FF6 ROTDS 1.3.1 review

I haven't looked at the new Starmie or Proton fight, and my comments were not about those fights. I wouldn't be surprised if they were hit too hard with the nerfstick, because the Starmie fight wasn't too ridiculous before compared to the fights around it. I agree that getting closer to 1.0, although not quite at that difficulty would probably be about right here. And if I didn't comment on Sephiroth, it's probably because I'm not really disagreeing. He probably needs some more meat here. But like everything else, he should be edged up cautiously.

I took stable neither as "easy" nor as a compromise between the two versions. I took stable to mean part of a smooth difficulty curve compared to the rest of the game. And as it stands, it sounds like Zuriel's Tower is now somewhat below the rest of the WoR instead of *far* above it. I don't think it has nailed the sweet spot yet, but I think putting it near 1.0 would still be much too high.

I'd almost be interested in seeing how Nattak himself would play, if you gave him your save before Zuriel's Tower (presumably with everybody unequipped and everything), and he were to record/livestream (not sure if his livestreams have been working, but I have gotten e-mail notifications about him streaming from Twitch) himself attempting to beat the tower without grinding excessively or watching what you did (excluding AlphaOmega, skip him ). Obviously he doesn't have to take me up on that, it's just an idle thought.

The issue with Quicksilvers against 1.0 Zuriel is that the fight lasts maybe an hour. That's a lot of spread for maybe 6 Quicksilvers, assuming that you spent two on AlphaOmega and two elsewhere. It also doesn't help with the issue about needing Arc/Flammie. He does Nuke + Meteor back to back (spread across two turns though) at one point, and even if you are using Reraise, his Nuke hits everybody for 9999, killing them. Even the animation for the Reraise activating takes enough time for him to get another turn, meaning he will use a 9999 Meteor before you can even act, and your team is dead. Quicksilver does nothing to prevent this (admittedly, I'm not sure if that's what you were implying). I'm not sure how feasible it is to kill him before he does that, even with Quicksilvers.

Originally, Nattak billed the hack as "Harder than the original FF6, but not so hard that it makes you want to quit" (paraphrased). IIRC, *everybody* I heard from except myself and RaikouGilgamesh (who was level 99 and spent a lot of time on this) quit against 1.0 Zuriel. Having to quit against the final boss after playing through the game is painful for most players, and a huge turnoff. I think a better course of action is not to make the bosses befitting of DIFFICULTY HACK XTREME, but to turn away from that difficulty entirely and conform the hack better to the original vision listed above. The most important things (from my perspective) are that the difficulty curve is smooth from beginning to end (and the hack is closer now in 1.4, with the probable exception of the Starmie nerf), and that it's around the difficulty level appropriate for most of the dev team (Madsiur, James, Angelo and Nattak are the ones I'm thinking of most here). As you said yourself, it's about making the hack that they'd most want to play. While that does mean they shouldn't listen to every noob who comes along, as you said, it also means they shouldn't listen to every hardcore challenge seeker who wants a difficult game.

PS: I had no clue "ponderate" was an English word, but apparently it is.