WPs SFF Tweaks - Monster Mod

"Square Enix Ideas, Executed Better"

THIS MOD IS CURRENTLY UNFINISHED, BUGGED, AND NOT PLAYTESTED

NOT REALLY RECOMMENDED

How to Play:

Make sure you are using vortex for FF12 along with the LUA loader and external file loader extensions (documentation elsewhere).

Acquire SFF 1. 9. 1 from it's own nexus page. Make sure it is version 1. 9. 1, or you may run in to unintended behaviour.

Install SFF with vortex. Select the default struggle/freedom board option.

Install this mod with vortex, make sure this mod loads second.

You need to start a new game or many changes will not take effect.

The expectation is that players using this mod select the assigned job slots for their characters.

- Other board options, including challenge boards, are provided for fun, but not playtested.

This mod aims to provide a fun experience for players that are participating in hunts/side quests as the plot develops. Players fleeing a lot and only making a hasty beeline through the main storyline will find themselves under powered.

Introduction:

WP'S SFF Monster Mod has two main branches of interest:

This mod is a collection of tweaks and balance alterations to the excellent works of eternal248's "Struggle for freedom" (version 1. 9), as well as tweaks to FF12 in general.

The changes cover a wide range of areas from monsters, to abilities, status effects, steal rates, espers and more.

A guiding ambition of mine is to highlight the details and experiences in FF12 that are usually missed. FF12 was in many ways a victim of development crunch, meaning that a lot of really powerful and fun experiences were left overshadowed or weakly implemented such. In these situations I have a tweak that hopefully brings the detail forward and gives you a more complete, varied game.

The mod aims to always emphasise Square Enix's own features and design. While SFF has amazing aims to implement radically new (and exciting!) concepts like Blue Magick, Knuckles, and more, I want an experience that remains closer to Square Enix's original ideas while nonetheless also enjoying SFFs improved combat balance.

Another guiding ambition has been to eliminate RNG where possible. This means making inaccurate abilities more satisfying to cast/gambit and less RNG dependent, and this also means loot. This time, where SFF stays more true to Square Enixes original rates and only makes tweaks to prominent outliers (such as dustia farming), my mod goes the other way and changes many rates - making obscure loot easier to access/play with.

Immersion is a significant consideration for me. In this version of the game are several alterations to the UI aimed at shifting player focus and making Ivalice a more absorbing place to explore.

Finally, this mod rectifies some of the sloppy decisions made by Square Enix with the IZJS and Zodiac Age editions of the game, such as the whole Arcane magick tree now only having five spells. Several tweaks have been made to reinstate lost ideas that were present in the original Ps2 release and simply made more sense.

As the title suggests, this is a mod to improve the boss sequences in the game and make them more valuable experiences. My opinion is that SFF's stat boosting method does an amazing job at making all NON BOSS combat near perfect, but that the bosses themselves need a more personal touch/tune-up, which is where a consierable amount of my work is focused on.

Further to this, many changes have been made other regular enemies and special attention has gone to the rare game of Ivalice. It irritated me that square enix undermined their own content by implementing so many interesting enemies in the game that have, for example, only a 10% chance to spawn on a map that you may never return to. These are now more visible.

Players are expected to wipe a few times on story bosses now. And while they are meant to actually challenge you, this is NOT a hardcore difficulty mod. All bosses have an "achilles heel" that makes them easy to deal with, the fun is figuring that out. Over grinding is always an alternate solution.

New mechanics are present in many boss fights. These are generally are introduced when nothing fun was implemented by the studio. Square Enixes mechanics (if they exist) try to never be replaced - only emphasised.

If you find you are struggling, view the boss hint in the full changelog to find it's weakness/recommended strategy.

I want to emphasise that a massive amount of eternal248's work remains exactly the same in this mod. He deserves 99% of all the credit for any positive experiences you may have.

I advise people to read up on SFF documentation and changes as they are not covered here.

Recommended other mods:

My Sound mod - It removes the generic cast sou