FFXII - Horizontal Progression Overhaul

By default FFXII's progression is very linear, equipment gets obsolete quick, my intent with this mod is to "flatten" this curve and make every equipment unique and situational, therefore useful for longer. The same can be said for the difficulty, early areas are extremely easy even when you're passing trough them in the story, I raised the "number floor" to make the difference between early and end game smaller.

Overall, expect the game to be harder, but not too much, this game has a LOT of options to deal with fights and I want players to explore them, build a good tank, a good healer, be it a mage or an item user, make good use of buffs and debuffs, position the DPSs well, and so on. The most satisfying feeling for me in RPGs is noticing the difficulty in order to have something to work towards, having your ass kicked in a battle and adjusting your strategy/build just to see that the battle can be a breeze if properly fought, I had this in mind throughout the whole process. Second thing I love in games is horizontal progression, instead of getting a new weapon and it being an objective upgrade, I like to build an arsenal full of options, that doesn't mean a Shortsword is as powerful as a Tournesol, but now they're not SO far apart.

Can you kill Yiazmat with a shortsword? Yes. But it will take 5x the time it would with a Yagyu Darkblade.

The main linear progression now is your stats gained trough levelling and your armor.

Spells, weapons and shields are really diverse and useful in any point in the game, they get sliiighty better stats as you progress but overall each one is different, if a sword base attack is high, it will probably lack something, be it speed, combo chance, block, etc. If a weapon has an element, base damage will be lower than normal, if a spell is single target, it will be more powerful than it's multi target counterpart and so on. All of this is made better with the new custom descriptions to equipment, spells and augments, you no longer have to rely on the game's wiki to find out what exactly something does.

Here's a spreadsheet with every weapon's new stats and some other numeric changes.

Specific changes below:

Enemies

• []HP and damage increased across the board, but specially in the early game, the goal is to make the difference between early and late game areas smaller, thus, making them relevant for longer.

  []Bigger and more distinct enemies in certain areas were greatly buffed with their LP and EXP rewards proportionally increased.

  []Most bosses and hunts died way too quickly, I've adjusted them to last longer and be a bit more challenging, the goal is to create more memorable and interesting battles across the game.

  []Now, enemies won't ignore your evade and block chance anymore. This pairs well with the fact that most foes in the mod hit harder, my intent is for the player to build a good tank and not rely on the ol' decoy+reverse tactic, the Decoy spell is found earlier in Giza and Rabanastre and lasts for 4 minutes or more depending on the tank's Vitality stat.

  []Some difficult to drop or steal items were made to be easier to obtain, generally they were moved from "rare" to "uncommon" on the files, some examples are "Durandal", "Shikari Nagasa", "Scorpion Tail", etc.

  []Strength and Magick Power gained throughout the game was lowered to keep characters from having 99 points without even properly equipping themselves, Vitality and Speed however had the opposite treatment, starting higher and increasing faster to to keep them proportional to STR and MGK.

  []Enemies no longer have the "anti-libra augment, you can now see bosses or hunt target's stats to plan the fight accordingly.

  []The max defense and magick defense an enemy can have now is around 40, this helps keep some weapons from dealing 0 damage to end game enemies.

  []Overall 50% increased XP for kills.

  []Here's a spreadsheet I've done just to keep track of each area's base level of difficulty while balancing the enemies, they're not in any particular order or very well organized but can be useful for having a look at the new enemy stats.

  Equipment

  Weapons

  [*]The weapons are the stars of the mod in my eyes, it's the reason I started this project, with it you won't have weapons becoming obsolete at each shop, the difference between the "Masamune" an a "Kotetsu" is no longer astronomical for example, each one has unique stats and gives the player more freedom to m