In terms of Heartless:

Right, so I've been told that people have a few concerns with how the Heartless are balanced, namely that they are apparently disappointingly 'underpowered' in terms of Willpower. I don't personally see this to be an issue, but first, here's some reasoning to it:

The Heartless do not have physical bodies, they are literally formed out of the darkness within a Heart that no longer has a body; as for their now vacant bodies, those become Nobodies. This is why Nobodies have a higher Willpower, but a lower Potential. And mind you, we're not starting you off as Ansem, Seeker of Darkness here.

You don't even start off as a boss; by all rights, you're supposed to be a Heartless that's just starting off, just like every other character is just starting off. Find the equivalent of Sora at Level 1, here -- And that mileage does in fact vary.

Do you know how many hits it takes to kill a Shadow? Single combo at the start of the game, how much is that? Three. How much for a Soldier? Not that much more. Heartless do hit very hard, on the other hand. So the idea of "Well if you take a big hit, you're screwed" goes both ways.

No where else is this more apparent than the awakening topic that I'm in right now: Link. Here I am, feelin' all badass, took down a Heartless in a single turn, and then a Darkside appears and is just going to f*** my s*** up.. It's dealing the amount of damage I did with two attacks in just one.

Imagine how screwed I would be if it did two attacks! Or, screw it, if it was also using abilities higher than Level 1!

Heartless are not meant to be tanks, they are meant to be devastatingly powerful, but surprisingly fragile. If they have an incredible defense on top of their overwhelming offense, they would be the definition of overpowered. As it stands, Heartless can already counter attacks for a huge amount of damage.

It deals double what I can do. If not for the saving grace of Time Out (Which Heartless can get too), I'd have no way of damaging it.

Villains are exactly where they need to be, powerful early game, and not useless at end game. It just takes a little tactical thinking, guys.

Mind you, Nobodies, Humans, Toons, and all of them can still be Villains too; even Keyblade Wielders can.

Pretty solid points, then there are also a few solid points on the other side of things, so I'm a bit pressed here, I think we need to discuss it further, and civilly work out a bit of a middle ground.

That's fine, as long as people are willing to actually be civil about it and raise constructive points to it.

Heartless aren't going to get a free defense raise, because I feel the lack of defense helps balance them. But there's a difference between "free" and "necessary". So anyone who has points for it being necessary, go ahead and post them! This isn't meant to be a deterrent. It's meant to explain why it was done, and why we'd try to keep that mechanic mostly the same even with the Heartless getting a buff.

Indeed, I definitely welcome everyone with points for why to buff their defense multipliers, as well as any other suggestions to post in here, I welcome the constructive critic, and would love to make it work for everyone as well as I can.

That being said, there were points already raised elsewhere, it'd be good if they could perhaps be copy and pasted here for clarity. I may do so later.