[FF7PC/PSX] Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (Midgar Demo)

[Bosola]

My feedback.

First of all, I heard about this today as I just happen to go explore Garland's new videos. Really interested in this and I can't wait until beta. Got to the end of Midgar just now.

Thanks for the support!

First complaint is with Tifa's survivability and/or the power of Wobbly Rockets. The rockets kill Tifa in 2 rockets which is insane considering the packs they come in. I'd recommend either buffing Tifa's lower levels or nerfing the Wobbly's power. Probably the latter since Tifa was fine throughout the rest of what I played. Maybe just a small damage decrease so she dies in three, instead of two.

I'll nerf the damage, but the Wobbly Rocket shouldn't hit you much if you're not asleep. If they're scoring crit rockets even when you're not asleep, I'll take a look into their accuracy.

Later in that area you go into a duct where Jesse tells you why the alarm went off so early. In that area, for some reason, the Wobbly Rockets would never make an action. I believe the area was called "4th Street Plate Int."

Thanks again. I'll look into this.

I got this error when I went into a battle in the area directly after where Aerith and Cloud jump off after being chased by the Turks. Can't remember what the area was called or what exactly I did. (Irrelevant but Aerith with only steal is because I was getting several ethers from Hedgehogs.. By the way.. noticed you lowered the sell price of them..)

Duly noted

From there everything was fine and had little trouble with anything (Great idea with the Shuagins, by the way.)...Double sided battles with Might Grunts are incredibly hard to survive as their attacks can kill someone in one hit if they're hit from the back. Not really a problem since the only place I can remember these sorts of battles was on that floor where you have to sneak past the guards.

Maybe I should replace that back attack encounter. They ARE pretty strong creatures.

Finally, Sample: H0512. Got this error very often. I reloaded too many times to count since I really wanted to defeat this guy without getting an error and using L1+R1+SELECT. What I noticed is that the error happened at random points through the battle. Although they occurred often when Barret was the first person to make an action and when it used that poison attack for a second time on the same person.

Dang. This was persistent, but I thought I'd corrected it. I may have to redo that encounter from scratch.

When one of the adds die, it forces the boss to revive it instead of attacking so you can fight without him ever attacking other than the opening move.

That was intended - when H0512 screams in anguish, you know her focus is her children. Do you think the battle is too simple once you've 'cracked' it?

[Jewbakka]

Meh, I'll just go over all the bosses..

Guard Scorpion - A little strong for a first boss since you only have limited items. Not sure what you can do. Maybe give the player a few more potions at the beginning of the game?

Air Buster - Fine and not much of a problem if you pay attention to which way he's facing and go in prepared.

Aps - Too easy. I'd lower the damage he takes from his tidal wave attack as well as increasing the damage to the player when the attack comes from behind Aps. The wave that comes from behind the player should stay the same.

Reno - I didn't feel like there was much of a difference between the vanilla version and this other than the Bolt Plume.. (Thank you for that item, by the way.) Maybe make him a little stronger?

Sample: H0512 - Way too easy once you notice it never attacks if you kill one of the adds each turn. To counter this I guess you could make the adds do more damage or have the boss attack more often, so you can't interrupt her all the time.

Elevator bosses - Well done, not much here. Felt much better than the original.

Rufus - Dark Nation needs to be buffed at the very least. Two casts of fire and he was gone, meaning Rufus would be without MBarrier (As he uses Barrier on Rufus, then himself first.) Just switch between using Bio and Cure and he "died" quickly.

Motor Ball - Feels the same a Reno.. It's pretty weak except when it casts that Fire3 thing. Don't even need to be in high health to survive it either.. Maybe increase the damage he does with the other attacks?

-----

You did say in this demo you only did through Midgar, right? It's a little bit past it but I went to get Matra Magic from those Sweepers and I was given one of the new Enemy Skills. The text (As well as the animation) said it basically did the same thing as the old skill ? ? ? ? but when I used it, it did nothing. It was called Balance and is in the slot where Flashcannon is in that video you made awhile ago. Didn't know if it was a bug or if you decided to change things.

If you did do more than just Midgar (I noticed you updated some shops in Kalm), I'll get back to going through the rest of Disc 1.

Oh, and I have the same odd blue materia that another person posted about earlier. It doesn't do anything at all though.

[Bosola]

You did say in this demo you only did through Midgar, right? It's a little bit past it but I went to get Matra Magic from those Sweepers and I was given one of the new Enemy Skills. The text (As well as the animation) said it basically did the same thing as the old skill ? ? ? ? but when I used it, it did nothing. It was called Balance and is in the slot where Flashcannon is in that video you made awhile ago. Didn't know if it was a bug or if you decided to change things.

That demo's only for Midgar. I didn't really bugtest anything implemented later. There's a bug in Balance and a couple of other enemy skills.

Oh, and the monsters around Junon are really hard in that build IIRC.

As for H0512, I am really attached to the idea of 'distracting' a boss, but it does make things too simplistic. And if I increase its attack power, all I do is screw over those who don't recognize the boss 'mechanics'. I'll have to think about this one.

[the0nlykyd]

In short: a few more 'interesting' weapons with remarkable mechanics; a tendency to offer 'sidegrades' rather than straight upgrades; more elemental, status inflicting, healing and MP damaging weaponry.

This caught my attention. Here's an idea I'll pitch at you, but I really don't think it would make it into this project (maybe a future one).

How about having all of the weapons & armor having fixed stat values (meaning character levels are more significant) and having their features being specific Materia that cannot be removed (Materia all level up at normal rate). I would guess the only real reason not to do something like this is because it sharply resembles (to be honest, it's about identical) to Final Fantasy X. The only difference from FFX is the ability to level up the materia on the weapon/armor so (like FF9) it is rewarding to hold one weapon for a longer period of time.

This way, you get more variables to work with as a player and weapons become more valuable throughout the game as opposed to only as good until your next, more powerful weapon. It also allows you to drop all materia pickups/shops and substitute them for more items that can be used. This could also be used cleverly to bring back the Class System within the game (Making all of the Characters useful, as opposed to the same 3 characters through the entire game).

Problems? I can imagine an extremely high difficulty in doing this and still having a well-balanced game. The fact that materia won't be found/sold will mean there will probably be difficulty in replacing whatever is found appropriately or risk having long gaps between finds. This also means having weapons more spread out (because we will still want some extremely rewarding weapons) so you don't have too many options to work with in most the game.

My Suggestions (if this were to be done at all) would be still having some armor that can be customizable (meaning someone would find an "Ultimate Combo" for it) but any materia bound to it would be permanent. Maybe even having a specific weapon for each character that can be found throughout the game with the same properties. This way, Materia can still be found at some points in the game, but must be chosen to use (this also gives a reason to Master Materia). Doing this freely would be convenient, but having it restrained to one place or select shops to customize and add Materia to something would also be neat (as well as a programming nightmare I can imagine).

I don't know if someone suggested this before, but seeing your idea of making weapons have more "sidegrades" just rang bells in my head. If I knew the first thing about modding this game (or modding in general) I would take up this kind of project myself. Your thoughts?

[Bosola]

In short: a few more 'interesting' weapons with remarkable mechanics; a tendency to offer 'sidegrades' rather than straight upgrades; more elemental, status inflicting, healing and MP damaging weaponry.

This caught my attention. Here's an idea I'll pitch at you, but I really don't think it would make it into this project (maybe a future one).

How about having all of the weapons & armor having fixed stat values (meaning character levels are more significant)

I considered it, but thought it too controversial. Plus, it seriously limits the number of weapons I can implement. It's not a bad idea though.

This way, you get more variables to work with as a player and weapons become more valuable throughout the game as opposed to only as good until your next, more powerful weapon.

I've arranged the equipment selection so that, at any time, you've a choice to make between two different weapons. In the Midgar demo, for instance, you can gain a Hardedge - a massive, brutish weapon with tremendous attack power but no materia slots. Losing the buster sword means losing one of the few paired-slots available. I want to make players face choices like that throughout the game.

and having their features being specific Materia that cannot be removed (Materia all level up at normal rate). I would guess the only real reason not to do something like this is because it sharply resembles (to be honest, it's about identical) to Final Fantasy X. The only difference from FFX is the ability to level up the materia on the weapon/armor so (like FF9) it is rewarding to hold one weapon for a longer period of time.

Preventing players from changing materia is doable (you just make sure the Materia menu never becomes available, and stop Yuffie from stealing it), but it wouldn't be in line with what I imagined for Rebirth. I make blue materia abundant because I want to make the most of the materia system, not get rid of it.

It's something to look into for a different mod, though.

your thoughts?

I think it's a good idea, but you need to understand the limitations of what we can and can't do with materia. You can't 'lock materia to armor' or to characters, I'm afraid, or make characters respond to equipment in different ways (without Gameshark Codes, at least). It has to be about compromise, alas.

[the0nlykyd]

I just wanted to run the idea by you for a potential project in the future. I feel it would be a great way to play through the game if Materia was actually bound to a weapon and all the weapons shared the same stat values. I think I'd more or less like to see a FF7=FFX type mod for this type of mechanic though.

Still looking forward to Rebirth, the only reason I don't demo is because I'll get into it and be sad when Midgar ends (honestly, Midgar is my least favorite part of the game). I'll probably play it for PC since character models and such are replaceable.

As for the demo (from reading other posts), I would like  to know if it's at all possible to just have it give you a Save Prompt (like the End of Disc Saves) and just reset the game back to the beginning, but with all the Weapons/Materia that are usable? This would allow demo players to see more of what's to offer in the game as far as customization goes. Since I haven't taken the time to play the demo (I don't actually own a copy of FF7, so I'm not too keen on ISO burning it) I don't know if you offered all of the Materia you have finished as of the release of the demo. Again, I'm not knowledgeable on coding or modding so I'm not sure how difficult (if possible) it would be to do this. Another idea is having the player sent to the Debug room when they leave Midgar.

EDIT: This also would allow you to beta test more spells and such

[Bosola]

The easiest way would be to provide a Reactor 1 save file with all materia / equipment active. *Should* work just fine...

[the0nlykyd]

Ok that works too. I just figured it would be an idea to pitch at you so people can give you feedback on any spells that weren't available through the demo. If it was your intention to keep them secret though this idea would be counter-productive.

[ultima espio]

I've just seen your wiki page. Sneaky

[Bosola]

Wiki page...?

[ultima espio]

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:FF7_Mod:_Rebirth

[Proxy]

Signed up just to give some feedback here.

I probably should have been writing this as I played instead of after I finished but whatever...

First reactor - Whoa nelly.  Way too hard for the first area.  This might be an appropriate difficulty if your intention was a "hard difficulty" version of FF7, but if it is just a rebalance, don't assume that players are masters of the game at the very beginning.  The first area of any game should ease you into the game, difficulty-wise.

Guard Scorpion - This battle was easier than some of the random battles in this area.  Definitely not right.

Part of the reason I found Guard Scorpion so easy is probably after seeing how hard the enemies in this area were, I decided to grind for potions a bit.  So I probably went in a level or two above the norm.

The section right after the train (I really need to learn what these places are called) - The rocket guys with their sleepy critter companions are vicious.  Tifa got the crap beat out of her here, and I didn't exactly have a surplus of phoenix downs so...

Air Buster - I entered the fight with two limit break at the ready.  Two limit breaks later, the fight was over.

Aps - Water heals him?  But taking a tidal wave to the face damages him?  Also pretty easy.

Turtles (I dunno what they are called) - That royal guard is a royal pain.  They just sit there and cast it on themselves over and over.  How about give them 1mp and make royal guard cost 1mp, just to prevent endless boredom.  Also I think their stab attack didn't have a sound.

Reno - He seemed, inactive at best.  His most common move seemed to be the pyramid, which cost him one turn, and one of my guys a turn, which means every time he did it, I basically got 2 free shots on him.  Also, it took me like 20 turns to successfully steal from him.

Shinra Soldiers at HQ (the red armored ones) - Barret was back attacked and took over 500 damage from the "double shot" attack.  Wee bit powerful.

Teleporting enemy with mallet - I don't know if he was supposed to, but at one point he just vanished for a while and all I could do was sit there and wait for him to return.

Sample: H0512 - besides the opening attack, I was not attacked at all during this battle, all the way up to the point when I got an error and had to escape it.  If he is going to revive his buddies each time one of them dies, they need a lot more health.  Even then, perhaps it would be better if he only did it when two of them were dead.

Elevator boss - This guy seemed pretty good.  I don't remember vanilla version, but I thought the status effect bullets seemed odd at least.  "I will shoot you with my sleepy bullets!"  I think this guy is the only non random battle which actually killed a character (Aeris).

Rufus - Already mentioned, but Dark Nation disappeared pretty quick.  After that the match becomes pretty boring as all he did was use his shotgun.  It was pretty powerful, but pretty boring.

Motor Ball - This guy, while he did take a beating before dying, didn't actually offer much resistance.  He basically sat there as I tore him apart.

I also noticed the mechanical bosses were healed by lightning and (at least) motor ball was weak to water.  While this does makes sense in a way, it also kinda goes against all my rpg experience which says "cast lightning on machines."

Character wise:
Barret seems like he has a bit too much HP.
Tifa probably could use a slight HP boost.  Also, I don't know if it was intentional, but her limit breaks are devastatingly powerful.  In this case it seems like the whole "low health, high power" concept might have gotten a little out of hand.
Aeris did not have quite as much Magic as I had envisioned.  I assume she is the primary spellcaster?
Did not get to use XIII enough to notice anything.

I liked that you took out the stat mods the magic materia had.  I noticed they was left on revive though, which I assume means you left them on the more powerful materia.  How do you envision that working out?  In my head it seems like it would just make the magically-inclined characters even more so, which shouldn't be necessary as you have started to differentiate them from the get-go.

Can you change those hints you give out in battles to only appear the first time?  I think I was told about the sleep ailment five times.

As a guy who has only played a couple of the FFs, this next one bothered me more than it probably should have.
Why did you change the Sense and Enemy Skill names?  They may be Libra and Blue Magic in the other games, but in this one I think they are kind of expected to be Sense and Enemy Skill.  Regardless of that though, If you changed those to sync up with other games, why not change the other spells?

Random thoughts for later parts of the mod:
Have you considered making Independent materia which solely serve as stat boosts?  It could be useful for non-magic users.  Similar to HP+%, but without the %, due to... not wanting to break the game.  Something like Strength +, which as it levels, the amount of strength granted also increases.  +2, +4, +6, +8.  Just a thought.

I'm also curious to hear what you are planning to do with KOTF, HP+%,MP+%, and ultimate weapons.  I had always promised myself that when I played FF7 again, I would do it without those due to how overpowered they were.

Most of the other things I noticed have been mentioned by others so I'll leave those out.

I definitely want to see what the next part is like, because I realize that the Midgar section of the game is probably the most boring due to the lack of options a player has.  You really can't throw a bunch of materia at the player at the beginning and say "have at it."

Woo, that took a while.

Well, good luck.  Hope this helps.

[Bosola]

First reactor - Whoa nelly.  Way too hard for the first area.  This might be an appropriate difficulty if your intention was a "hard difficulty" version of FF7, but if it is just a rebalance, don't assume that players are masters of the game at the very beginning.  The first area of any game should ease you into the game, difficulty-wise.

Guard Scorpion - This battle was easier than some of the random battles in this area.  Definitely not right.

I'll nerf the randoms, and up the output of GS. Maybe I'll cut his search scope, or up the penalty for not defending the next attack?

The section right after the train (I really need to learn what these places are called) - The rocket guys with their sleepy critter companions are vicious.  Tifa got the crap beat out of her here, and I didn't exactly have a surplus of phoenix downs so...

You're not the first person to find her too weak. She *is* a glass cannon, but if I reduce the hitrate of Risky Rocket further, she shouldn't die unless you're negligent.

Air Buster - I entered the fight with two limit break at the ready.  Two limit breaks later, the fight was over.

For various reasons, it's hard to do much about Air Buster. It's difficult to remove his 5x damage to back attacks.

Aps - Water heals him?  But taking a tidal wave to the face damages him?  Also pretty easy.

Likely to remove the tidal wave self-injury.

Turtles (I dunno what they are called) - That royal guard is a royal pain.  They just sit there and cast it on themselves over and over.  How about give them 1mp and make royal guard cost 1mp, just to prevent endless boredom.  Also I think their stab attack didn't have a sound.

They shouldn't cast it over and over. This suggests the random number table is screwy. As a precaution, though, I'll force them to alternate between two attacks and one royal guard. Do you think that's varied enough?

Reno - He seemed, inactive at best.  His most common move seemed to be the pyramid, which cost him one turn, and one of my guys a turn, which means every time he did it, I basically got 2 free shots on him.  Also, it took me like 20 turns to successfully steal from him.

I'm thinking the random number table is problematic. Will look at this AI again, though.

Teleporting enemy with mallet - I don't know if he was supposed to, but at one point he just vanished for a while and all I could do was sit there and wait for him to return.

This is a bug in vanilla FF7 too. It just doesn't happen very often.

Sample: H0512 - besides the opening attack, I was not attacked at all during this battle, all the way up to the point when I got an error and had to escape it.  If he is going to revive his buddies each time one of them dies, they need a lot more health.  Even then, perhaps it would be better if he only did it when two of them were dead.

I'm thinking of scrapping this entire creature. It's caused me nothing but trouble.

I liked that you took out the stat mods the magic materia had.  I noticed they was left on revive though, which I assume means you left them on the more powerful materia.  How do you envision that working out?

Revive shouldn't have that stat boost. I shouldn't have missed that...

Can you change those hints you give out in battles to only appear the first time?  I think I was told about the sleep ailment five times.

I'll look into it. Should be easy to do.

Regardless of that though, If you changed those to sync up with other games, why not change the other spells?

Some people are really sensitive about 'Bolt3'!

Random thoughts for later parts of the mod:
Have you considered making Independent materia which solely serve as stat boosts?  It could be useful for non-magic users.  Similar to HP+%, but without the %, due to... not wanting to break the game.  Something like Strength +, which as it levels, the amount of strength granted also increases.  +2, +4, +6, +8.  Just a thought.

Something like this is there, though you'd have to play further to see it. I didn't include Strength Plus, as it seemed a little broken. But Vitality Plus and Spirit Plus are there!

I'm also curious to hear what you are planning to do with KOTF, HP+%,MP+%, and ultimate weapons.  I had always promised myself that when I played FF7 again, I would do it without those due to how overpowered they were.

KOTR loses its 'piercing' status (which allows it to ignore defence) and becomes holy-elemental. Some key creatures are holy-resistant, so KOTR will still help, but won't wipe the floor with them.

HP/MP Plus are nerfed. They provide a 10% boost at level one, then another 5% with each extra level, so

Code: [Select]

Materia Level  Stat Boost
*                     +10%
**                    +15%
***                   +20%
****                 +25%
*****               +30%


I definitely want to see what the next part is like, because I realize that the Midgar section of the game is probably the most boring due to the lack of options a player has.  You really can't throw a bunch of materia at the player at the beginning and say "have at it."

Indeed. That limits the options I have in battles, too. Players have a limited number of strategies available in Midgar - in fact, they have three: defend, heal, attack. Building battles that can remain varied and demanding, whilst only involving those three responses, hasn't been easy.

[Timber]

Do you plan to release a second demo Bosola?
I have refrained from playing this because my feedback would likely be the same as others have mentioned, might as well keep my 'fresh set of eyes' for later.

[Proxy]

I'll nerf the randoms, and up the output of GS. Maybe I'll cut his search scope, or up the penalty for not defending the next attack?

His search scope is part of his charm.  It helps new players learn to defend.  Although, if you do go through the effort of making the player learn to defend, it would probably be nice if defend was helpful outside of this one battle.  I don't recall many other places it gets used...

I went through again to make sure the reason he seemed so easy wasn't because I was overleveled.  I managed to take him down when both my guys were level 3.  So yeah.  I also got hit by his tail laser this time around for about 250 damage to both guys.  You should probably lower that, seeing as he sometimes brings his tail up after you declare an attack, which kinda screws you over.  It should be enough damage so that continuously attacking while the tail is up will kill you, but one accidental one should not.

Could you make his tail poke attack not linked to his search scope?  So he could either tail poke you, or search scope followed by the rifle.  If you did that, you might want to lower the tail poke damage.

Likely to remove the tidal wave self-injury.

If you made his tidal wave HEAL him, it would visually reinforce the fact that using water against him isn't a good idea, and would make the battle much more interesting.  Just don't make it heal him for 300.

I'm thinking of scrapping this entire creature. It's caused me nothing but trouble.

Could you just not spawn the little guys and have the big one not use his revival spell?  It would make the match less interesting, but still more interesting than no match at all.

[Vgr]

I have a question. This is obvious you made some changes in the kernel.bin but it doesn't exist in the download. It is maybe in the ppf patch but I don't know how to open that. Could you send it to me? I you don't want to, I don't have any problems with that either.

EDIT : Stupid... I just have to take the kernel.bin from the patched ISO ^^

EDIT 2: Managed to get this demo working on the PC version. Ask me to a link/how to do it.

[Dark_Ansem]

re-installed the game just to test this. will post opinions later.

[Bosola]

It's been over six months since the New Year's demo, and so it's high time you heard what's happening with FFVII: Rebirth.

Firstly, Rebirth isn't dead. Whilst it's true I haven't been able to do much work on it since the demo, that doesn't mean the project is abandoned. But although it isn't dead, it does need some surgery. My plans for Rebirth grew into a horrible, sprawling mess. I didn't just want to 'rebalance' FF7, I wanted completely new encounters, bosses, AI and field scenes. This wasn't what I originally set out to do: to make FF7 fairer, more fun to play, and a lot more 'involving'.

So that's why I'm formally commiting to a more 'stripped-down' Rebirth, released iteratively. 'Iteratively' means I won't be waiting until everything is 'just so' - rather, I'll be releasing revision after revision, listening to player feedback until we together reach an ideal finishing point.

So, what will the 'new' Rebirth still feature?
- status spells that are genuinely useful, and status effects that matter.
- rebalanced limit breaks, where one limit in a level isn't unambiguously 'better' than its counterpart
- an enemy element and status defence class system
- better individuated character stats
- more interesting weapons, often 'sidegrades' rather than 'upgrades'
- new, less game-breaking enemy skills
- holy, air and wind element abilities
- armor and accessories that promote more 'stategic' gameplay
- by popular demand: a controllable Nibelheim Sephiroth
- a 'meltdown' like status
- stronger enemies
- a true MDef. fix
- basic fixes to existing enemy AI
- enemies that employ the newer spells

As time goes on, I'll be able to start adding some of the more ambitious changes the earlier Rebirth attempted. These include completely new enemy behaviours, NPCs that talk about local enemies, new bosses / enemy encounters, and a few more things I can't reveal yet.

OK. So when are you going to release?
I don't know. But this time, I *will* be providing regular updates. See my thread on QHIMM (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=9600.0) for the latest news.

[Timber]

YAY Rebirth is alive!

- holy, air and wind element abilities

Air and Wind? Huh?

As time goes on, I'll be able to start adding some of the more ambitious changes the earlier Rebirth attempted. These include completely new enemy behaviours, NPCs that talk about local enemies, new bosses / enemy encounters, and a few more things I can't reveal yet.

So excited for this stuff! Though I definitely agree that the basics should be done first.

[Bosola]

Sorry, a typo. There's only one air element.

[Dinfevo]

Hi again Bosola, why don't you upload a Beta Version with the new progress. That could be great news for every fan in this forum and maybe we could help by telling you the bugs we could find.

[Vgr]

Each thing have a time. Now's not the time for this. Be patient.

[Dinfevo]

Well okay, I was just suggesting.

[Jenova's Witness]

.

[albo]

Love this project
Please, could you guys make a better armor system is Rebirth? I mean, in the original VII it was sad, only bracelets for equipment I really hope you guys will think about an armor system overhaul, maybe keep the bracelets but add armors, helmets and gloves, it should make VII much better