Author Topic: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2.3 & v1.1b)  (Read 328887 times)

Callisto

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #500 on: 2020-06-02 18:30:24 »
Acquiring Tonberry is the same as in the base game, with one notable exception: Only 8 Tonberries need to be killed to make the Tonberry King appear, so make sure to save the game after killing the 7th one to avoid being ambushed.

levantine

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #501 on: 2020-06-03 11:28:51 »
@Tempest : see my poste at the page 20, you'll see that the BGH251F2 is not as hard as you think in the Lionheart mod ;)

Rikku

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #502 on: 2020-06-03 16:20:33 »
Hi everyone !!

I´m playing the lionheart mode of the mod and is really awesome, a bit more challenger the the standard version but not a imposible to beat.

I have some questions

1.- Is there a way to use a full controller with the steam version or it is impossible ?
2º.- What are the main differences between the steam version and the remaster version ? I considered buying the remastered version but i don´t know, if the differences aren´t so big i will continue with the 2013 version.
3º.- In the remaster, It is possible to use a way to use a magic without a number down, i mean, a free magic cast way like in the 2013 version can ?

Thank you !!

Tempest

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #503 on: 2020-06-03 17:40:50 »
@Levantine I kinda figured that out. He's down now his opening damage is pretty stupid, if you miss a turn he can kill you. I think it's the mini battle before hand and making sure everyone is almost 100% going in because you can't save before it. I just killed Raijin and Fujin that was another hard boss battle also. I'm getting some good mileage out of using Siren's Heal ability, it's pretty nifty for random Encounter's and some AOE cleave damage boss fights.

Who play's the Kiros card ? I've been searching around Winhill for ages and i don't even know which building the Inn is ? I think i might have messed this quest up because i gave the Queen Quezacotl in Dollet...
« Last Edit: 2020-06-03 18:46:11 by Tempest »

Tempest

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #504 on: 2020-06-04 18:13:29 »
One thing i also don't understand. I have all the materials for Irvine's Ultimate Weapon yet i can't make it in the Junk shop ? What exactly am i missing here ?

Callisto

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #505 on: 2020-06-05 00:32:47 »
@Rikku: It's possible to use pretty much use any controller with the 2013 version. By default, there are no button icons shown in the game at all, but there is a button mod by Shunsq which is highly recommended to solve this issue.

The differences between 2013 Steam and Remastered are listed here. Note that "Updated animation effects in spells and command actions" is a bit misleading; there aren't any new effects in Remastered at all, some of them just look less broken compared to 2013 version (a good example would be Resonance and Sonic Wave enemy attacks). Also, a speed-up option is already present in 2013, and loading times aren't "significantly" faster in Remastered at all (only compared to original PS1 version). The other points in that list are correct though.

Infinite magic should be possible in Remastered as well, but I guess no one has looked for its address in the game code yet.


@Tempest: The inn is located at the southern exit of the village. Head to the counter to make a previously unseen NPC appear in the room, and select "No" when being asked about staying at the inn. You can then challenge this person to a card game to win the Kiros card.

As for Irvine's Ultimate Weapon, I have checked it myself and had no problems getting it. Are you sure you have all the required items? In the mod, it's Dino Bone x2, Shaman Stone x1, Star Fragment x2 and Screw x18.
« Last Edit: 2020-06-05 02:02:19 by Callisto »

Tempest

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #506 on: 2020-06-05 10:06:02 »
@Tempest: The inn is located at the southern exit of the village. Head to the counter to make a previously unseen NPC appear in the room, and select "No" when being asked about staying at the inn. You can then challenge this person to a card game to win the Kiros card.

As for Irvine's Ultimate Weapon, I have checked it myself and had no problems getting it. Are you sure you have all the required items? In the mod, it's Dino Bone x2, Shaman Stone x1, Star Fragment x2 and Screw x18.
Ah so the materials are different. I assumed it was a Moon Stone instead of a Shaman Stone, i've used Irvine quite a bit in other versions.

I think i may have screwed up the quest i gave Minimog to the QOC in Balamb not realizing about the changes. she then moved to Dollet, i went back there and gave her Quezacotll. I have since checked the place in Winhill and no NPC is appearing there. The Kiros Card has been changed right because i would imagine that 3 Auto-Hastes would be too big too pass up on before travelling to Esthar in Lionheart mode. Thanks for the info !
« Last Edit: 2020-06-05 10:16:40 by Tempest »

aegisjester

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #507 on: 2020-06-07 15:54:22 »
One last "ask" - let me take squall out of the battle party.

ClownOfSorrows

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #508 on: 2020-06-07 16:58:14 »
Is the 2013 version supposed to require access?

aegisjester

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #509 on: 2020-06-08 23:22:41 »
I am a stickler for these things, but can you put a changelog list in the OP, along with version differences between generic and "Lionheart Mode"? I don't know 100% for sure I'm in lionheart and its killing me.

I've re-read through the posts a couple times now, and I'd say a lot of people are just looking for a "bigger challenge" with the way they like to play. I design games from the ground up, and I'd say this re-balancing is 100% doing the job - all the other stuff is just icing on the cake.

My previous grievance against the cards still stands, however. You should be ashamed.

Callisto

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #510 on: 2020-06-09 05:34:55 »
@Tempest: All rare cards that need to be lost to the Queen of Cards can be reclaimed from her son who lives in a house near the pub, while all other cards lost to the Queen will be replayed by herself. So it's actually not possible to mess up with this quest to an extent where it can no longer completed.

The new Kiros card holder in Winhill inn even appears if you haven't lost the Quezacotl card to the Queen of Cards yet. She should always show up after ringing the bell on the counter to the far left of the room. The Kiros card refines into 3 Aegis Amulets in this mod, which can be used to make your physically fragile party members dodge physical attacks more often.


@ClownofSorrows: I'm not sure what access you're referring to. More information would help.


@aegisjester: Unfortunately, many scenes throughout the game rely on Squall being in the active party, so excluding him will result in glitches or make the game crash - at least without rewriting most fields from scratch. Could do it for disc 4 perhaps, as there's not much going on story-wise, but even that would mean quite a bit of work, as Squall is supposed to be the party leader in Chocobo Forests, for example.

I'll put a changelog that lists standard and hard mode differences to the OP shortly (a quick summary can already be viewed some posts back).

As for Card Mod results, I'm ok with most of them as they currently are. If you play Triple Triad regularly, you can still get many cards that grant access to spells and items that aren't available through other means yet. Even if it takes time to get full stocks for junctioning, getting a few for casting in battle alone is already worth it, as you said (the possibility of reliably getting Fish Fins from Fastitocalons at the beaches near Dollet was a mistake that will be corrected soon; the first opportunity to get them regularly was supposed to be at the beaches near Deling City instead).

I know that seeing something like Dino Bone having become a LV 7 boss card result can be irritating at first, but the value of items like these is usually completely different in this mod (in comparison to the base game), as most spells do much more damage or have useful supportive capabilities that are rather irrelevant in the base game (Double, Full-life etc).

Besides that, there are just too many cards in the game to give every single one a decent result if you want to keep things balanced and accessible right after the start of the game. An alternative would be moving the Card Mod Ability to the end-game so every single card mods into something really useful, but that's not very desirable, is it?
« Last Edit: 2020-06-09 05:59:19 by Callisto »

ClownOfSorrows

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #511 on: 2020-06-09 12:06:59 »
@Callisto: I'm not able to access the google drives to download the 2013 version.

Callisto

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #512 on: 2020-06-09 17:06:08 »
Oh, I see. That was not intentional, sorry. For some reason, the latest DL link wasn't set to be available to everyone before. Anyway, I removed the restriction so you should be able to download now.

Nikito

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #513 on: 2020-06-11 20:15:52 »
Hey I played this mod a while ago and really enjoyed it. I'm up for another playthrough using this mod but wanted to know if its possible to play it on the remastered version or does it have to be on the old version? Thanks.
« Last Edit: 2020-06-11 20:19:09 by Nikito »

Callisto

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #514 on: 2020-06-12 04:24:40 »
Hey Nikito, and welcome back. The Remastered version is fully playable, but some of the 2013 version's features are currently missing, most notably the ability to draw more than 9 spells per Draw in battle and the revised Angel Wing mechanics. Check out this post for information about missing features and some compensations for them. If you are ok with that, I'd definitely give the Remastered version a go. Otherwise it's better to wait until the missing features are ported over, which shouldn't take that long anymore.

aegisjester

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #515 on: 2020-06-12 16:08:01 »
@aegisjester: Unfortunately, many scenes throughout the game rely on Squall being in the active party, so excluding him will result in glitches or make the game crash - at least without rewriting most fields from scratch. Could do it for disc 4 perhaps, as there's not much going on story-wise, but even that would mean quite a bit of work, as Squall is supposed to be the party leader in Chocobo Forests, for example.
Yea for the overworld he needs to be there, but how about JUST the battle party? In Chrono Cross, after completing the main game there was a way to swap out Serge JUST for the battles on the repeated playthroughs

ShadowCloudX

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #516 on: 2020-06-14 22:23:56 »
Hey there Callisto, I wanted to say I'm grateful you've made this mod for some of the people like myself who really don't like some of the mechanics of the original FF8 (ie. enemy level scaling) but I did have some questions:

1. Is this intentionally supposed to be hard? I am on the remaster and using the standard version of the mod and I am constantly being destroyed/2 hit by enemies.

2. Or is this mod intentionally hard at the beginning and evens out at you progress? (Granted I'm not far but X-ATM092 is super difficult, maybe I didn't level as much as I should've before the mission?)

I don't mind difficulty in mods and maybe I didn't install something right but I was under the impression this isn't an hardcore mod unless you use the Lionheart version.

Callisto

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #517 on: 2020-06-15 01:29:16 »
@aegisjester: Probably won't be easy to implement a swapping system similar to Chrono Cross for FF8, but I'll try giving the option to exclude Squall at least for specific points in the game, especially end-game.

@ShadowCloudX: I don't really know what could cause so much trouble that early in the game. The SeeD mission is balanced around being beatable without leveling up at all. Additional Stat-J Abilties (other than the ones your GF have already learned by default) are not necessary to progress either at this point.

What matters most is that all 3 characters possess basic spells. Make sure to get a good Cure stock for Selphie. It's generally helpful to make her your primary magic user and give her Quezacotl so she can make good use of her high natural Magic stat (at the beginning, Quezacotl is the only GF with the Mag-J Ability). This will help with dealing spell damage and also affects the amount of HP restored with Cure (Squall and Zell should heal with Potions at this point, as their HP restoration amount is usually below 200 when casting Cure).

X-ATM092 is weak to Thunder and should collapse after taking two Thunder spells from Selphie, until it stands up for the last time. It actually uses only one threatening attack (Ray-Bomb) which is used at regular intervals and never multiple times in a row. Its damage can be reduced with Shell which Zell came with when joining the party. The other attacks shouldn't be much of a problem but can be weakened with Protect (can be directly drawn from X-ATM092), just in case.

Other than that, are you perhaps playing with maxed out battle speed? If you do, then I would recommend setting the ATB speed back to default, as enemies will out-tempo you on higher settings because they don't need to spend time on selecting commands and targets (other than the player) - even the vanilla game becomes noticably harder with high ATB speed settings, so it's definitely not recommended for this mod, especially not for the boss fights.

ShadowCloudX

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #518 on: 2020-06-15 02:46:54 »
I know I turned up the battle speed a little but not all the way. So I'll turn that down and I think I may redownload/reinstall the mod just in case as well.

If I somehow accidentally installed the Lionheart version, would I have to start over to see the changes of the standard version?

Callisto

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #519 on: 2020-06-15 03:15:18 »
Ok, I hope reducing battle speed to default will help. 3/4 of the bar already puts you at a noticable disadvantage in terms of speed. It's nice for drawing spells from regular enemies and all, but definitely not for bosses, as said before.

Starting a new game for the Standard version settings to take effect is not necessary. Also feel free to share some damage numbers from certain enemy attacks to make sure that everything is working as intended.

aegisjester

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #520 on: 2020-06-17 04:04:18 »
just got The End twice in the same random battle. A 16-count Doom doesn't seem appropriate for what should be the ultimate finisher

Callisto

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #521 on: 2020-06-17 04:34:28 »
The End still works on all bosses except Undead though, so I would say it kind of still is her ultimate finisher. For random battles, rolling for Calamity is arguably better, as it does high damage to all enemies, ignores enemy Spirit and causes Sleep, Blind, Poison and Silence 100% if enemies are not immune. It will also appear more frequently in the next version of the mod, but will receive a level requirement to keep it out of the early game. All in all, I would say that both spells are very good, depending on the situation.

adnanj91

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #522 on: 2020-07-08 00:55:33 »
Amazing work Callisto! Is there an ETA for the removal of the draw cap in the Remaster? Any chance of getting that soon?

Callisto

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #523 on: 2020-07-09 08:16:06 »
Thanks. I hope I can port over some of the missing features the next weekend, including the Draw cap removal.

AbsoLootAaron

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2 & v1.0)
« Reply #524 on: 2020-07-21 21:24:21 »
It'd be cool if weak magic was easier/faster to draw, but for strong magic it's harder/slower to draw.
I think that'd be a nice balance.
Essentially taking more time and effort if you want the best magic in-game.
But that's just my personal preference.

Maybe create a magic tier system, where at the lowest magic level you can draw up to a max of 100, and as you go up the tier list you can only draw a certain amount. Example, for top tier magic you can only draw up to 9 or less at a time.
Maybe even lowering the chances of getting a high draw number as you go up the tier list?
This would make the earlier parts of the game quicker and less frustrating/boring, while keeping the later parts of the game more rewarding to achieve.
Capping everything at max 9 draw or at max 100 draw for ALL magic still have their own positives and "negatives".

Doing it the way i've mentioned up above would be a very nice middle ground. Taking the positives from both sides and putting them together.
Has anyone ever thought of this as well?
I feel this idea could of been overlooked. Or would it be hard to implement?! Idk lol :P

Hopefully it can come to fruition someday. I REALLY love this idea.
Even if it's just for the hard mode version or as an optional mod, i'll take anything.
« Last Edit: 2020-07-21 21:48:22 by HeavensFury »