Ah, sorry you had a bad time with it; the 1.5 build has a lot of difficulty spikes in it which is something I kept in mind when refactoring the mod into the 2.0 build.
I have heard it be called way too hard many times, tbf, but the fights in 1.5 are all doable with a bit of know how.
Chiming in to say that I also felt 1.5 was fine in terms of difficulty (in fact, I found it a little TOO easy at times), and was especially sad that a lot of the extra content you made for 1.5 didn't make it to 2.0
As for 2.0, I really enjoy the balancing and tweaks given on the player's side of things, as everyone, for the most part, feels equally viable and powerful in their own respects (Though it'd be nice to have a few tweaks, like more buffs to Red's Stardust Ray limit and overhauling Howling Moon, and giving Cait Sith a way to utilize his innately high HP and/or innately high Luck for offense instead of just tanking), in addition to what new things we can do with equipment & materia. However, this has the downside of enemies and bosses being far too easy (with the exception of the secret superboss you added, but even that is prone to being cheesed to hell and back from what I've seen from others). I've been working my way through a Solo Nanaki Run, and I haven't really encountered any meaningful hurdles that made me really have to think about my set-ups, beyond a "whoops I forgot to put Haste back on" or swapping to a status resist accessory, which is a lil disappointing for Hard Mode to cave so easily (the only times I've ran into any difficulty was tackling the Materia Caves as soon as I was able to, instead of waiting until Disc 3 lol).
I personally would LOVE to see an Extreme Difficulty mode that really tests the limits and knowledge of players to overcome difficult bosses and the like (and perhaps a rework to Red's Innate, since while powerful, it's really boring and kinda clashes with his natural stats leaning towards a Glass Cannon-y Red Mage), in addition to the bonus content from 1.5 making a triumphant return, if possible.
I'm hugely in favor of the "work smarter, not harder" mentality when it comes to difficulty balancing, so it'd be nice to have a difficulty mode that plays towards that philosophy and rewards smart plays & set-ups, rather than the whole game borderline keeling over and giving up just because I equipped the Auto-Wall accessory. And with all the buffs that the party members themselves has gotten, in addition to all the materia tweaks and balancing, it'd would be amazing to have a difficulty mode that accounts for the tremendous levels of power and customization players have in 2.0 onward.
