[FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.99994)

[Sega Chief]

Alrighty, good luck!

[JT]

Hey Sega Chief!

Thanks for the excellent mod ( So far ).
I have a quick question regarding the upcoming 1.4. Should I hold out of this patch or will it be safe to just continue playing on the current patch until the release date and then update? I cant play too often so will probably still be on disk 1. Will this affect me much?

Thanks again
JT

[Sega Chief]

The update is extensive enough in scripting changes that it will likely be a good idea to start a new game when playing 1.4. It's not going to be done for another week or two though.

[JLOUTLAW]

Ok so I used the 7th heaven to install new threat. now most things seem to work, for instance the new magic spells and monster ai and strength and lowered attack power of my characters..... but im not seeing the new npc's that are supposed to appear in the north cave, highwind, battle saucer etc. I'm also not seeing all the new save points that were supposed to have been added. What do you suggest I do?

Also I tried playing from a save file i had right before the guard scorpion. the battle was the same except there wasnt time counting down during the battle. and also the save point didnt vanish like it has in videos ive seen. what do you think happened and have you ever seen or heard of this before and how do you fix it?

[Sega Chief]

Sounds like parts of the flevel haven't been patched, specifically the scripts. Did you combine it with any other mods that affect field screens?

[JLOUTLAW]

these are the mods i have activated:

team avalanche fields
animations
battle model characters enemies weapons
battle textures
field model characters npcs objects
difficulty: new threat
gameplay tweaks and cheats
media music and sound
menu avatars and backdrops
the reunion: menu overhaul and beacause

beacause is not activated because it says there an issue with gameplay tweaks difficulty. which is new threat.
menu overhaul is active
break 9999 limit is on

minigames: motorbike chase, chocobo, condor, wonder square
world models enemies characters textures vehicles

and in my direct i have some models not included in the 7th heaven for both field and battle\


do you think i should just apply the new threat patch to the ffvii.exe made by 7th heaven or will that corrupt it?

[Sega Chief]

Looks like Reunion's Beacause; it's not supposed to be possible (or easy at least) to activate NT and Beacause at the same time because they're incompatible with each other. When selecting one, the other should have deselected. In any case, that's the likeliest cause.

[JLOUTLAW]

beacause is not activated because it says there an issue with gameplay tweaks difficulty. which is new threat.
menu overhaul is active
break 9999 limit is on

minigames: motorbike chase, chocobo, condor, wonder square
world models enemies characters textures vehicles

and in my direct i have some models not included in the 7th heaven for both field and battle\


do you think i should just apply the new threat patch to the ffvii.exe made by 7th heaven or will that corrupt it?

just noticed ive been using FFVIIBC.exe. Switching to FFVIIMO.exe for an experiment. will report results.

ok so that didnt change anything either. Neither did totally deactivating both menu overhaul and beacause and just using the normal ffvii.exe. all the hd mods work but the scripts for new threat still aren't kicking in. Should there be a ffviinew threat.exe installed by the 7th heaven installer?


Update. Patched the FFVII Data file using the manual New Threat Install. Still no difference. i cant figure out whats goin on......

[Sega Chief]

The .exe doesn't affect scripts, those are stored on field screens so anything affecting the field like backgrounds, etc. might be to blame. I'd try loading NT on it's own and seeing if a difficulty selection option textbox appears when selecting New Game (if it does, the scripts are installed). Then applying mods one at a time until you see what deactivates them. I'm betting the minigame/world map/Battle/Menu/Music stuff is fine, but maybe Team Avalanche's Fields, Animations, or anything from the field model category?

[JLOUTLAW]

Ok so following your advice i set about deleting field files from my direct folder, and deactivating any mods that alter field imagery. Started new game and the option to choose normal or arrange kicked in. Thank you so much for all your help and advice. Been looking forward to playing this mode just with the HD graphics lol. I appreciate it!!!!   


One last thing.... thought you should know when i try to download files from your mediafire site, they never download. they go into this forever reloading and never actually download the file. Whether its Google Chrome, Firefox, or IE. I was only able to download via my cell phone then transferring to my laptop.

[mexico]

Hey Sega!

Found a mistake here I think:



The "it's" may be "its" no?

Another problem:



That window didn't open at the save point but it openned at the moment I climp the ladder.

[Dracozombie]

Thanks for giving me something new to FFVII. I've been having a blast with this mod, and -- for the most part -- I think it's the perfect difficulty for me. Until disc 3, there have only been a select few times where I felt stuck, but I always seemed to pull through in the end. I never thought I had to go out of my way to level grind (gil grinding, on the other hand...). Battles depended more on preparation and strategy over raw levels. It forced me to really pay attention to stats and materia I got away with ignoring in the original. I actually made sure not to grind too much since I thought it'd make things too easy, not to mention there's supposed to be a level cap (though not really -- my Cloud's currently around level 80). You made sure magic was relevant for the whole game. It always disappointed me in the original, because physical attacks just outperformed magic by end-game... although I think this mod has the opposite problem: magic is so important that I barely use physical attacks. Oh well. Kudos for letting me see what FFVII could be.

... Theeeeen I got to disc 3. During my lurking, I noticed a post that discussed how unbalanced disc 3 seemed to be. After playing through it for a while, I have to say... yeesh. I'm really glad 1.4 is supposed to address these issues, because I'm at my tipping point here. Disc 3 is BRUTAL. It's challenging, all right, but not necessarily in the fun way. I got a few oversoul shards and defeated about 3/4 of the extra battles in the Battle Arena, and a lot of those were perfectly satisfying victories, but good grief, the sheer amount of preparation and trial-and-error it took to defeat a single boss was way beyond anything I had to fight on discs 1 and 2. They hit hard and a lot of them have so many status ailments to defend against that I really wish I found a Ribbon somewhere. Not to mention just how many battles there are. Victories or no, it gets exhausting after a while.

I didn't really understand the complaint about the lack of HP until I started doing the New Threats and the extra battles. I think I only really started to understand what they meant until just yesterday and today, when I took a shot at Dark Cave... and eventually had to opt out by reloading a save right before I entered the cave -- I sorta anticipated this happening. Even though Cloud is around level 80, with a party full of top-tier materia from the extra battles, I'm just not hacking it. I beat the Turks + Powersoul'd Tifa, which was a nightmare that took multiple tries through trial and error -- including one more when the elite soldier battle immediately afterwards Death Sentenced my whole party, with no clue they'd have such attacks and with no time to Death Force anyone because of the big group's long attack animations ate up the counter. And did I mention there was no save spot after that Turk battle? That was halfway close to a rage quit moment for me.

But okay, I managed that, got to the slums, found Yuffie and Vincent, then tried my shot at the Armor Keeper for Red XIII, and the serpent at the Honeybee Inn. Y'know, bosses being able to use multiple, heavy-hitting attacks in one turn wouldn't be so bad... if I had the HP to survive it. Which only my Barret does. And this is with everyone in back row + Sadness + vit-raising equipment + Wall + Regen. Cait Sith has even healthier HP, except that I can't even get to him until I beat the serpent dude, which is just too much for me. I literally don't know what to do for these battles. It's the first time I've ever felt truly, legitimately stuck in this mod. If anyone wants to share some tips, that'd be great, but in the meantime I guess I can try for more of those oversoul shards. Key word there is "try." Zack is a monster. Somehow I seem to be doing even WORSE than after I grinded and got all that superpowered materia. Probably because the only materia that seems to do reasonable damage, also seems to drag Cloud's HP. Yeah. It's that HP issue again.

I can't wait for 1.4 to come out. It's frustrating because it's been such an awesome ride until now, but it seems like I've been pulling my hair out more often than not with all these near-impossible boss fights. I'm sure you've heard these complaints before, and you'll be correcting them, but I just felt like venting. Because, c'mon, after feeling like a champ for getting through all the challenges up until now, getting smacked around like this don't feel good, y'know?

[EQ2Alyza]

Ok so following your advice i set about deleting field files from my direct folder, and deactivating any mods that alter field imagery. Started new game and the option to choose normal or arrange kicked in. Thank you so much for all your help and advice. Been looking forward to playing this mode just with the HD graphics lol. I appreciate it!!!!   


One last thing.... thought you should know when i try to download files from your mediafire site, they never download. they go into this forever reloading and never actually download the file. Whether its Google Chrome, Firefox, or IE. I was only able to download via my cell phone then transferring to my laptop.

If you had flevel fields in your direct folder, than that was your problem. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "field imagery" but I assume you mean field textures. Field texture mods do not associate themselves with the field scripts found inside the flevel, so they will have absolutely no affect on NT. Looking at your active mods you listed above, none of them alter the flevel aside from NT. This leads me to believe it was most definitely your direct folder causing the issues.

7H is setup to deactivate everything that would interfere with NT, so there's no possible way to have NT issues if setup correctly.

[Sega Chief]

Ok so following your advice i set about deleting field files from my direct folder, and deactivating any mods that alter field imagery. Started new game and the option to choose normal or arrange kicked in. Thank you so much for all your help and advice. Been looking forward to playing this mode just with the HD graphics lol. I appreciate it!!!!   


One last thing.... thought you should know when i try to download files from your mediafire site, they never download. they go into this forever reloading and never actually download the file. Whether its Google Chrome, Firefox, or IE. I was only able to download via my cell phone then transferring to my laptop.

Well, that's good to hear. I think some download sites cause problems for certain people; I swapped over to Mega for a while but then something happened and I drifted back over to Mediafire. I'll maybe use both in the future, once 1.4 has been updated with any necessary patches (hopefully not many).

Hey Sega!

Found a mistake here I think:



The "it's" may be "its" no?

Another problem:



That window didn't open at the save point but it openned at the moment I climp the ladder.

I have a bad habit of writing it's for the possessive. Part of 1.4 is a sweep of the game's entire text, though, so there should be less mistakes in the new build. As for that script thing, the extended save point scripts are usually stored with Cloud's group model; I must have done it wrong there if his script for climbing that ladder is opening that text box.

[Mithrain]

You made sure magic was relevant for the whole game. It always disappointed me in the original, because physical attacks just outperformed magic by end-game... although I think this mod has the opposite problem: magic is so important that I barely use physical attacks.

For the start of the game, at least up to somewhere on (early?) disc 2, magic is definitely really strong, but I wouldn't say that physical attacks are lacking too much behind. It all depends on your setup. As for endgame, magic is indeed really strong, especially once you unlock octo-casting planet/contain, paired with MP turbo. But once you start unlocking ultimate weapons (especially Ultima Weapon) and you start fiddling with your setup, you can load up on strength/agility giving materia (at least with the custom .exe), as well as counters/4x-cut, to make physical king again (and if that isn't enough; Lucky Pill & Yellow Wave <3).

I really wish I found a Ribbon somewhere. Not to mention just how many battles there are. Victories or no, it gets exhausting after a while.

Ribbons won't allow barriers/haste(/shield?) so you wouldn't want one, anyway. Added Effect materia and regular status accessories are your friends. o/

But okay, I managed that, got to the slums, found Yuffie and Vincent, then tried my shot at the Armor Keeper for Red XIII, and the serpent at the Honeybee Inn. Y'know, bosses being able to use multiple, heavy-hitting attacks in one turn wouldn't be so bad... if I had the HP to survive it. Which only my Barret does. And this is with everyone in back row + Sadness + vit-raising equipment + Wall + Regen. Cait Sith has even healthier HP, except that I can't even get to him until I beat the serpent dude, which is just too much for me. I literally don't know what to do for these battles. It's the first time I've ever felt truly, legitimately stuck in this mod. If anyone wants to share some tips, that'd be great, but in the meantime I guess I can try for more of those oversoul shards. Key word there is "try." Zack is a monster. Somehow I seem to be doing even WORSE than after I grinded and got all that superpowered materia. Probably because the only materia that seems to do reasonable damage, also seems to drag Cloud's HP. Yeah. It's that HP issue again.

Have you tried using shield? Most people appearantly ignore it, as it was incredibly useless in the original version. But here, it's really, really good. You can freecast it with Princess Guard.
Edit: Did you also try fiddling with Elemental/Added Effect Materia?
As for Zack, combine a Shield materia with Sneak attack, perhaps even combine a Wall-level barrier materia with one, too. Load up on counters (I think the cap is 5?), materia with +STR/agi. If you find yourself needing healing, but not wanting to actually do any direct healing, you can combine a Mug-level steal with a HP absorb, and I think that if you slap another Mug-level steal together with a countercommand, it should counter with the HP absorb, too.



Double-post removed. ~EQ2Alyza

[Dracozombie]

For the start of the game, at least up to somewhere on (early?) disc 2, magic is definitely really strong, but I wouldn't say that physical attacks are lacking too much behind. It all depends on your setup. As for endgame, magic is indeed really strong, especially once you unlock octo-casting planet/contain, paired with MP turbo. But once you start unlocking ultimate weapons (especially Ultima Weapon) and you start fiddling with your setup, you can load up on strength/agility giving materia (at least with the custom .exe), as well as counters/4x-cut, to make physical king again (and if that isn't enough; Lucky Pill & Yellow Wave <3).
Ribbons won't allow barriers/haste(/shield?) so you wouldn't want one, anyway. Added Effect materia and regular status accessories are your friends. o/



Have you tried using shield? Most people appearantly ignore it, as it was incredibly useless in the original version. But here, it's really, really good. You can freecast it with Princess Guard.
Edit: Did you also try fiddling with Elemental/Added Effect Materia?
As for Zack, combine a Shield materia with Sneak attack, perhaps even combine a Wall-level barrier materia with one, too. Load up on counters (I think the cap is 5?), materia with +STR/agi. If you find yourself needing healing, but not wanting to actually do any direct healing, you can combine a Mug-level steal with a HP absorb, and I think that if you slap another Mug-level steal together with a countercommand, it should counter with the HP absorb, too.

I mean, physical attacks aren't USELESS. Barret has actually become a respectable physical brawler, but I tend to use him in more of a tank-y supportive role, so it doesn't get to shine as often. It's just that a lot of these bosses are too dangerous for me to leave on the screen for long, so I find myself wanting to deal heavy damage with magic to kill them hard and fast. I already do the quad-casting with Contain or Planet, but I haven't tried octo-casting yet. What worries me about that strategy (aside from how I'd need to grind to master another Quadra Magic) is that three Contains or Planets on a single character could plummet their already-low HP to some dangerous levels. The only character who could probably get away with that is Cait Sith, who has a lot of HP and is a fairly good spellcaster, but his low dex is a concern and he's not even available for certain fights. I do have 2x-cut (haven't leveled it to 4x-cut yet) and a Counter, so I could look into that strategy. I honestly didn't want to rely on quadra magic or counter attack spamming, since I thought I could make strategies that didn't rely on 'gimmicks' like those, but I might not have a choice for some of these fights. Even if I'm getting tired of grinding materia. XD

I know that Ribbons also negate positive status effects, but I figured I could grin and bear it for certain bosses. That Abyss malboro thingy in the extra battles, for instance. I already find myself depending on Elemental and Added Effect materia, but keep in mind that I have finite materia slots and materia (again, I'm tired of grinding to get more of it), and some of these bosses have so many ailments to cover that there literally isn't enough room to adequately deal with them without sacrificing something else that's critical, like a materia setup or an accessory. Of course, Ribbons wouldn't be an eternal thing I'd keep equipped like I did in the original game, but it might be nice to have for certain specialized occasions. I hope I didn't miss my chance to get one, because I think I did.

I do use Shield from time to time, but it feels... kinda cheap. XD Like, I don't want to have to rely on a strategy that makes you nearly invincible to most things except physical attacks. And when it doesn't feel cheap, then it isn't the answer. In some fights it's the physical attacks that are the problem (like the Armor Keeper in the Dark Cave), or else it's some other gimmick of the boss that Shield can't counter, like ejecting two of your party members (like the New Threat boss in Wutai), or the Bottomswell-esque thing in the Honeybee Inn doing that bubble trick that's immune to magic and has a lot of HP. Buuut I probably shouldn't be complaining about cheap strategies. A lot of these end-game bosses ARE cheap, so I guess I'll just have to do what I can. Looks like it's back to grinding. Joy. I'm gonna look forward to that room in 1.4 that's supposed to have nothing but Movers and Magic Pots.

Also... where do you unlock the ultimate weapons? ^^; I already got the Dark Matter from the Temple of the Ancients fight (you know things are bad when two Safer Sephiroth-esque enemies wind up being one of the EASIER fights), but I never figured out what to do with it. Actually, as I'm typing this I'm suspecting that I have to take it to that weapons dealer near Gold Saucer/Gongaga. Is that where to go? Because a few ultimate weapons would be great.

[Mithrain]

You do indeed have to go to the Weapons Dealer near Gongaga. You'll need two weapons and a catalyst for each of them.
For cloud; it's Ragnarok, Heaven's Cloud and Zenogias Feather (Ultima weapon drop or rare steal from sephiroth in the crater (disc 2))

To find out where to find these items, you should be able to find a slightly outdated item database on page 1 in this thread.

Edit: You can even craft Masamune, which is usable on every character (Using each characters default weapon skin, though), with 100% crit chance, meaning it almost cannot miss. (Hint hint high-evasion mobs).

[Dracozombie]

omg dat database. I really should've consulted that thing much earlier. It confirmed that I can achieve a Ribbon-like effect with Hades + Added Effect (I thought it was just poison) so yay! Thanks for the tips. It gave me some ideas so I think I can give this thing another whirl.

[Tavarcio]

Sega Chief, one last request, is it possible to create a char.lpg file that only changes the models of the main characters? Cloud and company, not for me really, I'm going to wait until 1.4 comes out, but a friend of mine is interested in it. I know its a pain and I don't want to waste any more or your time but I would really appreciate it, cheers!

[Sega Chief]

Thanks for giving me something new to FFVII. I've been having a blast with this mod, and -- for the most part -- I think it's the perfect difficulty for me. Until disc 3, there have only been a select few times where I felt stuck, but I always seemed to pull through in the end. I never thought I had to go out of my way to level grind (gil grinding, on the other hand...). Battles depended more on preparation and strategy over raw levels. It forced me to really pay attention to stats and materia I got away with ignoring in the original. I actually made sure not to grind too much since I thought it'd make things too easy, not to mention there's supposed to be a level cap (though not really -- my Cloud's currently around level 80). You made sure magic was relevant for the whole game. It always disappointed me in the original, because physical attacks just outperformed magic by end-game... although I think this mod has the opposite problem: magic is so important that I barely use physical attacks. Oh well. Kudos for letting me see what FFVII could be.

... Theeeeen I got to disc 3.

Yep. The level cap was removed for the 1.35 build and replaced with something more internal that helps keep Level at a 'tipping point' between Magic and physical attacks. If Level rises beyond a certain point, then the physical formula starts to pull ahead exponentially.

The HP curve is a huge problem in the current build, but it's been fixed for 1.4; characters have around 5-7000HP instead of 3000.

Even if I'm getting tired of grinding materia. XD

Not to mention that there's too much grind on Disc 3 at present as well. I've specced enemies to give bigger leaps in EXP and AP going through the game, with the goal being to hit Disc 3 on a natural Lv.70+ with a lot of Materia approaching max level and the stronger ones made available earlier instead of being gated off (Added Cut was restored to it's original position, for instance).

Sega Chief, one last request, is it possible to create a char.lpg file that only changes the models of the main characters? Cloud and company, not for me really, I'm going to wait until 1.4 comes out, but a friend of mine is interested in it. I know its a pain and I don't want to waste any more or your time but I would really appreciate it, cheers!

The only change made to other NPCs in the char.lgp was the removal of the :O mouth texture; was there something in there that I forgot to revert to default?

[Tavarcio]

Ok now I'm confused, char.lgp changes everything right? even the enemy models right? If it doesnt and only changes cloud and co then I feel foolish 

[Sega Chief]

Char.lgp handles field models, battle.lgp handles battle models. NT can't be played without its battle.lgp, though.

[Dracozombie]

Uhhhh so the ultimate weapons quest thing might be a no-go for me, too. Frankly, I have no idea how I'm supposed to Morph bosses for their drops while both trying to survive and not being able to see their HP so that I don't accidentally kill it... which I just did when trying to morph a Heaven's Cloud from Variablis. Like, what's even the trick to doing it? Now I'm glad that 1.4's gonna take away boss morph drops. I won't be expected to do it!

EDIT: Never mind, I finally got it. Geez that was frustrating, but hey, it was worth it. Ultima Weapon is a beast.

[Sega Chief]

Ah, the Disc 3 Morphs. Possibly the worst idea that went in and it's been around since 1.2 or maybe earlier. There was a period of time when Heaven's Cloud was unobtainable because Variablis was immune to physical damage and, well, Morph uses the weapon formula.

[Mithrain]

While on the topic of morphing for weapons. Is it intended that you cannot run from Ochu in the Ancient Forest?

Edit: And offtopic; did you fix the 4x-cut bug with back row? :>