Alright, so tentatively going to say the 1.35 update is complete and uploading it now. I've liked how the rank-up builds turned out, each character felt like they had a key strength to make use of and the innates are background enough to not be distracting but still useful for an extra edge. That being said, I went with the 'default' rank ups for each character (option 1) so be interesting to see what kind of builds people come up with.
\\Major Changes//
-) Rank-Up has been implemented. It's advised to start from a new game to get the best benefit of this as each character has static starting stats now and the vars being used to track their SP for rank ups has been implemented. That being said, current save files will still work fine so if you're currently midway through the mod then no worries. A fix was also added to prevent Rank-Up from triggering during the Nibelheim Flashback.
-) Enemy Overhaul: To better cover the extensive changes in character/equipment strength that have arisen over time, every enemy was given a once-over in their stats + attacks to make them a better fit with the new progression curve. Arrange AI was also added to certain monsters and bosses; another feature of Arrange enemies is that they have a higher level but also give 1.3x the EXP which should make for a slightly tougher but faster game. Lv.4 Limit Bosses and some others were given a slight nerf to HP and now give appropriate EXP; Soldier: 1st's AI was also reworked to eliminate a glitch that could occur with one of his DMW results. Variablis has had his elemental shift AI removed while an oversight in Vorpar's AI which caused him to become tougher, rather than weaker, when his allies were killed was also corrected.
-) Weapons and Armour were given a once-over. For weapons, the 'cap' on weapon power is now 50 instead of 100, to prevent high STR builds from being trivialised by hitting the 255 cap (easy to do when a 70+ weapon is equipped), while weapon accuracy was also made more consistent across each weapon type. Armour was given a slight increase in defensive capabilities, with the evasion values re-worked.
-) AP Requirements for certain standard Materia, such as Fire, etc. were lowered to have them unlock faster. Outside of using 2x AP Growth Armour, Tier 2 spells should be considered 'standard' all the way up until Disc 3 (and will deal roughly 2000 damage from an 'average' stat caster when hitting an elemental weakness).
-) In order to curb early-game nuking, Summons had their base power lowered but as a pay-off will now ignore Magic Defence.
-) Aeris' weapons now restore HP on strike and are set to target allies by default (meaning they will target enemies instead when she's confused). However, some weapons were intended instead to give a status buff but the rate of this doesn't appear to be 100%. As a last minute fix, every staff (with the exception of Guard Stick & Umbrella) now restores HP on strike even if not explicitly mentioned in the weapon description.
-) The Date Scene, due to the vars now being used for Rank Up, is now a much more even race and the player should be wary of the following if going for a specific date:
#1: To make up for her absence in Midgar, Yuffie gains a significant boost to SP when completing the Wutai sidequest + the Da Chao segment; be wary of completing these before the date scene.
#2: If one of the four characters is a higher Rank than the others, it means they're in the lead. Use this as a rough monitor to see if you're on track for the date you're gunning for.
-) Remove Materia was disabled; thje option is still listed in the extended save menu but will now not do anything. It'll need a bit of work to either remove/replace it with something else so I'm leaving that for the 1.4 patch that'll be focusing mostly on the game's flevel.
-) Various Bug-Fixes
Quite a lot of these, from misaligned text boxes to small script errors. Also, Ultimania Espio gave permission to let me use her Disc 2/3 Aeris animations for the train, para jump, etc. resulting in a nice improvement there. I've also shrunk down a lot of superfluous formations in the Glacier and some in Junon which were major drags for time in the past. Cloud's field model also has his sword back for certain scenes, which is nice.
Upload nearly done, I'll update the main page when it's finished.
