Hey there, Everstill! First, welcome to FFH. I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the KO experience, and I'm always accepting feedback. Heavens knows I couldn't do KO all alone and my ideas aren't always perfect, so continued feedback from the community is a crucial part to the constant improvement of KO to make it a more enjoyable experience.
I'll address your feedback point by point in the hopes of providing some clarity for why certain decisions were made and what lies ahead in the future. Before doing so, however, I'd like to note that KO's goal was to rebalance Vanilla while keeping it still feeling like Vanilla. This means that although I -could- be far more creative with certain aspects of the patch, doing so would violate that one fundamental rule that it's based on. Please bear that in mind as I continue to address everything.
-In regards to ambition in changing skills, as noted above, many things simply weren't changed because doing so would remove the Vanilla vibe. I'll go into further detail on the specifics as you bring them up in your post, but very few skills were changed in such a manner that they wouldn't feel like their Vanilla counterparts. Most skills that were changed were done so in a way that they're rebalanced, but are otherwise kept intact. Ultimately, this isn't a patch that strives for ambition, necessarily, but rather, rebalance and fixes.
-Due to the incredibly complex nature of FFT's skill and job system, having each job be completely balanced is an ongoing endeavor. It's one that, frankly, I don't think will ever fully be complete. Can you provide some examples of what jobs you find unbalanced, specifically? Most jobs have some niche that can be filled and used effectively throughout the game.
-Equipment in story battles is fixed, correct. This was done so that players who accidentally overlevel wouldn't have to worry about being stuck on story fights where enemies would have equipment that far outpaces their own. Random battle gear levels with the player. Could it be abused? Certainly. If you want to grind to level 99 to steal the best gear from enemies and that makes you happy, so be it. Being completely honest, there are so many ways to break FFT that it's like using bubble gum to plug a dam trying to get them all. At the end of the day, I care about KO being fun and having the players be able to choose how they want to play, so if you like to grind and steal enemy gear, have at it!
-Random battles are designed to be a way to easily train while picking up monsters of various types to join your family. This is why certain monster types were added, such as Treants to Sweegy- I want the player to have the option of being able to recruit decent monsters early on to augment their party or participate in a Beastmaster run. In fact, most of the 2.6 update was intended to make monsters more viable party members while keeping them true to their Vanilla selves. Also, it makes the random battles more fun when you see different enemy types than Vanilla.
-Stat growth for many jobs have been changed. If you want a full list of job growths, I would advise opening the game in the Patcher, but more or less the stat growths still feel like Vanilla, albeit rebalanced. Stat growth is going to be the focus of the next update, so there'll likely be more discussion in the future about that.
-Many genders were changed in story fights simply because they previously weren't optimal and it made story fights slightly easier than necessary. I, personally, don't feel diversity is an issue even with this change, since you see so many different jobs throughout the game than Vanilla (as you'll see yourself as you progress) that gender isn't a huge deal.
-Wiegraf's all-female party was untouched, as you can see for yourself. As for the Monk leaving the party, it's not anything I'm going to lose sleep over. Maybe she changed jobs before the fight. Maybe she left to Ft. Zeakden. I'm sure there's a fanfic that can be written about this minor detail. In all seriousness though, you have to be careful how many jobs the enemy team has. If you have too many differing sprites on the field at once, it causes graphical bugs.
-Ovelia having Teleport is a lucky coincidence. It's in her skillset, but it's up to the RNG as to whether it'll actually pull it or not. Usually the AI will use Move-MP Up instead.
-Immortal status is something that's also on the rehaul list for 2.7. Ultimately, I agree. I love when buffs and debuffs are useful in fights, and I think what's going to eventually happen is that I'm going to make fights tougher (including bosses), and make Immortal status not guard against everything, and make certain bosses vulnerable to certain debuffs but be tougher as a tradeoff. By the way, learn to live and love buffing and debuffing in KO. Especially in later fights.
-Guests are... a tricky matter for me. I'm in agreement that Guests are a pain, particularly in Chapter I and early Chapter II. That being said, I haven't done a lot of research on that hack and wouldn't feel comfortable using it unless I was entirely sold on it. I honestly don't have a solution for them at the moment, and it's never been an urgent thing for me to think about despite the annoyance.
-Bear in mind that you can only have a limited amount of sprites and type of sprites on screen at once. If you make it so the fights have an added character, certain battles will break without changing up the enemy party to be less diverse. It's how Zirekile gets away with so many types on screen at once- the entire enemy army (except Gaffy) are Knights. As far as Algus not having a weapon, there's an article I'd like you to read that also applies to Ovelia's Teleport:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameplayAndStorySegregation-Panthers will keep Caution, namely because Evasion is their thing. I agree that the sprite glitch is ugly, but it's only for a few frames and ultimately doesn't affect gameplay. I made it so that each monster family has their own Reaction. Chocobos already have Counter, so giving Panthers Counter as well would drive my OCD crazy, heh. Likewise, Juravises are meant to be fast, which is why their skills are all about altering Speed. They're frail, but they can easily outspeed you if given the chance. Think of them as rogue-like monsters. As far as Arrow Guard goes... I'm not sure how I feel about changing it to Projectile Guard. It's definitely been in the cards though, so that may be another change later on. Giving Blade Grasp to Ghosts would make them the superior version of Panthers. They'd become very evasive, but immortal thanks to Undead.
-Allow me to take a moment to explain monster abilities in greater detail. The reasons that monsters were given existing skills are twofold. First, creating completely new abilities takes up a lot of ability slots that were better used for other things, such as Ramza's updated Squire skills. Second, again, KO is all about feeling like Vanilla. That means creating as few new abilities as possible. In fact, I believe the only totally new skills in KO are the Oracle's Unction (Add: Oil) and Beowulf's Oil Spellblade, because Oil was fixed and was previously a very rare status. The skills that I gave monsters were to fit their themes that wouldn't feel obstructive or out of place. Also, there are many other FF games where monsters could use skills like Haste. Gobbledegucks and Pisco Demons were given Innate: Monster Skill to synergize with other monsters. Namely, the decision was made as such for people who wanted to use all Monsters on their teams. Chocobos were given AoE Choco Esuna as the sole source of AoE revival in KO, to give them a unique niche. Choco Cure is only single target because otherwise it becomes too annoying to deal with as an enemy early-game and outperforms White Magic too much.
-In regards to skillsets, first let me say that giving Wish to Squires as a generic skill will never happen. It's a huge pet peeve of mine. Thematically, it makes no damn sense. It's a skill given specifically to Ramza/Delita/Teta as a sign of their bonds with each other. It'd be like making a FFVII mod and making Holy a spell accessible to the party as a normal battle skill. It's dumb. Squire skills aren't meant to be good- they're meant to tide you over at the very beginning of the game. That being said, Heal is great, and cures the debuffs that Stigma Magic can't. Gained JP Up remains, because you should still have to work to earn the better skills in the game, and Gained JP Up helps with that at the cost of another passive. That being said, Propositions help tremendously if you don't enjoy battling to get JP.
-Thief is definitely a job that isn't inherently great, aside from their skillset. It's always kinda been their lot in life. That said, they'll likely get some stat changes in the next update and perhaps access to some new weapons. Their actual skills aren't changing. A Poison Bomb skill would be too different from what they had in Vanilla and would defy the purpose of the patch. (Are you noticing a trend yet?)
-Revive is great as part of the Martial Arts skillset as a whole. Consider this: Martial Arts has AoE (Spin Fist/Earth Slash), ranged attack (Wave Fist), instant death (Secret Fist), HP/MP healing (Chakra), debuff clearing (Stigma Magic), and revival (Revive). That's huge. There's no reason for every aspect of Martial Arts to be amazing. It can revive (fairly accurately, at that- it's based on PA so if it has low accuracy, it's because your PA is low) and do so much more. It's part of a great skillset, and that's the boon in it right there.
-Raise is actually -more- accurate than it was in Vanilla. It may be bad compatibility or low Faith causing you trouble on your end. Same thing in regards to Cure magic. It's actually slightly better now.
-Protect/Shell are far more accurate even at level 1 now than they were in Vanilla. The level 2 versions are mostly meant for if you're already engaging the enemy. They won't target enemies and have a larger AoE.
-As with all of my patches (it's kind of become a trademark at this point, heh), Fire/Ice/Bolt are all different from each other. The differences aren't as obvious early on, but become more pronounced as the game goes on. Fire magic has more AoE than Ice/Bolt, Ice magic has more raw power than Fire/Bolt, and Bolt magic is faster than Fire/Ice. Which spell is best depends on the given situation. Giving them elements other than Fire/Ice/Thunder would just make them too different from their Vanilla job.
-Move EXP Up is great for new hires. Move JP Up is great for grinding, and combines with Gained-JP Up. Fusing Movement skills is a pain in the ass and really isn't needed. Instead, I opted to reduce their JP cost so the job itself is easier to master.
-Revival is always a really difficult thing for me. Personally, I'd prefer to be super conservative like FFIII and just make PDs not buyable at all. Raising things from the dead shouldn't be an easy task. That being said, I understand that that's a little too hardcore for people (especially novice FFT players). PDs were made slightly more expensive so that you wouldn't be as inclined to just Rambo the early game- so that you'd actually try and keep your units alive and possibly start using Cure/Protect/Shell. AoE revival on Summoner isn't wise, in my opinion, since the Summoner can do so many other things as well that it makes them a little -too- versatile. I'm sure there's some hack out there that removes permanent removal, but that'd change things up a little too much for my tastes.
-In terms of items, many items will likely be slightly reworked for the next update. The evasion with Swords was always a thing though, even in Vanilla. The in-game text box explains that the higher Evade weapon has a broad hilt or something along those lines to justify it.
Hopefully this answers some of your questions! Looking forward to your continued feedback!
