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

[Dark_Ansem]

BUG: there is a guard scorpion in the church during the first aeris meeting. It is there only in the close-up scene. The top-down church view does not have it.

[deha0002]

I was going to wait for Arrange before i started playing NT again, but damn it i have to play anyway.
Just a few questions:
* If i start a new game now, will all keyitems (and such) be placed on the right boss/event?
* Is there a way to grind Rank up at "endgame" if i try to go for a "no rank up" run? Would be kinda lame to fight 545 goblins for the rest SP if need be.
* Is all materia that are supposed to be "copy-able" fixed? Such as contain.

Anyway keep it up SC, and who knows, another donation might come you way when you introduce Arrange + .EXE  .

[selius]

pretty sure the extra battles in disc 3 give chunks of sp

still faster to genocide goblins in most cases tho

plus you can breed chocobos while you do it

[Skirmish]

Vincent's Limits will be beefed up a little (specifically the physical attacks) when I've got the new .EXE patch made. The magic abilities on his Limits tend to hit very hard, but the physical attack is very weak.

So each eye has 36,000HP with middle-ground Defence and Magic Defence. They take double damage from Hidden, Bolt...and Wind for some reason. I guess because it levitates, but that's more floating in the water than flying; must have been a long night when I put in wind weakness. They absorb Water, null Earth/Gravity, and Absorb Holy.

Pandora's Box would be ideal to hit them all at once, but that's locked behind a boss. Shadow Flare could be a good high-damage substitute, or a Bolt/Hidden-Elemental physical attacker. Quadded-Ramuh might deal a good chunk of damage if the caster has a good Magic stat; Summons ignore Defence and don't suffer from split-damage like most normal spells do.

There is another thing you can do though; an odd trigger in his AI from his vanilla scripts involving Summons. If you use any of the three Bahamut summons on him when his eyes are open, he will not use Time Attack Storm; instead he'll use Carmine Beam which deals %-based damage (16/32). That can give you a way to avoid it, in a pinch. You can also Slow the Eyes along with Emerald; a Slow-All should buy you some extra time to get them down.

I'll be sorting the issue of missing key items out by moving the missing ones to unmissable locations. Junon Leagues, Dark Cave, and maybe a new event or two to cover what's missing.

Dark Cave is currently down for some heavy maintenance. I needed to re-do some of the scripts there to fix a problem that clashes with the new 1.4 scripts and to get it ready for the Aeris Unrevival project (new official name for NT's first 'unfeature').

I didn't think of that with Resist; that might bugger up Reno as well, and a few other bosses. I'll sort it out.

Red and Yuffie have the weakest Lv.4 Limits because they only hit once, whereas the others hit multiple times. Vincent's Chaos is also pretty weak because it doesn't have the benefit of a hard-hitting elemental attack like Galian and Gigas. The .EXE patch I'm making will let me tune these up a bit.

Would you consider revamping a bunch of other Limit Breaks aswell? I have some ideas but would like your opinion regarding effectiveness/balance/practicality etc. If you're interested I can send you a PM.

Finally managed to beat Carmine Weapon with my No Sources Party. Also found a method that will work regardless of playtime but requires a bit of luck regarding the attacks Carmine Weapon uses and who it attacks, in a regular party that uses the Rank Up system this will be significantly easier.

For those who have tried and failed and are out of ideas, read the spoiler text but keep in mind it's not a foolproof strategy and may require several tries. Those who want to think of a strategy themselves can ignore this:

Spoiler: show

Master Fist is Master Race. Tifa in the Front Row with Master Fist, Warrior Bangle for the Physical Damage Reduction and Curse Ring to make up for the stat defecit. You'll want 4x Cut, Plenty of Counter Attacks, Hidden-Elemental in your Weapon and Destruct-Added Effect in your Armour. Begin the fight by having a character cast Dragon Force on Tifa or use a Lucky Pill on Tifa for the Auto-Crits and also give Tifa a Hero Drink II, the negative Status effects will power up Master Fist to ridiculous levels even if you've never used the Rank Up system.

To make sure Tifa doesn't gain any more undesired status effects, you'll want to remove Slow-Numb with a Soft and then use a Vaccine/Resist on he so she's Locked with Poison/Silence/Slow/Darkness/Sadness/Death-Sentence for extraordinary Damage capabilities. Be warned that Carmine Shoot will Dispel Resist but in the ideal scenario, Carmine Weapon will use Foot Stamp more than Carmine Shoot.

When the Eyes get activated you'll want people under Resist status so that Carmine Beam cannot inflict Dual-Drain. I'm not sure the Bahamut Summons stop Carmine Weapon using Time Attack Storm but I think it definitely makes it much less likely like it does with Aire Tam Storm in Vanilla FF7 but I threw one in to help damage the Eyes a bit with one of my other party members, just incase.

Each Time an Eye attacks Tifa, due to the Status Effects she's under and the Counter Attacks she is stacked with she'll do heavy damage in retaliation. Now the Eyes aren't guaranteed to hit Tifa but you can get in a couple of 4x Cuts aswell to damage the Eyes and Carmine Weapon. When Carmine Weapon uses Kcatta Emit Storm it will almost certainly screw everyone over if you have alot of playtime like myself however thanks to Tifa's Innate Ability \\Grit// she will survive with 1 HP. Heal her up and with her probably being the only live party member at this stage she will counter attack each eye and probably kill it.

Once the eyes are down it's mainly just healing up after Carmine Shoots and Foot Stamps and with all the counter damage that Master Fist was doing, Carmine Weapon was down before it could revive the Eyes again. Carmine Weapon appears to have around 270000 - 280000 HP but I could be a bit off.

Then after the fight was over:

Spoiler: show

I decided to try my hand at the Master Materia fight, which proceeded to crash the game and has no background.

At some point I am going to have to try and deal with Viridian Weapon and Netzechariah, I have a couple of things to try out so I'm hoping they'll work but I am admittedly dreading Netz.

As for Resist, for the fight in Cloud's Sidequest I personally found it useful for stopping my opponent from gaining the bonus from Courage Boost, allowing me to continue damaging it via Gravity, was still a painful fight though as damaging too fast (Gravity + Quadra Magic) resulted in me getting hit rather hard, rather fast.

[NeoDraconis]

I thought you were going to make Aeris' revival optional? I don't think I will play the game again to just watch her die again. o.o

[seijuro]

I'm at the Gongaga town right outside the reactor (latest 18th April Build) and Boxer used Goblin Punch on me and it said I learned the Enemy Skill but then it doesn't show up on my list. Is this intentional or a bug?

[Sega Chief]

BUG: there is a guard scorpion in the church during the first aeris meeting. It is there only in the close-up scene. The top-down church view does not have it.

That should be corrected in the current Main Installer files.

I was going to wait for Arrange before i started playing NT again, but damn it i have to play anyway.
Just a few questions:
* If i start a new game now, will all keyitems (and such) be placed on the right boss/event?
* Is there a way to grind Rank up at "endgame" if i try to go for a "no rank up" run? Would be kinda lame to fight 545 goblins for the rest SP if need be.
* Is all materia that are supposed to be "copy-able" fixed? Such as contain.

Anyway keep it up SC, and who knows, another donation might come you way when you introduce Arrange + .EXE  .

Because people have already cleared the game and certain places can't be revisited, it means I have to place the key items in unmissable locations so you won't miss any once everything's patched up on that front.

Yeah, Rank can be grinded up; most Crater enemies are Lv.90+ and you can get it for individual characters from Junon Leagues as well. Goblins appear to be farmable as well.

Not yet, but like with the key items I'll need to place it down somewhere so that players who are already past there can get another one.

Would you consider revamping a bunch of other Limit Breaks aswell? I have some ideas but would like your opinion regarding effectiveness/balance/practicality etc. If you're interested I can send you a PM.

As for Resist, for the fight in Cloud's Sidequest I personally found it useful for stopping my opponent from gaining the bonus from Courage Boost, allowing me to continue damaging it via Gravity, was still a painful fight though as damaging too fast (Gravity + Quadra Magic) resulted in me getting hit rather hard, rather fast.

Nice to see Master Fist getting some use; it's stronger than Powersoul overall, but trickier to use. I generally tweak every Limit when I make an .EXE; I like to make Braver stronger than Cross Slash for instance. This time though I'm keeping their base power as-is & long-range to avoid the problem before where they were too weak and made some bosses very difficult to fight (like Hundred Gunner).

I thought you were going to make Aeris' revival optional? I don't think I will play the game again to just watch her die again. o.o

It will be optional; I just like the idea of listing 'Aeris doesn't get revived' as a feature.

I'm at the Gongaga town right outside the reactor (latest 18th April Build) and Boxer used Goblin Punch on me and it said I learned the Enemy Skill but then it doesn't show up on my list. Is this intentional or a bug?

It might be due to the way the fight ended; if he disables himself then it can cause enemy skills to not be learned. That enemy needs a fix in any case because he's still causing crashes with his self-destruct attack.

[magictrufflez]

Just to clarify, are SP gains nulled if you use instant death attacks (like Odin)?  There were a few Mideel enemies that were higher level than me that I've killed via Odin, but I didn't get SP.  The Goblins too.  Is this working right?

After a bit of testing on the farmable goblins, it seems there's a weird thing where the first goblin killed won't award you SP, but every subsequent one will (as long as you kill it through damage, not insta-kill).  I think the same goes for the DUal Horns you can run into on the island too.  This seems kind of odd--would pumping their level up to 99 (or 100 if you can to ensure everyone always gets SP) be a way to make this permanent and not slightly glitchy?  Or does raising enemy levels mess with other stuff too?

[NeoDraconis]

Ah. Well as long as its a choice I have no complaints.

[Sega Chief]

Just to clarify, are SP gains nulled if you use instant death attacks (like Odin)?  There were a few Mideel enemies that were higher level than me that I've killed via Odin, but I didn't get SP.  The Goblins too.  Is this working right?

After a bit of testing on the farmable goblins, it seems there's a weird thing where the first goblin killed won't award you SP, but every subsequent one will (as long as you kill it through damage, not insta-kill).  I think the same goes for the DUal Horns you can run into on the island too.  This seems kind of odd--would pumping their level up to 99 (or 100 if you can to ensure everyone always gets SP) be a way to make this permanent and not slightly glitchy?  Or does raising enemy levels mess with other stuff too?

The SP script has a flaw; when you go past Lv.44, the AI is supposed to check your pre-synch level against it's own, then it synchs you. Problem is, pre-battle scripts trigger one after the other so the first enemy does the check then synchs. But then the second enemy checks your SYNCHED level, and so does the third enemy, and so on. In other words, every enemy formation with enemies above Lv.44 are going to give EXP after the first enemy. I'm going to see what I can do to adjust it. But this only really happens midway through Disc 2, so it's not a huge disaster.

As for Odin, I'm not sure. Maybe the death scripts are disabled by the attack because they get sliced in two? We'll call that a handy counter-balance to using Odin.

[Skirmish]

Nice to see Master Fist getting some use; it's stronger than Powersoul overall, but trickier to use. I generally tweak every Limit when I make an .EXE; I like to make Braver stronger than Cross Slash for instance. This time though I'm keeping their base power as-is & long-range to avoid the problem before where they were too weak and made some bosses very difficult to fight (like Hundred Gunner).

And through more Master Fist usage Viridian Weapon is down aswell but I will admit that I chugged through a few X-Potions and Elixirs on this one. Master Fist after being buffed up and once Death-Sentence ran out was hitting for around 2400-2500 Crits, 2900-3000 at low HP.

The main thing I like about Master Fist over the Powersoul is that you have linked slots on the Master Fist allowing you to do Elemental Combos for extra damage, the thing that annoys me about it is Darkness "Buffing" it since the extra damage you would gain from having one more negative Status would be offset by the loss of accuracy, you also can't remove Darkness without removing Silence aswell.

-----

I agree with the premise of having Braver doing more damage than Cross-Slash as Cross-Slass inflicts Paralyze, the idea being you choose which is more ideal for the situation between the extra damage or the Status effect. Personally I'd change up a couple of Limit Breaks to make them a bit more interesting, for example Climhazzard looks like it should be a Piercing attack, not to mention it wouldn't be too OP as it's single target and we only have 1 Defence ignoring Physical Attack in the game (i.e. Gauntlet).

Giving more Limit Breaks status effects may also give people a reason not to camp whichever Limit does the most damage depending on the situation. As Examples:

Climhazzard: Piercing
Landscaper: Slow-Numb
Blood Fang: Dual
Satellite Beam: DeBarrier
Earth Rave: Give it anything!

[Sega Chief]

Clim as piercing sounds good. What I've done in the past is made All Creation inflict a myriad of status ailments and reduce enemy stats (but only slightly, about 10% or so) while Cosmo Memory was turned into a buff spell.

I'm overhauling the Kalm Traveler script; he'll be giving the Gold Chocobo for a Guidebook (so it's relatively easy to access) and the two enemy skills for the other two items. I've also tracked down the Ziegfried problem; scenes in the game were using a different trigger to disable the mystery ninja encounter.

[Skirmish]

Clim as piercing sounds good. What I've done in the past is made All Creation inflict a myriad of status ailments and reduce enemy stats (but only slightly, about 10% or so) while Cosmo Memory was turned into a buff spell.

I'm overhauling the Kalm Traveler script; he'll be giving the Gold Chocobo for a Guidebook (so it's relatively easy to access) and the two enemy skills for the other two items. I've also tracked down the Ziegfried problem; scenes in the game were using a different trigger to disable the mystery ninja encounter.

Does this mean the Master Materia fight issue will be fixed? That fight crashes my PC and because the Kalm Traveler prioritises Earth Harp over the Desert Rose I can't do the fight for Pandora's Box. If you're going to make the Gold Chocobo that easy to access then I guess it should have terrible racing stats like in Vanilla, making people easily access the Materia Caves isn't an issue because of each respective Boss Fight in there. Will Guide Book still give you access to the Dragon Force Enemy Skill? Granted it isn't the defence booster I know and love but you turned it into a different kind of useful.

Going to try my luck against Netzechariah now you've fixed the soft lock issue (and probably die a painful death). Out of curiosity is Knights of the Round a Hidden Elemental Summon like in previous NT builds or is it Non-Elemental again? I've also heard it received a significant accuracy drop and that strikes can actually miss.

[Sega Chief]

The goal is to set up the script so that you choose what to hand over, and to make the Master Materia drop happen after delivering all three items.

KOTR is non-elemental with 30 base power (same as Comet2) but ignores defence. The accuracy was dropped to 75% per strike, so it's less reliable than before.

[Skirmish]

The goal is to set up the script so that you choose what to hand over, and to make the Master Materia drop happen after delivering all three items.

KOTR is non-elemental with 30 base power (same as Comet2) but ignores defence. The accuracy was dropped to 75% per strike, so it's less reliable than before.

If I am understanding this correctly:

Guide Book: Gold Chocobo (Terrible Stats but easy access to Materia Caves).
Desert Rose: Yahcobo fight + Pandora's Box Enemy Skill
Earth Harp: King Bub fight + Dragon Force Enemy Skill
All 3 Items returned: Master Materia fight + Master Materia

So then Knights of the Round is 13 hits for 1.875x Base Power whilst ignoring Magic Defence. That would mean potential damage is 24.375x Base Power with average damage being 18.28125x Base Power due to the accuracy drop. I'm guessing the goal is to make the Summon powerful but not a universal answer to everything.

[Sega Chief]

You can breed a Gold with a Wonderful and get a 2nd Gold that'll have better stats, as I understand it. Either way, should be a faster process assuming you can Morph Ghost Ship. It'll take some time though because the script has to be restored manually; wish I'd kept a back-up of it on this flevel, can't copy-paste scripts across flevels. The rest of the script is done; just going to check these fights and fix the other battle-related problems.

[magictrufflez]

Sorry to bother everyone with a possibly dumb question again:

Is it possible to run the updated installer over my current game to get the additional patches SC made, or would I need to uninstall/reinstall the game completely to get the new changes applied to my current game?  Provided I wouldn't have to totally start over in the first place?  I only ask because SC was super efficient and updated the installer rather than just make new hotfix patches, and I just want to make sure this won't mess up my whole game...

[NeoDraconis]

... Personally I breed em the hard way cause its actually fun. I actually tend to leave that pitiful golden chocobo in my pens once I have him.

[IvoryValor]

Um... SC, I don't mean to be rude or annoying, but do you have that alternate solution to me not being able to even open the patcher? I'm just curious... Not mad at all. Text sucks for emotion... ^_^;

[Sega Chief]

Um... SC, I don't mean to be rude or annoying, but do you have that alternate solution to me not being able to even open the patcher? I'm just curious... Not mad at all. Text sucks for emotion... ^_^;

Yeah, I've got something in mind; was just holding off until this round of patches was done.

Sorry to bother everyone with a possibly dumb question again:

Is it possible to run the updated installer over my current game to get the additional patches SC made, or would I need to uninstall/reinstall the game completely to get the new changes applied to my current game?  Provided I wouldn't have to totally start over in the first place?  I only ask because SC was super efficient and updated the installer rather than just make new hotfix patches, and I just want to make sure this won't mess up my whole game...

You can just run the patcher/hotfixes over anything.

[Skirmish]

Morphing the Crater enemies has been reported as being too difficult due to their high HP pools. The plan is to add a handler that, when they're struck by the Morph command at low HP, they report their current increment of HP (so when Iron Man is below 4/32 of his HP and he's hit with Morph, it'll say 'Current HP <= 18375. When he's below 1/32 of his HP, it'll report 'Current HP <= 4594'. It's not perfect by any means, but it'll give people a rough idea of when to hold off on the heavier attacks.

I'll be sorting the issue of missing key items out by moving the missing ones to unmissable locations. Junon Leagues, Dark Cave, and maybe a new event or two to cover what's missing.

Do you have a rough idea of when the handler will be functional, also at least for Iron Man I now know how much HP he has. I also found out that the Armoured Golem isn't immune to Sudden Death, as such I tried to Morph him using Odin + Added Effect but sadly it doesn't work and it also means I can't use Shadow Flare on him due to the chance of instant K.O.

-----

I'd personally be more on board with a "Lost and Found" vendor in Bone Village but as long as they are obtainable in a non-missable way then it shouldn't be a problem. Speaking of Ultimate Weapon ingredients:

Zenogias Feather: Ultimate Weapon - Obtained
X-ATM Core: X-ATM Scorpion - Doesn't Drop
Micro Engine: Love Buster - Doesn't Drop
Gospel Spark: Various Locations - Obtained
7777 Needles: Kaktuar - Obtained
Dark Matter: Cait Sith's Sidequest - Obtained
Pulse Ammo: Tseng - Doesn't Drop
LuvLuv G: Dark Cave - Down for Maintenance
Red Crystal: Not a damn clue - Asking Sega Chief

If all the drops worked properly I would have the X-ATM Core, Micro Engine and Pulse Ammo and be on 7/9 Tertiary Ingredients for Ultimate Weapons. On a side note where is the Red Crystal?

[Dark_Ansem]

Bug: once wedge falls off the pillar his model disappears from the ground but a random running npcs becomes "him".

[IvoryValor]

Yeah, I've got something in mind; was just holding off until this round of patches was done.

Ah, my apologies

[Sega Chief]

Do you have a rough idea of when the handler will be functional, also at least for Iron Man I now know how much HP he has. I also found out that the Armoured Golem isn't immune to Sudden Death, as such I tried to Morph him using Odin + Added Effect but sadly it doesn't work and it also means I can't use Shadow Flare on him due to the chance of instant K.O.

-----

I'd personally be more on board with a "Lost and Found" vendor in Bone Village but as long as they are obtainable in a non-missable way then it shouldn't be a problem. Speaking of Ultimate Weapon ingredients:

Zenogias Feather: Ultimate Weapon - Obtained
X-ATM Core: X-ATM Scorpion - Doesn't Drop
Micro Engine: Love Buster - Doesn't Drop
Gospel Spark: Various Locations - Obtained
7777 Needles: Kaktuar - Obtained
Dark Matter: Cait Sith's Sidequest - Obtained
Pulse Ammo: Tseng - Doesn't Drop
LuvLuv G: Dark Cave - Down for Maintenance
Red Crystal: Not a damn clue - Asking Sega Chief

If all the drops worked properly I would have the X-ATM Core, Micro Engine and Pulse Ammo and be on 7/9 Tertiary Ingredients for Ultimate Weapons. On a side note where is the Red Crystal?

Red Crystal is currently dropped by the Materia fight.

Bug: once wedge falls off the pillar his model disappears from the ground but a random running npcs becomes "him".

Should (hopefully) be taken care of in the current patch.

Also, the new patches are up; main was updated, IRO, and hotfixes too. Couples things; I'm going to go ahead with the lost & found thing and add an NPC who can dish out stuff/reset events that were missed for bugs and whatnot. This includes Ziegfried, which was missable due to a flag being turned off in certain events. That way I can stick with the plan for key item distribution.

[Bowser9]

@SegaChief
Wrong link for the main installer.