[FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.3

[Leythalknight]

Sure, feel free to send them over or post them. Is Hyne necessary if I restart the game? I figure I might as well restart in full as I'm not too far into the game yet, and then I'll be testing from the start to the end. Although it will probably take a couple weekends to get to the last Laguna dream, I'll be able to give feedback.

Here you go: https://mega.nz/file/we4zmAaJ#kZdxxEymG0EiEEzA91i3h1xdp_FAe3zKc6R9psnmDF8

You won't need to edit anything if you start a new save file. Since you're starting a new file, I also went ahead and switched Irvine's GF to Cerberus and buffed Defend's Crisis Level boost. Let me know if you have any problems.

EDIT: You probably know already, but don't forget to put the .txt file into the Hext folder.

If you don't want to do 1.3 just yet, you could release what you have with the Edea fix as a 1.2.1 once you are satisfied with the testing results. It's not a big content update but restoring Edea to a full character is a big enough change I think.

I just might, especially now that I switched Irvine's GF.

It's good to see that the first two Laguna dreams are working fine now, hopefully the remaining three will also be good! It's definitely a good sign.

Fingers crossed  I'll test the others soon too.

[Dorklord]

A quick update, I've also reached the second Laguna dream and according to the Hyne save editor, Edea is still equipped with Eden on my end too.  I'm hoping to finish disc 1 soon.

As for some observations, you were right about Squall's strength. While he initially seemed lacking, once I got to run around the world map a bit and he started to approach level 20, I noticed that his damage output became a lot more solid. For Rinoa, I think it might be better to have her limits be magic-based to give her some extra damage since she is limited in offensive options. Whenever she gets down to yellow health, I'd rather just have her heal herself than use Angelo cause the damage she deals (at least with Angelo's initial limits) just isn't worth the risk of keeping her at low health for one turn.

The rest of the characters so far feel good to use, no complaints with them. Although I have to ask, are any of Quistis' limits missable or rare? By rare, I mean situations where the item is only dropped by enemies in a specific one-time only area, and then don't show up again until the disc 3/4 or at all. For example in the Vanilla game Gespers in Laguna's Cetra dream are the only way to get Quistis' Degenerator apart from card modding.

[Leythalknight]

A quick update, I've also reached the second Laguna dream and according to the Hyne save editor, Edea is still equipped with Eden on my end too.  I'm hoping to finish disc 1 soon.

I also checked out the third Laguna dream and it also keeps Eden. I haven't tested the last two yet, but I feel fairly confident in saying that the issue is fixed now.

As for some observations, you were right about Squall's strength. While he initially seemed lacking, once I got to run around the world map a bit and he started to approach level 20, I noticed that his damage output became a lot more solid. For Rinoa, I think it might be better to have her limits be magic-based to give her some extra damage since she is limited in offensive options. Whenever she gets down to yellow health, I'd rather just have her heal herself than use Angelo cause the damage she deals (at least with Angelo's initial limits) just isn't worth the risk of keeping her at low health for one turn.

What did you think about Squall's Cure spells in the early game? I shifted his Mag growth so that the baseline for his Cures would be around 350. Also, what are your party's levels?

The thing about making Rinoa's Limits magic-based is that magic damage doesn't scale very well. For instance, if I made Angelo Cannon magic-based and gave it a base power of 42--the same value that it's set to right now as a physical attack--it might do pretty solid damage in the early game, but it would be awful later on. At level 100 she'd do about double the damage with physical Angelo Cannon as magical, even with the large gap between her Str and Mag stats (156 vs. 232). I added the Confusion effect in one of the updates to try and make it more useful while playing into her role of healing/mitigation (enemies can't hurt you if they're hurting themselves), but I think the real solution is to shift her Str stat to be higher earlier, similar to what I've done with other characters. I might also bump Cannon and Strike's base power up a bit (Wishing Star doesn't really need it since it's multi-hit and ignores Vit). As I was telling Nikkolas earlier in the thread, I've thought about replacing Cannon with a heal using Invincible Moon's animation, but I don't want to get rid of Cannon and I also don't want to turn IM into a healing skill since its invincibility keeps some of that FFVIII "flavor" and adds an additional perk to using Rinoa.

The rest of the characters so far feel good to use, no complaints with them. Although I have to ask, are any of Quistis' limits missable or rare? By rare, I mean situations where the item is only dropped by enemies in a specific one-time only area, and then don't show up again until the disc 3/4 or at all. For example in the Vanilla game Gespers in Laguna's Cetra dream are the only way to get Quistis' Degenerator apart from card modding.

None of them are missable but you may have to go out of your way and/or get lucky to find them/find them at the earliest you can get them. Degenerator is the only one that I've removed outright.



In update news, I'm currently working on another battle in the aberrant monsters quest for 1.3:

Spoiler: show

I'm also strongly considering removing Irvine's Magic command and replacing it with Draw. His spell selection is not that useful and the command is a remnant of a time when I was less sure of what to do with him.


EDIT: I should mention that mid- and high-level Abyss Worms will sometimes use a Scan Stone; it doesn't crash the game or anything, but they're supposed to be using Aero. I'll have that fixed in the next update.

[Dorklord]

What did you think about Squall's Cure spells in the early game? I shifted his Mag growth so that the baseline for his Cures would be around 350. Also, what are your party's levels?

They worked better this time around. I think the increase was enough, Squall had more turns attacking than previously because his healing was more potent. Previously Squall's healing often couldn't fully heal a bigger hit in the early game, now it does and usually adds a little on top. Now I no longer had Squall constantly healing to keep up with the punches.

Currently I finished Laguna's second dream, Squall is 21, Selphie is 19 and Quistis is 18. I kind of took a bit longer in the dream than I expected and I also ran around the map a bit, so Rinoa and Zell are also 17.

The thing about making Rinoa's Limits magic-based is that magic damage doesn't scale very well. For instance, if I made Angelo Cannon magic-based and gave it a base power of 42--the same value that it's set to right now as a physical attack--it might do pretty solid damage in the early game, but it would be awful later on. At level 100 she'd do about double the damage with physical Angelo Cannon as magical, even with the large gap between her Str and Mag stats (156 vs. 232). I added the Confusion effect in one of the updates to try and make it more useful while playing into her role of healing/mitigation (enemies can't hurt you if they're hurting themselves), but I think the real solution is to shift her Str stat to be higher earlier, similar to what I've done with other characters. I might also bump Cannon and Strike's base power up a bit (Wishing Star doesn't really need it since it's multi-hit and ignores Vit). As I was telling Nikkolas earlier in the thread, I've thought about replacing Cannon with a heal using Invincible Moon's animation, but I don't want to get rid of Cannon and I also don't want to turn IM into a healing skill since its invincibility keeps some of that FFVIII "flavor" and adds an additional perk to using Rinoa.

Ah, fair enough. Shame magic damage is so wonky.

None of them are missable but you may have to go out of your way and/or get lucky to find them/find them at the earliest you can get them. Degenerator is the only one that I've removed outright.

Good to know!

[Nikkolas]

Hey man, do you have any hope of ever porting this to the remaster version?

Asking for a guy on Reddit.

[Leythalknight]

They worked better this time around. I think the increase was enough, Squall had more turns attacking than previously because his healing was more potent. Previously Squall's healing often couldn't fully heal a bigger hit in the early game, now it does and usually adds a little on top. Now I no longer had Squall constantly healing to keep up with the punches.

Good to hear.

Ah, fair enough. Shame magic damage is so wonky.

It's the biggest reason attack magic is so bad in vanilla. I made some changes to Rinoa's Str stat after my last post and I think Angelo Cannon is in a better spot now.

Hey man, do you have any hope of ever porting this to the remaster version?

Asking for a guy on Reddit.

Hey there. I plan to, but it may not be for a while. I'd like to complete the rest of my plans for this version before I work on Remastered in order to minimize the amount of extra work required. Some things are as easy as drag and drop, but others require more than that. I also don't know whether the mod's .exe changes are possible in Remastered, so I'll have to investigate how to do that at some point too. At worst, I may release a version that excludes the .exe changes but has some other differences from the 2013 version, but I'd like to avoid that if possible.

I ported some of the simpler stuff to Remastered once, but I didn't go any further than that.

Spoiler: show

Did you get my last PM, btw? The thing I was talking about is a little closer to being possible now that I've figured out how to stop the JUNCTION opcode from unequipping guest characters' GFs.




In update news, the aberrant Abyss Worm fight that I posted about before is finished and I'm currently working on a sidequest with a little more story/dialogue than the stuff I've done so far; as a result, it's taking longer as well. Both will be in 1.3.

Spoiler: show

[Dorklord]

Hey,

You may already know this, but I've reached the Lunar Base and I can confirm that Edea has no problem with de-equipping GFs now from the Laguna dreams. Your fix for that works great.

I found what I think may be a small oversight. You know the invisible Aura drawpoint that is available during the battle of the Gardens? The one here: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/d/db/Aura_draw_point_location_during_the_Battle_of_the_Gardens_from_FFVIII_R.png/revision/latest?cb=20191119214919

It's still there and can be used, giving you access to some Aura spells. I know it's invisible and one time-only, and only Quistis has move-find and she isn't there, but if you know it's there, you can still use it.

I also had a weird instance where an enemy cast Aero on itself and died. I forgot which one it was sadly but I think it was an encounter with three enemies and may have been story related? I wish I had written it down... I keep thinking it may have been humanoid soldiers but I'm not sure.

As I'm approaching the end, I'm really enjoying the mod. For the most part it kept the same level of challenge and balance, which I think is pretty good. There were some harder fights, but nothing too ridiculous and it very much feels like a proper difficulty, rather than a hard-type mod, which I really appreciate. I think the second Seifer fight was a good example, he wasn't really hard and I didn't need a super specific strategy, but he had a good chunk of HP and could dish out damage fast, so I needed to pay attention. You turned him into a proper boss rather than a joke, without going overboard.

I think I might write up a small review on the mechanics and what I liked, and some minor stuff that could maybe use a bit of improvement. Maybe I'll focus on how the characters function since that's a good way to look at the game balance. So yeah, I'm almost finished and overall super pleased with this mod. Good work!

[Leythalknight]

Hey,

You may already know this, but I've reached the Lunar Base and I can confirm that Edea has no problem with de-equipping GFs now from the Laguna dreams. Your fix for that works great.

Good to hear. I also confirmed that it prevents Seifer's GF from being unequipped, which I may make use of eventually. What did you think of Edea as a playable character?

I found what I think may be a small oversight. You know the invisible Aura drawpoint that is available during the battle of the Gardens? The one here: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/d/db/Aura_draw_point_location_during_the_Battle_of_the_Gardens_from_FFVIII_R.png/revision/latest?cb=20191119214919

It's still there and can be used, giving you access to some Aura spells. I know it's invisible and one time-only, and only Quistis has move-find and she isn't there, but if you know it's there, you can still use it.

Yeah, that shouldn't be there. IIRC it's supposed to contain Bio or Dispel or something like that. Thanks, I'll have it fixed in the next update.

I also had a weird instance where an enemy cast Aero on itself and died. I forgot which one it was sadly but I think it was an encounter with three enemies and may have been story related? I wish I had written it down... I keep thinking it may have been humanoid soldiers but I'm not sure.

These are all of the enemies that use Aero:

Creeps
Chimera
Torama
Vysage
Abyss Worm
Ruby Dragon
Fujin (1)
Thrustaevis (Whirlwind uses Aero's animation)

I looked through their AI but didn't see anything that would cause them to use Aero on themselves, but I may have overlooked something. If the list jogs your memory, let me know. As far as soldiers go, I think the G-Specialists (the green ones) used to use Aero, but it's not in their movelist anymore. Low- and mid-level G-Blue Mages (the light blue ones) can use Storm Breath though.

Never mind, I found it right after sending this post.  It's the Base Soldier. The Potion+ item they used to use is now a stronger version of Aero after I added Scan Stones and I overlooked that, thinking there were no enemies that used Potion+. It's fixed now, thanks.

As I'm approaching the end, I'm really enjoying the mod. For the most part it kept the same level of challenge and balance, which I think is pretty good. There were some harder fights, but nothing too ridiculous and it very much feels like a proper difficulty, rather than a hard-type mod, which I really appreciate. I think the second Seifer fight was a good example, he wasn't really hard and I didn't need a super specific strategy, but he had a good chunk of HP and could dish out damage fast, so I needed to pay attention. You turned him into a proper boss rather than a joke, without going overboard.

I think I might write up a small review on the mechanics and what I liked, and some minor stuff that could maybe use a bit of improvement. Maybe I'll focus on how the characters function since that's a good way to look at the game balance. So yeah, I'm almost finished and overall super pleased with this mod. Good work!

Thanks  I'm glad you're liking the mod. Looking forward to your detailed feedback should you decide to do a write-up.

[Dorklord]

Good to hear. I also confirmed that it prevents Seifer's GF from being unequipped, which I may make use of eventually. What did you think of Edea as a playable character?

I think she was balanced. She was strong and her limit break could kill regular enemies in one hit, and my tactic against the boss at the Great Salt Lake (Abadon I think?) involved her spamming her limit. The boss went down quick. You could arguably say that she's a bit overpowered but since she's not a permanent character I didn't mind, plus she's supposed to be strong, so it made sense. She reminded me of Beatrix from FF9, who is only with you for a short while but is made powerful so you can have fun with her.

[Leythalknight]

I think she was balanced. She was strong and her limit break could kill regular enemies in one hit, and my tactic against the boss at the Great Salt Lake (Abadon I think?) involved her spamming her limit. The boss went down quick. You could arguably say that she's a bit overpowered but since she's not a permanent character I didn't mind, plus she's supposed to be strong, so it made sense. She reminded me of Beatrix from FF9, who is only with you for a short while but is made powerful so you can have fun with her.

I consider Beatrix close to perfect as a temporary party member, so that's good to hear. I figured Edea would make Abaddon a lot easier, but I thought it'd be with doublecasted Holy. My gut reaction to your post was to nerf Edea a little in 1.3, but after giving it some more thought I decided to leave her as is for now since Abaddon (and more importantly Diabolos, whom it's possible to fight using Edea) will be getting reworks in 1.4. I can keep her the same and just make them tougher.

[Leythalknight]

FFVIII Crystal 1.3 released.

Download: https://mega.nz/file/EHZEXR4B#3jo0HYHG8Kr49_RTAjl3oKBVvMYok1e2rDuWlY7dNfg


Content:

Spoiler: show

- Added a new sidequest at Edea's House, available with Rinoa in the party after visiting the Sorceress Memorial during the story.*

- Added a new battle in the aberrant monsters sidequest.


*Will not work on pre-1.3 save files if you've already triggered the conversation between Edea and Rinoa about sorceresses' knights. If you've triggered that conversation and want to try the sidequest, send me your save file and I will edit it for you.

Characters/GFs:

Spoiler: show

- Adjusted various characters' stats and stat growth.
- Lowered Drain's Status Atk-J power from 50% to 34%.
- Lowered Arise's Elem-Def power from 25% to 20%.
- Lowered Ultima's Elem-Def power from 30% to 25%.

- Reintroduced Edea as a playable character.
*GF: Eden
*Comes with abilities such as Pray, Double, and Expendx2-1 as well as a variety of spells.
*Spell selection: unlimited

Squall/Bahamut:
- Changed materials required to make Lionheart.

- Zell/Ifrit:
- Chakra's healing increased from 1/4 to 5/16.

Selphie/Tonberry:
- Changed levels at which refinement abilities can be learned.
*High Mag-RF: 35 --> 30
*BLK-RF 3: 45 --> 35

Rinoa/Carbuncle:
- Angel Wing now uses JWP's Angel Wing patch, which makes Rinoa cast only certain spells regardless of whether they're in her inventory. She has a chance to cast the following spells during Angel Wing, grouped in order from most to least likely: {Holy, Waterga}, {Flare}, {Doom, Meteor, Tornado}, {Pain, Quake}, {Blizzaga, Firaga, Thundaga}, {Curaga, Slow}, {Ultima}, {Haste}, {Wall}, {Aura}, {Apocalypse}
- Removed Angel Wing's Haste effect and replaced it with Float.
- Changed materials required to make Shooting Star.

Irvine:
- Changed Irvine's GF to Cerberus.
*Counter Rockets: grants Haste to the party.
- Removed Irvine's Magic command and replaced it with Draw.
- Irvine now starts with 30 AP in Aura.

Seifer/Alexander:
- Changed starting abilities.
- No Mercy: ignores Vit.

Enemies:

Spoiler: show

- Enemies in Tears' Point now scale up to level 50; changed some enemy formations.
- Made various changes to spell refinement item drops.

- Grendel: Replaced Tail Blade with a generic attack using Tail Blade's animation; replacement attack is slightly less powerful but more accurate.
- Hexadragon: Has a one-time chance of using Rapture if afflicted with certain status effects; increased power of Chemical Breath, removed Poison effect and changed to non-elemental; now has a chance of using a critical attack instead of a normal one; low- and mid-level behavior altered to incorporate normal attacks and Bio.
- Abyss Worm: Base stats modified; stats change when below 30% HP; can now remove status effects; has a chance to use Vampire instead of a normal attack.

- Iguion: Earth weakness changed from 200% to 150%; Slow added to Draw list; now casts the Haste spell on itself; fixed issue in which Haste wouldn't take effect; fixed issue in which Iguions would not use Resonance.
- Base Soldier: Fixed issue in which it would use Aero on itself; now uses Cure instead.
- Oilboyle: Reworked.
- NORG Pod: Lowered HP.
- NORG: Modified NORG's pattern; Orbs now cast the Haste spell on themselves instead of being Hasted through AI, so the effect can be dispelled; Orbs can begin Hasting themselves sooner; at 30% HP, there is a chance that an Orb will advance directly from blue to red; changed NORG's level scaling.
- Odin: Acts more frequently; action chances increase when below 60% HP; now uses Daunt instead of Stop; restored a line of unused battle dialogue.
- Seifer (3): Str increased; has an additional action chance; is more likely to use Zombie; can counter physical attacks with Blind and magical attacks with Silence; Provoke gives a Regen effect; gains a Str and Spd boost and a guaranteed critical attack action when under Aura status.
- Edea (2): Increased Spd; now uses Aura on Seifer instead of Berserk; increased action chances and adjusted action probabilities; uses Maleficium sooner; has an additional guaranteed use of Maelstrom at 20% HP.
- Ultima Weapon: Replaced Light Pillar with Licht Säule, which deals no damage but inflicts an immunity-ignoring Death effect; now has a chance of using Tornado instead of Quake.

Misc.:

Spoiler: show

- Changed the following spell refine totals:
*Cure: 5 --> 10
*Raise: 3 --> 5
*Protect: 3 --> 5
*Shell: 3 --> 5
*Zombie: 5 --> 10
*Curaga (WHT-RF 3): 3 --> 5
*Holy (WHT-RF 3): 3 --> 5
*Haste: 3 -> 5

*Fire: 5 --> 10
*Blizzard: 5 --> 10
*Thunder: 5 --> 10
*Fira: 5 --> 10
*Blizzara: 5 --> 10
*Thundara: 5 --> 10
*Firaga: 5 --> 10
*Blizzaga: 5 --> 10
*Thundaga: 5 --> 10

- Fixed Aura Draw Point outside of G-Garden; replaced with Zombie.
- Added Cottages to Winhill Shop.
- Joker has a unique shop on Disc 4.
- Joker now has an option to heal the party when spoken to aboard the Ragnarok.
- Added a hidden shop that allows for the purchase of certain missable items on Disc 4.
- Updated Aberrant Key items' descriptions.
- Added dialogue to hint at new sidequests.
- Restored an unused line of dialogue during the meeting with Edea on Disc 3.
- Updated Credits section of OP.
- Updated screenshot album in the OP.
- Added a donation link to the OP.

The new sidequest at Edea's House is the first that includes story elements. I may make a few more such sidequests in the future, so let me know what you think. Speaking of sidequests, I'll be concluding the aberrant monsters sidequest in 1.4.

I still have some reservations about the Angel Wing update, and may alter or revert it in the future depending on the feedback I get.

I'm also posting the hex values for a few of the changes included in this update and the previous one should anyone want to use them:

Spoiler: show

Code: [Select]

#Allow Minimog to be summoned regardless of Chocobo World progress

8E0AF = 75
8E0B0 = 00
8E0B1 = 40
8E0B2 = 00
This changes the address checked by the MiniMog command to one found in an error handling message in the exe, as I figured said value would never change in actual gameplay. This should work pretty easily in other versions as long as you change it to an address with a value within the correct range (the minimum needed for MiniMog to appear is 0D, but I can't remember the max...).

Code: [Select]

#Double MiniMog's Gil cost

8E0D6 = 03

Code: [Select]

#Prevent removal of Edea's GF during Laguna dreams

ACE7F = 90 90 90 90
This also works for Seifer (and other characters too, presumably).