Author Topic: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.99994)  (Read 4841186 times)

calamitycain

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8600 on: 2019-09-26 18:13:52 »
Alright, just beat the game on 1.5, and man it was invigorating. Much thanks for the mod (and your help) Sega Chief. It truly was a great experience for someone who's played FFVII several times. I didn't go completionist, because I admit I lost patience with some of the harder battles (never got Knights of the Round, that boss battle is nuts). But I did manage to dust Bizarro and Safer Sephiroth with a couple tries. I actually pounded Safer Sephrioth. Angermax and Quadra Magic + Planet ftw.

I actually really like how the mod makes it more challenging, but also gives you more punch to match, if you're paying attention. It makes battles more interesting!

I suppose I have one comment, besides all that: I don't know how much you can tailor the final duel between Cloud & Sephiroth, where your limit gauge builds towards Omnislash for that sweet, sweet elimination? But if Cloud has Sneak Attack materia? That fires instead (I had Sneak Attack + Planet), and it killed Sephiroth in one hit, sort of defusing the moment. I thought it was funny since I've beaten the game before, but for the sake of preserving that awesome moment when Cloud gets justice, maybe there's a way to prevent Sneak Attack from getting in the way?

Probably not high on the priority list, but I figured I'd mention it. Great mod, excellent work!

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8601 on: 2019-09-26 23:38:16 »
Alright, just beat the game on 1.5, and man it was invigorating. Much thanks for the mod (and your help) Sega Chief. It truly was a great experience for someone who's played FFVII several times. I didn't go completionist, because I admit I lost patience with some of the harder battles (never got Knights of the Round, that boss battle is nuts). But I did manage to dust Bizarro and Safer Sephiroth with a couple tries. I actually pounded Safer Sephrioth. Angermax and Quadra Magic + Planet ftw.

I actually really like how the mod makes it more challenging, but also gives you more punch to match, if you're paying attention. It makes battles more interesting!

I suppose I have one comment, besides all that: I don't know how much you can tailor the final duel between Cloud & Sephiroth, where your limit gauge builds towards Omnislash for that sweet, sweet elimination? But if Cloud has Sneak Attack materia? That fires instead (I had Sneak Attack + Planet), and it killed Sephiroth in one hit, sort of defusing the moment. I thought it was funny since I've beaten the game before, but for the sake of preserving that awesome moment when Cloud gets justice, maybe there's a way to prevent Sneak Attack from getting in the way?

Probably not high on the priority list, but I figured I'd mention it. Great mod, excellent work!

I'll sort it out, I think it might be an AI thing.

rnolazco

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8602 on: 2019-09-27 14:53:10 »
Is there anywhere the Dragoon Lance can be bought? The Dragon Rider enemy never spawned for me in the whirlwind maze. Much appreciated!

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8603 on: 2019-09-27 17:11:18 »
Is there anywhere the Dragoon Lance can be bought? The Dragon Rider enemy never spawned for me in the whirlwind maze. Much appreciated!

It can be bought in Junon on Disc 2/3, but if none of the stores stock it let me know because I think I changed one of them.

Stormlock

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8604 on: 2019-09-27 21:38:46 »
Just started this mod (and a bunch of others) yesterday and have run into a bug I can't get around without disabling the mod: in the Thousand Gunner fight in the elevator, after it spawns it's two companions and breaks the glass, the fight just kinda hangs. Everything still animates, music plays, I can even toggle stuff like the name or pause, but the ATB is stuck on WAIT and never changes. Tried changing to active mode, tried disabling other mods that might affect the graphics in the fight, doesn't seem to help.

Any ideas? I'm guessing I can just turn the mod back on after the fight but they've been really fun so far so I don't want to skip one.

littleblueboxes

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8605 on: 2019-09-28 10:31:07 »
This mod is by far the best thing community-made for FFVII! I only just finished playing the vanilla game a few weeks ago, but this addition gave so much new content and polish that I've happily been playing through again with NT. Especially for the dialogue translations, which make so much more sense in this version.

-- I had previously mentioned that the train mission in Corel was giving me trouble as the game didn't want to respond to the on-screen inputs it gave. Turns out, while the game certainly wasn't taking the inputs, it was due to a pre-existing key binding which meant the game couldn't recognise both being pressed at once. While this did waste nearly THREE HOURS of my life to work out, it might be worth knowing.

Fare thee well Guard Scorpion, until we meet again
« Last Edit: 2019-09-28 10:52:05 by littleblueboxes »

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8606 on: 2019-09-28 10:55:59 »
Just started this mod (and a bunch of others) yesterday and have run into a bug I can't get around without disabling the mod: in the Thousand Gunner fight in the elevator, after it spawns it's two companions and breaks the glass, the fight just kinda hangs. Everything still animates, music plays, I can even toggle stuff like the name or pause, but the ATB is stuck on WAIT and never changes. Tried changing to active mode, tried disabling other mods that might affect the graphics in the fight, doesn't seem to help.

Any ideas? I'm guessing I can just turn the mod back on after the fight but they've been really fun so far so I don't want to skip one.

Softlocks are usually caused by an attack not having an animation set, or similar. Thing is though, that's a mandatory fight on Arrange mode so if it was a data problem in the file then it would have popped up for everyone and prevented people advancing on this mode. I had a check through those enemies and things seem to be in order.

Is this the IRO from 1.4 in the catalog or is it the 1.5 IRO from this thread? One possibility is that mods that have been installed in the past are still present in some capacity despite being uninstalled, like maybe 60fps for instance. Try the fight without NT and if it doesn't crash after the glass shatter then that'll help narrow down the cause.

This mod is by far the best thing community-made for FFVII! I only just finished playing the vanilla game a few weeks ago, but this addition gave so much new content and polish that I've happily been playing through again with NT. Especially for the dialogue translations, which make so much more sense in this version.

I've hunted down the board because there does seem to be an issue- the Corel train rescue, the one with the deliberately obnoxious timer, appears to be broken! Once you get to the gears at the end of the rush, the on screen commands show what buttons to press for which lever. One of them works, the other doesn't. And believe me... I tried! I don't know if there's an incorrect button labelled (it gives the [SWITCH], [CANCEL] etc ui for me, not sure if that's universal) but no means of pressing the buttons it tells you to results in the action happening. So yeah... after 2 1/2 hours of repeating this mission, I realised something must be wrong.

The levers use the same script as the default game, but they're a bit weird.

There are two button pairs: Up + Triangle/Menu, or Down + Cross/Cancel. You press both buttons together rather than one after the other like before (which is a bit confusing).

Looking at the script, it doesn't appear to matter which of these button pairs you press. All you need to do is hit either button-pair twice (can use the same pair both times, or one pair and then the other) and it'll advance the script. The train always speeds up regardless, prompting Cid to hit the emergency brake and stop the train after the 2nd button pair is pressed.

Stormlock

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8607 on: 2019-09-28 11:38:03 »
Mod version is 1.5 released on the 26th Turning the mod off let me complete the fight normally. However, you mentioning 60 FPS made me realize I had the animations mod speeding up battle and death animations. Turning that off fixed the fight; notably it made all three enemies appear at once instead of having 2 extra dudes float down after the glass breaks. Thanks for the quick reply!

demos1085

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8608 on: 2019-09-28 13:57:13 »
Hi Sega Chief, I have been playing the Vanilla Mode these days, and just arrived at the North Corel Town, and the NPC that offers to active Arrange Mode is still present in the station of the cable car that takes you to Gold Saucer.

 I remember you mentioning that you removed him because the "arrange mode" was causing some problems with the "vanilla mode" so I thought I should report it, even thought so far no problem has appeared.

Also, I suggest, if its not too troublesome, removing the "Mr Smile" rank up system, from the Vanilla Mode, since its no really necesary, because the characters level up norally and are more than strong enough to beat the normal enemies and bosses of the Vanilla Game, and leaving the Rank Up on, could make the characters too strong, breaking the balance of the game.

Anyways, thanks for the mod and your constant support in this forum.


Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8609 on: 2019-09-28 16:32:57 »
Mod version is 1.5 released on the 26th Turning the mod off let me complete the fight normally. However, you mentioning 60 FPS made me realize I had the animations mod speeding up battle and death animations. Turning that off fixed the fight; notably it made all three enemies appear at once instead of having 2 extra dudes float down after the glass breaks. Thanks for the quick reply!

So it was 60fps, I had a feeling.

Hi Sega Chief, I have been playing the Vanilla Mode these days, and just arrived at the North Corel Town, and the NPC that offers to active Arrange Mode is still present in the station of the cable car that takes you to Gold Saucer.

 I remember you mentioning that you removed him because the "arrange mode" was causing some problems with the "vanilla mode" so I thought I should report it, even thought so far no problem has appeared.

Also, I suggest, if its not too troublesome, removing the "Mr Smile" rank up system, from the Vanilla Mode, since its no really necesary, because the characters level up norally and are more than strong enough to beat the normal enemies and bosses of the Vanilla Game, and leaving the Rank Up on, could make the characters too strong, breaking the balance of the game.

Anyways, thanks for the mod and your constant support in this forum.

I removed the option at the start of the game, but forgot about the NPC again. The rank-up I decided to leave in as it can be ignored if not wanted.

magictrufflez

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8610 on: 2019-09-30 02:41:09 »
Sega Chief--

I have some bad news to report. It seems that my submarine has somehow gotten stuck in the sid of the bay near Junon and I literally cannot do anything to get it to move out. Which means I can't submerge...

And of course it also means I can't fight your Emerald Weapon equivalent :(

Which stinks because I finally have most everything else (minus the silver/gold fight rewards in the Golden Saucer) and actually feel relatively prepared. Is this just a bug leftover from the original that you can't fix? Or did I stumble on something new?

Also, less importantly, there is no Dragoon Lance in any Junon shops in my game (NT is the only mod I'm using btw). Not that it matters for my current game, but my OCD is a bit miffed that I missed the lance!


And finally, I want to echo everyone's thanks for all your work on this mod! The game balance is much more enjoyable now than the last time I played (ie fights can still be difficult, but I can also become powerful enough to actually feel powerful--and even hit the damage cap!). The only suggestion I might have to improve on this front is to somehow reduce SP awarded throughout and in the endgame significantly reduce XP gains. AP felt about right and I wasn't really mastering materia until late, which felt right on. However, when leaving random encounters on my characters were usually over-leveled and your soft caps were super easy to overcome near endgame. Also, SP rewards seemed to be way too high and even with some conscious ignoring of my stat levels I still hit 8/8 for everyone by Mideel.

Looking forward to finally finishing up this playthrough later this week!

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8611 on: 2019-09-30 12:48:51 »
Sega Chief--

I have some bad news to report. It seems that my submarine has somehow gotten stuck in the sid of the bay near Junon and I literally cannot do anything to get it to move out. Which means I can't submerge...

And of course it also means I can't fight your Emerald Weapon equivalent :(

Which stinks because I finally have most everything else (minus the silver/gold fight rewards in the Golden Saucer) and actually feel relatively prepared. Is this just a bug leftover from the original that you can't fix? Or did I stumble on something new?

Also, less importantly, there is no Dragoon Lance in any Junon shops in my game (NT is the only mod I'm using btw). Not that it matters for my current game, but my OCD is a bit miffed that I missed the lance!


And finally, I want to echo everyone's thanks for all your work on this mod! The game balance is much more enjoyable now than the last time I played (ie fights can still be difficult, but I can also become powerful enough to actually feel powerful--and even hit the damage cap!). The only suggestion I might have to improve on this front is to somehow reduce SP awarded throughout and in the endgame significantly reduce XP gains. AP felt about right and I wasn't really mastering materia until late, which felt right on. However, when leaving random encounters on my characters were usually over-leveled and your soft caps were super easy to overcome near endgame. Also, SP rewards seemed to be way too high and even with some conscious ignoring of my stat levels I still hit 8/8 for everyone by Mideel.

Looking forward to finally finishing up this playthrough later this week!


That issue with the sub seems to be with the game itself, I did some searching and saw a bunch of other people had ran into the same issue. I reckon your best bet is to save-edit your character using Black Chocobo to the Gelnika. Then when you exit the Gelnika, the game should have you in the sub. And when you surface, the game will update your sub's location to your new current location (this is how it works with the Highwind to an extent).

I've perhaps made the Lance missable by mistake, unless there's an enemy somewhere that it can be acquired from that I've forgotten about besides the Dragon Rider. In any case, I'll add it somewhere.

For the final build, SP is going to be removed and instead the rank-ups will be given at fixed points. It seems like a better solution to things. The EXP arcs are going back to the normal ones as well.

Sprixx

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8612 on: 2019-09-30 23:15:11 »
So I just started this mod recently and i gotta say that I absolutely love it. However, I am having a minor issue with it (its been smooth sailing since I started it). I am at the point where I can start the Dark Cave side quest, but everytime I enter the cave the game soft locks right after Barret says "The others aren't here either" or whatever. I do have a few other mods active as well (mainly visual ones, some new animations/models, etc). I was wondering if some other mod could be messing with the Dark Cave in particular or if its something else wrong with it that I am unaware of.

Thanks ahead of time if you're able to help. Love the work you did with the Mod. Can't wait to finish everything it has to offer!

Tylat

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8613 on: 2019-10-01 17:13:01 »
Will anything go wrong if i update from 1.2(?) to 1.5 and continue my current save file? i just left midgar and want to make sure i wont break anything

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8614 on: 2019-10-01 23:25:47 »
So I just started this mod recently and i gotta say that I absolutely love it. However, I am having a minor issue with it (its been smooth sailing since I started it). I am at the point where I can start the Dark Cave side quest, but everytime I enter the cave the game soft locks right after Barret says "The others aren't here either" or whatever. I do have a few other mods active as well (mainly visual ones, some new animations/models, etc). I was wondering if some other mod could be messing with the Dark Cave in particular or if its something else wrong with it that I am unaware of.

Thanks ahead of time if you're able to help. Love the work you did with the Mod. Can't wait to finish everything it has to offer!

It'll be a mod conflict with the graphical ones (particularly animations), for some reason they cause that scene to break.

Will anything go wrong if i update from 1.2(?) to 1.5 and continue my current save file? i just left midgar and want to make sure i wont break anything

That is a big jump. It will almost certainly break some things.

demos1085

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8615 on: 2019-10-04 04:06:00 »
Hello Sega Chief and people of the forum.

I just wanted to note a couple of minor errors I found while playiing Vanilla Mode:

In Wutai inside the Da Chao mountain, whe youn collect the "Steal as well" materia using Leviatan,s Scales to extinguish the fires, a Yuffie models sudenly appears out of nowhere in the field and says some lines to some "ghost girl", then a battle occurs, (a common crustacean monster with a beach background) and after you win, you receibe  the "Steal as well" materia and Yuffie s 4th Level Limit, I guess this is a leftover from the complete mod, where this is the normal way to adquiere that Limit, but in the Vanilla mode the event is gliched, Yuffie appers out of tin air and remains in the field event after the battle, both the monster and the background of the battle are wrong, and it actually gives you a second copy of that Limit, since you obtain it normally by winning the fight again Yuffie´s dad. My point is that to make the Vanilla version a little cleaner, it would be advisable to remove the added events and battles that give you rewards that could be obtained using the "normal" method of the original game.

Also in the Sunken Gelnia Plane there is one single treasure box that could not be opened or interacted with.

That is all for now, as always thanks for the mod and for this active forum.

magictrufflez

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8616 on: 2019-10-05 14:12:34 »
Hi Sega Chief--I finished my NT playthrough this weekend and wanted to note a few thoughts about the latest version. NT was the only mod I used, and I played on the regular rather than arranged mode.

I still think the new 1.5 is the most pleasantly balanced version of the game I've played (I could become really powerful if I wanted, but some encounters would still wreck me if I wasn't paying attention), but some general things came up that I thought could be better balanced:


--It felt like you reintroduced late-level scaling to damage formulas, which was super welcome, but also made it super easy to max my damage output when combined with the really high experience curve mid- to late-game. I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but I think slowing down the experience curve is the best solution here so folks don't get that sweet lvl 80+ damage scaling so early in disc 2. Or maybe increase the experience needed for a level up by a factor of 5 from lvl 72 on? Not sure what the exact formula is, but I think it would make it more rewarding to hit those plateaus later than I did.

--I definitely get the reason for the Gold Chocobo-for-Guide Book trade, but with your new combat balance, I think it probably breaks mid-game. I wasn't able to beat the KotR boss immediately (although I might have if I had tried a bit harder early on--I won once I came back with final weapons and lvl4 limits), but the other materia cave bosses went down REALLY easy. I had all the special materia available via chocobo outside KotR literally right after I got the sub. Maybe give us a different color chocobo for the guide book? Like blue or green?

--I love most final weapons (especially Missing Score + 4 Osmose materia), but I have to echo some folks' complaints about Vincent's and Cid's. With your new combat balance they do respectable damage, but will almost always be outdamaged by the big hitters (Cloud, Tifa, Barret) when holding strength constant between them all. This is especially problematic for Cid--his weapon doesn't ignore defense, and its special skill is effectively useless by the time you get it (draining HP is really only useful for longer fights, of which there aren't many left after the Dark Cave). Since Cid was one of my rotating main physical damage dealers, that's a problem IMO!

--On the subject of final weapons, please make Aeris' final weapon default target the party and not the enemy! In some fights where I needed to move quick there were some...embarrassing mess ups. And in pincer attacks (such as the KotR battle) it's surprisingly difficult to move the cursor to your party from the enemy!

--Is Cosmo Memory supposed to fill everyone's limit gauge? I used it in one of the final battles expecting only a single big hit, but then cloud and barret got their limits immediately after use. Maybe I'm wrong, but that seems super OP (although maybe it's not in arrange mode?), especially with how good Catastrophe is.

--The final boss of the dark cave has an attack that still ignores status immunity. I lost my first try against her (because of status effects), equipped ribbons on everyone the 2nd time, but Cloud still got confused, and even after I healed him stayed confused (the other status effects were dispelled though). It's literally the only time that happened my entire playthrough.

--Finally, about the stat system. I know you plan on changing it to a story-progress-centered system with some stat increases by level, but I do have a critique that applies to both the current and planned system. I personally love it it in theory, but one thing it does is lock the player choices very early possibly without an understanding of effective endgame builds/damage formulas, which currently could lead to a lot of regret. For example, if you don't realize that strength values do, in fact, play a big role in all final weapon damage formulas, you may be sorely surprised to find your 100 str Cloud with 9999 HP or a Barret with 4 Osmose Missing Score but 125 str (because you loaded up on defense min/maxing for Missing Score) doing subpar damage. Obviously this dynamic is sort of addressed with the recent rebalancing, but maybe a limited respec option during endgame might help (a 1-time-only, and only your first 3-4 rank ups?). I definitely think a unlimited/full respec would be too much though.

--Oh, and I forget what line, but I believe there's a single textbox in the cloud/tifa lifestream sequence that has "migh" instead of "might." Literally the only other unintentional typo my copyeditor eye caught!


Just my 2 pennies on what could be improved on what is already an amazing as hell mod! Take/ignore what you like of course!

EDIT: And just to be clear, I don't think any of the bosses--mandatory or optional--need rebalancing. I sadly didn't get to play against your Emerald Weapon variant (thanks to the sub glitch--I'd rather not muck around in the code to fix it just so I don't mess something else up), but every boss fight felt fair. I never once felt I got beat unfairly (except the Dark Cave final boss because of the above mentioned issue)--really well done building those encounters!
« Last Edit: 2019-10-05 14:17:14 by magictrufflez »

demos1085

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8617 on: 2019-10-05 16:28:29 »
Hi Sega Chief -- Just finished my second playthrought of the Vanilla Mode, i'm  happy to report that all the game breaking bugs a have been eliminated, I was able to play from start to finish without having to resort to save editing, I have a few suggestions/wishes in case you decide to keep working in the Vanilla Mode:

1. Return the materia to their original locations and return its original stat values: I notice some materia have been move to later in the game, and some have their stat boost / penalties severely increased, I guess this was done for balance reasons in the NT version, but it is not really necesary in the Vanilla Mode, since that one is the easy one anyway, also it will keep the Vanila Mode a little closer to the original.

2. Change the line that Cloud says when he revives Aerith to something a little more serious, my suggestion will be someting like, "I can´t belive... she still breathing! quick give me a phonenix down!" has the previous scene shows that Cloud was certain that Aerith have been killed, and is very distraught over the fact, so the casual line used in the current version "We dont have revive  level 4 but this does the trick too" sound out of place in what is otherwise a dramactic and serious scene.

3. If possible, remove the "Fainting" mecanic from the great glacier map, (Cloud faints after a set number of steps and wakes up in the mountain climber's cottagge) since it does not really contribute much to the gameplay and it is rather annoying when you are triying to explore the whole glacier and found all the treasures.

That is all, off course I'm very gratefull with what you have already done, as the Vanilla Mode is already functional and very well done, but please consider these friendly suggestions, Thanks again, and read you later. 

Bowser9

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8618 on: 2019-10-05 18:33:26 »

--I love most final weapons (especially Missing Score + 4 Osmose materia), but I have to echo some folks' complaints about Vincent's and Cid's. With your new combat balance they do respectable damage, but will almost always be outdamaged by the big hitters (Cloud, Tifa, Barret) when holding strength constant between them all. This is especially problematic for Cid--his weapon doesn't ignore defense, and its special skill is effectively useless by the time you get it (draining HP is really only useful for longer fights, of which there aren't many left after the Dark Cave). Since Cid was one of my rotating main physical damage dealers, that's a problem IMO!


If Cid's weapon changes, it would need to be completely reworked. As it is, it is utterly broken. If you combine his weapon with master command + HP absorb, his weapon will absorb full damage as HP and MP. Paired with counter attack, added cut, magic counter, and command counter, this easily made Cid the most powerful character late game as a physically biased magic knight archetype that could recover to full from any attack that didn't instantly kill him. Even then, his magic damage was okay with MP Turbo abuse, which he could use without care because he's always at full MP. Cid's ultimate weapon is no joke.
« Last Edit: 2019-10-05 18:38:49 by Bowser9 »

Scp121

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8619 on: 2019-10-05 23:33:50 »
Hey, I didn't see this anywhere, but was there a place that discussed what exactly each stat did? For example, would I want dex over str on a specific character? Do they change different damage values? Did I miss where this was all explained?

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8620 on: 2019-10-06 03:40:06 »
Hey, I didn't see this anywhere, but was there a place that discussed what exactly each stat did? For example, would I want dex over str on a specific character? Do they change different damage values? Did I miss where this was all explained?

Basically:
Strength: Determines the characters Attack stat when added with the equipped weapons Attack bonus
Dexterity: Determines how fast the ATB bar fills up. Also influences Defense% and Attack%
Vitality: Determines the characters Defense stat when added with the equipped armors Defense stat
Magic: Determines the Magic Atk stat when added to any equipment boost
Spirit: Determines Magic Def stat when added to any equipped armor and other bonuses
Luck: Affects the chances of attacks hitting or missing from allies or enemies, and for attacks to be critical.

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8621 on: 2019-10-06 19:06:35 »
Hello Sega Chief and people of the forum.

I just wanted to note a couple of minor errors I found while playiing Vanilla Mode:

In Wutai inside the Da Chao mountain, whe youn collect the "Steal as well" materia using Leviatan,s Scales to extinguish the fires, a Yuffie models sudenly appears out of nowhere in the field and says some lines to some "ghost girl", then a battle occurs, (a common crustacean monster with a beach background) and after you win, you receibe  the "Steal as well" materia and Yuffie s 4th Level Limit, I guess this is a leftover from the complete mod, where this is the normal way to adquiere that Limit, but in the Vanilla mode the event is gliched, Yuffie appers out of tin air and remains in the field event after the battle, both the monster and the background of the battle are wrong, and it actually gives you a second copy of that Limit, since you obtain it normally by winning the fight again Yuffie´s dad. My point is that to make the Vanilla version a little cleaner, it would be advisable to remove the added events and battles that give you rewards that could be obtained using the "normal" method of the original game.

Also in the Sunken Gelnia Plane there is one single treasure box that could not be opened or interacted with.

That is all for now, as always thanks for the mod and for this active forum.

Will exorcise ghost.


Hi Sega Chief--I finished my NT playthrough this weekend and wanted to note a few thoughts about the latest version. NT was the only mod I used, and I played on the regular rather than arranged mode.

I still think the new 1.5 is the most pleasantly balanced version of the game I've played (I could become really powerful if I wanted, but some encounters would still wreck me if I wasn't paying attention), but some general things came up that I thought could be better balanced:


--It felt like you reintroduced late-level scaling to damage formulas, which was super welcome, but also made it super easy to max my damage output when combined with the really high experience curve mid- to late-game. I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but I think slowing down the experience curve is the best solution here so folks don't get that sweet lvl 80+ damage scaling so early in disc 2. Or maybe increase the experience needed for a level up by a factor of 5 from lvl 72 on? Not sure what the exact formula is, but I think it would make it more rewarding to hit those plateaus later than I did.

--I definitely get the reason for the Gold Chocobo-for-Guide Book trade, but with your new combat balance, I think it probably breaks mid-game. I wasn't able to beat the KotR boss immediately (although I might have if I had tried a bit harder early on--I won once I came back with final weapons and lvl4 limits), but the other materia cave bosses went down REALLY easy. I had all the special materia available via chocobo outside KotR literally right after I got the sub. Maybe give us a different color chocobo for the guide book? Like blue or green?

--I love most final weapons (especially Missing Score + 4 Osmose materia), but I have to echo some folks' complaints about Vincent's and Cid's. With your new combat balance they do respectable damage, but will almost always be outdamaged by the big hitters (Cloud, Tifa, Barret) when holding strength constant between them all. This is especially problematic for Cid--his weapon doesn't ignore defense, and its special skill is effectively useless by the time you get it (draining HP is really only useful for longer fights, of which there aren't many left after the Dark Cave). Since Cid was one of my rotating main physical damage dealers, that's a problem IMO!

--On the subject of final weapons, please make Aeris' final weapon default target the party and not the enemy! In some fights where I needed to move quick there were some...embarrassing mess ups. And in pincer attacks (such as the KotR battle) it's surprisingly difficult to move the cursor to your party from the enemy!

--Is Cosmo Memory supposed to fill everyone's limit gauge? I used it in one of the final battles expecting only a single big hit, but then cloud and barret got their limits immediately after use. Maybe I'm wrong, but that seems super OP (although maybe it's not in arrange mode?), especially with how good Catastrophe is.

--The final boss of the dark cave has an attack that still ignores status immunity. I lost my first try against her (because of status effects), equipped ribbons on everyone the 2nd time, but Cloud still got confused, and even after I healed him stayed confused (the other status effects were dispelled though). It's literally the only time that happened my entire playthrough.

--Finally, about the stat system. I know you plan on changing it to a story-progress-centered system with some stat increases by level, but I do have a critique that applies to both the current and planned system. I personally love it it in theory, but one thing it does is lock the player choices very early possibly without an understanding of effective endgame builds/damage formulas, which currently could lead to a lot of regret. For example, if you don't realize that strength values do, in fact, play a big role in all final weapon damage formulas, you may be sorely surprised to find your 100 str Cloud with 9999 HP or a Barret with 4 Osmose Missing Score but 125 str (because you loaded up on defense min/maxing for Missing Score) doing subpar damage. Obviously this dynamic is sort of addressed with the recent rebalancing, but maybe a limited respec option during endgame might help (a 1-time-only, and only your first 3-4 rank ups?). I definitely think a unlimited/full respec would be too much though.

--Oh, and I forget what line, but I believe there's a single textbox in the cloud/tifa lifestream sequence that has "migh" instead of "might." Literally the only other unintentional typo my copyeditor eye caught!


Just my 2 pennies on what could be improved on what is already an amazing as hell mod! Take/ignore what you like of course!

EDIT: And just to be clear, I don't think any of the bosses--mandatory or optional--need rebalancing. I sadly didn't get to play against your Emerald Weapon variant (thanks to the sub glitch--I'd rather not muck around in the code to fix it just so I don't mess something else up), but every boss fight felt fair. I never once felt I got beat unfairly (except the Dark Cave final boss because of the above mentioned issue)--really well done building those encounters!

The levels, damage formulas, and exp is being redone for the final build. I think it got a bit too gung-ho by the end in trying to rush the player up to max level.

Chocobo Breeding becomes available once Cloud is back, so you can get up to Black fairly quickly for the 3 land-based caves. So even if the guidebook thing is removed or downgraded, those caves still become accessible at that point of the game (assuming player puts the time in).

Cid's weapon was often reported as the strongest one due to the drain effect making him very difficult to kill. But I agree that all the ultimate weapons should have a unique formula of some sort that can deal comparable bonus modifier damage to each other, and that there's not enough to go around currently for them all to be unique.

Cosmo Memory was adjusted into a party support ability where it refills the party's Limit gauges in addition to its effect. I think Yuffie's All Creation revives all KO'd party members like Phoenix. Those two limits are problematic because they're single-shot, rather than multi-hit like the others.

Those attacks were all supposed to be removed as per the last patch, so I must have missed one.

The last build of the mod is going to be migrating onto new modding frameworks when they release which will allow full control over the savemap, this will make a respec function possible and make the whole Sources thing moot as it will be automated with field script.


Hi Sega Chief -- Just finished my second playthrought of the Vanilla Mode, i'm  happy to report that all the game breaking bugs a have been eliminated, I was able to play from start to finish without having to resort to save editing, I have a few suggestions/wishes in case you decide to keep working in the Vanilla Mode:

1. Return the materia to their original locations and return its original stat values: I notice some materia have been move to later in the game, and some have their stat boost / penalties severely increased, I guess this was done for balance reasons in the NT version, but it is not really necesary in the Vanilla Mode, since that one is the easy one anyway, also it will keep the Vanila Mode a little closer to the original.

2. Change the line that Cloud says when he revives Aerith to something a little more serious, my suggestion will be someting like, "I can´t belive... she still breathing! quick give me a phonenix down!" has the previous scene shows that Cloud was certain that Aerith have been killed, and is very distraught over the fact, so the casual line used in the current version "We dont have revive  level 4 but this does the trick too" sound out of place in what is otherwise a dramactic and serious scene.

3. If possible, remove the "Fainting" mecanic from the great glacier map, (Cloud faints after a set number of steps and wakes up in the mountain climber's cottagge) since it does not really contribute much to the gameplay and it is rather annoying when you are triying to explore the whole glacier and found all the treasures.

That is all, off course I'm very gratefull with what you have already done, as the Vanilla Mode is already functional and very well done, but please consider these friendly suggestions, Thanks again, and read you later. 


It was a fairly fast job so there's definitely some stuff that's went wandering to places they aren't ordinarily located. I didn't know the stat adjustments were still in there though, that'll be coming from the .exes.

I was talking to someone on twitter recently about that scene. Some people want Aeris to be more involved with the story post-Disc 1 (where currently she's kind of kept to the side as an optional auxiliary character like Yuffie or Vincent). I'm going to add some more toggles and the like so people can tailor the mod a bit to turn off/alter stuff.

Yeah can definitely remove the fainting at Glacier.

Scp121

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8622 on: 2019-10-06 23:18:01 »
Thank you very much for the response!

When the final/next version comes out, will I be able to carry my save over for NG+?

magictrufflez

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8623 on: 2019-10-06 23:38:09 »
Chocobo Breeding becomes available once Cloud is back, so you can get up to Black fairly quickly for the 3 land-based caves. So even if the guidebook thing is removed or downgraded, those caves still become accessible at that point of the game (assuming player puts the time in).

Very accurate (I actually got my gold chocobo on a previous NT version--that didn't have the trade active--the hard way right after getting Cloud back)--I guess I personally think it's worth making players work for, especially since the materia bosses are a bit easier with the rebalancing.

Maybe a good trade-off would be to place the guide book with a different enemy at a later point? Maybe even an early enemy in the Northern Crater? Like the gargoyles? Or morphing one of those nightmare monsters on the Gelnika (which are much more deadly than the Ghost Ship)?

That way players can still eventually skip the chocobo breeding/racing if they want but they can't get the extra special materia until endgame or after a particularly difficult fight. BUT if they want to put in the work they can still access the materia caves the normal way after they get Cloud back.
« Last Edit: 2019-10-06 23:40:35 by magictrufflez »

demos1085

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #8624 on: 2019-10-07 02:14:39 »
Hello Sega Chief, Thanks for your answer.

I too would like to see more of Aerith as I,m a fan of hers, I think that the way she is incorporated in the story is already pretty clever, (she thinks that the Holy invocation failed, so we still have a reason to do the quest with Bugenhagen (Red's granpa) in the city of ancients to understand what really happened) so maybe one way to inolve her more would be to have her become a little depressed after the Sephyroth "incident", because she thinks she failed to summon Holy and in doing so failed her duty / destiny has a Cetra, and them have her recover her confidence when Bugenhagen shows her that her prayers were indeed answered, also maybe give her some more interactions with the other members of the party, especially Cloud and Tifa

Also she should have some reaction to watching the videos of her parents in the Icicle town as they would be very personal to her, and finally give her some more weapons after the princess guard (in the original game the princess guard is found in the temple of the ancients and is literally the last weapon of the staff category) so she has more or less the same amount as the other characters, her ultimate weapon could be change to something like "Queen's guard" or "Empress guard" or "Sorceress guard" (ffviii reference  8))