Author Topic: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2.3 & v1.1b)  (Read 331114 times)

Callisto

  • *
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #525 on: 2020-07-25 01:32:51 »
Quote from: HeavensFury
It'd be cool if weak magic was easier/faster to draw, but for strong magic it's harder/slower to draw.
I think that'd be a nice balance.
Essentially taking more time and effort if you want the best magic in-game.
But that's just my personal preference.

Maybe create a magic tier system, where at the lowest magic level you can draw up to a max of 100, and as you go up the tier list you can only draw a certain amount. Example, for top tier magic you can only draw up to 9 or less at a time.
Maybe even lowering the chances of getting a high draw number as you go up the tier list?
This would make the earlier parts of the game quicker and less frustrating/boring, while keeping the later parts of the game more rewarding to achieve.
Capping everything at max 9 draw or at max 100 draw for ALL magic still have their own positives and "negatives".

Doing it the way i've mentioned up above would be a very nice middle ground. Taking the positives from both sides and putting them together.
Has anyone ever thought of this as well?
I feel this idea could of been overlooked. Or would it be hard to implement?! Idk lol :P

Hopefully it can come to fruition someday. I REALLY love this idea.
Even if it's just for the hard mode version or as an optional mod, i'll take anything.

Thanks for sharing your ideas. What you requested is more or less already part of the base game in the form Draw resist values for each spell. They determine how easy/hard a given spell can be drawn in battle, but this mechanic can't really be utilized because of the Draw limit of 9. In the 2013 version of this mod however, where this limit has been removed, the different Draw resist values show, and drawing 100 Ultimas in one go is not even possible with maxed out Magic stats, while for something basic like Cure, it's easily doable. More information on Draw resist here:

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Draw_(Final_Fantasy_VIII)#Draw_list

On another note, an update for the Remastered version will be released by the end of the week, and most of the missing features will finally be ported over. I just need a little more time to create a patch. Sorry for the long wait to everyone waiting for this update.
« Last Edit: 2020-07-25 01:50:07 by Callisto »

Callisto

  • *
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #526 on: 2020-07-26 03:18:45 »
Version 1.1 for Remastered has been released, porting over the following features from Steam 2013:

- Draw cap removal in battle
- Alteration to the Draw amount formula that allows for more Draws
- Alteration to the magic damage formula
- Alteration to ATB bar filling speed
- Removal of magic damage division for enemies
- Break Damage Limit for weapon attacks
- Rare Item Ability fix
- Return Damage improvement (now returns 1/2 of the damage)
- Phoenix Down and Life spell HP restoration change to 25% max HP
- Darkside damage multiplier change from x3 to x2
- Darkside HP loss change from 10% to 20% max HP
- Kamikaze damage multiplier from max HP x5 to max HP x2
- Angel Wing damage multiplier from x5 to x3
- Removal of damage reduction for Cover Ability
- Exclusion of X-Potion and Elixir from Auto-Potion Ability
- Penalty removal when using GF compatibility items


That leaves us with only a few features still missing (most of them are somewhat covered up by workarounds though):

- Some changed Draw point contents
- Draw points changing contents over the course of the game
- Angel Wing, Vit 0, and Dispel+Damage attack type patch by JWP
- SeeD Rank payment values
- Changes to Triple Triad elemental attributes and PuPu card buff
- Removal of Invincibility items from the Angelo Search item pool
- EXP-None Character Ability


A few balance changes and bugfixes have been made as well, for both versions:

- Elite Soldier no longer gains a Speed bonus at the top of D-District Prison
- X-ATM092 has more HP in Hard Mode
- Fujin and Raijin (Balamb encounter) are a little slower in Hard Mode
- Seifer and Edea (G-Garden) are a little slower in the combined Hard Mode battle
- Some enemy attacks (Shotgun, Counter Laser Eye etc) are less powerful in Standard Mode
- Esthar Soldier (Cyborg) has less HP in Standard Mode
- A softlock that can occur when fighting Behemoth has been fixed


Installation for the Remastered version has changed and now requires a patch to the FFVIII_EFIGS.dll file for the new changes to take effect. See first page for more information. If you already have the Remastered version installed and want to upgrade now, going through the installation process again is necessary, as the kernel.bin file has undergone some major changes. Feel free to ask if any help is needed.     

« Last Edit: 2022-01-15 23:06:58 by Callisto »

sutebenukun

  • *
  • Posts: 12
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #527 on: 2020-07-26 18:02:41 »
Hey Callisto,

Just wanted to give you a heads up that the download links appear to be messed up. I tried downloading the 2013 version but that keeps giving me the 2019 remaster version and the 2019 link says the file was removed when I tried that as well.

Callisto

  • *
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #528 on: 2020-07-26 18:21:45 »
Fixed the links. Thanks for the heads up.

Murasame

  • *
  • Posts: 50
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #529 on: 2020-07-30 13:16:03 »
Hello! I’m coming back to replay this mod after a year. I throughly enjoyed the last play through and I’m very much looking forward to another play through with all the little changes that have happened since then.

One question I have is would you consider a clothes change option for the characters that already have pre existing field and battle models? I’m not sure if this isn’t possible because the likes of Seifer and Edea don’t appear as party members where they aren’t supposed to and I don’t know if normal Squall and uniform Squall are just skins or entirely different models.

Lunarian

  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #530 on: 2020-08-02 13:23:25 »
Hey, I just wanted to say thank you so much Callisto for making and continually working on this fascinating mod! Are there any further updates planned for the future?

Solodin

  • *
  • Posts: 4
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #531 on: 2020-08-03 13:56:02 »
So, I installed V 1.1 on the Remastered edition of the game and holy crap! Is it normal that I'm getting my ass kicked in the Fire Cavern fight with Ifrit? ???

Callisto

  • *
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #532 on: 2020-08-03 20:36:38 »
@Murasame: Welcome back. As you already guessed, alternative outfits count as different models and they are unfortunately only available for a handful of fields by default. Adding them manually would require extensive hex editing of each of the 800+ fields in the game, so that would be very time-consuming. I hope that the Deling tool will support field model injection some day. I would gladly add alternative outfits then, as well as making Edea and maybe Seifer a permanent party member.

@Solodin: If you are on Lionheart Mode, it could be normal, yes. Especially without using Double from the BG Library Draw point. In Standard Mode however, Ifrit should be very managable even without any prior level or AP grinding. Just don't let your HP drop below 300 and heal with Potions or Cure from own stock - do not rely on Draw cast Cure, as its result is random and can heal only very little HP if you are unlucky.

Also reduce battle speed if you have set it to max - on higher settings, enemies will easily out-tempo your characters as they don't need to spend time on selecting commands and targets.

Both Draw Cast randomization and higher ATB speed settings will be addressed soon. Especially the latter can make the mod nearly unplayable unless you know exactly what you and the enemy are doing - it's just way too fast and can even make the vanilla game quite challenging at times. So for now, I'd definitely advise against using it.

xxxjejay

  • *
  • Posts: 1
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #533 on: 2020-08-05 14:19:08 »
Hi, Callisto.
Enjoy the mod very much.

Just Wondering how to get the sidequest "The lonely girl in Dollet" done.
Which needs to collect three ingredients for helping girl's sick mother.

As I see, two of them are Mystery Fluid and Remedy+.
But I can't find the last key item (an extract of a certain flower).
The only clue I found was the woman in Winhill who can also make medicine with flowers.

Any reply is appreciated.

Callisto

  • *
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #534 on: 2020-08-05 21:27:55 »
Hi, Callisto.
Enjoy the mod very much.

Just Wondering how to get the sidequest "The lonely girl in Dollet" done.
Which needs to collect three ingredients for helping girl's sick mother.

As I see, two of them are Mystery Fluid and Remedy+.
But I can't find the last key item (an extract of a certain flower).
The only clue I found was the woman in Winhill who can also make medicine with flowers.

Any reply is appreciated.
Thanks and welcome to the forums.

The flower that is needed to complete this sidequest is received from a waitress at Timber Pub after the girl in Dollet gave the clues regarding the ingredients. I'll try to make it a little more obvious next time by making an NPC in Dollet Pub hint at Timber, in case the player visits Dollet Pub first.

Pruntarious

  • *
  • Posts: 16
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #535 on: 2020-09-02 15:02:57 »
The boss at Fishermans Horizon on Disc 2 is ridiculous. I barely even get a chance to get my party in order before he wipes me out. Have tried numerous setups. All out attack. Total defense. Stop which misses all the time. Each enemy and boss is well beatable up until this point.

Callisto

  • *
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #536 on: 2020-09-02 20:00:23 »
Yes, the damage output of this boss is extraordinarily high, but it only lasts for a set amount of turns. It will peak on the bosses' 5th turn with the powerful Explosion attack, and becomes gradually weaker after that. So surviving until turn 5 is top priority.

All attacks execpt Beam Cannon do physical damage, so it helps to raise Vitality as high as possible before the battle and to equip Abilities like Vit+20%. In battle, quickly cast Protect on your team, prioritizing your lower Vitality characters, and use Mega-Potions or Siren's new Heal Ability to soak up some of the damage. Alternatively, you can use your GF as a shield, preferably those with lower compatibility values to ensure longer charging times.

tyler_will

  • *
  • Posts: 4
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #537 on: 2020-09-06 18:50:14 »
I think I found a bug. The game crashes when fighting the Elnoyle battle triggered by talking to the injured soldier on the wall after the lunar cry. The exact spot it crashes is RIGHT before the appearance of the Elnoyle in battle.

I am using the 2013 steam version along with the latest version of the Lionheart mode. I've narrowed it down to the files changed in lang-en; If I restore these from the defaults, the game does not crash. It looks like the standard mode lang-en files also causes the game to crash.

tyler_will

  • *
  • Posts: 4
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #538 on: 2020-09-07 01:37:58 »
Here's a bit more info (for some reason I cannot edit my post?)

The game simply crashes with a window saying 'An unknown exception has occurred'. If I look into the windows event viewer, I do see 'Application Error' lines being logged, but there doesn't seem to be any useful info in them. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with steam to know where else to look for logs.

Callisto

  • *
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.1)
« Reply #539 on: 2020-09-07 02:24:35 »
Version 1.2a/1.1a is now available for both Steam 2013 and Remastered versions, further separating Standard Mode and Hard Mode difficulty-wise by making Standard Mode a little easier especially in the mid-late-game. A few general changes have been made to both versions. See below for more information (contains spoilers).

Standard Mode changes
  • Enemies that appear in the new scripted encounter at Centra Ruins are now at a lower level
  • Stop status infliction rate of Heaven's Wrath enemy attack has been reduced
  • Vit 0 status infliction rate of Ray-Bomb enemy attack has been reduced
  • Physical attack damage of high-leveled Creeps has been reduced
  • SAM08G's damage output has been generally decreased
  • Cerberus generally does a little less damage
  • Edea (2nd) has had her Magic stat slightly reduced
  • Maelstrom enemy attack no longer requires 100% protection against Slow to prevent its Slow effect
  • All enemies that appear in the Laguna flashback at LP Laboratory are now at a lower level
  • High-leveled Esthar Soldiers (Cyborg) and Elastoids now have lower Speed
  • Hidden bosses in Deling City sewers are now at a lower level
  • Propagator (red) uses Firaga instead of Flare
  • Propagator (orange) uses Radiance instead of Holy
  • All Propagators do less damage with physical attacks
  • Jumbo Cactuar has less HP and Strength
  • Bahamut's Mega-Flare does less damage
  • Adel has less HP, drains less HP from Rinoa and generally does less damage
  • Trauma's resistance against physical attacks has been lowered

Hard Mode changes
  • Many high-leveled common enemies have had their Vitality increased to keep Ultimate Weapon damage in check
  • General stat increase for several enemies

Changes to both versions
  • All -aga spells can now be drawn from high-leveled Elite Soldiers (G-Garden and onwards)
  • Most sub top-tier weapons have had their base power increased as well (only applies to Attack command damage)
  • Rinoa's weapons have had their accuracy increased
  • Initial Strength and Magic stats have been slightly increased for physically and magically orientented characters respectively
  • BGH251F2 in FH now also loses Vitality and Spirit over time, in addition to Strength, Magic and Speed
  • Edea (2nd) now also casts Dispelga in case the entire party is under Reflect (in addition to Maelstrom and Ebon Wave)
  • Elem Atk, Status Atk, Med Kit, Doc's Code, Barrier, Hungry Cookpot and Mog's Amulet have been removed from the Chocobo World item pool (mainly to prevent easy access to Megalixirs, Shaman Stones and Renew spells)
  • Mog's Amulet can now be stolen from high-leveled Tonberries as a rare steal

@tyler_will: Thanks for reporting the issue regarding Elnoyle. It is fixed now, sorry for the inconvenience.

As for editing posts, I think you need a certain amount of posts to do so. Not too many though, just 5-10 if I remember right.
« Last Edit: 2020-09-07 09:15:58 by Callisto »

Exlo

  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #540 on: 2020-09-07 08:30:57 »
Pretty much got the 2013 version of the game on Steam to play this mod. Great work, yo. Between this and New Threat over on the FF7 side of things I'm finding myself binging a lot of Final Fantasy here lately. Perhaps... unhealthy! I am finding in real life there is no Limit Breaking, however. Saddening.

So I'm not sure if this is just me and my lack of nuance with these things, but I've had some problems crop up throughout my time here. Nothing game-ending outright, and could be I've gone and goofed something up myself, but I certainly wouldn't know what so. I'm just going to list them.

There are some straaange texture issues. Just reached the section where the party is headed to Esthar. I can see polygons with blank textures on the other side of dead dino canyon, on the world map. The sky when I enter is flickering... best I can describe it is almost a TV static -- very minor. Before this, in the Cetra ruins, I noticed the King Tonberry fight had some wonky textures displaying specifically on the effects... I wish I could remember the specific attack. I'm fairly certain it was only present on one of them. All I know is I was getting perfect squares around his hands filled with pixelated hoo-ha. The only other graphical issue I've caught is with the Creeper enemies. They like to spaz out when they use Heartbreak.

But then there are some gameplay oddities. On the first boss in aforementioned dino canyon (I'm sorry I don't know any names yet, I've never even gotten this far in FF8 before -- the undead guy that jumps the party) I tried to Doink™ him with sir Tonberry and it actually froze Selphie in place?? The game almost seemed to treat her like she was KO'd, and I got a gameover despite the fact that her animation, ATB gauge, and health value were all stuck in place.

And then there is assuredly the bane of my existence. Sometimes, I'm about 99% certain only on specific enemies, Squall's regular attack will crash the game. So far I think it's Ifrit and the Catacher... Catapha... the caterpillars, specifically the encounter where Balamb Garden is being attacked by Galbadia's. There has to be one more but it was random and far out of the way. These crashes come with the "unknown exception has occurred" window, like Tyler's. Could be the corruption extends into some other files? The complications certainly seem sporadic, so.

If I catch anything else I'll let you know. I've gotta say again, though, great work. I've never felt the milliseconds in between the safety of the magic menu and the absolute panic that is the command selection on such an intimate level before. Good stuff!

Exlo

  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #541 on: 2020-09-07 08:36:52 »
Oh, and apologies for that word soup if you've already remedied the problem here. Installing the update for when I'm less sleep deprived as we speak...

Callisto

  • *
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #542 on: 2020-09-07 09:11:56 »
No problem. I read about the issues you reported only after uploading the new version.

The weird texture glitch on the worldmap where Esthar appears later is normal in the PC versions of the game, unfortunately. The same goes for the minor graphical glitches that can occur when fighting the Tonberry King. I'm not sure about the Creeps, I fought them right now and let them cast Heartbreak - no issues. Summoning Tonberry against Abadon worked as expected too. Tested on both 2013 and 2019 versions.

As for the game crashing when attacking with Squall, I have experienced that issue as well. Only very rarely though, so it's difficult to tell whether it's caused by the mod or by the game itself. Which version are you playing (normal or hard)? It might help tracking the cause down.
« Last Edit: 2020-09-07 09:17:54 by Callisto »

tyler_will

  • *
  • Posts: 4
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #543 on: 2020-09-07 09:42:30 »
Wow. Kudos on the turnaround time for fixing the Elnoyles. That's very impressive. I downloaded the patch, and the Elnoyle fights are now working fine for me.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this mod so far. It is definitely one of the more difficult mods I've played, and I've been playing final fantasy mods from this community for about 10 years. There were a number of fights that kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire battle. My favorite so far is probably the Edea fight at the end of disc 2. I found myself constantly having to pivot my strategy due to the multiple devastating AOE attacks she has. I am glad I had a healthy stock of mega potions + med data for that fight, since they absolutely saved me at various points.

The most difficult boss for me so far has been, surprisingly, the 2 elite soldiers and blue robots you fight at the top of the G-Prison on the bridge. My main issue was simply how FAST they were. I received dozens of game overs here due to being completely wiped out almost immediately after the fight started. In the end, I was able to barely pull through by first managing to get poison on the elite soldiers so I didn't have to focus on directly attacking them, and then basically spamming protect + heal until poison killed the elites off. At that point, the robots weren't too bad to dispatch of. I experimented with trying to esuna the vit 0 from meltdown / ray bomb, but this quickly proved to take way too much time given how frequently they inflicted it, so I opted instead to just make sure I kept protect up to mitigate it. One thing I realized later on is I had my battle speed set to max, so I suspect this added significantly to the frustration.

I'm only just approaching the end of disc 3, so there are quite a few remaining bosses I've yet to fight (including the extra optional ones added for this mod). I'm extremely curious as to what Ultimate and Omega weapon will be like. Now that Elnoyles are fixed, at least I have a relatively easy way to stock up on Ultimas now to boost my stats.

Exlo

  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #544 on: 2020-09-07 17:50:50 »
I had the inkling, based on the reputation the 2013 release seems to have, that a lot of these issues could have just been vanilla. Thanks for clearing that up.

I am playing on the normal version. I've gone ahead and updated, and when I have time I'll give it another go. That Tonberry freeze only happened on my first pass at Abadon, so some more science may be required. Now the Squall crashes are definitely tied to encounters. I had to run to Ifrit like 6 or 7 times before I finally learned to git gud and just beat him without a normal attack. I can only imagine if that was a problem with your mod it would have been sniffed out by now, but that is specifically where I would look to test that. I've been swinging it around plenty otherwise, though with some careful saving.

I don't know what is and isn't helpful here, but the crash dump for the Tonberry crash says 0xC0000005. The thread tried to read from a virtual address for which it does not have the appropriate access. Hm hm.

Sounds like I should maybe validate the files with steam or just reinstall. Perhaps ensure I'm running with administrator privileges, but I haven't had any real issues with anything like that since Windows Vista haha. I'll probably keep chuggin' till I'm hard stopped. Cheers!

Exlo

  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #545 on: 2020-09-07 17:57:09 »
Sorry, double double post, also worth noting not every attack on Ifrit caused the crash. Which is why I kept being tempted to use it anyway hehehhh. I was beginning to think something may be forcing Squall to actually miss, which if I understand correctly is not supposed to happen.

JohnnydarkPT

  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #546 on: 2020-09-14 01:26:13 »
I love this mod, i playing the Lionheart dificulty, to hard xD, i like it, but the game is crashing in NORG battle, and is a bit slow i don't know why!

Helm_Smasher

  • *
  • Posts: 32
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #547 on: 2020-09-14 02:24:36 »
I registered almost exclusively to thank those involved in this mod for their wonderful work.

I played FF8 way back when it was released on the PS1, and it was a crushing experience.
I played blind, levelling normally and by the time I got to disc 4 everything was impossible to beat and I gave up. The game had left a bad taste in my mouth since, but it was a shame that such a technically impressive game couldn't be enjoyed properly.

I recently found out about the mod and I couldn't believe it addresses those I consider the biggest problems with the game (chiefly enemy scaling, but not only). I can't wait to delve deeper into the experience and given the list of changes, I feel it will be much more enjoyable. Thank you, and do keep up the good work.

Helm_Smasher

  • *
  • Posts: 32
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #548 on: 2020-09-16 01:38:18 »
I've been playing some more and I noticed what I assume is a bug. When I was fighting around Balamb after getting Ifrit (thanks for that early Double, I could get Ifrit in 5 minutes!) and when Squall leveled up from 8 to 9, Bite Bugs (is that the name of those blue mosquito things?) started appearing at Lv 14 instead of being fixed at their initial Lv 8. Other monsters seemed to be unaffected.

Closing the game and reloading my save seems to have fixed it, but I don't know if other monsters were affected.

Helm_Smasher

  • *
  • Posts: 32
    • View Profile
Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)
« Reply #549 on: 2020-09-16 01:52:56 »
I apologise for the constant posting but I don't know how to edit existing posts.
When Quistis left the party after completing the Fire Cavern, Bite Bugs were, again, stronger at Lv 12 (Squall was solo at 9). I fled the battle and scanned the next battle with them and they were back to 8, so I'm guessing the mod may be missing certain checks (party changes, level ups) when the next battle happens.