Makes me really curious how your FF8 mod is going to work that then. I'm not sure if it'd be easier or harder since everything scales with Squall and magic having such a huge change on stats, but it's got me super interested in it.
It's going to be like a house of cards; if one thing is wrong then it'll all be wrong. The new FF8 tools allow for a greater degree of editing than before, but some things like Cards will need to be done via Hex. I'll have an alpha build up of it fairly soon after 1.5 is released so I can get some early feedback. The main ideas of it are:
Tackling Low Level
-) GF abilities are locked behind GF level rather than abilities learned, meaning that the characters will have to level to see them.
-) Bosses give EXP, potentially with a system to revive characters at end of fight so that it can't be dodged with KO.
-) Randoms don't give upgraded magic when they hit Level thresholds, the stronger magic is gated further into the game with later monsters/items
-) Stat growth weighted more on level arcs instead of Magic junctions
GF vs Magic
-) Like FF7 NT Summons, they'll ignore Spirit/Magic Defence whereas Magic is more conventional. However, GFs will LOSE affinity when used meaning they'll become less and less efficient if they're spammed too much. Magic, on the other hand, will greatly improve GF affinity. The idea would be you'd 'charge' the GFs using conventional attacks and then save them up for a tough fight. GFs, with the exception of some Support GFs like Carbuncle, also have much less HP on the whole so timing is needed when using them to avoid getting them KO'd.
Character Builds
-) FF8 has 'sources' like FF7, meaning I could script something similar to Rank Up assuming I'm able to do so using the field editor (most of the field op-codes aren't deciphered yet though; it's not as supported as the FF7 one). I'll likely hold off on this feature for the alpha build but I'd like to try and implement it at some point.
Items/Card
-) You can break the game's balance very quickly with items and refine abilities. I don't want to remove or gate card-mod/refine abilities as they could be used to eliminate stock grinding, etc. so getting the relationship between card/item availability & refine results correct will be a big step forward.
Enemy Balance
-) Like you mentioned, level scaling is a big challenge because it's much tougher to adjust than static stats. There'll be a lot of trial and error with this; I'll probably go with several 'sets' of stats that I'll apply to all enemies so I can properly judge how they develop late-game and where the attack strength of their abilities needs to sit at. I'm not sure yet if I'll remove the max level cap from bosses for scaling or not as doing so would prevent a player from grabbing a few extra levels to push through a tough boss and potentially get them stuck.
Hey Sega, loving the mod so far. I've got a bug to report...
When doing the send off ceremony for Rufus at Junon, it is no longer possible to receive the enemy away materia as per your documentation. I kept doing it over and over and getting the listed second prize (Rune armlet) until I finally got a program that slows down the game so that I could make sure I was doing everything 100% perfect and I still only received the second prize.
Not that I particularly wanted the mastered enemy away materia anyway as you start out with it, I was just wondering why I had not received it the first time because I thought I nailed the ceremony so thats why I kept trying.
Anyway loving everything else cheers
The rewards were changed because Enemy Away isn't the greatest thing to get, particularly with the new toggle switch for random encounters. I'll be updating the documentation to accompany 1.5's release. Sorry for the hassle.