gjoerulv's hardcore mod guides? FF VII

[EQ2Alyza]

Tifa's package (torrent download) seems to include 1.0.5 and 1.0.6, don't know which one was installed with the routine. I circumvented that problem by cheating. 

You have an older torrent. The newest one (11.24.2013) has only 1.0.6. It should install 1.0.6, but it appears it may have not 

[blaight]

I bot the tracker from your thread.first post. Guess ill just keep playing though.

Gesendet von meinem Nexus 7 mit Tapatalk

[JonJon412]

It's been awhile since I last posted, so I'll give you guys a small walk through of what has happened so far:

I took a few days to level up some hard materia like KOTR, Hades, Alexander, Ultima etc in the Cave where the Movers enemies are, those things give huge amount of AP and though they're a bit hard to come by, I exploited them while using the Scimitiar and Apocalypse to get those top materia upgraded asap!  Since I used the save point on that room, I went to fight Omega when I decided I have enough materia and enough experience to move forward. I took on Omega like 5 times and I was shamed in all of those skirmishes. I'm not 100% sure how close I was to defeat him but I believe I got to his final form and lasted a bit. Saw that I was gonna have trouble with him at the moment I went after Emerald and Ruby before I came back to him.

Emerald was up first, I fought him a couple of times but I was defeated in them all, even with the Final Attack + Revive combo it proved to be merciless bastard. Barret with his Missing Scored filled with Mastered KOTR, Hades, Alexander, Contain, Ultima and a few others helped me hit him with 30K every time I used his 4x Cut attack, having him equipped with a couple of Counter Attack materias proved to be a major damage strategy since every hit did max damage. KOTR proved to be worthless in this fight because the main reason for using it was to destroy the adds on his shoulders that took HP and MP. When I did use it the adds took 0 damage and I couldn't get it to hit over 6K so it was out of the window. What did helped me with the adds was equipping Cid with Magic Counter + Ultima! Since they were on him most of the time, I got to take them out faster than I thought. Used a couple of Hero Drinks on Barret, him using his 4x Cut attack and countering, kept Cloud healing and Cid using Ultima I was able to take him down today!  What a hard battle, but it feels so satisfying went to get me the Master stuff and I got Banish, Flash and Coin......LOL! To be honest I've never used Coin, maybe it will help me with the next ones hopefully

Ruby has always been a pain and when I fought him I forgot that I had to enter the battle with 2 dead, so he beat me and I tried again with 2 guys dead and he clawed his hands like he does. His fingers don't hit for a lot of HP and MP, but give you status like Death Sentence so I was safe because I had Cloud bringing his Enemy Skills so I could protect him with Death Force. His major attacks were the Flame one and Ruby Ray which hits for over 10K but I stuck with the same strategy I used for Emerald with Cid using Ultima every time Ruby fingered him(LOL) and this time using KOTR was useful because physical attacks weren't doing much. Barret with his heavy metal Missing Score after a couple of Hero Drinks couldn't hit him for over 3K and that discouraged me a little bit cause I knew it was gonna take a while ufff! Then something happened, this orange bastard used Quicksand and took out my 2 main attackers even though I've never seen him do that while his hands were on the sand  man was I screwed.
He left Cloud, who had no summons, no magic and his 4x Cut did 100 HP of damage, he had no counters and didn't even had the Ultima Weapon on him, stuck him in with Ragnarok instead. Then I hit him with Omnislash which did over 23K each blow!  I knew what I had to now, just keep him alive and hit him with it every chance I get. Also I decided to try Shadow Flare on him and it hit him for over 10K! I kept Cloud healing himself with the Double Item materia using X-Potions and Turbo Ethers and hitting with SF every time I could and eventually I won! 

It's been a long hard road, but now what I have left is Omega and Sephiroth, I don't know how hard those battles are going to be, but I'll give it my all cause this is a challenge I won't leave alone till I clear it, 64 hours at the moment 

[Sega Chief]

Looks like you're near the end. My advice for Omega is to pick a team and then raise their Luck and Dexterity stats to roughly 125 with sources (which are the easiest to farm for as the enemies that morph into them consistently arrive in groups) and then equip two mastered Luck & Speed Plus materia on them. That should max out their Luck and Speed for the best possible evasion and let them hit with criticals consistently. The rest I guess is up to you.

[gjoerulv]

Good job! Omega should be the hardest boss btw.

[lolmetimbers]

So this mod has essentially revamped and improved my FF7 experience by a million. No longer are bosses or enemies pushovers and the game feels much more rewarding.

Some notable fights and good experiences include:

- Being absolutely smashed by the Shinra 65th Trio until I locked my strategy down. Serious wake-up call
- Defeating Dyne with Barret at 92 hp and no mp left. If he wasn't poisoned I would have died as it was his turn to hit me again
- Defeating Midgar Zolem with Cloud taking a last hit that brought him down to 211 HP. I had casted Cura the previous turn which meant that If I didn't survive his hit it was game over. Also unlocked Beta for 2 enemy skill materias!
- Defeating a  lvl 49 Harpy and unlocking Aqualung skill with a level 24 party. Each time he casted Aqualung I would be instagibbed if I was not fully healed and had mbarrier on. Truly epic fight.
- Chocobuckle - Since lvl4 Suicide is different i had to hit a chocobo for 31/32 of it's Hp in a single attack. Took some time, tweaking and luck to find that single attack.
- Getting a chocobo can be quite the challenge as you need to kill the surrounding enemies fast. Had to use 2 limit breaks to quickly kill off mandragora who seem to be tanky as hell.

Some bad experiences:

- Being level 1 at the start just means you have to grind it a fair bit to even defeat the first boss.
- Silver chocobo stopped attacking after awhile? i wailed on it until it died.
- Conjurer and Cazodor are plain cheap and overpowered. No point even battling them if you aren't overleveled. Even with elemental armor it is a chance to get the right combo. Encountering a group of Cazodor = run for your life. They are harder and cheaper than bosses basically.
- Dependency on magic based attacks so far. Why bother with normal attacks at low levels when they do piddly damage in comparison? I hear this evens out later but I feel like I'm playing 3 mages.

[JonJon412]

Small update:

The little time I've had for the game all I've done is collect speed and luck sources from the enemies at the  crashed plane. It's a bit tedious and repetitive but I'm at it and will continue for a while

[ligic]

Is there a list with all the changes that this mod makes? I'd especially like to know if drops/steals have been changed so I don't spend time trying to get something I can't get

[JonJon412]

Is there a list with all the changes that this mod makes? I'd especially like to know if drops/steals have been changed so I don't spend time trying to get something I can't get

Not that I know of, maybe when Mr. Gjoerulv drops by he'll respond.

BTW I haven't had a chance to game that much, but the little time I get I grind for more sources, I am not done with this game yet

[Sega Chief]

Is there a list with all the changes that this mod makes? I'd especially like to know if drops/steals have been changed so I don't spend time trying to get something I can't get

I don't know if there's a list, but the item drops are definitely different. Off the top of my head, here's what you can get early on in Midgar. The number next to it is a rough idea of the drop rate; where 63 is 100%, and 2 is quite rare. Some drops are the same as in the vanilla game.

-) Sweeper: Bolt Plume (52 in Reactor, 16 in Train Graveyard
-) Grashtrike: Spider Web (2)
-) Smogger: Deadly Waste (16)
-) Special Combatant: Shrapnel (2, but a Antidote drop with a probability of 8 must fail first)
-) Sahagin: Light Curtain (16)
-) Ceaser: Lunar Curtain (16)
-) Deenglow: Antarctic Wind (8, but a drop of Graviball with a probability of 8 must fail first)
-) Cripshay: Fire Fang (16, Steal)

I think for a more complete list it'd be worth downloading NFITC1's Proud Clod tool (or the older Hojo tool) and looking at the enemy drops/steals directly. Use either program to open and view the 'scene.bin' file which will be in either the battle folder of the FF7 Data folder (for 1998) or the battle folder inside the lang-en folder of FF7 Steam's Data folder (there are two battle folders for the Steam version).

BTW I haven't had a chance to game that much, but the little time I get I grind for more sources, I am not done with this game yet

Keep at it, remember that you only need to raise Speed or Luck to 125 before two mastered Luck Plus/Speed Plus Materia can max the stat out. You can maybe use an accessory to further boost these stats for one or more characters too and cut the amount of sources needed a bit.

[NeuroSephrioth]

Is there a list with all the changes that this mod makes? I'd especially like to know if drops/steals have been changed so I don't spend time trying to get something I can't get

When you open the installer for the Hardcore Mod, there's a button for it. It's called "Info", and it displays changes and other stuff.

[JonJon412]

Gave it many tries today, I couldn't beat him, I seriously hope there isn't another form after green, because I hit it with an Omnislash with 27K each shot and he didn't die, I wonder if giving him a Vaccine will prevent his Adrenaline buff.

Fought him again, hit him with a Omnislash, Highwind and KOTS and didn't went down. He uses the Arenaline so often and the little gap when he doesn't have it he's killing my team, THEN when I decide to hit him with something he does it again

[Sega Chief]

I think Adrenaline works even if he has Resist/Vaccine, but Green is his last form. I think fighting him on Active ATB is the best way because his Peerless buff doesn't last as long (only a few turns instead of lots) and seeing as he'll use Adrenaline whenever he can, you'll want it to be wearing off as fast as possible.

Try having one person use Cover and give them two doses of Dragon Force. That way he can cover the single-target attacks and keep the other two safe. If anyone gets killed you can recover a little easier with that. Also bear in mind that there are multiple versions of his physical attacks, with some ignoring defence (it's an idea to keep Barrier up at all times if you can, and use Sadness too as it'll make a huge difference against the super-strong hits). For damage, you were probably very close to killing him with that Omnislash, Highwind, and KOTR if Omnislash hit for 27k each time. If you don't have more than two shots of KOTR to make use of, then you could try giving Cloud Fury instead of Sadness and hoping for a second Limit break; two Omnislash on top of any other damage will probably kill the guy.

[JonJon412]

I think Adrenaline works even if he has Resist/Vaccine, but Green is his last form. I think fighting him on Active ATB is the best way because his Peerless buff doesn't last as long (only a few turns instead of lots) and seeing as he'll use Adrenaline whenever he can, you'll want it to be wearing off as fast as possible.

Try having one person use Cover and give them two doses of Dragon Force. That way he can cover the single-target attacks and keep the other two safe. If anyone gets killed you can recover a little easier with that. Also bear in mind that there are multiple versions of his physical attacks, with some ignoring defence (it's an idea to keep Barrier up at all times if you can, and use Sadness too as it'll make a huge difference against the super-strong hits). For damage, you were probably very close to killing him with that Omnislash, Highwind, and KOTR if Omnislash hit for 27k each time. If you don't have more than two shots of KOTR to make use of, then you could try giving Cloud Fury instead of Sadness and hoping for a second Limit break; two Omnislash on top of any other damage will probably kill the guy.

You gave me an idea brother, it may work I will let you know

[JonJon412]

Damn man, I had one of the most epic longest lasting battles I've ever had, I hit that bastard with X2 Omnislash, 1 Highwind, one big 30K each shot with the Missing Score, and X3 KOTR, I use a Light Curtain + Megalixer combo whenever I can to keep the party up, but as deep as it goes he starts one shotting everyone, from a certain point he always hit you with 30K no matter which attack he does and no matter if you have Barrier up, damn this bastard I could have swore I had him with that last KOTR.

[Hitachis]

Hey

I really like this mod alot

keep up the great work with this mod

[Sega Chief]

Damn man, I had one of the most epic longest lasting battles I've ever had, I hit that bastard with X2 Omnislash, 1 Highwind, one big 30K each shot with the Missing Score, and X3 KOTR, I use a Light Curtain + Megalixer combo whenever I can to keep the party up, but as deep as it goes he starts one shotting everyone, from a certain point he always hit you with 30K no matter which attack he does and no matter if you have Barrier up, damn this bastard I could have swore I had him with that last KOTR.

That sounds like it should've been more than enough. KOTR does about 130,000 per cast (if it's hitting for 9999), so three of those would be 390k. Add that Missing Score shot and it's 420k. Then there's two blasts of Omnislash that are hitting for about 27k per strike? That's about 400k each time it's used (which would kill Green Omega outright, he has 800,000HP). And then the Highwind shot which hits for most likely 100k again if not more. Only thing I can think of is that KOTR is hitting for much less than 9999 or maybe the limits are weaker from a different set-up.

[JonJon412]

That sounds like it should've been more than enough. KOTR does about 130,000 per cast (if it's hitting for 9999), so three of those would be 390k. Add that Missing Score shot and it's 420k. Then there's two blasts of Omnislash that are hitting for about 27k per strike? That's about 400k each time it's used (which would kill Green Omega outright, he has 800,000HP). And then the Highwind shot which hits for most likely 100k again if not more. Only thing I can think of is that KOTR is hitting for much less than 9999 or maybe the limits are weaker from a different set-up.

KOTR hit him for 6K something, the 2nd one for 2K and the 3rd one for 4k something again, the 1st Omni for 27K and the 2nd one for 14K, 4 shots of 30K the Highwind hits him for 9K something, maybe my set up is not the greatest Sega Man

[Sega Chief]

It's not so much set-up as it is losing Hero Drink buffs when people inevitably get killed. You could maybe try getting someone's magic to 200 or so by equipping two Magic Plus, that'll let them hit fairly hard with KOTR consistently even without Hero Drinks. Might give that little extra edge.

[JonJon412]

It's not so much set-up as it is losing Hero Drink buffs when people inevitably get killed. You could maybe try getting someone's magic to 200 or so by equipping two Magic Plus, that'll let them hit fairly hard with KOTR consistently even without Hero Drinks. Might give that little extra edge.

Maybe I will try that, you gave me another idea indeed

[JonJon412]

Truth is, I cannot beat him yet, I'm using too many materia slots to replace the stats of Dexterity and Luck and I need those slots for something else, I gotta go back to Genilka and gather more sources then try it again.

[Sega Chief]

If you raise a stat to 170 then you only need one Speed/Luck Plus to max it instead of two but it's a tough grind to go back to. I think you should keep trying, you're landing heavy hits so it's a case of getting a good run where you can land just one or two more. You could always boost stats a bit using accessories like Amulet or Chocofeather; it means Omega Disaster/Nuclear Devastation is a bit riskier and you might need to use Remedies to heal the ailments it causes but it'd potentially save time.

[JonJon412]

If you raise a stat to 170 then you only need one Speed/Luck Plus to max it instead of two but it's a tough grind to go back to. I think you should keep trying, you're landing heavy hits so it's a case of getting a good run where you can land just one or two more. You could always boost stats a bit using accessories like Amulet or Chocofeather; it means Omega Disaster/Nuclear Devastation is a bit riskier and you might need to use Remedies to heal the ailments it causes but it'd potentially save time.

Thanks Sega Chief, today I tried many times without being effective, but no worries, because I don't mind grinding, specially now when I almost had him dead.

I'm not giving up on this any time soon and looking forward to playing that mod I saw you playing on youtube(you were fighting the Jenova that drops Ifrit if I'm not mistaken) whenever is it ready

[JonJon412]

BTW what do you use to record the videos you upload in youtube Sega Chief? Maybe I'll record that battle if I can.

[Sega Chief]

I use Fraps; it seems to be loss-less frame capture because if you speed up the videos to 2x and something gets hit with Slow they appear to be moving normally, which can be a bit confusing. Problem is, it's heavy on the computer and tends to be 4GB for 10 minutes of footage. I only recommend using it if the free/trial version doesn't lag your machine out; a decent processor and multiple cores is definitely what you'll need for good Fraps performance.