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

[Maziac]

So, I've been practicing an Arrange mode speedrun on and off for a while, and a few days ago I decided to try and go for a single sitting run and record it. It went pretty well, I got no game-overs on any bossfights, but made a few stupid mistakes toward the end that cost me around 20+ minutes.

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEs5v8f8AX0 Please excuse my silly commentary, I tried to keep it informative and at least a little entertaining. If someone thinks of alternate strategies, or wants to ask something let me know in private message or comment on youtube, I think it's best not to muddy this topic.

Some of the bosses, especially the later ones have attacks that are barely survivable for the less defensive characters and I really like how it's balanced now. Maybe you, Sega Chief, can find this somewhat helpful for balancing 2.0. Very interested to see what changes you've come up with.

A few things that happened during the run I want to ask about;

Disc 2 Junon to Underwater Reactor section: The screen in Upper Junon which branches down to the Underwater Reactor, the one with the Shinra soldiers who charge in the wrong direction. On this screen it is possible to get an enemy encounter even though I've turned off random battles. Only other place with encounters despite turning them off is the very first Mako Reactor bombing.

Another one I've ran into somewhat often: When inflicted with Frog status, I don't think it's possible to cast any spells, except for Pearl, for some reason that's castable.

Are these working as intended?

[Sega Chief]

So, I've been practicing an Arrange mode speedrun on and off for a while, and a few days ago I decided to try and go for a single sitting run and record it. It went pretty well, I got no game-overs on any bossfights, but made a few stupid mistakes toward the end that cost me around 20+ minutes.

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEs5v8f8AX0 Please excuse my silly commentary, I tried to keep it informative and at least a little entertaining. If someone thinks of alternate strategies, or wants to ask something let me know in private message or comment on youtube, I think it's best not to muddy this topic.

Some of the bosses, especially the later ones have attacks that are barely survivable for the less defensive characters and I really like how it's balanced now. Maybe you, Sega Chief, can find this somewhat helpful for balancing 2.0. Very interested to see what changes you've come up with.

A few things that happened during the run I want to ask about;

Disc 2 Junon to Underwater Reactor section: The screen in Upper Junon which branches down to the Underwater Reactor, the one with the Shinra soldiers who charge in the wrong direction. On this screen it is possible to get an enemy encounter even though I've turned off random battles. Only other place with encounters despite turning them off is the very first Mako Reactor bombing.

Another one I've ran into somewhat often: When inflicted with Frog status, I don't think it's possible to cast any spells, except for Pearl, for some reason that's castable.

Are these working as intended?

Ah, a speedrun; Uprisen has done a few of those. I'll use it as background while I work on 2.0.

The encounter switch is a toggle so if any field script reactivates encounters after the Init script has run, it'll turn them back on. I'll see about identifying where these are.

Frog spell was replaced with Pearl, but what I didn't know at the time was that the Frog spell is still available while under that status and as it's done by ID, it means that Pearl can still be cast in this state.

[Maziac]

The encounter switch is a toggle so if any field script reactivates encounters after the Init script has run, it'll turn them back on. I'll see about identifying where these are.

Oh, well I don't have to turn the encounters off a 2nd time, they just appear on that one screen, not anywhere else, except the first Mako Reactor and the world map of course.

[jdeezy34]

The game is a composite of several files, some of which it sounds like have changed while others haven't. The Potions being changed means that the kernel has patched (and likely the scene.bin as well). But it sounds like the flevel hasn't patched which is a serious issue. Starting a new game won't help either. 7h 2.0 seems to have a lot of issues that aren't being addressed; the hext not working reliably, NT being locked off from mod types it shouldn't be, driver crashes, etc. If they can't help you troubleshoot the issue then I would recommend going back to 7h 1.54 as the mods themselves are the same.

Thank you! I will check with 7H.

[coredumperror]

What method did you use the play the mod? Was it the installer, the Qhimm Catalog IRO (1.X or 2.0), the thread IRO, or the R06 version? It sounds very unusual that this would be missing but the rest of it isn't. If you still have a save file just before the altar/Jenova 2 boss fight, do me a favour and trigger the scene. When you press Confirm to advance Cloud through the stages of lifting his sword, do you see a dialogue option appear at any point during it?

I play NT 1.5 using the 7th Heaven IRO. Unfortunately, I don't have a save from that far back. I don't recall there being any dialog options during the "Cloud lifting his sword" segment, but my memory is not the greatest.

Resist locks the toggling of statuses; it needs to be Dispelled before statuses can be inflicted/removed again.

Ohhhhh, you can dispell it! That'll be good to know, thanks.

Ribbon is based on the Hardcore mod's version of Ribbon which had it block statuses but at the expense of buffs. I'm reverting to the original Ribbon for NT Final though as the other accessories have a wide enough range of stat buffs and effects on them that it makes them much more competitive against it.

Agreed about the buffs to other accessories. Even if Ribbon worked like the original, I'd still only use it when I *know* I need status immunity (like Junon Leagues Tier 3), since other accessories are so much more powerful now.

I'm not sure about EXP Plus, I think it can be won at Chocobo Races but unsure.

I'll keep at eye out at the races, then. Thanks!


In other news, I just got Cloud back from his little trip to lala land, and I'm running through all the sidequests I can do before continuing. I just got the Midgar Sector 5 key, and went to the "Item" building in Wall Market in to get Tifa's Premium Heart, but the thing's still "broken" according to Cloud. Am I missing something?

EDIT: Uhhhh, what is a "fecking terrible" chocobo, and why did I just get several of them while farming in Mideel? Also, why can't I board the Highwind while mounted on a chocobo?

EDIT2: Is there supposed to be a mechanic in the Shinryu/Omega fight where one of your characters can become permanently dead? Late in the fight, Aeris died, and giving her a Phoenix Down would stand her back up for a moment, before she just fell over dead again. This happened twice before I gave up and hoped I could finish off Shinryu before he killed my other two party members. A few turns before that, she got hit by Level ?? Old, which may have done it. Maybe it set her MaxHP to 0 or something? Her max still showed as 3600something, though, and she lived for several more turns after that. Her magic was super gimped, though. Ultima was hitting for ~120, after previously hitting for around 1200.

I ask because Aeris staying dead screwed her out of that 1mil EXP and 100k AP, which really sucks.

[UpRisen]

After you reach the bottom of the north crater a new npc will appear in the cockpit of the highwind. he will tell you about all the character NT quest, one of those will lead you to the broken machine eventually.

All chocobo encounters should be the same as vanilla. Every encounter has a fixed chocobo level. so 1 rolly guy or the bugs will always be a poor choco. you want 2 rolly guys and a choco outside of mideel for a great choco.

You cant get on the highwind with a chocobo you have just captured. you have to send it back to the stables first and ride it out from there.

and yes that fight has a mechanic where you cannot revive. And 1m xp isnt that much to worry about. in the north crater the enemies give a ton of xp and AP so it wont take you long to max her out.

[ulurujamman]

Getting antsy for another playthrough of this but I've just seen you're planning to release an updated version of New Threat in the next couple weeks? Will it be mostly bug fixes/balance, or significant enough new content that I should really hold off until then?

Relatedly, as someone who enjoyed the hardcore mod elements of the early NT builds, what would you recommend to someone looking to really maximise the difficulty? Playing without Mr Smile, maybe?

[Tombery]

Getting antsy for another playthrough of this but I've just seen you're planning to release an updated version of New Threat in the next couple weeks? Will it be mostly bug fixes/balance, or significant enough new content that I should really hold off until then?

I also wanted to do another playtrough before I play the remake, so I´m interested in this too. Will NT 2.0 be a "different" experience or just some tweaks?

Thanks again for your fantastic work.

[evermuzik]

Hey, sorry if this has been asked before.

Im experiencing a weird bug with my save file. I saved on the Mr Smile screen and had to close the game. When I enter back into the save file, im back at Mr Smiles screen. When I leave the screen, im at the Nibelheim reactor where the moster pods were, and everything is bugged out. I feel like my save file is screwed.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[coredumperror]

Sega Chief has mentioned that 2.0 is a complete overhaul. IIRC, he's even managed to patch out the entire concept of leveling up from experience. Character strength will instead be determined by stats granted from story milestones.

So if you're about to start a new game, I'd definitely suggest waiting for 2.0 to drop.

[EQ2Alyza]

@SC

When 2.0 is released, do you want 1.5 wiped from catalogs? Or will you continue to support both?

[coredumperror]

Is the Gold Chocobo you get from the Guidebook item supposed to be worthless for racing? I gave mine a ton of Silkys Greens, and it can't even win in A class, let alone S class.

[Sega Chief]

Getting antsy for another playthrough of this but I've just seen you're planning to release an updated version of New Threat in the next couple weeks? Will it be mostly bug fixes/balance, or significant enough new content that I should really hold off until then?

Relatedly, as someone who enjoyed the hardcore mod elements of the early NT builds, what would you recommend to someone looking to really maximise the difficulty? Playing without Mr Smile, maybe?

I also wanted to do another playtrough before I play the remake, so I´m interested in this too. Will NT 2.0 be a "different" experience or just some tweaks?

Thanks again for your fantastic work.

It's an overhaul so it will be different. The Arrange mode (renamed Game Type B) has an extra twist added to it.

Hey, sorry if this has been asked before.

Im experiencing a weird bug with my save file. I saved on the Mr Smile screen and had to close the game. When I enter back into the save file, im back at Mr Smiles screen. When I leave the screen, im at the Nibelheim reactor where the moster pods were, and everything is bugged out. I feel like my save file is screwed.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Save Anywhere is a dangerous thing to use because there are a fair number of fields and events that are not designed to handle a direct reload into them. You should only use it when you aren't in some kind of scene or event, and on a screen that has regular character navigation. Even then, always save to a separate slot. Same goes for PHS but it's typically a bad idea to use PHS when its locked as it can break certain scenes if you swap in different characters (Junon raid where Barret is party lead for instance expects Cait Sith and Yuffie).

I'll post something in the Discord about it; Save Anywhere has caused a few problems like this for other people. As for your softlock, I would open your save file in the Black Chocobo save editor tool and warp your character to where you accessed the Rank Up system from (for instance, if you accessed it from Mythril Mines then teleport yourself there).

Sega Chief has mentioned that 2.0 is a complete overhaul. IIRC, he's even managed to patch out the entire concept of leveling up from experience. Character strength will instead be determined by stats granted from story milestones.

So if you're about to start a new game, I'd definitely suggest waiting for 2.0 to drop.

That's not quite right; what I've done is change it to use a combination of stat growths from level ups and the Source upgrades. In the current build you get a flat +5 to every stat regardless of the upgrade but that's been replaced by the Level Up growths coming back. The SP system itself was retired so that upgrades now come at fixed intervals (after beating a boss/story milestone). I also revamped the menus for it so that you can pick which characters to upgrade and leave others until later + see what everyone's current rank and the max threshold is at any time.

@SC

When 2.0 is released, do you want 1.5 wiped from catalogs? Or will you continue to support both?

I was going to support both, but it might be a good idea to leave 1.5 off the catalogs and just have that be a single IRO on this thread to avoid confusion over which version to use. 1.5 is going to get some bug-fixes to go with 2.0's release.

Is the Gold Chocobo you get from the Guidebook item supposed to be worthless for racing? I gave mine a ton of Silkys Greens, and it can't even win in A class, let alone S class.

I think it starts off that way; if you breed it though then you should get a much better Gold racing chocobo. I could look into adjusting the stats of that Gold chocobo.

[EQ2Alyza]

I was going to support both, but it might be a good idea to leave 1.5 off the catalogs and just have that be a single IRO on this thread to avoid confusion over which version to use. 1.5 is going to get some bug-fixes to go with 2.0's release.

Will do. Admittedly, I’ve still yet to play New Theat, so I’m looking forward to this release 

[epsilon]

Newbie question: when morph-ing I only do damage in the double digits (start of the game, just reached Costa del Sol). Is this normal damage or is there some way to make morph more effective? Because as it is, I have to waste several turns to whittle down about 100 damage as about then every attack outright kills. I have not tried it yet but if gravity is percentage damage (of *current* hp) it could help, the problem is that so many enemies are immune to it.

[evermuzik]

Save Anywhere is a dangerous thing to use because there are a fair number of fields and events that are not designed to handle a direct reload into them. You should only use it when you aren't in some kind of scene or event, and on a screen that has regular character navigation. Even then, always save to a separate slot. Same goes for PHS but it's typically a bad idea to use PHS when its locked as it can break certain scenes if you swap in different characters (Junon raid where Barret is party lead for instance expects Cait Sith and Yuffie).

I'll post something in the Discord about it; Save Anywhere has caused a few problems like this for other people. As for your softlock, I would open your save file in the Black Chocobo save editor tool and warp your character to where you accessed the Rank Up system from (for instance, if you accessed it from Mythril Mines then teleport yourself there).
[/quote]

Thank you! This solved my issue for now. You're a great one.

[Maziac]

Newbie question: when morph-ing I only do damage in the double digits (start of the game, just reached Costa del Sol). Is this normal damage or is there some way to make morph more effective? Because as it is, I have to waste several turns to whittle down about 100 damage as about then every attack outright kills. I have not tried it yet but if gravity is percentage damage (of *current* hp) it could help, the problem is that so many enemies are immune to it.

That's normal, Morphing is meant to be hard. In the end of the game, one of the characters Ultimate weapon has an effect allowing it to Morph with normal damage, making it easier in the end. You've got the right idea with Gravity spells, but yes, many enemies are immune to it. Laser enemy skill is great too, before you get access to Demi 2 and 3.

I wouldn't worry too much about the Morphs, it was fun for a while but in the end it's very tedious. I don't even recall getting many worthwhile special items, though undoubtedly there must some useful ones.

[Sega Chief]

Newbie question: when morph-ing I only do damage in the double digits (start of the game, just reached Costa del Sol). Is this normal damage or is there some way to make morph more effective? Because as it is, I have to waste several turns to whittle down about 100 damage as about then every attack outright kills. I have not tried it yet but if gravity is percentage damage (of *current* hp) it could help, the problem is that so many enemies are immune to it.

Morph has a heavy damage penalty attached to it, which is unchanged from the base game. Generally the best thing to do is Sense the enemy to get a record of its HP and then press Select/Assist in-battle to keep track of the enemy's current HP. Reducing its HP to within a reasonable range is the next step; if a regular attack/spell is too much and will kill the enemy, then consider using a weaker character or an item like Grenade to reduce HP closer to 0.

[Fauve]

That's not quite right; what I've done is change it to use a combination of stat growths from level ups and the Source upgrades. In the current build you get a flat +5 to every stat regardless of the upgrade but that's been replaced by the Level Up growths coming back. The SP system itself was retired so that upgrades now come at fixed intervals (after beating a boss/story milestone). I also revamped the menus for it so that you can pick which characters to upgrade and leave others until later + see what everyone's current rank and the max threshold is at any time.

Ooh nice. Sounds similar to Chrono Cross star level ups after major events/bossess. I imagine it'll be easier to maintain a sweet difficulty curve with this system as well. 

Newbie question: when morph-ing I only do damage in the double digits (start of the game, just reached Costa del Sol). Is this normal damage or is there some way to make morph more effective? Because as it is, I have to waste several turns to whittle down about 100 damage as about then every attack outright kills. I have not tried it yet but if gravity is percentage damage (of *current* hp) it could help, the problem is that so many enemies are immune to it.

I believe the weapons you get from Temple of the Ancients give full damage morphs, so that should help a bit. They have limited Materia slots however.

[Ethan0l93]

Hey Sega,
I've been playing for around 60 hours and I have had pretty much no bugs until now. Whenever I'm fighting Chokhmabo and he uses M.A.D breath, my game crashes.
Do you have an idea of what might be happening/ how to fix it?
-Thanks!

[epsilon]

Ok, thanks for all the answers on Morph-ing. I knew that in vanilla there was a heavy damage penalty and that Yuffie's conformer bypasses it, but given the extra importance of morphs in getting good items on the mod (as evinced by the enemy spreadsheet) I thought maybe there was a trick I was missing.

On a completely unrelated note. Maybe this is not the best thread but I will just go ahead and ask anyway. I am on linux (arch linux to be precise) and can run ff7 with the new threat installer through wine just fine -- which is the most important to me, but I am missing on all the audio and graphical improvement mods, because all my attempts at installing either Reunion or 7th Heaven have failed. Has anyone here managed to get them running? And if yes, what were the precise steps you took? Or more modestly, has anybody a link to someone somewhere that has managed it, because my google fu is weak and has turned up nothing.

[Sega Chief]

Hey Sega,
I've been playing for around 60 hours and I have had pretty much no bugs until now. Whenever I'm fighting Chokhmabo and he uses M.A.D breath, my game crashes.
Do you have an idea of what might be happening/ how to fix it?
-Thanks!

MAD uses Aire Tam Storm's animation if I remember right. Do you have any spell texture mods installed or any other graphical enhancements?

Ok, thanks for all the answers on Morph-ing. I knew that in vanilla there was a heavy damage penalty and that Yuffie's conformer bypasses it, but given the extra importance of morphs in getting good items on the mod (as evinced by the enemy spreadsheet) I thought maybe there was a trick I was missing.

On a completely unrelated note. Maybe this is not the best thread but I will just go ahead and ask anyway. I am on linux (arch linux to be precise) and can run ff7 with the new threat installer through wine just fine -- which is the most important to me, but I am missing on all the audio and graphical improvement mods, because all my attempts at installing either Reunion or 7th Heaven have failed. Has anyone here managed to get them running? And if yes, what were the precise steps you took? Or more modestly, has anybody a link to someone somewhere that has managed it, because my google fu is weak and has turned up nothing.

You could try the manual method.

You need Luksy's ULGP tool which can unpack and then repack archives that hold models, etc. You can then drag-drop model files into the unpacked archives to replace the default models, repack, and it should be ready for use. Battle.lgp holds battle models (enemies, characters, battle backgrounds), char.lgp holds field models, and flevel.lgp holds the backgrounds. I'm not 100% sure how the process works with field backgrounds for the Steam version. Audio should be a similar deal but unsure what tool handles these. I've been able to extract audio files in the past but it was a long time ago. However, you can rename Steam's .OGG files to whatever you want.

If however you are using the 1998 PC version with Aali's Custom Driver then there should be some extra folders in your directory called 'direct' and things like that. This folder is able to replace Field backgrounds, battle backgrounds, texture files, etc. automatically just by having the right files in there. It's very similar to how Reunion currently works.

[Ethan0l93]

MAD uses Aire Tam Storm's animation if I remember right. Do you have any spell texture mods installed or any other graphical enhancements?

Nope, All I have is the New threat stuff from the regular installer.

[Sega Chief]

All right, I'll add it to my notes for the 1.5 maintenance patch; in the meantime I'll quickly make a different scene.bin that uses an alternate animation.

[Meical]

I was wondering if the Definitive Mod From Sector 48's page was compatible with New Threat.