Hi there! I just started playing NT and I'm at the Temple of the Ancients. I have to say, I love this mod! Super fun, lots of interesting choices and options for character development and equipment, and cool materia changes. I like how the text was altered at various points (from what I remember) for clarity, such as in Rocket Town with Shera, the recap in Ghost Square, and others. Great work!
All that being said, my characters seem a little OP. At first I was challenged, but now they are clobbering enemies for 1000's of damage. 1 thing is the SP system. I love how it works, but there are a couple comments and questions I have about it:
1. I like to fiddle around with different materia builds and character groupings, as this is my first run with NT mod, but doing so over levels my characters and gains them a ton of SP. I know I can choose NOT to spend the SP, but I have an impulse to do it anyway and now Cloud is rank 6
. It makes it somewhat inconsequential what my builds are when most of my characters are super strong.
2. I have read a lot of comments that characters are super strong, but characters level quickly and overpower enemies starting in disc 1. Again I am only on D1 so I don't know how it looks later. Is there a way to throttle how quickly they rank up, such as putting a rank cap and/or level cap and/or AP cap on materia at certain plot points? Like, Rank 2 and level 21 max until Junon, rank 3 max and level 31 max until Cosmo Canyon, etc. I got Cid when Cloud was rank 5, and Cid is just too weak unless I power level him, but then that also levels Cloud... Anyway, I realize I can impose these restrictions on myself, but the temptation for power is overwhelming (and Mr. Smile is is quite convincing).
3. Is there a way to show the rank of each character when viewing the current SP values? This would just be a convenient feature. Or, if it could be visible on the menu screen next to the character level or something.
4. What if only 1 SP so was necessary to rank up, but then all characters gained 1 SP at various plot points and not through random encounters and such? Like, at Junon, each character will gain 1 SP to rank up to level 2. At cosmo canyon, they get another SP to rank up 3. The player can spend these at their leisure at Mr. Smile, and when we get characters later in the game, those new characters have a bank of SP already accumulated to rank up to where the other characters are instead of needing to farm them. I think all the infrastructure you have already set up with the SP system would accommodate this nicely if you wanted to test it out.
5. Also, Battle square currently allows SP gain without gaining EXP. Was this intentional? 1 successful run is netting me 30+ SP, so farming BP is gaining some characters a whole rank.
That's all I have for now. I'm sorry if these comments and questions have already been suggested or answered (or if they are impossible or just plain bad ideas), but there were 200+ pages of thread to sift through. I want to say again that I love this mod and thank you so much for all your work! Thanks again!