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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-12-29 10:25:58 »

I prob set the HP to 1 to check the Earth Harp script; I'll get that sorted with a scene patch.

You really should consider implementing a cheat item that's in an obtuse but easily-reachable location that casts the Instadeath slot.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-10-21 12:57:54 »

There appears to be a bug with the Sand Worm enemies in the Corel Desert. Combat kind of freezes, where nobody follows through with their attacks and nothing happens. The characters keep their idle animations going, but combat doesn't progress.

Did you poison it? There was a bug that trapped it in an instruction loop if it was inflicted with poison.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-10-21 08:45:09 »

Instead of having enemies be immune or resistant to gravity, how about having it effect them but they immediately counterattack with something somewhat nasty so it "simulates" how much time it would take to do that much damage "normally"?

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-08-01 12:29:08 »

If I recall, the Throw command cannot be used with Added Cut if the materia has unlocked Coin Toss, and pairing it with Manipulate results in you manipulating and immediately attacking afterwards which completely misses the point. The latter is only an issue with Master Command so if that's AWOL it's not an issue right now.

The other oddity with Master Command is if you use Item you'll attack whoever you used it on, which does more harm than good unless you have an elemental thing going.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-08-01 10:10:20 »

Added Cut being available earlier would be a good thing. An amount of late-game materia in FF7 simply pales in comparison to raw numbers, and some of it is gotten so late you don't get to sit down and think "This would be good", you end up thinking "This would've been good ten hours ago". It's a legitimately powerful materia, but can also save good amounts of time and streamline steal-grinding.

To play devil's advocate, it would make Aerith ridiculously powerful against undead enemies due to the healing staff's raw power. Combine it with cure and she will rip them to shreds. On the plus side, this means that you have a powerful setup to use against powerful undead like the Attack Squad that doesn't involve grinding for X-potions at Gold Saucer which I feel is within the spirit of the mod.

Given a choice between Slash All and Deathblow, I'd pick Slash All. Deathblow is better for the lategame where you have access to high-accuracy weapons so it's actually worth a damn.

Remember, the balance of the entire game is in your hands. You can balance enemies around available options, and not the other way around. On the subject of Added Cut, did you fix the anomalies where it doesn't play nice with Manipulate and Coin Toss, and the oddities with Master Command?

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-29 07:56:58 »

I figured as much.

You said on Insane Difficulty that you plan to have the NG+ be a "World of Ruin style scenario". If you're still planning on this, could we have some elaboration on what you're going to amuse us with?

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-28 14:39:07 »

Yeah, I'm trying to remove that crater condition from as many things as I can so that everything can be accessed a little earlier. That event especially because it does actually trigger but then can't be resolved until the Crater is successfully navigated (which makes no sense).

Is there a technical reason why Crater has to be cleared?

[Spoiler:]

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-28 14:01:54 »

Thought I'd give some brutally honest boss feedback from what I've done so far since I re-addicted myself to Fallout 3.

Spoiler: show

X-ATM is well improved. The fact that he launches you out of battle instead of mega damage is a very nice "Oh Hell" moment. I always set off his counter on purpose to get some limit breaks in but this time? Nope.

The quintet of Shinra soldiers when you set up the second bomb is really challenging and hits you with plenty of curveballs. The fact that this is such a brutal fight with basic enemies is what I like to see.

Plasma Buster is, overall, quite weak if you know how his turning works, but still a pushover if you don't. Tranq Shot really just prolongs the battle instead of making it more challenging.

Aps Snr. doesn't put up much of a fight at all. He feels the same and Aerith's healing staff means it's just a case of healing all the time. Tsunami inflicting something like Confusion on top of Poison would make the fight really messy, or having him absorb water instead of nullify it.

Reno is somewhat easy but to be fair, a chunk of his difficulty comes from having to do the Don's shag pad mansion, the sewers, train graveyard, and the support tower with little room to breathe. Also his new pyramid attack is bugged slightly, the dark pyramid persists long after it has worn off.

I am curious, does he use Pyramid in later battles? You'd think that such an effective tactic would be used more often.

Thousand Gunner and the two helis was quite evil on your part. Anyone with a brain would equip Barret with elemental=lightning and you accounting for that in the second half was nothing short of a crime against humanity. If you go into this fight without fire or ice equipped, your only choice is limit breaks which really makes the battle drag on longer than it should. Can you get hypers at this point? That would be a useful mitigation to the counter.

Sample G0624 was quite well done in terms of his gimmick, but Matra Magic shuts him down and leaves him open to all kinds of brutalizing.

Rufus has a bit too much HP. It just boils down to chipping his HP away when you kill Light Nation and healing when needed. Since Light Nation keeps Rufus alive with healing magic quite well, him using Healing Wind on-death seems a bit redundant.

Rubicante GT was tough but also fun, and all but mandates using Aerith and Barret/Red's passives. Without Geo Stance being used, you spend more time healing than fighting. Just one less person to heal after his attack makes a huge difference.

Elena and Rude (after patching Elena's HP) was decent but also rather lackluster. Turk Cure doesn't really change things for the better since you can just barrier or back row and maybe grind out a few limit breaks.

Illuyankas was a royal pain in the ass due to Aquapolo inflicting dual and imprison. Their immunity to physical attacks was just evil, especially since he imprisoned the one person who had attack magic.

Jenova, where do I start, this fight was very challenging on Active. Doing it again with a holy-elemental attack made it much more tolerable. Her pods only seem to add longevity to the fight than actually changing things up though. Hurling ailments all over the place devoured my actions quite well. To me, a good boss is one that doesn't give you a window to attack.

XATM's third appearance was a surprise, and him absorbing lightning once again slapped me in the face by laughing at preparation. I love it when you do that. Dyne doing the same thing by countering poison was also clever.

Reno wiring up Cloud and leaving the fight to be 2-on-2 was just sadistic. I had Cloud rigged up with Recover, Counter, Cover, Element=Poison, and BAM. Only Red was able to do damage since Aerith was using the healing staff. I deserved that.

Lich GT is probably my favorite fight so far. Though the Attack Squad can be torn down with X-Potions from Gold Saucer or Elixir use, that tactic requires grinding (which goes against the spirit of the mod in the first place) or using a powerful item. He was legit tough.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-28 10:26:19 »

Really? It worked when I tried it for the Steam version at least, but if you tried it with that and it was a no-go then that's curious; I wonder what's different.

I use the Platinum PC release, so it's probably a small change in how FMVs are handled.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-27 20:15:39 »

Your level is irrelevant. You gain SP by killing certain enemies, usually the strongest ones in the area.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-27 18:22:45 »

I apologize if I'm missing the answer to this, but I'm under the impression that leveling up allows us to distribute a sort of stat points in order to build our team the way we want. However I am level 22 and I have yet to see a way to distribute points. They just level up as they always have.

After the boss in Mithril Mines, go through the north exit to the room and examine the broken save point.

The scene takes about 40 seconds to resolve so don't think the game softlocked or anything.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-27 14:29:07 »

Absence of movies causes the intro to softlock, and changing it causes the music to not play until you kill the MPs. I've not tested with other FMVs but I'm sure that the scripting that goes on during them requires one to be playing.

I don't mind the FMVs, FF7 only has about 47 minutes worth, and a lot of them are used for elevators, animated backgrounds, or are very brief to begin with. I'd estimate that the battle swirl, camera panning, and victory pose are the largest time wasters of a full playthrough. Watching a vid of the first battle and timing it, those combined take up 14 seconds, plus monster death animations which take up 2-3 seconds a head. I don't know how many battles a full playthrough has but I'm certain it exceeds 200.

That would be an interesting analysis, a tally of how much time is spent looking at time-wasters in videogames as opposed to playing it.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-27 10:57:26 »

I have to say this mod is the second-greatest improvement to Final Fantasy 7.

The first greatest is replacing the intro movie with the one where Cloud jumps onto the moving train to save 1 minute and 47 seconds on a new game.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-24 10:47:38 »

I found some bugs in the Mythril Cave. First of all, when fighting Elena and Rude, I scanned Elena before attacking only to find out she had a measly 41HP.

He's already aware of this bug, he nerfed her for testing purposes and forgot to change her back. You can edit her stats in Proud Clod if you want her to function as intended. I'll talk you through it.

• Open ProudClod and select the modded Scene.bin
• In the topmost dropdown, select "1: Rude, Elena, X-ATM Scorpion"
• Click enemy management, edit enemy stats, then open Elena's tab
• Set Elena's HP to the intended value of 4100.
• Click OK, then file, Create Scene.Bin, then Yes to the kernel question

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-22 12:42:34 »

Couldn't you use Solder 2nds? I recall those being made weak to Holy. Bit of a hack, but pretty much everything in FF7 is a hack of some sort. Since you can get X-potions from Gold Saucer for 80GP and Cait gives you 100, and you'll likely have some elixirs or x-potions at this point...

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-21 21:31:29 »

Yeah an NPC saying that element+restore > Jenova's monsters would be a lot simpler. Now for some bug reports.

AI bug: If you poison a land worm in the corel desert, it repeatedly tries to counter with Psyche Up, but as it doesn't seem to work (works as intended on Dyne) it traps it in an AI loop, making it an easy kill.

Typo: When Aerith calls you after the Chocobo race, she says "We'll be waiting outsider, Cloud."

Also, in the southernmost area of the Train Graveyard, a barrel in the top left contains an "Echo Screen" instead of an "Echo Drop".

Another bug: When heading to the rail tracks, a PHS call doesn't seem to function properly, Cloud just answers the phone and nothing happens, and the game progresses normally. My party was Yuffie and Red XIII.

Minor inconsistency: The zombie powder spell of Lich GT doesn't impose a weakness to Holy despite it turning the enemies "undead".

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-21 08:28:20 »

What if you mentioned something about it in the training room above the weapon shop upstairs in Sector 7?

Infodumps don't really help people all that much. For things like this, a more practical or direct example would be better. As far as I'm aware there are two Elemental materia in Midgar, one in the Mayor's office, another somewhere I forget. If my awareness is right, this scenario could work.

A side boss can be added at a point like Jenova's escape, have a Shinra soldier comment about how they threw literally everything they had at it and it's only harmed by Holy. Because their weapons can't link materia and they only had one holy elemental item, the party will have to do it. Then have him fork over an Elemental (and a Restore if you don't have it for some reason), explain how it works and how to tell what materia has what element.

If my awareness is wrong, this boss could be placed elsewhere and the second Elemental moved appropriately.

This gives the player an explanation followed by a practical example that is needed to proceed. It also reinforces the idea that elemental affinities are king.

Alternatively, have a random NPC say he had the idea to link Restore to Elemental on his weapon so he could heal his allies with physical attacks (a concept which is already established with Aerith), but it backfired and he has no friends anymore, but he has an easier time fending off ghosts from the train graveyard at least.

First is more direct, second needs interpretation and experimentation. Downside to the first is that people who don't freaking read will think "This boss is bugged nothing hurts it". Downside to the second is that people will come to the conclusion of "Restore = Element only hurts undead".

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-20 22:32:22 »

Makes sense. You definitely know what you're doing with the design choices in this, especially the idea of consistent and uniform elemental affinities. I just beat Jenova Vector and it took me a good while to bring her down because of her massive HP and my pitiful damage. I'm certain that two Elementa=Earths would've made short work of her, but I have a bad habit of ignoring my options unless something completely pastes me, which I predict within the next few hours of play.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-20 09:26:55 »

So the curve spikes up for a few levels and then mellows out in a nonlinear fashion?

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-20 08:43:44 »

No, no; I've done something silly again.

It would probably be easier to just make them suceptible to instant death.

Also, the installer and the OP are contradictory. The OP says you require the hotfixes yet the hotfixes say that certain patches have already been put into the main installer. When I reinstalled this morning and checked Elena's HP each step I noticed it said that on the installer itself. Might want to clarify which takes priority.

Another issue I noticed. When I killed the Midgardsormer for the fun of it (Yes Mrs. Puff, I cheated by having Peerless, I just wanted to see it in action), the XP TNL started acting oddly. As I'm aware, it jumps up very sharply at around Lv20 to requiring around 14k. When I killed him and gained the XP, the TNL dropped down to a few thousand allowing me to gain 2-3 levels across the party per kill. I was fairly close to leveling at the time. Is this caused by a second XP lookup table only invoked when large amounts of XP are gained?

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-19 21:34:52 »

For some reason, Elena appears to have an unusually low amount of HP in her first battle, 41 instead of what I assume is meant to be 4100. Is this on my end? Only other mod I have installed is the 60fps battles mod which only edits battle animations and never touches the scene.bin.

I reinstalled FF7 to double-check and it remains the same. To go step-by step of what I did...

- Installed the PC version, then the 1.2 patch
- Set up Aali's Open GL plugin
- Backed up the Data folder
- Ran the new threat installer and both hotfixes, pointing at C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\SQUARE SOFT, INC\FINAL FANTASY VII\DATA
-- Installer was taken from the original post in this thread
- No warnings over write-protected files
- Open up Proud Clod to check, Elena still has 41HP
- Everything had admin permissions as far as I'm aware, and this instance didn't have the 60FPS mod data.

So I'm sure that something is going wrong somewhere along the line.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] - True Necrosis Mod

« on: 2016-07-19 12:02:30 »

I read in a FAQ a long time ago that if a dead person takes damage from the spike traps in Cosmo Canyon and/or the damaging traps in the Ancient Forest, the game brings them back to life. Possibly a side-effect of mechanics meant to prevent killing the person.

Not verified it myself (You'd have to "die" to those on purpose honestly) but I could see someone using it to get extra uses out of dead party members.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-19 07:50:49 »

Triple Reflect shouldn't be nerfed in any way, I think it's just that some spells work better than others (and Air Buster traditionally has high magic defence from the original game, the highest of any enemy in fact; but maybe I could remove that and give him normal magic defence so double reflect can be used there?)

I'll have to double check it then, because it seemed to only reflect single-target twice rather than three times at full power. Might've just been in a panic since that fight is pretty hard due to throwing two curveballs back to back.

Edit: After getting the whole party under reflect status in the second reactor, I cast Fire1/all on the party. It reflected onto three random targets.

Air Buster doesn't need any real changes. If you understand how his turning mechanic works, he's easier than most random encounters due to his x5 damage multiplier on back attacks. If anything I would have exploiting that weakness trigger something pretty nasty so it's not done so lightly.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-18 18:23:29 »

I already decided to do a full reinstall since Reunion's absolute minimum install was likely causing some other problems and to just live with the menu issues (I don't think that it was right to be Lv22 at Rufus considering I didn't grind and a showcase vid stated that you were expected to be around 20 at Jenova, and some battles felt far too easy), but I'll keep that in mind for next time. Reason I was thinking "intentional" was because of Scorp's refusal to leave the Church and that you turned it into a more extreme running gag but you picked the wrong scorpion.

To make you feel better, when I reflected a cure/all onto the guys at the reactor, I didn't think "bug", I thought "That's genius". Then I realized that the triple reflect trick was nerfed when I interpreted that as being the proper tactic. The amount of thought you put into this mod is quite exceptional. Especially Cloud's level in Nibelheim. If he had those stats in the original game, it would've been one of the best foreshadowings of the generation.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.4)

« on: 2016-07-18 06:38:02 »

On the subject of Guard Scorp, when I was protecting Aeris in the church, a much more powerful version (As in 2k damage) of Guard Scorpion attacked me during one of the random battles in the attic. I had to go through this part (and the boss prior to it) three times before I could get it.

Is this a bug, intentional, or do I have a conflict from when I installed Reunion for faster enemy death animations and menu cleanup (and only these, nothing else)? I understand it changes a few things and it might've affected random battles, but this is the only conflict I've seen so far, so I'm blaming that but also double-checking.

To be exact, it's one where Cloud says "Yeesh!" when the fight starts. I don't know how to check the individual instances of formations so I can't give more info just now (that and I'm running out the door to go to work but I can use the internet at work).