Author Topic: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.99994)  (Read 4825695 times)

Alucard Chris

  • *
  • Posts: 15
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6500 on: 2017-12-30 02:49:39 »
Quote
So the intended sequence of events was that when you reach the last screen of Ancient Forest it puts you back to the world map instead of that cave. The cave is instead used for the last screen of a Disc 3 sidequest which involves that NPC.
yeah i saw this on youtube. Thats why i updated the mod, but when i load a save before the cave and entered it at 1.5 i still get in there but with no NPC in it !

Its bugged for me, but why :( ?
« Last Edit: 2017-12-30 02:52:27 by KingChris »

Sega Chief

  • Moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 4085
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6501 on: 2017-12-31 21:58:44 »
yeah i saw this on youtube. Thats why i updated the mod, but when i load a save before the cave and entered it at 1.5 i still get in there but with no NPC in it !

Its bugged for me, but why :( ?

Its because the cave isn't supposed to be accessed at all, but the 7H IRO version of NT is missing a walkmesh change which means you can still access the cave. IROs split files down into chunks so that they can be mixed together with other mods; I hadn't needed to use the walkmesh chunk until now, so it wasn't included with the IRO.

You're not missing anything in any case, and you can just exit the cave to get back to the world map as normal.

Sega Chief

  • Moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 4085
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6502 on: 2017-12-31 22:57:05 »
\\NT Announcement//

So first of all; happy new year and hope you had a good holiday. I spent mine sick as a dog unfortunately, but on the positive side it gave me some extra time off work which I spent thinking about the state of NT and how to take things forward from here. In the last few weeks, thanks to DLPB's help, I've been able to get to grips with modifying the game's assembly (specifically the executable) which opens a lot of new doors. I can now modify damage formulas, modifiers, and add some new functionality to the menus (like an SP counter for instance, bottom-right): https://imgur.com/a/4Shqc

I think NT, as it is now, has been taken as far as it can; I've scaffolded so many fixes and changes onto it that I can't even keep track of it all anymore. Working and planning for the mod has always been very chaotic and what I make usually conflicts with what I say the mod should be; I wanted it to be a gameplay-only mod that doesn't affect story, but I added that Aeris thing and rewrote all the text. I wanted the game to be fast and snappy to play, but I've added a lot of content & feature bloat. It's been a very weird road from 1.0 to 1.5, lot of design choices have come and gone (like the disastrous 'weather' system, or that business with the hard level cap), but even after all this time I'm still not happy with how NT turned out.

I'm in a weird place where I'm glad that NT has gotten so much positive feedback and attention, but also a bit ashamed at how shoddy it is. I find it difficult to watch streams of it because it usually highlights the fundamental problems that it has. There's too many gimmicks, obtuse mechanics, and arbitrary encounters that either fall flat or just frustrate the player. I've tried to change too much for the sake of having it be different and not kept a clear plan in mind for how things should play out when making a lot of this. I was also pretty burnt out, and 1.5 was kind of a last-ditch attempt to fix some of it before I called it a day and left things be.

But I wasn't expecting to get to grips with assembly; I've gotten back a lot of my energy and drive to work on FF7 again. And it'd be a shame to leave things like this, so the plan I've come up with is:

l) Start with a fresh set of files and produce a 'NT 2.0' with the assembly modifications in place; this'll allow me to drop the work-arounds I've been using until now and implement new functionality directly. This mod will have the name of NT and some features will come across like the option to skip some cutscenes, but it'll essentially be a new mod project.

l) Perform a last wave of bug-fixes and balancing for current outstanding issues in 1.5 and continue to support it with any bugfixes that need done in the future; I want to keep 1.5 available as a 'legacy' version of the mod. The 2.0 build will be drastically different so I'd like to keep this available for people in the best possible shape that I can get it.

I'll go over the finer details later; time's crept up on me, and it's almost midnight; I gotta go s:

Happy new year!

selius

  • *
  • Posts: 126
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6503 on: 2018-01-01 02:29:35 »
O_O

hype.

honestly, i was thinking about asking you if you were done making changes yet. there's assorted things i dislike about the mod that i was just gonna cheat my way around and call it a day, but if you're making a 2.0 i can wait. i've waited this long already.

Sega Chief

  • Moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 4085
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6504 on: 2018-01-01 03:09:40 »
O_O

hype.

honestly, i was thinking about asking you if you were done making changes yet. there's assorted things i dislike about the mod that i was just gonna cheat my way around and call it a day, but if you're making a 2.0 i can wait. i've waited this long already.

Well, seems like a good place to start discussion. Tell me about the things you don't like in the mod so I can avoid making the same mistakes. Same with everyone else reading this, be as honest as you can.

As for 1.5, I'm compiling a list of current issues and I'll post a list of them once I'm ready to make the new patches/installer. I've also got some updated documentation to put up like an FAQ and some fixes to the databases, etc.

GeoFlare

  • *
  • Posts: 35
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6505 on: 2018-01-01 03:18:34 »
Well, seems like a good place to start discussion. Tell me about the things you don't like in the mod so I can avoid making the same mistakes. Same with everyone else reading this, be as honest as you can.

As for 1.5, I'm compiling a list of current issues and I'll post a list of them once I'm ready to make the new patches/installer. I've also got some updated documentation to put up like an FAQ and some fixes to the databases, etc.

Have you found ways to change limit breaks at all?

Sega Chief

  • Moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 4085
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6506 on: 2018-01-01 03:41:53 »
Have you found ways to change limit breaks at all?

Limits can be changed more or less freely using a tool called Libre; there were older builds that used a custom .EXE with altered limits and materia bonuses/penalties but it wasn't balanced very well.

***
@SlumDrunk

I was going through the thread and found a post of yours that I missed about Ruby Weapon and it taking an hour and a half for one round; do you mean a single round of combat or for a full attempt?

selius

  • *
  • Posts: 126
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6507 on: 2018-01-01 03:59:40 »
 
Well, seems like a good place to start discussion. Tell me about the things you don't like in the mod so I can avoid making the same mistakes. Same with everyone else reading this, be as honest as you can.

As for 1.5, I'm compiling a list of current issues and I'll post a list of them once I'm ready to make the new patches/installer. I've also got some updated documentation to put up like an FAQ and some fixes to the databases, etc.

my biggest problem is physical scaling being awful. poor damage early, overpowered as hell late. tifa eventually completes her holy trinity and everything dies in 2 rounds. I had originally intended to just remove all the strength boosting sources and increase weapon str amounts so that early game damage would be better and scale by itself with level. the quadratic increase from base str, level, weapons and limit multipliers just ends up invalidating magic. (except for comet)

i dislike the sp system in its current iteration. only bosses should yield sp and everyone should gain it at the same rate. stick these "limit breaks" behind strong bosses so you get a proper reward for winning a hard fight.

mug not being a command materia that replaces the attack command.

the materia placements also irk me. early exp plus does little due to how you did the exp scaling. deathblow before you get any high accuracy weapons. early counter with nothing useful to pair it with. i dont remember when we get added cut but it's not soon enough.

enemy damage values are all over the place. some encounters absolutely ferning destroy you in seconds whereas others are so easy as to wonder why they even attacked you. tons of enemies without morphs and most morphs are not worth the time to do it. when i would first encounter a new enemy i would be excited. ooh new steals and morphs.............. and then it's ferning junk.

i have no problems with gimmicky bosses. just saying.

and before i forget: if you're doing .exe modifications......please make it compatible with menu overhaul. it is so much more pleasing to play ff7 with that mod.

« Last Edit: 2018-01-01 04:01:32 by selius »

Sega Chief

  • Moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 4085
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6508 on: 2018-01-01 05:44:22 »

my biggest problem is physical scaling being awful. poor damage early, overpowered as hell late. tifa eventually completes her holy trinity and everything dies in 2 rounds. I had originally intended to just remove all the strength boosting sources and increase weapon str amounts so that early game damage would be better and scale by itself with level. the quadratic increase from base str, level, weapons and limit multipliers just ends up invalidating magic. (except for comet)

i dislike the sp system in its current iteration. only bosses should yield sp and everyone should gain it at the same rate. stick these "limit breaks" behind strong bosses so you get a proper reward for winning a hard fight.

mug not being a command materia that replaces the attack command.

the materia placements also irk me. early exp plus does little due to how you did the exp scaling. deathblow before you get any high accuracy weapons. early counter with nothing useful to pair it with. i dont remember when we get added cut but it's not soon enough.

enemy damage values are all over the place. some encounters absolutely ferning destroy you in seconds whereas others are so easy as to wonder why they even attacked you. tons of enemies without morphs and most morphs are not worth the time to do it. when i would first encounter a new enemy i would be excited. ooh new steals and morphs.............. and then it's ferning junk.

i have no problems with gimmicky bosses. just saying.

and before i forget: if you're doing .exe modifications......please make it compatible with menu overhaul. it is so much more pleasing to play ff7 with that mod.

I can modify the physical formula directly now which means I don't need to use work-arounds that don't deal with it properly. But more than that, I can also adjust the modifiers given by elemental, critical hits, Berserk, etc. which will make it a lot more stable at end-game when numbers are getting higher.

There's two ways to go with SP; either ditch it and make it locked behind certain story bosses/events or have SP not be character-specific and the player decides who to spend it on (with progressive purchases for a character becoming more expensive each time).

I'll see what I can do about Mug; I was going to adjust Morph and Deathblow as well but I suppose it would be a good idea to do something with Mug too.

In the current build, Deathblow and Added Cut were swapped so you get the former in Great Glacier and the latter in Gongaga. Command Counter doesn't have much to pair with, except maybe Steal, and Morph is a fairly useless pair for it due to the damage being so low. It could be made more useful with a change to Morph's damage and if Deathblow was made available earlier again; that'd give 3 realistic options for it: Steal, Morph, or Deathblow.

EXP Scaling I'm not sure what to do with; could drop the spike thing I went with and go back to a more normal method. Probably need to look at that.

The Steals and Morphs went through a lot of changes; I think what it boiled down to was that I was worried people would be focused on farming the rare steals or trying to Morph bosses and it'd make the game feel like a chore. Feedback generally has been that it was a mistake to remove them (or at least, it was a mistake to remove the majority of the Boss Morphs) as it isn't making the effort of doing it worthwhile.

I'm using HextTools for the .exe changes, which basically means I can apply them to any .exe and change the memory addresses I use if anything clashes. It should be easy enough to make it compatible with other .exes.

selius

  • *
  • Posts: 126
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6509 on: 2018-01-01 06:15:46 »
i am ok with removing boss morphs from the equation. im also ok with bosses having rare steals. However, I would prefer these things be listed beforehand. It may be less fun to know beforehand what each boss gives but holy strawberries am i tired of killing a boss 3x just to settle on the chosen item i want from that fight.

i would prefer your former solution to sp. just have your "chosen 8" fights that get you sp ranks and roll with that. unlock the first one after the mythril mines, one after first jenova, etc. symbolic fights would have a greater appeal imo.

i dont think morph needs a damage change. there are very few enemies that are unmorphable that i can think of offhand. one being the bombs at the bridge (which you can come back to after you get work glove or any of the zero growth full morph damage weapons), and the goblin who requires poisoning and patience. it just needs to be worth the hassle.
« Last Edit: 2018-01-01 06:17:18 by selius »

strife98

  • Global moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 244
  • Doink!
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6510 on: 2018-01-01 07:09:00 »
Now that I've had time to think about it, I can see where you are right about the game being rather bloaty, and with it having strayed away from the mod you originally wanted to make is unfortunate. What you've done with 1.5 may not be what you wanted, but what you have made is amazing. Some of the gimmicky stuff is annoying, but it requires you to think outside of the box. Makes you question what you have to deal with it, and how you can use what you have to your advantage. The small story changes you've made are pretty great as well. It adds more personality to the characters, and bit of laughs. Barret knocking Cloud out after the Materia tutorial still gets me. The passives, and all around stat changes have brought new life to the characters. I'm actually willing to have Cait Sith in my party now.

Though I agree with selius. In your attempt to balance magic, and strength, strength comes out in front late game, especially with Tifa. Her late game is super rediculous with how fast she gains new limits, how fast her limit bar increases, and her insane strength. She's definitely a glass cannon, but with her in your party you can usually kill things fast enough to not worry about it especially with her passive. Aerith can definitely rival her in damage with magic though, but she's normally relegated to being just a healer because of her high magic, and the unwillingness to use MP on anything other than healing in case a monster nukes a party member. Vincent is a pretty decent caster, but using his MP is a bad idea cause keeping his MP as high as possible helps keep him alive. It's best to find the transformation that fits the fight best, and use that against your next troublesome boss (which is so far Deathgigas. so good as long as they don't drain/negate lightening.) Cait Sith and belt out some decent magic, but making him a tank is usually the better call. Throw revive, elemental + needed element for absorb, some status buffs, then enemy skill is really all he needs. That really just leaves Cloud and Red XIII, comparatively though they're better off smacking them around with normal attacks and limit breaking. One thing I can think of for balancing out magic potentially, would be to have magic cost more, do more damage, but have ethers be more rare. That way a player can choose to explode an enemy with magic, but have to wait till they find an inn, or spend a little more time to physically attack them. Cure would have to cost less than attack magic in that case, or have slash-all be a much earlier materia, and maybe only have it slash-all. That way they can choose to use it on a high damage character, or throw it on Aerith to make the most of her healing staves. You could move Flash to be an upgrade to Deathblow and make it a single target ability and on chance. Maybe make it switch between Deathblow/Flash like Throw/Coin did. I feel that would balance that out a bit. Slash-all would also have to be one of those "Only have one" materia's to keep the balance though I think. Vincents shotgun should keep the Slash-all effect though. Vincent doesn't do a lot of physical damage in general so it wouldn't hurt anything for him to keep it. It's also a low level weapon so it wouldn't be very good late game.

I really like the SP system, and wouldn't want to see it scrapped. Being able to customize your characters a bit more can lead to some goofy things like melee Aerith. Will it work? Probably not that well, but it's funny to see Aerith thwack something real hard. I like your second option to change it personally. People usually have a "main 3" by the time you get far enough into the system for it to truly be effective. With being able to select who gets the SP levels, you can form your main 3 better, but also be a bit boned if you haven't been taking care of other characters when they are forced in your party. So that'll force the player to think about careful usage of SP.

Stealing items from bosses is something that, while a chore, I find to be super satisfying when you get that hard to get item. (For example I spent 2 days trying to get Fairy Flute off of Hilgigars in a FF9 mod, and I was super happy after I got it and felt accomplished I was able to keep my party and item supply well enough to steal the flute and beat him.) My one thought is, instead of having the boss have a chance to drop 1 item from a list, is maybe have 1 real good item that you wouldn't get till later, but have it a super low steal chance. If possible throw in a materia a bit later in the game that boosts steal chance (if possible, or cheat it a bit, and make item drops easier as the game goes on so it "feels" like you are getting better at stealing.) Not morphing bosses is completely fine. Especially with more difficult bosses it's more worth to just finish the boss then to try to tempt fate by wearing him down. Especially when you get an accidental crit, or a party counter attacks. Having counter attack would be pointless in boss fights if you had to morph something cause the risk of the counter killing the super low health boss would be too great. So keeping bosses from having morph items is A-OK in my book.

Edit: Blah forgive the grammatical errors, super tired.
« Last Edit: 2018-01-01 07:12:01 by strife98 »

GeoFlare

  • *
  • Posts: 35
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6511 on: 2018-01-01 08:27:50 »
I can modify the physical formula directly now which means I don't need to use work-arounds that don't deal with it properly. But more than that, I can also adjust the modifiers given by elemental, critical hits, Berserk, etc. which will make it a lot more stable at end-game when numbers are getting higher.

There's two ways to go with SP; either ditch it and make it locked behind certain story bosses/events or have SP not be character-specific and the player decides who to spend it on (with progressive purchases for a character becoming more expensive each time).

I'll see what I can do about Mug; I was going to adjust Morph and Deathblow as well but I suppose it would be a good idea to do something with Mug too.

In the current build, Deathblow and Added Cut were swapped so you get the former in Great Glacier and the latter in Gongaga. Command Counter doesn't have much to pair with, except maybe Steal, and Morph is a fairly useless pair for it due to the damage being so low. It could be made more useful with a change to Morph's damage and if Deathblow was made available earlier again; that'd give 3 realistic options for it: Steal, Morph, or Deathblow.

EXP Scaling I'm not sure what to do with; could drop the spike thing I went with and go back to a more normal method. Probably need to look at that.

The Steals and Morphs went through a lot of changes; I think what it boiled down to was that I was worried people would be focused on farming the rare steals or trying to Morph bosses and it'd make the game feel like a chore. Feedback generally has been that it was a mistake to remove them (or at least, it was a mistake to remove the majority of the Boss Morphs) as it isn't making the effort of doing it worthwhile.

I'm using HextTools for the .exe changes, which basically means I can apply them to any .exe and change the memory addresses I use if anything clashes. It should be easy enough to make it compatible with other .exes.
I am all for the idea that bosses unlocking upgrades, especially since that helps to balance out each individual character. As it stands now I rarely use anyone but my main 3 as it is a pain, and a chore, to grind SP for the characters I don't use as much. I would be much more inclined to switch it up if the characters got their upgrades at the same time (keep the different sets for characters though to keep the customization aspect).

I brought up the limit thing earlier because I kinda feel like limits hold certain characters back as well (looking at you Yuffie (LV4), Red XIII (LV3-1 and 4), and Caity just in general). I liked how you wanted to change certain ones to make them more useful such as adding statuses and whatnot. Aerith's level 2 limits could use a bit of a tweak as well, although I mainly mean Breath of the Earth. Breath of the Earth could be nice if it gave some buffs to the party. I go back and forth with Fury Brand, not really sure what my deal is with that limit.   

Stealing I also go back and forth with. I like the idea of bosses giving either the steal-able item or the item they usually drop which gives the player a choice in the matter but, still like the prospect of a super rare low steal to give me that rush if I ever do steal it.

Morphing in general I absolutely cannot stand because I have the patience of 4 year old with how slow it goes. I like the idea but, I just think its something I could live without but others like it soooo...meh I guess. The only battle I readily think where I morph every time is the Jenova fight where she spawns her adds that give the earring and power wrist early as I love the raw boosts they give.   

I am in agreement with selius when it comes to the change to Mug. I also will admit I never used the EXP plus materia since levels didn't seem to vary much with the caps in place.  I never use counter materias since I am a control freak. 

Can't readily think of anything else I would want changed at the moment.

Edit: Forgive the awful grammar, still in recovery from the flu.
 
« Last Edit: 2018-01-01 08:29:57 by GeoFlare »

MetaSieg

  • *
  • Posts: 22
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6512 on: 2018-01-01 21:18:12 »
It's been ages sense I last posted here, but mentioning a NT 2.0 (really looking forward to that) it would just feel wrong not to say something. Gimmicks aside I do agree that some rebalancing needs to be done, my concerns on that have mostly been covered already so I'm not gonna repeat it. I do have something to say about the magic system and the suggestion to increase the cost of magic/make ethers more rare. Please do not do this.

Now I can't speak for anyone else but for me when a game puts strong limits on my MP (like Dragon Quest for example) what ends up happening is I don't use the casters or they end up never being used outside of boss fights. The main problem with this kind of balance is that magic focused characters tend to be useless without their magic and if they don't have decent MP supplies they just end up not doing anything most of the time. Compare that fact to a strength focused character who has no such limits and can still do decent/good damage and you just end up not needing to use anyone else. So yeah just my two cents on that train of thought.

Another thing I'd like to mention is I really like the dialogue changes and additions you've made. The story flows a lot better and there is more life to the characters now and I hope you keep that for 2.0.

strife98

  • Global moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 244
  • Doink!
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6513 on: 2018-01-02 01:05:47 »
It's been ages sense I last posted here, but mentioning a NT 2.0 (really looking forward to that) it would just feel wrong not to say something. Gimmicks aside I do agree that some rebalancing needs to be done, my concerns on that have mostly been covered already so I'm not gonna repeat it. I do have something to say about the magic system and the suggestion to increase the cost of magic/make ethers more rare. Please do not do this.

Now I can't speak for anyone else but for me when a game puts strong limits on my MP (like Dragon Quest for example) what ends up happening is I don't use the casters or they end up never being used outside of boss fights. The main problem with this kind of balance is that magic focused characters tend to be useless without their magic and if they don't have decent MP supplies they just end up not doing anything most of the time. Compare that fact to a strength focused character who has no such limits and can still do decent/good damage and you just end up not needing to use anyone else. So yeah just my two cents on that train of thought.

Another thing I'd like to mention is I really like the dialogue changes and additions you've made. The story flows a lot better and there is more life to the characters now and I hope you keep that for 2.0.

Well, my thought on the magic thing was increasing the magic damage a decent amount, so it would be more powerful than physically attacking, but because of that the magic would be have to cost more to balance that fact out. I'm not talking obscenely more, but enough to make it so you use it only when you really need it. Inn's are also plentiful enough to the point where you really don't need ethers except for long winded battles so the fewer ethers wouldn't be that much of a bad thing. Lower level spells would obviously cost less, a bit more than they do now, but when they level up the price would go up significantly more. So you could easily spam the lower level spells like Fire 1 and not have to worry about losing MP too fast and still being able to put out decent damage, but when you want to do a lot of damage you can cast a higher level spell at the cost of a great amount of MP. It'd make it so casters are still valid with basic level 1 spells, but can also push out a lot of damage in a pinch.

Edit: I also had an idea to either alter or change Aerith's passive if you didn't want to change magic. Geomancer is nice, but a potential different/bonus passive could be when she casts healing spells it boosts her magic up to a limit until she casts a damaging spell then it goes back down to base. That way there'd be more of a reason to use her for damaging magic spells for one huge nuke.
« Last Edit: 2018-01-02 01:11:28 by strife98 »

Sega Chief

  • Moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 4085
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6514 on: 2018-01-02 02:47:26 »
.

.

.

.

Higher MP cost + higher magic damage can work really well if it's done properly; it would map out like this:

-) Rarity/cost of Tents and MP-restore items would need to be handled
-) Osmose would have to be either scrapped or pushed later
-) Inn costs raised

A potential problem is PHS because you can freely swap in up to 6 'reservists' with fresh MP pools. Way of tackling that though is to have Inns only affect the active party, so if you did use multiple parties and their MP you would ultimately need to spend more to refresh everyone.

However, like MetaSieg said if it's done wrong then it'll make Magic too high maintenance to use which screws characters set up to take advantage of it.

For SP there's advantages and disadvantages to doing it either way. I'd personally like to go with having it be after important/big fights as well; it has nice bit of sense to it and it'd be more predictable to balance up successive areas. It'd also ensure that all the characters are progressing evenly and that there's not a situation where 3 characters are super-powered and the rest are untouched (which would cause problems in general).

Steal should be fine again now that I don't need to use that level hack, but I need to decide whether I want to use a rare steal again and what chance to place that at. I think bosses are going to have to be given good Morphs again though.

I'll definitely be tweaking Limits; mostly it'll be small things like swapping the base power of Braver and Cross Slash but some like Breath of the Earth, Cosmo Memory, and All Creation will be getting a bit more done to them.

@Strife That's not a bad idea for an innate, but it'd railroad Aeris into always carrying restorative materia in order to trigger it.

@Meta About the game text, I'll be porting it over (with some refinements).

@Selius The database is going to have that information in it, I've made some changes to the 1.5 version of it (going to replace the documentation soon).
« Last Edit: 2018-01-02 02:49:06 by Sega Chief »

Tsuna

  • Global moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 823
  • Working together to create awesome things!
    • View Profile
    • The home of Tsunamods
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6515 on: 2018-01-02 04:30:53 »
I love how you have been able to add an extension to the menu. At some point i HAVE to learn how you've done that.
Assembly used properly seems to be mostly limitless given the skill and time.

Out of curiosity, what were you going to use your Day/Night system for when you had it made?
Or were you just doing it because it would be cool?

Sega Chief

  • Moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 4085
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6516 on: 2018-01-02 11:32:20 »
I love how you have been able to add an extension to the menu. At some point i HAVE to learn how you've done that.
Assembly used properly seems to be mostly limitless given the skill and time.

Out of curiosity, what were you going to use your Day/Night system for when you had it made?
Or were you just doing it because it would be cool?

The key things to have are Cheat Engine and a 1998/7H Converted version of FF7 (Steam has this annoying thing where it 'pauses' the game when it isn't in focus, and can often crash CE). I'm no master with it or anything but I can show you how the menu thing was done; DLPB helped me out a lot with it. The executable uses x86 assembly.

Another thing that's good to have is Hextools as it lets you keep track of where/what you've changed in the hex for faster corrections and easier troubleshooting. It's basically a notepad document that applies changes to an executable either on launch, or more permanently by patching it beforehand (benefit is, if something goes wrong you can just throw the executable away and apply fixed changes to a fresh one).

The day/night thing was going to be used to alter the encounter table between A and B depending on what cycle it was, but as these changes aren't reflected in battles and given that I'd need to make a lot more encounters to fill a second table (and what would these encounters offer?) I didn't implement any practical gameplay-changing effects with it. It was purely cosmetic except it came with a slew of problems and was quite ugly to look at.

MetaSieg

  • *
  • Posts: 22
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6517 on: 2018-01-02 20:27:13 »
Good to hear about the dialogue. On the magic system yes both Strife and Sega Chief are correct it can work it's just such a fine line that it can easily be messed up. It would need a lot of playtesting time focused on just it. Granted the mod will need a lot of that anyways but well you get the idea. I dunno maybe an accessory or materia that adds a small MP regen late in the game or something?
« Last Edit: 2018-01-02 23:42:10 by MetaSieg »

Delitta

  • *
  • Posts: 21
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6518 on: 2018-01-03 01:14:21 »
Just registered Sega to let you know of course 1 that I enjoy a lot and so do at least hundreds of people your mod it rocks and it made em feel like I was in a new adventure with all of them ff7s

To ask of you to not be so hard on yourself you may think it was bloated and had many little details here and there, but it doesn't not that one should really care for them, the only ones I kinda cared was that the stealing is very random and that I dont understand how are you suppose to kill Lost Number Thank God he is optional

Ive found myself smiling a lot bcuz of the changes you did, and how they make me think how to take care of some eneimes minor or bosses

I appreciate many of the details you had put in this game you resparkled the light of it for me and OMG how many replys are on this thread alone Jeez man ur are not short of admiration just by the amounts of replies u have done

P.D. the innate abilities are fine as they are, I use cloud's as strategy  actually I use everyones as a strategy in mind and thats what RPGs is about, This is a thing of beauty bro, and u are the artist and imlooking forward to your future projects

SlumDrunk

  • *
  • Posts: 13
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6519 on: 2018-01-03 03:33:56 »

***
@SlumDrunk

I was going through the thread and found a post of yours that I missed about Ruby Weapon and it taking an hour and a half for one round; do you mean a single round of combat or for a full attempt?

Hey man, glad you are recovering and I am hyped for 2.0.
This was one attempt.

I suppose Ruby wasn't the problem; it was my very first playthrough of the mod and I didn't have all the OP materias. Mix that with my average knowledge of the game. However, as I tried to explain in my very first post I found the end game boss fights to last too long, but that's until I played the whole game a second time.

I can go in details about how my first playthrough went and compare it with my second playthrough I am about to finish. I can share my observations, problems and how I personally dealt with them but I feel like this is going to be an insane big post that will take me quite some time to make. If you really insist I can write something for you.

Tsuna

  • Global moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 823
  • Working together to create awesome things!
    • View Profile
    • The home of Tsunamods
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6520 on: 2018-01-03 06:39:16 »
The key things to have are Cheat Engine and a 1998/7H Converted version of FF7 (Steam has this annoying thing where it 'pauses' the game when it isn't in focus, and can often crash CE). I'm no master with it or anything but I can show you how the menu thing was done; DLPB helped me out a lot with it. The executable uses x86 assembly.

Another thing that's good to have is Hextools as it lets you keep track of where/what you've changed in the hex for faster corrections and easier troubleshooting. It's basically a notepad document that applies changes to an executable either on launch, or more permanently by patching it beforehand (benefit is, if something goes wrong you can just throw the executable away and apply fixed changes to a fresh one).

The day/night thing was going to be used to alter the encounter table between A and B depending on what cycle it was, but as these changes aren't reflected in battles and given that I'd need to make a lot more encounters to fill a second table (and what would these encounters offer?) I didn't implement any practical gameplay-changing effects with it. It was purely cosmetic except it came with a slew of problems and was quite ugly to look at.

Okay, i have used hex a lot and know my way around it. I dont always know exactly what im doing other than changing something and seeing what it does. Then noting it down in notepad lol.

Well 1 idea i had for the Day/night system was to take an approach similar to Dying Lights take on it.
Enemies would be extremely hard at night to the point where they are nearly unbeatable, but yield much better rewards or give rare items that can only be obtained at night. I have a fully functioning Day/night system inside Echo-S now and i'm able to use for so many things.

The way it's coded allows me to change NPC's behavior based on what time it is, eg, shops close, people go to bed and lock their doors. Certain sidequests can only be got during a certain time. I've also managed to put in a weather system too that also interacts with the same system for NPC's.

Such as a model hotswap when rain activates to make the NPC's pull out umbrellas or change their outfit to a more suitable one.

What i'm looking for to add to the menu is a new timer that shows the player what time it is in game. So the player can plan ahead of time for whatever it is they need to do

Robo Jesus

  • *
  • Posts: 107
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6521 on: 2018-01-03 07:18:50 »
-) Osmose would have to be either scrapped or pushed later
You may want to consider having the spell itself on the same materia (and the materia itself being available as it normally is), but have the spell pushed back to the end of instead of it being at the front. You may also want to consider adding in something like a small hump AP before "Esuna" becomes available (so the materia goes from three levels to four. I.E. 1 nothing, 2 esuna, 3 resist, 4 omose. Also, you could make the AP hump from the spell resist to osmose much larger to delay when players get hold of osmose in normal play). Of course, you could also change the order of some of those spells around as well (1 nothing, 2 esuna, 3 omose, 4 resist). :shrugs:

« Last Edit: 2018-01-03 07:22:13 by Robo Jesus »

Nunsrgr8

  • *
  • Posts: 52
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6522 on: 2018-01-03 15:25:47 »
@Sega Chief

Your NT 2.0 post is really compelling! I appreciate your honesty and I hope I can help in some way. Your commitment to this project is really inspiring.

Truthfully, I haven't played through NT in a few years now. Despite having every intention to install v1.5, I haven't unfortunately due to incompatibility with Reunion. Plain and simple. As others have mentioned, compatibility with at least menu enhancement would be enough for most people. We've all been spoiled now and I'm not sure I could personally go back. IIRC, the menu overhaul and the translation project come as one so you could theoretically use DLPB's mod as a base. If you two are working back and forth anyway, it's worth a shot asking for permission.

I think NT, as it is now, has been taken as far as it can; I've scaffolded so many fixes and changes onto it that I can't even keep track of it all anymore. Working and planning for the mod has always been very chaotic and what I make usually conflicts with what I say the mod should be; I wanted it to be a gameplay-only mod that doesn't affect story, but I added that Aeris thing and rewrote all the text. I wanted the game to be fast and snappy to play, but I've added a lot of content & feature bloat. It's been a very weird road from 1.0 to 1.5, lot of design choices have come and gone (like the disastrous 'weather' system, or that business with the hard level cap), but even after all this time I'm still not happy with how NT turned out.

As you've mentioned in your post, you've strayed from your original vision and that's whats bothering you... it's not exactly what you wanted. I feel for you my dude. Like any project, your mod has gone through an "evolution" of sorts. Through trial and error, you've discovered what works and what doesn't. You've learned a lot and v1.5 is evidence that you are an accomplished modder now. Having a clear goal will help you add content without bloat, starting fresh. From what you've said, your goal is "balanced, fast-past new content that does not effect story"... just stick to that and keep it simple. Nobody is expecting you to release a "brand new" mod all at once, release your content as your comfortable, little by little. You already have a lot of good ideas that have been flushed out already. I think your real challenge will be picking and choosing what you'll use and what you'll cut. Trust your gut, you've already made a hit.

Asherdoom

  • *
  • Posts: 84
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6523 on: 2018-01-03 16:24:44 »
Sorry for bothering i got a tremendous bug

i am at temple of the ancients and so far games works nicely. Since i enter temple of ancients, my REGEN spell and ALL MY BARRIER spells are not working. I cast them with aeris but nothing happen, no regen and no barrier buffs appear. is just a temporary temple of ancients bug? or is just me?

Sega Chief

  • Moderator
  • *
  • Posts: 4085
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)
« Reply #6524 on: 2018-01-03 20:48:24 »
Good to hear about the dialogue. On the magic system yes both Strife and Sega Chief are correct it can work it's just such a fine line that it can easily be messed up. It would need a lot of playtesting time focused on just it. Granted the mod will need a lot of that anyways but well you get the idea. I dunno maybe an accessory or materia that adds a small MP regen late in the game or something?

Could do; I wonder if Cat's Bell could be modified for that. The game 'knows' when its equipped on field screens, so perhaps that could be used in-battle as well (with its effect swapped to MP regen over HP regen of course).

Just registered Sega to let you know of course 1 that I enjoy a lot and so do at least hundreds of people your mod it rocks and it made em feel like I was in a new adventure with all of them ff7s

To ask of you to not be so hard on yourself you may think it was bloated and had many little details here and there, but it doesn't not that one should really care for them, the only ones I kinda cared was that the stealing is very random and that I dont understand how are you suppose to kill Lost Number Thank God he is optional

Ive found myself smiling a lot bcuz of the changes you did, and how they make me think how to take care of some eneimes minor or bosses

I appreciate many of the details you had put in this game you resparkled the light of it for me and OMG how many replys are on this thread alone Jeez man ur are not short of admiration just by the amounts of replies u have done

P.D. the innate abilities are fine as they are, I use cloud's as strategy  actually I use everyones as a strategy in mind and thats what RPGs is about, This is a thing of beauty bro, and u are the artist and imlooking forward to your future projects

Thanks, bud; the amount of support NT has gotten over the years has been really encouraging (although it makes me a bit complacent sometimes). I'll be careful about what gets assigned for Stealing and Morphing, sometimes I'd be stuck for ideas on what an enemy should drop.

Some people liked Cloud's new innate, others didn't like it at all; I'll need to put that up for discussion at some stage.

Hey man, glad you are recovering and I am hyped for 2.0.
This was one attempt.

I suppose Ruby wasn't the problem; it was my very first playthrough of the mod and I didn't have all the OP materias. Mix that with my average knowledge of the game. However, as I tried to explain in my very first post I found the end game boss fights to last too long, but that's until I played the whole game a second time.

I can go in details about how my first playthrough went and compare it with my second playthrough I am about to finish. I can share my observations, problems and how I personally dealt with them but I feel like this is going to be an insane big post that will take me quite some time to make. If you really insist I can write something for you.


That'd be a good read; I think a problem I have is trying to set the game up in such a way that the complexity of the fights scales evenly with the player's experience as they progress. At the moment I've got fights which are 'spikes', some that are too easy, and others that are too tanky. I want things to click the first time through, rather than on a 2nd playthrough.

Okay, i have used hex a lot and know my way around it. I dont always know exactly what im doing other than changing something and seeing what it does. Then noting it down in notepad lol.

Well 1 idea i had for the Day/night system was to take an approach similar to Dying Lights take on it.
Enemies would be extremely hard at night to the point where they are nearly unbeatable, but yield much better rewards or give rare items that can only be obtained at night. I have a fully functioning Day/night system inside Echo-S now and i'm able to use for so many things.

The way it's coded allows me to change NPC's behavior based on what time it is, eg, shops close, people go to bed and lock their doors. Certain sidequests can only be got during a certain time. I've also managed to put in a weather system too that also interacts with the same system for NPC's.

Such as a model hotswap when rain activates to make the NPC's pull out umbrellas or change their outfit to a more suitable one.

What i'm looking for to add to the menu is a new timer that shows the player what time it is in game. So the player can plan ahead of time for whatever it is they need to do

Such a timer would likely be based on the actual game timer. It must be possible to set up a second one that counts slower.

You may want to consider having the spell itself on the same materia (and the materia itself being available as it normally is), but have the spell pushed back to the end of instead of it being at the front. You may also want to consider adding in something like a small hump AP before "Esuna" becomes available (so the materia goes from three levels to four. I.E. 1 nothing, 2 esuna, 3 resist, 4 omose. Also, you could make the AP hump from the spell resist to osmose much larger to delay when players get hold of osmose in normal play). Of course, you could also change the order of some of those spells around as well (1 nothing, 2 esuna, 3 omose, 4 resist). :shrugs:

I hadn't considered that; Esuna would be a bit much as the 1-Star spell, unless it had an MP cost to match.

@Sega Chief

Your NT 2.0 post is really compelling! I appreciate your honesty and I hope I can help in some way. Your commitment to this project is really inspiring.

Truthfully, I haven't played through NT in a few years now. Despite having every intention to install v1.5, I haven't unfortunately due to incompatibility with Reunion. Plain and simple. As others have mentioned, compatibility with at least menu enhancement would be enough for most people. We've all been spoiled now and I'm not sure I could personally go back. IIRC, the menu overhaul and the translation project come as one so you could theoretically use DLPB's mod as a base. If you two are working back and forth anyway, it's worth a shot asking for permission.

As you've mentioned in your post, you've strayed from your original vision and that's whats bothering you... it's not exactly what you wanted. I feel for you my dude. Like any project, your mod has gone through an "evolution" of sorts. Through trial and error, you've discovered what works and what doesn't. You've learned a lot and v1.5 is evidence that you are an accomplished modder now. Having a clear goal will help you add content without bloat, starting fresh. From what you've said, your goal is "balanced, fast-past new content that does not effect story"... just stick to that and keep it simple. Nobody is expecting you to release a "brand new" mod all at once, release your content as your comfortable, little by little. You already have a lot of good ideas that have been flushed out already. I think your real challenge will be picking and choosing what you'll use and what you'll cut. Trust your gut, you've already made a hit.

Me and DLPB have been helping each other out a fair bit recently, and we talked about making a cross-compatible version of Reunion and NT once both mods are done. I can definitely make the executable changes work with the menu overhaul, I'm working in a debug section that should be clear of the section that Dan uses (but if not, it's easy enough to move my addresses).

One thing I want to do is try and use Dan's DLL stuff that fixes audio and the like. Big problem for me personally when playing FF7 PC is the sound, which is really off for some scenes and effects due to problems with the audio channels.

Sorry for bothering i got a tremendous bug

i am at temple of the ancients and so far games works nicely. Since i enter temple of ancients, my REGEN spell and ALL MY BARRIER spells are not working. I cast them with aeris but nothing happen, no regen and no barrier buffs appear. is just a temporary temple of ancients bug? or is just me?

Sounds like an odd one, the only thing that'd prevent Barriers, etc. is either the Resist status (enemy attacks maybe?) or certain accessories like Ribbon (and Touph Ring). Curse Ring might be able to block Regen if it nulls Restorative). Check that the equipment you have on isn't blocking Barrier/Restorative, and check to see if any characters are being hit by attacks prior to trying to apply Barrier/Regen to them.