Author Topic: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.99994)  (Read 4838111 times)

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #425 on: 2014-10-19 00:10:36 »
Ah, that's good; I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was happening with the Party Swap, I thought you meant Cloud was locked when forming the new party. Good that that's working.

Alright, so the other sidequest worked; that narrows it down. I'll analyse those Forgotten City fields and see what I can find.

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #426 on: 2014-10-19 00:42:09 »
Alright, thanks a lot for everything man. It must have been hell to make this thing and then offering up support all the time as well... Your dedication is truly remarkable and I'm really glad I found this.

Out of curiosity though, I was looking at the list of NT Videos on YouTube (only the names, don't want to have any spoilers) and saw one mention of a Secret Boss and Ending. Do you get that by beating the Extra Bosses or all the sidequests or whatever?

And speaking of final bosses, what level would you recommend for actually trying to beat the game? I'm only at Level 60 right now so I don't intend to try it yet but I'm just curious if the final boss is actually super-powerful now or if he continues the tradition of being weaker than the superbosses.
« Last Edit: 2014-10-19 00:43:41 by Nikkolas »

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #427 on: 2014-10-19 00:54:19 »
The 'secret ending' is triggered by having a particular item in your inventory when you beat Safer, which is dropped by the last boss in Extra Battle. These items will be converted into something very useful for the NG+ so if you collect more than one they'll come in handy for that (same thing with those oversoul shards).

As far as the end bosses go, they're not as strong as some of the Extra Battle/Materia Cave bosses but they're close; there's two things to watch for. First of all, the Jenova SYNTHESIS fight is quite different; it has two cronies in the battle that make things pretty awkward. Bizarro is also a three-party fight no matter what, so you'll need to have enough gear to keep everyone reasonably equipped to handle the strong attacks there. A save point was added before this fight, so Synthesis doesn't have to be re-fought if something goes wrong. One of your parties has to be two instead of three, however, even though you have enough for three full parties; I always try now and then to change that but it seems quite tough and Bizarro crashes when I force the game to have all nine.

Finally, Safer is more or less the same as ever but with his attacks changed up; he still follows a set pattern but the attacks are different. And as for that alternate final battle, well there's another save point so no worries.

I'm not sure when the earliest is that they can be beaten, but the better prepared you are the better. You could try tackling Jenova SYNTHESIS to get an idea of what strength they have as they're quite close together; but try to have enough decent equipment to cover eight of your party members for the Bizarro fight, that'd be the 'make or break' I reckon.

LetCreativityPlay

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #428 on: 2014-10-19 01:20:02 »
Hey there, I too would advised facing the Final boss until you have good equipment, and copies of your favorite materia or at least powerful ones you can spread throughout the parties.  :mrgreen:

I went to the forgotten City after reaching the bottom of the northern cave, and I see the NPC there. She should be kneeling right where Aerith was at the disc one (where you fight Jenova). I have the steam version of FFVII, with no other mods than this one installed. It's also has all the updates!

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #429 on: 2014-10-19 01:25:31 »
Hm... Well I dunno, I'll keep checking and maybe they'll turn up. Don't really know what else to do for that.

And anyway you look at it, I'm gonna need some days of grinding ahead of me. Gotta get these items for the EBs, probably should get at least two of every Element Materia to Level 3 for my main party, probably have everyone with Cure3 too, gotta level up Limits, and finally collect good equipment. For my main group I have Apocalypse on Cloud, Rising Sun on Yuffie and Guard Stick on Aerith. (Heh, I liked the "And nothing attacked you!" after I got Apocalypse. I totally was thinking there would be a boss fight there.)

The Northern Crater seems like a great place to gain mad AP very quickly though. I chose the...Left Up Path or whatever and ran into these three things that gave like 12,000 or 15.000 AP. Then when you add to the fact I had Triple AP weapons on...that was amazing. 

Wait, one more question though. Did you remove the Heaven's Cloud from the Gelnika? I didn't see it. I always liked giving that sword to Cloud because...well, I found it fitting. Plus, while Triple AP is amazing for grinding, I am sure there are better, stronger weapons around for everyone and I gotta find those as well.

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #430 on: 2014-10-19 01:57:44 »
It won't turn up, unfortunately; the variable trigger isn't really handled by anything else. That's why I'm going to make a special patch for your specific game that uses a different variable; it's only called in two places, there and at Battle Square (but not for much longer, I'm going to make Game Moment 1998 the trigger to unlock Special Battle rather than those sidequests; there's a boss at the end of the Special Battle that I've yet to see anybody fight ;_;).

The Movers (and the Magic Pots which now eat either Ethers or Turbo Ethers instead of Elixirs, I forget which) are king for AP so I set them up for it. The end-game weapons are set up like this:
-) One Vit/Spr +50 weapon (Defensive)
-) One Mag +30 weapon
-) One Dex/Lck +50 weapon

There's a few exceptions to this. Instead of a +30 Magic weapon, Cid has a high-attack weapon that drains damage as HP instead while Tifa has that Godhand which has 255% accuracy. All the Defence weapons can be Morphed from the tough enemies in the Crater, but you can also have a shot at getting one of three of them (Cloud, Tifa, and Cid) by re-fighting the Disc 2 boss Asimov which is accessed by talking to the trooper in the Chocobo area of the Highwind (I don't think I've removed that debug Kaktuar fight from the Highwind technician next to him though, so careful not to talk to him just now!)

The Mag +30 weapons are a bit trickier to get; they're dropped by the Extra Battle bosses and it's a random drop. There's also the Escort Bangle and Minerva Band which have been boosted up a fair bit.

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #431 on: 2014-10-19 09:40:15 »
Well if I can make it to that Special Battle I promise to fight it. I want to try and beat everything in this game.

And thank you for offering up that fix for Aerith's sidequest. There's no rush or anything either - as I said before, I got lots to do still.

EDIT:

Do the Training Bosses stop granting EXP after a while? I saw Hojo gave like 30,000 each fight so I wanted to grind with him but I just beat him and got nothing.

Also, your mod doesn't have Break 9999? I figured it did so I didn't select Break 9999 Limit in Bootleg. Only now my best attacks on Hojo only did 9999 instead of like, 13,000.  I mean if you would prefer me to keep the damage cap set, I can.
« Last Edit: 2014-10-19 13:18:35 by Nikkolas »

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #432 on: 2014-10-19 14:19:15 »
The mod isn't specced for Break Damage Limit; things get a bit too loose when those kinds of numbers start flying around because of the way Defend, Sadness, etc. reduce damage by a % so the higher the values, the more potent these become. You can use it if you want, but there won't be many bosses capable of breaking the 9999 barrier outside of maybe a critical or a special damage formula.

And yeah, at Lv.70 and above enemies stop giving EXP. It's so there's room for developing the player party and having an arc of sorts for the NG+ campaign I'm planning to make.

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #433 on: 2014-10-20 13:38:22 »
So things are coming along well in terms of the Extra Bosses. I found several of the items I needed to make them when I explored the other areas of the Northern Crater. I also got Beta and Bad Breath so that worked out real well. I now have Shield, Ultima, W-Summon and Contain.

Question though, is the White Materia part of Aerith's sidequest? I figured it would be. I have all the othr items I need for that boss except the WM.

But now I have these awesome new Materias I think I need to head back into the NC to AP grind some more. I have tons of Mastered Restores now for everyone in my party plus a few Mastered Revives because Phoenix Downs just don't cut it in boss fights anymore.

In terms of items, I got a few extras of Cloud's and Tifa's weapons from Morphing. I had the Ragnarok and God's Hand already from re-figthing Asimov but I got a few extra from...Uh, I think a Mover and something else. In terms of new weapons, I got one for Red, Cait, Cid and Yuffie. So that was nice, especially for Yuffie.

What weapons aren't actually in the game yet?

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #434 on: 2014-10-20 14:35:07 »
Sounds like you're cleaning house. The only weapons not in the game yet are each character's ultimate weapons. I also need to make the Umbrella available somewhere on Disc 3; I put it back in Speed Square's Disc 1 but a lot of players will have missed it because there was nowhere to get it until now. It'll probably go to a Crater enemy.

And yeah, the WM is part of Aeris' side-quest. I'll get that patch fixed up for you today; I was making some others fixes as well.

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #435 on: 2014-10-20 18:36:26 »
I got a few more ES bosses down after managing to find out where I could get Dragon Scales and Right arms. Also, in regards to the Bomb King fight, was Odin the only way to deal with the Grenades? or Bomb Vassals or whatever they were called? Because I tried everything else but they ALWAYS self-destructed when they died, even if they were asleep or whatever else.

Also, since Aerith's sidequest didn't trigger because of some bug or glitch or whatever, does that mean some of the others won't happen either? Because I'm trying to find Barret's and Yuffie's and nothing is happening. I looked online at a video and I think Barret's is supposed to be on the ruined Corel Reactor screen? The lower part? But nothing. And I went to Yuffie's dad's house (the place right before the Pagoda, right?) and I didn't see anything there either....

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #436 on: 2014-10-20 19:10:23 »
No, the AI that was supposed to disable the Bombs when the main guy died was only affecting one of the Bombs and not all of them. I've got it fixed, but the patch isn't up yet because there's a bunch of other things that were needing re-worked.

Alright, so all the sidequests use variables from a certain memory bank but Cloud's one is 'unique' because it uses the original ones normally used to trigger and then lock the Zack flashback that used to play there. Any debug routine testing Special Battle would have activated every sidequest variable, including these ones, to unlock Special Battle for testing in older builds so I don't think that's what caused it; I did a sweep of the mod using Makou's search functions as well but couldn't find any alternate triggers for those variables (although I'm still not ruling it out). And as far as I know, it's a problem isolated to your game; LCP told me that his were triggering fine.

I'm starting to think that these banks might have been used by another mod at some point. Save files retain variable data so if they were flipped by a mod and the game was then saved, they'll remain flipped even if the mod is uninstalled (for instance, NT save files could cause havoc with other Gameplay mods if they use any of the same unused variable addresses and vise-versa). But I'm just guessing. If I can get the remaining fixes finished tonight, I'll put that special patch together that uses different variables and hopefully those'll be 'clean'.

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #437 on: 2014-10-20 19:28:15 »
Well thanks for putting in the effort to help me out.  I never thought anything like this would happen. Here's hoping that the patch will fix whatever it is I fucked up.

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #438 on: 2014-10-21 03:18:17 »
New patches are up, but I'll make the special flevel patch we discussed and send you the link via PM.

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #439 on: 2014-10-21 15:30:09 »
A couple questions:

1. What is the point of Mime? The fight for it was fairly easy but it doesn't do anything...

2. Is Shield still supposed to nullify physical damage? It made the Zack fight a breeze.

By far the hardest optional boss fight so far for me was the one guarding the Quadra Magic. I died so many tims to that thing... It took  a lot of AP grinding with Shield and Revive and Contain for me to stand a chance. That and all the Turbo Ethers I've accumulated thanks to the Magic Pots.

EDIT:

Is Mega Flare bugged? Whenever Zack used it on Cloud, it always missed. Maybe I'm just over-leveled, if that has anything to do with it? Cloud is Level 71.
« Last Edit: 2014-10-21 15:47:02 by Nikkolas »

LetCreativityPlay

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #440 on: 2014-10-21 16:23:34 »
Quadra magic: You're talking about Vorpar, Javy, Dones? You're supposed to cast regen on the two crewman.
It's possible that megaflare has a shout element attached to it, did you have some kind of equipment to protect against shout :P, just a possibility  :roll:

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #441 on: 2014-10-21 17:13:34 »
Uh...I don't think so. I had Cloud loaded up with Strength-increasing equipment. Gigas Armlet and Champion Belt. Oh and Ragnarok for his weapon.

As for using Regen on the crewmembers...I had no idea about that. It never crossed my mind. lol

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #442 on: 2014-10-21 20:33:29 »
Yeah, the Bahamut summons are Shout-element and because they technically have a status ailment (they have a Debarrier effect) it means the attack will miss instead of dealing 0. Shield is likely what's protecting you there for that; and yeah it nullifies physical elements and drains magical ones.

Mime definitely seems to be kaput; I'll fix that up (I was trying to make it single-level like Underwater Materia so I could distribute more later on as prizes; I forgot to actually check on it). As for the Quadra boss, the two crewmen mention needing a Regen at the start (or they should do, in any case) and casting it on them has them mutiny, you might say. I'll need to shore up the Cave bosses though, they've not really excelled in any version of the mod so it's time they were all fired. I'll leave them until v1.3 though which is a little way away (aiming for Christmas :I).

Now hiring: bosses.

PotatoHandle

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #443 on: 2014-10-22 05:23:52 »
Just thought I'd more 'officially' post on my thoughts on the mod so far, I'm just about to get to WinWaker Cosmo Canyon.

+ Charming little in-jokes, like the battery in Midgar and chest in Corel.
+ Extra boss battles; added in liberally, but sensibly.
+ AI/Balance/skin changes to existing bosses. The "Feel" of each original fight is still there, but with new challenges.
+ X-ATM Scorpion. Makes me smile every time.
+ Boss Balance, damn near perfect. Challenging, but not gimmicky like a lot of pure difficulty mods.
+ Dirty Bombs. :P

- Battle Arena version 1 is very unforgiving; requires consumables or really good luck. (EDIT: I have something worked out now which works quite well, requred the Wall ring from the speed square though, 8th battle is still hard though.)
- Learning Big Guard is a bit strange, when you manipulate something and use it it targets the whole party, but only hits one random person, made it tricky to learn.
- Morph at the start of the game didn't seem to be too useful, usually did about 3-4 damage, for average items (At least what I tried it on.) Maybe some initial equips or early weapons with 50-100% morph damage to help out?
- Frog Song MP usage; my way of cheesing my way through the entire battle arena is ruined. Curse you, making me use my brain and stuff. (I'm kidding, it's good, keep it like it is, haha.)

Should be continuing on the weekend, I've been told that Gi Nattak should be an enjoyable experience. \o/
« Last Edit: 2014-10-22 11:24:11 by PotatoHandle »

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #444 on: 2014-10-22 15:18:14 »
Cheers, Potato; I've been keeping notes based on what I've seen in your Twitch highlights as well. Seems those Dirty Bombs are a tad popular :I

But now I must officially respond to your official feedback D:

Battle Square's the current priority; I'm adding the AI in today, after I get a special field fix done for Nikkolas. The patch will just be 700KB again when it's done, as only the scene.bin needs edited.

Morph is tough to get going because I think the only way to raise it's damage to 100% is through the Conformer's weapon effect (or through an .exe edit maybe) which is a tad stronger than the standard ones. Best use of it I can think of is setting up in an area and spamming Demi+All on a big group (say, five Search Crowns on Mt. Corel) and then picking them off with Morph if their HP falls far enough. Bit slow, but that'd guarantee five Ethers- I mean, 4000+ gil. Some bosses also have a great item to Morph into, like Motorball can be Morphed into a Fire Armlet; I might extend this to more bosses, some don't have a Morph thing right now.

I'll have a look at Big Guard; I likely tried to make it single-target and messed it up somehow.

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #445 on: 2014-10-22 16:44:30 »
So Sega has been the coolest guy ever and helped me and now I just have a quick question since I'm back on track on making and beating all the extra bosses.

Where is the Red Crystal? Is it an item I get from one of the sidequests?

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #446 on: 2014-10-22 17:09:46 »
That's a relief it's working now, I guess the variables did get flipped at some point.

The Red Crystal is dropped by a new boss accessed through the Kalm Traveller; instead of Master Materia, he now gives you a one-time boss fight that'll give a potent Enemy Skill at the end:
-) Desert Rose: Dragon Force
-) Earth Harp: Shadow Flare (can be used by others)
-) Guidebook: Pandora's Box

These fights do have a Game Over if you lose, so save before going in. The Earth Harp boss drops a Red Crystal though that's used to unlock an Extra Battle boss (Tyrant, I think). I also recommend taking lots of different types of Greens in for the Desert Rose boss; Chocobos react coldly to people who don't look like they'll give them any Greens.

Nikkolas

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #447 on: 2014-10-22 17:18:13 »
Wait, do I still need to beat Emerald to get the Earth Harp? That...could be trouble. Does he still have 1,000,000 HP?  If that's so i won't be fighting Tyrant any time soon. I still haven't been able to beat the Mammon Machine to get KOTR. (awsome Chrono Trigger reference!) I got it to the part where it summons the little helpers but I have no idea how far I was away from winning. I managed to kill one of them before MM used that combo on my party (Antipode I think and then the other two) and no one had Shield up so we died.

But yeah, I already got Shadow Flare from Ultra Weapon. He uses it on whoever kills him so I had the ES Materia on Cloud and made sure to win with him.

The only EB Bosses I have left are the one I need the White Materia for, Tyrant and the last one. ????? or whatever.

Thanks for the tips on the Greens.

EDIT:

Wait, can you not use the White Materia? You just have to trade it in for the boss?
« Last Edit: 2014-10-22 18:07:33 by Nikkolas »

Sega Chief

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #448 on: 2014-10-22 20:09:40 »
Emerald and Ruby have much less HP in this mod, essentially because those two were specced originally to (presumably) handle Ultimate Weapons and KOTR. As these aren't really as dangerous as they used to be, these bosses had to be down-tuned a bit. In terms of stat progression, they're behind the Kalm Traveller bosses.

Emerald/Carmine: 230,000HP
Ruby/Viridian: 177,000HP

Some other tweaks in there too, like Ruby not having Ultima anymore. The KOTR boss is stat-wise the toughest in the mod but his AI has a loophole (due to my inexperience when I was scripting it) where it's possible to avoid him summoning the adds and it's maybe also possible to skip Mammon Machine too but not sure. One thing to note there is that using Limit Breaks accelerates the rate at which the Mammon Machine charges so it might be an idea to avoid using anything except the strongest ones like Omnislash (or maybe then, perhaps not at all). It is a race against time though, so you might need to come back when you're beefed up a bit (although there's always Slots :p)

And the White Materia is a key item that's only used for making a new boss, same with the Dark Matter. Normally I'd make them items but at the time I wanted to experiment with making new Key Items and how to make them appear in the menu.

PotatoHandle

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Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.2)
« Reply #449 on: 2014-10-23 00:16:04 »
Oh, there was something else I was going to ask too, there's a few items I've picked up which don't seem to be use-able, the Cactuar Gun and the Syncher are the ones I can remember, I'm not sure if I'm missing anything, but they don't appear to work with either Item or Throw.
« Last Edit: 2014-10-23 00:17:35 by PotatoHandle »