Messages

2226

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-25 00:55:03 »

Thanks to ML for the donation on the 16th; just saw it.

2227

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-24 14:10:30 »

Sega chief, when you first released v 1.3 of NT it came with the dark cave side quest

so how come you had to take it out for so long on v 1.4 of NT Mod

I didn't want to take it out for this long; but there were so many bugs to fix (and which still need to be fixed) when 1.4 was released that I couldn't get to it right away. I couldn't leave the original version accessible either because then I'd need to have a separate flevel to develop it which would need to be kept up with any edits and fixes made, etc.

2228

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-24 08:08:54 »

Gotta say I was enjoying this mod..right up until I started doing boss battles. It's generally just a spam fest from them while trying to keep up...them getting 2-6 moves before you get one. Gi was the worst.. spamming Demi3 and complete healing every 2 rounds. Finally pushed me to uninstall FF7 altogether.

I can see what you're going for but not my style of mod for sure. I prefer Brave New World style..more strategy less twitch. Still..thanks for the new experience.

Gotta say I was enjoying this mod..right up until I started doing boss battles. It's generally just a spam fest from them while trying to keep up...them getting 2-6 moves before you get one. Gi was the worst.. spamming Demi3 and complete healing every 2 rounds. Finally pushed me to uninstall FF7 altogether.

I can see what you're going for but not my style of mod for sure. I prefer Brave New World style..more strategy less twitch. Still..thanks for the new experience.

I take exception to that; most bosses in the mod can be handled with a solid strategy. Speaking of BNW, my own playthrough of that mod was a big influence on NT; when tackling a boss in that mod, I'd usually select a few attacks that would be the most effective and gear the offence characters around that, with supports there to manage the team using specific abilities. This would usually cover most fights on the initial blind attempt, with an adjustment if something hit particularly hard and needed to be dealt with (say, more magic defence equipment and bring in another character who can use Shell). The bosses themselves in that mod usually had a similar subset of abilities; AOE, defence-ignoring attack (HP-check), a status ailment or two, maybe an elemental hit, counter-attack, etc; basically a mix to plan your set-up around.

It's a similar deal with NT; the characters were set up in a way that they each have very particular strengths and weaknesses, which combos with the SP system and the expanded mix of stat bonuses & innate weapon/armour effects; this is so you can handle problematic fights in different ways. The characters don't have unique commands like FF6 ones do, but you can make quite a few different characters builds and set-ups from early on using the innate character abilities with the wider selection of Materia and adjusted special weapons like the Enemy Launcher or Force Stealer.

The problem is that when people are playing a mod they can fall into the trap of trying to play it in the same way as the original game. They rush through, try to brute-force things, or they don't use all of the tools at their disposal because they haven't really needed to use them before. I've talked to people who have maxed out FF7, done everything, beat the Weapons, got all the Materia mastered, but didn't know what Shield did because they never had any cause to actually use it. Or I'll watch them playing and they won't use Barriers or items at all, or make use of Defend and Change, or their Elemental Materia, or status ailments (the lanterns in Gi Nattak can be Slowed and Stopped for instance; you can even insta-kill them with Death if you got a Kiss of Death item from the mobs in Cave of the Gi). Just like in FF6, probably more so in fact, this game doesn't push the player to build good fundamentals because most of the time you can recover almost everything with Cure and push through with whatever elemental spells, Limits, and later just with physical attacks on their own.

Let's look at this Nattak fight NT; this is my demo run of it: https://youtu.be/mtnuEL_Nt_I
It's similar to how I'd approach a fight in BNW or any other mod; identify the weaknesses and exploit them, while maintaining the team's stability. This fight has two lanterns healing the boss with %-based magic, so by eliminating the Lanterns the boss becomes vulnerable. But the lanterns can heal themselves and you've got damage + disrupting statuses coming in, so you can't just attack wildly; you need to coordinate your turns and party members so that you can make your attack worthwhile without putting yourself at substantial risk. Remember the innate regen + counter-attacks on bosses in BNW? That's what they're there for; to have players put consideration into their turns instead of making uncoordinated attacks that could potentially punish them for no gain.

That being said, NT isn't perfect and I hate to drive people away. I'll have another look at the Nattak fight.

when is the dark cave side quest going to be done

It'll be done when it's done; I didn't particularly care for your passive-aggressive PM, by the way.

2229

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-23 14:00:28 »

The flevel patch should take care of it: http://www.mediafire.com/download/blu9r5rkq7d9nn3/NT+Mod+HotFix+flevel+1st+July.zip

Unless you're using the 7H version? Let me know if that's the case.

2230

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-23 06:27:25 »

Ah, I found that's what 7th heaven is for ... stupid me

Well, I suppose I'll try that, but does it matter that I installed the hardcore mode on it's own? I guess this isn't the best place to ask, but I figured that part out at least.

7H is best used with default files, otherwise you might get some Hardcore-specific stuff bleeding through (battle models for instance). I think for save files, the best way used to be just having separate save folders and swapping between them but that's not an option with Steam due to that inexplicable decision they made to add save file validity checks to their Launcher. Whichever route you go, make sure to start any new Gameplay mod with a New Game; the kernel has some initial stuff to set that won't be done if using a save file from, say, Reactor No.1 to start (for instance, if you had a save file made with vanilla or Hardcore in Reactor No.1 and started NT from that save file, your characters will join the party without the new Materia/equipment they should start with which will mean not having Barrier, Revive, etc. and some characters having end-game weapons when they join).

Hey Sega, just wanted to drop by to tell you I've made a list of all the enemies' steals, morphs and drops for people that are interested to know what items they have or are looking for a specific one. It might be slightly out of date since I created it before the Proud Clod hotfix. I have noticed that the Corel Train items have changed, as well as the X-ATM fight while escaping Junon and have updated the list accordingly. I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me if anything else has changed, because It'd be annoying to go through every enemy in Hojo again (And tell me what the 'Autograph' item was changed into, please, because I kinda forgot to write that down). This list might be a bit redundant with the area names and possibly formatted badly since this is my first time really using Excel for anything halfway important, but I tried my best and I think it turned out good enough. If you think anything needs fixing, tell me so. Also, if you want to add this to the main post, that's cool, if not, that's also fine. I just want you to know that I like the mod you've created enough to have spent quite a few hours typing this all into Excel and making sure everything is the way it's supposed to be. Keep up the good work, Chief!

Link below:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yaq74qa9rwbm8ww/NT%20Item%20List.xlsx?dl=0
(Thanks to my brother for helping me with the steals early on before I discovered the magic that is Hojo.)

Edit: While you're at it, information for what Ultima Weapon battle has which steals would also be great, as I didn't encounter them all while doing the quest.

Wow, this'll be useful for me too; saves me going through every enemy in PrC to see where specific items can be acquired from in-battle :3. There might be some tweaks to item lists before 1.45 goes out (nothing dramatic, mostly Crater enemies); what I'll do is, I'll DL this spreadsheet and update it with the changes and send it back to you.

2231

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-22 15:17:52 »

Yeah, it's new; was added for the 1.4 release.

2232

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-21 16:39:33 »

Hey sega chief

when i try to walk on the flower bed after beating air buster and talking to aeries about inputting her name, the invisable air buster is still there

when i try to walk on the flower bed, is it safe to continue the game like that

It's safe; I'll see if the collision is still turned on for it.

2233

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-21 10:34:59 »

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this but, the game crashes right after you see the Midgar Cannon for the first time FMV. It's right after you put in the Key of The Ancients inside the Forgotten Capital. Not sure what causes this... any ideas? I have the newest patches installed, but also a bunch of graphic mods too.

If it's directly after the FMV, then it's likely the scene that takes place in Shinra HQ when Rufus is talking to the other execs about the Mako Cannon. If you have anything that affects field models, disable them temporarily and see if that lets you get past it.

2234

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-18 19:57:59 »

Very pleased with the mod so far. Had a quick question though.

Should there be a steep ramp up in experience required to advance from level 31 to level 32? Experience required for me to move from 31 to 32 for all characters was about 50,000. Once I reached 32 though required experienced dropped back to around 13,000. Is this a glitch or something implemented to prevent over-leveling?

Sorry if I missed this in a description somewhere

Yeah, every ten levels has that big spike; but enemies are specced to give exponentially more EXP the further you go. It's a soft form of gating so I can spec areas to cover players who like to grind + players who rush.

hey sega chief

my friend is using some graphics mods on his ff7 run

so will your mod work on the graphics mods he is using

hey sega chief

my friend is using some graphics mods on his ff7 run

so will your mod work on the graphics mods he is using

It should do; if he's using 7H then tell him to make sure that the other mods he uses are above NT in the load order (NT's IRO should be loaded last).

If he's using stand-alone installers then he'll need to be careful as some of them can overwrite critical files. I'd recommend that he play to the first Save Point from a new game with only NT installed, then make a copy of the Data folder inside the FF7 folder as a backup before installing a graphics mod and then testing if all the scripts are intact. If he encounters a crash, ask him for which mods he used/where he got them so I can diagnose any potential clashes.

2235

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-16 18:39:43 »

All right, until the Dark Cave is out and you have more content in store for us, it is the end for me! All I am missing are two Enemy Skills (which I know one is Chocobuckle), and Cid's Ultimate Weapon, but I can't really get it for now. I really want to say a big thank you, Sega Chief. It's been a real treat to discover this game again with a new experience, and I had a lot of fun completing each of the challenges you had in mind for us. Yes, even the Curator.

Until next time, I can't wait for some new stuff. Thank you once more!

(By the way, is IT supposed to be here?)

(Oh yeah, I forgot to include a message, but I donated a bit.)

Glad to hear you cleared the game, bud; and yeah, that pesky scorp is supposed to appear for the ending screen only :p

Cheers for the donation; I've been hit pretty hard with college fees and website subscriptions recently (codeacademy is £15 a month ;I) so it's very much appreciated.

2236

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-14 20:51:53 »

Hey Cordy

try installing the patch updates on this mod on the first page of this thread to see if that will fix your problem

Thanks for helping him out, Zara.

2237

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-13 12:38:40 »

His attack raises everyone's defence like a hero drink, but it wasn't a good idea as it makes the fight unwinnable if you don't have defence-ignoring attacks. Try using ? ? ? ?, Pandora's Box, or Summons to get past that defence once it's buffed (use burst damage that doesn't ignore defence earlier).

2238

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-13 11:40:39 »

See, I don't know if that's because I moved it from there last minute to Gold Match, or if it was intended to be moved from Gold Match to there. 1.45 will have a finalised placement for absolutely everything so it'll be fixed for that.

2239

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-12 09:36:31 »

Alrighty, so what is the deal on Abyss down at the end of the crater? I cannot seem to kill him before he uses that god awful Neurotoxic Breath of his? Is there any particular way to stop this from happening or do I somehow need to kick up my damage before he does it? I have tried near 8 times now and he is beginning to irk me. Advice is welcome

The way it was set up is that he charges up the breath attack but you can disrupt it by inflicting a status ailment on him; then he'll use an esuna-type move on himself and this'll remove all the stacks. It's not a great AI thing, and I'll probably change it to be more intuitive at some point, but that's the way it is at the moment.

2240

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-11 22:36:26 »

By optional stuff you mean: the LV4 limit quests, the materia caves, the dark cave, the Weapon fights, and Kalm traveler right? These will all reward SP?

Yeah; Disc 3 stuff mostly.

2241

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-11 19:40:14 »

I think that issue was fixed in the scene hotfix patch (available on page1 of this thread); try applying that and let me know if the issue still occurs/if you've already applied the patch and this is happening.

2242

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-11 14:19:49 »

So I reached the end of Northern Crater and my party is rank 4 (Cloud is rank 5 I think). I beat Jenova, but the fight took at least 40 minutes which didn't seem right. Then I fought Bizzaro Sephiroth and lost pretty badly.

I felt that my party might be underdeveloped, so I went to go level/rank up. I went to the beginning of the Northern Crater to grind and noticed that some enemies only give 1 SP each, while the big dragon doesn't even give any SP at all. Is this normal? Or should I be grinding at a different spot for SP?

I think some tightening to SP is needed; ideally I'd like for players to be hitting Rank 6 or 7 when they beat Hojo so that the last rank or two can be acquired from doing the optional stuff (similar to EXP/Level, I aim to have players above Lv.70 for Disc 3). But there's an oversight in SP right now where the level synch interferes with the check and allows SP to be gained from any group of enemies that contain 2 or or more actors over Lv.44.

What I'll do is aim to fix this check for all non-Crater enemies and then remove the check itself from all Crater enemies, ramping up the SP gained from them as well. I'll maybe keep Mideel as an alternate grind-spot as well if people are comfy there.

Mideel is a good place for SP farming since I believe you only get SP if you fight multiple opponents at once. Mideel's enemies come in groups so you'll usually get 3SP+ per battle. Only downside is that you get no EXP once you get past a certain level.

Sounds like the opposite of what it should be; the idea was to make Mideel enemies give no EXP if you're under a certain level because people were quickly gaining EXP from them by taking the Bronco to the shore. I'll check it out.

2243

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-11 07:27:03 »

That manual link is quite out of date, probably for the very first build of the mod; there should be some documentation in the Main Installer folders though I don't think it goes into specific weapon/armour changes. I've been writing up a Mk.2 version of a document that lists all their locations; I could add stat info to them as well with comparisons to default equipment (where applicable).

2244

Troubleshooting / Re: Battle model not dissapear later death

« on: 2016-09-11 06:25:35 »

You can change the death animation by hex editing the battle model's AB file. From the top of my head, I think it was the third byte.

DLPB once listed the values in one of his posts. Use the search function to find it.

Ansem's solution is the only way to do it as far as I know; the death animation for certain enemies is hard-coded in the model files themselves. But there might be a simpler solution than hex-editing the actual file:

http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=13357.10;wap2

It seems from this thread that DLPB swapped the AB files of two models around. So I'm guessing if you gave Rufus a boss enemy's AB file he should gain the red flash death animation. However, he also mentions that AB contains some other bits of info that the enemy uses so this might not be 100% safe for every enemy.

The hex-editing info from the linked thread:

Code: [Select]

DLPB
OK so this is what I get. 

First 2 bytes are an identifier for the enemy.  The file is more than just death code.. it has a part to play in a few aspects of an enemy.  If you replace MZ with Sephiroth (very last boss) ab file, the MZ will attack repeatedly and completely ignore AI.  The ab files seem to also include camera angles during death animation (at least I think so!).  If you want to change the enemy's death animation you only need change 1 byte for its ab file.

The 3rd byte is the death type value.
The values used in **ab files are 00,01,02,03,10,11,12,80,90

Only the above values are used for normal deaths, the other values listed below
(like 07) are used because of actions in battle, like using morph on an enemy).
If you want to make an enemy do a morph animation even when morph has not
been used, set the battle **ab file value to 07 (for example).

12 is the highest value for use in normal animations. See more detailed explanation
in code break down further down this thread.


--- Code: ---00: Normal
01: Disintegrate (Think mechanical things)
02: Melt (Think 8-eye or flans)
03: Disintegrate 2
04-06: No death animation, enemy will remain as battle ends.
07: Morph
08: Flash death (Flash animation where enemy floats to sky.  Translated Iainuki)
09: No death animation, enemy will remain as battle ends.
0A: Disintegrate
0B-10: No death animation, enemy will remain as battle ends.
11: Boss death
12: Break apart (Sepher Sephiroth uses this)
80: Unknown, see below
90: Unknown, see below
--- End code ---

80 and 90: If you use 80 or 90 on ab files without copying across the models other data, the game will crash.  Yuffie uses 90 in the battle you have with her, whereas normal user characters (like Cloud) use 80.

The enemy MP (and other of this type) is using 80 for an unknown reason (see aqab) .  The use of 80 and 90 and exactly what they do is unknown.  It could be that it is an indicator of a type of skeleton (given these are all humans).

Using 12 on normal enemies will only show a normal boss death. There is more to the death animations than the ab files (possibly other files and information used depending on the death animation value).  Sepher Sephiroth's death animation is most likely hard coded in ff7.exe.

The game itself limits the normal animation values from 01-12 and limits the max value used to 63 before wrapping around.  Therefore 80 becomes 16 and 90 becomes 24.  There is more to this 80 and 90 than meets the eye.  I will try to work this out later in the thread.

Be nice if we could get useful info like this and other bits & pieces archived or something 

Edit: Was just reading through it again, I don't know if Safer's death animation is actually tied to his AB byte. The shatter thing is achieved through an attack (two types, one for on the ground and another for flying in the air). If killed without these set, he just dies to a red flash as normal. Maybe 12 is something else or a copy of 11 that was going to do the shatter thing before they realised they needed two death anims to handle his two different idles or something.

2245

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-10 15:08:38 »

EJ here.  Excellent!  I've downloaded and installed 1.4 through 7th Heaven, I'll finally get around to this mod this weekend.  Also, if you have to choose between college or this mod, let us languish! 

Does anyone have recommendations for which music mod to install -- or to use the original OST?

I think DLPB's Reunion installer can change the music to several variants (mind to click everything else off though during install to avoid conflicts; the two mods can't work together right now) but I've never actually tried to use just the music patches from it with NT so mind to back up your .EXE and Data folder beforehand in case it does break.

I've been having some problems finding stuff in the 1.4 endgame - particularly the HP Plus Materia, which I just straight up can't find despite scouring that path in the North Cave.

Moreover, lots of Ultimate Weapons require stuff from the Dark Cave Quest - is there an alternative source for the rewards from that?

It should be here, where Mega-All used to be: http://squarehaven.com/games/PlayStation/Final-Fantasy-VII/guide/materia/12.jpg
It's the bit where you need to press Confirm just as you're jumping onto the middle platform as Cloud will hop past it.

There's no proper source for Dark Cave only materials at the moment, I'm afraid; the sidequest is close to completion but with everything going on and the tendency of bugs to pop up I can't say when it'll be done.

2246

Gameplay / Re: Mods like New Threat or True Necrosis possible on iOS version of FF7?

« on: 2016-09-10 15:02:51 »

Your best bet is to patch a PC copy of FF7 with NT, and then take the following files out from C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY VII\data:

-) Battle.lgp (battle folder)
-) Char.lgp (Field folder)
-) Flevel.lgp (Field folder)
-) Scene.bin (lang-en/battle folder for steam, otherwise same place as battle.lgp)
-) Kernel.bin & Kernel2.bin (lang-en/kernel folder for steam)

Those are the five main files of the mod. If you're able to access the IOS files directly, then replacing the IOS versions of the above files with NT ones should do the trick.

2247

Gameplay / Re: Mods like New Threat or True Necrosis possible on iOS version of FF7?

« on: 2016-09-10 06:15:38 »

It seems to be: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16331.0

According to the OP, the folder for the IOS version is the same as it is for the PC version so I'm assuming you could just drop modded files in there and it'll work without any special work (unless there's a file-size limit of some kind). Apparently the guy needed to hack his phone to gain access to those files though.

2248

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-08 17:24:38 »

Cheers; the more saves, the more data.

2249

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-08 00:22:21 »

Thanks, bud.

2250

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-09-07 23:47:08 »

Sounds like what I'm looking for; any file-sharing site like mediafire would do the trick. I've got dropbox but I'll need to find out what my login is again.