Don't worry, I'm not quite that dumb actually despite my appearances - by saying "I found" I didn't mean to say I had full stacks of them, just that I came across them at some point. So I didn't actually acquire them myself. Meltdown was refinable from that item you mug from abyss worms, and doubles from dragon fins, neither of which are exactly the rarest items around. Turning grendels into cards is quick & easy since they're susceptible to sleep and don't have much HP and they tend to stand out in terms of encounters in that little forest you cross on your way to Galbadia Garden. Leaving Doubles to be refinable is probably what I'm objecting to the most here overall, as it exacerbates magic being overpowered(which it just is), and undoes the marvelous idea of rationing your Doubles and having a set, limited supply of them.
Well, I was just a little surprised at first after you said you found the Pain spell on disc 1, so I assumed you might have discovered an unintended, infinite source for it on disc 1. I'm relieved that isn't the case. As far as disc 1 goes, there should only be one invisible Pain Draw point in Galbadia Garden that does not refill, so it should be completely unproblematic to have it there (Pain is even inferior to Bio damage-wise as a compensation for the various status effect it can cause).
The possibility to farm Meltdown spells in the Dingo Desert is intentional and meant as a way to get ahead of the curve a little, and to reward exploration. Getting full stocks takes long, as the Abyss Worms show up only rarely, so I don't think there is a need to remove this possibility (the Vit 0 status in itself will likely be nerfed in the upcoming version of the mod anway). I agree with your concerns regarding the infinite source for Double via Card-Mod though. The option will be removed to keep the prestige of that spell for longer, and the point in time the Double Draw point in Balamb Garden's library starts to refill will be pushed back to late disc 2.
I had Demi junctioned to MAG, and berserk for STR for the Edea fight, which I believe is not ahead of the curve at all. I didn't even have bio even though I think you could've gotten those stacks too reasonably easily from venom fangs. My STR and MAG stats have been really close at all times incidentally, because it seems the spell progression without excessive grinding or card modding is quite intuitive & regulated in that sense. And I tend to wait until I can draw new spell stacks from monsters or bosses, ensuring that I'm at the expected power level.
Well, if even after my diatribe it's still definitely a-okay for simply casting magics that are as common as common can be to be stronger than all this other stuff thereby rendering alternative strategies kind of stupid, stronger than your Renzos or most limit breaks usually(and safer, no need to dance at low HP), stronger than any physical attack-oriented strategy even for supposedly "non-magic" characters, and altogether the easiest, most obvious fail-safe method of beating every boss because there isn't a single boss fight where it hasn't been superbly effective(strongest even for bosses WITHOUT elemental weaknesses, let alone if they do) or where there's a heightened risk to spamming magic, and be consistently & practically the best, most approachable strategy for the player to always default to, then I've failed to make my case. But I certainly know for a fact that doing anything other than double(later triple) spamming magic with all 3 characters is knowingly shooting yourself in the foot and being sub-optimal & taking unnecessary risks, but I'm going to have to do it just for the sake of variety. Also I want to believe that maybe magic gets weaker as the game goes on, relative to other methods. I will now forever shut up about doubles, magic and shit(no I won't ).
Demi on Magic and Berserk on Strength is indeed quite on curve for the end of disc 1. Still, I don't think that magic is too powerful over everything else if you play the game normally (i.e. leveling up). You are shooting yourself in the foot in regards to inflicting decent physical damage by staying at a very low level. Magic damage doesn't suffer from a rather low Magic stat as much as physical damage does from a rather low Strength stat, which explains your impression of "non-magic" characters being too proficient in using magic. Spells benefit from solid base damage, but scaling with Magic is only linear so they fall a bit behind late in the game when stats are closer to being maxed out. It's exactly the opposite for physical damage - it starts out rather low until reaching a certain Strength threshold, when it starts to rise exponentially to keep up and eventually outperform spell damage. I think this threshold is around 100-130 Strength points, so if you want physical damage to be about on par with spell damage, you need to reach that range as fast as possible, which of course will be much easier if you level up your characters.
Indeed this doesn't really address my issues, and indirectly implicates that GF's are more suited/meant for random encounters, which is just unprecedented in the history of Final Fantasy. No way that's the right mentality, IMO... Unless you meant boss fights? Yes, there are some boss battles with more dudes but I mean... Summoning the elemental god of fire and brimstone shouldn't feel like shit compared to just throwing 2 Firas... See, here I go again. But my initial gripe wasn't with the damage even, it shouldn't be over the top because that would make them TOO attractive an option. The main thing was always about their effects and status inflictions, which is a really nice niche for them to have in the mod! So addressing that in terms of boss battles will fix the entire GF problem and make them more of a mainstay in the player's arsenal.
I meant boss fights as well as random encounters, especially later in the game (2x Iron Giants, 2x Behemoth etc). Even though your gripe wasn't really with the damage, I felt the urge to compare damage numbers against the 2 Oilboyles at MD-Levels, and Ifrit (LV 38, SumMag+10/20/30% learned) outperformed a Fira Double cast from Rinoa (Mag 146, which is around the max she can have at that point) by a slight margin. I admittedly replaced SumMag+30% with the new EXP-None ability for Quezacotl, Shiva and Ifrit, which was probably a mistake. Should go for something else instead, sorry. Anway, the point I want to make is that GF are useful in this mod as long as you invest in their growth a little, also by learning their GFHP/SumMag abilities via items (this is why Silver Mail or Gold Armor appear as steals or sidequest rewards), and I hope the increased status infliction rates will contribute to that.
To illustrate how physical damage starts to keep up with magic at Strength values of 100+, I also compared a Fira Double cast from Rinoa with Renzokuken against an Oilboyle who has both moderate Vit and Spr, and Squall (Str 126) outdamaged Rinoa even on the lowest Crisis Level (4 hits = 4000 HP damage, Double Fira did around 3000). Both characters were leveled almost evenly at level 35-40. Results would be much different in favor of magic damage if both were around level 10 for reasons mentioned above (4 hit Renzokuen = 2000 HP damage, Double Fira = 2500 HP damage).
Oof, so you could've still gotten Shockwave there. Pretty crazy, but I'm just gonna throw it out there once again like I've said before, that keep the "overly regulated and controlled" thing in mind. Part of the excitement and fun of these games is somehow, occasionally, breaking the curve and getting some stuff way earlier than expected. Not just talking about magics that are a bit ahead. I'm not entirely against there being a way of getting Shockwave/similar super exciting stuff super early, but it certainly would preferably be something more cryptic than just mugging trifaces. Maybe like a hard-as-balls sidequest somewhere. Something like a more secretive version of the Irvine duel in FH with the guy to get Pulse ammo, that was AWESOME. Only undercut by being able to make endless pulse ammo from card mod anyways... I'd change that, to make said ammo more prestigious, and making the other kinds of ammo more relevant as a result, at least for earlier parts of the game. You can get Elnoyle cards right from the beginning and X-ATMs come in droves on disc 2 if you like card modding.
I planned to just change the item required to create a Dark Matter via Tool-RF, but tying its availability to a new sidequest sounds intriguing. Elnoyle Card-Mod result will be changed, but unsure about X-ATM092. I mean, 10 X-ATM092 cards for 1 Power Generator are a lot. But we'll see.
Oh I'm definitely going back to this one, then. This is more like it in terms of magic usage too, because you're introducing a tactical element as opposed to just spamming whatever and it'll still be strong. It would be perfect if the "wrong" type of spell would be countered somehow.
You won't get punished if you attack them with the wrong element, but almost everything else besides the right element does next to no damage.
Any ideas for the Selphie thing & low level runs? We've talked about it and I know it's tricky, but if you have any ideas, I'd be interested to hear them. Her uniqueness does suffer a bit in my playthroughs because I see some of her spells so seldomly.
Perhaps, Selphie's weapon could be factored into spell selection instead of Selphie's level, or instead of just a random number [0..4] used in the calculation (see
here), but I don't know how difficult that would be. On the other hand, making certain spells like Rapture appear more often would be no problem.
Also I wanna quote some of the stuff that you didn't mention and would like to hear your thoughts on as potential considerations for future, namely...
- Worldmap encounters: There's unfortunately no easy way to have different random encounters based on game progress, but removing enemies from certain areas is always possible. Now that you mention it, it might be a good idea to remove the Bite Bugs from the snowy areas on the Trabia continent, as they feel somewhat out of place there (they are not just too easy as an enemy, they are also weak to Ice so their apperance in snowy areas is a little questionable). If you have other ideas for monsters that should be replaced, let me know.
- Weapon progress: Making weapons increase other stats than just Strength is likely too difficult to implement, but it would be easy to create a weapon that ignores defense, uses the step count formula, heals the target, or does magic damage instead of physical damage. Making a weapon that turns enemies into Cards would probably work too
- Renzokuken finishers: Fated Circle ignores defense and Blasting Zone has a noticably higher base damage, so it depends on the enemy's Vitality which one does more damage. Again, the difference would be more noticable with high Strength stats. I'll either increase Blasting Zone's damage further or make it cause a status. Not sure if it could be reworked to hit all battle participants. I'll give it a try.