Loving the mod so far. Most of my experience with this game is through the vanilla version back in the day. I'm trying the Lionheart version and I just finished the Prison slog. Most of my characters are in the low 20s with Bio, Demi, Berserk, Regen, Drain, etc. Someone even has a full stack of Death because I was able to card some of those Thrust-whatever flying enemies into Abadon cards of all things! Rinoa is killin' it with her 120 Magic stat.
Only two fights have given me difficulty so far: Diabolos and the mechs/elite guards at the prison. I decided to switch to easy mode for both of these, as I don't really have the time or patience to grind or try to develop the perfect strategy with the perfect RNG. I wanted Diabolos before Deling City (when esunas become readily available) so I could get a head start on grinding its abilities. Both fights were obviously a pushover on easy mode.
I was stupidly using max speed up until Deling City. It could be why Diabolos gave me so much trouble on Lionheart mode. Once I turned it down to normal speed, the game because a lot more manageable.
The only fight I really hate so far is that prison boss. It's just plain unfair, man, especially after that slog of a dungeon. I must've tried it 6 times. I even tried using status ailments but nothing would land (combat RNG in traditional RPGs is a huge pet peeve of mine, silly Squaresoft). Plus FF8's targeting and clunky buff management are enough to make me lose interest in extreme difficulty. I saw Ayoyo's strat, but I didn't have Quistis available, nor did I want to spend time grinding Cover. I really feel that fight needs to be nerfed or relegated to an optional boss. At the very least there should only be one Elite Guard. Sure, it can still toss Aura Stones and Meltdowns, but I shouldn't have to restart just because the enemy got lucky with their first turn. I'm really curious if anyone else was able to beat that fight aside from that one player.
Aside from those two fights, the balancing has been absolutely spot on. The magic progression is great as well - you just might want to take a look at that Abadon card situation, as I feel Death is a bit too strong for the end of Disk 1. Not game-breaking in any way, but yeah.
My only major pet peeve with the overall balancing is that physical attacks feel a little weak, even with elemental attack junctions. My go-to party is absolutely going to be squall and 2 of the girls. Squall's physical attacks are passable because he gets the trigger damage and 255 percent hit, but Zell and Irvine leave much to be desired. I think Elemental Attack should be enhanced a bit - perhaps tier-1 spells grant a 60 percent elemental buff, tier 2 80 percent, and tier 3 100 percent.
I really like the pseudo-exploit at the Galbadian Hotel. It feels like cheating to spam the souvenirs, but in reality, it's not THAT broken. I was able to farm about a half dozen Mega Potions there (as well as a few extra goodies that I decided not to sell). I used two of those Mega Potions on the Edea fight (to answer her two Malestroms) and one on the missile base fight.
I've never modded something before, so I'm not sure if these can be done, but here are some QoL suggestions:
A really nice QoL change would be to have the moombas lower the barriers on all floors after rescuing Squall. I'd also recommend moving the last save point in the Prison to the next screen - it kinda sucks having to walk through two screens of encounters to replay the boss.
I think it would be cool to make the Adamantoise enemies vulnerable to Zombie so that you can counter their White Wind.
I feel that Water should be available at the end of Disk 1 - perhaps in the Sewers somewhere. By the time I had easy access to Water (e.g. the Chimaera enemies in the prison). it wasn't even worth using as a junction spell.
I agree that Doubles should remain hard to find through the first third of the game. No complaints here. I only found a couple draw points, though I was able to mod a Grendel item to get a few more.
I'm a little hit and miss on some of the GF commands so far. The aoe damage/healing moves feel a bit too weak and should probably be stat-based. Ifrit's damage reflect ability is amazing and I used that a lot.
More later
