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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-19 12:50:45 »

Snip

I think the stacking of multiple similar elemental materia increasing power could be interesting, but devoting individual materia to single spells--especially low-level ones--like that would cause problems, especially since materia slots are already at such a premium.

For example, my personal favorite build in the entire game is Barrett as a tank/attacker, and since he isn't going to have much magic, I give him support spells and Renew (when I get it), and devote the rest of his slots to purple, command, and an occasional elemental materia if needed, partly for effect, partly for stat boosts. With the proposed change, my needed magic materia slots change from 3 to 6-8 (depending on how many spells from each materia I want to use with him), which of course also multiplies how many "All" materia I also need to equip for ideal use by the same amount (from 2 to 3-5). And since Time and Barrier materias are so important in this mod, any spells I can't equip on Barret will have to overflow to other characters, whose magic selection will be also be limited, and whose available slots aren't too much more in number than Barrett's.

Basically, playing casters--and maybe even hybrids--in this hack will be really painful for a massive chunk of the game because you will never have enough slots for everyone. Even endgame--which features mega-all and master materia--will probably be an issue because only 1 character can max out at 16 slots, and the rest max out at 9-14 depending on your weapon/armor of choice--and not all of those have generous servings of connected slots!

The only potential issue I can see with amplifying multiple "stacked" materia is how much of a bonus you get from that stack. The new battle rebalance is already IMO much friendlier to the player (in a reasonable way), and if you add a mechanic where, say, Cloud can stack 3-4 lightning materia in Midgar, will the stacking bonuses just make him a steamroller for bosses there? And would stacking those materia upset the power balance anywhere in the early-to-mid-game? Because you'll basically be able to do it right away with basic magic materia.

IMO the stack mechanic might upset the balance least is used only for summons. You start collecting them a bit into the game, there are limited numbers, they're currently single use, and they each have a plethora of plus *and* minus stats for equipping. I personally used summons primarily for stat boosts and rarely actually summoned them outside certain battles or farming (if only because most summons were equipped on fighters/hybrids). But stacking could make them more viable regular use options (provided you have enough MP)

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-06 23:38:09 »

Chocobo Breeding becomes available once Cloud is back, so you can get up to Black fairly quickly for the 3 land-based caves. So even if the guidebook thing is removed or downgraded, those caves still become accessible at that point of the game (assuming player puts the time in).

Very accurate (I actually got my gold chocobo on a previous NT version--that didn't have the trade active--the hard way right after getting Cloud back)--I guess I personally think it's worth making players work for, especially since the materia bosses are a bit easier with the rebalancing.

Maybe a good trade-off would be to place the guide book with a different enemy at a later point? Maybe even an early enemy in the Northern Crater? Like the gargoyles? Or morphing one of those nightmare monsters on the Gelnika (which are much more deadly than the Ghost Ship)?

That way players can still eventually skip the chocobo breeding/racing if they want but they can't get the extra special materia until endgame or after a particularly difficult fight. BUT if they want to put in the work they can still access the materia caves the normal way after they get Cloud back.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-05 14:12:34 »

Hi Sega Chief--I finished my NT playthrough this weekend and wanted to note a few thoughts about the latest version. NT was the only mod I used, and I played on the regular rather than arranged mode.

I still think the new 1.5 is the most pleasantly balanced version of the game I've played (I could become really powerful if I wanted, but some encounters would still wreck me if I wasn't paying attention), but some general things came up that I thought could be better balanced:


--It felt like you reintroduced late-level scaling to damage formulas, which was super welcome, but also made it super easy to max my damage output when combined with the really high experience curve mid- to late-game. I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but I think slowing down the experience curve is the best solution here so folks don't get that sweet lvl 80+ damage scaling so early in disc 2. Or maybe increase the experience needed for a level up by a factor of 5 from lvl 72 on? Not sure what the exact formula is, but I think it would make it more rewarding to hit those plateaus later than I did.

--I definitely get the reason for the Gold Chocobo-for-Guide Book trade, but with your new combat balance, I think it probably breaks mid-game. I wasn't able to beat the KotR boss immediately (although I might have if I had tried a bit harder early on--I won once I came back with final weapons and lvl4 limits), but the other materia cave bosses went down REALLY easy. I had all the special materia available via chocobo outside KotR literally right after I got the sub. Maybe give us a different color chocobo for the guide book? Like blue or green?

--I love most final weapons (especially Missing Score + 4 Osmose materia), but I have to echo some folks' complaints about Vincent's and Cid's. With your new combat balance they do respectable damage, but will almost always be outdamaged by the big hitters (Cloud, Tifa, Barret) when holding strength constant between them all. This is especially problematic for Cid--his weapon doesn't ignore defense, and its special skill is effectively useless by the time you get it (draining HP is really only useful for longer fights, of which there aren't many left after the Dark Cave). Since Cid was one of my rotating main physical damage dealers, that's a problem IMO!

--On the subject of final weapons, please make Aeris' final weapon default target the party and not the enemy! In some fights where I needed to move quick there were some...embarrassing mess ups. And in pincer attacks (such as the KotR battle) it's surprisingly difficult to move the cursor to your party from the enemy!

--Is Cosmo Memory supposed to fill everyone's limit gauge? I used it in one of the final battles expecting only a single big hit, but then cloud and barret got their limits immediately after use. Maybe I'm wrong, but that seems super OP (although maybe it's not in arrange mode?), especially with how good Catastrophe is.

--The final boss of the dark cave has an attack that still ignores status immunity. I lost my first try against her (because of status effects), equipped ribbons on everyone the 2nd time, but Cloud still got confused, and even after I healed him stayed confused (the other status effects were dispelled though). It's literally the only time that happened my entire playthrough.

--Finally, about the stat system. I know you plan on changing it to a story-progress-centered system with some stat increases by level, but I do have a critique that applies to both the current and planned system. I personally love it it in theory, but one thing it does is lock the player choices very early possibly without an understanding of effective endgame builds/damage formulas, which currently could lead to a lot of regret. For example, if you don't realize that strength values do, in fact, play a big role in all final weapon damage formulas, you may be sorely surprised to find your 100 str Cloud with 9999 HP or a Barret with 4 Osmose Missing Score but 125 str (because you loaded up on defense min/maxing for Missing Score) doing subpar damage. Obviously this dynamic is sort of addressed with the recent rebalancing, but maybe a limited respec option during endgame might help (a 1-time-only, and only your first 3-4 rank ups?). I definitely think a unlimited/full respec would be too much though.

--Oh, and I forget what line, but I believe there's a single textbox in the cloud/tifa lifestream sequence that has "migh" instead of "might." Literally the only other unintentional typo my copyeditor eye caught!


Just my 2 pennies on what could be improved on what is already an amazing as hell mod! Take/ignore what you like of course!

EDIT: And just to be clear, I don't think any of the bosses--mandatory or optional--need rebalancing. I sadly didn't get to play against your Emerald Weapon variant (thanks to the sub glitch--I'd rather not muck around in the code to fix it just so I don't mess something else up), but every boss fight felt fair. I never once felt I got beat unfairly (except the Dark Cave final boss because of the above mentioned issue)--really well done building those encounters!

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-09-30 02:41:09 »

Sega Chief--

I have some bad news to report. It seems that my submarine has somehow gotten stuck in the sid of the bay near Junon and I literally cannot do anything to get it to move out. Which means I can't submerge...

And of course it also means I can't fight your Emerald Weapon equivalent

Which stinks because I finally have most everything else (minus the silver/gold fight rewards in the Golden Saucer) and actually feel relatively prepared. Is this just a bug leftover from the original that you can't fix? Or did I stumble on something new?

Also, less importantly, there is no Dragoon Lance in any Junon shops in my game (NT is the only mod I'm using btw). Not that it matters for my current game, but my OCD is a bit miffed that I missed the lance!


And finally, I want to echo everyone's thanks for all your work on this mod! The game balance is much more enjoyable now than the last time I played (ie fights can still be difficult, but I can also become powerful enough to actually feel powerful--and even hit the damage cap!). The only suggestion I might have to improve on this front is to somehow reduce SP awarded throughout and in the endgame significantly reduce XP gains. AP felt about right and I wasn't really mastering materia until late, which felt right on. However, when leaving random encounters on my characters were usually over-leveled and your soft caps were super easy to overcome near endgame. Also, SP rewards seemed to be way too high and even with some conscious ignoring of my stat levels I still hit 8/8 for everyone by Mideel.

Looking forward to finally finishing up this playthrough later this week!

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-09-11 11:46:38 »

Hi Sega Chief!

Really enjoying all the tweaks since the last time I played through New Threat--the changes that made physical attackers more useful are especially welcome!

But I mostly wanted to pop in and mention a few minor issues I've run into (I'm currently just past Rocket Town and about to do Wutai on "Disc 1"):

--There are a few tex boxes with bad line breaks. A couple stuck out to me in the very beginning (but of course I forgot which ones by now because I was dumb and didn't write them down), but the big one now is our stat-up guy. His line about making a deal splits "deal" between 2 lines and it looks bad. Outside those 2 instances, no bad line breaks elsewhere that I've seen though!

--Mideel enemies on Disc 1: I notice that the griffin has its XP zeroed out when using Odin, but none of the other enemies do. I seem to remember you wanting to zero out all enemy XP when they're OHKO by Odin, so I wanted to point this out in case you might've overlooked this!

--In preemptive attacks, for some reason I still do double damage on my first physical attack on any enemy even if they turned around already. Again, not sure if this is intended!

--Finally, this only happened once in a Mythril Mines fight, but was super weird. I was carefully trying to morph one of the guys with the ball and chain, and all my actions kept happening without on-screen animations (healing, attacking, stealing, etc). Nothing went wrong, I morphed the enemy, and everything went back to normal afterward, but it was really odd and I didn't know what was going on.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-07-07 12:44:27 »

Hi there SC! I was looking over recent posting here and I just wanted to ask you about this comment:

I was planning to drop SP altogether from the next update and just have ranks unlock at specific points in the story/after certain fights

If you don't want to spoil the surprise I understand, but could you talk about this a bit more? Like, will there still be only 8 rank ups total? And will the options for rank ups be similar to what they are now? Is this change mostly meant to restrict over-leveling or just due to some other programming needs?

I ask because I'm definitely one of those players that likes to power level a little, and actually liked the SP concept since it allowed me to get a boost when I ran into a section I couldn't figure out how to deal with strategically (without having to run to the forums). I don't know if I speak for many others here, but would it be possible to keep this option available in the final version? Like, maybe a separate installer that keeps the SP system but makes all the rest of your changes and another that implements everything?

Not sure how big of a lift that would be (or if many players would actually like that), but I'd certainly appreciate it!

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-03-31 15:49:15 »

That all sounds pretty great--I'll definitely keep my eye out for the final 1.5 update, since i don't want to start over halfway through!

Thanks SC!

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-03-30 16:09:34 »

Hey Sega Chief--I haven't played this mod in eons, but want to play through again. However, I think I saw you mention that 1.5 is the "final" version of it, and I just wanted to check and make sure what that meant.

Is the Final Final version uploaded on the OP, or do you still plan some small updates for 1.5?

Also, I saw you mention a 2.0 version that would be rebuilt with other modding tools. Are you able to let us in on what major changes you plan on making? Or is it still super preliminary while you work on other projects?

Looking forward to playing this again, especially with some of the nerfs I know people like me asked for in previous versions!

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2017-10-14 20:11:21 »

Hi Sega Chief--just playing through NT 1.5 and I'm just starting the end game on normal mode.  Some possibly unintentional things that may have been overlooked that I've noticed:

---Not sure if she always does this, but the item shop merchant in Wutai has a bit of a screwy text display when you talk to her (the text seems to not line break at the correct point, and it looks like some text may be missing)

---You really made the KotR fight much easier than in 1.4, because I actually beat it pretty handily this time (and despite your nerfing it still breaks so much with correct setups). HOWEVER, one thing I think you may have overlooked, or perhaps cannot fix, is how the Master Summon Materia (and summon Materia generally) interacts with the Quadra Magic and MP Turbo materias. Master Summon still allows you to summon any summon an infinite number of times as in the original, but Quadra Magic and MP Turbo will give you multiple summons of any paired individual summon materia before you get Master Summon. This meant I had 5 Quadra Bahamt Zero's ready to go before I was sniffing KotR, and while still somewhat late-game, this of course broke some stuff earlier than expected.

Still, just FYI, using a KotR with a Master Summon allows for infinite KotR summoning and some still incredibly overpowered setups considering how this mod was balanced (you can do the same in vanilla to the Nth degree, but your mod is a lot finer tuned than vanilla).

---I can't believe you did that for the diorama prize.  Have you no shame???


But seriously, I'm enjoying 1.5 so much more than 1.4, partially because I know what's going on now.  I'm really looking forward to actually being able to do stuff in the crater too now (the steal mechanics seem 100% more reasonable this go around)

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-08-19 00:31:31 »

Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow. I hope that's the problem. Also, how do you unlock the two cups in between meteor and the other? I thought it was event based but apparently that wasn't the case.

Granted, I haven't played through this with the latest patches, but if you try fighting in the meteor cup without finishing the other cups, you will freeze things.  When I played through and beat the other cups (1 by 1, unlocking them as you go) meteor cup played through just fine.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-08-04 13:50:02 »

SC, it's been awhile since I was at this point in the game, but when I just saw your post about feedback for the script changes, 1 bit suddenly came back to me for some reason:

Near the beginning of the game, right after falling off the bridge and getting Aeris, there's a bit in the slum before her house that really stood out to me as not good.  You can go into that giant pipe on the left side of town and talk to a guy with a tattoo, and Aeris' dialogue when you try and talk to him sounds REALLY bad.  I remember it really standing out, but I guess I forgot to mention it!

I know it was awhile ago that I was at that part, so apologies if you fixed it already!

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-06-29 01:10:53 »

SC, are you still doing the steal formula changes to make endgame steals more realistic?  I didn't see anything in the flevel bit about that

Sorry if I'm jumping the gun and that's for the scene patch!

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-06-24 22:58:03 »

Curator can be fought on the 2nd visit but it's still very tough; someone did beat it though.

I'm proud to say I came close--from the explanation of his tactics a previous poster put up, I can tell I had him at ~25%.

What really got me was the instant kill moves.  If I had death protection on everyone before I went in, I probably could have beaten him.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-06-18 15:01:27 »

FYI--I believe you still have access at that point to everyone (except Cloud's) materia through the "exchange" option in the materia section of the menu.  IIRC, you don't actually ever need to swap anyone in and out of your party for materia for most of the game, if not the entirety of it.

Just in case anyone else was having a similar problem at other similar junctures.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-06-11 14:50:14 »

One thing that crossed my mind regarding the EXE patch.
If possible, i think it would be better to adjust how you gain each limit break. Personally i think you should lower the amount of monster kills (pretty low 10-20 kills) and increase the limit break usage needed for receiving new limit breaks. This will allow low level runs to actually have limit breaks past Cross Slash.

This, I think, is a really bad idea to have built into the mod for everyone.  As someone who does a bit of grinding when he plays, lowering the kill count for gaining limit breaks will mean access for super-powered lvl 3's way early.  Like, it wouldn't be difficult to have access to Meteorain, Meteodrive, or Angermax before I left Midgar with those kill counts.

I personally feel the same way the FF6 BNW guys (and I'm sure a number of others) do about this--balancing a mod around LLG's basically makes your mod a LLG mod and kind of ruins it for everyone else.

A potential solution to this problem is making an item causing 0 XP gains accessible from the beginning, and then LLG players could grind kills for limits and level where they felt they needed to.  This is what BNW did (they actually eventually instituted a "No XP" switch in the options menu), and it's worked fairly well from what I understand.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-06-09 01:42:40 »

Just to toss my 2 cents in, I thought the reflect schtick was a nice touch.

I just say let people figure it out.  It's easy enough to deal with once you know what's going on, and it's not like you don't have save points pretty close to the bosses that utilize it.  Especially early game when players are still getting a feel for the mod, I think the reflect shenanigans minus hand-holding are a good way to prepare them for the horrors to come.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-05-30 00:32:41 »

I think you also get Shield Materia from beating Diamond Weapon; if you've got that spell available (Shield needs to be leveled up though), then you can use it to completely negate Combo hits altogether.

Umm...for the record, Shield dropped as a Mastered 3-star materia for me, like Full Cure.  I assumed this was to prevent me from getting more than 1 Master Magic through materia blending, but were these supposed to work differently?

And just to be clear, materia blending is supposed to still be available right now, just not in the future when you decide what to do with the huge Materia SC?  I only ask because I was able to do it with Magic and Command materias, and I assume Summon as well, but I think your response led me to believe you didn't think blending was available with the current fixes.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-05-22 02:28:53 »

Ended up with a soft lock on disc 3. Tifa was party leader and I went to Junon to enter the Meteor Cup for her level 4 limit. It loads but when I push start to end preparations on the truck it just stays on that screen with the animations still playing, but I can't do anything.

Have you completed the other 2 Competitions with Tifa?  I also go this soft lock, but when I went back and completed the first 2 leagues, which I had not done before, then the Meteor Cup worked exactly as intended.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-05-19 12:48:08 »

Short range spells might be possible; it has the flag for it, but the damage formula for magic itself might not be coded to make the check for that range flag. I'd need to test it out. As for application, it might be interesting to have some 'melee' spells in the Enemy Skill section; perhaps something for Beta, Trine, Aqualung? I'll need people's thoughts on it first, though.

I would be interested to at least give melee enemy skills a try.  I was extremely underwhelmed with the majority of the elemental attack enemy skills--I tended to opt for just using proper magic attacks.  Outside of Shadow Flare, I really only used the support enemy skills like white wind or death force, with some situational exceptions.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-05-18 23:15:01 »

Can anyone refresh my memory where the Precious Watch is? In 1.35, I thought I stole it from the X-ATM in Junon when Barret is the leader but I'm not getting it now. Is it a rare steal or is it else where?

Unless it's a rare steal from someone, the only one I found was in the Final Dungeon.

I am fond of shenanigans.

The first time I made it through the last 2 bosses and had to sit there and wait for those text boxes to take eternity to finish up, I about lost my mind.  Especially when the Scorp literally says he's trying to waste my time.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-05-18 13:07:09 »

Trying this out and it's been a great mod so far. But one part is just defeating me. I'm on disc two where you have to get the Mega-Materia from the Corel Train but the Guard Scorpion either stalls for too long leading me to run out of time or it kills me since I'm too focused on killing it before the time runs out.

Am I doing it wrong or do I just suck?

EDIT: Never mind. Was able to do it by inflicting Dual on Scorp and going all out with Lightning/Water/Earth elemental attacks to kill it, then using poison and level 3 magic to take out the driver.

An alternate method for that horrible train sequence:  jack up all your text speeds (battle speed optional, but it can work if your characters are tough enough).  You will still have to move somewhat quick through the battles, but doing this effectively reduced SC's stalling shenanigans to zero and give you a bit more room for error.  I believe I finished the last boss with more than a minute left, which let me comfortably complete the sequence.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-05-17 19:15:35 »

How in the hell do I beat the Grosspanzer.Mobile? No matter what attack or spell I use it either receives 0 damage or my attacks miss it. It's practically invincible as no matter what I do I can't kill it. What is the way on killing it?

If memory serves, you have to kill individual parts in specific order?  As is, I believe there is 1 part that will take damage, kill it and then another becomes vulnerable, and so on until all are done for.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-05-16 01:43:58 »

As someone who's pretty much at the end of the mod, I personally think the row mechanics are pretty balanced throughout the game.  Some encounters are harder than others with/without using it, and there are some situations where you obviously always take advantage (Yuffie, Aeris, Vincent, some encounters like Iron Men).  Hell, I don't go anywhere without applying sadness to my whole party too, just to make sure I'm prepped for any surprises.

Bowser is totally right about nerfing the damage reduction to 25% though--there are characters that are naturally going to get completely wrecked with only that kind of a reduction, especially endgame.  Even with my whole level 99 party in the back row and sadness applied, Iron Men can 1-shot casters before barrier goes up, and can easily 2-shot even my heavy hitters.

The beginning section I believe was balanced the way it is because you don't have access to stat gains yet--don't worry, it gets rougher soon, and you'll be praising the sun for that back row.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-05-15 23:31:54 »

SC--some things I've run across that you might want to take a look at at some point:

--In the "New Threats" menu endgame, the ""Midgar" option talks about Rocket Town.  I think this might still be left over from Cids lvl 4 Limit being in the vending machine.

--In savepoints in the final dungeon, there's this weird thing that happens, where if you toggle random encounters, it doesn't put the middle box back in the extended save menu.  Everything works fine, but for some reason this small graphical glitch does exist in at least the Hatchery savepoint (I think it does the same thing for the save menu on the other 2 paths as well).

--The Goldberry battle....sweet baby jesus.  That was really, really ridiculous, but I eventually power-gamed them out of existence (Quadra Magic Bahamut Zero and Neo Bahamut from a 250 Mag hero plus 1 use of Catastrophe).  However, one really weird thing that kept happening was that every time they would use the Golden Grudge that inflicts small, my character would grow gigantic first before being "shrunk" down to what was then normal size.  It still had the exact same effect as intended, but it was a really confusing animation.

--I may have misread what you said about Master Materias, but are they still supposed to be available from materia blending?  As of right now, I can get infinite Master Commands, and I have blended 1 Master Magic.  I was under the impression that huge materia no longer did that, but was I wrong?

--Quadra Magic...officially kind of breaks the Summon Materia balance I think.  I should have checked whether Summons can be "Quadra'ed" multiple times, but I can confirm you get at least 1 Quadra Summon, and then you still have a singular Summon afterwards as well.  I'm not sure if this was meant to be left in, but it does change the Summoning Dynamic a bit.  I personally don't mind this being in there, but I just wanted to point it out if you weren't aware of it yet.


I think there were some other small things too I forgot about, but if I run across them again or remember them, I'll let you know!

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-05-14 03:50:24 »

Is there something specific I need to do to activate the item terminal in the Wall Market?  Is this a thing I can do right now?

The docs say Cid's Lvl 4 Limit is there, but that's not right because I got it elsewhere.