cool mod!
I do believe I am now going to have to set up and give this a try.
Got through Dollet but cant continue due to a 100% crash.
thoughts and bugs so far.
bug:
when meeting quistis naming screen for shiva appears twice, the a third time after the tutorial, and every time you enter and leave the garden and quistis joins
game not responding in catchapillar fight after getting it low hp, appears to be ultra wave. Ultra wave works with quistis
Crashes when transitioning to Cids Office to recieve your first seed rank.
Balance:
every enemy in beginning had a status, including a petrify, berserk, and a confuse. its a little oppressive.
T-rexaur in balamb forest should not be reliably beatable by squall + quistis before fire cavern. Either needs to hit harder or be immune to sleep
ifrit a litte whimpy overall. just a few cast of blizzard while chain drawcasting cure is more than enough to win with tons of time left over.
Dollet was fun and well balanced.
Im up to the Tomb of the Forgotten Soldier with no other major issues. Ill keep all of my notes about the balance until the end to make sure its the best possible feedback and as to not warp my experience of the mod.
list of bugs.
several encounters have enemies that are off camera. inside timber vs 2 red guard. outside timber vs a mushroom and snake
outside of Deiling has an encounter with the beach field with a Thrustavius
Maybe misunderstanding the post about Kamikaze being the source of vit 0, but Grand Mantis Melting Bubble attack applies vit 0 to my characters.
Still on Disc 1 you can fight Adamantoise on the beaches outside of the desert prison. Way to early to get Blizzaga, protect, shell, and quake. weak to stop so can just stop him and draw 3-4 times and run away. I didn't farm him for sake of balance testing.
Found a major issue. After the Iguion fight in Deiling City you receive an HP Up item. Using this item will instantly start an encounter vs a single Galb Soldier in Dollet, after the fight every time you attempt to press Menu it will start another fight instantly.
This sounds quite fun. I like the story, but I'm not a big fan of "monsters level up with you" or "everyone can do everything" play-styles.
I'd like to play your mod. Is there a way to port it to remastered?
About to begin playing this now myself.
Didnt notice anything about Triple Triad, does it remain the same (I'd dont mind Triad myself, just worried about items I may need from it)?
Are the GFs RECOMMENDATIONS for those characters or are they locked?
Just beat Ifrit after 3 tries, so used to not needing to think in this game that I wasn't really prepared. Messed up not exchanging magic but managed to bruteforce it with draw-casting Cure. The AI changes were exciting.
Even this early on I'm really liking what I'm seeing, the changes are pretty much exactly what I was after with this game. The NT mod is interesting too but I haven't seen much progress on that one recently :(.
Thanks for making it!
Currently playing through this mod, up to Dollet (second visit), will post more feedback once I finish disk 1, for now I want to point two bugs (nothing gamebreaking):
- game text still says I received Occult Fan II instead of Gambler Spirit in Dollet TT player room (only text, item in inventory is correct)
- cockatrice AI near Dollet doesn't work, it just looks at me menacingly and not doing any moves.
Yo. this mod looks awesome and right up my alley. Thank you and I'm excited to try it.
But just a heads up for you or anyone else who is just coming back here for the first time in months - the Roses and Wine thread is gone because the creator was banned. So the readme instructions included with the mod needs to be fixe.
And since RaW is needed for this mod to work, the Ragnarok Rebalance creator has a link to it
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YU7dP4DkuPt7kCCmkdg8SKnliZ7ygfGD/view
Thanks, hope you enjoy it.
Oh, I didn't realize. I'll fix the link in the next update. Thanks. :)
No problem. I just got to Galbadia Garden and having fun with the changes you've made.
I do have a few questions, though.
1. Would you say the game gets harder later on? Maybe I'm just overleveled (Squall is Level 16, Rinoa is Level 18 and Selphie is Level 21) but things haven't been too difficult for a while now. if this was a normal RPG you'd expect challenge to increase with time but since it's a mod, you usually see a huge spike in difficulty right from the start ya know? I dunno, I don't think it would hurt to increase damage and HP a bit on the enemies.
2.Do you ever get more GFs? I've already "mastered" all the innate abilities on a few of my GF's. Or do you just learn more abilities for the GF's you have?
3. Do you ever get Abilityx3 or Abilityx4? In general I'm just curious how I learn more abilities for my GF's since right now I've been Drawing all my magic and am sorely missing Refine abilities.
EDIT:
Okay just about to do Sorceress Assassination and Shiva is gonna learn Blk Mag RF 1. I guess i's a Level thing, maybe? Oh well, sorry for the dumb, impatient question.
EDIT 2:
Also I kinda cheated with Rinoa using Aero against the Brothers... Aero is a White Magic spell in many FF games but I just got Blk Mag RF 1 and it's Black Magic here. My bad. I def won't do it again.
Edea was a pretty sweet boss fight.
Okay a couple big problems to cover in D-District Prison.
(https://i.imgur.com/eueCUA0.png)
If you put Berserk on this guy so he can't do Evil Eye while dying, he's just immortal and will keep fighting.
Also when I tried to Mug Wedge I got the "Stole 0's" problem reported on earlier.
I appreciate you being considerate about boss placement and difficulty. In the old FFVIII Requiem mod, he had Seifer cast Flare in your first fight with him which means he could potentially open up the fight with it and oneshot you before you even got shell ready.
...that mod had a lot of bad ideas but it was all we had for a long time. Thank God this awesome mod came along.
I have definitely seen a general increase in difficulty so far and I agree with your reasoning. Too often JRPGs became trivially easy with more options so I'm glad you are reversing that, making it more challenging with more options.
Speaking of boss placement and selling items though, I just beat NORG and I'm very grateful he's so easy compared to how he was in Ragnarok Rebalanced. I was totally out of Phoenix Downs and very worried his fight would e a nightmare like the last mod I played. I had a team of Irvine and Quistis, sending Rinoa to the Missile Base so they had one great healer and I, with Irvine's heal gun, had another . But this meant I had no one who can use Raise so I was worried.
You don't need to tell me exactly what the added sidequests are but can you tell me when/where they occur? Just curious what I should be on the lookout for.
In any event, this mod is extremely interesting and I will recommend it to people on other FF forums I frequent. For somebody who has played FFVIII as much as I have, you've really re=energized my interest in the gameplay. I intend to see this through to the end and hopefully my comments can help a little bit.
So you weren't kidding, things definitely get harder and all for the good. Galbadia Garden was one wild ride from the random encounters to Cerberus to Seifer 2. Edea 2 ironically was the easiest thing by far. With Haste on everyone she gets basically no turns and once it was just her, she only cast Stop over and over and over again and I think 2 Maelstroms. The real kicker though was the fact I swear each of my party members got 3-4 turns in for every single turn from her.
Seifer, my fave character, got a worthy boss battle at last. He certainly didn't get it in the original but I died more on this fight than any boss yet. Very creative mechanics, although I swear he just kinda bugged out and went crazy sometimes, attacking like 5-6 times in a row. My game also froze twice, only when two of my characters were down.Spoiler: show
But yeah, dunno if you play Shin Megami Tensei but Seifer here reminded me a bit of an SMT boss with getting 3 or so moves in for his turn. Or like the Final Fantasy III remake where bosses get 2 moves in for their turn. I dunno if there's any rhyme or reason to it since sometimes he only got one move in.
Finding those Dispel, Protect and Shell Stones at Winhill was an awesome surprise, very useful. Gonna have to go load up on those now with Rinoa gone.
I'm afraid I can't recall for certain if the lone survivor was Zombified or not. I wanna say Rinoa might have been in my last crash but I really can't say. I also stupidly saved over my save right before the Seifer fight but I still have one before the Garden Battle and I intend to replay up to the Seifer fight to try and record it so I'll see if I can experiment a bit if you need.
Speaking of Seifer being a tougher boss like he should be, did you do anything to Seifer 3? I've been wary of getting Odin because Gilgamesh ruins the final, climactic showdown with Seifer and I hate it. I might just forego Odin since he doesn't even have Double or Triple anymore.
Hey dude can you fix my save file? I think I did the Dollet quest and nothing happened so maybe that is what you fixed in the lasted update?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KVxHxQLGCJEfngfX14sGkzY9YAmxYEuy/view?usp=sharing
Also I had another freeze when fighting Vysage, Lefty and Righty at the Great Salt Lake while Selphie was Cursed and trying to use Slot.
Dunno if that might have something to do with the memory problem you mentioned or if you can fix that while doing this.
Thanks again.
Thank you for all your help.
Would you say the Deep Sea Research Facility (up to Bahamut at least) should be done before Lunatic Pandora and completing Disk 3 or after? I made it up to Bahamut...and died because I'm a fucking idiot who didn't use the menu before the fight to heal. But my main point is, I gained so many levels from just walking there. I'm worried of overleveling and making the story too easy.
My main party is:
Squall Lvl 47
Quistis Lvl 40
Rinoa Lvl 36
All I recall for certain is by the time I lost, Rinoa had gained 5 levels.
What level do you think this game should be beaten at, by the way?
Cool cool. I did walk while the blue light was shining because I was dumb and forgot about it triggering encounters.
I have no idea how you're supposed to defeat Bahamut without Selphie and her awesome Double ability to exploit his weakness. I tried with my usual team - like your friend Rinoa and Quistis are my favorites but Quistis and Squall just weren't gettingit done in terms of damage. Meanwhile, Selphie beat him all by herself doing 6200 damage a turn. Squall nd Rinoa were just on support and heal duty. Great fight, the second hardest all game next to Seifer 2.
But I think I fucked up and "cheated" by accident.. I'm right after getting Rinoa and first thing I did was go to Esthar touy items and then head to the Deep Sea Research facility. I got Hi-Potion+ and Mega Potions from Johnny's Shop. But when I go back after beating Bahamut to resupply, the shop says closed. But if you keep clicking on it enough, it will be open to buy items. Is that a mistake?
I guess I shouldn't have had those Hi Potion+ or Mega Potions....
Also I keep forgetting to mention, it seems like the Confused party AI is programmed to use the rarest item while confused? I had 2 Mega Remedies I Mugged from somebody A while ago now I did all the Chocobo Forests and when heading to the Sanctuary I stuck around trying to see if the Malboro was still there to steal a Tentacle from to learn Bad Breath. It was. When he used it on my party, a Confused Irvine used the Mega Remedy so Selphie or somebody could immediately then mug a Tentacle off the Malboro and then we fled.
Bad Breath is always so good to have in this game. It alone makes Quistis Queen when dealing with every non boss encounter.
Well, given Bahamut shifts elemental weaknesses and absorbs what he isn't weak to, isn't it a bad idea to load up a physical attacker with Elemental Attack- J for that fight?
But I've run into my first super serious and consistent technical problem as I tried to go deeper into the research facility. Made a video of both problems.
https://youtu.be/yR5ylHH-x4w?t=53
This doing 9999 damage wasn't the initial problem I saw; I had a CTD two times with a message saying an unknown exception occurred.
So Ultima Weapon is kicking my ass. I Scanned him once and it said Level 70.
My party is Level 57 Squall, Level 49 Rinoa and Level 46 Quistis. Should I grind or am I just bad?
i def need to go and buy more revive items. Damn Light Pillar.
EDIT:
lol Squall with the suicide Darkside to clinch the win for just Rinoa. I think UW mostly killed himself what with his spamming Light Pillar on Rinoa and Squall in this successful run as I had Return Damage on them both. But a win is a win and no level grinding or buying more items.
Also really lucked out when heading down to him to fight Iron Giants and get the final piece for Punishment. I've had Flame Saber far too long and the damage increase for Punishment helped out a lot here, basically did 5K damage per turn with Quake on his Attack Junction and with Darkside. Also Mugged 3 Energy Crystals from a Behemoth. So just need to find 1 more Adamantine and a Royal Crown for Lionheart. You don't have to tell me where, I wanna try and find it on my own.
Actually, now I think on it, maybe I beat a weaker UW? I was doing 4700 damage with Darkside before but did like 5200 this time.
Oh yeah, I've always loved the UW fight except for how easy it is to kill him. Way cooler boss than Omega.
But how do you do AOE protection in this game apart from hoping for Invincible Moon? If Quistis still learns Mighty Guard, I haven't found it yet. But Quistis gets all the AOE in this game which is one reason I use her. Her White Wind was essential for winning here for, without Double or Triple, she's the only person who can really heal the entire party. Rinoa's Pray does not do anywhere near enough healing. So between MG and WW, Quistis is pretty much the best party member by far.
And yeah, did Return Damage always do 1/2? Maybe some mods I played changed it to 1/4. 1/2 is pretty broken, especially on two characters.
So things are going well in Ulty's Castle, I randomly encountered a Behemoth and it dropped a Barrier so I'm very happy about that
But I'm trying to figure out what to do with the switching parties and getting to new locations. I switched to my secondary team of Zell, Irvine and Selphie and tried to have them run through that sort of outside area with the save point that you get to by passing through the Art Gallery and that next room with the stairs and switch point, that leads to the two bosses if you keep going straight? I've had the game crash on me twice now as soon as the fight with the Torama and the two flying enemies starts.
Thank you, that sorted it all out.
The only sealing boss I have left is Tiamat. He killed me and I haven't gone back to him yet but I noticed something wonky about him. He kept trying to cast stuff and nothing would happen. I saw the abilities' names at the top of the screen and nothing happened until finally he did Dark Flare and annihilated me. Not sure if this is a weird bug so I won't fight him yet until I hear back from you.
Also I defeated Red Giant through Return Damage and Quistis Spirit and Vitality ignoring Limits. I feel like this isn't actually the intended strategy to defeat him but it's all I could come up with.
GFs were the first thing I thought of when magic and physical attacks did nothing and I used Bahamut and saw it said about 3K damage but then he said GFs are useless and also Bahamut died in a couple attacks so that didn't sem like a very good way to win.
As for Tiamat, I am ever the clueless person. I thought the messages at the top were attacks or something. My bad.
God willing, I'll be completing your wonderful mod today. It's been a lot of fun.
Speaking of GFs, I bought a GF Scroll for Bahamut (when I used him earlier it was just a test and I reloaded) and Shiva so as to use them and Carbuncle to shield us from the first Dark Flare. He killed me even with Mighty Guard so I figured maybe he's just gonna kill me no matter what so I brought out the GFs to be meat shields and die so we could survive and kill him just before the next DF went off. Not sure if there was another strategy but I swear he killed even protected Squall who had like 4K HP or something.
But more importantly, I I won the game! Squall couldn't make it to the final battle, it was Level 54 Selphie Double casting Flare/Meteor and finally Ultima that did it with a decent assist from Level 61 Quistis and Level 69 Rinoa.
A thought that occurred to me as I entered the final battle was, how does level scaling work here since you can get a random team? I got Zell in my starting lineup and he was a pitiful Level 26 'cuz I never use him. Did that weaken just Ulty or all the fights? Rinoa and Quistis were there from the start, though. Had to let Zell die and then Irvine and then Selphie was there.
Fight was 48 minutes...a pretty epic struggle I dare say. I recorded it but not sure if it is as thrilling to watch as to play. But I bought Bandicam for $40, I'm gonna use it.
Gonna gather my thoughts on the whole mod and post them later. But I definitely think Crystal is far and away my favorite FFVIII mod ever.
Alright, so concluding remarks:
1. opane thing that isn't exactly my thought but a few people have brought up as I recommend your mod - why is Rinoa White Mage and Selphie Black Mage? It first hit me when I got Angel Wing and realized Rinoa can't really do much with it in this mod. And others have brought up how Selphie's unique spells are very WM like Full-Cure, Wall, Rapture, etc.. Is it purely based on their personalities? I can understand that - Selphie is basically like a cartoon Black Mage, all burn, kill, destroy.
2. I know some people will balk at this but it feels like Drawing is the main source of magic in this mod? I'm sure you know how everyone Drew magic as a kid and then you get older and are like "use Card Mod, dumbass." But with Card Mod gone and only getting the RF abilities pretty infrequently from levels, Drawing was the easiest way to obtain magic for me. Now, you made it so it's almost guaranteed that you will draw 15 spells from an enemy so it really doesn't bother me. But Drawing Magic just really pisses off some people and wile you made items purchasable for the elemental spells to be refined from, there are many, many other spells besides that which Drawing was the best and most expedient source. I got my 200 or 300 spells from Drawing all game and only very rarely refined items into magic. Do you think this is a problem or is Drawing supposed to be the main source of magic?
Just thinking maybe stealing or item drops can be increased a decent bit to compensate.
3. It's over now so I don't mind asking but where was another Adamantine for Squall's final gunblade? I just needed one more to complete it but never found one. I recall they used to be dropped or mugged from Adamantoise but if that's still a thing, I didn't get itt o happen.
4. Speaking of missed stuff, I never got Shockwave Pulsar for Quistis because, looking at your doc after I beat thE game, you get Dark Matter from PuPu. I tried going to his spots on Disk 4 but he never appeared so I never got the item and her best LB.
5. I think Seifer 3 could stand to be buffed a decent bit. Squall with Darkside and 100 Pains to Elem Attack-J will do near max damage and kill him in no time.
6. Speaking of which, my favorite fights all game were Seifer 2, Edea 1 and Bahamut. I think Seifer and Bahamut especially you did a really great job with and made them very memorable Just great struggles that are every bit as tense and dramatic as they ought to be given the narrative surrounding them.
7. I definitely do appreciate how the game gets harder in response to you getting more options like you noted earlier. Still, I think the end of Disk 2 is when the game got noticeably more challenging and that is quite a ways in. I really wouldn't be averse to bosses and enemies before that getting buffed Up to you though, I'm not even sure how I'd go about making things harder.
8. On the viability of GFs later on, I really would suggest buffing their HP a lot. I know I mentioned it before but while Carbuncle is great and useful, it just always died so fast. Quistis and Mighty Guard is the only real way to get buffs on the whole party in a swift, reliable fashion. At least, compared to Carbuncle. Selphie's Slot is even more unreliable than Carbuncle in my experience - I never got anything good with it whenever i used her and she got in low health.
Basically it seems like Quistis is far and away the best support character given full party heals and buffs. Which is fine - I wanted character differentiation and diversity and you gave me that. Also I use Quistis most of the time, anyway. Still, you pointed out a lot of strategies I never considered so maybe I'm just missing how good the others could be. But I shudder to think of facing the final boss gauntlet without Quistis and her Mighty Guard.
9. This is a very random, minor thought but is there any way to implement an item that does Scan, like some sort of Scan Stone? Squall's magic sucks and so I just never even had that ability on his menu after a while and you could theoretically have nobody in your party who can cast Scan in this mod.
But yeah...I will maybe think of more stuff later on. I always miss a thought or two when I write these kinds of things. For now though, all I can say is I had a lot of fun. FFVIII is not my favorite FF but I grew up with it and have a soft spot for it and I'm glad people like you are trying to fix how broken it was so as to make it more entertaining on repeat runs.
Also, unrelated to your mod specifically, is there any way to tell if Protect and Shell are still on when you have multiple buffs? The menu only lists one thing and I'm looking at my bad final boss video and I tried tor reapply buffs that hadn't worn of yet because I'm dumb and thought they might have. I know you get the message at the top about them wearing off but I am very likely to miss that and I really wish there was another way to check if they were still on.
So you've mentioned Tool RF a few times now and I figured it was some late game thing. I never got it on any of my GFs. It's still an ability, right?
(https://i.imgur.com/JjpQWeE.png)
These were all of my abilities at the end.
GF Levels:
Shiva 60
Ifrit 45
Carbuncle 45
Bahamut 58
Cactuar 51
Tonberry 51
As for PuPu, yeah, I went to Winhill Bluffs and tried for a few minutes, got attacked like 10+ times by monsters and no PuPu. Then went to Timber Beach and again no PuPu, just a lot of random encounters. I can try again if you want.
And I'd definitely be very interested in your 1v1 idea or any other alterations you make to Seifer. I have a save right before the final boss fight with him.
As for stat/level progress, I made a video of me defeating Seifer 2 where I start by showcasing levels and stats:
https://youtu.be/M348_Z2xLy8
I have saves right before Seifer 3, Ultima Weapon and the final boss if you need levels and stat reports from there. Unfortunately I saved over all my disk 1 saves after a while.
As for how to improve stuff, damage seems the big one. The tank thing at the Missile Base was really easy compared to most mods I've played. NORG was also a pushover. Maybe those were intentional nerfs on your part, though.
And I guess it's a good thing I saved all of Selphie's Ultimas for the final form of Ulty. I only managed to draw 15 from Ultima Weapon but it was still more than enough to destroy Ultimecia in no time. Made it the easiest part of the fight, honestly. I'm not complaining - Ultima should be King, as you noted earlier. It just made me very happy to do like 13K damage a turn with just her and her Double.
For Seifer 3:
Rinoa Level 55
Squall Level 61
Quistis Level 52
As for sidequests, just Winhill, Deep Sea Lab, Diablos, Shumi Village and...I think that might be it? A
I went back to Dollet after I got my save but nothing changed. The giant spider was still dead. That was what I was supposed to fight, right?
I had no idea about the painter kid, though. My bad.
I got the 4 UFO triggers, I was in the wrong part of the area I knew I was supposed to be in. Oh well. I'll do it and the Sorceress Memorial stuff later today. Sorry I missed all this content.
STR VIT MAG SPR SPD LUC Total Points Squall 92 148 52 82 62 40 476 Zell 152 105 115 94 77 50 593 Irvine 93 90 130 90 84 77 564 Quistis 120 123 125 112 68 49 597 Rinoa 119 102 160 134 78 40 633 Selphie 65 95 205 123 81 35 604
Hello Leythalknight,
I've been playing your mod and I quite like it so far. The basic concept is great and the balance so far has been decent. I'm still on disc one so I can't offer comprehensive feedback but I am curious about some things.
First, was there any particular reason you choose Tonberry and Cactuar as GFs for Selphie and Irvine? The rest of the GFs fit the characters and their classes imo, but these two are a bit odd. Maybe it's just that they are mascots, but I can't help but think that Diablos would have been better for Selphie as a black mage and that Cerberus would fit Irvine better as he's all about speed and luck. You'd have to change GF attacks, but only a little. Cerberus could cast a party-wide haste instead of double and triple and Diablos could just have Tonberry's attack power. So Diablos would function exactly as Tonberry and Cerberus's haste would replace the gimmicky level-based damage of Cactuar and offer a second support-type GF.
Second, I've looked at the character stats using Doomtrain and I'm a bit concerned how the characters will work in the long term. I know there are abilities and weapons to consider, but are you sure everyone has the stats they are supposed to have?
Here are each character's stats at Level 100, according to Doomtrain:
To me, Squall's stats in particular seem really low. I added all them up and as you can see, his total is 100 points less than everyone else's, but more importantly, his magic is really low, less than half of Zell's. His spirit is also the lowest and his strength is also the second lowest. I don't know how much abilities play into this but regardless, this doesn't seem quite right, even Rinoa's attack outdamages Squall's while she's supposed to be a white mage.
I've first noticed this during the Dollet mission. While it felt well balanced overall, I couldn't help but notice that Squall simply couldn't keep up with Selphie or Zell in terms of damage, which would have been fine, but even as a healer he wasn't particularly good. His low magic makes it so that his basic cure spell can't even heal as much as a standard potion and in boss fights he spends most his turns mitigating damage. Not just that, but with the lowest spirit stat, he is still not very durable. While he can take a punch with his high vitality, magic wrecks him, which doesn't make him a particularly good tank either, which I assume is what he's supposed to be as a knight archetype. Maybe it's just me but I think he needs more strength, and either more magic or spirit, or even both. He's always in the party and he by far seems to be the worst character so far.
Am I missing something? Does he get better with GF abilities and weapon upgrades? His stats seem too low for those to make a difference.
Gotcha, I'll keep using Squall and see how he compares as the game goes on. I guess once he starts learning some abilities, he'll have more utility.
As for the GFs, I'm glad you're considering Cerberus. I think your overall choices are pretty good, they fit the characters and lore and have a logic to them:
Squall - Bahamut:
Bahamut is the dragon king, so him bestowing Squall with "knightly" abilities makes sense. He's also one of the cooler summons, so it fits the main character. Plus in FF9 Bahamut has a big cutscene battle with Alexander, and you made Alexander Seifer's GF in Dollet, so I think that also fits in a meta-sense, the rivals having rival GFs.
Quistis - Shiva:
Shiva is a classic. She fits as well as any other GF for a blue mage. The only other one I could think of is Leviathan, because it makes more sense for Leviathan to have Devour than Shiva, as Leviathan devours ships in some FF games, but other than that Shiva is great and the other abilities (Aura, Move-Find, etc) fit her well.
Rinoa - Carbuncle:
I think you made a good call here, having a support GF is great and also the idea that Carbuncle bestows white mage abilities on Rinoa makes sense too as Carbuncle is always portrayed as a friendly summon that provides support. I think it's the only one that makes sense for Rinoa.
For Irvine, as I said I prefer Cerberus because it would be a second support GF and also because Cerberus in vanilla FF8 has SPD-J, Alert and Auto-Haste, which I think fit with Irvine's focus on speed and his role as a sniper. Plus he mainly uses support magic in your mod, so a support GF makes sense. Also Cerberus is an FF8-original so I think he deserves a bit of spotlight.
Selphie is a tough one because Tonberry, Diablos and Doomtrain would all work for her. Personally I prefer Diablos. She is a black mage so I think the idea of a devil-like GF giving her offensive magic makes sense to me, plus Diablos' summon involves him using all sorts of magic sigils and pure dark magic energy to attack. I think his summon attack is similar to what black mage Selphie can do, which fits more than knife-wielding Tonberry. Plus Diablos is also FF8-original so it would be appropriate, and the juxtaposition of cute girl Selphie having the devil as her partner is kinda funny too. Doomtrain would also work for her because she loves trains, but I think that's a bit shallow for a reason.
Anyways, it's up to you what you'd prefer but I figured I'd provide my opinion. I just think it's a bit of a waste for two characters to get the mascot summons with funny animations while others get more "serious", staple GFs. However I might be biased as I dislike Tonberry and Cactuar as summons because they also serve as regular enemies you can encounter instead of unique creatures, which makes them feel "lesser" than other GFs imo.
Honestly, I didn't think anyone would bring up my GF choices... ;D Maybe I've just been working on this for so long that I only see them as gameplay functions.Sorry about that :D I didn't mean to make a big deal out of them really, like I said your choices are overall good. However I really liked your concept for this mod and I was immediately impressed when I saw GF like Bahamut, Ifrit, Shiva, Alexander early in the game and how their abilities fit the characters, the GFs themselves, and even the classes they were meant to bestow upon each character. It's really creative how they all fit together so well, and thanks to that the pairings don't stick out or feel fan-made. It feels like this could have been an official class system. So really, it's not so much that Tonberry and Cactuar are bad fits or anything, it's just that the others feel so perfect to me, that those two stick out a bit. So yeah, once again, great job on the core concept of your mod, it's probably the first FF8 gameplay mod that I've really enjoyed and made me rethink my approach to the gameplay completely.
Sorry about that :D I didn't mean to make a big deal out of them really, like I said your choices are overall good. However I really liked your concept for this mod and I was immediately impressed when I saw GF like Bahamut, Ifrit, Shiva, Alexander early in the game and how their abilities fit the characters, the GFs themselves, and even the classes they were meant to bestow upon each character. It's really creative how they all fit together so well, and thanks to that the pairings don't stick out or feel fan-made. It feels like this could have been an official class system. So really, it's not so much that Tonberry and Cactuar are bad fits or anything, it's just that the others feel so perfect to me, that those two stick out a bit. So yeah, once again, great job on the core concept of your mod, it's probably the first FF8 gameplay mod that I've really enjoyed and made me rethink my approach to the gameplay completely.
Out of curiousity, you mentioned that you couldn't get Edea to work without a GF if I understand correctly? If this bug is proving unsolveable, is there some way you could work around this perhaps? Maybe give her a unique GF like Seifer? Or rename one of the GFs to a blank name (if possible) or "Sorceress/Sorcery" and assigning that to Edea? That way she would have abilities and it would at least look like she doesn't have a GF in the menu.
Well, I have both Seifer and Edea set to start out with a GF equipped without making it available to the player. This works basically fine in itself, as seen with Seifer; the problem is that whenever switching to and from Laguna's party, the game unequips everyone, including characters like Seifer and Edea. So by the time Edea joins the party, she doesn't have a GF anymore.
I actually have the values for forcing Edea to be equipped with Eden and/or some abilities in the mod's hext file, but they're disabled because the values of those addresses just get overwritten when the game begins to load, and again when you load a save file. I think the only solution is a dll file that could force those addresses to be set to those values, similar to this video I made a while back using Cheat Engine: https://streamable.com/metsc0 If I could lock Seifer and Edea's GFs in, I could also do the same for the main party to make the mod feel a little more "authentic," for lack of a better term. I've gotten a little more familiar with Cheat Engine and I know it has some kind of scripting template, so maybe it'd be possible now, but my technical skills are pretty low.
resetgf(4)
resetgf(1)
setparty(0, 5, 3)
junction(1)
When set to 0, ends all "dream world" related stuff (GF junction carryover, Squall->Laguna, party lock, etc).
When set to 1, only Squall's junctions gets carried over.
When set to 3, the whole party gets carried over.
Oh, I see. I figured it wouldn't be as simple as I thought since Seifer didn't have this issue. I'm not very good at the technical side (especially with FF8) but it sounds like you might be right. The only other solution I can think of is that you could try to edit the field scripts for these events. I know the "109 - Junction" Opcode is connected to the Laguna junction switches, but I'm not familiar enough with it to understand how it all connects. I'm also aware of the "128 - ResetGF" Opcode but from what I've seen that's kind of a mess.
For example, this is what happens right before the second Laguna dream:
The character digits are 0 for Squall, 1 for Zell, 3 for Quistis, 4 for Rinoa and 5 for Selphie. Irvine is 2 but not yet in the party, and Seifer, Edea, Laguna, Kiros and Ward are 6-10 for reference. So the game uses resetGF on Rinoa and Zell to remove their junctions I'd assume, then sets the party to Squall, Selphie and Quistis. Then it uses 1 for junction , which according to documentation is as follows:
This matches up, as the second Laguna dream has those three characters, but only Squall's junctions are carried over. As you can see though, no mention of removing anything from Seifer and Edea, in fact, I only found one ResetGF opcode with Edea's ID of 7 and that is actually before the final dream sequence. What is also weird is that ResetGF does not seem to be always used for the Laguna dreams. It's possible that ResetGF is a leftover and Square built in the junction removal differently in the end. Maybe the Junction Opcode itself automatically removes GFs from everyone, in which case the only way to keep Edea's junctions would be to remove the opcodes somehow and disable the Laguna junction transfer, I guess? I found an old thread of someone attempting something similar and managing to make manual junction exchange possible between Laguna and present party members, but it didn't go far: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16352.0 (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16352.0)
In the end it might be better to use a dll to modify memory addresses like you suggest. Looking at all this though, I have a feeling that maybe if the Junction Opcode for the Dream World switch was removed and Laguna and co were added to the party as regular members, then removed at each dream's end, maybe Edea's junctions wouldn't get removed. Maybe I'm completely wrong but it seems to me like that particular opcode is directly tied to the removal of GFs... I honestly don't know if this method would be easier or harder, I've never tried modifying FF8's scripts before.
Or you could just have Edea share Carbuncle with Rinoa since they are never in the same party together, but it would be a shame for Edea not to have her own abilities.
Yeah, I definitely agree with the Junction Opcode being the culprit, no idea what could be done with it either.
The only other idea I have would be to obtain Eden normally when Edea joins, like with regular characters. Then when she leaves the party, you'd need to add a script to remove Eden from the available GFs as well. Unfortunately I don't know if this is possible with just the field scripts, but it would be the cleanest solution. I don't have much hope for it working to be honest.
Something worth noting is that the Hyne save editor is capable of disabling GFs you have. You can open up a save, uncheck the "Available" box for a GF you want to remove, and the GF will disappear from the menu (although it will stay junctioned to a character if they have it on, so to remove it fully, you need to unjunction them first). That gives some hope that there should be a memory address to turn Eden off from the available GFs when it's time, however the problem would be to implement this in a way where it happens only when Edea leaves. I don't know if hext would be capable of injecting a change to the memory address at a specific point in the game. You'd probably still need a dll or Cheat Engine. :\
Plus this would all come with a compromise: Edea's GF showing up in the menu while Seifer's doesn't would be inconsistent. :\
So I may have made some progress on this.Nice work! I hope the testing turns up nothing. From the sound of it it shouldn't break anything, but you never know. If it all works out, I'll be looking forward to 1.3 with great anticipation. Glad I could help a little bit!
I tried using CE to see what addresses wrote to Edea's GF value, but it didn't pick up anything...until I upgraded to a more recent version of the program, which picked up something; I used the "Replace with code that does nothing" option on it and everything seems to be as I want it--Edea's GF value didn't change, the party still switches, they still get Squall's group's GFs and magic. It'll require testing to make sure that it doesn't break anything, but maybe I'll be able to reintroduce Edea in 1.3. Thanks for getting me to look into this again. ;D
(I feel a little dumb now, though. Like "Wow, it was that easy all this time?" lol.)
Nice work! I hope the testing turns up nothing. From the sound of it it shouldn't break anything, but you never know. If it all works out, I'll be looking forward to 1.3 with great anticipation. Glad I could help a little bit!
And don't feel dumb about it! From what tech experience I have, I can attest that this happens. Sometimes you'll find a simple solution that will have you facepalming and wondering how you didn't think of it before. :D
I've tested out the fix on the transitions to the first two Laguna dreams and everything seems to be in order. I need to test it out more thoroughly, though. If you'd like to try it out in your playthrough, you can use Hyne to equip Edea with Eden and swap these files in: https://mega.nz/file/wfQmHJrB#zjJ5wIwgFrafwrFT_FcKY5jmeclOwHvk2yBVXb0jRmI I went ahead and gave Edea some stat buffs since she felt too weak in some respects, and it also includes various other stat changes as well, including faster Vit growth for Squall--just keep in mind that I haven't tested them out yet beyond using Doomtrain's damage calculation tools.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.
EDIT: Scratch that. I completely forgot that the field files will have to be changed for Edea too. If you want to try it out, let me know and I'll send a new field archive.
At least I know now, lol.
I'm not sure when 1.3 will release; From before 1.1 up to 1.2's release I spent several weeks working on the mod a ton and decided to take a short break from doing any "heavy" work afterward. I'm also trying to make one new content addition in each major update and I haven't yet decided which of my planned sidequests I'll work on.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Ah, fair enough. Shame magic damage is so wonky.
Hey man, do you have any hope of ever porting this to the remaster version?
Asking for a guy on Reddit.
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 (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!
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.
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.
Been just over a year since i finished my first playthough of this, and now seeing your 1.4 version out I am going to be starting another playthough in the next couple of days so we can see how far its come.
Hey there! Been enjoying this, I love the ideas behind the modifications. I always wanted to play a mod that tried to tackle the idea of limiting GFs and their abilities a lot more. It's been fun.
However, I'm at Dollet right after beating Elvoret, and the game softlocks when the fight battle against X-ATM begins. I'm not able to take a screenshot, but it appears as it is crashing right when X-ATM is supposed to appear in-battle.
I disabled all of tonberry's mods, and it's definitely Crystal acting weird.
Am I missing something? Has this happened to anyone?
Playing Steam edition (not remastered). Patched 1.4.7 from OP.
Steam overlay is disabled.
It's been a while since I was last here. Unfortunately I'm very busy these days so I ended up not playing much more of the mod. I was surprised to see so many updates!
Anyway, since it seems like I might not finish the game any time soon, I decided to do the write up I mentioned way back on my experience with the characters. Keep in mind I'm only at the Lunar Base so there are abilities and limits I haven't unlocked yet. Also keep in mind, this is all pre-1.3, so some of these may not be relevant.
Squall: Squall's good the way he is. He is very tanky and can deal very good physical damage, especially with Darkside. He might seems a bit weak early on, but once he gets towards LV 20, and gets abilities like Darkside, he really starts to pick up the slack. Only thing I might suggest as a change would be to give him Cura and maybe Life as additional spells. Cura would definitely give his white magic a bit more longevity and Paladins tend to have it in FF.
Zell: Probably one of, if not the best party member. His high HP offsets his relatively weak defenses, his damage is really high and doesn't cost HP or spells. If I had trouble with a boss, swapping in Zell usually helped turned things around. He's really good, almost a bit too good when compared to the rest of the characters in terms of damage and survivability.
Selphie: Like Zell, she is really good. She is squishy but her damage output makes up for it. Selphie's straightforward like Zell, so there isn't much to say about her. She's easy to use, her spell selection is great, I really don't have any complaints. This is true even before unlocking her Double ability, and after she gets even better.
Rinoa: Rinoa functions perfectly well as a white mage and offensively Dia and Water get her by for the most part. Angelo's limits are strong too so that also helps. Nothing much to say about her stat-wise or anything, she is the necessary white mage and fulfills that role just fine.
Quistis: Until she gets Aura, Quistis is pretty limited. It doesn't help that her physical damage isn't very good and Draw-casting is unreliable. Once she gets Aura and a few limits, she gets better but honestly, she still isn't very good. Even though her stats are balanced, she just doesn't do enough damage or have much in the way of utility. Apart from stealing, she's really only good for dealing damage with limits. While her limit selection is technically versatile, acquiring her limits takes more effort than those of any other character, and even then her damage with them isn't up to snuff. Sure she has various elemental attacks, but not only do you have to find them first, but once you do, characters like Selphie and Rinoa still outdamage her with their magic very noticeably. I had Selphie deal twice as much damage as Quistis constantly, if not more.
Plus given that you have to seek her limits out, the few defensive spells Quistis has that could give her some versatility aren't obtainable until much later. I'm at the Lunar Base and she still doesn't have Mighty Guard or White Wind for example, both of which would have been very useful in any boss battle up until now. I think she should get these particular limits much earlier to give her some much needed defensive capabilities that would make her uniquely useful. Additionally, the damage of her limits could use a boost.
Honestly, if not for her ability to steal, Quistis would have been a permanent bench-warmer for me because she was always a liability for bosses. She couldn't deal much damage, she couldn't take damage for long, she just isn't very good. I was struggling against Seifer in Galbadia Garden with Rinoa and Quistis in my party, once I switched her out for Zell, I won the fight on my first try.
Irvine: Irvine's too gimmicky for his own good. His damage early on is really low and he isn't particularly good for anything until he gets Aura like Quistis. Later on he starts catching up, his damage gets better and his speed and critical rate start showing more potential. However I found him to be dead weight up until that point, mostly had him using healing items. I understand the idea behind the different guns but I'm honestly not a fan of that mechanic all, I'd prefer if he just had normal weapons like everyone. Overall, Irvine has the same problem that gimmicky characters like Gau from FF6 do: he can be useful if you put in the effort but when most other characters are easy to use, it makes him look worse.
I have a big suggestion for Irvine: turn him into a Red Mage. Give him Magic (and Draw?) and a spell list containing most of the basic and second level spells, plus some support ones. I was thinking Scan, Cure, Cura, Esuna, Haste, Slow, Fire, Fira, Thunder, Thundara, Blizzard, Blizzara, Water, Aero as must have spells for him, plus anything else you think is appropriate, like status-effect spells. Maybe Life?
Irvine has a pretty good magic stat and I decided to use him as a Red Mage, and it made him so much more useful. He isn't as good as the pure mages, but he's good enough at both offense and healing that he can be useful up until high-level spells start rolling in. Having both black and white magic as well makes him uniquely versatile early on, and is a great choice for elemental magic if you can't use Selphie or as a second healer if you don't want to use Rinoa. This is really good in particular during the prison and missile base sections where the party gets split up, having a second healer is super useful.
This would also help his late-bloomer stats. Early on he's not that fast or strong physically, but he has good magic, so he'd mostly be sticking to using spells to offset this. Toward the later parts of the game, as his magic starts lagging behind, his physical damage starts catching up and he gets more types of ammo, you'd start using his physical attacks and limit more. His spells would no longer be as useful later, since Thundaras can't keep up with Thundagas or high-end spells, but by then, he'd grow into the physical attacker he is. Sinceh he'd have Cura, he'd still be a decent secondary healer as well in a pinch.
Basically he'd be the classic Red Mage, a class that is really useful early on but not so good later, and by the endgame, he'd grow into a fast, high-critical rate Gunner, while still retaining his spells for emergencies if wanted. I think this would be better than he is now, plus Irvine always struck me as a hybrid character, who'd have a class that combines attacks and magic, not really sure why. Also, his GF should learn Call Shop to make buying ammo easier. I think Cerberus only has Junk Shop, which is less useful in my opinion.
Well, that's all. I hope it will be useful. I'll still be keeping an eye on the mod in the future, although I'm not sure when I'll actually have the time to continue playing properly. :C
With that said, I think you have a point about her early game being weak, and it doesn't help that she's out of the party for a significant portion of Disc 1. I think I'll bring her early Str/Vit up some. One question though: when did you make her second weapon? It's pretty easy to make as early as post-Dollet if you can get the Anacondaurs to drop Venom Fangs, and if not then, then after leaving Timber.I got it after Timber, while wandering around the world map, so pretty soon. Maybe I'm selling her short, but her damage seemed low to me. I'd give examples but I haven't played in a while so I don't want to state something that I might be misremembering.
I got it after Timber, while wandering around the world map, so pretty soon. Maybe I'm selling her short, but her damage seemed low to me. I'd give examples but I haven't played in a while so I don't want to state something that I might be misremembering.
I had one more idea on how Quistis could be improved a while ago, but that would require too much work probably. The idea was to put a bigger emphasis on refining magic by getting some refinement abilities from the start and having shops sell items that refine into magic. This could be the main way of getting magic for all casters, except for Quistis who would be the only character who can draw. So while everyone needs to refine magic, Quistis could draw it from enemies. She would also get the Magic command and she'd be allowed to use any spells she draws, however she could not refine magic like everyone else as a trade-off.
So basically, Selphie would refine black magic, Rinoa white magic, Quistis would not be allowed to refine anything but she'd be able to draw and use any spells gotten from enemies. However, I realize this would require further complicated rules and it's not worth it.
Anyway, I'll see how Quistis compares once I get Shockwave Pulsar, that is sure to make a difference!
I'm doing the aberrant monsters side quest and have obtained all four keys.
When I get about halfway through the 3nd screen of the area that you're meant to go once you have all 4 keys the game crashes with an "Unknown exception has occurred" error message.
I am really enjoying your mod alot
keep up the great work on it
I found some missing information on your ff8 Crystal mod, for the final fantasy 8 pc steam 2013 version
the starfall item on your mod does the meto move insted of making the party members invisiable
I am at the end of disk 2 sefier boss battle on your ff8 pc steam 2013 version, your mod softlocked my game twice today at that boss battle
can you take a look to see if there are any errors on that boss battle please
Hey there,
i am currently playing through the mod and I've been enjoying it so far :D
Sadly i am unable to continue. I am currently in the second laguna dream and everytime I try to defeat the onslaught of enemies at the cliff (specifically 2 elite Esthat-Soldiers and one Elastoid i think) it crashes the game.
I'm glad you've been enjoying the mod :) Thanks for letting me know. Replace your battle files with these: https://www.mediafire.com/file/v5c1lbxwvj92ws8/battle_1-19-22_%2528all_versions%2529.7z/fileThank you so much for the quick answer, it works fine now :)
It includes files for all versions of the mod.
Whether the game would crash upon killing the Elastoid was inconsistent - I've definitely played through that part without issue and I know others have too - and I couldn't find any problems with the battle-specific scripting for either enemy. Hell, Elastoid's death AI only changes a variable and forces it to die. I could only conclude that the enemy formation itself was the issue, so I replaced the Elastoid with another Eliminator and slightly lowered the odds that they'll use Boomerang Sword.
I'll release a proper update later.
I have encountered another error in my playthrough. Im currently in CD3 and trying to get into Esthar, right before the transition to the 5th Laguna Dream the game crashes everytime. I hope you can find a quick solution to that :D
Sorry for the wait. I'm not sure what's going on - even reverting the script to its vanilla behavior still causes a crash when it transitions to the Junction screen. For now, I changed the type of Junction used. You can use these field files to fix it (they're for the 2013 version - doesn't seem to happen in Remastered).
I'll release a proper update later.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/udrbiu9cbedc2ee/field.7z/file
Thank you for this fix! Definitely love the mod! I found another bug or maybe its just for me butSpoiler: show
Hey man, I hope you are doing good.
Im playing your mod on switch and oh boy – this is so wholesome! I always thought that ff8 is not very mod-friendly game and the best you could do is to edit some stats and I could never imagine that you could actually add some new content to the game.
Playing the game back in my young days I remember we had this crazy legend going around that you could get back to Dollet tower and re-fight the stronger version of that spider-robot, you needed a special key-card or something lol. And I almost s**t my pants when you actually added that opportunity to the game. The Knight Initiation scene/fight is also very cool; it fits the story so well.
This got me wondering how far you can actually push this game – is it possible to add completely new content to the game?
Eithwer way, I just wanted to say big thanks to you, I really enjoy your mod.
Now the issue I have – Im on a disk 3 and trying to defeat 12 enemies in Esthar but when I get the ‘Magic Summon’ after normal enemy is defeated my game freezes (Im on Nintendo switch). While I know I still can continue, but I also want to get all the possible content there is. Is there any way you can help me?
Thanks for getting back.
I tried all the different enemies in Eshtar – imps, iron giants, tauramas and those flying magical pancakes (don’t remember the name), solo enemies and different combos – as soon as they are defeated and ‘Magic Summon’ is triggered – game crashes. I tried different areas too.
Sure, here’s the link for save file:
https://ufile.io/bmwiru21
Whenever you have a minute. Thanks again! 8)
It worked, thanks a million! I will keep you posted if I'll find anything else. Thanks again. 8)
EDIT/UPDATE:
Hey, found another issue – this time it is the Sorceress Memorial fight – game crashes after I defeat 5th or 6th sorcerer and ‘Magic Summon’ is triggered.
Thanks, it works now! Im on disk 3 now and I collected all the key/defeated all the quest monsters. Your document says that I need to buy an item in secret shop on disk 4 in order to fight the secret boss, but when I went to Trabia Canyon (still disk 3) I got a message that I’ve collected all the keys and then got attacked by super strong Geezard who killed me in like 4 turns lol :?. I’ve never found any info on this in your text document so my question is – is this the secret boss from secret shop or this is a different boss? Thanks.