
-) Dyne Boss
Yeah, a lot of people have said he's too easy. I was a bit too cagey with the 1v1 fights.
-) Mystery Ninja Fight
Originally, Yuffie would cause a crash if she successfully escaped from the battle (opening the menu afterwards or getting into a battle triggers it). The new remove from battle thing is a 'fix' for that, ending the battle safely (the fight is trickier, which makes her escaping a dangerous possibility). Hopefully we won't need this once that event is done.
-) Gongaga Turks
This fight is getting a bad reputation for being very tricky, but heavy on RNG due to the Wire attack used at the beginning. In the latest build, it was made more predictable (Wire goes for highest HP party member) and Berserk/Confuse was removed from their attacks.
-) Stingers
I'm fine with them being a push-over, or for items like Molotovs being effective against them; so long as some use is coming from those items. Never liked Stingers.
-) Powersoul Keeper
This guy is slightly ahead on the curve as he's carrying the Powersoul weapon; a very effective weapon for Tifa that can decimate a lot of enemies. The weapon has since been nerfed slightly for the latest build though, so maybe Keeper could be placed closer on the actual progression curve. I don't think I'll make him mandatory though.
-) Palmer
Forcefield is basically the Shield status, the name of this 'attack' and the others coming from FF6 Lore/Blue Magic spells. I basically set up Palmer to be a joke fight, but still with a bit of an edge of danger (Blowfish for instance). I could maybe change Forcefield so that it only gives Wall instead.
-) Possible Titan Boss
I'm not sure, Titan is quite close to the other summons and there's already a boss fight just before it with the Turks.
-) Skip Date
Could do, but I've already got a clusterfuck of code in the Saucer so I might not be able to do it safely. I'll look into it though. Could be as simple as a dialog option as to whether or not Cloud answers the door when the date knocks.
-) Brass Dragon Fight
There's no issue with restoring X-ATM's MP; I don't think he uses any, but I might be wrong. In any case, maybe an extra line of dialogue could help there.
-) Demon Gate
Lv.21 is very low for that point of the game, most people are hitting that at around Junon. Are you running from every random encounter, or are you fighting now and then? It might be something to do with low EXP yield in the 1.2 build. In any case, most people tend to go through Gate without mentioning it or saying it was easier than they expected. I'll review vids of 1.2 playthroughs to see what he's like.
-) Targeting
It is quite bad in FF7, I prefer more modern games that follow a list of available targets; FF7 is based on where the camera and actors are, which can make it cumbersome to find the right target. I'm not sure there's anything I can do about it though, outside of optimising enemy placements, camera, etc.
-) Jenova Life
This boss was a nightmare in it's hey-day, but suffered from two crippling problems. 1) The unique feature in this fight is 'blind' for the player and will likely catch them out the first time, and 2) She was sitting at the other side of a lengthy event + FMV. Not fun to sit through for repeat attempts. Jenova was nerfed down to using %-based formulas and status ailments as a result; she's quite easy now, but the fight still retains some uniqueness.
-) Remove Disc 2 Message
I developed this mod using the 1998 version 9which asks for Discs, despite not actually needing them on a full install aside for verification), but I clean forgot that these messages would still be there for Steam, 7H, etc. I'll edit the message to something more appropriate as a catch-all.
-) Aeris' Weapons
She's a tricky one, because she has less weapons overall like you mentioned and most of these are tied to 'tiers' bought from stores. I tried to compensate by having Jenova WAR drop her renovated end-game weapon Fairy Tale going into the latter half of the game to try and have her keep up at Costa/Mideel weapon tiers, and I renovated Wizard Staff to be a MAG-boosting end-game weapon though that's harder to find. Boosting existing weapons could work, but with the danger of making other magic users obsolete.
-) Icicle Inn Turks fight
This depends on a lot of things, so I'd say the difficulty here is relative. The effect being given to her and the soldiers is Shield, which will last a long time on slower speeds with Wait ATB but will wear off almost immediately on higher speeds with Active ATB. It also depends if the player brings in Destruct/Holy Torch or some kind of non-elemental damage-dealing/status magic. It's more of a mid-boss than an actual one and it gives some people trouble, while others breeze through it.
-) Icicle Fights
You know, you're right. The Icicle fights were never too hot; maybe something interesting can be done there. I've had an idea just now for it, so that'll be changed up for v1.4.
-) Schizo
They actually used to have different attack animations, but due to glitches that could occur with them I swapped over to 'safe' ones instead. I could change them up again.
-) Seph/Jenova War
I didn't want the first part of it to drag on too long, which is why he has relatively low HP + no gravity immunities; originally, he had a fair bit of HP and the fight as a whole could drag out as a result, as War's AI was already quite heavy with multiple attacks + the supporting allies' attacks. The Relic Ring was specced as an alternative Curse Ring; it boosts stats and provides some immunities to certain elements + statuses, but at the cost of absorbing the Restorative element and some other penalties.
-) Cait Sith Airport
I can change the script and add that dialogue, sure.
-) Tifa vs. Scarlet
I think someone requested that before. If I can make a Scarlet battle model then I guess so. Maybe I could
steal appropriate Kalderasha's field model...
-) Where to go next? > Game Script
I left 99% of the game's text and overall story-flow unaltered, but the game has proven over the years that it has fundamental problems (not just the localisation, but the way it was laid out too). At the moment, I'm taking a slightly bolder step in making small tweaks and enhancements to the way the story plays out and the dialogue. There are several key moments in the game where it does a very poor job of directing the player so I'll look into (subtly) improving these instances.
-) Making Remedies available/the norm earlier
I'm not sure, one thing I tried to do was make the regular status-healing items more competitive with Remedy by having them heal the entire party of the status (and have them double-up on certain statuses rather than just the one, like Echo Drops covering Silence + Darkness), rather than being single-target like the Remedy. Also, if Remedy isn't available until later then I can make use of it as a valuable item for drops/chests for the earlier parts of the game. I'll look into status healing balance though; the way I've got it set up at present could likely be improved.
-) Airship Merchant's field model
Could change it, but I kinda like it. I had a black cape dude selling items in the Whirlwind Maze to prevent a possible long-winded back-track to the shop in Icicle Inn, so I moved him onto the Highwind after that as it's onboard merchant.
-) Phys Attacks vs. Magic Attacks
The relationship between these two is a goddamn nightmare. Magic scales early, but physical attacks (at higher levels) leave spells completely in the dust for the vanilla game. I always felt spells should have an edge though due to their longer animation + MP cost, but I also want to keep physical attacks viable. Tough to juggle.
-) Corel Train
This is a very tough segment to balance for time due to it being 'blind' the first time. The timer is long enough, but likely only if the player has a rough idea of which elements to bring in with them. What I could do is have some new dialogue that mentions something about the security detail on the train, which would act as a heavy clue as to which elements will work best (Lightning & Water in this case, due to all but one of the enemies being mechanical).
-) North Corel: 50,000gil Rock
I think I moved Comet to this town, replacing Ultima (which is now called Planet Materia in the latest patch and is won from Extra Battle in Battle Square). I'll check the scrip to see that Comet is actually given, although there is a high chance that I've gotten up to mischief and actually made it a useless rock that he sells :I
-) Fort Condor skip
That would be for the Huge Materia? Could do that, but no promises.
-) Ult Weapon = Camera-Hog
I know what you mean just by description; there's a moment when he blocks the entire camera and I think he turns around (though it's tricky to see with him being so close). I'll look into it, depends how the script is laid out.
-) Cutscene Skip: Mideel
I was thinking about that recently, that the old cutscene skips are maybe a bit too abrupt. The newer ones are integrated better into the scene, like the Midgar Train monitor and the Promise scenes. I'll definitely look into re-doing these so they mesh better.
-) Carry Armor
This guy was a sight to behold back in the day, but he's been progressively adjusted to try and account for the RNG of having a character being grabbed. It should be doable with tier 2 spells,
-) Submarine Mini-game
I could skip it, but it'd be a bit awkward as it determines whether or not you sink the red sub + get the Huge Materia. Dan has been working on fixing this minigame but if you ask me it's always going to be pretty bad.
-) Gelnika
No, you're right about the imbalance here. Originally, the Gelnika is quite tough but has some great gear sitting around as a result. However, in NT a lot of this equipment was moved elsewhere so it has a fairly normal progression as far as item acquisition goes but the enemy strength is still sitting on the same 'spike' as the original Gelnika, so they're disproportionately tough as a result (same with the boss). I'll revisit the place and see what I can do.
-) Last Rocket Battle
Yeah, the solo Grunt enemy. I'll see what I can do about removing/replacing it.
-) Highwind Merchant: Sword
He stocks Mideel equipment, should have weapons for every character (except Aeris). Unless he had something else on him? I'll double-check.
-) Fight Diamond Sooner
Risky, this is a world map event which might not conclude correctly if his fight is triggered from the Highwind instead. That being said, I think his script is actually triggered from a field screen (which I can edit/copy) but I'd need to be careful of any operations happening on the world map when running into him as these can't be viewed as easily.
-) Limit Levels
I set the kill requirements a little higher; I set them lower again, but it seems they're maybe still too high?
-) Bugenhagen's Observatory
I'm guessing this is something to do with me messing around with the text boxes on this screen (it's likely misaligned). I'll investigate this and get it corrected; do your characters have custom names, and if so are they longer than the default ones? That's a potential source of trouble I found out about recently.
-) Turks: Berserk/Confu
A theme of the 'red turks' that's carried over since the very early builds (before the mod was even called NT), was that they use Berserk-inflicting attacks. However, things have changed a lot since then so there's been a problem with players not being able to protect themselves from aggressive use of these statuses (Peace Rings are tricky to find in current NT builds). One thing to remember though is that Added Effect + Mystify Materia will protect against both statuses, if accessories aren't an option.
-) Proud Clod merchant
That's a good idea; the only shop is awkward to get to (up in Shinra HQ). I'll maybe add a vendor beside the save point that goes into the train tunnels and have him relocate to the next save point once Clod is defeated.
-) Goin' South for W-Item
But if I block that off, how will people get the shiny Sense materia I left down there for them :I
-) Hojo
I'll have a look for that attack; I'm guessing it's Absorb, the Drain HP/MP flag is a tad buggy (I think). If that's not the attack, then I'll root around until I find it.
-) Jenova Synthesis, Bizarro, & Safer
These bosses are actually the hardest in the entire mod, and were designed to be tackling parties that had completed a lot of the other content added for Disc 3 (so a Lv.60 party isn't actually far off what I specced it against). But with an artificially leveled team, there's a good chance you'll be missing quite a few things like Equipment & Materia. The stat trees are also different in NT, but these aren't read by the save editor so you might have been fighting with 'default' stat characters (until they level up in-game that is, then it corrects).
It's not recommended to go for these bosses right after reaching Disc 3; Jenova Synthesis was supposed to act as a 'gateway' to the last two battles, which is why the two additional enemies were added behind it to test the player party's ability to juggle with dealing damage, handling status ailments, and keep themselves healed. This is because Bizarro, being a three-party fight, requires a lot of preparation and equipment to match properly. That being said, I'll ask some of the other long-time NT players about these fights and get some specific feedback from them. Bizarro can be a big time-sink if even one of the three parties aren't on par.
-) Boss Names
I've nothing against the original boss names, they were only renamed to accompany the change to their attacks, AI, look, etc. It's something that's carried over from the original focus of the mod, which was remixing boss fights. I didn't give them new names because I thought the old names were bad or anything.
-) End-Game bosses (NT)
There's two long-standing problems with NT's end-game content. 1) It can be unclear where to go or what to do, and 2) The fights aren't scaled for coming straight onto Disc 3 and looking for them, they were scaled for Lv.50-60 parties that have gathered a modest arsenal of the end-game equipment and Materia (from Extra Battle, the Crater, etc). Problem with that is, players don't know what's been scaled for when and they're naturally going to go for new content because it's, well, new. I didn't take these into consideration at the time, which is why I want to revamp the way end-game works in NT. That'll take time, though. If you're playing 1.2, then I suspect these problems (particularly leveling up) will be quite difficult.
-) Yuffie Recruitment
A good suggestion, but the problem is we're on the world map and we need to prevent this encounter from appearing twice. I can't produce script for the world map as there's no dedicated editor at present. For the time being, I need to go with making an actual event on the field.
-) All Materia/Spell-Specific targeting
I could implement something like this, actually. I'll maybe run a prototype of it and see how it goes.
-) Adding New Spells
As of 1.3 (main installer, not in 7H yet) there have been some new spells added but they're mostly attack spells. Combining Debarrier and Dispel into one spell is definitely an option, but I quite like having a cheap spell that removes all protective magic (in 1.3, it also removes Shield and Peerless in addition to Barrier/MBarrier) instead of Dispel which costs a bit more. It'll be on the cards though. As for Blink, I think that would require some somersaults in character AI to get a new 'status' working but could be done. NulBlaze, etc. might be a bit trickier, but same thing; could be done with some AI; spells like that could kill Fire Rings, etc. though.
Whew.