My Carmine Weapon isn't spawning with its eyes nor do they spawn/awaken mid-fight (then again it was only 3 min ingame time). Latest patch (yesterday).
While we're at it, my feedback/random thoughts about the mod now that i've played most of it:
- Magic vs Attack
I understand that the point of magic being superior because it costs MP, but right now Attack is simply too far behind during the main game. It can only relatively catch up before the transition to the tier 2 and tier 3 spells and only with elemental equipped, aside from the 1 to 3 cases where you get a weapon that is clearly ahead of the curve. Late game you even get Contain and Comet (maybe MP Turbo and MP absorb too, can't remember) through the main story while you probably have to grind for mug, 2x-cut is behind aditional content that you're not sure when you should fight so i imagine it's easy for people to ignore it until they unlock the limit 4 sidequests (even then i imagine it's too annoying to fight Cait-Sith Tank without several Added Effects).
I'd say up to Corel/Gongaga it's fine both on regular fights and boss fights given enemies HP and your MP pool, but after that enemies get too much HP compared to the physical damage output, Elemental materia becomes a double-edge sword, mostly because virtually every area having both flying and heavy enemies, those two points combined also makes gravity heavily outshine Attack (doesn't require any M.Atk stat) and for last your MP getting high enough that you can go through one save point to another without wasting your entire mana. On disc 2 and 3 i fought most story bosses with 2 mages and was required just a few osmoses/ethers before the fight was over, and it was definitely worth over Attack or Deathblow+Added Cut. Even the endgame sidequests probably requires at the very worst 2 turbo ethers.
By endgame you can farm turbo ethers on the pots if you ever need and get W-Magic almost for free, as if Contain wasn't already overkill by itself. Meanwhile if you want your attack to catch up you have search for the material through several sidequests and deal with the annoyance of morphing material for the ultimate weapon. I may sound pissed, but it's just my way of getting my point clear, so sorry if i sound agressive.
- Buffs/Debuffs/Counters/Tank and Spank
You have played BNW, so this makes things easier. What i find interesting about BNW is that bosses have a chance to counter specific commands/spells and will buff/debuff/dispel based on a global combat timer (and not their turn), which is something it lacks here. I only found counters to Limit Break on Northern Cave and Deathblow on the Reno and Rude fight on Gelnika It makes combats more interesting because it requires some degree of decision making. On Brave New World you can have the right pieces put together and still die because you went greedy, took the wrong decision or straight up got bad RNG, which is relatively rare, but it's entertaining and makes battles intense. On New Threat you can simply Haste+All, Barrier+All and Slow (if the boss isn't immune) and instawin most story bosses just through good old tank and spank, using the strongest attacks and healing when low on HP (god bless white wind, by the way) like on "any" vanilla Final Fantasy. The only ones that i felt actually threatened by death even with the right setup were Curator and Abyss (my setup probably wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't bad either), which i felt was on a whole new level compared to the bosses found on the other paths, then again the Ribbon reward is probably the reason.
On the other hand NT is much more challenging on the preparation to fight and figuring out the proper setup, it really feels like a puzzle game, specially at end game, but the main story had a few good ones like Gi Nattak, Pagoda 1v1s, Huge Materia train enemies (in this case the proper setup to kill them in time, but then again i was being stubborn with a garbage party), Reno & Rude on Gelnika.
I'm throwing this thought just in case, but i'm aware that there may be several reasons for that, like Materia system x Class system, 3 members instead of 4, battle mechanics, specially regarding time, differences, making the mod more acessible as somehow there are people who managed to beat BNW but yet struggled and gave up on NT, etc etc.
- Tranquilizer / Back Row 50% damage reduction / ATB wait "trick"
I feel like through the main story the damage was balanced around the players not using any of those. The damage always felt really low. Wouldn't be better for balance if you remove tranquilizer (and remove the property to cause sadness from any attack that has it) and reduce the back row mitigation to 25% instead of 50% ? Hopefully in the future you or someone in the modding community manages the same sorcery they did with BNW ATB wait/active system (i have yet to play the FFX "ATB" version) so it makes things easier to standardize
God tier mod. My only complaint is that this can't be emulated so i'm forced to watch animations and talking instead of fast forward, then again i'm sure someone will get triggered by this comment. The quality of life additions like cutscene skips, fast tents, extra shops and save points kinda makes up for it.
