There is connection between moves in the kernel.bin and the moves inside battle files. But for me, the moves should be the same, only the strategy should be changed. All enemies has "INT" stat, so increasing it will make game more difficult.
I'm ending my hardcore patch (version 2.0) now and I will release it very soon, for PC and PSX version.
Can't wait to try your hardcore patch, but I disagree about not changing enemy moves, and I'm not too sure about this 'Int' stat. I am working on a little mod I'll release sooner or later : it focus on Dollet landing, and should give a general idea on how I perceive it. Nothing as big than your hardcore patch of course.
Eventhought I was not convince by your hardcore patch ver.1, it did gave me the best Ultimecia fight ever.
Well, I'd rather not change the way junctioned spells affect stats. I don't mind having 255 STR, since I'd like to see how much damage I possibly can make with the break damage limit patch. But I'd like to have monsters strong enough to endure a fight like that.
On the contrary, I think it's the first thing that should be changed, as well than the availability of some magic that are too easy to get. Anyway, against max-outed characters with LionHeart-style attack and using the Meltdown spell trick, no monsters can last long, no matter their stats. That's not my way of playing.
All right, Ifrit pretty much does what I want.
Good. Just be carefull with Str and Mgi, last time I checked the formulae were not quite right... But you know, if that's what you want to change, you might just wait for Colly mod.
If you don't need enemy level data anymore, I don't think I'll post it right now. Might not be the better thing to start with. Oh and crap, I had the thing all written, I'll post it anyway :
I'm not a programmer (I do little things from time to time, but don't count on that, I'm a beginner), but my brother is studying in it, so he should be able to help me out on some minor needs of programming knowledge. I'd like to have the information you were talking about for changing the enemy level, if you have time. I am aware that some monsters/bosses depend differently or not at all on your level, but that's no big deal, as long as most of the monsters are fun to fight.
I'm not a programmer either...
In FFVIII, the great majority of common monsters follow your level. A lot of boss are capped : they follow your level up to a maximum value. Some always have the same level (monsters in the Ifrit cave, monsters with level1 at Lunatic Pandora, monsters with level 100 at Island closest to Hell...). Monsters in Ultimecia castle have got random levels. And well, some have got higher level than your party - I need to check again those.
So well, how to edit enemy level... I used those two programs : FF8_AC and Translhexion. (available somewhere in this page
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8461.0)
As a rule, always make some backup before editing something... So copy from your FFVIII directory, in the DATA folder, all three 'Battle' files and paste it somewhere else.
Now you need to extract a file out of the 'Battle' in order to edit it. This file is "Scene.out". FF8_AC allow you to do that.
Open this file with Translhexion. You'll see... well, a big mess of numbers, in hexadecimal.
If you are aware of the FFVIII debug rooms, you know that in one of them you can trigger all fights of the game, by entering 4 numbers.
Scene.out contain data about all fight in game, in the same order than those you can trigger in the debug room : as an example, when you trigger fight 0000 in debug room, game use data from the first sequence of Scene.out, when you trigger fight 0001, second sequence, etc.
Member aladore384 could provide you a list of all fights of the debug room, you might want to send him a message.
First thing to do : all sequences in Scene.out are 128 bytes long. So in Translhexion, go into "Options", "Preference", and change the value for "byte to display per line" to '128'. Now each line is an entire sequence.
Enemy level data is at the very end of the sequence. For each fight, you can have up to 8 enemies, but never more than 4 at the same time.
So what you want are the last eight bytes. First one is for enemy 1, second for enemy 2, etc...
Now what the numbers are for...
'FF' and 'FE' means those monsters follow your level (FF 'more or less', FE 'exactly' - most monsters are 'FF' and 'FE' are mostly bosses)
'FC' is random level. 'FB' is Ultimecia.
number up to 100 are constant level : Ifrit for example have 06, he will always be at level 6 no matter what. (fight 0094)
number between 100 and 200 are capped monsters : they will follow your level, but have max value equal to 100 minus given value. (ex : the spider-like robot at Dollet have got 6F, that's 111, so max level : 11. Fight n°0009, 0010, 0013)
Numbers higher than 200, I forgot and still need to check... I was thinking it was 'current level + some value' but in my old notes I see it labeled differently, so I fear it's rather 'around party_levelx2' (used values are d2 and d7).