Author Topic: [FF7PC-98/Steam] gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod (v1.0.7.2)  (Read 1079018 times)

ADIDAS

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« Reply #175 on: 2008-05-10 09:28:38 »
can someone re-upload the hardcore mod ?

*:.Griever.:*

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« Reply #176 on: 2008-05-10 10:40:58 »
If you read his post, gjoerulv  said he is currently working on V2, and will release it when it's done...

ADIDAS

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« Reply #177 on: 2008-05-10 12:09:15 »
OK, I hope it get done soon , thanks  :-D

*:.Griever.:*

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« Reply #178 on: 2008-05-11 10:25:23 »
No probs :-)
Just read peoples posts in future so you are sure you have to make a post yourself. ;-)

LJH

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« Reply #179 on: 2008-05-11 14:50:53 »
Posts like his can still help remind someone that people haven't lost interest in the creation. ^^

Bodhisattva

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« Reply #180 on: 2008-05-25 04:42:37 »
Posts like his can still help remind someone that people haven't lost interest in the creation. ^^

Decidedly so.

gjoerulv

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« Reply #181 on: 2008-05-26 15:36:10 »
Good to see people still interested. The mod will be done this weekend or next week. I don't have time to work on it this now. I have exams coming up. I was hoping to be done with it last week, but something came up and I didn't get any time after all. The good news however is that the mod is nearly done. It won't take much time to finish it!  :-D

auxili160

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« Reply #182 on: 2008-06-14 23:54:47 »
j/w what you're using to modify the scenes and the kernel.bin.
I haven't found a program that lets you edit enemy configurations, or that lets you add new enemies and even new encounters.

Also, how do you add new battles and such? I've seen people add a boss battle when you get the Titan materia, for example, but I haven't seen any way of doing this. I'm glad you'll be writing some sort of guide when you're done (hopefully when you're done v2) because I'd love to learn how to do this myself.
Great work, btw!
« Last Edit: 2008-06-15 00:12:38 by auxili160 »

Destiny

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« Reply #183 on: 2008-06-15 09:40:57 »
To modify the kernel.bin you need an hexeditor and a brain  :-o but for the scene file you can use Hojo  :wink:

auxili160

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« Reply #184 on: 2008-06-15 12:46:42 »
:P Lemme see if I can find my brain. Lol


Scenester and HOJO are working together nicely so far. HOJO is great for its better, imo, user interface and search function, and ability to update the kernel and use the archived scene.bin (no need to unpack it).
Scenester is great because of the formation editor. If only Hojo had a formation editor... :P

Edit: I've been looking for a guide on how to edit kernel.bin (or any bin) and I haven't found anything. Hojo and scenester work fantastic for editing scene.bin, but there's no way to edit kernel.bin without using a hex editor, which I can't figure out how to use and cannot find a guide for. But I'll keep looking. :)
If anyone knows where it is (since I've been told there are guides for these things), could you send me the link? Thanks a bunch!
« Last Edit: 2008-06-16 02:26:53 by auxili160 »

auxili160

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« Reply #185 on: 2008-06-17 06:35:34 »
gjoerulv, I'm wondering how you make odin only use his lance attack.

Anyways, let me comment on the mod so far even though I haven't been able to test it. I've added a lot of your kernel changed to my kernel.bin and I've tested some of them out.

Comments are in blue.

Quote
Attack dump:

    * KOTR does less damage and you do not want to mime it (you'll find out when you play). This is a good step to take because reducing the endgame into a KOTR mime-fest is no fun.
    * The status changing materias are more usefull.How so? Do they have a higher chance of landing on the enemy, or are they cheaper to cast? Do enemies have less resistances?
    * Shiva, Ifrit, Ramuh, Titan and Leviathan do more damage. Consume more MP. Nice. Just make sure they aren't alternate overpowered versions of Beta and Aqualung during Disc1. :P
    * Odin's Lance attack works as DeSpell and damages MP.
    * Hades damage MP and doesn't inflict Slow, Frog, Mini but darkness instead (+ all the other that weren't removed).
    * Chocobo/Mog and Thypoon are dealing Wind damage as well.
    * Phoenix consume more MP.
    * Fat Chocobo inflicts Confu.
    * White Wind and Angel Whisper do not cure Frog, Mini, Petrify and Slow. I personally think White Wind shouldn't heal any status ailments. It's an amazingly powerful spell. If you keep the status healing, then you should increase the MP cost.
    * Magic Breath damages MP. I'm assuming the power is toned down too, then. :P
    * The curative spells can miss. 120% hit rate, not the standard 255%. Does this apply to Angel Whisper and White Wind as well?
    * Comet2 attack 6 times. Is the damage weaker then to balance it out? That's pretty nasty. :P

Every attack that targets MP is weakened as well.
Other notes: As I mentioned, Beta and Aqualung need to be toned down and balanced for Disc 1. If Midgar Zolom is very tough, then Beta can stay as-is. However, Aqualung is faiily easy to get and should be balanced with this in mind for Disc1. Also, you could simply increase enemy magic defense to make these spells less effective, as magic overall is much too overpowered in disc1.
I've increased Cure1's MP to 10 instead of 5. It makes things really interesting. :) and it makes things less cheap since you can use Cure to heal inbetween battles easily for hardly any MP. I've also slightly increased Bolt1, Ice1, Fire1, and Quake1's mp by 2 as to balance things out during Disc1. Heck, maybe they should cost 8mp instead of 6. I don't remember ever needing to use an ether in disc1.
As I mentioned, White Wind shouldn't cure status effects. It has no problem healing 9999hp to everyone for little to no MP.
Regarding Big Guard, you've said that you've taken the haste effect off of it. This is good. However, this also means that Big Guard is now basically Wall since the barriers will drain at normal speed without haste. If you make Big Guard more expensive than Wall, then all is good. However, I was thinking maybe you can alter Big Guard to have, say, a physical barrier and haste, but no magic barrier (or the other way around). Just spitballing.
I'd change L5 Death to have different effects. Or you can make sure not many enemies have a level multiple of 5.

Also, I think it'd be nice for Cait Sith's GAME OVER to have a slightly less horrible effect. I was thinking DeSpelling and Stopping your party would be cool, rather than giving you a game over.
Quote
Materia dump:

    * All Materia needs plenty more AP to master (250 000 I think it was). Prevents easy Gil (somewhat). I'd make ALL take much more time to master. Hardly anyone needs 5x on a spell, and 250k is pretty low compared to Mime and some other materias..
    * Almost all materias need more or less AP to master. e.g Mime needs 1 000 000 instead of 1 00 000.This is good.
    * Flash command is removed (could easily be brought back if you want this custom made lol). Keep it out. :P
    * Master Command works as Flash. Do you mea you replaced master command with flash, or you replaced flash with master command?
    * Coin command is removed from Throw materia (Could also be brought back). Good call.
Other notes:
I like the steps you've taken to balance out Flash and Remove. Good stuff. Death is pretty cheap, and with more difficult enemies, Death will only be an easy way to kill them. However, instead of editing all of these "death" spells, why not just make most enemies immune to death?
I'd make HP+ materia take longer to level up. Instead of 10000 ap for the first level, it should be twice that (and so forth for other levels). Also, if you can, pump up the price for HP+ materia in the shops. 8000 is way too cheap and it's so easy to fill in empty slots with HP+ materia. It's way too easy to get to 9999hp early on. I'd say HP+ materia is worth 35k gil each. :P
I'd make Mug easier to attain. Maybe 20k AP instead of 40k AP. This is just personal preference, though.
I'd give Enemy Skill materia a magic stat bonus, like other magic materia. A simple harmless one like fire/bolt/ice has would do. You won't see it on the materia screen, but the stats will affect you.
I think a good idea would be to change the %s of materia such as counter attack, counter, magic counter, and cover. Change the ones that level like this - 20%,40%,60%,80%,100% - and make it like this 20%,40%,60%,75%,90%, instead, for example. That'd make things like magic counter and such much less dominating. It'd also shake things up a bit, as I never liked having one of my party members get hit 100% of the time by physical attacks, and countering 100% of the time. It felt really cheap and I think limiting it to 90% maximum would be better.


Quote
Equipment:

    * The elemental rings absorb elemental instead of nullifying damage.
    * Tetra elemental accessory nullifies the given elemental damage.
    * The fire, ice bolt armlets nullifies elemental damage.
    * Minerva Band's and Escort Guard's elemental properties are somewhat changed.
    * Adaman Bangle nullifies water damage.
    * Platinum Bangle's materia slots are linked.
    * Precious Watch has 3x materia growth, but just one slot.
    * Choco Bracelet has 8 unlinked slots instead of 4.
    * Star Pendant and Silver Glasses prevents Silence as well.
    * Headband also prevents Slow and Stop.
    * Ribbon prevents all status change (including good ones).
    * MDef on equipment is fixed. Not by adding MDef but Spirit.
Good idea with MDef. Just make sure you buff enemy magic attack a lot!
« Last Edit: 2008-06-18 05:04:22 by auxili160 »

gjoerulv

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« Reply #186 on: 2008-06-18 17:29:39 »
Nice stuff auxili160. I'll try to give you answers.

Status changing materias have a higher chance of landing, except death. But the enemies have much more immunities as well, especially against death. This being said, I don't want any spells in the game to be obsolete.

White win will cost 'round 100MP in the new one. Big Guard ca 150. Or perhaps it's better to make Big Guard target only 1 and keep the other original stuff.

Magic Breath deals ca 200 - 400 MP damage (depends on stats of course).

Both Aqualung and Beta are hard to get. They're not altered any in power, but in the new version I kinda had in mind to increase the MP cost.

Angel Whisper and White Wind have a 120% hit rate too.

That with Cait Sith sounds cool.

I experience a bug with the AP levels. I don't know why. But this doesn't occur on Mime (phew).

Master Command isn't Master Command, but Flash. And Flash was removed from Slash-All. I intend to keep it this way. I kinda wanted flash to not replace attack though, but don't know how.

I'll take your idea with the counter effect into consideration. I kinda like it.

You'll get less gill in this mod, and the enemies are much harder. In the end you should have more than 9999 HP to survive lol. In the beginning you'll kinda be stuck at using spells. In other words you'll prob get to use some Ethers before the end of disc 1. Prob before the end of the 2nd reactor. Mp cost on lower spells aren't touched, as buying enough potions might be a pain.

And on an embarrassing note: I haven't worked any on this on like forever. But I will finish it someday. The mod is almost done, don't worry.

auxili160

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« Reply #187 on: 2008-06-18 18:58:33 »
That's great.
I think White wind and Big Guard cost a little too much though, but it's ok. :P
I think Enemy Skills should cost around 1.5x the amount of their normal spell equivalent (which is why I believe Beta and Aqualung need to be nerfed - they aren't too much worse than fire3 etc and they cost so much less). The default cost for the spells are stupid cause Enemy Skills overshadow normal spells for how easy they are to get, and how easy they are to equip (only takes 1 slot).
I've been working on balancing spells, but Enemy Skills especially. However, I want them to keep their usefulness. This is why I considered keeping Big Guard at around the same mana cost (maybe 70mp) and removing, say, the magic barrier from it.
This is because TIME materia is always useful for Slow and Stop, so forcing players to equip Time materia to haste their party isn't a big deal. They're gonna have Time equipped either way, and casting a haste-all after big barrier isn't a big hassle.
However, by removing Big Guard's magic barrier, you're forcing players to actually equip and level up the Barrier materia. I like this idea better.


I've edited my materia and I haven't had any bugs. What kind of bugs are you getting? If you want, you could send me your kernel.bin and I can finish the materia section.
Also, I'm still curious as to how you made Odin only use Gunge Lance. :P This is one edit I haven't figured out how to do. Also, changing Odin's death effect to something else bugs the game because enemies turn invisible after attacked by the sword attack (I'm guessing this is why you made Odin only use his lance attack :P ). I could simply leave his lance attack the same and make more enemies immune to death. It's not a big deal, and it's a shame to lose summon animations. :P

There are some things I can't do when editing spells and such, because I don't edit the kernel by using a hex editor (I use a different program). I can edit everything else, though. I can't change the effectiveness of certain spells, though, so it'd be great if you could send me your kernel.bin and maybe I can make some updates. If you like them, you can use it. If not, no biggie. :P




gjoerulv

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« Reply #188 on: 2008-06-18 19:33:39 »
I agree on most of the parts you wrote 'bout the E Skills. But keep in mind that enemy skills can't be linked to get another effect. That is a handicap for those spells.

The bug I get with the AP level is that they level wrongly. I know that The Revieve materia and the Exit materia level wrong, and that all the stat bonus materias level wrongly and even skip levels. There might be more but at least those. Every other materia level as I altered 'em in the kerenel, and ALL materias shows the right amount in the game. I use a hex editor. What proggy are yuo using?

To make Odin use the lance all the time just overwrite Odin's attack with the Lance in the kernel.

auxili160

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« Reply #189 on: 2008-06-18 20:14:22 »
I'll check your materias and see if their AP per level is messed up. I'll post back later.

I'm using the editing suite: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=6986.msg86503#msg86503

There are some bugs. For Attack.exe - the program that lets you edit magic spell properties - some spells get overwritten by others, but it's easily fixable by typing in the proper values for the spell. Nothing else gets replaced, such as attack animation or whatnot. It just copies and pastes the mp, element, status, and such of another spell (usually 2 or 3 spells up or down in the list).

This could either happen when compiling and decompiling the kernel.bin, but this would mean it's an error with ff7.dec, which I don't think it the problem. I've noticed that this bug occurs in attack.exe when I scroll through spells using letter keys on my keyboard. For example, when I started using the program, I'd press B over and over until I get to Big Guard. However, this seems to have caused the bug I mentioned. Now I just scroll through the spell list manually by either using the arrow keys or the mouse, and I don't think the bug has shown up again.

So, if you decide to try out the program (which I think you have, since you replied in the program's thread), keep that in mind.

EDIT: I found out why some of your materia levels incorrectly. You have level 2 set at 600,000 AP, but level 3/master is set at 200,000 AP. Therefore, it's reaching level 3 before level 2.
With revive, level 2 is set at 100,000 AP and level 3 is set at 20,000 AP.
Gil Plus level 2 is 150,000 and level 3 is 100,000.
The Luck, speed, and magic plus materias are fine, though. You sure they're leveling up incorrectly? It says here they're levelling like this: 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, and 15, 300, 450, 600. Nothing wrong going on there.



EDIT 2:
Regarding curative spells, how often do you find them missing? I haven't tested it out yet, but what is the difference ingame between 255% and 130?
Looking at your spells now. I'm wondering why you made bolt1, fire1, ice1, and quake1 STRONGER (even *Gasp* matra magic). They're very powerful early on as attacking everyone for 200hp for 4mp makes attacking them with your weapon silly. Did you make enemies much more resistant to magic or something?
Also, in regards to your early summons (shiva, ifrit, etc), you made them as strong as bahamut (60~ power) yet make them cost half as much mp. I'd make them cost 80mp rather than 60mp.
Still, though, I'm not sure how I feel about giving the players even more annihilating nukes like Aqualung and Beta. When you can wipe groups of enemies for even 80 mp, it's worth it. Just use magic hammer to get mp back and continue nuking. This is why I feel spells like Beta, Aqualung, and now your buffed early summons need to be tweaked in terms of damage. I like the idea of keeping the early summons useful near the end of the game (I'm assuming this is why you buffed them in the first place), but it makes the early parts of the game very easy.

Again, if you're buffing enemy magic defense enough to counter this, then never mind. :P

Also, regarding mdef on armor working buy adding spirit, do enemies do much more magic damage now?
« Last Edit: 2008-06-18 21:11:03 by auxili160 »

gjoerulv

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« Reply #190 on: 2008-06-18 22:10:47 »
I just had a "slap-head-revelation" if it's true. I thought the different levels were separated and that the total amount of AP needed to master a materia was the sum of all those levels. Ain't it?

Well than this certainly explains it.

The reason I powered up many spells is that the enemies use 'em too. All spells that are loaded from kernel.bin ignores effects in scene.bin. And the reason I've made the early summonings that strong is 'cause they're pretty fast obsolete in the original mod. Bahamut ignores all defense, and will deal more damage than the most earliest. Enemies MDef is boosted yes.

EDIT: I pretty sure there is a problem with the booster materias too!
« Last Edit: 2008-06-18 22:14:47 by gjoerulv »

auxili160

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« Reply #191 on: 2008-06-18 23:09:51 »
Why don't you just buff up enemy magic power instead of buffing up the spells? By making the spells stronger, you may be making the enemies more powerful, but you're also making the player much more powerful (and overpowered during disc1, where magic already decimates everything).

gjoerulv

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« Reply #192 on: 2008-06-19 00:24:06 »
Frankly I don't care much 'bout the beginning. I've tried it with my mod and it's quite balanced. Some enemies could be harder. And the limit of power is 255. If I can't make the power higher I must make the attacks greater. Also, In the end, your physical skills (4xcut, slash-all, counters etc) will always be better than e.g Comet 2 or Ultima. I tried to balance it out more. That's all. I do not want to make the physical attacks weaker.

auxili160

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« Reply #193 on: 2008-06-19 00:34:37 »
I didn't say anything about physical attacks. I simply meant that, since magic makes disc1 pretty boring, I don't see the point in making early magic spells even MORE powerful. I'm only talking about fire1, matra magic, and so forth. They're already very strong early on in the game, and by making them stronger, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish. I understand making higher leveled spells stronger, but I'm not clear on why you made early spells stronger as they serve their purpose all too well in vanilla ff7.

gjoerulv

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« Reply #194 on: 2008-06-19 14:12:28 »
As I said some enemies use fire ice matra magic etc. I could either switch out all those attacks, or simply disable them in all the AIs. Both would be a heavy load. A fire attack would pale in comparison with many other unique enemy attacks. And by the time you get fire2 etch, those attacks will be almost obsolete anyway, boost or not. And, as I wrote, in the beginning you will need these spells stronger to balance things out in my mod. If not the game will start too hard, imo, and then just get easier (though it will eventually get harder no matter what).

Of course my scene mod is in mind when I say this. Some enemies have heavy Def, or MDef or Both. Some got more resistances etc.

auxili160

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« Reply #195 on: 2008-06-19 15:24:03 »
Sounds good.

The Pezman

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« Reply #196 on: 2008-06-25 20:29:31 »
Does this hardcore mod have anything to do with this hardcore mod?  It seems unlikely, since the recording of the television and the audio indicate that it's the PSX version.  How would you get a hardcore mod into the PSX game?  Has anyone played this particular mod?  How do you get ahold of it?

auxili160

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« Reply #197 on: 2008-06-25 22:15:46 »
You can mod the psx version as well as it uses the same files.

Gjoe has his own videos of experimental things in his mod. That hardcore mod is most likely not his. (There is more than one hardcore mod)

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« Reply #198 on: 2008-06-26 03:06:56 »
I still cant wait until this is released. I've been waiting for something like this forever.

Marc

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« Reply #199 on: 2008-06-29 19:02:45 »
Does this hardcore mod have anything to do with this hardcore mod?  It seems unlikely, since the recording of the television and the audio indicate that it's the PSX version.  How would you get a hardcore mod into the PSX game?  Has anyone played this particular mod?  How do you get ahold of it?

WTF ?

I've watched a few of his videos and that guy can do amazing things with this game.

He added new battles, made Sephiroth controllable in flashback sequences and edited bosses to hell - and not only scene files but actually created new monsters. 

Is SaintDragon666 a member of this board ?