By default FFXII's progression is very linear, equipment gets obsolete quick, my intent with this mod is to "flatten" this curve and make every equipment unique and situational, therefore useful for longer. The same can be said for the difficulty, early areas are extremely easy even when you're passing trough them in the story, I raised the "number floor" to make the difference between early and end game smaller. 

Overall, expect the game to be harder, but not too much, this game has a LOT of options to deal with fights and I want players to explore them, build a good tank, a good healer, be it a mage or an item user, make good use of buffs and debuffs, position the DPSs well, and so on. The most satisfying feeling for me in RPGs is noticing the difficulty in order to have something to work towards, having your ass kicked in a battle and adjusting your strategy/build just to see that the battle can be a breeze if properly fought, I had this in mind throughout the whole process. Second thing I love in games is horizontal progression, instead of getting a new weapon and it being an objective upgrade, I like to build an arsenal full of options, that doesn't mean a Shortsword is as powerful as a Tournesol, but now they're not SO far apart. 

Can you kill Yiazmat with a shortsword? Yes. But it will take 5x the time it would with a Yagyu Darkblade. 

The main linear progression now is your stats gained trough levelling and your armor.
Spells, weapons and shields are really diverse and useful in any point in the game, they get sliiighty better stats as you progress but overall each one is different, if a sword base attack is high, it will probably lack something, be it speed, combo chance, block, etc. If a weapon has an element, base damage will be lower than normal, if a spell is single target, it will be more powerful than it's multi target counterpart and so on. All of this is made better with the new custom descriptions to equipment, spells and augments, you no longer have to rely on the game's wiki to find out what exactly something does. 

Here's a spreadsheet with every weapon's new stats and some other numeric changes.

Specific changes below: 

Enemies

• HP and damage increased across the board, but specially in the early game, the goal is to make the difference between early and late game areas smaller, thus, making them relevant for longer.
• Bigger and more distinct enemies in certain areas were greatly buffed with their LP and EXP rewards proportionally increased. 
• Most bosses and hunts died way too quickly, I've adjusted them to last longer and be a bit more challenging, the goal is to create more memorable and interesting battles across the game. 
• Now, enemies won't ignore your evade and block chance anymore. This pairs well with the fact that most foes in the mod hit harder, my intent is for the player to build a good tank and not rely on the ol' decoy+reverse tactic, the Decoy spell is found earlier in Giza and Rabanastre and lasts for 4 minutes or more depending on the tank's Vitality stat.
• Some difficult to drop or steal items were made to be easier to obtain, generally they were moved from "rare" to "uncommon" on the files, some examples are "Durandal", "Shikari Nagasa", "Scorpion Tail", etc. 
• Strength and Magick Power gained throughout the game was lowered to keep characters from having 99 points without even properly equipping themselves, Vitality and Speed however had the opposite treatment, starting higher and increasing faster to to keep them proportional to STR and MGK.
• Enemies no longer have the "anti-libra augment, you can now see bosses or hunt target's stats to plan the fight accordingly. 
• The max defense and magick defense an enemy can have now is around 40, this helps keep some weapons from dealing 0 damage to end game enemies.
• Overall 50% increased XP for kills. 
• Here's a spreadsheet I've done just to keep track of each area's base level of difficulty while balancing the enemies, they're not in any particular order or very well organized but can be useful for having a look at the new enemy stats.
  

Equipment

      Weapons

• The weapons are the stars of the mod in my eyes, it's the reason I started this project, with it you won't have weapons becoming obsolete at each shop, the difference between the "Masamune" an a "Kotetsu" is no longer astronomical for example, each one has unique stats and gives the player more freedom to make different and creative builds, the goal is to get away from the "I'll equip this because it has a bigger attack value" mindset. 
• To aid with that, each weapon has its stats clearly shown in its tooltip, block chance, elemental potency, crit/combo chance, charge time, stat scaling, etc. 
• The same can be said for armors and accessories, you no longer have to rely on external sources to find out what exactly a weapon or equipment does. 
• Seitengrat, Great Trango and Gendarme now have new models and icons, were made easier to obtain but no longer absolutely break your game with their extreme stats, they are now very powerful items, but are balanced in relation to other end game equipment. 
• Various end game weapons that had duplicate models now have unique ones, others got a complete makeover, Karkata is now Larsa's Joyeuse, Excalipur is now the Brass Greatsword, Mithuna is Elza's Blunderbuss and so on. 
• The weapon "Bonebreaker" can be stolen from Daguza at the prison and "Hero's Blade" (Rasler's sword) is Ashe's starting weapon. 
• Guns are no longer piercing weapons, they scale with Strength and Speed now, like bows. (otherwise they would be the exact opposite this mod aims to remedy).
• Every ranged weapon now has double the range, if you can see an enemy's HP bar, you can attack it, this helps ranged gameplay to be more distinct and balance the lack of damage ranged weapons have. Note that healing items and spells/buffs are unchanged, so if an ally is not healing someone, move them closer, this helps you keep a closer eye on the fight and manage positions more.
  

      Armors

• Armors still have their linear progression from the base game, save some end-game ones, the main difference is that now, light armor have speed and vitality bonuses to increase their respective weapon's damage. 
  

      Accessories

• Adjusted stat bonuses to make them more distinct and essential to complementing different builds.
• Their main effects are unchanged, but all of them now have clearer descriptions.
  

Spells

• Just like the weapons, early spells were buffed to be relevant for longer and the late game ones were nerfed a bit to avoid your max level knight hitting for 15k damage while your black mage is dealing 45k area damage. Fear not, mages are still REALLY powerful, you just have to actually build them properly now. 
• Better distinction between different spells, like area spells being weaker than single target ones, non-elemental spells being stronger than elemental ones, etc. You may now prefer using curaga over curaja in some situations for example. 
• "Bio" was replaced by "Waterga" with it's damage now in line with other "ga" spells. 
• Most technicks had their hit chance buffed to make them a little more useful. 
  

Items

• In general items are a lot more powerful now, potions no longer instantly become obsolete and you can actually consistently heal the party with them.
• "Fangs" now deal normal magick damage that scales with the user's Magick Power, they are powerful single target spells with different animations. 
• Motes are basically stronger versions of their respective spells, I want offensive items to be valuable assets in fights and not "weaker versions" of spells you can already cast with your mages.
• Meteorites now have distinct names, icons and descriptions. 
• Hi Potion and X Potion prices were lowered a bit to make them a viable option to non mage healers.
  

Espers

• Esper licenses are no longer a thing, once an Esper is obtained, everyone can use it.
• HP and attack damage were increased to make them more relevant throughout the game, especially early game Espers. 
• You may now consider using Belias for his 250 potency fire damage special attack or Mateus for his 250 potency ice one for example. 
  

Descriptions

• Every item, equipment, spell, license board augment or passive now has clear descriptions of what it does, their numbers and their potency. 
• Aside from the descriptions, every item has a big and beautiful image, most of them taken from screenshots and painstakingly cropped and adjusted in photoshop.
  

Status Effects

• Common buff duration base is now 240 seconds to reduce "micro managing" during battles, exceptions are Berserk (45s) and Reverse (20s).
• Their costs were also increased to make up for the duration buff.
• Shell no longer cause buffs to miss. (every buff spell uses the item formula now, having 100% chance of hitting)
• Poison and Regen now last longer and ticks faster.
  

Treasures

• Chests that have extremely rare chances of giving certain items or appearing at all now have 20% chance to appear and always give the rare item. The mentioned chests are for the Ensanguined Shield, Zodiac Escucheon & Zodiac Spear chests, the same applies for the Seitengrat, Great Trango and Gendarme chests, but they still require Diamond Armlet.
• Cerobi Stepe chests now have 50% chance of appearing and no longer drop gil, making them drop their rare item 1 out of 20 times, I wanted for players not to rely on RNG manipulation but not make Cerobi's end game items too easy to get, I think this is a good compromise and makes exploring the map a lot more exciting. 
• Getting Baltoro's Seed on the Abyssal level at pharos is easier.
• The chest after the second Demon Wall now drops the Demonsbane instead of a Scathe Mote, like on the american version of the game.
  

License Boards

• Every "island" is now behind quickening nodes.
• Every board has 5 quickenings, considering each character can have only 3, choose those islands well. 
• Some classes have new weapons available, mostly put behind mentioned quickenings.
• Augments present on accessories had their cost massively raised. 
• Knight, Machinist and Shikari now have access to white and black robes to boost their end game dark and holy weapon damage. 
  

Other Changes

• Every initial weapon available on Giza Merchant.
• Decoy available on Rabanastre and Giza Merchant.
• Every equipment that is also a key item now has it's key item icon (Treaty Blade, Sword of Kings, Manufacted Nethecite, Dawn Shard and Goddess Magicite).
• Important Loot now has different icons.
• Thanks to Xeavin's "The Insurgent's Bountiful Bundle" mod, every character gets EXP, even if it's on reserve, this makes so you actually have the freedom to use every character and not have your "3 levelled mains" and the other 3 rotting on your menu. 
• Some hunt rewards were increased a little, mostly gil and item quantities.
  

Important notes

• I strongly recommend playing this mod on a new save, otherwise you will miss the Hero's Blade and the correct character stat progression. 
• Thanks to Xeavin's "The Insurgent's manifesto" mod, Old Dalan now has various options including one to "re calculate" your stats, I strongly recommend you do this in case you're playing this mod on a pre existing save, otherwise your stats will be higher than intended. 
  

Installation (Do the steps in order)

• Download FF12 External File Loader, move the "x64" folder inside the mod's "loader-multi" folder to your game's install location ""SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE", now move the "dinput8.dll" file inside the mod's "dinput" folder to your game's "x64" folder. 
  This is required for other mods to work. Using the "dinput8.dll" allow you to install reshade without problems.
  
  
• Download FF12 LUA Loader, move the "Modules" and "Scripts" folders to your game's "x64" folder. 
  This is required for other mods to work.
  
  
• Download Xeavin's The Insurgent's Manifesto, copy the "mods" and "x64" folders inside the mod's "data" folder and paste it on your game's install location "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE".
  

        The mod is used to let you reset your stats by talking to Old Dalan, which is useful in case you are using the mod on a pre existing save, along with smart stealing                  gambits and true invisibility for the Vanish spell.

• Download Xeavin's The Insurgent's Bountiful Bundle, copy the "x64" folder inside the mod's "data" folder and paste it on your game's install location "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE".
• Now go into "data\x64\scripts\config", open the .lua file and change "fullPartyExperienceShare = false" to "fullPartyExperienceShare = true"
  

        This mod is needed for the shared party EXP gain.

• Download Xeavin's The Insurgent's Descriptive Inventory, copy the "x64" folder inside the mod's "data" folder and paste it on your game's install location "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE".
  

        Needed for the custom weapon, shield, armor and accessory descriptions. 

• Now download the mod and put the "mods" and "x64" folders on your game's install location "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE". Overwrite files when asked. 
  

Credits
Xeavin for the Insurgent's Workshop, Toolkit, custom script to remove some augments from enemies and overall help with cleaning the files.
ffgriever for the External File Loader, LUA Loader and other modding tools.
swatgod for the Treasure Editor.
VanSkyPirate for the board editor.
Kalivos for the AI and augment edit tools. (no longer used in 1.2)
Kule for helping with the equipment icon tooltips.