Main feature or not, I do not think that it is fine to keep the ability to negate all "magic-oriented" elements, not without some serious consequences for doing so. Thematically, it seems to go against the initial philosophy of not making the endgame about physical attacks, and flavor-wise, it's just awful. If your super flying fire boss can't be super firey because Fire Rings are farmable, and can't use Wind either because Elemental-Wind exists, what else are you gonna do? Give ice spells to the fire boss? Give the boss more physical-element spells(??), so he has a chance to outrun the healing caused by his own attacks? You should not go into a boss praying for him to cast his more unique moves, but fearing his bites.
It takes a lot of time to get "absorb" with Elemental Materia as it needs Level 3 to give that, this is not easy and requires a lot of grinding if you are not having access to the farming crater and/or triple AP Stuff. Added Effect for Example is A LOT stronger, it blocks the respective status changes on level 1 completly. Also if you wanna force the player to use only magic, block all physical attacks as weapons themself use "cut", "hit" and "shoot" as element which is... in would also just change the technique the player would use. If you want an immortal boss edit his AI Script and add Physical and Magical Imunity to it or attack him only with Skills he absorbs.
"Quarters" won't be possible without changing the whole Engine of the game, as it has only access to 4 states those are "normal, half, nullify, negate" for elemental Damage Types. As for Effects counts "Block or not".
There are not many enemies that use fire attacks lateron most use demi, earth, holy and hidden and everything except the extremly good stuff (except Masamune) is farmable.
Preparing for a bossfight is also part of a game like this. So yes i would farm Fire Rings to stay alive. Take the vanilla, you get aurora ring shortly before you fight the fire/ice dragon on gaes cliff... it helps you staying alive... the final-attack of each head is still damn strong and neutral. So don't kill both at the same time or you have to start over... and over again...
The bosses here are almost equal to that, you get some useful stuff right before them, but nevertheless they are still damn strong during story play and at the beginning of the sidequests (especially the solofight-bosses!).
I do not think that it is fine to keep the ability to negate all "magic-oriented" elements, not without some serious consequences for doing so.
You can't negate all at once. And the big consequence you are talking about is already there. You need 8 Materia slots to block 4 Elements, which prevents you from using other Materia. Also the equipment with 8 Slots is late game stuff and it has low physical defense and for example Nemesis hits really hard with his Armageddon. It can wipe out the whole party if no barrier is active.
It's just silly. Elemental negation should either be the product of a unique item, or coming at some sort of price. Just look at the Relic Ring: absorbs hidden, but absorbs restorative; grants +20 Str/Mag, but is unique for... a good portion of the game. You actually need a bit of an elaborate setup to use it right, and you can't do it on your whole party.
And yes the price for Elemental Materia is just "Time", it eats a lot of it as the fights early on are hard, even with Death-Added Effect. This absorbtion is only late game stuff.
All three Bahamut materias (not the attacks themselves) also don't mention their DeBarrier/Dual/Dispel effect.
They don't have the "Effect" at moment, that's why i mentioned it to add it, the Bahamuts themself display it at the help message.
Do you know how the Materia/Skill/Elemental stuff even works? Everything has 3 Parts: Materia itself posses an Element, the Skill the Materia unlocks could have a completly different Element (see Kjata or Typhoon), even so Materia can have an Effect like Hades does. If Kjata Materia would have all 4 Elements it uses in his Skill (Fire, Ice, Earth and Lightning) you could already block 50% of the visible Elements, or expect KotR with Elemental Feature... it "should" allow access to 10 Elements as the Skill(animation) uses 13 different Attacks, physical and magical punching, cutting. But every attack you see is the same skill. Or better gets calculated as the same skill.
The Restorative Block of the Cursed Ring blocks Revive from Phoenix Down and Life-Skill himself, but not from Phoenix or Life2 (you revive with 50% health and without the curse, still no life reg from cure/potions,
BUT regen works as Dual from the cursed ring is off too regen is blocked by the ring itself, so just 50% life). Also Life2 is a lot earlier available than absorbing stuff.
@Sega Chief if you really remove the negate/nullify ability of elemental materia, you should make sure to cover all elements with items that can replace it. And not only 3 or 4 Elements like you do now. I know you wanna avoid something like this "Flash"-Recovery and that's good, but removing a part of the freedom this game gives to the Player isn't the best idea. Materia is the main feature and the more you progress, the stronger it gets, no matter if physical, magical or supportive to stay alive. If you wanna avoid it, remove "Flash" from the game, most ppl don't use it anyway, "Multihits are the key to Victory".
I for myself, prefer defensive materia builds that help me surviving, glasscannon's can be great too, but this mod builds on long fights... so... no.
Also i think some items should only be available VERY late like those triple AP weapons, in vanilla there are only 3 if i remember right, Apocalypse with just 3 Slots and the two others had just two slots. Having strong materia early on (like Destruct with his Death-Effect, i already mentioned) is challenge-breaking, not the late use of strong materia combinations.
Edit:
FF7 has 17 Elements one is really "hidden", let's just call it neutral Element, as it can only be used if the elemental flag of the given skill is "00", it can never be absorbed or anything. It counts as physical or magical (depending on the formular used) this Element is perfectly for skills that should never be blocked. I tested it on a fight against Bizzarro with an "extremly" overpowered
Cat's Bell.
He still killed me with 1 Attack, because this attack had the neutral Elemental association. No matter how the animation looks.
The only way to protect yourself from this element are your stats, barriers, shield, peerless or physical/magical evasion.
And a lot of attacks/skills Sega Chief created have the "neutral element" or no elemental association. Almost ALL attacks from Nemesis for example... only White Wind uses Restoration. Therefor you can't absorb anything on Nemesis, instead Armageddon can be evaded, but needs a damn high evasion rate as it has 150 points on the hitrate flag.
Screen
Visual Bug or missing Feature: Correct the "Restore Type" Flag for all self-made cure-pots: Maiden's Grace, Soft, Cornucopia that this Box with the Status Effects shows up.
Take care.
