Messages

3601

Graphical / Re: Editing Battle.lgp (FF7)

« on: 2015-01-01 14:59:55 »

Just going to be thorough so you can avoid potential issues down the road. First off, each battle model's set of files are grouped/identified by the first two letters. For instance, all the files that start with 'AQ' are for the battle model 'Shinra MP'.

The file type is identified by the last two letters. So AQ[AA], the first file to appear in the AQ group, is the 'master file', or the .HRC that loads the entire battle model. If you open this file in Kimera, it'll load the entire battle model with it's animations, etc. You can set Kimera to filter for only Battle Skeleton files, making it easier to go through them all.

After AQ[AA], there's usually an AB file. I've got it in my notes as 'unknown' (but the actual purpose of this file might have been found by now) Don't worry about that for now, it doesn't tend to be edited except under special circumstances as far as I know.

The AQ group doesn't use any texture files, but after AQ[AB] there can be some more files that store texture files used by an enemy. Any file between AB and AM will be a texture file. For instance, at MT (this is Safer's battle model) there's one texture file for his eyes which uses the designation of MT[AC]. You can open and edit Texture files using IMG2TEX, an old program that should be kicking around here somewhere.

You'll notice that after AQ[AA] and AQ[AB] it jumps straight to AQ[AM]. This is where the battle model's 'parts' start, and AQ[AM] is the Shinra MP's pelvis. AQ[AN] is likely the torso, and I think AQ[AO] is the MP's head and so on. Kimera can open these files individually.

Every file from then on will be a body part of some kind, until you reach AQ[DA]. This is the last file in a battle model group and stores all the animation data. You can edit animations through Kimera by loading the [AA] master file, so you'd only be tampering with this DA file if you were making hex edits or something.


Now a list of what the Battle Model designations actually are. There's a tonne of duplicates, most unused, but watch out for deleting a duplicate model that's actually used in-game. This database should have all of them: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AniNoDVsrYhVdG0zZERUT0tsOF91eHE2WHo4ZWRseWc&gid=3

You can also use the Proud Clod tool (PrC) to check which models are used by which enemies from the scene.bin. This can be handy for identifying monsters quickly rather than trawling through the database, or if you're looking through modded files.

Character battle models start at RS (the frog battle model) with Cloud and co. turning up at RT and onwards. One thing to note is that Barret and Vincent have multiple battle models to handle their different attack animations when using different weaponry.

3602

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2015-01-01 14:29:42 »

Righto, here's the skinny on it:

The Main Installer is just for playing the mod with any standard installation of FF7 (Steam, old 1998 PC, etc). It already includes the new field models by default, so no worries about using that separate patch for them. That was more for making those field models available to people if they wanted to use them but not the NT Mod; it's not a proper hotfix patch, strictly speaking (I'll revise the wording of it). The Main Installer is quite straightforward to use; just run it and direct it to the folder called 'data' in your FF7 folder.

The hotfix patches are specifically for fixing issues that arise with the Main Installer's files after it's release, the idea being that rather than having people download the entire main installer again to fix one file it would be better to have a series of smaller patches that fix what needs fixing. The Scene Hotfix patch, for instance, is only 700KB. These are used in exactly the same way as the Main Installer; just point to the data folder of FF7 and it should take care of the rest. The only Hotfix patch required at present is the Scene Hotfix; the other files are all up to date in the Main Installer.

Old hotfix patches, like the Flevel Hotfix, are for people who had the NT Mod installed before the Main Installer was updated. That's why they have the same date as the Main Installer (I'll restructure the lay-out to avoid confusion).

Finally, the IRO File is completely separate from the Main Installer and the hotfix patches. This is specifically for use with a mod-loader program called 7th Heaven (usually called 7H for short). It's a very versatile program that's great for loading different mods together and avoiding clashes between them. It also lets modders use and swap in different assets and affords greater freedom in what we can do with the game. It requires that users convert their copy of FF7 Steam though, which results in the loss of Steam saves and achievements. If you're interested in using different mods together though then it's worth checking out.


So to sum up:

-) Main Installer first

-) Hotfix patches after it (Scene Hotfix only at the moment)

-) Use the IRO only if you're playing FF7 through the 7H Mod-Loader

Any questions, or bug reports, just let me know.

3603

Troubleshooting / Re: trouble repacking lgp file to use battle models.

« on: 2014-12-30 17:54:16 »

I used the Aali tool quite a lot, and I think the problem is either that the 'lgp' prog is in the wrong place, or that it doesn't like that under-score (_) you've used for the new name. The last thing it might be is that you've not entered the new folder's actual name when recompiling.

So give these a go:

-) Try moving the 'lgp' thingie out of the new battle_lgp folder and keeping it in the Aali folder before recompiling.

-) Try a different name for your new battle folder. I tend to just rename the new folder 'battle' to avoid issues, and then rename the new .lgp file after it's generated.

You should give Luksy's ULGP tool a go though, it's quite handy and automates a lot of the process if you can set it up.

3604

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-29 00:49:46 »

Are you talking about that black background problem again on the second field screen? As far as I'm aware that's something that can pop up from time to time, even in the default Steam game. It should be harmless too.

3605

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-28 20:10:05 »

It sounds like the scene.bin and kernel have become desynched somehow, but they're synched in the folder I use to make the IRO. It might be an idea to right-click on the both NT IROs and uninstall them altogether before re-installing and activating the new one. They've maybe clashed with each other somehow, that would explain why the old one's scene + kernel has suddenly become desynched as well.

3606

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-28 13:37:16 »

I think the trick with the Motordrive is that while it does inflict Haste on strike, it also gives +50 to Dex when equipped which is like having auto-haste except you can also still use Haste to make yourself even fasterer. Combine that with a Shinra Beta/Carbon Bangle and a ChocoFeather and you've got yourself the fastest thing alive. The Haste on strike is like a counter-balance to it, but there's ways to prevent it from being inflicted on an enemy. I'd personally use it for a support build rather than actually attacking with it though.

The Elemental in weapon can be quite effective because critical hits can double the damage again, but they're quite rigid because like you said you can't change them mid-battle which makes it hit & miss going through areas where enemies will have different elemental weaknesses. I consider that to be the balance with spells there; attacks are faster and have no cost, but they're not as versatile.

3607

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-27 21:40:46 »

hey, would it be poissable for you to add in omega weapon in this game

I guess so. Unless you mean the one that appeared in FF7 Dirge; that might be a bit...big. But you never know.

3608

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-27 15:36:31 »

please no. please please please no.

pick something else. tifa desperately needs that gigas bracelet to stay relevant. other than cheesing powersoul+ death sentence, which i hate doing because it's cheap as all fern, physicals at the time you get that are still dragging ass considerably, (limits notwithstanding)

1x for Gigas it is then. I'll see what I can do for early weapons, but the physical formula is like a see-saw.

3609

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-27 14:03:00 »

Hey bro just streamed your mod and got through to sector 5 reactor.  The scorpion boss just took me by surprise with the tail attack.  Can't wait to see what you have in store next.

Thanks for giving the mod a shot, mind to save the game often though. Every boss has a new trick or two up their sleeve, the random enemies too.

Personally, I like having access to armor that has slots with no materia growth. I do NOT want certain materia to reach the next level at the point I'm at (screw Mug). In fact, I bought an extra steal materia thinking I'd need the spare just in case one leveled up. 
A lot of the materia I wanted to improve have already sat in the double growth slots anyway, and there are plenty of those.

That explains everything. Cloud hit 40 just before Great Glacier. I had been cycling through the other party members, spending time to make sure I had stolen from and morphed every enemy at least once before abusing Exit (now with Sneak Attack) or the Summoner build to quickly take care of mobs, and everyone besides Cloud is 38 or below. I definitely like it now that I know what it is. There should be no issue with this fail-safe as I feel that many players that experiment with your mod know how to appreciate it. I do wish for something like adding a star next to the level (Chrono Trigger style) to denote a plateau in overall power, though I don't know how feasible that would be considering other menu mods. It would let players know what they've achieved while feeling like a pat on the back for players that have never encountered this system or are unfamiliar with how to interpret it. Additionally, having an NPC in the Respectable Inn explain these things would help round out the level of polish.

I guess a Zero growth armor needs to be in there somewhere. Gigas will be 0x then, like the original.

A star or similar might be out of the question, but I could fix up the Respectable Inn with all the information at least. I might need to change up the NPCs inside it though, so that people see they're new and become more likely to actually talk to them.

3610

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-27 01:48:57 »

Just saw your edit there:

-) I wasn't able to give Ramuh Materia the Paralysis status through the Wall Market tool; I think doing so would require an .exe edit, but if it's not an option in the tool then there must be some obstacle to doing this.
-) For Gigas Armlet, I forgot to set the Armor slots to visually reflect the AP growth. Thing is, I can't remember if it's supposed to be None or changed to 1x. It'll be fixed for 1.3, I'll likely just give it AP growth.
-) I've heavily revised enemy drops, steals, and morphs for 1.3. 99% of mobs will have something: a drop, two common steals, a very rare steal, and a Morph item. Certain enemies don't follow this rule, such as areas where the player is locked in and has no access to a rest point (Reactor 1 & 5 for instance).
-) If EXP given has become 0, then it might be that you've hit Lv.40; regular enemies were set up with AI recently that will set EXP given to 0 if any characters present in the battle are Lv.40 or above. Certain repeatable bosses and the like will continue to give EXP up until lv.50-70 depending on how strong they are; it was a fail-safe added recently to help end-game stuff stay on a curve. If it proves unpopular, it'll be patched out but it should keep things interesting for thorough players who like to 100% the game.

3611

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-22 23:47:11 »

@Sega Chief
I've been having a lot of fun with this mod so far. The emphasis on party roles, mobs, early materia access, unique armor/weapon properties, combat consumables, and scaling boss tactics bring back the nostalgia for me. It reminds me of the tight design decisions present in FF5, but at an even higher level thanks to normalizing values (equipment by tier, element overhaul, etc). Thank you for all your hard work. You rock. 

Thanks for taking the time to prepare that feedback, it's very encouraging that you feel the mod is as tight as FF5; I remember that game's fights challenging me the most in the FF series. I try to make everything useful and keep innate weaknesses in the enemies to exploit; there are still improvements to make but I'm going to keep at it until it's perfect.

About the list:
-) The first Beginner's Hall had a dialogue revision very early in the mod's development, but this hasn't been updated or brought across to the Respectable Inn yet (it's on the checklist for 1.3, though; I'm adding in as many tricks as possible or maybe some NT Boss info so that it's worth visiting).

-) The Gongaga Turks were left with low HP due to some debugging I was doing in that area recently and I forgot to restore their HP after fixing the issue; the current hotfix patch corrects this.

-) Limits can only be tweaked with an .exe patch; I've prepared an experimental .EXE for use with the NT Mod but it's strictly optional and will never be mandatory to play the mod due to clashes with other mods like Menu Overhaul that can arise. I tweaked Limits in this .exe, for instance making Braver stronger than Cross Slash and giving it a Debarrier effect while tweaking power, effects, etc. for the OP and weaker limits.

-) Adding the ability to see enemy buffs/debuffs to Sense would be great, but I'm not sure if it's feasible and would definitely require an .EXE modification of some kind. I could however add a pre-action AI to certain enemies not already using one that displays text detailing the Steal, Morph, and Drop of the enemy. Would be a bit of work, and I can't add that to bosses that already make use of pre-battle AI, but it could be an interesting addition to Sense or a command re-purposed to trigger this. I'll start some tests.

It's interesting that you've been using Throw, it doesn't seem to be used very often but it has a lot of potential. I've seen a lot of different strategies being used in tackling this mod's fights which makes me happy; I randomised the drops from bosses fought from Disc 1 to the beginning of Disc 2 as well so that different playthroughs might go differently based on what equipment a player got.

If Sega made a Fort Condor runner, I'd buy him tickets for a Distant Worlds show and buy him a couple of drinks 

Consider it done, I'll make an NPC or perhaps assign a party member to handle Fort Condor return trips. Talk to them in town, and they'll transport you there. Expect that in v1.3, maybe a repeatable mini-game for Gold Saucer assuming it's all handled through the flevel.

Just thought I'd post this in the event it hasn't been taken care of yet or not, but in Cloud's flashback I can't play the piano. I read that it was a problem in 1.0, but I'm using version 1.2 and having the same issue. Is there a way around this or a way to fix it?

I'd forgotten that was an issue, I think it's because the field uses a separate 'Young Cloud' group during the flashback which is visually identical to 'real' Cloud (the current piano looks for party leader in the NT Mod, but Young Cloud likely doesn't have a handler added when he's 'party leader'; I'll repair it if that's the case).

3612

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-21 00:40:23 »

The installer should be able to handle most patched flevels as well as the default one, unless there's something unusual going on. Is the installer not working with your current flevel?

3613

Troubleshooting / Re: Wallmarket Bar Skip (Move freely during dialogue)

« on: 2014-12-18 21:19:04 »

Brutal's channel is a bit like an FF7 University; watch all of the vids there.

3614

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: Snow Field Encounters

« on: 2014-12-18 17:56:36 »

Alright, I'll need to test which scenes they load from. Cheers, folks.

3615

Releases / Re: [FF7PC] Grimmy's Models and Textures etc.

« on: 2014-12-18 00:55:59 »

Nah, it should be 'Off, Course!'

3616

Releases / Re: [FF7PC] Grimmy's Models and Textures etc.

« on: 2014-12-17 23:39:48 »

That's pretty cool, Tifa's anims are probably the best fit. Vince wouldn't be as straightforward; might be a bit awkward if Jessie transformed into Galian Beast all of a sudden.

3617

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-17 22:42:46 »

The reason I didn't use Cloud's was because I didn't know how to program the animations in like I see some people doing.

You mean like which animations to set in Proud Clod when using a player character for an enemy? If that's the problem, I'll share my notes for it and the AI you should set for pre-battle (when they take damage, it soft-locks the game but setting their 'hurt' animation to their evasion one fixes it).

This is the AI:

Code: [Select]

12 2060
10 402C
80
60 01
90
12 2060
10 402A
80
60 01
90
12 2060
11 4088
80
60 08
90
12 2060
10 402A
80
60 01
90

Works for all player characters I've tested it with so far, including Sephiroth.

Animations (for attacks)
-) 14: Attack
-) 1B: Deathblow
-) 1E: Enemy Skill Spell

There are others, you can have every command but not sure if they're all functional when used as an enemy (and I've misplaced my notes).

3618

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-17 03:12:12 »

Cheers, bud. I'm actually trying to fill rosters for the Junon Leagues just now, so Kytes would be handy for that. Does he have a battle model already that I can use?

3619

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Snow Field Encounters

« on: 2014-12-13 22:16:24 »

I'm trying to clear space in my NT Mod's scene.bin and one area that takes up a huge amount of space with duplicate monsters is the Great Glacier. Before I start shrinking/deleting formations here though, I wanted to double-check with someone that there were no Snow Field encounters in scenes 168-173 (the pseudo world map where flag poles are planted). As far as I know all the world map encounters are at the top of the scene.bin but just wanted to avoid any potential problems.

3620

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-13 13:04:48 »

That's the IRO file up and available for download from this thread's main page; if you run into problems like the wrong encounters loading up, crashes, etc. then let me know. Still quite new to IRO patches so there's always a chance I've done something wrong.

3621

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-12 21:25:43 »

You might be in luck, Alyza just put the IRO together for NT. If all goes well with my testing tonight (I can't test using 7H directly, so I've unpacked the IRO to test the files manually to make sure they're okay and up to date) then hopefully it'll be available in a few hours or so.

3622

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-12 12:43:52 »

Yeah, you gotta watch out for that. Multi-target attacks like Summons will hit them too, and when they die the boss will start hitting your team with that extra attack (I forget the name).  They're actually there to hinder your team, rather than help.

3623

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-12 00:09:06 »

Hey bud, cheers for the feedback. Certain boss fights are undergoing some work for v1.3 to make them less prone to getting players bogged down or to be more intuitive on the first attempt. What my testing wasn't able to take into account properly was my prior knowledge of the bosses I'd made, but now that I've got a good bit of feedback on them I can hopefully make them a little better.

For spells, I tried to aim for Level 2 to unlock roughly around Gongaga to Cosmo Canyon.  They'll actually prove fairly useful all the way up until Disc 3 if used with support Materia and magic-boosting equipment but E. Skills like Beta, Aqualung, and Trine can help bridge the gap between Level 2 and Level 3 spells if need be. Level 3 spells might not unlock until Disc 3, depending on whether AP-boosting equipment is used. However, Contain and some other high level stuff can be unlocked early if you can beat the Extra Battle bosses at the Gold Saucer (they're available when it re-opens but they're specced for end-game parties; no GP is needed to fight them though, and there's no Game Over to worry about).

As for Remove, it's apparently buggered so it'll master much sooner than displayed (less than 10k I think), unless the problem was isolated to one person's game but I doubt it. Remove itself is basically a 100% death spell which can be really handy for farming items, EXP, limits, etc. As far as mastering Materia goes, it's generally best to try and reach the North Crater on Disc 3; Movers give a tonne of AP and Magic Pots now only require an Ether instead of an Elixir.

And the way I did it was I used Barriers when speccing boss fights but not for random encounters. There may be some bosses that are a little too strong either because of a throw-back to the old 1.1 EXP curve or due to them using player-spells (which were buffed a bit). Barriers themselves are %-based damage reduction which is pretty tough to account for; especially when Back Row and Sadness come into it. One thing I should say is that some bosses going into Disc 2 use the Shield status; keep Debarrier handy, if a boss suddenly becomes immune to physical attacks and absorbs elemental magic then Shield is likely in effect (or use a fast ATB, that can cripple Shield fairly quickly).

3624

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)

« on: 2014-12-11 19:33:28 »

It's in the current version, if you've reached the bottom of the North Crater and returned then the menu can be accessed through the trooper hanging around in the Chocobo Pen of the Highwind.

3625

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod (v1.0.6s)

« on: 2014-12-08 21:34:42 »

Never heard of that before, I'll PM you a patch with the fix.