[FF8PC/PSX SLES-02080] Battle Hardcore Patch (2010-11-14)

[Colly]

Hi,

I made the second version of Hardcore Patch for FF8. It has 3 difficulty levels:

1. Ruby Medium
2. Ultima Hard
3. Omega Extreme

Application works on batch files, so if you use Vista or 7, you have to do it on admin account.

Links:
FF8 Hardcore Patch for PC.
FF8 Hardcore Patch for Steam.
FF8 Hardcore Patch for PSX - PPF files, only for PAL English version of the game (SLES-02080).
 

Edit: Corrected broken links.
Edit#2: Again corrected.
Edit#3: Added installer for Steam.

[Timber]

Hi Colly,

Thanks for this, would like to try it.
Could you please detail exactly what has been changed / tweaked?

[Colly]

Could you please detail exactly what has been changed / tweaked?

In order of importance:
- SPD/EVA
- SPR/VIT
- STR/MAG
- HP

On Extreme difficulty, Omega Weapon on 100 level has max possible statistics in the game.

I'm waiting for the feedback

[LandonRayW]

This morning I sat down to do something which I have been looking forward to for a good long while - playing a hard mod of FFVIII. So how was it? I'd have to say that it was quite a lot of fun...and I was killed by Ifrit. Yes, Ifrit. I was stunned, dumbfounded, I had been caught completely off guard. He said 'Impudent humans' and then (for the first time) he backed it up. And Squall died. It was sad. However, thankfully he wasn't alone for long, as Quistis soon joined him in the netherworld.

Ifrit - Round 2

This time I was prepared. This time I wasn't expecting him to be a pushover. This time I would win.
Squall died.
Right away.
Once again.
Sad.
You'd think I would have thought to bring along a phoenix down or two, but no... Anyways, picture this - Quistis, standing alone, dwarfed by the fiery demon with no hope for survival, and yet, miraculously, a mere ten minutes later the soon-to-be-not-Instructor Trepes stood victorious over the dastardly foe.

Well, anyways, I had fun. Great work!

[Doku]

Ah a new challenger for this mod! 

I'm surprised too by Ifrit , but with a simple strategy you can defeat him easily without one of your characters dies.
I made a Topic for the feedback, I will be happy to give you advice. I have some tips if you want.

I soon finished the third CD. 

[LandonRayW]

Yeah it isn't really all that tough, I was just caught off guard with Ifrit.
I've been playing the Extreme version and just finished beating diablos and I'm getting ready to head for Timber. So far it feels like regular enemies do roughly 3x the damage, which isn't a problem. Bosses are tanks. They have a lot of Vitality and Spirit, and some strong attacks. However, overall they aren't that difficult. A little preparation and a decent strategy and you should win. Granted this is in regards to the early game. I fully expect some nasty stuff to crop up later in the game. And I look forward to it.

[terrabrake]

Very interesting! I suppose that the PC version works also with non-English versions? or not?

[Vgr]

Yes, but it may provoke glitches. Colly is currently working on an adaptation for the French version (thanks to myself ) but I don't know otherwise.

[terrabrake]

I see. Well I think I'll have to try it. However I'd be glad to help in an Italian adaptation if it's needed (and if the modder is willing to do it  ) .

[MeshGearFox]

Just gave this a shot on Ultima, and got up to Ifrit.

I noticed that it has a REALLY high Spirit. To the point where magic more or less doesn't do anything. Is this something I'm going to see across the entire game, or are other bosses going to have higher-but-not-unreasonably-high Spr? What about on Ruby mode?

While I definitely like the idea of FFVIII being made harder, I'm not sure that *completely* nerfing magic is the best idea since it just induces another imbalance.

[Vgr]

Well, you have to find yourself how to fight A new version of the patch might pop out soon, but only Colly can tell when.

[random_npc]

For what I could judge, Ifrit stand apart. Other bosses early on don't have that much spirit. You must defeat him with simple attacks and renzokuken - easy enough, even with the smallest time and no leveling up - while being carefull, because one of his move can one-shot one of your character. 'item' command for both character is mandatory.

I was surprised as much as yourself, in preparation of this battle, I had gathered Blizzara I had refined from Glacial Eye cards, just to find out this was totally useless. The choice of making Ifrit immune to magic is debatable, as all the combat-text point you towards using ice-elemental attacks... in the original game this fight was kind of a tutorial to elemental weakness/resistance.

[MeshGearFox]

For what I could judge, Ifrit stand apart. Other bosses early on don't have that much spirit. You must defeat him with simple attacks and renzokuken - easy enough, even with the smallest time and no leveling up - while being carefull, because one of his move can one-shot one of your character. 'item' command for both character is mandatory.

I was surprised as much as yourself, in preparation of this battle, I had gathered Blizzara I had refined from Glacial Eye cards, just to find out this was totally useless. The choice of making Ifrit immune to magic is debatable, as all the combat-text point you towards using ice-elemental attacks... in the original game this fight was kind of a tutorial to elemental weakness/resistance.

Yeah, I noticed that too. I downpatched to the Ruby version since my initial impression was that magic was totally nerfed on the harder modes. Later bosses have been a LOT more reasonable from what I've seen. Just beat false Deling. Lost a few times because of his status attack spam and not getting Esunas off in time.

What I've noticed so far -- and I'm still on Ruby, mind -- is that GF attacks that aren't hitting a weakness do about as much damage as you'd get if you just cast the related spell element two or three times, which you could pull off during the GFs charge. GFs that ARE hitting a weakness do a lot more damage. Note that I've been boosting GFs up to about 140~ when doing this. WITHOUT the boost effect, GF attacks are total garbage, which actually makes things kind of interesting.

Also it looks like enemies do enough damage now to potentially kill your GFs, which would probably cut down on the potential for GF spam quite a bit. Same for Limit Breaks -- when your HP is low enough to get them you're really running the risk of dying.

Anyway this has definitely been interesting in the early part of the game and had made FF8 really fun for me for the first time in a long time, so thanks.

[sdahlbe]

I am having trouble getting this mod to activate...
When I play the game, the enemy HP and stats are still the same as vanilla FF8.  I followed the readme directions exactly...
 
- extracted the archive into my FF8 root folder
- Ran the FF8_BHP.exe (from the FF8/Hardcore folder)
- Allowed 'backup' and tried to apply Ultima Hard
- The patcher appears to successfully run and complete
- I using aali's 0.7.11b driver. 

I have tried re-running the patch as administrator and even resinstalling FF8 entirely, I also tried making a new game but nothing seems to work.  The enemys still have vanilla FF8 statistics and HP, and from what I've seen in screenshots they should have 10,000hp+ on Ultima.  Am I overlooking something?

[Vgr]

Don't use FF8Launcher, it's outdated.

[sdahlbe]

Thanks for the advice, I see what you mean.  I disabled FFlauncher and the files associated with it, but it didnt solve my original problem :\

[Vgr]

Post Aali's config file and APP log, I'll see.

[random_npc]

It seems that Colly's patcher fails for some reason. Not sure about that, but maybe Windows security mesures could be interfering? Did you try launching it as administrator? Is your game installed in Program Files?


on a side note : Vgr, what on earth would Aali's config and APP log have to do with his problem? Seriously.

[Vgr]

Config, I don't know (but better check anyway), but for APP it was to see which language...

Anyway, I hope he soon releases the newer version...

[sdahlbe]

@ random_npc     Yes, I have tried running the patch as admin

@ vgr   Here are the screenshots you requested after I reinstalled (including mods)

Root Folder   http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/ff8root.jpg/
Data Folder   http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/843/ff8data.jpg/
Hardcore Folder  http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/855/ff8m.jpg/

I tried testing out the HC patch with my fresh install but my problem still exists.

[Vgr]

I do not see issues here... Damn...

[random_npc]

I wonder if the patch really failed after all. Colly have released two battle hardcore patches. In the first one, HP had been raised a lot, and there is a screenshot somewhere in the forum with a bitebug level 6 with ridiculous HP ; but in the second one Colly focused mainly on some other stats, like Evasion, and the HP boost is less important. 

To be sure that the patch failed, try fighting Ifrit at the begining of the game. If all ice magic does nothing, Colly's patch did work, else - it did failed. 

[sdahlbe]

@ random_npc  It looks like your theory was correct.  I set the patch to extreme for testing purposes, and began a new game to face ifrit.  Ifrit scans with only 1447 hp at level 6 on extreme, but my blizzard spell was hitting him for 6 damage, so the patch must have applied after all.  I must admit I'm mildly disappointed having played through most of disc 1 on hard mode while limiting my magic junctions to 20 instead of 100, I found it felt just as easy as vanilla FF8.   Guess I'll boost it up to extreme, or maybe I'll dig through the forums and find the "old" version of Colly's hardcore.

Anyhow, thanks for your help random_npc and Vgr

[Vgr]

Wait. Even Ruby is getting hardcore after a while.

[MeshGearFox]

I just finished up disc 1 on Ruby. A few observations:

- Brothers was interesting. I TECHNICALLY used GF spam to beat them but I had to figure out a way to get into a position where GF spam would actually work (And even then, my initial intent was just to use GFs defensively against Mad Cow, which was pretty much 1-hit-killing at least 2/3 of my party). Took a bit to figure it out, but it was a lot of fun.

- Those dogsnake things, Seifer, and Edea were fairly easy, actually. I don't think the dogs were supposed to be hard anyway. Seifer might be improved by giving him an HP boost. Edea seemed a little susceptible to GF attacks and didn't really react or do a lot as a whole (the low reaction thing I can see as being a potentially narrative driven thing -- she doesn't see the SeeDs as a threat, and just opts to stand there and let them wail on her till she gets bored).

I will note that when I first played FFVIII back when I was... oh jesus, fourteen, I spammed GFs and got through pretty much most of the game up till Adel that way, and didn't even know how to use boost. I don't see myself being able to do that anymore.