[FF7PC-98/Steam] gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod (v1.0.7.2)

[dkma841]

If you end up attempting this, you should make a thread for it.  A lot of people would be interested if they could play gjoerulv's Hardcore Redux for psx.

Im happy enough with your mod with the psx so far

[Livesey]

If you end up attempting this, you should make a thread for it.  A lot of people would be interested if they could play gjoerulv's Hardcore Redux for psx.

As I've stated I would need to learn an awful lot about modding in order for me to participate in the pc >psx transfer and I'm willing to learn. But I honestly have no idea what I'm signing myself up for. again if anyone can point me to anything I might find helpful for learning (modding for dummies) I will greatly appreciate it.

[Slade]

Man, the Typhoon boss is irritating.  It keeps using an attack that causes Stop (and for some reason Added Effect-Time isn't helping) & Death Sentence, and another one that causes Berserk. It brings in a friend once you knock it around some, and then it starts spamming Cosmo Memory (well, the attack is actually called Forsaken Cosmos Thule). The friend ejects a party member on death, also. Rough stuff.

It can be poisoned, though, so maybe I ought to poison it and then just wall up and heal until it dies. Also, I note that Tifa's Dolphin Kick consistently does double damage to it- has that been a water-element attack this whole time without me noticing? If so, perhaps an Omnislash with Elemental-Water in my weapon is in order.

[Livesey]

I beleive Tifa's dolphin blow is a water attack yes. I will be facing typhoon boss later today so I will give you my feedback then.

[gjoerulv]

... (and for some reason Added Effect-Time isn't helping) ...

It's a paralyse attack, not stop. Your characters are paralysed if they act like they are weak (low on HP, poisoned, etc), kneeling or sitting. If they are slowed or stopped the characters don't have the same idle animation, they stand normally. It's kinda crucial to know the difference. Added effect + time obviously won't work against paralyse.  Stop stays on much longer than paralyse.

[Livesey]

So I have been farming power sources for Cloud since my last update he now has 170 strength and I have an undying hatred for unknown's. after doing this I proceeded to trying to take on Aita again and he blew me out in 3 moves. I mean that lieterally he blew my party out of battle in 3 moves...

I have to ask is there any way to prevent Aita from doing this by editing his AI? Him having the power to 3 shot any party ruins the fight by which Imean it is kind of up to him if he wins. unless your party is so strong you can kill him before he ejects you.

EDIT: Just beat Aita luckily he ejected nobody and only used Styx I just used demaga + quadra magic + dualcast and had cloud omnislash him while barret disabled.

I know I said I'l document my experience of the typhoon boss but I am having trouble.. well getting there not only do I not remember my way around the forest but I keep getting insta killed those Ni things in a scissor formation... I have yet to find there weakness and if I did find it I don't think it would help because if I get that formation I seem to have maybe 1 move with 1 person and the others dead so unless I revive - all or pheonix I get one turn.

Just managed to find the typhoon boss and got owned, it was all going well until he summoned his minion then things got ugly and they just slowly plowed me down going to attempt again soon and hopefully find a weakness I can exploit. The annoying thing about this fight is the travel time to get back to him... Stupid issue with save points.

.. Second time in this mod I just beat a powerful boss and got destroyed by a random encounter... I beat the typhoon boss after some experimentation and proceeded to trying to get the hell off of the treetops when those gi things came down and instakilled. In foresight I even equipped a mastered sneak attack with exit materia to attempt to escape (not sure if it actually works or not I may have got unlucky and been in the 20%) Now while I do love these impossible encounters as a sub boss to come back too. I hate it when they lurk in the same area as a powerful boss.

[gjoerulv]

Did you try to use a mastered enemy away materia? It should help. Also, dragon force/hero drinks are almost mandatory in the hardest boss fights.

[Livesey]

Actually I've wondered just how long it would take to master enemy away.. it seems hard to master given that it makes random battles more rare. Also the problem with the random enc isn't that They do too much damage because on encounters where it isn't a scissor attack they do alot but it's managable it's during the scissors where they hit you in the back and insta kill, dragonforce would lower the damage but on back attacks they do 30,000.

Quick question does dragonforce stack? and just how much does it reduce damage by on each stack?

[Slade]

I actually have not been using Dragon Force at all. It doesn't seem to last very long, and the time it takes to cast on everyone is time I could be using to end the fight. Maybe I'll have to rethink that once I take on the Weapons.

Also, and this may reveal me for the terrible cheater I am, but it takes about 30 seconds to master an Enemy Away materia (or any other) if you just do it with Black Chocobo.  My logic is, I have a finite amount of life to live and I know how to get them mastered- all it takes is time, not skill, so I might as well save myself the hassle.

Thanks for the info about paralyze, I completely forgot it was a separate status affliction- it's been a long time since anything hit me with it.

Edit: got past the Typhoon boss finally. It died to a tick of poison. Kinda anticlimactic. Tried the boss for KotR and damn, that thing is annoying. It doesn't have much HP, though, if the poison tick is any judge. I'm betting if I come in with a few good limit breaks and a decent sneak attack summon, I'll take it out.

[Livesey]

Does dragon force not last the entire battle?

Also I see no problem with your logic, all of my ap gained has been doubled while grinding as well as the xp so it does not take as long (kind of cheating but I prefer it over your method as I get EXP too the trade off being the grinding)

[royalmurder]

it doesn't on the vanilla psx version, but no idea if gjoerulv has edited it.

Slade, I agree with you in essence... but I'll stick to grinding away to get it mastered. the only thing I've changed with Black Chocobo is to allow Cloud in the PHS, to make Young Cloud even more epic than Sephiroth, and to make the Yuffie relationship with Cloud 255, cause I cba to figure out how to get the date with Yuffie and I want it 

oh, and if you want to master enemy-away faster, whack on 2 enemy-lure's for each enemy-away, or maybe just one. they should cancel each other out (;

[tylerkschrute]

Been having alot of fun with this mod. Pretty much at the end of the game right now. All I have left to do is fight Sephiroth. Right now I'm working on maxing stats though and finishing all the little side quests.

Emerald Weapon's revenge stamp is absurd in this mod, holy shit. Since it ignores defense it's hitting everyone for like 25k every time + almost every status in the book. If it weren't for final attack this fight would suck. Still managed to defeat him 3 times though (with black chocobo).

By the way, the battle arena... yea, it was already frustrating in the original but now it's basically impossible. I had to downgrade my scene just to finish it legit. I beat it a couple times without downgrading but it was really, really hard.

[gjoerulv]

@Livesey & Slade
Dragon force lasts until you die, just like hero drink. Not changed from vanilla. Some attacks ignore defence. This way it may seem as if it's not working. Same thing with death force, but death force can be dispelled.

The enemy lure + enemy away trick is a good way to master enemy away.

...
Also, and this may reveal me for the terrible cheater I am, but it takes about 30 seconds to master an Enemy Away materia (or any other) if you just do it with Black Chocobo.  My logic is, I have a finite amount of life to live and I know how to get them mastered- all it takes is time, not skill, so I might as well save myself the hassle...

I agree. 

@tylerkschrute
yeah... The battle arena. If you manage to beat it once with my mod, I would not consider it cheating just switching to a easier scene. As stated above: you've proven that you'll eventually get the items, all it takes is a sh*t load of time lol.

I always use several counters in the battle arena. And, of course, dragon force + death force + haste; added effect + time on the armour. It would be a good idea to stock up x-potions and turbo ethers as well. All you need is to defend and heal.
You can also try to skip the ribbon and use resist. This way you can use regen, shield and barriers as well. Having a tetra elemental equipped isn't half bad.

[Livesey]

Honestly I tried the battle arena a few times with the mod on and I was like "jeeze yeah these random encounters were hard with 3 people and now I only have one?" so I downgraded to do it too.

Off topic random question - is it possible to mod the game so you have a party in the battle arena?

Also does Dragonforce stack with itself? will 2 dragon forces make me live more than one?

[Slade]

I actually did manage to get through the battle arena once. I think I was level 60 or so. Waited till after I had Hades for Added Effect-Hades, so that I could use Mighty Guard and Regen. Put on 2 or 3 counters, kept my buffs up, and hit everyone with Bad Breath (or Frog Song if it was a single enemy) at the start of each fight. My last enemy was one of those big serpent guys that you fight down in the Gelnika- unfortunately for him, he was not immune to sleep.

Tried Mabionogion a couple of times. Killed him, felt very proud. "Death is not the end!"

...oh.

Looked it up later- apparently you have to kill him 11 times. HAHA NOPE

(Also, in the process of looking it up, I found out that that boss is named for a collection of Welsh legends- saw a couple of attack names that showed up in the list of characters. How literary.  )

[tylerkschrute]

Whoa. The dragons at Mt. Nibel have a gravity based physical attack. gjoe, was this on purpose or was it an oversight? This makes them extremely easy to kill.

Start out with sneak attack + mystify to get him berserked. Have a female character equipped with minerva bangle with about 4k or so current HP and 30k max HP, with mastered cover materia. As soon as possible, cast dragon force X2 (or 4 if you can) on the female character to make sure she can survive his other physical attack which apparently isn't gravity based. Pair a mime with command counter on female party member and have her cast ?. The minerva bangle ensures his gravity attack won't hurt the female character (I chose minerva bangle since you can't ABSORB the gravity, or it will render ? useless), and his other physical attack actually helps since it increases the effectiveness of ?. The 4k HP is important, since you will suffer about 1.5k to 2k damage or so from his physical attacks total by the end of the battle. If you have the game cursor set to memory, all you have to do is hold down X and he's dead.

[Bosque]

The Battle Arena is not impossible, but knowing how to manipulate the slots and knowing enemy weaknesses are essential to get through.

[gjoerulv]

Honestly I tried the battle arena a few times with the mod on and I was like "jeeze yeah these random encounters were hard with 3 people and now I only have one?" so I downgraded to do it too.

Off topic random question - is it possible to mod the game so you have a party in the battle arena?

Also does Dragonforce stack with itself? will 2 dragon forces make me live more than one?

Dragon force is stackable. I think max 4 times.
I believe it is possible to mod the whole party inside the battle arena. Actually, it shouldn't be too hard.

Whoa. The dragons at Mt. Nibel have a gravity based physical attack. gjoe, was this on purpose or was it an oversight? This makes them extremely easy to kill.

Mistake. I must've done that by mistake and not noticed. Damn... annoying. I also forgot to update those dragons in the materia caves. This probably means there will be a 1.0.6 fix too.

[Vgr]

Ah Gjo,
do you still want me to make an easier version?

[gjoerulv]

It's up to you. Wouldn't hurt.

[NxK]

So, are those infamous dragons generally much less threatening now or are they still as strong as they were in the original release but release their full capacity only when certain conditions are met?

[dkma841]

Ah Gjo,
do you still want me to make an easier version?

If you do make the slightly easier version can you make sure its still abit challenging but just a bit easy but abit hard if you know what i mean. (don't know what im saying feeling droozy..))
Never mind what i said thats what i get with lack of sleep

[Schoolgirl]

Hey I just wanted to pop in to say how much I enjoy this mod. I had probably played through the game 6-7 times before playing with mods and this mod really adds a lot to the game.

I like that this mod has humbled me, I really thought I had this game figured out till I played it with this mod. I will admit I revert to the backups for some parts. One reason for this is... I don't know where to get power/magic/guard sources to morph as this has apparently been changed.

Has anyone done a FAQ on the game with your mod running ? Would be helpful hehe. Well thanks a ton (^_^)

[tylerkschrute]

Anyone else getting a crash during the KOTR materia boss when the hyper jump animation activates? At least I think that's what was happening.

[Vgr]

Hyper Jump is known to crash the game now and then.