Author Topic: Hardcore Mode, revivified  (Read 13211 times)

twipley

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Hardcore Mode, revivified
« on: 2007-06-17 15:44:23 »
So... I've played through FF7 many times, and browsed through and edited some walkthroughs, but hell: hardcore patches! this kinda got me back into the game. :D

Well, AFAIK gone_away has gone away, so we're pretty left to ourselves now. Though, Elentor and The Skillster did awesome work in developping the hardcore patch v0.40

The question I'm asking myself is about the potential "problem which causes battles to become out of order". What does that mean? Is it that there's a chance to encounter Ruby earlier in the game? or such hardcore monster, that there's no chance to beat, given the low level of the party?

gone_away also interpret the bugs of the v0.40 mod he released as "un-noticable". Being the case, I'd play right now. But if there are chances, like the report of encountering though enemies right from disc 1, as was the case for someone who modified the scene.bin file after having begun the game, that's... although, the latter bug might have been caused by the latter action of his.

You're all welcome dropping by a reply on this, or just sharing yours thoughts on the subject. :-D
« Last Edit: 2007-06-19 18:19:53 by twipley »

The Skillster

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #1 on: 2007-06-17 22:55:35 »
Well the patch I made was simply adding on to what Elentor's patch had done - since both are incomplete.
I can't remember what the status of Gone away's patch was, since we both were deciding to join forices and start from scratch after he built his scene writer.
But he did go away and we had to drop that project.

Thrashamatrix

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #2 on: 2007-06-17 23:11:19 »
A hardcore patch has some good points:
  • It was challenging and that brought increased incentive to play

It has more bad point thoughs:
  • Some bosses where ridiculously hard, as you were facing something that did three times the amount of damage, so if it only did 2000 damage before now it does 6000 and no matter how you level your character the boss will still kill him with one move.
  • The health of bosses are increased so sometimes you get to a point where its automatic regenerating process heals it and you can't hurt it pass that point because you hit it (400), it recovers two hits(800), you hit it(400), it recovers two hits(800), so on and so forth and this came to me a few times. :-(

[I have not listed every fault of it as most of them are buggy even if they are complete...]

In conclusion if one was to make another hardcore patch, it can't be not a mass affecting times two stat damage and hit point patch as that is lazy and unrefined but anyway the battle order becoming messed up was because of an admirable attempt to add spice to the game by adding monsters into fights for example with Dyne two additional monsters as well as a beefed up Dyne which was ingenious, unfortunately this took too much time and effort and thus was never completed.

twipley

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #3 on: 2007-06-18 03:20:24 »
Thank you both for sharing your thoughts.

I may start this trying The Skillster's 2x stats mod, because it sounds nice.
I'll review the experience in a while, after I start playing (when I get on it).

I'd like to volunteer to create anew such a patch, but time is somehow missing, so no fake hope on this! ;)


Some links:

The Skillster's & SmithiE's Hardcore Mod (dropped project):
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=5130.0

Hardcore Mode review:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=5307.0


Your thoughts are welcome to be shared here, so as for this thread to become the active one on the subject.

Peace out,
twipley
« Last Edit: 2007-06-18 03:24:38 by twipley »

Thrashamatrix

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #4 on: 2007-06-18 08:08:51 »
Aight, well I don't (shit will take long... :-o) want to make a new patch but I would like to see what you would have to change to make enemies more challenging so which programme should I be looking at? :?

The Skillster

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #5 on: 2007-06-18 16:10:37 »
In conclusion if one was to make another hardcore patch, it can't be not a mass affecting times two stat damage and hit point patch as that is lazy and unrefined but anyway the battle order becoming messed up was because of an admirable attempt to add spice to the game by adding monsters into fights for example with Dyne two additional monsters as well as a beefed up Dyne which was ingenious, unfortunately this took too much time and effort and thus was never completed.

Hello! That was my original Hardcore patch that had the extra monster with Dyne. That wasn't any corruption, I was adding monster ID's into the boss fight at an experimental stage. Unfortunatley I could not get the xy positioning right so I had to pull the monsters out (or at least I think I did).

A simple 2x mod doesn't work, bosses need to be tougher but you need to playtest it till you come up with a suitable increase - that's why my mod didn't get anywhere because playtesting takes time.

twipley

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #6 on: 2007-06-18 16:45:16 »
I guess I'd have some time to playtest such a patch, in the case my help is needed. ;)

As for the program that would have to be used for such a modding project, AFAIK gone away created a bug-free scene.bin editing program, which may have been posted somewhere.

See you later,
twipley
« Last Edit: 2007-06-19 02:34:36 by twipley »

Thrashamatrix

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #7 on: 2007-06-18 22:15:19 »
@ The Skillster: Well I agree a 2X one is not sufficient to make it enjoyable because it gets too hard and tedious the real ingenious and exciting ones for example your Dyne adding a monster is an example of a time consuming mod that every one wants but no one is gonna make because of the length and time needed to complete.

zero88

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #8 on: 2007-06-19 01:03:49 »
http://hosted.filefront.com/ze88ro

I've uploaded SceneReader and Scenester onto my FileFront account because I forget where I downloaded them from originally, and I am too lazy to dig up the original links (these are, of course, not my work at all).

The first program, SceneReader, will allow you to extract the game's scenes from your scene.bin file (/data/battle) and Scenester will allow you to edit the scenes. There's also another program out there, SceneEdit (made by the same dude that made SceneReader), that works like Scenester, but I don't recommend using that one because it's sort of buggy. I haven't encountered any problems with Scenester personally, but then again, I haven't extensively tested my experiments.

The usage of the programs is pretty self-explanatory.

But I wanted to add a little personal note that I think you guys may have touched upon slightly...super stats do not a difficult game make. Making the enemies use more clever/powerful spells, or attacks, or status ailments, is what really makes the game more difficult. I mean, additional strength and hit points wouldn't hurt, but doubling those stats just makes battles last twice as long and makes them twice as tedious...not necessarily hard. You could just level up more than you usually would, which is never fun. The fun part comes from determining an enemy's strategy and exploiting it. Or at least that's how I feel. :-P

twipley

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #9 on: 2007-06-19 04:28:30 »
I've just found this (last post from SmithiE):
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=5267.msg70632#msg70632

I somehow understand his leaving, as for the warm "welcome back"...

After all, he've brought an extra touch of motivation into the hardcore mode project, and he has built a working scene editing program. Of course, he'd have deserved better. Maybe we should contact him back, just to know if he'd still be interested in the project?

On another note, I wonder how enemies should be tweaked for the game to be a little harder, but still conserving its original splendor. Some already have found parts of the answer. I believe that the sharing of our ideas on the subject might not hurt bringing this patch closer to completion, so brainstorming activities might well be the way to go! ;)

Good night,
twipley
« Last Edit: 2007-06-19 16:06:01 by twipley »

twipley

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Re: hardcore mode
« Reply #10 on: 2007-06-19 16:00:38 »
I've been reading through various topics, and here're the tweaks I've found to be requested:

- increased enemy speed (attacking more often)
- increased HPs for latter enemies (to prevent kill-in-ones with slash)
- more difficult bosses (e.g. Sephiroth = more HPs), including Ruby & Emerald weapons

Of course, every fight doesn't need to become a real challenge, in my opinion.

...what do you think? ;)


Also take a look at Hay's Reasonable Mod:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=4759.0
« Last Edit: 2007-06-21 02:41:25 by twipley »

The Skillster

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Re: Hardcore Mode, revivified
« Reply #11 on: 2007-06-21 22:00:07 »
I think Gone Away was about to release a totally ground breaking editor (I was plugging the ideas) but I don't know if that version ever got out.
Adding extra enemies to fights etc takes massive amounts of time - because if you leave it for a while you lose track of the where everything is when you look at the file in the Hex editor!
I originally said that you could build a "multiplier chart" where some areas are tougher than others - some easy areas would be say x4 and other harder bosses and areas could be x1.5. But again that takes time to compile.

twipley

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Re: Hardcore Mode, revivified
« Reply #12 on: 2007-06-21 23:03:11 »
Wasn't it FFSceneEditor?
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=5267.0


EDIT
Hay's Reasonable Mod is working great! ;)
« Last Edit: 2007-06-23 15:30:03 by twipley »