Another point of feedback I'd like to give is regarding weapon choice and character niches.
One of my favourite aspects of New Threat is the overall feel of characters compared to vanilla, the balancing of stats and ranking up with individual traits and the plethora of build options you have through weapon/acc/armor choices really distinguishes each character from the other, which is my favourite thing about NT.
However, regarding the weapons, I feel there is some, perhaps? missed opportunities. Some of the weapons truly created a unique niche for the character that really made them that much more enjoyable for me.
For example; I've been using Cid as a frontline fighter, and I really like his survivability compared to tifa, and the more I played with him, the more I started to see him as a "quasi-tank" in my party, but due to the fact that he couldn't back row without massive damage penalty, and just took too much damage overall, I opted to use barret as a pure tank, and since how I've built my party, Yuffie had much better synergy with Barrett than Cid, so I dropped Cid
But then, I get to the north crater, and all of a sudden I get a long range weapon for Cid! A significant drop in damage (as it should be) but now I can comfortably use Cid as a tank along with Yuffie (my favourite party). The super high luck combined with really great damage and a long-range weapon makes him a completely different tank than barret and I've been enjoying it so much.
So, I feel this is a missed opportunity, it's a very viable, awesomely unique niche for Cid.... but it's only available from the last dungeon on. I'd really like to see it become available closer to the start of when you get him, so you can use that build throughout, a big drop off in weapon attack for long-range capability, just like the grow lance.
If I had of known that I would get that sort of option, I would have built Cid more Tank orientated (surprisingly he's awesome at it regardless).
And while this one may be pushing it a bit, when I started the game before I had used any ranks, Red XIIIs magic damage became a complete stand out due to his trait powering up in longer fights, and when I came up against Lambadas, he was a game changer. But I wasn't sure on how I'd build him yet, so I held off using the ranks. When I got to nibelheim dungeon and discovered the Plus Barrette (0 attack 104%, drains MP) I decided then and there that would be his niche in my party, and that would essentially be his end game weapon.
I wanted to use him as +10 mag +10 dex, but that option was removed on my version of the game, and instead, there was +10 mag +10 vit, so I tried that and set him up with sadness/backrow/counter/cover. And the build has been sooo much fun, he's been an infinite MP, super high magic damage, tank, throughout the game.
Although this weapon in itself was enough, and it's good enough for the final build, I would have liked to see an "End Game Version" of this weapon. Something like linked slots instead of single slots, drain MP with something like +20 magic?. Like I said, thats pushing it, but this build has made him so unique, and so, so useful throughout the game. And I feel, it would work even better with +10 mag/dex build (which I plan to use next time, as it was reimplemented).
The next point about weapons isn't as big a deal, as those examples really made characters very unique through traits you can't achieve through stats, and the next point is purely about stats, so really not as big an effect. But anyways, throughout the game I would notice weapons that would compliment particular styles/builds, like cloud getting dex weapons and a crit weapon, and barret getting a few dex weapons. But for both characters, there is no later game equivalent for them. I've noticed this trend throughout the characters, and while I feel like it's not the biggest deal, at the same time, I feel like, well what if I really liked that +50 crit weapon for Cloud, and wanted to have that build for his end game? And with barret if I built him as a frontline fighter, a melee weapon that better represented that builds intent (+dex) would be much better suited than the options that are currently available. It just feels a bit inconsistent to me. Again, that point is minor, but I do feel it could open up build variations a lot more and increase the enjoyability of the game.
The last point would mostly be reiterating, but since certain niches when combined with certain weapons really define a playstyle, I'd really like to see more of that.
For example Barret + front row stacks, built for damage, wearing a chainsaw (+20 dex) this really stands out and feels great while it's relevant
Red Xiii built for magic damage + back row/sadness drain MP weapon = really cool infinite MP decent tank/damage dealer, or super fast, infinite MP caster
Yuffie built for anything, with her super high dex and dex weapon and awesome trait make her feel so unique and fun, she just works so, so well.
I don't have ideas Per se, just wanted to share that these were some really, really fun things I found in NT, and would definitely like to see more of them, or see them viable at more than one point of the game.
Sorry for the essay.
