1. Quality of life change #1 - Guests are now controllable. Who out there actually liked watching Algus attempt to shoot Bombs with a 15% chance of hitting? Or Delita directly attacking a Goblin and getting Meatbone Slashed twice in the face? Not you, you say? While stupid guest AI helps emphasize to new players that AI doesn't check reaction abilities, and more importantly, doesn't think; now you have no one to blame but yourself if you fail a battle. This change stretches to random battles, so now it's easier to recruit a new unit because you can move it to safety and it's not triggering something's Speed Save for a 15 damage Throw Stone...
2. Quality of life change #2 - Weapon formulas are now listed in weapon tooltips. Because these weren't immediately apparent to everyone, and I've changed several. Most are PA*WP. A tooltips of a more complex formula looks like this:
3. Balance change #1 - Monsters and bosses all have +1 move from previous versions. This is to bring them more in line with human movement options.
4. Balance change #2 - Human C-Ev is now 5% for every class, except Mime which can't equip anything. Monsters and bosses now have significantly buffed evade (between 20-50% for most classes), with more magically defensive and innate reflect monsters at lower evade for the most part. Bosses which are an upgraded version of a regular monster (like Holy Tiamats and Beholders) have the evade of the other monsters of the class, while other bosses get something that seems appropriate. Higher evade in general brings more importance to abilities/innates like Concentrate, unevadable attacks, status effects; and to positioning.
5. Balance change #3 - Improved equipment options. All humans can now equip, regardless of class: Dagger, Shield, Bag, Ribbon, all Accessories. The addition of the shield to all classes is partly to make up for the evasion hit humans received, and partly to bring a more significant tradeoff to the use of offensive abilities/equipment. In addition to this, several additional item options, which are now in tooltips of the class like this:
4. Balance change #4 - The best movement abilities (Move +2, Teleport, Flee) were moved deeper into the job tree (to Samurai, Summoner, Bard/Dancer respectively). Several abilities that are decent, but not as good as these (such as Fly, Ignore Height, Move MP UP) were moved sooner in the job tree. This is to encourage use of other stuff earlier in the game.
5. The change you've all been waiting for - upgraded monsters! The third tier of most monster types has been revamped to provide a monster with an actual skillset. Boco is the first one of these available, then Mustadio, the rest are in ch 3 and 4. Recruit locations have been swapped a bit to make up for this change. Details in a later post.
6. Malak is now a Tiamat instead of Hyudra, due to the upgraded monster change. Rafa and Malak now both have the Elemental command, in addition to their upgraded stuff.