Hey gjoerulv, sounds like you have really made something special. My main reason for the long post is, I want you to read it and think about what I have said compared to the changes you have made and haven't made in your mod. I am hoping my opinion and suggestions could help inspire you to make your awesome mod even better. Everything I say here is my opinion and suggestions for vanilla ff7, it's to give you things to think about, on whether or not your mod is different enough in certain respects. Obviously I respect all your decisions and I know your mod is mainly made for you and your enjoyment BUT I wanted to share my thoughts and hopefully help you to make your mod even better, I don't expect you to listen to everything I have to say, just think about it and compare what I have said about vanilla ff7 to how your mod is in it's current form.
I'd also like to hear what ARMS/SD666 has to say about my comments.
One huge thing that made ff7 much less enjoyable than it could have been was the incredible lack of difficulty in 90+ percent of the game. I know in your mod you have increased difficulty quite a bit (especially in version 2) so that's great!
Some problems in vanilla ff7 I think were:
-Many of the players attacks were overpowered, all magic attacks were overpowered for the majority of the game. Some level 3 limit breaks and most level 4 limit breaks were overpowered. KOTR is obviously just ridiculously overpowered. All death,death sentence, etc type attacks should be removed because they are cheap. The game was already too easy even without barrier, mbarrier, wall, big guard, haste, white wind, angel whisper, pretty much all summons and most offensive attack magic. So I hope things are more balanced in your mod.
- Most enemies were a joke even if you played a no materia game, just use attack and limit breaks and have some xpotions and your set. A few bosses and enemies that I think really needed a buff are, diamond weapon, Guard Scorpion, Aps, reno/rude in gongaga, palmer, reno and rude in the gelninka but they are glitched I think, rude when your at rocket town, proud clod, jenova synthesis, dark dragon in north crater, movers, ALL wolf/dog type enemies, doorbull, king behemoth, grangalan, pretty much ALL shinra soldiers including the ones with guns with one exception 1rst class soldiers, manhole, Thats all I can think of that were extremely underpowered... although I do almost every enemy in the game should be buffed.
- Magic pots and movers. I think they should be removed or drastically changed. I hate how these monsters work. No challenge what soever, you just give the pots an elixer and the movers you just attack once and boom! Instant tons of xp and ap. I personally think you have have a tough challenge almost like a boss fight for such high rewards.
Some ideas I have to make ff7 better:
-Iron man. What would you think about putting these guys somewhere else in the game as well? I love these guys, I think they should be buffed a bit and then added to another area of north crater that you can turn back from, because right now these guys are right before Jenova and you can't go back after fighting any of them... no fun in that.
-One big thing that I really have no idea about, if you, gjoerulv changed in your mod or if any other modders like saintdragon666 have done but would really like to see is bigger stat changes when you equip materia. Maybe triple all the positive AND negative stat changes on materia like for example most basic green materia takes away some strength but adds some mdefense and magic, maybe increase those values and IF POSSIBLE change all materia that affects mdefense to make it change spirit instead, because as we all know magic defense does nothing.
- Is it possible to add items or chests on the ground? I think it would be neat to add lots of little secrets like how in ff5 or 6 i forget which maybe even both had elixers hidden in clocks. Maybe you could add a few items or weapons or whatever is various places in the game. For example there are a few unused completely useless spots where there is nothing to do like in bugenhagens home, you can climb up to the top and run around, even go hide behind the big metal dome thingy, you could add an item or two up there.
- Make armor have a bit more variety. Maybe change a few more armors to have more special things about them, rather than ONLY changing one thing like it has double ap growth, maybe make it so it has double ap growth but minus 10% hp, or triple ap growth but minus 90% experience, etc. I think it would be a great idea to change many armors and accessories and weapons so that some of their positive affects might be higher but they also have a negative attribute to them, like the curse ring! I think it would be awesome if their was a little more end game equipment that was all about equal that way not every single character has the same armor or accessory. I think it would make the game much more interesting, all about choices and options, do I want to wear this sword that has plus 89 attack and minus 30 vitality? Or do I want to wear the sword with 60 attack and minus 10 to spirit?, or just a plain old sword with plus 55 to attack but no negative modifiers? You could also make more character class specific items, some are caster specific, some are warrior specific, some are for a jack of all trades character, I'm sure ya know what I mean. If you can't create new items then modify existing ones.
-In your version 2.0 could you make it so that some of the other patches out there are already installed into your mod? Like the ones that get rid of those blocky hands, give better resolution, smoother textures, better character models etc. That kinda thing. I'm sure the people who made those patches would let you if you asked.
- What would you think about weakening multi hit limit breaks like meteorain,omnislash,highwind etc. They are so powerful that unless you have 4 times cut command materia your normal attack is so damn weak (compared to your limit break) that you might as well just not even bother attacking, just wait until your limit gauge is filled up and use a limit.
My problem is that for example omnislash does 15 hits of 9999 if your strength is high, thats about 150000, thats like 15 freaken turns worth of normal attacks if you dont have double or quad cut. I think that no limit break should do more than 10 times the damage of the normal attack, its just too unbalanced. I think that if your normal attack does 9999 then omnislash should only do about 100000 rather than the 150000 it does now. that way if you have quad cut and are doing 40000 dmg a turn with it then omnislash is about 2.5 times more powerful than that... which sounds about right in my opinion. in vanilla ff7 it does around 4 times that much, rather than 2.5 like i suggested. also meteorain could be nerfed slightly as well. now everything might be quite a bit different in your mod compared to vanilla, especially with that patch that lets you hit over 9999 but I wanted to give you something to think about.