Insane Difficulty: Monster upgrades and movement balancing - Insane Difficulty

1. Next update will include a mid-tier monster class for several monster types. This will replace the 3rd monster of most classes, and become available in ch 3 or 4, with a few exceptions. These mid-tier monsters have the same innates as their lower counterparts, but expanded movesets. Why? Well it solves the following balance problems in the mod:

a. As it currently is, many things you get right in ch 1 or 2 outclass what is available late game overall. This is a worse problem than late game stuff outclassing early game stuff, since it discourages experimentation and encourages people to stick with what worked before.

b. Universal use skills are hard to balance with limited use skills when a character can only have 4 skills including its physical attack. What I mean by this, is a skill like Revive is going to be useful in 100% of battles, while a skill like Silence is only going to be useful against enemies who are vulnerable to it and worth the action to silence. Due to the nature of the game, these oddball status effects are quite good in several battles. However, a monster whose 3 skills are Revive, Chakra, Remedy is going to be useful in far more situations than the one who can Aqua Rake, Frog, Foxbird. It's a lot easier to balance skills with limited use when I can give some things up to 16 skills, and others 6, for example.

c. Several skills are even mostly redundant with themselves. Mega Fire and Mega Ice are only different from each other due to hitting different elemental weaknesses/absorbs, but have the same flags, formula, etc. Vs. a neutral target with no weaknesses or resistances, these skills are exactly the same.

d. More options will simply make the game more interesting and fun as a whole. This change will stretch globally, so both players and ai will have these upgraded monsters. Lower tier monsters will still be viable party members in the early game, and still annoying AI units even in late game. It'll be more interesting to write/play optional battles, as well.

I have the skillsets for these monsters made. Just need names for skillsets for the following: Chocobo, Goblin, Bomb, Panther, Squid, Ghost, Plague, Bird, Sacred, Morbol, Behemoth, Tiamat.

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2. Movement is a curious balance problem. Right now, human movement far outclasses all monsters except Ghosts, due to access to a 4 move class + shoes + your choice of Teleport/Move+2. Most monsters right now only have 4 move + a move ability, while humans get up to 7 or 5 with teleport. I like the presence of Move+2 in the game, because it gives something to compete with Teleport, which would otherwise be the only movement ability worth getting on a human. Right now my options for balancing this:

a. Buff all monsters/bosses, keep all humans same. This will lead to playable monsters at move 4-7, which balances better with the current human average setup of 5 move.

b. Lower all human move. Might be preferred to make some maps more of an obstacle, but 2 base move in some classes is too crap for the game imo.

c. Remove human access to Teleport and Move +2. This option is a bit boring imo, and could turn them nearly useless on maps like Zalmo 2 or several of the Deep Dungeon maps, where most players would use flying/teleporting monsters due to the nature of the maps and mobility there is key.

Teaser screenshots:



This is what an upgraded monster's class looks like under the act screen. They get a standard attack command, as you can tell, along with an actual list of skills. A second skillset can be given if I desire, and that'll show up under the first one if given. Since they are still monsters, the only skills they learn are what is given to them in these sets. AI fully recognizes/uses these sets properly (with normal AI tendencies of course).



This is what it looks like in formation screen (also if you find one in battle, whether on enemy or player side). Doesn't list out the skills like the standard monster screens, just gives a skillset name and their primary reaction ability.

Issues:

Right now this seems to be incompatible with the roster hack, so back to 16 units. Also, if you use an old save that has one of the monster classes I revamped for these purposes, "fun" happens. Mostly just a completely random secondary skillset appearing on them, which includes those of bosses, and stuff that certain monsters should have in no way access to (like Zodiac on Plagues). Old saves from ch 1 are completely unaffected, it's only after Boco's recruitment.