Hi Sega Chief--I finished my NT playthrough this weekend and wanted to note a few thoughts about the latest version. NT was the only mod I used, and I played on the regular rather than arranged mode.
I still think the new 1.5 is the most pleasantly balanced version of the game I've played (I could become really powerful if I wanted, but some encounters would still wreck me if I wasn't paying attention), but some general things came up that I thought could be better balanced:
--It felt like you reintroduced late-level scaling to damage formulas, which was super welcome, but also made it super easy to max my damage output when combined with the really high experience curve mid- to late-game. I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but I think slowing down the experience curve is the best solution here so folks don't get that sweet lvl 80+ damage scaling so early in disc 2. Or maybe increase the experience needed for a level up by a factor of 5 from lvl 72 on? Not sure what the exact formula is, but I think it would make it more rewarding to hit those plateaus later than I did.
--I definitely get the reason for the Gold Chocobo-for-Guide Book trade, but with your new combat balance, I think it probably breaks mid-game. I wasn't able to beat the KotR boss immediately (although I might have if I had tried a bit harder early on--I won once I came back with final weapons and lvl4 limits), but the other materia cave bosses went down REALLY easy. I had all the special materia available via chocobo outside KotR literally right after I got the sub. Maybe give us a different color chocobo for the guide book? Like blue or green?
--I love most final weapons (especially Missing Score + 4 Osmose materia), but I have to echo some folks' complaints about Vincent's and Cid's. With your new combat balance they do respectable damage, but will almost always be outdamaged by the big hitters (Cloud, Tifa, Barret) when holding strength constant between them all. This is especially problematic for Cid--his weapon doesn't ignore defense, and its special skill is effectively useless by the time you get it (draining HP is really only useful for longer fights, of which there aren't many left after the Dark Cave). Since Cid was one of my rotating main physical damage dealers, that's a problem IMO!
--On the subject of final weapons, please make Aeris' final weapon default target the party and not the enemy! In some fights where I needed to move quick there were some...embarrassing mess ups. And in pincer attacks (such as the KotR battle) it's surprisingly difficult to move the cursor to your party from the enemy!
--Is Cosmo Memory supposed to fill everyone's limit gauge? I used it in one of the final battles expecting only a single big hit, but then cloud and barret got their limits immediately after use. Maybe I'm wrong, but that seems super OP (although maybe it's not in arrange mode?), especially with how good Catastrophe is.
--The final boss of the dark cave has an attack that still ignores status immunity. I lost my first try against her (because of status effects), equipped ribbons on everyone the 2nd time, but Cloud still got confused, and even after I healed him stayed confused (the other status effects were dispelled though). It's literally the only time that happened my entire playthrough.
--Finally, about the stat system. I know you plan on changing it to a story-progress-centered system with some stat increases by level, but I do have a critique that applies to both the current and planned system. I personally love it it in theory, but one thing it does is lock the player choices very early possibly without an understanding of effective endgame builds/damage formulas, which currently could lead to a lot of regret. For example, if you don't realize that strength values do, in fact, play a big role in all final weapon damage formulas, you may be sorely surprised to find your 100 str Cloud with 9999 HP or a Barret with 4 Osmose Missing Score but 125 str (because you loaded up on defense min/maxing for Missing Score) doing subpar damage. Obviously this dynamic is sort of addressed with the recent rebalancing, but maybe a limited respec option during endgame might help (a 1-time-only, and only your first 3-4 rank ups?). I definitely think a unlimited/full respec would be too much though.
--Oh, and I forget what line, but I believe there's a single textbox in the cloud/tifa lifestream sequence that has "migh" instead of "might." Literally the only other unintentional typo my copyeditor eye caught!
Just my 2 pennies on what could be improved on what is already an amazing as hell mod! Take/ignore what you like of course!
EDIT: And just to be clear, I don't think any of the bosses--mandatory or optional--need rebalancing. I sadly didn't get to play against your Emerald Weapon variant (thanks to the sub glitch--I'd rather not muck around in the code to fix it just so I don't mess something else up), but every boss fight felt fair. I never once felt I got beat unfairly (except the Dark Cave final boss because of the above mentioned issue)--really well done building those encounters!