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3276

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98-Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R03b)

« on: 2015-05-20 12:16:07 »

Ah, thanks for that link; but what I meant was an English translation of the original Spanish localisation (which likely doesn't exist). I was planning to play Reunion next, in any case.

3277

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-20 12:05:14 »

Hi Sega Chief.

I've just installed the new patches, excellent mod so far, but it seems there's a bug on Cloud's flashback.

Sephiroth's ATB gauge just keep's recharging over and over again, you can't select commands or do anything (when you fight against the Dragon).

I forgot to mention that; some kind of odd bug has turned up there very recently that's not proving easy to identify or fix. The flashback should progress even if you lose that battle, though. Hopefully I can work something out with it, I'm just a bit baffled with it at the moment. I had a bit of trouble with the kernel recently, some compression was corrupting a lot of the text. As a result, Mythril Clip was renamed to Red Clip due to it bugging out when it's called Mythril Clip for some reason (I think, space-wise, it's been pushed past its limits which might explain the bugged Sephiroth AI; I need to do a test and remove the other character AI I've added to see if that's the issue).

Hey SegaChief!  About Yuffie;

What the point with Yuffie's Affection value (usually 30+ in original after recruiting) for the Date Event?
Maybe I'm missing it, but would be nice to let the player choose the scene and get ride off these affection values, don't know.

What did you change about her level's recruitment? Same as original (she got level/stats from the enemy)?

That's probably only me but I don't really like the 5vs1, she has no chance. Why not just make Nanaki mandatory for this fight?
(EDIT: another random idea : make that only Nanaki caught up Yuffie so it 'll turn into 1vs1 and then Cloud&Cie comes after the fight)

Also since she's mandatory, if you remove the extra character and then the other Mystery Ninja you can gain some place in your scene.bin .

She basically just needs to have more than the others. However, each character starts out with a pre-determined value. Aeris starts with 50, Tifa with 30, Yuffie with 10, and Barret with a paltry 5. In the past I considered putting all these values at 0, would make getting the 'rare' dates a lot easier.

She joins at Lv.17, which is roughly around where players will be in most cases after leaving Midgar. She also gains the same bonuses to the affection value that she originally got when you selected the correct answers to recruit her in the default game. Her stats are different like every other NT character; she's got sky-high DEX and decent STR and MAG, but her defensive stats + HP/MP are quite bad; she's a glass cannon, basically.

As for the 5v1, it's not a guaranteed win; you still need to approach it with some kind of caution because of her high damage output. But you also need to be aggressive because she'll use Warp Bomb to eliminate a party member at the end of her AI cycle, and if this happens twice then you'll be in a bit of trouble. I had actually considered a 1v1 with Red instead (to distance it from Cloudiar's event a little) but I'm not a big fan of solo fights so I just went with the big ol' rush. There's not going to be another opportunity to have a battle with five characters in it (due to party composition starting to vary, etc) so gotta run with the ball when you've got it.

And yeah, this'll clear up a fair few spaces in the scene.bin. It's kind of a shame that nobody (to my knowledge) ever saw the secret Mystery Ninja battle against her and Mystery Sidekick but hey ho.

Edit: Annnnnd the AI for Sephiroth has mysteriously decided to start working again. And by that I mean it's decided to stop thinking that he actually has AI, which is the problem. I think the problem was the way I deleted it the last few times; might need to delete each line manually, rather than the whole group. Actually kind of disappointed now; I had this big plan to add a 'friendly' enemy Sephiroth with AI to replace him and then use the 'empty' character slot for something like, I dunno, a temporary Sweeper joining the party or something until you reach Nibelheim. I'll quickly update the scene patch, once I've checked this kernel over.

3278

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-20 01:53:57 »

I don't know Spanish; but you can sort of figure out what's happening in that scene and I think N7's custom scripts/dialogue end going out of Midgar.

As for a mandatory Vincent recruitment event, that might either not be necessary or it'll essentially be identical to the current one with the exception that you have to clear Shinra Mansion before heading for Mt. Nibel. It'll remain optional for the foreseeable future, though.

Edit: Patches are up; treat them as WIPs (or Betas) because I've still got a lot of work to do; they're only up to fix certain crucial errors.

3279

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-20 01:15:55 »

Yeah, that bugged me at the time; the pipe is kind of obstructing it a bit there. I forgot to change it though. Should be quick enough to fix though.

The fight is something I'm thinking about; a loss there would really suck. Fortunately, the scripts are segregated into different parts so it should be easy in this case to make a retry handler. I'll add it in before I generate these patches.

OVA is a mod by Cloudiar which introduces some intricate script changes and new events into the game throughout Midgar (and beyond). It also changes the game's script, but one thing to note is that Cloudiar is Spanish and there's no English translations of it that I'm aware of. It used to be hosted here, but not sure.

A bunch of these new events should be on his YT channel. A lot of these scripts were also used in the Nightmare 7 mod...but there was an argument about it between Cloudiar and Tenko which is why N7's actual flevel isn't hosted here. From what I saw in N7, the scripts are quite impressive though I don't know how much is Cloudiar, and how much is Tenko.

3280

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-20 00:55:47 »

It's called Warp Bomb in the files, my idea of a joke.

You mean that additional scene Cloudiar has with the Turks? No, that's something to do with OVA's story revision; my goal was to just produce a Yuffie recruitment event. Remember that they're two separate things; I coded mine completely from scratch.

3281

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-20 00:46:01 »

Oh, don't worry. The music in the video isn't used in-game; that's just something I added in editing because I hadn't gotten the audio for the event 100% yet.

3282

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-20 00:12:31 »

I hate to be the dissenting voice here.  While ethically I very much support the idea of optional donations for modders, at the same time it would really suck if this got a C&D out of the blue because it's shaping up to be the best FF VII mod by a long shot. You can argue that accepting donations is within legal bounds, but at the end of the day Square-Enix has the nuclear option, they have used it in the past, and if they decide to use it again you're pretty much screwed. I don't think it's right, but it is what it is.

It should be okay; it's very rare for a mod to get any kind of legal action from a company unless it's distributing actual game files.

3283

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98-Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R03b)

« on: 2015-05-20 00:00:11 »

I'd love to play a literally translated version of the Spanish game; some of the mistakes I read about were solid gold: 'Please form a political party of three'

3284

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-19 23:01:56 »

Not sure what the exact situation is with the Black Mesa mod; I think it uses Half Life 2's engine, though.

\\NT Update//

Almost finished a set of patches to correct the following problems; they're based on my current files, so some new features might be sneaking in early.

Bug-fixes
-) Sorted out the eternal rain, and replaced sunset 'time of day' with 'overcast & raining' instead; also sorted a problem where the screen tint would be lost when opening the menu/finishing a battle and added handlers to temporarily stop raining when indoors.

-) Sorted out the potential loop that can occur when using the new save option during the Highway minigame.

-) Tackling a problem with Materia in the caves triggering their battles immediately rather than when being examined (pending)

-) Sorted out Aps' HP, and various AI glitches related to the now defunct difficulty modes up to the Mythril Mines (difficulty options were replaced with Original & Arrange modes; the changes made by Arrange are functioning to a limited extent within enemy AI, but consider this to be 'in development' for now).

Features
-) A new event plays in Kalm, where Yuffie will be recruited as a mandatory party member: https://youtu.be/gbMC4e8AkCc
The PHS event is no longer present; this instead plays out when leaving Midgar for the first time and forming your first party; for players 'caught in the gap', several locations including Mythril Mines will discreetly unlock the PHS command (it still needs the world map/save point to enable). Players who have already completed Kalm, or who have yet to clear the Highway minigame, before applying the patch will not be affected.

-) Weather is now toggled when resting at an Inn in certain towns. I've opted for a lighter blue hue + rain over the rather garish 'sunset' hue. This'll be used for toggling NPC scripts in towns at a later date.

-) Midgar, Kalm, and the Chocobo Ranch have been re-specced. This is part of an ongoing playthrough I'm doing to tighten the mod up again; it's went through a lot of changes, some subtle others major, since the original balancing run was done so it's high time to get it done.

-) Did some minor work on the game's dialogue and text boxes. Consider this to be in development too.

I'll have the patches ready in a couple of hours or so.

3285

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-19 20:54:36 »

What is this I've come home to; I'll pitch in too.

First of all, the Skyrim scandal was caused by free mods being placed behind a 'paywall' and Steam/Bethesda taking the lion's share of the proceedings. While it's fair that both should get some of the fee from the transaction (Steam for hosting, Bethesda because it's their IP) a lot of people felt that the modder's contribution wasn't being weighted enough. There was also a lot of other issues complicating it, such as mods that depended upon other mods to function, and the ethical questions of taking content that was previously free to access and making people pay for it all of a sudden; I think people who had downloaded the mods when they were free actually had to pay to access them again too.

Same thing is revolving around the Half Life 1 'remake', Black Mesa. That's a fan project that's available for free (or an older build of it is) but now it's being featured on the Store page of Steam with a price-tag. The key thing to remember here is that these all used COMPULSORY payments; you needed to pay money to get them, with the added problem of them being free to access in the past.

Donations are different because they're not required to access the content being offered. If the mod was being sold, as in you couldn't get access to it without giving the modder money, then there would be a legal issue because someone is making money from a company's IP without their consent. That's why the majority of mods are distributed for free for anybody who wants them. You also need to remember that donations are not lucrative at all in most cases; you'd be lucky to see even $5 a month, even with a relatively well-known project. If you look at the endorsement system on Nexus (it's basically a 'like' system where mods can get a good reputation), you'll see that there's a big discrepancy between the number of downloads and the number of 'endorsements' (where people rate the mod they downloaded and played); assuming that the majority of people won't take the step of clicking a button to say they liked a mod (Nexus often posts reminders if you have mods that you've not endorsed yet), you've got to assume that they get even less actual donations.

As far as Square Enix goes, they're quick to protect their IP from anybody looking to make money from it (that live-action web series on kickstarter and the 3D-printed models being good examples) but they (hopefully) understand that mods help to drive sales for their games. I think they hosted some Thief modding competition a few months back, which is a positive sign, and while this might be incorrect I think they used Aali's graphics driver (or a modified version of it) for the Steam release. Short of it is, so long as you're not forcing people to pay for it then it tends to be fine. That being said, if any problems arise (or if people aren't comfortable with that donate button being there on the front page of this thread) then I'll remove it.

3286

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-19 13:02:11 »

No, it should be that you examine the Materia itself as normal then the fight starts. I'd better have a look at it.

You should setup an Paypal Donation Account

Edit: I'll put a donation button thingie on the front page. If it goes awry or someone starts yelling at me then I can always take it back down again.

3287

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-19 11:41:54 »

Wait, what? The highway game repeated itself three times? I've never heard of that happening before; is this with the latest flevel patch?

I'll fix that MP issue; I changed the chocobo levels recently so they could all use Chocobuckle, but I clean forgot the lower down ones might not have enough MP.

Edit: I might have figured it out; was there a new option to save the game by pressing switch when you were on the bike tutorial/party set-up screen? Looking at it, there's a way for the game to 'loop' if the save menu is used. I missed it in testing because I saved the game and then reloaded the save to check that it was working (which had the script perform it's loop then, rather than doing it after the minigame). I'll put up a set of patches tonight, after I've got some things sorted out.

3288

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-19 10:26:53 »

Nah, I removed the level cap recently. It wasn't working very well and I found a much more discreet solution to the physical attack formula issue that occurs once you start to reach higher levels.

As far as balance goes, I won't do anything too extreme. I'm just tightening it up a bit.

3289

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-19 08:23:21 »

I'm not having Bugenhagen turn up as a ghost; Red XIII might cry.

While it would be nice to land a little closer to certain locations, it'd probably need an .exe hack of some kind. That and it'd make any chocobo below Gold kind of pointless.

I'm gonna rework the NT NPCs anyway, so no worries. That, or I'll put a big neon sign over the weapon shop guy's house saying 'HERE BE GOODIES'.

3290

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98-Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R03b)

« on: 2015-05-19 06:35:00 »

You should have changed her name to Bob; keep 'em guessing.

Edit: Christ, you're not wrong about that Aeris/Aerith thing on the neogaf thread; 9 pages in, and they're still arguing about it.

3291

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-19 06:20:19 »

Thank you for this mod!
This gave me motivation to finally buy steam version and start another playthrough of this brilliant game.
I like the mod so far, however I encountered something strange - Aps Senior HP was 12500 in-game which led to 20 minute long fight. I checked its HP on some videos of 1.3 on youtube and within Proud Clod tool, and in both cases it says 2250. I am using 1.3 with hotfixes. Dunno what to make out of this and kinda worried that this HP error gonna prevail on following bosses =/

Yeah, I noticed that recently myself. I've no idea how he got that ridiculously high HP value into his AI because I haven't tweaked it in a long time; only Aps appears to be affected from what I've seen so far (his stats, and some other enemies, are set through AI because he appears as the 8th battle in the pre-Bronco Battle Square, and enemies in Battle Square were getting a stat boost which was too much considering the mod's tweaked enemy strength).

I should probably upload a scene patch early; I've only done up to Kalm in the re-balance playthrough I'm currently doing but 12000 is too much to leave it as it is.

I really need to say your mod is epic. I spend around 60hours on it
I will try to be active to report any bugs I can catch.

First one i got is that after the hot fixes (10th-16th may) it rains everywhere for me even inside buildings.

Glad you're enjoying it, but it seems I've made a mistake with rain; that's handled by a variable switch so if I've enabled it somewhere but not disabled it for indoors, it'll just keep raining. Think of it as your own personal raincloud following you about (I'll get that fixed up pronto).

3292

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-18 20:33:08 »

Two more requests of sorts.

-) Overworld enemies leveling with you

-) Better ‘Midgar key’ drop

In fact if the kalm traveler gives you the Midgar key for the lunar harp, it might make more sense, as it’s something he may genuinely have.
or at least find some better way to give the player the Midgar key, as the original game doesn’t make it clear where to go to get it.

I had an experimental AI that boosted enemies after a certain point, but I didn't really see many enemies being worth fighting again. I think Corel is one of the few places where you need to back-track through but it's only something like 2-3 battles if you rush through. The enemies using the AI for a boost felt lop-sided, and weren't much challenge anyway.

What you need to remember is that a lot of people are very familiar with this game. Moving something from it's established location tends to raise questions (a common question I get is usually about the location of 'X' materia/item, etc. because a lot of those locations were altered). There is a process for finding that key; in the default game (and NT because it's unchanged) you 'discover' the key by trying to re-enter Midgar on foot, finding the new NPC there, working out that he dropped his key in Bone Village, and then using the surveyors there to eventually find it.

Same thing with the Kalm Traveler, lot of players know that when they get the Earth Harp and the Desert Rose they're to take these items to him to trade for Master Materia and a Gold Chocobo; NT mixes up the rewards a bit, keeping that sidequest mostly intact because it doesn't need any in-game player direction (for the most part). Moving the places where you turn these items in would need some kind of event that points players to these locations. NT has something like that for it's content with the NPC on the Highwind's bridge but it's not very efficient.

Trading in old Key Items for other ones might work, but it depends on the triggers for certain events. If the Sleeping Forest checks for that Harp in your inventory whenever you first enter it, then it needs to stay in the Inventory. You can't have multiple key items either, because they're handled by variable switches not an actual item. What I can do is overhaul the way the game directs the player to extra content, and I'll have it maybe point to pre-existing stuff as well just to cover all the bases.

As for HP+ and MP+, MP+ should be in the game already; it's on one of the branching paths in the Crater (left-down I think). HP+ and the others could be made into special one-time drops now that I know how to adjust the bonuses they give and make them 1-star, etc. but I'd like to maybe reserve those for NG+.

Edit: The Weapon Shop is basically this one, the blue house near Gongaga: http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/final-fantasy-vii/d/db/Seller.jpg

3293

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-18 19:00:45 »

Ruby and Emerald have actually been down-tuned in this mod, and while they're tougher than quite a few of the enemies in this mod they're not the toughest on the roster. The items they drop, Earth Harp and Desert Rose, are given to the old man in Kalm like before but instead of getting Master Materia and a Gold Chocobo you instead get two very tough fights (and a third for the Guidebook, which used to get you Underwater Materia). Two of these fights, the Guidebook and the Desert Rose, use a rare Enemy Skill at the end when they're defeated. The Earth Harp fight is for getting an item needed for Red XIII's ultimate weapon (1.3 only, though the item can still be obtained).

3294

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-18 16:31:29 »

Yeah, the Scorp battle's music was a bit screwed up due to the sound effects that play just prior to it. I think I sorted it out for 1.3 (this is one of those times I regret not keeping a change-log). There should be a new NPC near the entrance of North Corel who directs the player up to the Reactor, he only appears once the content is unlocked.

As for importing models, I dunno. If Kimera can read and work with FF8 model parts like FF7 ones then maybe? It'd depend on whether the textures used by FF8 enemy models can be converted into ones usable by FF7, as FF8 models are mostly textured while FF7 ones are shaded polygons and very few textures.

3295

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-18 14:44:49 »

Well, the first thing is to unlock it all by reaching the bottom of the North Crater and then returning (the last place just before the point of no return, when the party meets up again: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/w2Ju3zJfk8E/maxresdefault.jpg

A phone-call from the Highwind confirms that the new content is unlocked; it's an old trigger I'm going to revise soon. As for Dio, 1.2 doesn't have the Dark Cave sidequest which is why he has that dialogue.

3296

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-17 23:02:31 »

Yeah, I probably should. I thought the new NPC on the Highwind's deck mentioned or alluded to it in some way, but I just checked and he's about as vague as it's possible to be. I'll add script, etc.

3297

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-17 19:00:22 »

Board the Highwind and head for the Operations Room; a new NPC is opposite the original one. Talk to this guy and change your party leader to Tifa. Now head for Nibelheim and play the piano as normal; she'll find the letter from Zangan like in the default game, but some additional text is here directing the player to the Nibelheim Reactor. Head up there (Tifa must still be party leader) and go inside. A new boss is waiting in front of the Jenova door. Kill that guy for the Limit Break.

3298

General Discussion / Re: FF7 Always start with full limit break bar??

« on: 2015-05-17 16:29:47 »

Just click on the empty script and hit Enter, that should open a new script starting with 73 (which is Script End); you can then add script to it by typing in the numbers.

3299

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-17 16:28:36 »

Dual is paired with another status called 'Dual-Drain', which doesn't appear in a character's listed status ailments in-battle. My understanding of it is that if you inflict Dual-Drain without the Dual status, the game crashes so they need to be inflicted together. Dual-Drain has the opposite effect to Regen, and is only seen once in the default game when fighting with Bottomswell; specifically when he casts Waterpolo on someone.

3300

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.3)

« on: 2015-05-17 09:18:11 »

Poisona is still kicking around on 1.2; it heals Dual in addition to Poison, but in the end it was too situational, didn't have a unique animation, and was basically out of the running when Antidotes were around (which are one of the cheapest items at 80gil). Osmose, it's replacement, is much handier and solved a problem where players might end up without any Ethers early-game.

Debarrier could be merged into Dispel, but it's not on the cards just now. If I was adding another new spell in, though, then it'd be on the list of candidates.

I'm actually considering returning Cure back to normal. People were saying that Cure spells were useless whenever MBarrier was up, but to be honest I haven't found that complaint to hold water. I also don't like using a fixed formula for Cure which 1.3 currently does (it was the only way I could find to make it ignore MBarrier); makes it basically an item that needs MP to use, and isn't subject to split penalties either.