Now while I can see the Extra Battle item requirements being time-consuming (considering the dire steal rates of the previous version) I'm not sure how the Lv.4 Limit sidequests could be considered time consuming. It's basically go to X, fight Y, get Z, with clues for where to go coming from the new crewman on the Highwind. Unless these sidequests aren't triggering and can't be found (there was a flaw in the Regular Music flevel that turned these sidequests to 'completed'; an NPC on the Highwind can fix this problem). Do you mean the boss related to each sidequest was time-consuming?
Its funny that you changed Carry Armor's, as it was the hardest boss I fough since Jenova Birth. The thing killed me a dozen times
Actually, I didn't try to get the lvl4 limits or the ultimate weapons. It would take time, no matter how little, and I don't need them. I''m doing 3000 a hit at level 70 and killing bosses with two limit breaks (and this is with Barret and Cid, both at level 70. Cloud is at level 82). Why do I need more firepower? To fight bigger bosses who reward me with even more firepower? I had assumed that ultimate weapons were necessary to finish the game or beat the weapons, but it appears not. Actually, I was afraid it might make things even easier than they were already, so I just kept using what I had.
The Armor and Accessory changes were trying to fix things up and make more things useful (Star Pendants used to be made completely obsolete by Fairy Rings, for instance, while Ribbons make everything obsolete but are available fairly early in the game). You mentioned in your lists that you didn't like how different armors were but found the equipment set-up options are interesting. It might be that I need to make some alterations to make high-end armor more useful again (the Mystile/Aegis Armlet nerfs probably weren't too popular). I might try to bring things a little closer to what they were, rein in the changes here before they become unrecognizable.
Precisely. While the three elemental armors were interesting (plus the Adamant), there was never a battle were I was being hurt by water, lightning, fire or ice to the point that I had to use defensive equipment. And since the defense and mdefense formulas in FF7 are broken, the only thing that matters in armors is the stat boost they give and the materia slots. Sure, Crystal has the best values for mid disc 2, but there's no Str or Mag stat boost... And only 6 slots. So Edincoat or Wizard it is. Mystile has 75 M. Evade. Cool. 6 slots without growth, and zero defenses and evade... Meh... Edincoat or Wizard again. But remember that you have some armors that are absolutely useless (Shinra Alpha and Beta). You can use those to create completely different armors to fit any role you can think of.
A bit of advice: if you're gonna make version 1.2 thinking about a NG+, leave the Ziedrich as a 8 slot armor, with its currents status and some evade. It might seem broken, but you could make it one of the final quests: if you got the things, good. If you didn't, you would regret it... Besides, they can't be more broken that the ultimate weapons... Just have some super boss trio have them. Or if the NG+ follows the battle with Buffalo Bill have him drop the three things. Or maybe just one, so that there's some replayability (one Ribbon and one Ziedrich per run). But I would advise you to increase the materia limit to 250 or 300. Having multiple playthroughs might produce too many shiny rocks and we don't have Lara Croft's backpack with us... Also, if you want players to do multiple runs, have something waiting for them. Maybe some bosses that are only playable the second time? A very slow leveling process (if you think is difficult to balance the difficulty curve, try making a game design for players to go from lvl 1 to lvl 40. That pretty much ends the balancing issues, as it will be MUCH more easier for you to point how players will be doing). Otherwise, you can do something old RPGs did two decades ago: after NG+ have players start at lvl 1 but with increased stats, corresponding to a certain % of their stats at the end of the game. This way players could level to 99, start again and have some reasons to play. Maybe after two or three runs they had the equip and stats necessary to beat those super bosses that were waiting... Just food for thought
And finally, I really think you should do something more interesting with Fort Condor. Why not have a note pop up whenever there's a battle? If you give players interesting prizes and a custom boss fight (might just be a palette swap enemy from later in the game and a HP boost) to justify backtracking all the way there it might be more interesting. And if so, please make the battles more engaging, so that they're actually challenging and worth the items. This way you could give players access to armors, accessories that they would otherwise get on disc 2.
And I'll start the new version of the mod tomorrow. I'll also be writing the small guide we talked yesterday. I'll be sending you the daily progress, along with timestamps and other useful information, so that you can suggest some things I missed and check my progress and overall progress (like the levels, max AP got, Gil, hours played and relevant notes). Just keep in mind that I won't stop for training unless I'm completely hopeless before a boss, won't grind kills for limits, won't train for gil or anything like that. But I'll fight some enemies to steal armors. I also won't be using double AP equip, unless those weapons are the best available. This will almost be a speed run.
And I apologize in advance if this will sounds too harsh or unfair, but I feel like I have to explain myself and point where I'm coming from:
I understand the concept of not wanting to give players access to powerful stuff too easily. I really do. Its a way to make them appreciate what they have and learn to use it rather than just giving them the powerful stuff early on. I'm ok with that. But if getting the powerful stuff is delayed too much and involves a lot of busywork, they will just become boring. The way I see it: I can spend 5 hours running around collecting the items and fighting at the arena to get those things OR I can get to the Crater, fight some things, level to 99 (which by itself would take two hours at best), master all the materia I can, and after that those precious materia would stop being useful because my regular attack would hit for more damage (and thank god I already spent 5 hours running with Chocobos and trying to get my golden bird just to learn that I can't get Zeio nuts before god knows how many hours of grinding and fighting and therefore have enough GP for dozens of arena fights).
I like the Chocobo racing mini game. But after 15 years doing it, its kind of old... I know some people like to breed the birds and get their 176 MPH Speedy Gonzalez chocobo, but for me, its just busy work to get four materias, from which only one of them really matters to me: Quadramagic. HP/MP is utterly useless, KOTR is broken and Mime is either broken or useless. Even after breeding the giant chickens (which takes a couple of hours if you know what you're doing) having to fight bosses to get these materia? Meh... Its like I have to do some busy work, in order to do some more busy work, to finally get the materia. The three bosses were interesting, don't get me wrong. Except for the king squirrel thing that was pretty much unbeatable until I pumped the Str and dropped three lvl3 limit breaks on it, killing it before it could spam pearless like a meteor was coming or something.
As for the weapons, beating Emerald or Ruby to get Morph to get the Golden Chocobo? Sorry, but I don't want to spend 20 hours worth of grinding just to get Morph or the golden chicken so I can get an utterly broken materia which I'll have barely anyone to test it on...
The problem of changing exp and AP (both from battles and required to level materia) is that it leads to an unbalance in the gameplay. The same could happen if the enemies gave less exp, but then you could always level up, while the contrary can't be done. The advantage in playing a low level game (and I say this loosely) is that it makes you come up with effective strategies to overcome difficult enemies. If hitting bosses and regular enemies in the head is your most reliable solution, then something is not right and this is what's happening. Why do I need to come up with strategies and exploit status and elemental weaknesses on monsters and bosses if my lvl 65 Cloud could kill the bosses with regular attacks, before even getting the Highwind? After that it only became worse. If I'll hit 99 before even getting half of the game quests done, what will be the reward then? Something that no longer has any use? Its like crossing hell just to find a fire extinguisher.
Yeah, its fun to have an array of spells to cast. But its more practical to remove most of them, leaving Restore, Barrier, Time, Heal and Revive, allowing for more HP n order to whack things in the head with swords longer before healing. And if we don't use magic, the extra MP and Magic stat points added by the magic materia also become useless. We rather need Strength and HP. Some times it doesn't work so well, but if there's something I need at the moment, Enemy Skill is there for that: improvising.
Sure, magic works fine in the first disc, except for MP being more abundant than bananas in Ecuador - I just realized that I've just beaten the game without ever using one Ether and still having 6 Tents from the 20 I bought on disc 1... Disc 2 and 3 become a slash fest, just like a bad horror movie. Its just like the Scream movies...
The moral here is that while the mod has improved many aspects of the game, it is more unbalanced than the original, because the changed values of AP, exp and MP required to cast spells have created a counter-productive effect and thats a problem. I don't want to sound unfair or anything, but if those values were like they used to be in the original game, the mod would be more balanced. I'm not suggesting they should be like they were originally, but rather that the balance problem was something created when it didn't existed in the beginning, which, by all logic, points toward a posteriori problem.
I know that the intention behind this was making the players level faster and make magic more appealing. But ironically, those two objectives aren't possible at the same time, because after level 60 magic starts becoming less powerful compared to regular attacks. And this only gets worst as the damage formula for regular attacks