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Final Fantasy 8 => Gameplay => Releases => Topic started by: Leythalknight on 2020-03-04 17:37:54

Title: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.6 / Remastered Version 1.1.6
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-03-04 17:37:54
FFVIII Crystal 1.5.5 / Remastered Version 1.1.5


Introduction

FFVIII Crystal is a rebalancing mod for FFVIII that began as a self-imposed class-based challenge playthrough roughly 10 years ago and still retains some of its features. It attempts to make each character more distinct, dial back some of the overtuned mechanics and abilities of FFVIII, and make the game more challenging while keeping the "flavor" of the original game.This mod is intended for the English 2013 Steam release of FFVIII and is playable from start to finish.

Steam-2013: Nexus (https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8/mods/6?tab=files) / itch.io (https://hasardore.itch.io/ffviii-crystal)
Remastered PC/Switch: Nexus (https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8remastered/mods/12?tab=files) / itch.io (https://hasardore.itch.io/ffviii-crystal)


Donations (https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=KU6H7KW7GDK62)


Characters
Spoiler: show
Basic stat junctions have been removed in favor of more meaningful gains through leveling. Junctions for Elem-Atk, Elem-Def, Status-Atk, and Status-Def are still available, and the values that spells add to each have been adjusted. Additionally, each character joins the party with a GF tailored to their abilities.

This mod is designed around limiting which spells can be used by characters who possess the Magic command. This information is provided below as well as in the in-game Information section, but as it is not hard-coded into the gameplay, you can ignore this aspect of the mod if you wish.

Squall
- Knight archetype that borrows from the Paladin and Dark Knight classes
- High Vit and solid physical damage, low Spr and Spd
- GF: Bahamut
- Usable spells: All spells included in the WHT-RF 1 ability (Cure, Esuna, Dia, Water, Scan, Float, Blind, Confuse, Sleep, Silence, Berserk) + Regen and Zombie

Squall's Limit Break damage has been lowered and all finishers but Lion Heart now inflict a status effect. New finishers are now gained according to blade type, so the Cutting Trigger is the first gunblade to give Fated Circle and Twin Lance is the first to give Blasting Zone.

Quistis
- Blue Mage with solid stats all around, but low Spd
- GF: Shiva
- Usable spells: N/A

Blue Magic is generally weaker in order to balance it around regular usage. Degenerator has been removed and some Blue Magic spells have had their properties changed with the aim of making as many of them useful as possible.

Zell
- Monk archetype with High HP and Str, weak defenses, high Spd
- GF: Ifrit
- Usable spells: N/A

The button combinations for Duel attacks have been changed, the timer has been shortened, and the move sequences are simpler. Most of Zell's Duel attacks now have an elemental property:
 
Dolphin Blow: Water
Meteor Strike: Earth
Burning Rave: Fire
Meteor Barret: Thunder

Basic Duel attacks, Different Beat, and My Final Heaven remain non-elemental.

Selphie
- Black Mage archetype with a hint of Red Mage
- High Mag and Spr, low HP, Str, and Vit
- GF: Tonberry
- Usable spells: All spells included in the BLK-RF series of abilities + Dispel, Meteor, Ultima

Full-cure is no longer in Slot, but Percent has been added to Slot and deals 50% HP damage to all enemies. The End now deals massive damage instead of inflicting Death. Additionally, healing/defensive options have been removed from Slot in favor of more offensive ones. Selphie's weapons now deal magic-based damage.

Rinoa
- White Mage archetype with high Mag and Spr, middling Str and Spd and low Vit
- GF: Carbuncle
- Usable spells: All spells included in the WHT-RF series of abilities

Angelo's attacks are Str-based, Angelo Strike inflicts Confusion, and Invincible Moon now grants Regen and is the only source of Invincibility in the mod. Angelo Search has been removed, but all other Angelo passives remain. Angel Wing's damage multiplier is x2 instead of x5 and now uses JWP's Angel Wing patch (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=18647.msg262643#msg262643), which makes Rinoa cast only certain spells regardless of whether they're in her inventory. She has a chance to cast the following spells during Angel Wing, grouped in order from most to least likely: {Holy, Waterga}, {Flare}, {Doom, Meteor, Tornado}, {Pain, Quake}, {Blizzaga, Firaga, Thundaga}, {Curaga, Slow}, {Ultima}, {Haste}, {Wall}, {Aura}, {Apocalypse}

Irvine
- Middling Str and Mag, low defensive stats, high Spd and Luck
- GF: Cerberus (2013) / Cactuar (Remastered)
- Usable spells: N/A

Each of Irvine's guns have unique properties instead of being straight upgrades like other characters' weapons; additionally, each gun requires only one item to make, all of which can be bought in shops. Weapon properties are as follows:

Valiant: Basic, well-rounded
Ulysses: High base damage and Str, low accuracy
Bismark: Boasts the highest Str bonus, but its normal attack is weak
Exeter: Heals the target

Shot is generally weaker to account for more regular usage and the timer is shorter. Dark Shot now inflicts Poison damage. Hyper Shot is now the powerful attack it always should've been, but there are a limited number of Pulse Ammo in the game.


Enemies
Most enemies now have a fixed level in order to accommodate the changes to characters and leveling, though bosses and certain enemies still scale in some fashion. Many enemies use abilities they didn't before, and some are new. Enemy AI scripts have been adjusted to make them smarter and less wasteful of their turns, with some having new AI scripts altogether. Bosses have been made more challenging and given new abilities and mechanics.

Undead status has been removed from enemies, and formerly undead enemies now tend to have high Vit and a weakness to Holy and Fire. Sleep now halves an enemy's Vitality for the duration. Curse can be inflicted on enemies and reduces their Str and Mag by 20%.

Magic
Offensive spells have been strengthened across the board while curative spells have been weakened slightly. Demi, Aura, Double, Triple, and Meltdown are now enemy-only spells. A low-level Holy-element spell, a low-level Earth-element damage spell, and a high-level Water damage spell have been added. Pain now deals Poison-element damage, effectively making it a high-level Bio. Death has become Doom, which inflicts Doom and deals non-elemental damage.

Command Abilities
In an effort to make FFVIII's special commands more interesting, worthwhile, and distinct from other abilities, almost all of them have been replaced outright and most of the remainder have been altered in some way.

- Double: Spends 1/4 current HP to grant the user Double status.
- Mad Rush: Spends 1/2 current HP to grant the user Berserk, Haste, and Reflect.
- Chakra: Restores a percentage of one character's HP and removes a handful of status effects.
- Defend: Defend now costs 1/4 of the user's current HP.
- Darkside: The damage multiplier has been decreased while the damage dealt to the user has increased.
- Pray: Restores HP to all allies.
- Nightsword: Vitality-ignoring damage that drains HP and inflicts Curse.
- Shock: Physical damage and Poison to all enemies.
- Aurabolt: Vit-ignoring damage that inflicts Darkness and Sleep.
- Aura: Spends 1/4 current HP to grant the user Aura status. Aura's effect on Crisis Level has decreased, but its duration has increased.
- Kamikaze: The user sacrifices themselves to deal Vitality-ignoring damage and inflict Vit 0 on all enemies; also the player's only source of Vit 0.
- Devour: Stat increases have been replaced with helpful status effects; the amount of HP lost by negative Devours has been decreased or removed.
- Card: Unchanged.
- GF: The command itself is the same, but GF HP has been lowered, G-Returners have been removed, and Compatibility is now a fixed value.

Miscellaneous
- New items and battle items have been added.
- Several new sidequests have been added and existing ones have been adjusted to give more significant rewards, including abilities not learned by the characters' GFs.
- There are now more choices that can lower the player's SeeD rank points.
- Shops have been given more unique inventories.

Changelog

Spoiler: show

1.4 / Remastered Version 1.0: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=19581.msg284551#msg284551

1.3-1.3.2: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=19581.msg283899#msg283899

1.2: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=19581.msg283349#msg283349

1.1.1: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=19581.msg283125#msg283125

1.1: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=19581.msg282970#msg282970

1.0.2a
- Corrected HP Up's item type.

1.0.2
- Fixed text display errors in the WHT-RF 1 and WHT-RF 2 Information menus.
- Fixed camera angles in certain battles.
- Replaced Esthar Soldier's Ultra Waves with Noiseblaster/Sunbeam.
- Lowered train fare prices.
- Fixed a display issue with Minotaur's in-battle dialogue.
- Grand Mantis: Melting Bubble is now a mid-level attack; uses Silence at low levels instead.
- Creeps: Float added to Draw list.
- Various changes to world map encounters and encounter regions.
- Changed items available in Chocobo Forests.
- Mog's Bounty item removed; replaced with Mega-Remedy, which heals several status abnormalities for all allies.
- Mega-Remedy added to Esthar Shop!!!.
- Altered final bosses' behavior.
- Preparation for future updates.
- Misc. changes.

1.0.1
- Fixed the crash before getting your initial SeeD rank.
- Fixed the issue with Shiva's name menu appearing multiple times.
- Miscellaneous fixes.

- Bite Bug and Vampire Bat will use fewer moves at low levels.
- Caterchipillar's bite no longer poisons and Ultra Waves' status attack power is lower.
- T-Rexaur's status properties changed; immune to Sleep but can now be Blinded, but only once.
- Ifrit can counter Blizzard with Fira and has a new move called Firewall that protects it from Ice attacks.


Installation
Spoiler: show
1. Install Roses and Wine (R07), available here (https://mega.nz/#!FOhCFLAC!oBJf5I7x8BC4xi5Ox5Xm2_g_VkH66bLXBAZ0aL5eWAY) to the game's root folder.
2. Copy the FFVIII Crystal.txt file in the Hext folder into Roses and Wine's RaW/GLOBAL/Hext folder.
3. Back up the files in your FFVIII/Data/lang-en folder before continuing.
4. Copy the files in FFVIII Crystal/lang-en into your FFVIII/Data/lang-en folder.

Be sure to start a new save file.

Methods of verifying installation:

1)init.out - Upon starting a new game, your inventory should be:

Potion x3
Phoenix Down x3
Antidote x3
Eye Drops x2
Tent x1

2)kernel.bin - Potions should heal for 400 HP instead of 300.
3)shop.bin - Balamb Shop won't sell Hi-Potions.
4)price.bin - Phoenix Downs will cost 2000 gil.
5) Field.fs - After naming Squall at the start of the game, you should be prompted to name Bahamut.
6) Battle.fs - The Bite Bugs in Balamb will be able to use Fart and Whirlwind. Ifrit will be accompanied by a Buel.
7) .exe changes - You should be able to Draw a maximum of 15 of a spell.


Credits
Programs Used:
Doomtrain by alexfilth, Maki, and JWP
Deling by myst6re
Ifrit by Gjoerulv
Ifrit AI beta by JWP
Cactilio by JeMaCheHi
Quezacotl by JWP
Rinoa's Toolset by Maki
MnGrpEditor by Nightshade
JunkShop by alexfilth
Roses and Wine/Hext Tools by DLPB

Many thanks to everyone involved in creating these tools.

Thanks to Sega Chief for showing me how to fix enemy data files; to JWP for many of the exe edits used in this mod and for sharing them publically; to Callisto for locating and sharing the SeeD salary values; to Colly for the mngrp.bin Thingy tables; and a huge thanks to UpRisen, goodmorninpluto, Nikkolas, and Dorklord for feedback and bug-finding.

Lastly, a huge thanks to everyone in the FFVIII modding community. I couldn't have made this without you and your efforts.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.0
Post by: kaspar01 on 2020-03-04 19:57:58
cool mod!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.0
Post by: UpRisen on 2020-03-04 20:28:46
I do believe I am now going to have to set up and give this a try.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.0
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-03-04 21:21:57
cool mod!

Thanks!

I do believe I am now going to have to set up and give this a try.

Thanks for the interest! Let me know what you think.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.0
Post by: UpRisen on 2020-03-05 13:32:54
Got through Dollet but cant continue due to a 100% crash.

thoughts and bugs so far.

bug:
when meeting quistis naming screen for shiva appears twice, the a third time after the tutorial, and every time you enter and leave the garden and quistis joins
game not responding in catchapillar fight after getting it low hp, appears to be ultra wave. Ultra wave works with quistis
Crashes when transitioning to Cids Office to recieve your first seed rank.


Balance:
every enemy in beginning had a status, including a petrify, berserk, and a confuse. its a little oppressive.
T-rexaur in balamb forest should not be reliably beatable by squall + quistis before fire cavern. Either needs to hit harder or be immune to sleep
ifrit a litte whimpy overall. just a few cast of blizzard while chain drawcasting cure is more than enough to win with tons of time left over.
Dollet was fun and well balanced.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.0
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-03-05 20:07:37
1.0.1 released.
Download here: https://mega.nz/#!EbgwWAib!0-PyP9lbyWclioXhQKSlwKtsF4Zc7a44wlnL5uCltiM
- Fixed the crash before getting your initial SeeD rank.
- Fixed the issue with Shiva's name menu appearing multiple times.
- Miscellaneous fixes.

- Bite Bug and Vampire Bat will use fewer moves at low levels.
- Caterchipillar's bite no longer poisons and Ultra Waves' status attack power is lower.
- T-Rexaur's status properties changed;immune to Sleep but can now be Blinded, but only once.
- Ifrit can counter Blizzard with Fira and has a new move called Firewall that protects it from Ice attacks.

Got through Dollet but cant continue due to a 100% crash.

thoughts and bugs so far.

bug:
when meeting quistis naming screen for shiva appears twice, the a third time after the tutorial, and every time you enter and leave the garden and quistis joins
game not responding in catchapillar fight after getting it low hp, appears to be ultra wave. Ultra wave works with quistis
Crashes when transitioning to Cids Office to recieve your first seed rank.


Balance:
every enemy in beginning had a status, including a petrify, berserk, and a confuse. its a little oppressive.
T-rexaur in balamb forest should not be reliably beatable by squall + quistis before fire cavern. Either needs to hit harder or be immune to sleep
ifrit a litte whimpy overall. just a few cast of blizzard while chain drawcasting cure is more than enough to win with tons of time left over.
Dollet was fun and well balanced.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm sorry about the issues. How sloppy of me.

I'm not sure what's causing the issue with the Caterchipillar, but it may be related to its targeting when using its Bite attack as that's the only thing in its AI that I've changed. I've reverted it for now and will investigate more tonight.

When I was testing the mod before uploading, I noticed Shiva's name menu wasn't appearing and inserted some redundant MENUNAMEs, forgetting that it'll keep popping up even if you already have the GF. Should be fixed now.

The post-Dollet crash was happening because two of the files for Cid's office weren't in the field archive for some reason... It may be related to a crash that occurred while trying to save changes to that field in Deling. I must've forgotten to replace that field's files after removing the corrupted ones.

With regard to status effects in the early game: Yeah, I had a feeling it was too much and the last-minute change to Bite Bug didn't help.

I slightly increased the levels of the T-Rexaur encounters in the early game and made him immune to Sleep but susceptible to Blind. I have a method of making powerful, permanent status effects like Blind less so and planned to roll it out gradually to certain enemies, and now's as good a time as any to give it to T-Rexaur. Basically, Blind will work on T-Rexaur, but the effect will be removed after a certain number of turns and you won't be able to inflict it again. There is another method of cheesing T-Rexaur in the early game, but I'm leaving it in because it relies on limited resources and because I think it's fun to watch.

I went back and forth on Cast-Blizzard in the Ifrit fight since both its variance and Ifrit's damage output are high. I had runs in which he was a breeze and others in which he gave me a hard time. I thought it over and gave Ifrit a chance to counter ice-element attacks with Fira, and at half health he will use a new move called Firewall that heals him a little and makes him immune to Ice.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.1
Post by: UpRisen on 2020-03-08 18:34:29
Im up to the Tomb of the Forgotten Soldier with no other major issues. Ill keep all of my notes about the balance until the end to make sure its the best possible feedback and as to not warp my experience of the mod.

list of bugs.
several encounters have enemies that are off camera. inside timber vs 2 red guard. outside timber vs a mushroom and snake
outside of Deiling has an encounter with the beach field with a Thrustavius
Maybe misunderstanding the post about Kamikaze being the source of vit 0, but Grand Mantis Melting Bubble attack applies vit 0 to my characters.
Still on Disc 1 you can fight Adamantoise on the beaches outside of the desert prison. Way to early to get Blizzaga, protect, shell, and quake. weak to stop so can just stop him and draw 3-4 times and run away. I didn't farm him for sake of balance testing.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-03-10 20:47:26
Im up to the Tomb of the Forgotten Soldier with no other major issues. Ill keep all of my notes about the balance until the end to make sure its the best possible feedback and as to not warp my experience of the mod.

list of bugs.
several encounters have enemies that are off camera. inside timber vs 2 red guard. outside timber vs a mushroom and snake
outside of Deiling has an encounter with the beach field with a Thrustavius
Maybe misunderstanding the post about Kamikaze being the source of vit 0, but Grand Mantis Melting Bubble attack applies vit 0 to my characters.
Still on Disc 1 you can fight Adamantoise on the beaches outside of the desert prison. Way to early to get Blizzaga, protect, shell, and quake. weak to stop so can just stop him and draw 3-4 times and run away. I didn't farm him for sake of balance testing.

The next update will include fixes for those issues as well as a few other things. I'm gonna hold off on a release for now barring a major issue, though.

Enemies can still inflict Vit 0, but the only way for the player to use it is Kamikaze. I might make the Grand Mantis only use that from mid- or high-level.

Thanks again!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-03-18 03:57:24
Took longer than I had planned, but:

Version 1.0.2. released.

Download: https://mega.nz/#!Ne4xSCTQ!ZF7GQTDglxv1CbGKSyyhTeQFI8geVAE8O_BnaPK6A-o

- Fixed text display errors in the WHT-RF 1 and WHT-RF 2 Information menus.
- Fixed camera angles in certain battles.
- Replaced Esthar Soldier's Ultra Waves with Noiseblaster/Sunbeam.
- Lowered train fare prices.
- Fixed a display issue with Minotaur's in-battle dialogue.
- Grand Mantis: Melting Bubble is now a mid-level attack; uses Silence at low levels instead.
- Creeps: Float added to Draw list.
- Various changes to world map encounters and encounter regions.
- Changed items available in Chocobo Forests.
- Mog's Bounty item removed; replaced with Mega-Remedy, which heals several status abnormalities for all allies.
- Mega-Remedy added to Esthar Shop!!!.
- Altered final bosses' behavior.
- Preparation for future updates.
- Misc. changes.

If anyone could confirm that the refinement abilities' Information menu text displays properly for them, I'd appreciate it.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.2
Post by: UpRisen on 2020-03-18 12:42:33
Found a major issue. After the Iguion fight in Deiling City you receive an HP Up item. Using this item will instantly start an encounter vs a single Galb Soldier in Dollet, after the fight every time you attempt to press Menu it will start another fight instantly.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-03-18 16:12:27
Found a major issue. After the Iguion fight in Deiling City you receive an HP Up item. Using this item will instantly start an encounter vs a single Galb Soldier in Dollet, after the fight every time you attempt to press Menu it will start another fight instantly.

1.0.2a released and OP updated.
https://mega.nz/#!NTx13YDI!MaRqrBvHq178KSf6sCsrUpoRXtXdaFH-NWOr-0Xw-g8

- Fixes the above issue.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.2a
Post by: Gensoul on 2020-03-18 18:18:57
This sounds quite fun. I like the story, but I'm not a big fan of "monsters level up with you" or "everyone can do everything" play-styles.

I'd like to play your mod. Is there a way to port it to remastered?
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.2a
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-03-18 19:59:57
This sounds quite fun. I like the story, but I'm not a big fan of "monsters level up with you" or "everyone can do everything" play-styles.

I'd like to play your mod. Is there a way to port it to remastered?

I'm not up-to-date on Remastered modding, but to my knowledge, the only issue with porting to Remastered is making changes to the executable. I haven't made that many such changes, but nerfs to abilities like Darkside and Cover would no longer be there and removal of certain spells would be broken due to being unable to change the contents of Draw Points, among other things. I've considered creating a "lite" version of the mod to get around this, but if it comes to that, I'd prefer to wait until I've gotten more feedback and made more additions so that I don't have to keep porting changes each time I update.

The specific things you mentioned may not be too hard to implement, though. I'll look into it tonight and let you know.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.2a
Post by: Robgatti on 2020-04-04 01:44:12
About to begin playing this now myself.
Didnt notice anything about Triple Triad, does it remain the same (I'd dont mind Triad myself, just worried about items I may need from it)?

Are the GFs RECOMMENDATIONS for those characters or are they locked?

Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.3
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-04-11 18:58:14
Took me longer than I'd have liked, but here's 1.0.3. https://mega.nz/file/1fgURSAQ#hhm4KVMa79zsYV4PIFLS7HTHZtKxQ9EevFA_g9Cbwag  Apologies to anyone who may have been waiting.

- Lowered status affliction power of certain enemy abilities.
- Removed Doom status from certain abilities.
- Jumbo Cactuar now spawns from killing Cactuars, similar to Tonberry King.
- Certain enemies/bosses changed to take fewer actions.
- Lowered Irvine's base Speed.
- HP Up's effect increased from 10 to 20.
- Removed unknown34 opcode from Sphinxara and Trauma's AI.
- Various changes and fixes.

HUGE thanks to UpRisen for all the feedback and bug-finding.

I would have released this a bit sooner if not for Sphinxara and Trauma. I found that the unknown34 opcode was causing crashes even when using clean dat files, so I replaced it with launch(), which appears to do the same thing--spawn enemies--without the crashes. Both worked properly the last time I played through the mod and I'm unsure of the root cause of the problem or at what point it began.

About to begin playing this now myself.
Didnt notice anything about Triple Triad, does it remain the same (I'd dont mind Triad myself, just worried about items I may need from it)?

Are the GFs RECOMMENDATIONS for those characters or are they locked?

Sorry for the delayed response. There's no Card Mod, so no need to play TT if you don't want to. If you're inclined to collect cards, you can get an item to teach Card from the stacks of books in the TT player's private room in Dollet. TT is otherwise untouched.

As for GFs, something in-between, I guess. They're not actually locked to the character, but you're meant to keep each character with their assigned GF. There are logical limitations even if you were to swap them around--for example, Squall will never be a good mage and thus you wouldn't want to give him a GF like Carbuncle or Tonberry.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.3
Post by: moothead on 2020-04-15 00:49:06
Just beat Ifrit after 3 tries, so used to not needing to think in this game that I wasn't really prepared. Messed up not exchanging magic but managed to bruteforce it with draw-casting Cure. The AI changes were exciting.

Even this early on I'm really liking what I'm seeing, the changes are pretty much exactly what I was after with this game. The NT mod is interesting too but I haven't seen much progress on that one recently :(.

Thanks for making it!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.3
Post by: kokie on 2020-04-30 20:31:24
Hi , Leythalknight

Can you tell me how did you modify darkside multiplier?

The damage was too epic in the original and l have been wanting to change it for a long time but l dont know how. Doomtrain program doesn't have this function as far as l know.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.3
Post by: JWP on 2020-04-30 21:06:30
The Darkside multiplier is located in the exe file itself.
See here (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16838.msg240637#msg240637)

You would need to know how to edit the x86 assembly and you would either have to edit the exe file directly or patch the memory while it's running.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.3
Post by: goodmorninpluto on 2020-05-12 09:10:31
Currently playing through this mod, up to Dollet (second visit), will post more feedback once I finish disk 1, for now I want to point two bugs (nothing gamebreaking):
- game text still says I received Occult Fan II instead of Gambler Spirit in Dollet TT player room (only text, item in inventory is correct)
- cockatrice AI near Dollet doesn't work, it just looks at me menacingly and not doing any moves.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.3
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-05-13 19:44:24
Sorry I haven't been around in the past few weeks--between work, another project i needed to finish by the end of April, and some issues in my personal life, I just didn't have the time or energy to work on this mod. Things have calmed down, though, so I'm getting back to work on this.

Just beat Ifrit after 3 tries, so used to not needing to think in this game that I wasn't really prepared. Messed up not exchanging magic but managed to bruteforce it with draw-casting Cure. The AI changes were exciting.

Even this early on I'm really liking what I'm seeing, the changes are pretty much exactly what I was after with this game. The NT mod is interesting too but I haven't seen much progress on that one recently :(.

Thanks for making it!

Thanks for the kind words =) I hope the rest of the mod lives up to your expectations.


Currently playing through this mod, up to Dollet (second visit), will post more feedback once I finish disk 1, for now I want to point two bugs (nothing gamebreaking):
- game text still says I received Occult Fan II instead of Gambler Spirit in Dollet TT player room (only text, item in inventory is correct)
- cockatrice AI near Dollet doesn't work, it just looks at me menacingly and not doing any moves.

Thanks for the feedback. You can use these files to fix the Cockatrice: https://mega.nz/file/9GIXQCBJ#SPxT1IpM4feu0Yc_k2QUvDaGJed2r-ijpYn63IU6Joo

I'll have the Gambler Spirit text fixed in the next update.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.3
Post by: goodmorninpluto on 2020-05-16 18:47:05
Finished disk 1, found two more bugs related to Mug:
I can steal some mysterious 0 s from Iguions and 1 s from Seifer. I checked my inventory, I think nothing important and new appeared (maybe it was some regular item or actually nothing, I dont't know).

Now regarding the gameplay. I am playing this mod trying to keep your intended roles for characters (but leveling all GFs to see gameplay possibilities), here's my ranking:
1) Selphie. Absolute powerhouse. Thanks to buffed magic she has the highest damage currently. She deals more damage than others Limit Breaks (which were nerfed across the board) with a single cast. Thanks to that I basically relegated my other two characters (until Irvine) to simple draw-bots that stores magic for her and occasional item usage (with items having great restorative potency, better than restorative magic).
2) Irvine. Him coming up with Aura ability made me realize that this + Shots is the intended way to play him (and that I missed out on Quistis). Could never get a crit gun to work (I guess I need ridiculous amount of luck for that and endgame), but his highest Str gun rivals Selphie in terms of sheer power. It had a drawback that it sometimes miss, but you can easily circumveint this by using Shots so it will be guaranteed hit. It's really powerful. The only downside is that it requires a bit of setup and some Ammo.
3) Zell. For the first half of disk 1, when I didn't unlock str bonuses, my main method of doing damage with him was not attacking, but actually draw-casting magic from enemies. I think it's a little unfair to him that this method easily deals x3-x4 damage compared to his fists. Though later it normalized after some level ups and a new weapon, but still not on the level of Selphie and Irvine. Chakra is great ability, thanks to many statuses regular enemies will inflict you with (I loved that!).
4) Quistis. I unlocked Aura way too late for her, so didn't realize at first that Blue Magic supposed to be used in normal circumstances, and not at yellow health. For the danger of yellow health the damage of her initial spells is way too low, so I quickly benched her and only occasionally returned her in the party.
5) Squall. Maybe later with some level ups he will deal solid damage, but for now it's really low (even with Renzokuken). I can't bench him, so he serves healer role for now.
6) Rinoa. By the time she comes, my party is much stronger than enemies, can survive a lot of hits, so I don't have the need for white mage (like I had during early game and had to use Squall for that). Her Limit Break deals miniscule damage, she can't cast black magic, so she's like worse version of Squall (who is already one of the weakest). Items command alone basically negates her role for now.

Overall I enjoyed disk 1, but for me it was a bit on the easier side (though harder than vanilla, of course). Difficulty peaks at Ifrit and then gradually comes down and then spikes again at Edea. By the time I assembled full party I could just faceroll through every encounter. However fight with Ifrit is really tense and challenging, where every action matters. But all bosses after that are pushovers. I think the reward for defeating X-ATMO92 is a bit of letdown. You don't really need that item at the beginning of the game. Defensive stats (Vit, Spr) doesnt really matter, offensive play felt more rewarding.
For now, I like what direction you went with, but I think some elements of it are a bit undertuned and doesn't come to its full potential. Maybe some tinkering with numbers here and there will help early game to retain that challenging feel of Ifrit. However this is only after finishing disk 1 and not full game impression. I am gonna continue playing and posting my thoughts!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-12-19 18:35:09
FFVIII Crystal 1.1

Download: https://mega.nz/file/ZDwVyKCL#xAaF2EXFgHzl48I5tZKzGlP2PXFnz1UKkaORttnY7ho

This update may be big enough to be called "2.0," but I think a lot of the changes are how things should've been from the start. Consider it a relaunch.

Some screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/sFzaH4y
(Taken using graphical mods by MCINDUS and FatedCourage)

Content:

Spoiler: show
A new battle has been added to the Winhill vase quest.

A new battle has been added to the mountain hideout in Dollet, accessible after the events at Trabia Garden.

A new battle has been added at the Sorceress Memorial, accessible after meeting the president of Esthar.

A new enemy has been added to Esthar, accessible after the Lunar Cry.

Unique AI has been added for the Thrustaevis battle triggered during the Obel Lake quest.



Characters/GFs:

Spoiler: show
- All characters' GF compatibility increased from 400 to 600.*
- All GFs' HP increased.
- Altered GF summon damage values.
- Chocoboy now sells Mog's Amulet for 20,000 gil at each of the first six Chocobo Forests.
- Added Tool-RF, which can be used to learn Elem/Status-related Junctions and the WHT/BLK refinement abilities from items.
- The final reward from the bone quest in Dollet has been changed to Tool-RF Scroll regardless of story progress.
- Aero, Bio, and Break have been moved from BLK-RF 2 to BLK-RF 1; removed Demi from BLK-RF 2, which was added erroneously.
- Esuna: St-Def-J changed to Poison, Darkness, Silence, Sleep, Confusion.
- Dispel: St-Def-J changed to Petrify, Silence, Berserk, Zombie, Slow, Stop, Curse, Drain.
- Devour: HP restoration added to buff-granting effects; altered some enemies' Devour effects.

- Squall/Bahamut:
- Ability unlocks changed as follows:
> Darkside: 35 --> 15
> Return Damage: 25 --> 35
> Cover: 15 --> 25
> Elem-Atk-J: 25 --> 20
> Str+20%: 25 --> 30
> Abilityx3: 30 --> 25
- Decreased Cover's AP requirement from 100 to 80.
- Mega Flare: Power lowered; now ignores Spr.
- Defend status now has a small effect on Crisis Level.
- Renzokuken: Attack power of each hit increased from 9 to 10.
- Lionheart (Limit): Attack power of each hit increased from 9 to 11.

Quistis/Shiva:
- Luck lowered; Weapons' crit bonus lowered.
- Spd lowered slightly.
- LV?Curse: Status attack power increased.
- Acid: Damage lowered.
- Micro Missiles: damage increased (3/16 at level 1, 3/8 at level 2, 1/2 at level 3, 3/4 at level 4).
- Gatling Gun: Crit Bonus increased.
- Ray Bomb: Damage increased.
- Homing Laser: Damage values changed; now ignores Spr.
- Shockwave Pulsar: Crisis Level 4 damage increased.

Zell/Ifrit:
- Altered Str curve to increase growth at earlier levels.
- Luck lowered.
- Spd growth curve changed; Spd maximum slightly lowered.
- Hit of all weapons lowered.
- Crit bonus of certain weapons lowered.
- Duel: Timer slightly increased; input sequences of Burning Rave, Meteor Barret, Different Beat, and My Final Heaven reduced to four buttons.
- Aurabolt: Now deals Vit-ignoring physical damage; element changed to Non-elemental; inflicts Sleep in addition to Darkness; status affliction power lowered.

Rinoa/Carbuncle:
- Angelo Reverse: Fully restores HP upon revival.
- Wishing Star: Power decreased from 22 to 17; now ignores Vit.
- Shooting Star: Hit increased to 255.

Selphie/Tonberry:
- Altered Spr growth to increase growth at earlier levels.
- The End: damage increased.
- Reverted removal of Wall from Slot.
- Altered Slot array for greater spell variety.

Irvine/Cactuar:
- Cactuar: Begins with St-Atk-J*.
- Valiant: Str and Hit increased.
- Ulysses: Crit Bonus increased from 5 to 8.
- Bismark: Str and Crit Bonus lowered.
- Exeter: Base power increased from 24 to 26; Crit Bonus increased from 0 to 12.
- Normal Ammo: Crit Bonus decreased from 20 to 10.
- Shotgun Ammo: Crit Bonus decreased from 15 to 10.
- Dark Ammo: Power decreased from 11 to 8; Crit Bonus decreased from 20 to 15; elemental damage modifier increased from +120% to +150%.
- Fire Ammo: Crit Bonus decreased from 15 to 10; elemental damage modifier increased from +120% to +125%.
- Pulse Ammo: Crit Bonus increased from 50 to 54.

*These changes will not be reflected in save files from previous versions.


Enemies:

Spoiler: show
- Starfall: Power lowered.
- Certain enemies will now use a more accurate version of the standard physical attack at high levels.
- Increased Evasion of certain enemies.
- Enemies in Lunatic Pandora (final) now use standard FFVIII level scaling.
- With the exception of those in the central part of the Galbadian continent, plateaus on the world map now hold enemies that scale up to level 60; the left half of Winter Island contains enemies that scale up to level 75; and Island Closest to Heaven enemies scale up to 90.
- Enemies on Island Closest to Hell now use standard level scaling + 10 levels and you cannot run away from them, but a "bonus" enemy has been added for winning these fights.
- Changes to level calculation in various battles/areas.
- Fixed battles with bad camera angles/enemy placements.

- Glacial Eye: Acts less frequently; uses Blizzard at low levels; won't use Petrify Stare if Blinded.
- Fastitocalon (Fake): Replaced.
- Caterchipillar: Increased weakness to fire and ice.
- T-Rexaur: Made immune to Confusion.
- Red Bat: Added Blizzard to mid-level Draw list and Blizzara to high-level Draw list.
- Bomb: No longer expands after using Protect on itself.
- Elite Soldier: Attacks less frequently.
- Wendigo: Spr increased.
- Grendel: Thunder Breath changed to a physical attack; Vit lowered and Spr increased; altered elemental resistances; added Confusion behavior; added an additional ability and associated text and AI.
- Elastoid: Str, Vit, and Spr lowered; Spd increased; can now use Dispel more intelligently and follow up with Beam Laser; Beam Laser's accuracy raised to 255; uses Reflect Beam at or below 40% HP; drop and mug rates increased; Slow added to Draw list.
- Chimera: Lowered HP and Vit; Fire/Thunder/Water absorption changed to 50% damage taken.
- Thrustaevis: Uses diving attack less often.
- Creeps: Added weakness to ice.
- G-Blue Mage: AI reworked; Storm Breath replaced with Eerie Sound Wave at high levels; recolored texture.
- Cactuar: EXP gain lowered; fixed issue causing graphical glitches in certain battles.
- Forbidden: Swapped effects of Double Sword and Thrust.
- Malboro: Eerie Sound Wave now deals magic-based percentage damage; Dissolving Acid is now a Spr-ignoring magic attack; Bad Breath now inflicts Zombie.
- Turtapod: Lowered Sleep and Doom resistance; now uses a defense-ignoring physical attack when Confused; added Reflect to its Draw list.
- Torama: Str increased; Blaster changed to a Spirit-ignoring Magic attack; now uses LV5 Death only when below 30% HP; added Confusion behavior.
- Elnoyle: HP, Str, Mag, and Spr lowered; Spd increased; takes increased damage from Fire and Holy; added invulnerability to Poison; status vulnerabilities and Draw list changed.
- Iron Giant: Thunder weakness reduced from 250% to 220%; Earth weakness reduced from 200% to 170%.
- Behemoth: Vit increased; Spr decreased; now has a chance to heal status ailments.

- Elvoret: Str increased; can now heal Blindness; now uses a critical attack at certain HP thresholds. This will also advance the variable which determines its action by 1, and the second critical attack will also increase its Spd for the rest of the battle.
- X-ATM092: Gains a slight Str boost after its HP has been reduced to 0 three times.
- Iguion: Increased HP; increased likelihood of using Haste; decreased Slow resistance.
- Base Leader: Lowered HP.
- Base Soldier: Increased HP.
- Raijin (1): Level lowered.
- Cerberus: Str lowered; Slow resistance lowered; no longer uses Quake; Doom replaced with Meltdown.
- Abaddon: Turtle Shell now drops from the boss as well as being a Mug item.
- Propagator (all): High level range changed from 40 to 34.
- Jumbo Cactuar: Spawns with fewer Cactuar kills; Str and Spr lowered.
- UFO?: Uses Abduct 1 turn sooner; increased EXP value from 60 to 250; added Meteor to Draw list.
- Raijin (final): Vit decreased; Spr increased.
- Fujin (final): Spr and Vit lowered.
- Seifer (final): Bloodfest's attack type reverted to standard physical attack; uses fewer attacks after Bloodfest, but is more likely to attack with a critical hit; Str and Spr lowered; Vit increased.
- Adel: HP lowered.
- Bahamut: Fixed an issue in which Bahamut would stop using Breath attacks; increased likelihood of shifting elemental weakness.
- Ultima Weapon: HP and Vit lowered.
- "Sorceress" (worm): Str, Vit, and Spr lowered.
- Red Giant: Made more susceptible to Slow.
- Omega Weapon: Lowered HP; can now counter the Shot command; removed Holy and Meteor from its Draw list and replaced them with Life and Zombie; made immune to Poison.
- Griever: New ability added; Dispel replaced with Light of Penance.
- Ultimecia (final): Dispel replaced with Light of Penance; Apocalypse strengthened; attack pattern changed.


Misc.:

Spoiler: show
- Updated the included info doc with information on
> new refine abilities
> new item locations
> new content
> Devour effects
> the number of empty slots each GF has as well as which abilities can be safely deleted without losing any functionality, for players who want to plan out how they distribute abilities.

Lowered the prices of the following shop items:
- Shell Stone (1500 --> 1250)
- Protect Stone (1500 --> 1250)
- Demolition Ammo (500 --> 350)
- AP Ammo (500 --> 350)
- Thief's Glove (20000 --> 10000)

- Corrected Steel Curtain's sell price.
- Raised the sell prices of Jet Engine to be in line with other ability-teaching items.
- Merchant's Hat changed to a one-time reward; restored ability to purchase Gysahl Greens from the Chicobo in Chocobo Sanctuary.
- Lowered Sleep status timer.
- Added/changed NPC dialogue to hint at new sidequests.
- Various other changes and fixes.

Future plans
- More new sidequests
- Reworks/additions for some enemies/bosses that still use vanilla or close-to-vanilla behavior
- Diabolos re-rework
- FFVIII Remastered version
- Reorganize the Item list

Also updated the OP with thanks to goodmorninpluto for the feedback.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2020-12-24 19:01:06
Yo. this mod looks awesome and right up my alley. Thank you and I'm excited to try it.

But just a heads up for you or anyone else who is just coming back here for the first time in months - the Roses and Wine thread is gone because the creator was banned. So the readme instructions included with the mod needs to be fixe.

And since RaW is needed for this mod to work, the Ragnarok Rebalance creator has a link to it
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YU7dP4DkuPt7kCCmkdg8SKnliZ7ygfGD/view
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-12-25 19:56:06
Yo. this mod looks awesome and right up my alley. Thank you and I'm excited to try it.

But just a heads up for you or anyone else who is just coming back here for the first time in months - the Roses and Wine thread is gone because the creator was banned. So the readme instructions included with the mod needs to be fixe.

And since RaW is needed for this mod to work, the Ragnarok Rebalance creator has a link to it
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YU7dP4DkuPt7kCCmkdg8SKnliZ7ygfGD/view

Thanks, hope you enjoy it.

Oh, I didn't realize. I'll fix the link in the next update. Thanks.  :)
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2020-12-26 19:13:47
Thanks, hope you enjoy it.

Oh, I didn't realize. I'll fix the link in the next update. Thanks.  :)

No problem. I just got to Galbadia Garden and having fun with the changes you've made.

I do have a few questions, though.
1. Would you say the game gets harder later on?  Maybe I'm just overleveled (Squall is Level 16, Rinoa is Level 18 and Selphie is Level 21) but things haven't been too difficult for a while now.  if this was a normal RPG you'd expect challenge to increase with time but since it's a mod, you usually see a huge spike in difficulty right from the start ya know? I dunno, I don't think it would hurt to increase damage and HP a bit on the enemies.

2.Do you ever get more GFs? I've already "mastered" all the innate abilities on a few of my GF's. Or do you just learn more abilities for the GF's you have?

3. Do you ever get Abilityx3 or Abilityx4? In general I'm just curious how I learn more abilities for my GF's since right now I've been Drawing all my magic and am sorely missing Refine abilities.

EDIT:

Okay just about to do Sorceress Assassination and Shiva is gonna learn Blk Mag RF 1. I guess i's a Level thing, maybe? Oh well, sorry for the dumb, impatient question.

EDIT 2:

Also I kinda cheated with Rinoa using Aero against the Brothers... Aero is a White Magic spell in many FF games but I just got Blk Mag RF 1 and it's Black Magic here. My bad. I def won't do it again.

Edea was a pretty sweet boss fight.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2020-12-28 02:00:13
Okay a couple big problems to cover in D-District Prison.
(https://i.imgur.com/eueCUA0.png)

If you put Berserk on this guy so he can't do Evil Eye while dying, he's just immortal and will keep fighting.

Also when I tried to Mug Wedge I got the "Stole 0's" problem reported on earlier.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-12-29 03:12:46
No problem. I just got to Galbadia Garden and having fun with the changes you've made.

I do have a few questions, though.
1. Would you say the game gets harder later on?  Maybe I'm just overleveled (Squall is Level 16, Rinoa is Level 18 and Selphie is Level 21) but things haven't been too difficult for a while now.  if this was a normal RPG you'd expect challenge to increase with time but since it's a mod, you usually see a huge spike in difficulty right from the start ya know? I dunno, I don't think it would hurt to increase damage and HP a bit on the enemies.

2.Do you ever get more GFs? I've already "mastered" all the innate abilities on a few of my GF's. Or do you just learn more abilities for the GF's you have?

3. Do you ever get Abilityx3 or Abilityx4? In general I'm just curious how I learn more abilities for my GF's since right now I've been Drawing all my magic and am sorely missing Refine abilities.

EDIT:

Okay just about to do Sorceress Assassination and Shiva is gonna learn Blk Mag RF 1. I guess i's a Level thing, maybe? Oh well, sorry for the dumb, impatient question.

EDIT 2:

Also I kinda cheated with Rinoa using Aero against the Brothers... Aero is a White Magic spell in many FF games but I just got Blk Mag RF 1 and it's Black Magic here. My bad. I def won't do it again.

Edea was a pretty sweet boss fight.

1. I would say so, in part because of how stat scaling works and because I feel more comfortable making difficult fights when you have more tools at your disposal. Also, on Disc 1 there are a few bosses that I think are in awkward positions, like Gerogero and Seifer. In the former case, you can't go back and do things like buy items once you start the train mission (I may make one of the Forest Owls sell stuff to get around this), and in the latter you can only use Squall and I don't want to have a hard Seifer fight followed immediately by a hard Edea fight. Sometimes I'm just waiting for the right idea for an enemy, or I'm okay with them being kind of weak (e.g. Geezard or Funguar).  I'm not looking to make the mod a ball-buster, but if there are any enemies you think are particularly weak, I'll take a look at 'em.

2. No, though I might make them a reward for doing some side content late in the game. (I had intended to make a GF the reward for one of the sidequests I added in the last update, but after considering the implications of it I decided not to.)

3. Yeah. The info doc included with the mod files shows what everyone learns and when. Also, you can use Tool-RF to learn some refine and Junction abilities earlier.

Okay a couple big problems to cover in D-District Prison.
(https://i.imgur.com/eueCUA0.png)

If you put Berserk on this guy so he can't do Evil Eye while dying, he's just immortal and will keep fighting.

Also when I tried to Mug Wedge I got the "Stole 0's" problem reported on earlier.

Thanks. I caught that issue with regards to Stop, but didn't consider Berserk. I'll fix that in the next update.

The 0s thing is harmless, but annoying... I don't understand why it does that considering I'm using the same "Nothing" slot that the game normally uses. A bug with Ifrit, maybe? I'll have to keep making enemies' Mug lists the same/similar as their Drop lists, I guess. Never mind. It's because they still have a Mug chance.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2020-12-29 07:20:21
I appreciate you being considerate about boss placement and difficulty. In the old FFVIII Requiem mod, he had Seifer cast Flare in your first fight with him which means he could potentially open up the fight with it and oneshot you before you even got shell ready.

...that mod had a lot of bad ideas but it was all we had for a long time. Thank God this awesome mod came along.

I have definitely seen a general increase in difficulty so far and I agree with your reasoning. Too often JRPGs became trivially easy with more options so I'm glad you are reversing that, making it more challenging with more options.

Speaking of boss placement and selling items though, I just beat NORG and I'm very grateful he's so easy compared to how he was in Ragnarok Rebalanced. I was totally out of Phoenix Downs and very worried his fight would e a nightmare like the last mod I played. I had a team of Irvine  and Quistis, sending Rinoa to the Missile Base so they had one great healer and I, with Irvine's heal gun, had another . But this meant I had no one who can use Raise so I was worried.

You don't need to tell me exactly what the added sidequests are but can you tell me when/where they occur?  Just curious what I should be on the lookout for.

In any event, this mod is extremely interesting and I will recommend it to people on other FF forums I frequent. For somebody who has played FFVIII as much as I have, you've really re=energized my interest in the gameplay. I intend to see this through to the end and hopefully my comments can help a little bit.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-12-29 14:15:26
I appreciate you being considerate about boss placement and difficulty. In the old FFVIII Requiem mod, he had Seifer cast Flare in your first fight with him which means he could potentially open up the fight with it and oneshot you before you even got shell ready.

...that mod had a lot of bad ideas but it was all we had for a long time. Thank God this awesome mod came along.

I have definitely seen a general increase in difficulty so far and I agree with your reasoning. Too often JRPGs became trivially easy with more options so I'm glad you are reversing that, making it more challenging with more options.

Speaking of boss placement and selling items though, I just beat NORG and I'm very grateful he's so easy compared to how he was in Ragnarok Rebalanced. I was totally out of Phoenix Downs and very worried his fight would e a nightmare like the last mod I played. I had a team of Irvine  and Quistis, sending Rinoa to the Missile Base so they had one great healer and I, with Irvine's heal gun, had another . But this meant I had no one who can use Raise so I was worried.

You don't need to tell me exactly what the added sidequests are but can you tell me when/where they occur?  Just curious what I should be on the lookout for.

In any event, this mod is extremely interesting and I will recommend it to people on other FF forums I frequent. For somebody who has played FFVIII as much as I have, you've really re=energized my interest in the gameplay. I intend to see this through to the end and hopefully my comments can help a little bit.

It's a shame that the only Squall/Seifer 1v1 happens on Disc 1 and immediately before a battle that I want to be a challenging introduction to sorceresses, 'cause I'd love to have a more difficult one later in the game. Maybe I'll try to work something like that in someday.

If this isn't the case already, I may make Joker continue to appear in the Training Center to sell items until after NORG is defeated. Glad you got some use out of Exeter, though.  ;D

Sidequests/additions to existing sidequests:
Spoiler: show
A battle has been added to the Winhill Vase Quest.

Dollet, after the events at Trabia Garden.

Within Esthar, after the Lunar Cry.

The Thrustaevis battle triggered during the Obel Lake Quest has unique AI and an additional reward.

The Sorceress Memorial, after meeting Esthar's president.


The sidequest section of the included info doc is a little more detailed about what you need to do should you need it.

I'm currently working on another sidequest--or rather, building on one introduced in the last update; once I'm done, I'll release it along with fixes to the issues you've found.

I appreciate the kind words and the feedback.  :)
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2020-12-30 22:04:49
So you weren't kidding, things definitely get harder and all for the good. Galbadia Garden was one wild ride from the random encounters to Cerberus to Seifer 2. Edea 2 ironically was the easiest thing by far. With Haste on everyone she gets basically no turns and once it was just her, she only cast Stop over and over and over again and I think 2 Maelstroms. The real kicker though was the fact I swear each of my party members got 3-4 turns in for every single turn from her.

Seifer, my fave character, got a worthy boss battle at last. He certainly didn't get it in the original but I died more on this fight than any boss yet. Very creative mechanics, although I swear he just kinda bugged out and went crazy sometimes, attacking like 5-6 times in a row. My game also froze twice, only when two of my characters were down.
Spoiler: show
The "cast Zombie on characters in yellow health" mechanic is certainly intriguing and made me have to forfeit my other status defenses for Squall and Quistis. Quistis of course doesn't need Blind or Silence immunity since Acid isn't effected by either but I did have to give up Squall's Blind immunity after afew failed attempts when I realized how absolutely Zombie was fucking me up. I kept Silence on Rinoa's ST-Def though because of course. She rarely ever got low on health anyhow. Always gotta keep the healer safe.  I'm gonna miss her for the next few hours.


But yeah, dunno if you play Shin Megami Tensei but Seifer here reminded me a bit of an SMT boss with getting 3 or so moves in for his turn. Or like the Final Fantasy III remake where bosses get 2 moves in for their turn. I dunno if there's any rhyme or reason to it since sometimes he only got one move in.

Finding those Dispel, Protect and Shell Stones at Winhill was an awesome surprise, very useful. Gonna have to go load up on those now with Rinoa gone.

Thanks for the sidequest lowdown. I still got a little while before I have to worry about any of those except Winhill which I already finished and Dollet which I forgot about and gotta do now.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-12-30 23:03:25
So you weren't kidding, things definitely get harder and all for the good. Galbadia Garden was one wild ride from the random encounters to Cerberus to Seifer 2. Edea 2 ironically was the easiest thing by far. With Haste on everyone she gets basically no turns and once it was just her, she only cast Stop over and over and over again and I think 2 Maelstroms. The real kicker though was the fact I swear each of my party members got 3-4 turns in for every single turn from her.

Edea used to be faster, but iirc I thought she was too overwhelming that way so I toned her down. I'll look into her AI first and decide if she needs any stat buffs after that. Maybe I should make her get faster after Seifer dies, if nothing else.

Quote
Seifer, my fave character, got a worthy boss battle at last. He certainly didn't get it in the original but I died more on this fight than any boss yet. Very creative mechanics, although I swear he just kinda bugged out and went crazy sometimes, attacking like 5-6 times in a row. My game also froze twice, only when two of my characters were down.
Spoiler: show
The "cast Zombie on characters in yellow health" mechanic is certainly intriguing and made me have to forfeit my other status defenses for Squall and Quistis. Quistis of course doesn't need Blind or Silence immunity since Acid isn't effected by either but I did have to give up Squall's Blind immunity after afew failed attempts when I realized how absolutely Zombie was fucking me up. I kept Silence on Rinoa's ST-Def though because of course. She rarely ever got low on health anyhow. Always gotta keep the healer safe.  I'm gonna miss her for the next few hours.


But yeah, dunno if you play Shin Megami Tensei but Seifer here reminded me a bit of an SMT boss with getting 3 or so moves in for his turn. Or like the Final Fantasy III remake where bosses get 2 moves in for their turn. I dunno if there's any rhyme or reason to it since sometimes he only got one move in.

Sorry about the crashes :( I'll see about fixing them--based on what you told me, I have an inkling as to why that occurred. One question, though: was the remaining character Zombified?

Glad you liked the fight otherwise though, as it's actually the one I'm most proud of. Dunno if I'd call myself a fan per se, but I think the game really underutilizes Seifer both in the story and in gameplay and I wanted to rectify at least the latter. I approached his fights with the concept of "Someone who fights dirty", and of all the ideas I had based on that, the Zombie thing is my favorite, lol. The first time I tested his fight, he used Zombie on someone right as I queued a heal for them and I was like "YES!" (I once considered giving him a version of Zombie that would ignore immunity, but I thought that would be too mean...)

Seifer has a lot of action chances, which is why he'd sometimes take many or only a few. He initially turned out that way as a result of my inexperience, but I decided I liked it on him and kept it. Makes him feel more like the "speed" to Squall's "power"...and lets him weave Zombies between his sword strikes.  8)

Quote
Finding those Dispel, Protect and Shell Stones at Winhill was an awesome surprise, very useful. Gonna have to go load up on those now with Rinoa gone.

Hopefully I'll eventually be able to fix the issue with Edea... She was supposed to have Pray and Double in addition to an unlimited spell selection.


On another note, the next battle addition is currently in the testing phase:
Spoiler: show
(https://i.imgur.com/f3c8cDG.png[)
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2020-12-31 00:11:16
I'm afraid I can't recall for certain if the lone survivor was Zombified or not. I wanna say Rinoa might have been in my last crash but I really can't say. I also stupidly saved over my save right before the Seifer fight but I still have one before the Garden Battle and I intend to replay up to the Seifer fight to try and record it so I'll see if I can experiment a bit if you need.

Speaking of Seifer being a tougher boss like he should be, did you do anything to Seifer 3? I've been wary of getting Odin because Gilgamesh ruins the final, climactic showdown with Seifer and I hate it. I might just forego Odin since he doesn't even have Double or Triple anymore.

Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-12-31 00:34:36
I'm afraid I can't recall for certain if the lone survivor was Zombified or not. I wanna say Rinoa might have been in my last crash but I really can't say. I also stupidly saved over my save right before the Seifer fight but I still have one before the Garden Battle and I intend to replay up to the Seifer fight to try and record it so I'll see if I can experiment a bit if you need.

No worries, I'm pretty sure I know what's going on now. If you want, I can send you some updated enemy files before your replay to ensure that Seifer's fight won't crash.

Quote
Speaking of Seifer being a tougher boss like he should be, did you do anything to Seifer 3? I've been wary of getting Odin because Gilgamesh ruins the final, climactic showdown with Seifer and I hate it. I might just forego Odin since he doesn't even have Double or Triple anymore.

I did, though I feel I used my best ideas on Seifer 2 and Seifer 3 isn't as fun. I increased the number of turns needed for Gilgamesh to appear and defeat Seifer for you, though if you have Odin he'll still appear when you deplete Seifer's HP, of course. If Odin's level is greater or equal to 45, you can Draw Meteor and Arise from him, so it may be worth it to wait. Ultima is better than Meteor in this mod as it should be, but the latter is easier to get ahold of. I'd say neither spell is as appealing a reason to wait after the release of 1.1, but Drawing them from Odin may help in getting the thing that caused Odin's high-level Draw list to become less appealing.


EDIT (12/31): I found a few problems (including the trigger for the Dollet sidequest somehow not making it into my release files...  :oops:), I'm gonna release an update later today.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2020-12-31 22:02:17
FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1 (https://mega.nz/file/EHAXmIRI#bKMqk4s0H_lWPEtff4DTtxTG7HqRQxcJqRtxzPCsqjc)
Updated battle.fs 1/6/21 (https://mega.nz/file/1bxAGZaC#5rzfrUxVcuA5EFQii7WdjgayK-LsXll8aClSSn0zP64)

Content

- A new battle has been added to the Fire Cavern, accessible after the events at Fisherman's Horizon on Disc 2; altered some dialogue to act as a hint.
- Fixed issue in which Dollet sidequest battle wouldn't trigger.* because I forgot to include the trigger

Characters/GFs:

Squall:
- Lionheart (Limit): Power increased from 11 to 14.

Rinoa:
- Angelo Cannon: Inflicts Confusion.
- Angelo Strike: Inflicts Slow instead of Confusion.

Enemies:

- Slightly increased enemy levels in D-District Prison.
- Fixed remaining instances of stealing 0s from enemies.

- Thrustaevis: Increased HP threshold at which its AI changes.
- G-Blue Mage: Fixed issue preventing enemy's death when inflicted with certain statuses.

- Seifer (2): Fixed issue causing crashes.
- Omega Weapon: Can now counter after a certain number of Limit Breaks have been used on it.
- Ultimecia (1): Always has Double status.

Misc.:
- Updated readme with a working link to Roses and Wine.
- Updated info doc with information on new sidequest; corrected listing of Bahamut's abilities.

Known issues:
The Aberrant Key items that replace the Occult Fan magazines can still be used in the menu.


*If you already triggered the scene at the Dollet Mountain Path that starts the battle, you can open your save file in Hyne (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=9713.0), go to HexaEdit on the left side, click the Field tab at the top and change this byte (https://i.imgur.com/lJstQ3d.png) from 80 to 00, or if you'd prefer you can send me your save file and I'll do it for you. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-01 01:09:20
Hey dude can you fix my save file? I think I did the Dollet quest and nothing happened so maybe that is what you fixed in the lasted update?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KVxHxQLGCJEfngfX14sGkzY9YAmxYEuy/view?usp=sharing

Also I had another freeze when fighting Vysage, Lefty and Righty at the Great Salt Lake while Selphie was Cursed and trying to use Slot.
Dunno if that might have something to do with the memory problem you mentioned or if you can fix that while doing this.

Thanks again.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-01 01:48:08
Hey dude can you fix my save file? I think I did the Dollet quest and nothing happened so maybe that is what you fixed in the lasted update?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KVxHxQLGCJEfngfX14sGkzY9YAmxYEuy/view?usp=sharing

Also I had another freeze when fighting Vysage, Lefty and Righty at the Great Salt Lake while Selphie was Cursed and trying to use Slot.
Dunno if that might have something to do with the memory problem you mentioned or if you can fix that while doing this.

Thanks again.

Here you go: https://mega.nz/file/dHBTCaTR#GppxgWLKcxvqL4nOPUh2JJgYVDxqUF79Kav5f5uMYb0 If it doesn't load, you may have to use Hyne to manually sign the save (it's under File). Just place the save in the same folder as your other saves and Hyne will find your metadata.xml file for you. By the way, the character level shows up lower on the save preview because Hyne assumes 1000 exp = 1 level, but it'll be correct when you load the save.

I'll look into those enemies and edit this post with a fix.

Edit: The crash was caused by a bug with Ifrit in which it misinterprets checks on the status of other enemies...at least, that's what it has to be, because I've changed Vysage, Lefty, and Righty's AI very, very little. Anyway, I edited Vysage's file and battled the three of them for a while and no crash occurred. Here you go: https://mega.nz/file/MaY1iAAK#kBWkh9I8Bc0XgiDI6-ac3kqOdTvh6Z4_rDw7aVrN8AU Thanks for your patience.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-02 09:21:34
Thank you for all your help.

Would you say the Deep Sea Research Facility (up to Bahamut at least) should be done before Lunatic Pandora and completing Disk 3 or after? I made it up to Bahamut...and died because I'm a fucking idiot who didn't  use the menu before the fight to heal. But my main point is, I gained so many levels from just walking there. I'm worried of overleveling and making the story too easy.

My main party is:
Squall Lvl 47
Quistis Lvl 40
Rinoa Lvl 36

All I recall for certain is by the time I lost, Rinoa had gained 5 levels.

What level do you think this game should be beaten at, by the way?
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-02 13:25:51
I realized that I forgot to hex edit Adel the last time I updated, so here's a new battle.fs: https://mega.nz/file/YbpymBpQ#38_JoRmfIv-I-LmAHVzSzBD8av9n5mdiDOHyTrRf6Tc Her model shouldn't explode into a million colors now.  :|

Thank you for all your help.

Would you say the Deep Sea Research Facility (up to Bahamut at least) should be done before Lunatic Pandora and completing Disk 3 or after? I made it up to Bahamut...and died because I'm a fucking idiot who didn't  use the menu before the fight to heal. But my main point is, I gained so many levels from just walking there. I'm worried of overleveling and making the story too easy.

My main party is:
Squall Lvl 47
Quistis Lvl 40
Rinoa Lvl 36

All I recall for certain is by the time I lost, Rinoa had gained 5 levels.

What level do you think this game should be beaten at, by the way?

No problem.  :)

Enemies and bosses in late-game sidequests as well as those in Lunatic Pandora and Ultimecia's Castle will all scale based on your level, so no need to worry about out-leveling the enemies. I tend to do all of the sidequests before entering LP, but it shouldn't make much of a difference either way.

Were those levels gained just from fighting the Ruby Dragons, or were you moving while the light was shining?

The last time I played through the mod, my three most-used characters were in the 60s and 70s; the other three were lower. (I tend to cycle through characters, but this time I let a friend I was streaming the game for choose the party throughout the game, and he had a thing for Rinoa and Quistis...  ;D). That was before I added the new sidequests, though. (One reason that I decided to introduce new sidequests was to reduce the amount of grinding the player would need to do in order to, say, learn all of a character's abilities or level to 100.)

Everyone gets their last GF ability at level 50, so I'd make sure they're at least that high. Also, Omega Weapon is always level 100, so you'll want to raise your characters to around 100 if you want to fight it. I may eventually introduce another boss or two that are always set to 100, as well.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-03 12:06:57
Cool cool.  I did walk while the blue light was shining because I was dumb and forgot about it triggering encounters.

I have no idea how you're supposed to defeat Bahamut without Selphie and her awesome Double ability to exploit his weakness. I tried with my usual team - like your friend Rinoa and Quistis are my favorites but Quistis and Squall just weren't gettingit done in terms of damage. Meanwhile, Selphie beat him all by herself doing 6200 damage a turn. Squall nd Rinoa were just on support and heal duty. Great fight, the second hardest all game next to Seifer 2.

But I think I fucked up and "cheated" by accident.. I'm right after getting Rinoa and first thing I did was go to Esthar touy items and then head to the Deep Sea Research facility. I got Hi-Potion+ and Mega Potions from Johnny's Shop. But when I go back after beating Bahamut to resupply, the shop says closed. But if you keep clicking on it enough, it will be open to buy items. Is that a mistake?

I guess I shouldn't have had those Hi Potion+ or Mega Potions....


Also I keep forgetting to mention, it seems like the Confused party AI is programmed to use the rarest item while confused? I had 2 Mega Remedies I Mugged from somebody A while ago now I did all the Chocobo Forests and when heading to the Sanctuary I stuck around trying to see if the Malboro was still there to steal a Tentacle from to learn Bad Breath. It was. When he used it on my party, a Confused Irvine used the Mega Remedy so Selphie or somebody could immediately then mug a Tentacle off the Malboro and then we fled.

Bad Breath is always so good to have in this game. It alone makes Quistis Queen when dealing with every non boss encounter.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-03 14:54:25
Cool cool.  I did walk while the blue light was shining because I was dumb and forgot about it triggering encounters.

I have no idea how you're supposed to defeat Bahamut without Selphie and her awesome Double ability to exploit his weakness. I tried with my usual team - like your friend Rinoa and Quistis are my favorites but Quistis and Squall just weren't gettingit done in terms of damage. Meanwhile, Selphie beat him all by herself doing 6200 damage a turn. Squall nd Rinoa were just on support and heal duty. Great fight, the second hardest all game next to Seifer 2.

Quistis and Zell can exploit Bahamut's Fire and Thunder weakness with Limits, and Irvine can do good damage with Fire Ammo. You can also Junction an -aga spell to Elem-Atk. Also, though they don't do great damage, normal attacks of any element will not add to Bahamut's Mega Flare variable. Lastly, you can still use other abilities to damage him if you're willing to let the Mega Flare variable go up, and by now you can get several that ignore defenses and/or have high base power. I agree that it's a lot easier with Selphie, though. Admittedly, it's a fight that would work better without restrictions on magic usage. I may lower his Vit a bit, but not so much that you can ignore the mechanics. Alternatively, I may allow you to put Bahamut to sleep for a brief period, limited to a certain number of times, to give you a few small windows in which to deal increased physical damage to him.

Quote
But I think I fucked up and "cheated" by accident.. I'm right after getting Rinoa and first thing I did was go to Esthar touy items and then head to the Deep Sea Research facility. I got Hi-Potion+ and Mega Potions from Johnny's Shop. But when I go back after beating Bahamut to resupply, the shop says closed. But if you keep clicking on it enough, it will be open to buy items. Is that a mistake?

I guess I shouldn't have had those Hi Potion+ or Mega Potions....

Nah, that shop is like that in vanilla too.

Quote
Also I keep forgetting to mention, it seems like the Confused party AI is programmed to use the rarest item while confused? I had 2 Mega Remedies I Mugged from somebody A while ago now I did all the Chocobo Forests and when heading to the Sanctuary I stuck around trying to see if the Malboro was still there to steal a Tentacle from to learn Bad Breath. It was. When he used it on my party, a Confused Irvine used the Mega Remedy so Selphie or somebody could immediately then mug a Tentacle off the Malboro and then we fled.

Bad Breath is always so good to have in this game. It alone makes Quistis Queen when dealing with every non boss encounter.

Good to know. IIRC, The party's confusion AI won't use items that have the "single side" flag set, so I'll change that in the next update.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-03 15:44:07
Well, given Bahamut shifts elemental weaknesses and absorbs what he isn't weak to, isn't it a bad idea to load up a physical attacker with Elemental Attack- J for that fight?

But I've run into my first super serious and consistent technical problem as I tried to go deeper into the research facility. Made a video of both problems.
https://youtu.be/yR5ylHH-x4w?t=53

This doing 9999 damage wasn't the initial problem I saw; I had a CTD two times with a message saying an unknown exception occurred.  I forget what the first crash fight was with but the second was with Tri Face. I didn't get to do 9999 damage for no reason that time, it just crashed immediately.

And the weird visual glitches with what sounds like a Bomb has happened all three attempts to go down.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-03 16:42:53
Well, given Bahamut shifts elemental weaknesses and absorbs what he isn't weak to, isn't it a bad idea to load up a physical attacker with Elemental Attack- J for that fight?


In the worst-case scenario--a Squall/Zell/Irvine party--you could give Irvine Thundaga, Zell Blizzaga, and Squall Firaga. This would allow Irvine to hit two elements, Zell three, and Squall one. Irvine can also use AP Ammo if you don't mind increasing the MF count, or even Pulse Ammo, and Zell's Aurabolt also ignores Vit (and if I make Bahamut susceptible to Sleep, that'd be a good way of landing it on him). Additionally, if you swapped Zell out for Quistis, she'd be able to hit all three if given Blizzaga, as well as use the defense-ignoring properties of Gatling Gun and Homing Laser. It's possible Squall would be better off using a non-elemental Darkside, though.

Quote
But I've run into my first super serious and consistent technical problem as I tried to go deeper into the research facility. Made a video of both problems.
https://youtu.be/yR5ylHH-x4w?t=53

This doing 9999 damage wasn't the initial problem I saw; I had a CTD two times with a message saying an unknown exception occurred.

I'm certain I checked that exact battle to make sure Grendel wouldn't do that... Here's a fix: https://mega.nz/file/gDoSyKwK#DT9zWuUOpcjdRWOU6Yswlv9CjBedNKVYI6Qz-hKh_uo

I'm unsure why your attacks are doing that much damage to Tri-face (I'm guessing you don't have Firaga on your Elem-Atk, which Tri-face takes 2.5x damage from) but it may be some strange consequence of the graphical glitch. If it persists, let me know.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-03 23:12:18
Okay, that does seem to have fixed everything right up, thank you.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-04 15:47:48
So Ultima Weapon is kicking my ass. I Scanned him once and it said Level 70.

My party is Level 57 Squall, Level 49 Rinoa and Level 46 Quistis. Should I grind or am I just bad?

i def need to go and buy more revive items. Damn Light Pillar.

EDIT:

lol Squall with the suicide Darkside to clinch the win for just Rinoa. I think UW mostly killed himself what with his spamming Light Pillar on Rinoa and Squall in this successful run as I had Return Damage on them both. But a win is a win and no level grinding or buying more items.

Also really lucked out when heading down to him to fight Iron Giants and get the final piece for Punishment. I've had Flame Saber far too long and the damage increase for Punishment helped out a lot here, basically did 5K damage per turn with Quake on his Attack Junction and with Darkside. Also Mugged 3 Energy Crystals from a Behemoth. So just need to find 1 more Adamantine and a Royal Crown for Lionheart. You don't have to tell me where, I wanna try and find it on my own.

Actually, now I think on it, maybe I beat a weaker UW? I was doing 4700 damage with Darkside before but did like 5200 this time.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-05 00:58:00
So Ultima Weapon is kicking my ass. I Scanned him once and it said Level 70.

My party is Level 57 Squall, Level 49 Rinoa and Level 46 Quistis. Should I grind or am I just bad?

i def need to go and buy more revive items. Damn Light Pillar.

EDIT:

lol Squall with the suicide Darkside to clinch the win for just Rinoa. I think UW mostly killed himself what with his spamming Light Pillar on Rinoa and Squall in this successful run as I had Return Damage on them both. But a win is a win and no level grinding or buying more items.

Also really lucked out when heading down to him to fight Iron Giants and get the final piece for Punishment. I've had Flame Saber far too long and the damage increase for Punishment helped out a lot here, basically did 5K damage per turn with Quake on his Attack Junction and with Darkside. Also Mugged 3 Energy Crystals from a Behemoth. So just need to find 1 more Adamantine and a Royal Crown for Lionheart. You don't have to tell me where, I wanna try and find it on my own.

Actually, now I think on it, maybe I beat a weaker UW? I was doing 4700 damage with Darkside before but did like 5200 this time.

Before 1.1 there were certain bosses that used standard level scaling + X; I removed it from most of them but it seems I forgot to do it for UW, despite it being one of the enemies that prompted the change...  :oops: It was still possible to beat it even when its level scaling was at the higher end, but if you didn't get an AoE Protect/Shell up ASAP, it tended to steamroll you. (I do kind of like how aggressive it is, though.) That aside, UW's behavior is actually the same as its vanilla counterpart. UW is a well-designed enemy--more difficult than vanilla Omega Weapon, really--but it's hard to appreciate that when you can kill it in a single Limit Break.  ::)

Sometimes I think I should revert the Return Damage buff or at least find something to replace it in Squall or Rinoa's learn list.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-05 01:43:47
Oh yeah, I've always loved the UW fight except for how easy it is to kill him. Way cooler boss than Omega.

But how do you do AOE protection in this game apart from hoping for Invincible Moon?  If Quistis still learns Mighty Guard, I haven't found it yet. But Quistis gets all the AOE in this game which is one reason I use her. Her White Wind was essential for winning here for, without Double or Triple, she's the only person who can really heal the entire party. Rinoa's Pray does not do anywhere near enough healing. So between MG and WW, Quistis is pretty much the best party member by far.

And yeah, did Return Damage always do 1/2?  Maybe some mods I played changed it to 1/4. 1/2 is pretty broken, especially on two characters.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-05 01:54:55
Oh yeah, I've always loved the UW fight except for how easy it is to kill him. Way cooler boss than Omega.

But how do you do AOE protection in this game apart from hoping for Invincible Moon?  If Quistis still learns Mighty Guard, I haven't found it yet. But Quistis gets all the AOE in this game which is one reason I use her. Her White Wind was essential for winning here for, without Double or Triple, she's the only person who can really heal the entire party. Rinoa's Pray does not do anywhere near enough healing. So between MG and WW, Quistis is pretty much the best party member by far.

And yeah, did Return Damage always do 1/2?  Maybe some mods I played changed it to 1/4. 1/2 is pretty broken, especially on two characters.

Aside from Mighty Guard, you can get Wall from Slot and Carbuncle gives Protect and Shell instead of Reflect. Irvine can also learn Med Data to increase the power of Mega-Potions. In the future I'm gonna add a way to get a small number of Wall spells intended for Rinoa's use. I once had Pray's base power set a little higher, but I found that for much of the game it was strong enough that you could ignore the Cure series much of the time and I find that even now it's often sufficient to patch up the party quickly. I've considered replacing Angelo Cannon with a healing ability, but I don't want to get rid of something as memorable as Angelo Cannon, lol. Oh, and you can also inflict Curse on many enemies, which in this mod will reduce their Str and Mag by 20%. The most reliable source of Curse is the Nightsword command, but you can also get it from Quistis' LV?Curse and Selphie's Tonberry summon.

It's 1/4 in vanilla. I think 1/4 isn't worth an ability slot, but 1/2 may be too much... If I go the removal route, I'll remove it from Squall. Originally, only Rinoa learned it naturally.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-06 10:00:55
So things are going well in Ulty's Castle, I randomly encountered a Behemoth and it dropped a Barrier so I'm very happy about that

But I'm trying to figure out what to do with the switching parties and getting to new locations. I switched to my secondary team of Zell, Irvine and Selphie and tried to have them run through that sort of outside area with the save point that you get to by passing through the Art Gallery and that next room with the stairs and switch point, that leads to the two bosses if you keep going straight?  I've had the game crash on me twice now as soon as the fight with the Torama and the two flying enemies starts.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-06 13:05:32
So things are going well in Ulty's Castle, I randomly encountered a Behemoth and it dropped a Barrier so I'm very happy about that

But I'm trying to figure out what to do with the switching parties and getting to new locations. I switched to my secondary team of Zell, Irvine and Selphie and tried to have them run through that sort of outside area with the save point that you get to by passing through the Art Gallery and that next room with the stairs and switch point, that leads to the two bosses if you keep going straight?  I've had the game crash on me twice now as soon as the fight with the Torama and the two flying enemies starts.

This will fix it: https://mega.nz/file/1bxAGZaC#5rzfrUxVcuA5EFQii7WdjgayK-LsXll8aClSSn0zP64


While I'm at it, here's something I'll be releasing in the next update:
Spoiler: show
(https://i.imgur.com/mFIEmMu.png)
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-06 21:54:59
Thank you, that sorted it all out.

The only sealing boss I have left is Tiamat. He killed me and I haven't gone back to him yet but I noticed something wonky about him. He kept trying to cast stuff and nothing would happen. I saw the abilities' names at the top of the screen and nothing happened until finally he did Dark Flare and annihilated me. Not sure if this is a weird bug so I won't fight him yet until I hear back from you.

Also I defeated Red Giant through Return Damage and Quistis Spirit and Vitality ignoring Limits. I feel like this isn't actually the intended strategy to defeat him but it's all I could come up with.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-06 23:31:44
Thank you, that sorted it all out.

The only sealing boss I have left is Tiamat. He killed me and I haven't gone back to him yet but I noticed something wonky about him. He kept trying to cast stuff and nothing would happen. I saw the abilities' names at the top of the screen and nothing happened until finally he did Dark Flare and annihilated me. Not sure if this is a weird bug so I won't fight him yet until I hear back from you.

That sounds like how it's intended to work. It's spelling out "DARK FLARE" before using the attack, right?

Quote
Also I defeated Red Giant through Return Damage and Quistis Spirit and Vitality ignoring Limits. I feel like this isn't actually the intended strategy to defeat him but it's all I could come up with.

That is more or less how you are intended to do it.

Vit-ignoring skills: Gatling Gun, Aurabolt, Nightsword, Kamikaze, Armor Shot, Hyper Shot, Wishing Star
Spr-ignoring skills: Homing Laser, The End, Bahamut
Percentage-based skills: Percent, Micro Missiles
Fixed damage: Acid, Cactuar

I think that is enough skills to win, especially when you can choose your party, but I may make it easier to zombify as an alternate strat. I always thought it was dumb, if somewhat understandable, how the game has a gimmick boss like that but then hands you the key to victory (Demi).
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-07 10:45:29
GFs were the first thing I thought of when magic and physical attacks did nothing and I used Bahamut and saw it said about 3K damage but then he said GFs are useless and also Bahamut died in a couple attacks so that didn't sem like a very good way to win.

As for Tiamat, I am ever the clueless person. I thought the messages at the top were attacks or something. My bad.

God willing, I'll be completing your wonderful mod today. It's been a lot of fun.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-07 13:29:32
GFs were the first thing I thought of when magic and physical attacks did nothing and I used Bahamut and saw it said about 3K damage but then he said GFs are useless and also Bahamut died in a couple attacks so that didn't sem like a very good way to win.

I'm buffing GFs slowly so as not to risk making them too good. Spamming GFs is considered a noob tactic in vanilla, but I'd argue that's in large part because there are so many more exploitable things in the game and without those, GFs would be considered pretty broken. That said, keep in mind that GFs' power is calculated with Boost (and elemental weakness in the case of Shiva and Ifrit) in mind, so their damage won't seem as impressive without it. Speaking of which, the next update will introduce a combination Boost/SumDmg+ ability as a quest reward and an HP increase for Carbuncle to make Protect/Shell easier to get off.

I hadn't thought about that message... I have an inkling of how the game IDs GF attacks, and if I'm right, I could prevent Red Giant from saying that if using Bahamut or Cactuar against it.

I'll probably reduce Red Giant's resistance to Zombie and Vit0; with that, there should definitely be enough viable strats against it.

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As for Tiamat, I am ever the clueless person. I thought the messages at the top were attacks or something. My bad.

God willing, I'll be completing your wonderful mod today. It's been a lot of fun.

It's cool. I was a bit worried that I had messed with Tiamat's AI and completely forgotten about it, though...  ;D

Fingers crossed. I'm glad you've been enjoying it so much.  :)


Speaking of the next update, it'll include the Gerogero rework and the addition of a shop to the Forest Owls' base. I'm working on the former and the latter is basically done.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-07 14:28:16
Speaking of GFs, I bought a GF Scroll for Bahamut (when I used him earlier it was just a test and I reloaded) and Shiva so as to use them and Carbuncle to shield us from the first Dark Flare.  He killed me even with Mighty Guard so I figured maybe he's just gonna kill me no matter what so I brought out the GFs to be meat shields and die so we could survive and kill him just before the next DF went off. Not sure if there was another strategy but I swear he killed even protected Squall who had like 4K HP or something.

But more importantly, I  I won the game! Squall couldn't make it to the final battle, it was Level 54 Selphie Double casting Flare/Meteor and finally Ultima that did it with a decent assist from Level 61 Quistis and Level 69 Rinoa.

A thought that occurred to me as I entered the final battle was, how does level scaling work here since you can get a random team? I got Zell in my starting lineup and he was a pitiful Level 26 'cuz I never use him. Did that weaken just Ulty or all the fights? Rinoa and Quistis were there from the start, though. Had to let Zell die and then Irvine and then Selphie was there.


Fight was 48 minutes...a pretty epic struggle I dare say.  I recorded it but not sure if it is as thrilling to watch as to play. But I bought Bandicam for $40, I'm gonna use it.

Gonna gather my thoughts on the whole mod and post them later. But I definitely think Crystal is far and away my favorite FFVIII mod ever.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-07 14:59:57
Speaking of GFs, I bought a GF Scroll for Bahamut (when I used him earlier it was just a test and I reloaded) and Shiva so as to use them and Carbuncle to shield us from the first Dark Flare.  He killed me even with Mighty Guard so I figured maybe he's just gonna kill me no matter what so I brought out the GFs to be meat shields and die so we could survive and kill him just before the next DF went off. Not sure if there was another strategy but I swear he killed even protected Squall who had like 4K HP or something.

You're intended to blitz it before it can use Dark Flare (I've done it before, so it is possible), but I actually hadn't considered using GFs to take the hit for you and killing it afterward. Clever; I like it.

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But more importantly, I  I won the game! Squall couldn't make it to the final battle, it was Level 54 Selphie Double casting Flare/Meteor and finally Ultima that did it with a decent assist from Level 61 Quistis and Level 69 Rinoa.

A thought that occurred to me as I entered the final battle was, how does level scaling work here since you can get a random team? I got Zell in my starting lineup and he was a pitiful Level 26 'cuz I never use him. Did that weaken just Ulty or all the fights? Rinoa and Quistis were there from the start, though. Had to let Zell die and then Irvine and then Selphie was there.

I think the level of each boss is based on who your active party is at the time of their appearance even in vanilla. However, iirc all of the final bosses have their scaling set to a value of 251 by default, and I'm not certain it's known what exactly that does. Online sources say the final bosses only scale up to 65 by default, but that would normally mean their scaling value would be set to 165. In this mod, all of them are set to a value of 254, which is "party's average level".

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Fight was 48 minutes...a pretty epic struggle I dare say.  I recorded it but not sure if it is as thrilling to watch as to play. But I bought Bandicam for $40, I'm gonna use it.

Gonna gather my thoughts on the whole mod and post them later. But I definitely think Crystal is far and away my favorite FFVIII mod ever.

I'm happy to hear that. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks for your feedback, and for playing the mod  :)
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-08 14:56:52
Alright, so concluding remarks:

1. opane thing that isn't exactly my thought but a few people have brought up as I recommend your mod - why is Rinoa White Mage and Selphie Black Mage? It first hit me when I got Angel Wing and realized Rinoa can't really do much with it in this mod. And others have brought up how Selphie's unique spells are very WM like Full-Cure, Wall, Rapture, etc.. Is it purely based on their personalities? I can understand that - Selphie is basically like a cartoon Black Mage, all burn, kill, destroy.

2. I know some people will balk at this but it feels like Drawing is the main source of magic in this mod? I'm sure you know how everyone Drew magic as a kid and then you get older and are like "use Card Mod, dumbass." But with Card Mod gone and only getting the RF abilities pretty infrequently from levels, Drawing was the easiest way to obtain magic for me. Now, you made it so it's almost guaranteed that you will draw 15 spells from an enemy so it really doesn't bother me. But Drawing Magic just really pisses off some people and wile you made items purchasable for the elemental spells to be refined from, there are many, many other spells besides that which Drawing was the best and most expedient source. I got my 200 or 300 spells from Drawing all game and only very rarely refined items into magic. Do you think this is a problem or is Drawing supposed to be the main source of magic?

Just thinking maybe stealing or item drops can be increased a decent bit to compensate.

3. It's over now so I don't mind asking but where was another Adamantine for Squall's final gunblade? I just needed one more to complete it but never found one. I recall they used to be dropped or mugged from Adamantoise but if that's still a thing, I didn't get itt o happen.

4. Speaking of missed stuff, I never got Shockwave Pulsar for Quistis because, looking at your doc after I beat thE game, you get Dark Matter from PuPu. I tried going to his spots on Disk 4 but he never appeared so I never got the item and her best LB.

5. I think Seifer 3 could stand to be buffed a decent bit.  Squall with Darkside and 100 Pains to Elem Attack-J will do near max damage and kill him in no time.

6. Speaking of which, my favorite fights all game were Seifer 2, Edea 1 and Bahamut. I think Seifer and Bahamut especially you did a really great job with and made them very memorable Just great struggles that are every bit as tense and dramatic as they ought to be given the narrative surrounding them.

7. I definitely do appreciate how the game gets harder in response to you getting more options like you noted earlier. Still, I think the end of Disk 2 is when the game got noticeably more challenging and that is quite a ways in. I really wouldn't be averse to bosses and enemies before that getting buffed   Up to you though, I'm not even sure how I'd go about making things harder.

8. On the viability of GFs later on, I really would suggest buffing their HP a lot. I know I mentioned it before but while Carbuncle is great and useful, it just always died so fast. Quistis and Mighty Guard is the only real way to get buffs on the whole party in a swift, reliable fashion. At least, compared to Carbuncle. Selphie's Slot is even more unreliable than Carbuncle in my experience - I never got anything good with it whenever i used her and she got in low health.

Basically it seems like Quistis is far and away the best support character given full party heals and buffs. Which is fine - I wanted character differentiation and diversity and you gave me that. Also I use Quistis most of the time, anyway. Still,  you pointed out a lot of strategies I never considered so maybe I'm just missing how good the others could be. But I shudder to think of facing the final boss gauntlet without Quistis and her Mighty Guard.

9. This is a very random, minor thought but is there any way to implement an item that does Scan, like some sort of Scan Stone?  Squall's magic sucks and so I just never even had that ability on his menu after a while and you could theoretically have nobody in your party who can cast Scan in this mod.

But yeah...I will maybe think of more stuff later on. I always miss a thought or two when I write these kinds of things. For now though, all I can say is I had a lot of fun. FFVIII is not my favorite FF but I grew up with it and have a soft spot for it and I'm glad people like you are trying to fix how broken it was so as to make it more entertaining on repeat runs.

EDIT:

Also, unrelated to your mod specifically, is there any way to tell if Protect and Shell are still on when you have multiple buffs? The menu only lists one thing and I'm looking at my bad final boss video and I tried tor reapply buffs that hadn't worn of yet because I'm dumb and thought they might have. I know you get the message at the top about them wearing off but I am very likely to miss that and I really wish there was another way to check if they were still on.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-08 20:10:09
Alright, so concluding remarks:

1. opane thing that isn't exactly my thought but a few people have brought up as I recommend your mod - why is Rinoa White Mage and Selphie Black Mage? It first hit me when I got Angel Wing and realized Rinoa can't really do much with it in this mod. And others have brought up how Selphie's unique spells are very WM like Full-Cure, Wall, Rapture, etc.. Is it purely based on their personalities? I can understand that - Selphie is basically like a cartoon Black Mage, all burn, kill, destroy.

Basically, yeah. In addition to what you said about Selphie, Rinoa has no combat training and part of her arc is about her hesitation to fight; she doesn't really seem like the type to brandish Black magic spells. (Also, I guess I just like the archetype of the knight hero and the healer heroine.) At some point I realized that switching them would make more sense in pure gameplay, but it was a case of "Well, too late now." One could argue that Rinoa being a White Mage shows through gameplay that a sorceress is something she doesn't want to be, recalling her description in the game's manual as "becoming warped" over the course of the story, but that's only a post-hoc justification  :-D While it's not stated anywhere I'm fine with her having powerful spells in her inventory to cast during Angel Wing and "Ultima Wing" is something I take into account when balancing her character. I figured people would understand that since Angel Wing really sucks with her normal spell list and there's no rule against it, but maybe I should make a note of it somewhere...

Actually, you reminded me that back when this was only a self-imposed challenge made for vanilla, Rinoa started as a White Mage but then became a Sorceress and could cast anything. It makes Selphie seem rather redundant, though, and I wanted to impose as few "rules" as possible. Maybe I still have the old challenge doc on a hard drive somewhere.

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2. I know some people will balk at this but it feels like Drawing is the main source of magic in this mod? I'm sure you know how everyone Drew magic as a kid and then you get older and are like "use Card Mod, dumbass." But with Card Mod gone and only getting the RF abilities pretty infrequently from levels, Drawing was the easiest way to obtain magic for me. Now, you made it so it's almost guaranteed that you will draw 15 spells from an enemy so it really doesn't bother me. But Drawing Magic just really pisses off some people and wile you made items purchasable for the elemental spells to be refined from, there are many, many other spells besides that which Drawing was the best and most expedient source. I got my 200 or 300 spells from Drawing all game and only very rarely refined items into magic. Do you think this is a problem or is Drawing supposed to be the main source of magic?

Just thinking maybe stealing or item drops can be increased a decent bit to compensate.

Well, for one, having 100 of a spell isn't as important as in vanilla since only elemental and status Junctions are available. Also, with Tool-RF you can get BLK-RF-1 after Timber; WHT-RF 1 before Deling City; WHT-RF 2 as soon as you get the mobile Garden; and BLK-RF 2 as early as the Garden chaos if you mug a Dragon Skin from the Grendel in one of the fixed battles during that segment. (This made me realize that I need to put a mid-level Grendel on the world map so that you can get BLK-RF 2 in the same timeframe as WHT-RF 2.) It's actually possible, albeit unlikely, to get WHT-RF 3 before Disc 3 if you kill Snow Lions. BLK-RF 3 requires an Energy Crystal, though.

You mentioned being able to buy items to refine into elemental spells, but just in case: you can also buy items for refining into most of the basic status ailments as well as things like Protect, Shell, and Life. I don't know whether you did the Sorceress Memorial sidequest I added (if you didn't, you should, if only because it was such a pain to create  D= ), but the reward from it is intended to make it easier to get certain late-game spells.

Anyway, increasing the refinement values/item drops is something I go back and forth on. I can see where you're coming from, but I also don't really mind Drawing and I actually like the opportunity cost of deciding to Draw a useful spell from a boss a few times. But if there are any spells you thought were particularly troublesome to acquire, I'll check 'em out.

(One of my dreams with this mod is to be able to add entities to fields so that I can use those boxes from D-District as treasure chests and just give the player items to refine. Doubt that one will come true, though.)

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3. It's over now so I don't mind asking but where was another Adamantine for Squall's final gunblade? I just needed one more to complete it but never found one. I recall they used to be dropped or mugged from Adamantoise but if that's still a thing, I didn't get itt o happen.

Adamantine only drops from high-level Adamantoises, and there are two places that have them: the beaches near the Chocobo Sanctuary, and Ulti's Castle. It's possible to Mug Adamantine but it's more likely to drop if you kill one. Is hiding them on those beaches too mean?  ;D

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4. Speaking of missed stuff, I never got Shockwave Pulsar for Quistis because, looking at your doc after I beat thE game, you get Dark Matter from PuPu. I tried going to his spots on Disk 4 but he never appeared so I never got the item and her best LB.

Are you sure you were in the right locations? I just triggered all four. I certainly didn't change their locations or anything. I'm a little bummed that you couldn't trigger it as I'm pretty fond of the changes I made to the UFO and PuPu battles. (Even if I will never try to make anything like PuPu again...)

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5. I think Seifer 3 could stand to be buffed a decent bit.  Squall with Darkside and 100 Pains to Elem Attack-J will do near max damage and kill him in no time.

I'll check it out. Maybe I'll think of a great gimmick for Seifer 3 while I'm at.  ;D By the way, I've been thinking of how I can implement that late-game 1v1 I talked about and was wondering if you'd give me your input as a Seifer fan. If you're up for it, I'll PM you the details.

EDIT: Decided to do this. Working on some other things for him too due to my aforementioned habit of working only on what interests me at the time.

Spoiler: show
(https://abload.de/img/ff8_en2021-01-0819-229cjdu.png)


Another one:

Spoiler: show
(https://abload.de/img/ff8_en2021-01-0820-21bijck.png)


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6. Speaking of which, my favorite fights all game were Seifer 2, Edea 1 and Bahamut. I think Seifer and Bahamut especially you did a really great job with and made them very memorable Just great struggles that are every bit as tense and dramatic as they ought to be given the narrative surrounding them.

Thanks  :) I'll try to bring other important fights up to their level. I have a long to-do list and a bad habit of working only on whatever interests me at the time.

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7. I definitely do appreciate how the game gets harder in response to you getting more options like you noted earlier. Still, I think the end of Disk 2 is when the game got noticeably more challenging and that is quite a ways in. I really wouldn't be averse to bosses and enemies before that getting buffed   Up to you though, I'm not even sure how I'd go about making things harder.

I'm planning on doing enemy adjustments by the disc, with Gerogero being the first. More manageable that way. I'm also going to include changes to Ruby Dragon in the next update as well, since I originally planned to do that at the same time as the Fire Cavern battle. If you have any particular areas or enemies that you think are too easy, let me know. I'm not looking to make regular encounters really tough or anything, but maybe some of the earlier areas could stand to have the enemies' levels raised if nothing else. Speaking of which, any data you have on your characters' levels and ability progress at various points of the game would be helpful.

This is tangential, but I'm okay with lower difficulty if it comes about for what I think is a good reason. For example, the window in which to defeat X-ATM092 (rematch) before it summons is pretty tight, but after hearing your Tiamat strat I changed its AI to reset the counter after using Runaway Train so that the GF meatshield strat is more viable there. I'm not saying my mod couldn't do this better, but I want to reward clever strats and using the tools that are available to you.

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8. On the viability of GFs later on, I really would suggest buffing their HP a lot. I know I mentioned it before but while Carbuncle is great and useful, it just always died so fast. Quistis and Mighty Guard is the only real way to get buffs on the whole party in a swift, reliable fashion. At least, compared to Carbuncle. Selphie's Slot is even more unreliable than Carbuncle in my experience - I never got anything good with it whenever i used her and she got in low health.


I may buff Carbuncle's HP more significantly in exchange for nerfing Mighty Guard, as I mention below.

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Basically it seems like Quistis is far and away the best support character given full party heals and buffs. Which is fine - I wanted character differentiation and diversity and you gave me that. Also I use Quistis most of the time, anyway. Still,  you pointed out a lot of strategies I never considered so maybe I'm just missing how good the others could be. But I shudder to think of facing the final boss gauntlet without Quistis and her Mighty Guard.

Quistis is a tough character to balance... I've considered nerfing White Wind and Mighty Guard many times, but I like the "flavor" of White Wind's healing calculation and Mighty Guard is Mighty Guard, y'know? (That Blue Mage is my second-favorite FF class really isn't helping.) I also tried to make a niche for as many of her Blue Magic spells as possible, with the result being that she's just a strong character all around, with her only notable weaknesses being low Speed and a lower damage ceiling than the others. I think everyone has something about them that's pretty strong, though.

Honestly, I don't like abilities that instantly halve damage from nearly everything because of the escalation they necessitate, but I guess they're here to stay. I've thought about making Mighty Guard only inflict Protect or Shell at Crisis Level 1 as a check to its relative ease of use, though. Maybe I'll finally pull the trigger on that one within the next few updates.

I felt more free to let the final bosses have highly damaging AoEs since you have six characters to work through. Of the four bosses, Ulti is almost entirely magical (I doubt anyone will see Vacuum Wave unless they use Ultima on her). Griever is a mixture, with its normal attack, Death Sentence, and Absolute Terror being physical, while Shockwave Pulsar, Holy, and Draw-Cast are magic-based; however, Shockwave Pulsar is easily the biggest threat there and it's highly telegraphed. With the exception of Great Attractor, Ulti-Griever is mostly magical until its tail falls off, and final Ulti is mostly magic again. Mighty Guard is certainly quick and convenient, but I think it's manageable even if you're only using Stones. Definitely more difficult though, I agree.

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9. This is a very random, minor thought but is there any way to implement an item that does Scan, like some sort of Scan Stone?  Squall's magic sucks and so I just never even had that ability on his menu after a while and you could theoretically have nobody in your party who can cast Scan in this mod.

That is a good idea. I don't know if I'll be able to free up a battle item slot, but I'll see what I can do.

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But yeah...I will maybe think of more stuff later on. I always miss a thought or two when I write these kinds of things. For now though, all I can say is I had a lot of fun. FFVIII is not my favorite FF but I grew up with it and have a soft spot for it and I'm glad people like you are trying to fix how broken it was so as to make it more entertaining on repeat runs.

Thanks again for all your feedback. Glad you liked the mod so much  :) There's still a lot I want to do with it, so maybe you'll find it worthy of a replay eventually.

EDIT:

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Also, unrelated to your mod specifically, is there any way to tell if Protect and Shell are still on when you have multiple buffs? The menu only lists one thing and I'm looking at my bad final boss video and I tried tor reapply buffs that hadn't worn of yet because I'm dumb and thought they might have. I know you get the message at the top about them wearing off but I am very likely to miss that and I really wish there was another way to check if they were still on.

None that I'm aware... You can only see one buff/ailment in the mid-battle status menu. Would've been nice if the game at least cycled through each of the effects that you have.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-10 11:41:00
So you've mentioned Tool RF a few times now and I figured it was some late game thing. I never got it on any of my GFs. It's still an ability, right?
(https://i.imgur.com/JjpQWeE.png)

These were all of my abilities at the end.
GF Levels:
Shiva 60
Ifrit 45
Carbuncle 45
Bahamut 58
Cactuar 51
Tonberry 51


As for PuPu, yeah, I went to Winhill Bluffs and tried for a few minutes, got attacked like 10+ times by monsters and no PuPu. Then went to Timber Beach and again no PuPu, just a lot of random encounters. I can try again if you want.

And I'd definitely be very interested in your 1v1 idea or any other alterations you make to Seifer. I have a save right before the final boss fight with him.

As for stat/level progress, I made a video of me defeating Seifer 2 where I start by showcasing levels and stats:
https://youtu.be/M348_Z2xLy8

I have saves right before Seifer 3, Ultima Weapon and the final boss if you need levels and stat reports from there. Unfortunately I saved over all my disk 1 saves after a while.

As for how to improve stuff, damage seems the big one. The tank thing at the Missile Base was really easy compared to most mods I've played. NORG was also a pushover. Maybe those were intentional nerfs on your part, though.

And I guess it's a good thing I saved all of Selphie's Ultimas for the final form of Ulty. I only managed to draw 15 from Ultima Weapon but it was still more than enough to destroy Ultimecia in no time. Made it the easiest part of the fight, honestly. I'm not complaining - Ultima should be King, as you noted earlier. It just made me very happy to do like 13K damage a turn with just her and her Double.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-10 15:14:31
So you've mentioned Tool RF a few times now and I figured it was some late game thing. I never got it on any of my GFs. It's still an ability, right?
(https://i.imgur.com/JjpQWeE.png)

These were all of my abilities at the end.
GF Levels:
Shiva 60
Ifrit 45
Carbuncle 45
Bahamut 58
Cactuar 51
Tonberry 51

An item that teaches Tool-RF is one of the rewards for the sidequest in Dollet with the painter kid. You can get it any time from after Timber to the end of Disc 3.

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As for PuPu, yeah, I went to Winhill Bluffs and tried for a few minutes, got attacked like 10+ times by monsters and no PuPu. Then went to Timber Beach and again no PuPu, just a lot of random encounters. I can try again if you want.

That'd be great, if you don't mind. I haven't touched anything related to those, so they should still trigger...

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And I'd definitely be very interested in your 1v1 idea or any other alterations you make to Seifer. I have a save right before the final boss fight with him.

I'll PM you when I get some time, probably closer to releasing the next update.

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As for stat/level progress, I made a video of me defeating Seifer 2 where I start by showcasing levels and stats:
https://youtu.be/M348_Z2xLy8

I have saves right before Seifer 3, Ultima Weapon and the final boss if you need levels and stat reports from there. Unfortunately I saved over all my disk 1 saves after a while.

If you could give me your Seifer 3 levels and which sidequests you had completed by then, that'd be helpful.

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As for how to improve stuff, damage seems the big one. The tank thing at the Missile Base was really easy compared to most mods I've played. NORG was also a pushover. Maybe those were intentional nerfs on your part, though.

Who was in Selphie's party, how much time did you choose when leaving the missile base, and about how much did you have left after beating the BGH251F2?

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And I guess it's a good thing I saved all of Selphie's Ultimas for the final form of Ulty. I only managed to draw 15 from Ultima Weapon but it was still more than enough to destroy Ultimecia in no time. Made it the easiest part of the fight, honestly. I'm not complaining - Ultima should be King, as you noted earlier. It just made me very happy to do like 13K damage a turn with just her and her Double.

If not Quistis, I'd say Selphie is the best character in the mod--as long as you give her Protect, Shell and maybe your HP+20% in the late-game, that is.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-01-11 15:54:03
For Seifer 3:
Rinoa Level 55
Squall Level 61
Quistis Level 52

As for sidequests, just Winhill, Deep Sea Lab, Diablos, Shumi Village and...I think that might be it? A

I went back to Dollet after I got my save but nothing changed. The giant spider was still dead. That was what I was supposed to fight, right?

I had no idea about the painter kid, though. My bad.

I got the 4 UFO triggers, I was in the wrong part of the area I knew I was supposed to be in. Oh well. I'll do it and the Sorceress Memorial stuff later today. Sorry I missed all this content.

Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-11 16:42:03
For Seifer 3:
Rinoa Level 55
Squall Level 61
Quistis Level 52

As for sidequests, just Winhill, Deep Sea Lab, Diablos, Shumi Village and...I think that might be it? A

Okay, thanks.

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I went back to Dollet after I got my save but nothing changed. The giant spider was still dead. That was what I was supposed to fight, right?

Are you sure the save you used is the one I edited, or one made from that save? I tested the file I sent you again and the soldier is standing there like he should be. If you open your save file in Hyne, this byte should be set to 7 instead of 87: https://abload.de/img/sdfwerwefbk03.png

Sorry for the trouble; can't believe I forgot to add the battle trigger in 1.1...  :oops:

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I had no idea about the painter kid, though. My bad.

No worries. Tool-RF reintroduces a little of FFVIII's non-linear progression, but the initial reason I added it was really to give the player more freedom to build the characters the way they wanted. For example, since you didn't use Zell much, you could've used Tool-RF to place all of the WHT/BLK RF abilities onto Ifrit in order to free up an ability slot for the other characters, or deleted BLK-RF 1 late in the game with the knowledge that you could get it back if you wanted it. (And also to give the sidequest a better reward, since that's something vanilla was pretty bad at when it came to small sidequests like that one.)

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I got the 4 UFO triggers, I was in the wrong part of the area I knew I was supposed to be in. Oh well. I'll do it and the Sorceress Memorial stuff later today. Sorry I missed all this content.

Good to hear because if there really was something wrong with the UFO triggers, I'd be at a loss as to what was wrong with them. Currently there's only one NPC who hints at the Sorceress Memorial and Fire Cavern sidequests and only a few who hint at the Esthar one... Might change that in a future update.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-15 21:41:58
FFVIII Crystal 1.2 released.

Download (https://mega.nz/#!tGoEzQYa!7i47SmkJiD0oVPvVljxEGl9apoVimmHm7TVd3Gr9msk)

Content

A new sidequest has been added to Trabia Garden.

Characters/GFs:

Spoiler: show
- Using the MiniMog command will now trigger Moogle Dance regardless of Chocobo World progress.
- Changed MiniMog's gil cost from party's average level x 100 to party's average level x 200.

Squall/Bahamut:
- Shifted Str growth slightly to increase growth at early levels.
- Replaced Return Damage with Auto-Potion.
- Increased power of Rough Divide and Fated Circle from 33 to 34.

Quistis/Shiva:
- Mighty Guard: Now grants Shell at level 1, and Protect, Shell and Float at level 2.

Zell/Ifrit:
- Base attack power of Ehrgeiz increased from 24 to 25.

Selphie/Tonberry:
- Spr lowered slightly.

Rinoa/Carbuncle:
- Carbuncle's HP increased.


Enemies:

Spoiler: show
- Added battles with mid-level Grendels in the Winhill area.
- Added unique behavior to scripted battle with G-Soldiers outside of Timber Pub.
- Added unique behavior to the final battle of the second Laguna dream.
- Increased levels of enemies in certain Disc 1 areas.
- Adjusted exp values.

- Grat: Can now target sleeping characters with Gastric Juice or a critical attack.
- Fastitocalon: Str increased.
- Red Bat: Str and Mag increased.
- G-Soldier: Stats increased; AI reworked.
- Funguar: HP increased; laser now deals 25% current HP damage.
- Esthar Soldier: HP, Str, Mag, and Spd increased.
- Eliminator: HP, Str, and Mag increased.
- Elastoid: Early Str growth increased.
- Cockatrice: Mag now increases by 20% when in the high level range.
- Grand Mantis: Strength stat calculation changed; Super Arm now inflicts Drain instead of Slow.
- Creeps: Mag increased; can now cast Aero if it hasn't yet used Heartbreak; Heartbreak's damage increased from 25% current HP to 50% current HP.
- G-Blue Mage: HP and Spd increased.
- Ruby Dragon (normal): Reworked.

- Gerogero: Reworked; now uses the original JP textures.
- X-ATM092 (1): Added an additional reward for defeating it.
- X-ATM092 (2): GF summon count now resets after using Runaway Train.
- Bahamut: Can now be Sleeped for a short time, but builds immunity; now has a chance of using a critical attack.
- Red Giant: Lowered resistance to Zombie and Vit 0.
- Seifer (final): Reworked.


Misc.:

Spoiler: show
- Added Scan Stone; added to Dollet Shop, Man from Garden, FH Shop, and Esthar Shop!!! inventories.
- One of the NPCs in the Forest Owls' base now has a shop.
- Changed Mega-Remedy's targeting to party side only; increased price to 4000 gil.
- Added more dialogue to point out the Fire Cavern and Sorceress Memorial sidequests to the player.
- Updated info doc.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-01-17 17:24:35
Hello Leythalknight,

I've been playing your mod and I quite like it so far. The basic concept is great and the balance so far has been decent. I'm still on disc one so I can't offer comprehensive feedback but I am curious about some things.

First, was there any particular reason you choose Tonberry and Cactuar as GFs for Selphie and Irvine? The rest of the GFs fit the characters and their classes imo, but these two are a bit odd. Maybe it's just that they are mascots, but I can't help but think that Diablos would have been better for Selphie as a black mage and that Cerberus would fit Irvine better as he's all about speed and luck. You'd have to change GF attacks, but only a little. Cerberus could cast a party-wide haste instead of double and triple and Diablos could just have Tonberry's attack power. So Diablos would function exactly as Tonberry and Cerberus's haste would replace the gimmicky level-based damage of Cactuar and offer a second support-type GF.

Second, I've looked at the character stats using Doomtrain and I'm a bit concerned how the characters will work in the long term. I know there are abilities and weapons to consider, but are you sure everyone has the stats they are supposed to have?

Here are each character's stats at Level 100, according to Doomtrain:
Quote
STRVITMAGSPRSPDLUCTotal Points
Squall9214852826240476
Zell152105115947750593
Irvine9390130908477564
Quistis1201231251126849597
Rinoa1191021601347840633
Selphie65952051238135604

To me, Squall's stats in particular seem really low. I added all them up and as you can see, his total is 100 points less than everyone else's, but more importantly, his magic is really low, less than half of Zell's. His spirit is also the lowest and his strength is also the second lowest. I don't know how much abilities play into this but regardless, this doesn't seem quite right, even Rinoa's attack outdamages Squall's while she's supposed to be a white mage.

I've first noticed this during the Dollet mission. While it felt well balanced overall, I couldn't help but notice that Squall simply couldn't keep up with Selphie or Zell in terms of damage, which would have been fine, but even as a healer he wasn't particularly good. His low magic makes it so that his basic cure spell can't even heal as much as a standard potion and in boss fights he spends most his turns mitigating damage. Not just that, but with the lowest spirit stat, he is still not very durable. While he can take a punch with his high vitality, magic wrecks him, which doesn't make him a particularly good tank either, which I assume is what he's supposed to be as a knight archetype. Maybe it's just me but I think he needs more strength, and either more magic or spirit, or even both. He's always in the party and he by far seems to be the worst character so far.

Am I missing something? Does he get better with GF abilities and weapon upgrades? His stats seem too low for those to make a difference.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-17 23:00:24
Hello Leythalknight,
I've been playing your mod and I quite like it so far. The basic concept is great and the balance so far has been decent. I'm still on disc one so I can't offer comprehensive feedback but I am curious about some things.

First, was there any particular reason you choose Tonberry and Cactuar as GFs for Selphie and Irvine? The rest of the GFs fit the characters and their classes imo, but these two are a bit odd. Maybe it's just that they are mascots, but I can't help but think that Diablos would have been better for Selphie as a black mage and that Cerberus would fit Irvine better as he's all about speed and luck. You'd have to change GF attacks, but only a little. Cerberus could cast a party-wide haste instead of double and triple and Diablos could just have Tonberry's attack power. So Diablos would function exactly as Tonberry and Cerberus's haste would replace the gimmicky level-based damage of Cactuar and offer a second support-type GF.

I gave Selphie Tonberry because both are cute but deadly. Irvine's GF was originally Doomtrain, but I switched it to Cactuar out of a mistaken belief that doing so would allow Jumbo Cactuar to function as it does in vanilla, but I actually never considered changing it after learning I was incorrect. I like the idea of giving him Cerberus, though; I just might roll with that in a future update. I'll sleep on giving Diabolos to Selphie. It'd make a nice Curse GF.

Irvine aside, my choices were as much about the character's image as their class, though there are exceptions. For Squall, I remembered that really expensive statue of him with Bahamut and Bahamut is just cool; Rinoa's GF was originally Leviathan as it's water-elemental and was the GF she had in the FFVIII demo, but I switched it to Carbuncle at some point in order to give her another support ability and make the GF command a little more worthwhile.

Quote
Second, I've looked at the character stats using Doomtrain and I'm a bit concerned how the characters will work in the long term. I know there are abilities and weapons to consider, but are you sure everyone has the stats they are supposed to have?

Here are each character's stats at Level 100, according to Doomtrain:
To me, Squall's stats in particular seem really low. I added all them up and as you can see, his total is 100 points less than everyone else's, but more importantly, his magic is really low, less than half of Zell's. His spirit is also the lowest and his strength is also the second lowest. I don't know how much abilities play into this but regardless, this doesn't seem quite right, even Rinoa's attack outdamages Squall's while she's supposed to be a white mage.

I made Squall's base Str lower than you'd expect because of the gunblade trigger, but he is one of only two characters who can equip two Str+% abilities (the other being Zell) and also the only character who will learn Darkside naturally. You'll be able to learn Elem-Atk-J when Bahamut reaches level 20, but you can also learn it using Tool-RF before the end of Disc 1 with the right item. He's also the only character who can learn Defend, which still nullifies physical damage and halves magical damage, so I think giving him low Spr is fair. Defend also raises his Crisis Level a bit, an effect I intended to increase in 1.2 but forgot to do and will include in the next update instead. He's meant to be more physically defensive while Zell is the straightforward physical attacker, but Squall still punches above his weight in damage. Some weapons increase base attack power, though admittedly the increase is not that large with the exception of Irvine's Ulysses.

Also, keep in mind that damage and enemy health caps in this mod are overall much lower compared to vanilla.

Quote
I've first noticed this during the Dollet mission. While it felt well balanced overall, I couldn't help but notice that Squall simply couldn't keep up with Selphie or Zell in terms of damage, which would have been fine, but even as a healer he wasn't particularly good. His low magic makes it so that his basic cure spell can't even heal as much as a standard potion and in boss fights he spends most his turns mitigating damage. Not just that, but with the lowest spirit stat, he is still not very durable. While he can take a punch with his high vitality, magic wrecks him, which doesn't make him a particularly good tank either, which I assume is what he's supposed to be as a knight archetype. Maybe it's just me but I think he needs more strength, and either more magic or spirit, or even both. He's always in the party and he by far seems to be the worst character so far.

Am I missing something? Does he get better with GF abilities and weapon upgrades? His stats seem too low for those to make a difference.

I think his Cures being a little worse than a Potion is fair since the former is easier to acquire and doesn't cost anything, but I see your point. I'll consider shifting his Mag and Vit growth to give him more points earlier without raising the cap so he feels a little better to use early on.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-01-18 18:14:32
Gotcha, I'll keep using Squall and see how he compares as the game goes on. I guess once he starts learning some abilities, he'll have more utility.

As for the GFs, I'm glad you're considering Cerberus. I think your overall choices are pretty good, they fit the characters and lore and have a logic to them:

Squall - Bahamut:
Bahamut is the dragon king, so him bestowing Squall with "knightly" abilities makes sense. He's also one of the cooler summons, so it fits the main character. Plus in FF9 Bahamut has a big cutscene battle with Alexander, and you made Alexander Seifer's GF in Dollet, so I think that also fits in a meta-sense, the rivals having rival GFs.

Quistis - Shiva:
Shiva is a classic. She fits as well as any other GF for a blue mage. The only other one I could think of is Leviathan, because it makes more sense for Leviathan to have Devour than Shiva, as Leviathan devours ships in some FF games, but other than that Shiva is great and the other abilities (Aura, Move-Find, etc) fit her well.

Zell - Ifrit:
Big brute GF for the monk, and a classic summon, best choice.

Rinoa - Carbuncle:
I think you made a good call here, having a support GF is great and also the idea that Carbuncle bestows white mage abilities on Rinoa makes sense too as Carbuncle is always portrayed as a friendly summon that provides support. I think it's the only one that makes sense for Rinoa.

For Irvine, as I said I prefer Cerberus because it would be a second support GF and also because Cerberus in vanilla FF8 has SPD-J, Alert and Auto-Haste, which I think fit with Irvine's focus on speed and his role as a sniper. Plus he mainly uses support magic in your mod, so a support GF makes sense. Also Cerberus is an FF8-original so I think he deserves a bit of spotlight.

Selphie is a tough one because Tonberry, Diablos and Doomtrain would all work for her. Personally I prefer Diablos. She is a black mage so I think the idea of a devil-like GF giving her offensive magic makes sense to me, plus Diablos' summon involves him using all sorts of magic sigils and pure dark magic energy to attack. I think his summon attack is similar to what black mage Selphie can do, which fits more than knife-wielding Tonberry. Plus Diablos is also FF8-original so it would be appropriate, and the juxtaposition of cute girl Selphie having the devil as her partner is kinda funny too. Doomtrain would also work for her because she loves trains, but I think that's a bit shallow for a reason.

Anyways, it's up to you what you'd prefer but I figured I'd provide my opinion. I just think it's a bit of a waste for two characters to get the mascot summons with funny animations while others get more "serious", staple GFs. However I might be biased as I dislike Tonberry and Cactuar as summons because they also serve as regular enemies you can encounter instead of unique creatures, which makes them feel "lesser" than other GFs imo.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-19 00:57:24
Gotcha, I'll keep using Squall and see how he compares as the game goes on. I guess once he starts learning some abilities, he'll have more utility.

In addition to what I stated above, I'm considering swapping Darkside/Defend and Spr+20% in his learnset (so Darkside would appear at level 10 instead of 15), but we'll see. I worry both are a little too good to give that early in the game, especially Defend.

Quote
As for the GFs, I'm glad you're considering Cerberus. I think your overall choices are pretty good, they fit the characters and lore and have a logic to them:

Squall - Bahamut:
Bahamut is the dragon king, so him bestowing Squall with "knightly" abilities makes sense. He's also one of the cooler summons, so it fits the main character. Plus in FF9 Bahamut has a big cutscene battle with Alexander, and you made Alexander Seifer's GF in Dollet, so I think that also fits in a meta-sense, the rivals having rival GFs.

I also saw the FFIX connection at some point, though I think my reasoning for giving Seifer Alexander was "A knight needs a castle." Also, I think it being a Holy-element summon provides an additional contrast between how he sees himself and what he actually becomes.

Quote
Quistis - Shiva:
Shiva is a classic. She fits as well as any other GF for a blue mage. The only other one I could think of is Leviathan, because it makes more sense for Leviathan to have Devour than Shiva, as Leviathan devours ships in some FF games, but other than that Shiva is great and the other abilities (Aura, Move-Find, etc) fit her well.

Way back when this was only a self-imposed challenge, I gave Quistis Draw and Devour with the reasoning that a Blue Mage "takes things from enemies." I eventually decided to put Hungry Cookpots in Dollet's shop, so while I wouldn't call Devour a signature skill of hers I figured I might as well leave it in her learnset. The choice of Shiva was more of an image thing.

Quote
Rinoa - Carbuncle:
I think you made a good call here, having a support GF is great and also the idea that Carbuncle bestows white mage abilities on Rinoa makes sense too as Carbuncle is always portrayed as a friendly summon that provides support. I think it's the only one that makes sense for Rinoa.

I had also considered Siren for her, again due to one of those expensive statues as well as the wings.

Quote
For Irvine, as I said I prefer Cerberus because it would be a second support GF and also because Cerberus in vanilla FF8 has SPD-J, Alert and Auto-Haste, which I think fit with Irvine's focus on speed and his role as a sniper. Plus he mainly uses support magic in your mod, so a support GF makes sense. Also Cerberus is an FF8-original so I think he deserves a bit of spotlight.

Selphie is a tough one because Tonberry, Diablos and Doomtrain would all work for her. Personally I prefer Diablos. She is a black mage so I think the idea of a devil-like GF giving her offensive magic makes sense to me, plus Diablos' summon involves him using all sorts of magic sigils and pure dark magic energy to attack. I think his summon attack is similar to what black mage Selphie can do, which fits more than knife-wielding Tonberry. Plus Diablos is also FF8-original so it would be appropriate, and the juxtaposition of cute girl Selphie having the devil as her partner is kinda funny too. Doomtrain would also work for her because she loves trains, but I think that's a bit shallow for a reason.

Anyways, it's up to you what you'd prefer but I figured I'd provide my opinion. I just think it's a bit of a waste for two characters to get the mascot summons with funny animations while others get more "serious", staple GFs. However I might be biased as I dislike Tonberry and Cactuar as summons because they also serve as regular enemies you can encounter instead of unique creatures, which makes them feel "lesser" than other GFs imo.

After thinking about it more I decided I'd give Irvine Cerberus, maybe in 1.3. I'll continue to think over Selphie's, though I don't see her having a goofy summon as a bad thing. Between the two I'd probably choose Diabolos, for the reasons you stated as well as it being another favorite of mine. It was actually the first enemy whose AI I ever changed significantly which is why it needs a rework.

Honestly, I didn't think anyone would bring up my GF choices...  ;D Maybe I've just been working on this for so long that I only see them as gameplay functions.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-01-19 15:40:31
Honestly, I didn't think anyone would bring up my GF choices...  ;D Maybe I've just been working on this for so long that I only see them as gameplay functions.
Sorry about that :D I didn't mean to make a big deal out of them really, like I said your choices are overall good. However I really liked your concept for this mod and I was immediately impressed when I saw GF like Bahamut, Ifrit, Shiva, Alexander early in the game and how their abilities fit the characters, the GFs themselves, and even the classes they were meant to bestow upon each character. It's really creative how they all fit together so well, and thanks to that the pairings don't stick out or feel fan-made. It feels like this could have been an official class system. So really, it's not so much that Tonberry and Cactuar are bad fits or anything, it's just that the others feel so perfect to me, that those two stick out a bit. So yeah, once again, great job on the core concept of your mod, it's probably the first FF8 gameplay mod that I've really enjoyed and made me rethink my approach to the gameplay completely.

Out of curiousity, you mentioned that you couldn't get Edea to work without a GF if I understand correctly? If this bug is proving unsolveable, is there some way you could work around this perhaps? Maybe give her a unique GF like Seifer? Or rename one of the GFs to a blank name (if possible) or "Sorceress/Sorcery" and assigning that to Edea? That way she would have abilities and it would at least look like she doesn't have a GF in the menu.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-19 21:09:37
Sorry about that :D I didn't mean to make a big deal out of them really, like I said your choices are overall good. However I really liked your concept for this mod and I was immediately impressed when I saw GF like Bahamut, Ifrit, Shiva, Alexander early in the game and how their abilities fit the characters, the GFs themselves, and even the classes they were meant to bestow upon each character. It's really creative how they all fit together so well, and thanks to that the pairings don't stick out or feel fan-made. It feels like this could have been an official class system. So really, it's not so much that Tonberry and Cactuar are bad fits or anything, it's just that the others feel so perfect to me, that those two stick out a bit. So yeah, once again, great job on the core concept of your mod, it's probably the first FF8 gameplay mod that I've really enjoyed and made me rethink my approach to the gameplay completely.

Nah, nothing to apologize for, lol. It's helpful to see how others view things, and I think your idea to give Irvine Cerberus is a good one that I wouldn't have thought of on my own.  And thanks for the kind words  ;D

Quote
Out of curiousity, you mentioned that you couldn't get Edea to work without a GF if I understand correctly? If this bug is proving unsolveable, is there some way you could work around this perhaps? Maybe give her a unique GF like Seifer? Or rename one of the GFs to a blank name (if possible) or "Sorceress/Sorcery" and assigning that to Edea? That way she would have abilities and it would at least look like she doesn't have a GF in the menu.

Well, I have both Seifer and Edea set to start out with a GF equipped without making it available to the player. This works basically fine in itself, as seen with Seifer; the problem is that whenever switching to and from Laguna's party, the game unequips everyone, including characters like Seifer and Edea. So by the time Edea joins the party, she doesn't have a GF anymore.

I actually have the values for forcing Edea to be equipped with Eden and/or some abilities in the mod's hext file, but they're disabled because the values of those addresses just get overwritten when the game begins to load, and again when you load a save file. I think the only solution is a dll file that could force those addresses to be set to those values, similar to this video I made a while back using Cheat Engine: https://streamable.com/metsc0 If I could lock Seifer and Edea's GFs in, I could also do the same for the main party to make the mod feel a little more "authentic," for lack of a better term. I've gotten a little more familiar with Cheat Engine and I know it has some kind of scripting template, so maybe it'd be possible now, but my technical skills are pretty low.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-01-20 01:16:40
Well, I have both Seifer and Edea set to start out with a GF equipped without making it available to the player. This works basically fine in itself, as seen with Seifer; the problem is that whenever switching to and from Laguna's party, the game unequips everyone, including characters like Seifer and Edea. So by the time Edea joins the party, she doesn't have a GF anymore.

I actually have the values for forcing Edea to be equipped with Eden and/or some abilities in the mod's hext file, but they're disabled because the values of those addresses just get overwritten when the game begins to load, and again when you load a save file. I think the only solution is a dll file that could force those addresses to be set to those values, similar to this video I made a while back using Cheat Engine: https://streamable.com/metsc0 If I could lock Seifer and Edea's GFs in, I could also do the same for the main party to make the mod feel a little more "authentic," for lack of a better term. I've gotten a little more familiar with Cheat Engine and I know it has some kind of scripting template, so maybe it'd be possible now, but my technical skills are pretty low.

Oh, I see. I figured it wouldn't be as simple as I thought since Seifer didn't have this issue. I'm not very good at the technical side (especially with FF8) but it sounds like you might be right. The only other solution I can think of is that you could try to edit the field scripts for these events. I know the "109 - Junction" Opcode is connected to the Laguna junction switches, but I'm not familiar enough with it to understand how it all connects. I'm also aware of the "128 - ResetGF" Opcode but from what I've seen that's kind of a mess.

For example, this is what happens right before the second Laguna dream:

Quote
   resetgf(4)
   resetgf(1)
   setparty(0, 5, 3)
   junction(1)

The character digits are 0 for Squall, 1 for Zell, 3 for Quistis, 4 for Rinoa and 5 for Selphie. Irvine is 2 but not yet in the party, and Seifer, Edea, Laguna, Kiros and Ward are 6-10 for reference. So the game uses resetGF on Rinoa and Zell to remove their junctions I'd assume, then sets the party to Squall, Selphie and Quistis. Then it uses 1 for junction , which according to documentation is as follows:

Quote
When set to 0, ends all "dream world" related stuff (GF junction carryover, Squall->Laguna, party lock, etc).
When set to 1, only Squall's junctions gets carried over.
When set to 3, the whole party gets carried over.

This matches up, as the second Laguna dream has those three characters, but only Squall's junctions are carried over. As you can see though, no mention of removing anything from Seifer and Edea, in fact, I only found one ResetGF opcode with Edea's ID of 7 and that is actually before the final dream sequence. What is also weird is that ResetGF does not seem to be always used for the Laguna dreams. It's possible that ResetGF is a leftover and Square built in the junction removal differently in the end. Maybe the Junction Opcode itself automatically removes GFs from everyone, in which case the only way to keep Edea's junctions would be to remove the opcodes somehow and disable the Laguna junction transfer, I guess? I found an old thread of someone attempting something similar and managing to make manual junction exchange possible between Laguna and present party members, but it didn't go far: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16352.0 (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16352.0)

In the end it might be better to use a dll to modify memory addresses like you suggest. Looking at all this though, I have a feeling that maybe if the Junction Opcode for the Dream World switch was removed and Laguna and co were added to the party as regular members, then removed at each dream's end, maybe Edea's junctions wouldn't get removed. Maybe I'm completely wrong but it seems to me like that particular opcode is directly tied to the removal of GFs... I honestly don't know if this method would be easier or harder, I've never tried modifying FF8's scripts before.

Or you could just have Edea share Carbuncle with Rinoa since they are never in the same party together, but it would be a shame for Edea not to have her own abilities.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-20 03:05:09
Oh, I see. I figured it wouldn't be as simple as I thought since Seifer didn't have this issue. I'm not very good at the technical side (especially with FF8) but it sounds like you might be right. The only other solution I can think of is that you could try to edit the field scripts for these events. I know the "109 - Junction" Opcode is connected to the Laguna junction switches, but I'm not familiar enough with it to understand how it all connects. I'm also aware of the "128 - ResetGF" Opcode but from what I've seen that's kind of a mess.

For example, this is what happens right before the second Laguna dream:

The character digits are 0 for Squall, 1 for Zell, 3 for Quistis, 4 for Rinoa and 5 for Selphie. Irvine is 2 but not yet in the party, and Seifer, Edea, Laguna, Kiros and Ward are 6-10 for reference. So the game uses resetGF on Rinoa and Zell to remove their junctions I'd assume, then sets the party to Squall, Selphie and Quistis. Then it uses 1 for junction , which according to documentation is as follows:

This matches up, as the second Laguna dream has those three characters, but only Squall's junctions are carried over. As you can see though, no mention of removing anything from Seifer and Edea, in fact, I only found one ResetGF opcode with Edea's ID of 7 and that is actually before the final dream sequence. What is also weird is that ResetGF does not seem to be always used for the Laguna dreams. It's possible that ResetGF is a leftover and Square built in the junction removal differently in the end. Maybe the Junction Opcode itself automatically removes GFs from everyone, in which case the only way to keep Edea's junctions would be to remove the opcodes somehow and disable the Laguna junction transfer, I guess? I found an old thread of someone attempting something similar and managing to make manual junction exchange possible between Laguna and present party members, but it didn't go far: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16352.0 (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16352.0)

In the end it might be better to use a dll to modify memory addresses like you suggest. Looking at all this though, I have a feeling that maybe if the Junction Opcode for the Dream World switch was removed and Laguna and co were added to the party as regular members, then removed at each dream's end, maybe Edea's junctions wouldn't get removed. Maybe I'm completely wrong but it seems to me like that particular opcode is directly tied to the removal of GFs... I honestly don't know if this method would be easier or harder, I've never tried modifying FF8's scripts before.

Not that it matters much, but the documentation is incorrect in that a value of 1 carries over the Junctions of everyone in the current party. That's probably why the game moves Selphie and Quistis into the party before switching to Laguna's group.

iirc RESETGF also gets used for things like removing the Junctions of the Missile Base party before switching over to Squall's group.

I just opened Cheat Engine, loaded a save right before the first Laguna dream and watched the address for Edea's equipped GF get changed to 00, so it's definitely the JUNCTION opcode unequipping her. If I were to remove it, it would also prevent the main party's spells from carrying over to Laguna's group and may even interfere with the transfer of exp between Squall's group and Laguna's. Maybe I could get around the magic issue by doing something similar to the person in that thread you linked and adding the other characters to the inactive party while also making them unavailable to switch in, though that seems...kinda clunky and unintuitive. I once considered removing JUNCTION and giving Laguna's crew their own GFs, but decided against it. The only other thing I can think of is altering the JUNCTION opcode itself, but that may be beyond my skill level, lol.

Quote
Or you could just have Edea share Carbuncle with Rinoa since they are never in the same party together, but it would be a shame for Edea not to have her own abilities.

I considered this too, but I want to have as few "rules" as possible.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-01-20 13:29:31
Yeah, I definitely agree with the Junction Opcode being the culprit, no idea what could be done with it either.

The only other idea I have would be to obtain Eden normally when Edea joins, like with regular characters. Then when she leaves the party, you'd need to add a script to remove Eden from the available GFs as well. Unfortunately I don't know if this is possible with just the field scripts, but it would be the cleanest solution. I don't have much hope for it working to be honest.

Something worth noting is that the Hyne save editor is capable of disabling GFs you have. You can open up a save, uncheck the "Available" box for a GF you want to remove, and the GF will disappear from the menu (although it will stay junctioned to a character if they have it on, so to remove it fully, you need to unjunction them first). That gives some hope that there should be a memory address to turn Eden off from the available GFs when it's time, however the problem would be to implement this in a way where it happens only when Edea leaves. I don't know if hext would be capable of injecting a change to the memory address at a specific point in the game. You'd probably still need a dll or Cheat Engine. :\

Plus this would all come with a compromise: Edea's GF showing up in the menu while Seifer's doesn't would be inconsistent. :\
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-20 15:24:04
Yeah, I definitely agree with the Junction Opcode being the culprit, no idea what could be done with it either.

The only other idea I have would be to obtain Eden normally when Edea joins, like with regular characters. Then when she leaves the party, you'd need to add a script to remove Eden from the available GFs as well. Unfortunately I don't know if this is possible with just the field scripts, but it would be the cleanest solution. I don't have much hope for it working to be honest.

Something worth noting is that the Hyne save editor is capable of disabling GFs you have. You can open up a save, uncheck the "Available" box for a GF you want to remove, and the GF will disappear from the menu (although it will stay junctioned to a character if they have it on, so to remove it fully, you need to unjunction them first). That gives some hope that there should be a memory address to turn Eden off from the available GFs when it's time, however the problem would be to implement this in a way where it happens only when Edea leaves. I don't know if hext would be capable of injecting a change to the memory address at a specific point in the game. You'd probably still need a dll or Cheat Engine. :\

Plus this would all come with a compromise: Edea's GF showing up in the menu while Seifer's doesn't would be inconsistent. :\

So I may have made some progress on this.

I tried using CE to see what addresses wrote to Edea's GF value, but it didn't pick up anything...until I upgraded to a more recent version of the program, which picked up something; I used the "Replace with code that does nothing" option on it and everything seems to be as I want it--Edea's GF value didn't change, the party still switches, they still get Squall's group's GFs and magic. It'll require testing to make sure that it doesn't break anything, but maybe I'll be able to reintroduce Edea in 1.3. Thanks for getting me to look into this again.  ;D

(I feel a little dumb now, though. Like "Wow, it was that easy all this time?" lol.)
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-01-20 15:58:19
So I may have made some progress on this.

I tried using CE to see what addresses wrote to Edea's GF value, but it didn't pick up anything...until I upgraded to a more recent version of the program, which picked up something; I used the "Replace with code that does nothing" option on it and everything seems to be as I want it--Edea's GF value didn't change, the party still switches, they still get Squall's group's GFs and magic. It'll require testing to make sure that it doesn't break anything, but maybe I'll be able to reintroduce Edea in 1.3. Thanks for getting me to look into this again.  ;D

(I feel a little dumb now, though. Like "Wow, it was that easy all this time?" lol.)
Nice work! I hope the testing turns up nothing. From the sound of it it shouldn't break anything, but you never know. If it all works out, I'll be looking forward to 1.3 with great anticipation. Glad I could help a little bit!

And don't feel dumb about it! From what tech experience I have, I can attest that this happens. Sometimes you'll find a simple solution that will have you facepalming and wondering how you didn't think of it before. :D
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-20 16:50:13
Nice work! I hope the testing turns up nothing. From the sound of it it shouldn't break anything, but you never know. If it all works out, I'll be looking forward to 1.3 with great anticipation. Glad I could help a little bit!

And don't feel dumb about it! From what tech experience I have, I can attest that this happens. Sometimes you'll find a simple solution that will have you facepalming and wondering how you didn't think of it before. :D

I've tested out the fix on the transitions to the first two Laguna dreams and everything seems to be in order. I need to test it out more thoroughly, though. If you'd like to try it out in your playthrough, you can use Hyne to equip Edea with Eden and swap these files in: https://mega.nz/file/wfQmHJrB#zjJ5wIwgFrafwrFT_FcKY5jmeclOwHvk2yBVXb0jRmI I went ahead and gave Edea some stat buffs since she felt too weak in some respects, and it also includes various other stat changes as well, including faster Vit growth for Squall--just keep in mind that I haven't tested them out yet beyond using Doomtrain's damage calculation tools.

EDIT: Scratch that. I completely forgot that the field files will have to be changed for Edea too. If you want to try it out, let me know and I'll send a new field archive.

At least I know now, lol.

I'm not sure when 1.3 will release; From before 1.1 up to 1.2's release I spent several weeks working on the mod a ton and decided to take a short break from doing any "heavy" work afterward. I'm also trying to make one new content addition in each major update and I haven't yet decided which of my planned sidequests I'll work on.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-01-20 20:20:13
I've tested out the fix on the transitions to the first two Laguna dreams and everything seems to be in order. I need to test it out more thoroughly, though. If you'd like to try it out in your playthrough, you can use Hyne to equip Edea with Eden and swap these files in: https://mega.nz/file/wfQmHJrB#zjJ5wIwgFrafwrFT_FcKY5jmeclOwHvk2yBVXb0jRmI I went ahead and gave Edea some stat buffs since she felt too weak in some respects, and it also includes various other stat changes as well, including faster Vit growth for Squall--just keep in mind that I haven't tested them out yet beyond using Doomtrain's damage calculation tools.

EDIT: Scratch that. I completely forgot that the field files will have to be changed for Edea too. If you want to try it out, let me know and I'll send a new field archive.

At least I know now, lol.

I'm not sure when 1.3 will release; From before 1.1 up to 1.2's release I spent several weeks working on the mod a ton and decided to take a short break from doing any "heavy" work afterward. I'm also trying to make one new content addition in each major update and I haven't yet decided which of my planned sidequests I'll work on.
Sure, feel free to send them over or post them. Is Hyne necessary if I restart the game? I figure I might as well restart in full as I'm not too far into the game yet, and then I'll be testing from the start to the end. Although it will probably take a couple weekends to get to the last Laguna dream, I'll be able to give feedback.

If you don't want to do 1.3 just yet, you could release what you have with the Edea fix as a 1.2.1 once you are satisfied with the testing results. It's not a big content update but restoring Edea to a full character is a big enough change I think.

It's good to see that the first two Laguna dreams are working fine now, hopefully the remaining three will also be good! It's definitely a good sign.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-20 22:28:01
Sure, feel free to send them over or post them. Is Hyne necessary if I restart the game? I figure I might as well restart in full as I'm not too far into the game yet, and then I'll be testing from the start to the end. Although it will probably take a couple weekends to get to the last Laguna dream, I'll be able to give feedback.

Here you go: https://mega.nz/file/we4zmAaJ#kZdxxEymG0EiEEzA91i3h1xdp_FAe3zKc6R9psnmDF8

You won't need to edit anything if you start a new save file. Since you're starting a new file, I also went ahead and switched Irvine's GF to Cerberus and buffed Defend's Crisis Level boost. Let me know if you have any problems.

EDIT: You probably know already, but don't forget to put the .txt file into the Hext folder.

Quote
If you don't want to do 1.3 just yet, you could release what you have with the Edea fix as a 1.2.1 once you are satisfied with the testing results. It's not a big content update but restoring Edea to a full character is a big enough change I think.

I just might, especially now that I switched Irvine's GF.

Quote
It's good to see that the first two Laguna dreams are working fine now, hopefully the remaining three will also be good! It's definitely a good sign.

Fingers crossed  ;D I'll test the others soon too.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-01-26 16:52:41
A quick update, I've also reached the second Laguna dream and according to the Hyne save editor, Edea is still equipped with Eden on my end too.  :) I'm hoping to finish disc 1 soon.

As for some observations, you were right about Squall's strength. While he initially seemed lacking, once I got to run around the world map a bit and he started to approach level 20, I noticed that his damage output became a lot more solid. For Rinoa, I think it might be better to have her limits be magic-based to give her some extra damage since she is limited in offensive options. Whenever she gets down to yellow health, I'd rather just have her heal herself than use Angelo cause the damage she deals (at least with Angelo's initial limits) just isn't worth the risk of keeping her at low health for one turn.

The rest of the characters so far feel good to use, no complaints with them. Although I have to ask, are any of Quistis' limits missable or rare? By rare, I mean situations where the item is only dropped by enemies in a specific one-time only area, and then don't show up again until the disc 3/4 or at all. For example in the Vanilla game Gespers in Laguna's Cetra dream are the only way to get Quistis' Degenerator apart from card modding.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-01-26 18:11:43
A quick update, I've also reached the second Laguna dream and according to the Hyne save editor, Edea is still equipped with Eden on my end too.  :) I'm hoping to finish disc 1 soon.

I also checked out the third Laguna dream and it also keeps Eden. I haven't tested the last two yet, but I feel fairly confident in saying that the issue is fixed now.

Quote
As for some observations, you were right about Squall's strength. While he initially seemed lacking, once I got to run around the world map a bit and he started to approach level 20, I noticed that his damage output became a lot more solid. For Rinoa, I think it might be better to have her limits be magic-based to give her some extra damage since she is limited in offensive options. Whenever she gets down to yellow health, I'd rather just have her heal herself than use Angelo cause the damage she deals (at least with Angelo's initial limits) just isn't worth the risk of keeping her at low health for one turn.

What did you think about Squall's Cure spells in the early game? I shifted his Mag growth so that the baseline for his Cures would be around 350. Also, what are your party's levels?

The thing about making Rinoa's Limits magic-based is that magic damage doesn't scale very well. For instance, if I made Angelo Cannon magic-based and gave it a base power of 42--the same value that it's set to right now as a physical attack--it might do pretty solid damage in the early game, but it would be awful later on. At level 100 she'd do about double the damage with physical Angelo Cannon as magical, even with the large gap between her Str and Mag stats (156 vs. 232). I added the Confusion effect in one of the updates to try and make it more useful while playing into her role of healing/mitigation (enemies can't hurt you if they're hurting themselves), but I think the real solution is to shift her Str stat to be higher earlier, similar to what I've done with other characters. I might also bump Cannon and Strike's base power up a bit (Wishing Star doesn't really need it since it's multi-hit and ignores Vit). As I was telling Nikkolas earlier in the thread, I've thought about replacing Cannon with a heal using Invincible Moon's animation, but I don't want to get rid of Cannon and I also don't want to turn IM into a healing skill since its invincibility keeps some of that FFVIII "flavor" and adds an additional perk to using Rinoa.

Quote
The rest of the characters so far feel good to use, no complaints with them. Although I have to ask, are any of Quistis' limits missable or rare? By rare, I mean situations where the item is only dropped by enemies in a specific one-time only area, and then don't show up again until the disc 3/4 or at all. For example in the Vanilla game Gespers in Laguna's Cetra dream are the only way to get Quistis' Degenerator apart from card modding.

None of them are missable but you may have to go out of your way and/or get lucky to find them/find them at the earliest you can get them. Degenerator is the only one that I've removed outright.



In update news, I'm currently working on another battle in the aberrant monsters quest for 1.3:
Spoiler: show
(https://abload.de/img/ff8_en2021-01-2614-015ij9s.png)


I'm also strongly considering removing Irvine's Magic command and replacing it with Draw. His spell selection is not that useful and the command is a remnant of a time when I was less sure of what to do with him.


EDIT: I should mention that mid- and high-level Abyss Worms will sometimes use a Scan Stone; it doesn't crash the game or anything, but they're supposed to be using Aero. I'll have that fixed in the next update.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-01-26 19:07:00
What did you think about Squall's Cure spells in the early game? I shifted his Mag growth so that the baseline for his Cures would be around 350. Also, what are your party's levels?
They worked better this time around. I think the increase was enough, Squall had more turns attacking than previously because his healing was more potent. Previously Squall's healing often couldn't fully heal a bigger hit in the early game, now it does and usually adds a little on top. Now I no longer had Squall constantly healing to keep up with the punches.

Currently I finished Laguna's second dream, Squall is 21, Selphie is 19 and Quistis is 18. I kind of took a bit longer in the dream than I expected and I also ran around the map a bit, so Rinoa and Zell are also 17.

Quote
The thing about making Rinoa's Limits magic-based is that magic damage doesn't scale very well. For instance, if I made Angelo Cannon magic-based and gave it a base power of 42--the same value that it's set to right now as a physical attack--it might do pretty solid damage in the early game, but it would be awful later on. At level 100 she'd do about double the damage with physical Angelo Cannon as magical, even with the large gap between her Str and Mag stats (156 vs. 232). I added the Confusion effect in one of the updates to try and make it more useful while playing into her role of healing/mitigation (enemies can't hurt you if they're hurting themselves), but I think the real solution is to shift her Str stat to be higher earlier, similar to what I've done with other characters. I might also bump Cannon and Strike's base power up a bit (Wishing Star doesn't really need it since it's multi-hit and ignores Vit). As I was telling Nikkolas earlier in the thread, I've thought about replacing Cannon with a heal using Invincible Moon's animation, but I don't want to get rid of Cannon and I also don't want to turn IM into a healing skill since its invincibility keeps some of that FFVIII "flavor" and adds an additional perk to using Rinoa.
Ah, fair enough. Shame magic damage is so wonky.

Quote
None of them are missable but you may have to go out of your way and/or get lucky to find them/find them at the earliest you can get them. Degenerator is the only one that I've removed outright.
Good to know!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Nikkolas on 2021-02-09 13:31:46
Hey man, do you have any hope of ever porting this to the remaster version?

Asking for a guy on Reddit.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-02-09 20:52:54
They worked better this time around. I think the increase was enough, Squall had more turns attacking than previously because his healing was more potent. Previously Squall's healing often couldn't fully heal a bigger hit in the early game, now it does and usually adds a little on top. Now I no longer had Squall constantly healing to keep up with the punches.

Good to hear.

Quote
Ah, fair enough. Shame magic damage is so wonky.

It's the biggest reason attack magic is so bad in vanilla. I made some changes to Rinoa's Str stat after my last post and I think Angelo Cannon is in a better spot now.


Hey man, do you have any hope of ever porting this to the remaster version?

Asking for a guy on Reddit.

Hey there. I plan to, but it may not be for a while. I'd like to complete the rest of my plans for this version before I work on Remastered in order to minimize the amount of extra work required. Some things are as easy as drag and drop, but others require more than that. I also don't know whether the mod's .exe changes are possible in Remastered, so I'll have to investigate how to do that at some point too. At worst, I may release a version that excludes the .exe changes but has some other differences from the 2013 version, but I'd like to avoid that if possible.

I ported some of the simpler stuff to Remastered once, but I didn't go any further than that.

Spoiler: show
(https://i.imgur.com/JGYJcnz.png)


Did you get my last PM, btw? The thing I was talking about is a little closer to being possible now that I've figured out how to stop the JUNCTION opcode from unequipping guest characters' GFs.




In update news, the aberrant Abyss Worm fight that I posted about before is finished and I'm currently working on a sidequest with a little more story/dialogue than the stuff I've done so far; as a result, it's taking longer as well. Both will be in 1.3.

Spoiler: show
(https://i.imgur.com/MrqYDWm.png)
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-02-10 12:58:20
Hey,

You may already know this, but I've reached the Lunar Base and I can confirm that Edea has no problem with de-equipping GFs now from the Laguna dreams. Your fix for that works great.

I found what I think may be a small oversight. You know the invisible Aura drawpoint that is available during the battle of the Gardens? The one here: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/d/db/Aura_draw_point_location_during_the_Battle_of_the_Gardens_from_FFVIII_R.png/revision/latest?cb=20191119214919 (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/d/db/Aura_draw_point_location_during_the_Battle_of_the_Gardens_from_FFVIII_R.png/revision/latest?cb=20191119214919)

It's still there and can be used, giving you access to some Aura spells. I know it's invisible and one time-only, and only Quistis has move-find and she isn't there, but if you know it's there, you can still use it.

I also had a weird instance where an enemy cast Aero on itself and died. I forgot which one it was sadly but I think it was an encounter with three enemies and may have been story related? I wish I had written it down... I keep thinking it may have been humanoid soldiers but I'm not sure.

As I'm approaching the end, I'm really enjoying the mod. For the most part it kept the same level of challenge and balance, which I think is pretty good. There were some harder fights, but nothing too ridiculous and it very much feels like a proper difficulty, rather than a hard-type mod, which I really appreciate. I think the second Seifer fight was a good example, he wasn't really hard and I didn't need a super specific strategy, but he had a good chunk of HP and could dish out damage fast, so I needed to pay attention. You turned him into a proper boss rather than a joke, without going overboard.

I think I might write up a small review on the mechanics and what I liked, and some minor stuff that could maybe use a bit of improvement. Maybe I'll focus on how the characters function since that's a good way to look at the game balance. So yeah, I'm almost finished and overall super pleased with this mod. Good work!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-02-10 21:59:23
Hey,

You may already know this, but I've reached the Lunar Base and I can confirm that Edea has no problem with de-equipping GFs now from the Laguna dreams. Your fix for that works great.

Good to hear. I also confirmed that it prevents Seifer's GF from being unequipped, which I may make use of eventually. What did you think of Edea as a playable character?

Quote
I found what I think may be a small oversight. You know the invisible Aura drawpoint that is available during the battle of the Gardens? The one here: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/d/db/Aura_draw_point_location_during_the_Battle_of_the_Gardens_from_FFVIII_R.png/revision/latest?cb=20191119214919 (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/d/db/Aura_draw_point_location_during_the_Battle_of_the_Gardens_from_FFVIII_R.png/revision/latest?cb=20191119214919)

It's still there and can be used, giving you access to some Aura spells. I know it's invisible and one time-only, and only Quistis has move-find and she isn't there, but if you know it's there, you can still use it.

Yeah, that shouldn't be there. IIRC it's supposed to contain Bio or Dispel or something like that. Thanks, I'll have it fixed in the next update.

Quote
I also had a weird instance where an enemy cast Aero on itself and died. I forgot which one it was sadly but I think it was an encounter with three enemies and may have been story related? I wish I had written it down... I keep thinking it may have been humanoid soldiers but I'm not sure.

These are all of the enemies that use Aero:

Creeps
Chimera
Torama
Vysage
Abyss Worm
Ruby Dragon
Fujin (1)
Thrustaevis (Whirlwind uses Aero's animation)

I looked through their AI but didn't see anything that would cause them to use Aero on themselves, but I may have overlooked something. If the list jogs your memory, let me know. As far as soldiers go, I think the G-Specialists (the green ones) used to use Aero, but it's not in their movelist anymore. Low- and mid-level G-Blue Mages (the light blue ones) can use Storm Breath though.


Never mind, I found it right after sending this post.  :-\ It's the Base Soldier. The Potion+ item they used to use is now a stronger version of Aero after I added Scan Stones and I overlooked that, thinking there were no enemies that used Potion+. It's fixed now, thanks.

Quote
As I'm approaching the end, I'm really enjoying the mod. For the most part it kept the same level of challenge and balance, which I think is pretty good. There were some harder fights, but nothing too ridiculous and it very much feels like a proper difficulty, rather than a hard-type mod, which I really appreciate. I think the second Seifer fight was a good example, he wasn't really hard and I didn't need a super specific strategy, but he had a good chunk of HP and could dish out damage fast, so I needed to pay attention. You turned him into a proper boss rather than a joke, without going overboard.

I think I might write up a small review on the mechanics and what I liked, and some minor stuff that could maybe use a bit of improvement. Maybe I'll focus on how the characters function since that's a good way to look at the game balance. So yeah, I'm almost finished and overall super pleased with this mod. Good work!

Thanks  :) I'm glad you're liking the mod. Looking forward to your detailed feedback should you decide to do a write-up.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-02-16 09:40:15
Good to hear. I also confirmed that it prevents Seifer's GF from being unequipped, which I may make use of eventually. What did you think of Edea as a playable character?
I think she was balanced. She was strong and her limit break could kill regular enemies in one hit, and my tactic against the boss at the Great Salt Lake (Abadon I think?) involved her spamming her limit. The boss went down quick. You could arguably say that she's a bit overpowered but since she's not a permanent character I didn't mind, plus she's supposed to be strong, so it made sense. She reminded me of Beatrix from FF9, who is only with you for a short while but is made powerful so you can have fun with her.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-02-17 14:11:13
I think she was balanced. She was strong and her limit break could kill regular enemies in one hit, and my tactic against the boss at the Great Salt Lake (Abadon I think?) involved her spamming her limit. The boss went down quick. You could arguably say that she's a bit overpowered but since she's not a permanent character I didn't mind, plus she's supposed to be strong, so it made sense. She reminded me of Beatrix from FF9, who is only with you for a short while but is made powerful so you can have fun with her.

I consider Beatrix close to perfect as a temporary party member, so that's good to hear. I figured Edea would make Abaddon a lot easier, but I thought it'd be with doublecasted Holy. My gut reaction to your post was to nerf Edea a little in 1.3, but after giving it some more thought I decided to leave her as is for now since Abaddon (and more importantly Diabolos, whom it's possible to fight using Edea) will be getting reworks in 1.4. I can keep her the same and just make them tougher.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.3.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-02-26 16:51:18
FFVIII Crystal 1.3.2 released.

Download: https://mega.nz/file/QWwnHYSI#aB8sMed3DWcp6JzxiT6QaKKTKCIwQfwvBWIcD6vzmRQ


Content:

Spoiler: show
- Added a new sidequest at Edea's House, available with Rinoa in the party after visiting the Sorceress Memorial during the story.*

- Added a new battle in the aberrant monsters sidequest.


*Will not work on pre-1.3 save files if you've already triggered the conversation between Edea and Rinoa about sorceresses' knights. If you've triggered that conversation and want to try the sidequest, send me your save file and I will edit it for you.


Characters/GFs:

Spoiler: show
- Adjusted various characters' stats and stat growth.
- Lowered Drain's Status Atk-J power from 50% to 34%.
- Lowered Arise's Elem-Def power from 25% to 20%.
- Lowered Ultima's Elem-Def power from 30% to 25%.

- Reintroduced Edea as a guest party member.
*GF: Eden
*Comes with abilities such as Pray, Double, and Expendx2-1 as well as a variety of spells.
*Spell selection: unlimited

Squall/Bahamut:
- Changed materials required to make Lionheart.

- Zell/Ifrit:
- Chakra's healing increased from 1/4 to 5/16.

Selphie/Tonberry:
- Changed levels at which refinement abilities can be learned.
*High Mag-RF: 35 --> 30
*BLK-RF 3: 45 --> 35

Rinoa/Carbuncle:
- Angel Wing now uses JWP's Angel Wing patch (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=18647.msg262643#msg262643), which makes Rinoa cast only certain spells regardless of whether they're in her inventory. She has a chance to cast the following spells during Angel Wing, grouped in order from most to least likely: {Holy, Waterga}, {Flare}, {Doom, Meteor, Tornado}, {Pain, Quake}, {Blizzaga, Firaga, Thundaga}, {Curaga, Slow}, {Ultima}, {Haste}, {Wall}, {Aura}, {Apocalypse}
- Removed Angel Wing's Haste effect and replaced it with Float.
- Changed materials required to make Shooting Star.

Irvine:
- Changed Irvine's GF to Cerberus.
*Counter Rockets: grants Haste to the party.
- Removed Irvine's Magic command and replaced it with Draw.
- Irvine now starts with 30 AP in Aura.

Seifer/Alexander:
- Changed starting abilities.
- No Mercy: ignores Vit.


Enemies:

1.3.1: Restored Jumbo Cactuar's standard world map behavior.
1.3.2: Changed the save variable used by the aberrant Abyss Worm; added UFO? rework.

Spoiler: show
- Enemies in Tears' Point now scale up to level 50; changed some enemy formations.
- Made various changes to spell refinement item drops.

- Grendel: Replaced Tail Blade with a generic attack using Tail Blade's animation; replacement attack is slightly less powerful but more accurate.
- Hexadragon: Has a one-time chance of using Rapture if afflicted with certain status effects; increased power of Chemical Breath, removed Poison effect and changed to non-elemental; now has a chance of using a critical attack instead of a normal one; low- and mid-level behavior altered to incorporate normal attacks and Bio.
- Abyss Worm: Base stats modified; stats change when below 30% HP; can now remove status effects; has a chance to use Vampire instead of a normal attack.

- Iguion: Earth weakness changed from 200% to 150%; Slow added to Draw list; now casts the Haste spell on itself; fixed issue in which Haste wouldn't take effect; fixed issue in which Iguions would not use Resonance.
- Base Soldier: Fixed issue in which it would use Aero on itself; now uses Cure instead.
- Oilboyle: Reworked.
- NORG Pod: Lowered HP.
- NORG: Modified NORG's pattern; Orbs now cast the Haste spell on themselves instead of being Hasted through AI, so the effect can be dispelled; Orbs can begin Hasting themselves sooner; at 30% HP, there is a chance that an Orb will advance directly from blue to red; changed NORG's level scaling.
- Odin: Acts more frequently; action chances increase when below 60% HP; now uses Daunt instead of Stop; restored a line of unused battle dialogue.
- Seifer (3): Str increased; has an additional action chance; is more likely to use Zombie; can counter physical attacks with Blind and magical attacks with Silence; Provoke gives a Regen effect; gains a Str and Spd boost and a guaranteed critical attack action when under Aura status.
- Edea (2): Increased Spd; now uses Aura on Seifer instead of Berserk; increased action chances and adjusted action probabilities; uses Maleficium sooner; has an additional guaranteed use of Maelstrom at 20% HP.
- Ultima Weapon: Replaced Light Pillar with Licht Säule, which deals no damage but inflicts an immunity-ignoring Death effect; now has a chance of using Tornado instead of Quake.


Misc.:

Spoiler: show
- Changed the following spell refine totals:
*Cure: 5 --> 10
*Raise: 3 --> 5
*Protect: 3 --> 5
*Shell: 3 --> 5
*Zombie: 5 --> 10
*Curaga (WHT-RF 3): 3 --> 5
*Holy (WHT-RF 3): 3 --> 5
*Haste: 3 -> 5

*Fire: 5 --> 10
*Blizzard: 5 --> 10
*Thunder: 5 --> 10
*Fira: 5 --> 10
*Blizzara: 5 --> 10
*Thundara: 5 --> 10
*Firaga: 5 --> 10
*Blizzaga: 5 --> 10
*Thundaga: 5 --> 10

- Fixed Aura Draw Point outside of G-Garden; replaced with Zombie.
- Added Cottages to Winhill Shop.
- Joker has a unique shop on Disc 4.
- Joker now has an option to heal the party when spoken to aboard the Ragnarok.
- Added a hidden shop that allows for the purchase of certain missable items on Disc 4.
- Updated Aberrant Key items' descriptions.
- Added dialogue to hint at new sidequests.
- Restored an unused line of dialogue during the meeting with Edea on Disc 3.
- Updated Credits section of OP.
- Updated screenshot album in the OP.
- Added a donation link to the OP.


EDIT: I didn't want to triple-post, so I updated this post with 1.3.1. I suddenly remembered the other reason that I made Cactuar Irvine's GF: if no one has it, then Jumbo Cactuar will never stop spawning on the world map. I figured out how to make JC's spawn check one of the battle save variables instead and the hex values I changed are below.

The new sidequest at Edea's House is the first that includes story elements. I may make a few more such sidequests in the future, so let me know what you think. Speaking of sidequests, I'll be concluding the aberrant monsters sidequest in 1.4.

I still have some reservations about the Angel Wing update, and may alter or revert it in the future depending on the feedback I get.

I'm also posting the hex values for a few of the changes included in this update and the previous one should anyone want to use them:

Spoiler: show
Code: [Select]
#Allow Minimog to be summoned regardless of Chocobo World progress

8E0AF = 75
8E0B0 = 00
8E0B1 = 40
8E0B2 = 00

This changes the address checked by the MiniMog command to one found in an error handling message in the exe, as I figured said value would never change in actual gameplay. This should work pretty easily in other versions as long as you change it to an address with a value within the correct range (the minimum needed for MiniMog to appear is 0D, but I can't remember the max...).

Code: [Select]
#Double MiniMog's Gil cost

8E0D6 = 03

Code: [Select]
#Prevent removal of Edea's GF during Laguna dreams

ACE7F = 90 90 90 90

This also works for Seifer (and other characters too, presumably).

Code: [Select]
#Changes the address Jumbo Cactuar's world map spawn checks to save var 57

144C4A = 58
144C4B = E9

144C4C and 144C4D make up the rest of the address, but in this case I didn't need to change them.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4 / Remastered Version 1.0
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-04-16 15:49:21
FFVIII Crystal Remastered Ver. 1.0

Download (https://www.mediafire.com/file/uniuch3ync90rst/FFVIII_Crystal_Remastered_Version_1.0.7z/file) (outdated; most recent version in OP)

1.0 includes the same content additions, changes to enemies and abilities, etc. as 1.4 of the 2013 version of the mod (below) with the following exceptions:

Spoiler: show
- Unlike pre-1.3 releases of Crystal, Edea remains a party member despite the GF unequipping fix not yet being in place for the Remastered version.
- Irvine's GF is Cactuar instead of Cerberus.
- Jumbo Cactuar is spawned by killing at least 5 Cactuars and winning a battle in which only a single Cactuar is present.
- The contents of certain Draw Points has been changed.
- The Draw resistance of all spells but Meteor, Ultima, and Apocalypse has been reduced to 0.
- Characters start out with more spells stocked.
- Draw, Auto-Potion, Cover, Darkside, and Return Damage use their default behaviors/properties.
- Angel Wing has its default behavior and damage multiplier and inflicts Vit 0 and Slow on Rinoa.
- Minimog has its default price and Mog's Amulet is not sold by Chocoboy.
- SeeD level payouts are at default values.


I hope to get these exe changes ported over as soon as possible.


FFVIII Crystal 1.4

Download (https://www.mediafire.com/file/jc04jq5x9e1bhll/FFVIII_Crystal_1.4.7z/file) (outdated; most recent version in OP)

Content:

- Added a new battle in the aberrant monsters quest, accessible by going to Fisherman's Horizon from the start of Disc 3.

- Added the conclusion to the aberrant monsters quest, accessible by ? after collecting all four Aberrant Keys.


Characters/GFs:

Spoiler: show
- Increased unboosted damage of all damage-inflicting GFs.
- Elem-Atk bonus standardized at 50% regardless of element or spell tier.

Quistis/Shiva:
- Bad Breath: Status infliction power lowered.

Zell/Ifrit:
- Lowered Str stat as well as the Str bonus of Ehrgeiz.
- Lowered Vit slightly.

- Selphie/Tonberry:
- Strange Vision now deals 1/8 physical-based fractional damage.

- Rinoa/Carbuncle:
- Pray now heals Curse and Doom.

- Irvine/Cerberus:
- Valiant's Crit Bonus increased.
- Ulysses' Str lowered slightly, but Attack Power increased by 1.
- Bismarck now deals a weak Vit-ignoring attack but has the highest Str bonus of all guns.


Enemies:

Spoiler: show
- Added Adamantoises to Deep Sea Deposit.

- Ochu: Uses Dispel more intelligently; now has a chance of using a critical attack at mid-high levels; Damage and status power of Ochu Dance increased.
- Blue Dragon: Reworked.
- Adamantoise: Only uses White Wind at or below 50% HP; changed Haste/Reflect behavior and action probabilities.
- Lefty: Fixed issue causing crashes.
- Malboro: HP increased; weakness to Fire lowered; skips fewer turns; can now use Acid; has a chance to counter Fire-elemental damage.
- Iron Giant: Spd increased; status resistance values changed.
- Luckitocalos: Mug rate and EXP yield increased.
- Granaldo: Given unique behavior when encountered as a normal enemy.

- Right Orb/Left Orb: Decreased likelihood of using Haste.
- Abaddon: Reworked.
- Diabolos: Reworked.
- Jumbo Cactuar: Reworked.
- Bahamut: No longer advances the Mega Flare counter after using Aura on himself.
- Fujin(2): Changed Starfall to Meteor; will now cast Meteor one additional time at 30% HP; some stats raised.
- Raijin(3): Changed properties and usage conditions of one of his attacks; can now use Aura on himself throughout the fight; lowered resistance to Blind, Slow, and Confuse; made immune to Poison; some stats raised; Blind will be removed after a certain number of turns, after which he'll be immune.
- Adel: Reworked.
- Red Giant: No longer displays "ineffective" messages when using certain abilities with non-standard damage formulas.
- Ultimecia (1): Adjusted usage of Wall; fixed issue in which Ultimecia wouldn't take action under certain conditions.
- Helix: Is now affected by Curse.
- Ultimecia (final): Can counter Ultima; builds up a counter to Limit Breaks.


Misc.:

- Added a custom title screen.
- Joker will now appear aboard the Ragnarok on Disc 3.
- Changed reward for defeating Aberrant Behemoth.
- Reduced price of Hungry Cookpot from 4000 to 2000.


With 1.4, I've finished going back over all of the enemies in the game. While I will still make changes based on player feedback, I don't have any more updates of this size planned currently. In the future I'll be working on more sidequests, including one with some story content, as well as getting that last 0.1% of the 2013 version of Crystal ported to Remastered.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4 / Remastered Version 1.0
Post by: UpRisen on 2021-04-25 19:22:24
Been just over a year since i finished my first playthough of this, and now seeing your 1.4 version out I am going to be starting another playthough in the next couple of days so we can see how far its come.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4 / Remastered Version 1.0.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-04-26 05:52:40
Been just over a year since i finished my first playthough of this, and now seeing your 1.4 version out I am going to be starting another playthough in the next couple of days so we can see how far its come.

Looking forward to it. I think you'll find it's improved a lot since then.  :)



EDIT: I don't wanna double-post, so I'll leave this here: FFVIII Crystal Remastered Version 1.0.1 (https://www.mediafire.com/file/ifdr9bziat913yc/FFVIII_Crystal_Remastered_Version_1.0.1.7z/file)

A small update that includes a few fixes and minor things I forgot to port over from the 2013-Steam version as well as a patch that lowers Angel Wing's damage multiplier from x5 to x2.

Changelog:

- Updated readme with instructions on how to apply the IPS patch.
- Lowered Angel Wing's damage multiplier; removed status penalties from using Angel Wing.
- Fixed issue in which Ifrit's naming screen appeared twice during Zell's introduction.
- Changed Cid's dialogue when giving you the Elixir before leaving for Timber.
- Added a shop to the Forest Owls' train and dialogue to point it out.
- Fixed issue with a quest-related NPC in Dollet.
- Fixed issue in which the player could slip past the soldier in Dollet earlier than intended.
- Removed the Magic command from Cactuar's ability list.
- Joker now appears aboard the Ragnarok on Disc 3 and has a different shop as well as the ability to completely heal the party.
- Irvine/Cactuar starts with 30 AP in Aura (new save file only).

I also have a Switch port of the mod working. The only thing holding up its release is figuring out how to apply the Angel Wing change to it.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4 / Remastered Version 1.0.1
Post by: Hart-Hunt on 2021-04-28 00:38:53
Hey there! Been enjoying this, I love the ideas behind the modifications. I always wanted to play a mod that tried to tackle the idea of limiting GFs and their abilities a lot more. It's been fun.

However, I'm at Dollet right after beating Elvoret, and the game softlocks when the fight battle against X-ATM begins. I'm not able to take a screenshot, but it appears as it is crashing right when X-ATM is supposed to appear in-battle.
(https://i.imgur.com/QqisC0S.png)
I disabled all of tonberry's mods, and it's definitely Crystal acting weird.

Am I missing something? Has this happened to anyone?

Playing Steam edition (not remastered). Patched 1.4.7 from OP.
Steam overlay is disabled.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.1 / Remastered Version 1.0.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-04-28 18:45:17
Hey there! Been enjoying this, I love the ideas behind the modifications. I always wanted to play a mod that tried to tackle the idea of limiting GFs and their abilities a lot more. It's been fun.

However, I'm at Dollet right after beating Elvoret, and the game softlocks when the fight battle against X-ATM begins. I'm not able to take a screenshot, but it appears as it is crashing right when X-ATM is supposed to appear in-battle.

I disabled all of tonberry's mods, and it's definitely Crystal acting weird.

Am I missing something? Has this happened to anyone?

Playing Steam edition (not remastered). Patched 1.4.7 from OP.
Steam overlay is disabled.

This will fix it: https://www.mediafire.com/file/5va46l9e2eactiw/battle_fs_04-28-21.7z/file
This is only for the 2013 version; the remaster is unaffected.

One of the offsets in the header was off. I went through each enemy I modified since the last update, but I guess I missed that one. Thanks for the bug report, and sorry about the issue.

I'll upload a version update with the fix in a little while.

EDIT: 1.4.1 released: https://www.mediafire.com/file/rzpuem0gwjvgyy2/FFVIII_Crystal_1.4.1.7z/file

- Fixes X-ATM crash.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.1 / Remastered Version 1.0.1
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-04-30 19:26:14
It's been a while since I was last here. Unfortunately I'm very busy these days so I ended up not playing much more of the mod. I was surprised to see so many updates!

Anyway, since it seems like I might not finish the game any time soon, I decided to do the write up I mentioned way back on my experience with the characters. Keep in mind I'm only at the Lunar Base so there are abilities and limits I haven't unlocked yet. Also keep in mind, this is all pre-1.3, so some of these may not be relevant.

Squall: Squall's good the way he is. He is very tanky and can deal very good physical damage, especially with Darkside. He might seems a bit weak early on, but once he gets towards LV 20, and gets abilities like Darkside, he really starts to pick up the slack. Only thing I might suggest as a change would be to give him Cura and maybe Life as additional spells. Cura would definitely give his white magic a bit more longevity and Paladins tend to have it in FF.

Zell: Probably one of, if not the best party member. His high HP offsets his relatively weak defenses, his damage is really high and doesn't cost HP or spells. If I had trouble with a boss, swapping in Zell usually helped turned things around. He's really good, almost a bit too good when compared to the rest of the characters in terms of damage and survivability.

Selphie: Like Zell, she is really good. She is squishy but her damage output makes up for it. Selphie's straightforward like Zell, so there isn't much to say about her. She's easy to use, her spell selection is great, I really don't have any complaints. This is true even before unlocking her Double ability, and after she gets even better.

Rinoa: Rinoa functions perfectly well as a white mage and offensively Dia and Water get her by for the most part. Angelo's limits are strong too so that also helps. Nothing much to say about her stat-wise or anything, she is the necessary white mage and fulfills that role just fine.

Now on to the two characters who I think need some changes.

Quistis: Until she gets Aura, Quistis is pretty limited. It doesn't help that her physical damage isn't very good and Draw-casting is unreliable. Once she gets Aura and a few limits, she gets better but honestly, she still isn't very good. Even though her stats are balanced, she just doesn't do enough damage or have much in the way of utility. Apart from stealing, she's really only good for dealing damage with limits. While her limit selection is technically versatile, acquiring her limits takes more effort than those of any other character, and even then her damage with them isn't up to snuff. Sure she has various elemental attacks, but not only do you have to find them first, but once you do, characters like Selphie and Rinoa still outdamage her with their magic very noticeably. I had Selphie deal twice as much damage as Quistis constantly, if not more.

Plus given that you have to seek her limits out, the few defensive spells Quistis has that could give her some versatility aren't obtainable until much later. I'm at the Lunar Base and she still doesn't have Mighty Guard or White Wind for example, both of which would have been very useful in any boss battle up until now. I think she should get these particular limits much earlier to give her some much needed defensive capabilities that would make her uniquely useful. Additionally, the damage of her limits could use a boost.

Honestly, if not for her ability to steal, Quistis would have been a permanent bench-warmer for me because she was always a liability for bosses. She couldn't deal much damage, she couldn't take damage for long, she just isn't very good. I was struggling against Seifer in Galbadia Garden with Rinoa and Quistis in my party, once I switched her out for Zell, I won the fight on my first try.

Irvine: Irvine's too gimmicky for his own good. His damage early on is really low and he isn't particularly good for anything until he gets Aura like Quistis. Later on he starts catching up, his damage gets better and his speed and critical rate start showing more potential. However I found him to be dead weight up until that point, mostly had him using healing items. I understand the idea behind the different guns but I'm honestly not a fan of that mechanic all, I'd prefer if he just had normal weapons like everyone. Overall, Irvine has the same problem that gimmicky characters like Gau from FF6 do: he can be useful if you put in the effort but when most other characters are easy to use, it makes him look worse.

I have a big suggestion for Irvine: turn him into a Red Mage. Give him Magic (and Draw?) and a spell list containing most of the basic and second level spells, plus some support ones. I was thinking Scan, Cure, Cura, Esuna, Haste, Slow, Fire, Fira, Thunder, Thundara, Blizzard, Blizzara, Water, Aero as must have spells for him, plus anything else you think is appropriate, like status-effect spells. Maybe Life?

Irvine has a pretty good magic stat and I decided to use him as a Red Mage, and it made him so much more useful. He isn't as good as the pure mages, but he's good enough at both offense and healing that he can be useful up until high-level spells start rolling in. Having both black and white magic as well makes him uniquely versatile early on, and is a great choice for elemental magic if you can't use Selphie or as a second healer if you don't want to use Rinoa. This is really good in particular during the prison and missile base sections where the party gets split up, having a second healer is super useful.

This would also help his late-bloomer stats. Early on he's not that fast or strong physically, but he has good magic, so he'd mostly be sticking to using spells to offset this. Toward the later parts of the game, as his magic starts lagging behind, his physical damage starts catching up and he gets more types of ammo, you'd start using his physical attacks and limit more. His spells would no longer be as useful later, since Thundaras can't keep up with Thundagas or high-end spells, but by then, he'd grow into the physical attacker he is. Sinceh he'd have Cura, he'd still be a decent secondary healer as well in a pinch.

Basically he'd be the classic Red Mage, a class that is really useful early on but not so good later, and by the endgame, he'd grow into a fast, high-critical rate Gunner, while still retaining his spells for emergencies if wanted. I think this would be better than he is now, plus Irvine always struck me as a hybrid character, who'd have a class that combines attacks and magic, not really sure why. Also, his GF should learn Call Shop to make buying ammo easier. I think Cerberus only has Junk Shop, which is less useful in my opinion.

Well, that's all. I hope it will be useful. I'll still be keeping an eye on the mod in the future, although I'm not sure when I'll actually have the time to continue playing properly. :C
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.1 / Remastered Version 1.0.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-05-01 00:06:38
It's been a while since I was last here. Unfortunately I'm very busy these days so I ended up not playing much more of the mod. I was surprised to see so many updates!

Anyway, since it seems like I might not finish the game any time soon, I decided to do the write up I mentioned way back on my experience with the characters. Keep in mind I'm only at the Lunar Base so there are abilities and limits I haven't unlocked yet. Also keep in mind, this is all pre-1.3, so some of these may not be relevant.

Squall: Squall's good the way he is. He is very tanky and can deal very good physical damage, especially with Darkside. He might seems a bit weak early on, but once he gets towards LV 20, and gets abilities like Darkside, he really starts to pick up the slack. Only thing I might suggest as a change would be to give him Cura and maybe Life as additional spells. Cura would definitely give his white magic a bit more longevity and Paladins tend to have it in FF.

Squall started out a little rough, but I agree that he's in a good place now. I like the soft mechanic of fluctuating HP between Darkside, Defend, and Auto-Potion, as well as being able to utilize Defend's fractional HP penalty/Crisis Level bonus to make his Limits more effective.

This ties into your suggestion for Irvine, but I've been thinking about doing away with the magic restriction stuff altogether and leaving only Squall, Rinoa, and Selphie with the Magic command. Squall's Magic command would still be situationally useful for things like buffs and revives past the early game; I'd leave Rinoa's stats the same or close to it; and I'd lower Selphie's Magic stat so that she wouldn't be far better than Rinoa as soon as she gets Double.

Quote
Zell: Probably one of, if not the best party member. His high HP offsets his relatively weak defenses, his damage is really high and doesn't cost HP or spells. If I had trouble with a boss, swapping in Zell usually helped turned things around. He's really good, almost a bit too good when compared to the rest of the characters in terms of damage and survivability.

I agree that Zell is a little too good for how simple he is, so I nerfed his damage output in a previous update. He's still pretty good, though.

Quote
Selphie: Like Zell, she is really good. She is squishy but her damage output makes up for it. Selphie's straightforward like Zell, so there isn't much to say about her. She's easy to use, her spell selection is great, I really don't have any complaints. This is true even before unlocking her Double ability, and after she gets even better.

I think Selphie's only other drawback is that Slot isn't that useful past a certain point. I plan to adjust it again, though I also don't consider it a big problem since she's strong even without it. I've thought about nerfing her some, but haven't decided anything.

Quote
Rinoa: Rinoa functions perfectly well as a white mage and offensively Dia and Water get her by for the most part. Angelo's limits are strong too so that also helps. Nothing much to say about her stat-wise or anything, she is the necessary white mage and fulfills that role just fine.

On the subject of offense, I doubt most would do this but Rinoa with Shooting Star also makes a solid candidate for the copy of Darkside you get from Bahamut since the weapon makes her crit around a quarter of the time.

Quote
Quistis: Until she gets Aura, Quistis is pretty limited. It doesn't help that her physical damage isn't very good and Draw-casting is unreliable. Once she gets Aura and a few limits, she gets better but honestly, she still isn't very good. Even though her stats are balanced, she just doesn't do enough damage or have much in the way of utility. Apart from stealing, she's really only good for dealing damage with limits. While her limit selection is technically versatile, acquiring her limits takes more effort than those of any other character, and even then her damage with them isn't up to snuff. Sure she has various elemental attacks, but not only do you have to find them first, but once you do, characters like Selphie and Rinoa still outdamage her with their magic very noticeably. I had Selphie deal twice as much damage as Quistis constantly, if not more.

Plus given that you have to seek her limits out, the few defensive spells Quistis has that could give her some versatility aren't obtainable until much later. I'm at the Lunar Base and she still doesn't have Mighty Guard or White Wind for example, both of which would have been very useful in any boss battle up until now. I think she should get these particular limits much earlier to give her some much needed defensive capabilities that would make her uniquely useful. Additionally, the damage of her limits could use a boost.

Honestly, if not for her ability to steal, Quistis would have been a permanent bench-warmer for me because she was always a liability for bosses. She couldn't deal much damage, she couldn't take damage for long, she just isn't very good. I was struggling against Seifer in Galbadia Garden with Rinoa and Quistis in my party, once I switched her out for Zell, I won the fight on my first try.

I think you're selling Quistis short. Electrocute in particular is very easy to get before the end of Disc 1 and is pretty strong on Disc 2 due to all the sections in which you're fighting Galbadian mechs. While I nerfed its status affliction power somewhat in the last update, Bad Breath can be gotten as early as Disc 2 and is great in most random battles. Acid is another easy to get spell and is a consistent 900/1200 damage on any target, which is solid for Disc 2. Gatling Gun's Vit-ignoring properties come in handy as well. On Disc 3, she of course gets Mighty Guard, which is still plenty useful even after I nerfed its Crisis Level 1 properties; White Wind, which is easily the best healing ability (it's possible to get White Wind on Disc 2, but only as the rarest drop from mid-level Adamantoises, so I won't count it); and Homing Laser/Shockwave Pulsar, which are competitive with one another depending on the number of enemies and their Spr stat. Since discussing the character balance with Nikkolas a few months ago I've started to think that Zell or Selphie are the best characters overall, but I still think Quistis is the most solid by the end of the game, with no real weaknesses outside of a low Spd stat, and can be a lifesaver in certain fights.

With that said, I think you have a point about her early game being weak, and it doesn't help that she's out of the party for a significant portion of Disc 1. I think I'll bring her early Str/Vit up some. One question though: when did you make her second weapon? It's pretty easy to make as early as post-Dollet if you can get the Anacondaurs to drop Venom Fangs, and if not then, then after leaving Timber.

One change I considered and forgot about amidst everything else on my plate was making her breath attacks physical-based so that they'd scale better over the course of the game; I'd probably make it easier to get all of them on Disc 1 in such a case as currently, they're pretty strong for when you can first get them. I may start her with some AP in Aura/make it available earlier so that she learns it sooner. I've also been thinking about starting her off with Devour, not really to buff her but just to get it out of the way and maybe encourage the player to try it.

The only spell I'd consider making available significantly earlier is Ray-Bomb. However, I've long thought about changing Degenerator into something else, perhaps a weak heal + Regen AoE that can be gotten sooner than White Wind. I'm open to suggestions from anyone, but keep in mind it would have to reuse one of Quistis' existing Blue Magic animations (and it can't be Degenerator's) and, preferably, isn't a worse version of something else she has.

Also, maybe I should reconsider which spells are "freebies" and which you need to go out of your way for. Because I didn't make drastic changes to what enemies appear where, the mod doesn't stray far from vanilla in this regard.

Quote
Irvine: Irvine's too gimmicky for his own good. His damage early on is really low and he isn't particularly good for anything until he gets Aura like Quistis. Later on he starts catching up, his damage gets better and his speed and critical rate start showing more potential. However I found him to be dead weight up until that point, mostly had him using healing items. I understand the idea behind the different guns but I'm honestly not a fan of that mechanic all, I'd prefer if he just had normal weapons like everyone. Overall, Irvine has the same problem that gimmicky characters like Gau from FF6 do: he can be useful if you put in the effort but when most other characters are easy to use, it makes him look worse.

I have a big suggestion for Irvine: turn him into a Red Mage. Give him Magic (and Draw?) and a spell list containing most of the basic and second level spells, plus some support ones. I was thinking Scan, Cure, Cura, Esuna, Haste, Slow, Fire, Fira, Thunder, Thundara, Blizzard, Blizzara, Water, Aero as must have spells for him, plus anything else you think is appropriate, like status-effect spells. Maybe Life?

Irvine has a pretty good magic stat and I decided to use him as a Red Mage, and it made him so much more useful. He isn't as good as the pure mages, but he's good enough at both offense and healing that he can be useful up until high-level spells start rolling in. Having both black and white magic as well makes him uniquely versatile early on, and is a great choice for elemental magic if you can't use Selphie or as a second healer if you don't want to use Rinoa. This is really good in particular during the prison and missile base sections where the party gets split up, having a second healer is super useful.

This would also help his late-bloomer stats. Early on he's not that fast or strong physically, but he has good magic, so he'd mostly be sticking to using spells to offset this. Toward the later parts of the game, as his magic starts lagging behind, his physical damage starts catching up and he gets more types of ammo, you'd start using his physical attacks and limit more. His spells would no longer be as useful later, since Thundaras can't keep up with Thundagas or high-end spells, but by then, he'd grow into the physical attacker he is. Sinceh he'd have Cura, he'd still be a decent secondary healer as well in a pinch.

Basically he'd be the classic Red Mage, a class that is really useful early on but not so good later, and by the endgame, he'd grow into a fast, high-critical rate Gunner, while still retaining his spells for emergencies if wanted. I think this would be better than he is now, plus Irvine always struck me as a hybrid character, who'd have a class that combines attacks and magic, not really sure why. Also, his GF should learn Call Shop to make buying ammo easier. I think Cerberus only has Junk Shop, which is less useful in my opinion.

I may make Irvine start out with Aura or GF to give him something else to do and to make Bismarck/Exeter more viable picks from the outset as well as adjust his Str stat to give his attacks a higher baseline. I also need to decide what to do with Fast Ammo...

While I like the Magic suggestion, I want there to be fewer "rules" on how to play the mod; that's one reason I removed Irvine's Magic command in 1.3. I touched on this above, but while I think the game is more fun when characters are assigned only certain spells, sometimes I think I should stop trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, if you will. It'd be great if I could actually make different Magic commands that allow for the casting of only certain spells, but that's beyond my ability. I dunno, maybe the final update will have two different versions depending on how you'd rather play the game.

On the subject of Irvine as healer, Exeter's power is only two points shy of Cura and works well enough if Rinoa isn't around (it can be Darksided for double the heal on Disc 3/4, which is fun but not exactly optimal). He can also learn Med Data starting from level 35, which makes him pretty good at healing as long as you have the items for it.

I gave Irvine Junk Shop so that he could more easily switch weapons. This is all subject to change, but one sidequest I'm planning will have Ammo-RF as a potential reward as early as the Missile Base as a way of getting ammo if you need it and can't get to a shop.

Quote
Well, that's all. I hope it will be useful. I'll still be keeping an eye on the mod in the future, although I'm not sure when I'll actually have the time to continue playing properly. :C

I appreciate the feedback  :) I'd love to hear your thoughts on the rest of the game whenever you get the time.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.1 / Remastered Version 1.0.1
Post by: Dorklord on 2021-05-01 00:36:36
With that said, I think you have a point about her early game being weak, and it doesn't help that she's out of the party for a significant portion of Disc 1. I think I'll bring her early Str/Vit up some. One question though: when did you make her second weapon? It's pretty easy to make as early as post-Dollet if you can get the Anacondaurs to drop Venom Fangs, and if not then, then after leaving Timber.
I got it after Timber, while wandering around the world map, so pretty soon. Maybe I'm selling her short, but her damage seemed low to me. I'd give examples but I haven't played in a while so I don't want to state something that I might be misremembering.

I had one more idea on how Quistis could be improved a while ago, but that would require too much work probably. The idea was to put a bigger emphasis on refining magic by getting some refinement abilities from the start and having shops sell items that refine into magic. This could be the main way of getting magic for all casters, except for Quistis who would be the only character who can draw. So while everyone needs to refine magic, Quistis could draw it from enemies. She would also get the Magic command and she'd be allowed to use any spells she draws, however she could not refine magic like everyone else as a trade-off.

So basically, Selphie would refine black magic, Rinoa white magic, Quistis would not be allowed to refine anything but she'd be able to draw and use any spells gotten from enemies. However, I realize this would require further complicated rules and it's not worth it.

Anyway, I'll see how Quistis compares once I get Shockwave Pulsar, that is sure to make a difference!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.1 / Remastered Version 1.0.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-05-01 00:58:46
I got it after Timber, while wandering around the world map, so pretty soon. Maybe I'm selling her short, but her damage seemed low to me. I'd give examples but I haven't played in a while so I don't want to state something that I might be misremembering.

Noted.

Quote
I had one more idea on how Quistis could be improved a while ago, but that would require too much work probably. The idea was to put a bigger emphasis on refining magic by getting some refinement abilities from the start and having shops sell items that refine into magic. This could be the main way of getting magic for all casters, except for Quistis who would be the only character who can draw. So while everyone needs to refine magic, Quistis could draw it from enemies. She would also get the Magic command and she'd be allowed to use any spells she draws, however she could not refine magic like everyone else as a trade-off.

So basically, Selphie would refine black magic, Rinoa white magic, Quistis would not be allowed to refine anything but she'd be able to draw and use any spells gotten from enemies. However, I realize this would require further complicated rules and it's not worth it.

That's a cool idea, but...yeah, too much work at this point.  :P

On the subject of rules, I've also considered leaving the mod's rules as-is and creating a separate mod that uses Crystal as a base but adds the other GFs back for a more standard FFVIII experience for people who prefer that. I dunno if another FFVIII modding project would be a good use of my time, though, even if it would reuse much of this one.  :|

Quote
Anyway, I'll see how Quistis compares once I get Shockwave Pulsar, that is sure to make a difference!

Keep in mind that Homing Laser (which drops from Mobile Type 8 ) is stronger than Shockwave Pulsar if there's only one target and their Spirit is above a certain number (I can't remember exactly, maybe 112 or so?) unless Quistis is at Crisis Level 4, in which case SP is stronger than Apocalypse. I forgot to add that I don't want Quistis to do as much damage as characters like Zell or Selphie because of all the additional utility she has, but I think you're right about some of that utility needing to be expressed earlier. It's just a matter of how to go about it.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.1 / Remastered Version 1.0.1
Post by: baadsheep2 on 2021-06-12 13:55:07
I'm doing the aberrant monsters side quest and have obtained all four keys.

When I get about halfway through the 3nd screen of the area that you're meant to go once you have all 4 keys the game crashes with an "Unknown exception has occurred" error message.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.2 / Remastered Version 1.0.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-06-15 00:14:59
I'm doing the aberrant monsters side quest and have obtained all four keys.

When I get about halfway through the 3nd screen of the area that you're meant to go once you have all 4 keys the game crashes with an "Unknown exception has occurred" error message.

Hi, sorry for the delayed response. Could you give me some more information (mod version, characters in your party, OS version, any other details that seem relevant)? I can't seem to reproduce a crash there in either mod version.

Never mind, I found the issue. I'll edit this post with an update once it's done uploading.


2013-Steam Version 1.4.2 released.

Download: Nexus (https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8/mods/6?tab=files) / Mediafire (https://www.mediafire.com/file/u29wakl4o9eur75/FFVIII_Crystal_1.4.2.7z/file)

- Fixes crash related to the final battle in the Aberrant Monsters quest.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.3 / Remastered Version 1.0.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-06-26 04:48:00
Update 1.4.3 / 1.0.2 released.

2013-Steam: Mediafire (https://www.mediafire.com/file/wv5a3d4qp250z4d/FFVIII_Crystal_1.4.3.7z/file)
Remastered: Mediafire (https://www.mediafire.com/file/e30zftpjb9pd2bt/FFVIII_Crystal_Remastered_Version_1.0.2.7z/file)

This update includes some balance changes originally meant for 1.5 / 1.1, focusing on improving Quistis' and Irvine's early game, as well as a couple of bug fixes.


Characters

Changes preceded by an X apply only to new save files.

Squall/Bahamut:
- Early Spr growth increased.

Quistis/Shiva:
- Early Str and Vit growths increased.
X Quistis now starts with Devour and Mug.
- Aura's AP requirement has been reduced to 80 and is now available to learn from GF level 10.
- Shiva now learns St-Atk-J from level 15 and Elem-Atk-J from level 30.
- Laser Eye: now has a Slow effect.
- Ultra Waves: base power increased at all Crisis Levels.
- Shockwave Pulsar: base power at Crisis Level 4 increased.
- Fire Breath, Aqua Breath, and Electrocute have been changed to physical attacks.
- The earliest availability of certain Blue Magic items has changed as follows:
*Inferno Fang: Can be mugged from low-level Bombs.
*Water Crystal: More likely to be mugged from low-level Chimeras.
*Spider Web: Now only drops from mid- or high-level Caterchipillars.
*Power Generator: Can be mugged from mid-level Blitzes.
*Laser Cannon: Can be mugged from high-level GIM47Ns.

Zell/Ifrit:
- HP growth decreased.
- Late Spr growth decreased.

Selphie/Tonberry:
- Late Mag growth decreased.
- Made some changes to Slot as a stopgap measure until a proper overhaul can be implemented.

Rinoa/Carbuncle:
- Pray's AP requirement reduced to 80.
- Pinwheel: Hit increased to 100.
- Valkyrie: Crit Bonus increased from 0 to 5.
- Shooting Star: Crit Bonus increased from 30 to 33.
- Luck stat modified slightly.

Irvine/Cerberus:
X Irvine no longer starts with St-Atk-J, but instead starts with Aura.
- Irvine can learn the GF command from GF level 15.
- Early Spr growth increased.

Enemies:

- In the battle added to the vase quest in Winhill, killing the Red Bat now removes Creeps' physical immunity and killing the Forbidden now removes Creeps' magical immunity.

- Elite Soldier: Fixed incorrect targeting conditions when in battle with GIM52A.
- Elvoret: Drops an Elvoret card.
- X-ATM092: Stats adjusted.
- Grendel: Fixed issue in which Thunder Breath's power was set too high at the mid-level range.
- Esthar Soldier: More likely to drop a Phoenix Down when killed or Mugged at all level ranges.
- G-Blue Mage: Replaced Storm Breath with Wind Blast in order to prevent crashes in certain battles.

Misc.:

- Deling City Shop now sells Cottages.
- Gambler Spirits can be purchased from the secret shop on Disc 4.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.3 / Remastered Version 1.0.2
Post by: drflesh on 2021-08-21 16:21:03
there is something really wrong with my game, i installed the mod for the remastered version and the shops, gf, enemy ai, dmg changes is working perfectly but for some reason i can freely change gf between all my characters, cactuar learned the magic command for 1ap at lvl 20 and any character with the magic command can use any type of magic

https://imgur.com/a/saEyWf4  img of cactuar with the magic command and a bugged ability with 0/0ap
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.3 / Remastered Version 1.0.2
Post by: Ffamran90 on 2021-08-26 08:37:35
I've just collected all the aberrant keys and don't have the least idea of what I've to do with them.
In the doc the only thing written is "when you collect all the keys...." and the keys description doesn't give any hint.
May someone tell me what I have to do to complete the quest? It's the only one left before finally I can go to disc 4.
Thank you in advance :D
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam] FFVIII Crystal 1.4.3 / Remastered Version 1.0.2
Post by: Sabe08 on 2021-08-29 09:28:39
funciona para la version en español tb?, gracias
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5 / Remastered Version 1.1
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-10-01 17:15:50
1.5 (2013) / 1.1 (Remastered) released.

Steam-2013: Nexus (https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8/mods/6?tab=files)
Remastered PC/Switch: Nexus (https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8remastered/mods/12?tab=files)

Version-specific

2013:
- The party's Command and Character Abilities will no longer be unequipped when transitioning to and from Laguna dreams.

Remastered:
- Increased Darkside's HP penalty.
- Fixed errors with the counter behavior of the following enemies:
*X-ATM092 (rematch)
*Cerberus
*Edea (Sorceress Memorial)
*Seifer (final)
*Adel
*Ultimecia (second)
- Fixed bug in which certain some enemies' models wouldn't appear when fighting alongside Elite Soldier.
- Corrected Caterchipillar's low-level item drops to no longer include Spider Webs.
- Fixed issue in which one of G-Specialist's abilities was set incorrectly.
- Fixed issue with Ultimecia (second)'s Helix behavior.
- Added Adamantoises to Deep Sea Deposit.
- Changed coloration of Remastered version's title screen.


Content:

- A new battle has been added, accessible by using the Seven Virtues item after buying it from the secret shop.

- On Disc 3, Zell's party will now fight the Mobile Type 8 before being ejected from Lunatic Pandora.


Characters:

- Increased GF damage.

Squall/Bahamut:
- Increased Crisis Level value of Defend from 20 to 25.

Quistis/Shiva:
- Reverted statistical changes to Fire Breath, Aqua Breath, and Electrocute.
- Ultra Waves is now a physical attack.

Zell/Ifrit:
- Fixed bug with My Final Heaven.
- Increased Mag growth; no longer learns Mag+20%.

Selphie/Tonberry:
- Adjusted Slot table.
- Lowered Crisis Level HP modifier.
- Double status now boosts Crisis Level by 25.

Irvine:
- Adjusted stats, weapon stats, and Shot stats.
- Fixed issue in which empty ability spaces appeared in Cerberus'/Cactuar's GF menu.


Enemies:

- Caterchipillar: Increased drop rate of Spider Webs; added high-level Caterchipillars to the forests in southeastern Centra.
- Cockatrice: More likely to be mugged for a Coral Fragment at low levels.
- Grand Mantis: Lowered HP and Vit; increased Spd.
- Edea (1): Can now Dispel Aura; fixed bug with Blind casting behavior.
- SAMo8G: Lowered Vit; increased Spr.
- Edea (Sorceress Memorial): Fixed error preventing Edea from acting.
- Abyss Worm (aberrant): Increased appearance rate.
- Mobile Type 8: Lowered power of Twin Homing Laser and Megiddo Flame.
- Ultimecia (second): Altered GF-targeting behavior.
- Helix: Lowered HP.
- Ultimecia (final): Altered GF-targeting behavior.


Misc.:

- Corrected AP Ammo's price to 350 gil.
- Esthar Shop now sells Cottages.
- Esthar Pet Shop now sells an item that teaches GFHP+30%.
- Changed mod files' folder structure for easier installation.

I'll fix any other bugs that may crop up, but if I ever develop this mod any further it won't be for a long time. I appreciate everyone who gave it a try and left their feedback.

There were a few major things I had wanted to add before hanging this up, but in the end I chose to implement only the one I wanted to do most. I didn't say much about the content additions added up to this point, but I wanted to elaborate on this one a bit and talk about FFXI.

Spoiler: show
Once you've bought the Seven Virtues item from the secret shop (located here (https://i.imgur.com/ZigGHAW.png) btw), you can use it to fight Virtuous Weapon, an enemy based on the NM Absolute Virtue from FFXI. With this fight I attempted to translate certain FFXI mechanics to FFVIII.

(https://i.imgur.com/URhNwnV.png)

FFXI's enemies auto-attack until they've built up enough TP, their primary source of which is being attacked by players, to use a special ability. The fight with VW works similarly, with different player abilities contributing different amounts to VW's "TP" total. When "TP" reaches a certain value, it will use one of its special attacks. I also gave it a way to build some "TP" on its own to help keep things interesting.

In FFXI, when players combine their weaponskills (TP-consuming special attacks tied to the weapon the player is using) in specific ways based on their elemental properties, they can create a Skillchain, which deals additional damage to the enemy. Similar to FFXI, VW is able to trigger Skillchains when using its abilities in specific combinations within a certain timeframe. Due to movelist limitations I've only adapted three types of Skillchain; however, the combinations are true to FFXI's Skillchain chart.

(https://i.imgur.com/VTtNhlP.png)

Finally, each class in FFXI has what's called an SP Ability or 1-Hour Ability (formerly 2-Hour), which are supposed to be powerful exclusive skills with long recast timers. Absolute Virtue could use many of them, and so can VW. I've adapted several to FFVIII (though in the end I had to use a couple that Absolute Virtue doesn't) and VW will use one such ability at specific intervals or under certain conditions. There are 10 total.

(https://i.imgur.com/CDFZ9bP.png)

The reward for beating VW is three GFs: Siren, Diablos, and Doomtrain. I've given them the following properties:

Siren: Non-elemental damage that inflicts Silence and Doom; heals the caster; highest HP of all GFs.
Diablos: Deals Spr-ignoring non-elemental damage; stronger than Bahamut.
Doomtrain: Poison-elemental damage that inflicts most status effects in the game, including Death and Curse.

All three come with the GF command and Siren and Doomtrain come with Boost while Diablos has Boost+.

There were a couple of things I wanted to do but couldn't. The first was to give it an altered version of the beach battlefield that resembles Al'Taieu (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlLPrriM8rE). The second was to give it the following Scan description: "A notorious monster from a distant world. Its strength is impossible to gauge." With regard to the latter, I couldn't implement it because VW replaces the Garden Faculty enemy, and by default its Scan description is "NOT A TARGET." as with almost all enemies you're not meant to Scan and I couldn't fit anything longer than that message. On that note, there is a minor bug with VW: when it uses its normal attack, there's no sound effect. I assume the game assigns enemies' basic attack sounds based on the number of their c0m file and they didn't assign Garden Faculty one since it doesn't attack. I tried to find a solution to this but couldn't. It's annoying, but oh well. (Actually, I didn't notice it until after the fight's scripting was more or less finished because I usually playtest with the sound muted.)


I've also added a version compatible with the Switch version of Remastered. It's identical to the PC version with two exceptions: the FFVIII_EFIGS.dll edits and the Angel Wing ability. Since vanilla Angel Wing would be far too strong in this mod, I changed the ability to instead give Rinoa a few buffs, including Double. I've also changed certain things about the "Sorceress" (phantasm)'s AI to accommodate this change. The Switch version's folder structure is made for Atmosphere.


This is really late, but as for what you're supposed to do with the Aberrant Keys...
Spoiler: show
You go to Trabia Canyon. The word spelled out by the Key items is meant to be a hint. Glens and Canyons are both types of valley.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.2 / Remastered Version 1.1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-12-15 01:16:04
1.5.2 / 1.1.2 released.

2013: https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8/mods/6?tab=files
- Fixed a crash that could occur when fighting "Sorceress" (1) under certain conditions.

Remastered: https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8remastered/mods/12?tab=files
- Fixed a crash that could occur when fighting "Sorceress" (1) under certain conditions.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when fighting Vysage under certain conditions.
- Fixed a typo.
- (Switch) Made some minor adjustments to certain enemies' HP and drop tables to reflect the PC version.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.2 / Remastered Version 1.1.2
Post by: forkst on 2021-12-21 13:26:24
I am really enjoying your mod alot

keep up the great work on it
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.2 / Remastered Version 1.1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-12-21 23:21:09
I am really enjoying your mod alot

keep up the great work on it

Thank you!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.2 / Remastered Version 1.1.2
Post by: forkst on 2021-12-22 15:00:01
I found some missing information on your ff8 Crystal mod, for the final fantasy 8 pc steam 2013 version

the starfall item on your mod does the meto move insted of making the party members invisiable
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.2 / Remastered Version 1.1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-12-23 12:52:44
I found some missing information on your ff8 Crystal mod, for the final fantasy 8 pc steam 2013 version

the starfall item on your mod does the meto move insted of making the party members invisiable

I replaced a few items with enemy-only attacks because of limits on the number of enemy abilities. If you're looking for a strong defensive item, try using Wall Stones.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.2 / Remastered Version 1.1.2
Post by: forkst on 2021-12-23 14:31:39
I am at the end of disk 2 sefier boss battle on your ff8 pc steam 2013 version, your mod softlocked my game twice today at that boss battle

can you take a look to see if there are any errors on that boss battle please
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.2 / Remastered Version 1.1.2
Post by: Leythalknight on 2021-12-24 15:16:27
I am at the end of disk 2 sefier boss battle on your ff8 pc steam 2013 version, your mod softlocked my game twice today at that boss battle

can you take a look to see if there are any errors on that boss battle please

I can't reproduce this. You'll have to give me more information.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.3 / Remastered Version 1.1.3
Post by: Leythalknight on 2022-01-07 14:40:35
I released a small update that fixes an issue in which using a Scan Stone on Seifer would cause a softlock. This is the only softlock I was able to find in the fight in question. There is also a fix for the remaster in which a sidequest was accessible too early.

https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8/mods/6
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8remastered/mods/12

Just thought I'd put this out here in case it helped any other modders. I fixed the softlock by unchecking this unknown flag here: https://i.imgur.com/DfLUQ4T.png
It's checked on the spell version, but items can be funny like that. Checking or unchecking the flag didn't seem to affect any other enemies I tested, at least with regard to the Scan Stone. The enemy versions of Seifer are just kind of volatile - he's a problem child even in mod development.


Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.3 / Remastered Version 1.1.3
Post by: Milion on 2022-01-19 10:42:35
Hey there,
i am currently playing through the mod and I've been enjoying it so far :D
Sadly i am unable to continue. I am currently in the second laguna dream and everytime I try to defeat the onslaught of enemies at the cliff (specifically 2 elite Esthat-Soldiers and one Elastoid i think) it crashes the game.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.3 / Remastered Version 1.1.3
Post by: Leythalknight on 2022-01-19 17:53:36
Hey there,
i am currently playing through the mod and I've been enjoying it so far :D
Sadly i am unable to continue. I am currently in the second laguna dream and everytime I try to defeat the onslaught of enemies at the cliff (specifically 2 elite Esthat-Soldiers and one Elastoid i think) it crashes the game.

I'm glad you've been enjoying the mod :) Thanks for letting me know. Replace your battle files with these: https://www.mediafire.com/file/v5c1lbxwvj92ws8/battle_1-19-22_%2528all_versions%2529.7z/file
It includes files for all versions of the mod.

Whether the game would crash upon killing the Elastoid was inconsistent - I've definitely played through that part without issue and I know others have too - and I couldn't find any problems with the battle-specific scripting for either enemy. Hell, Elastoid's death AI only changes a variable and forces it to die. I could only conclude that the enemy formation itself was the issue, so I replaced the Elastoid with another Eliminator and slightly lowered the odds that they'll use Boomerang Sword.

I'll release a proper update later.
EDIT: Update 1.5.4 / 1.1.4 is out.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.3 / Remastered Version 1.1.3
Post by: Milion on 2022-01-19 18:41:49
I'm glad you've been enjoying the mod :) Thanks for letting me know. Replace your battle files with these: https://www.mediafire.com/file/v5c1lbxwvj92ws8/battle_1-19-22_%2528all_versions%2529.7z/file
It includes files for all versions of the mod.

Whether the game would crash upon killing the Elastoid was inconsistent - I've definitely played through that part without issue and I know others have too - and I couldn't find any problems with the battle-specific scripting for either enemy. Hell, Elastoid's death AI only changes a variable and forces it to die. I could only conclude that the enemy formation itself was the issue, so I replaced the Elastoid with another Eliminator and slightly lowered the odds that they'll use Boomerang Sword.

I'll release a proper update later.
Thank you so much for the quick answer, it works fine now :)
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.4 / Remastered Version 1.1.4
Post by: Milion on 2022-02-07 09:44:20
I have encountered another error in my playthrough. Im currently in CD3 and trying to get into Esthar, right before the transition to the 5th Laguna Dream the game crashes everytime. I hope you can find a quick solution to that :D
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.4 / Remastered Version 1.1.4
Post by: Zephy on 2022-02-24 11:03:30
I have encountered another error in my playthrough. Im currently in CD3 and trying to get into Esthar, right before the transition to the 5th Laguna Dream the game crashes everytime. I hope you can find a quick solution to that :D

Been getting this one as well. It says Unexpected Error. Have played the older version before and I was able to get past the Esthar Laguna Dream. Gonna wait for a fix to this error in this lovely mod!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.4 / Remastered Version 1.1.4
Post by: Leythalknight on 2022-02-27 14:41:49
Sorry for the wait. I'm not sure what's going on - even reverting the script to its vanilla behavior still causes a crash when it transitions to the Junction screen. For now, I changed the type of Junction used. You can use these field files to fix it (they're for the 2013 version - doesn't seem to happen in Remastered).

I'll release a proper update later.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/udrbiu9cbedc2ee/field.7z/file
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.4 / Remastered Version 1.1.4
Post by: singaporygon on 2022-02-27 18:59:50
why is this more popular than the Ragnarok mod?
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.4 / Remastered Version 1.1.4
Post by: Leythalknight on 2022-02-27 20:15:26
I don't think it is.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.4 / Remastered Version 1.1.4
Post by: Zephy on 2022-03-03 17:00:58
Sorry for the wait. I'm not sure what's going on - even reverting the script to its vanilla behavior still causes a crash when it transitions to the Junction screen. For now, I changed the type of Junction used. You can use these field files to fix it (they're for the 2013 version - doesn't seem to happen in Remastered).

I'll release a proper update later.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/udrbiu9cbedc2ee/field.7z/file

Thank you for this fix! Definitely love the mod! I found another bug or maybe its just for me but
Spoiler: show
The Aberrant Ruby Dragon doesn't spawn.. Already got the Ragnarok and all at Disc 3 and some Abberant keys as well
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.5 / Remastered Version 1.1.5
Post by: Leythalknight on 2022-03-25 01:34:29
1.5.5 / 1.1.5 released.
Nexus (2013) (https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8/mods/6)
Nexus (Remastered) (https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8remastered/mods/12)
itch.io (https://hasardore.itch.io/ffviii-crystal)


2013-Steam:
- Removed the Mobile Type 8 battle during Zell's stint as party leader on Disc 3.
- Fixed a crash that would occur when starting the last Laguna dream.

Remastered:
- Removed the Mobile Type 8 battle during Zell's stint as party leader on Disc 3.


Sorry for the wait. Not long after my last post, My computer broke down and I didn't have the money to fix/replace it.

Thank you for this fix! Definitely love the mod! I found another bug or maybe its just for me but
Spoiler: show
The Aberrant Ruby Dragon doesn't spawn.. Already got the Ragnarok and all at Disc 3 and some Abberant keys as well


In this update I changed the variable that controls its appearance. Let me know if that fixed it for you.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.5 / Remastered Version 1.1.5
Post by: gypsymania on 2022-05-04 15:02:16
Hey man, I hope you are doing good.

Im playing your mod on switch and oh boy – this is so wholesome! I always thought that ff8 is not very mod-friendly game and the best you could do is to edit some stats and I could never imagine that you could actually add some new content to the game.

Playing the game back in my young days I remember we had this crazy legend going around that you could get back to Dollet tower and re-fight the stronger version of that spider-robot, you needed a special key-card or something lol. And I almost s**t my pants when you actually added that opportunity to the game. The Knight Initiation scene/fight is also very cool; it fits the story so well.

This got me wondering how far you can actually push this game – is it possible to add completely new content to the game?

Eithwer way, I just wanted to say big thanks to you, I really enjoy your mod.


Now the issue I have – Im on a disk 3 and trying to defeat 12 enemies in Esthar but when I get the ‘Magic Summon’ after normal enemy is defeated my game freezes (Im on Nintendo switch). While I know I still can continue, but I also want to get all the possible content there is. Is there any way you can help me?
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.5 / Remastered Version 1.1.5
Post by: Leythalknight on 2022-05-06 16:45:35
Hey man, I hope you are doing good.

Im playing your mod on switch and oh boy – this is so wholesome! I always thought that ff8 is not very mod-friendly game and the best you could do is to edit some stats and I could never imagine that you could actually add some new content to the game.

Playing the game back in my young days I remember we had this crazy legend going around that you could get back to Dollet tower and re-fight the stronger version of that spider-robot, you needed a special key-card or something lol. And I almost s**t my pants when you actually added that opportunity to the game. The Knight Initiation scene/fight is also very cool; it fits the story so well.

This got me wondering how far you can actually push this game – is it possible to add completely new content to the game?

Eithwer way, I just wanted to say big thanks to you, I really enjoy your mod.

Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it! I had no idea there were rumors about being able to refight the X-ATM back in the day, but it makes sense - that little "sidequest" in vanilla seems like the beginning of something that was cut from the game. Scripting the ritual boss was a nightmare, but I'm happy to hear it was worth it.  :-)

As far as adding completely new content, I know it's possible to do more with fields than Crystal does, like adding characters/other models to fields in which they don't normally appear. I figure adding a totally new field would be a lot more difficult, though. I once tried to replace one of the game's unused "test" fields with another for a sidequest I ultimately never made, but...well, I can't quite remember what happened ;D. As for enemies, most of the new bosses in Crystal are existing enemies given higher stats and unique behaviors through enemy AI scripting, and the few new enemies were added by replacing existing ones. There are around 55 dummy enemy files in the game data after the last "real" enemy file, but as far as I know the game doesn't actually load them. I've been out of the loop on FFVIII's modding scene for a while and was never the most knowledgeable to begin with, though, so maybe others have gotten around these limitations.

Quote
Now the issue I have – Im on a disk 3 and trying to defeat 12 enemies in Esthar but when I get the ‘Magic Summon’ after normal enemy is defeated my game freezes (Im on Nintendo switch). While I know I still can continue, but I also want to get all the possible content there is. Is there any way you can help me?

Sorry about the issue. Could you tell me which enemies you're fighting to trigger the boss and on which Esthar map (that is, the fight(s) in which Magic Summon is being used)? Each enemy in Esthar has its own handling for this based on the battle scene in which they're encountered. There are some enemy combinations that would cause the game to crash when trying to summon the boss and while I thought I had fixed all of them before releasing that sidequest, it's possible I missed one. If that doesn't solve the issue, it may be a Switch-specific problem - I tried it out on both the 2013 and PC-Remastered versions just now and while I didn't trigger the boss in every possible fight, I did confirm that the spawn itself works in those versions. It may take me some time to check it out, but if you could send me your save file, that'd help. In the meantime, you could try using other battles in Esthar to spawn it if you haven't already.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.5 / Remastered Version 1.1.5
Post by: gypsymania on 2022-05-06 17:34:57
Thanks for getting back.

I tried all the different enemies in Eshtar – imps, iron giants, tauramas and those flying magical pancakes (don’t remember the name), solo enemies and different combos – as soon as they are defeated and ‘Magic Summon’ is triggered – game crashes. I tried different areas too.

Sure, here’s the link for save file:

https://ufile.io/bmwiru21


Whenever you have a minute. Thanks again!  8)
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.5 / Remastered Version 1.1.5
Post by: Leythalknight on 2022-05-07 01:26:12
Thanks for getting back.

I tried all the different enemies in Eshtar – imps, iron giants, tauramas and those flying magical pancakes (don’t remember the name), solo enemies and different combos – as soon as they are defeated and ‘Magic Summon’ is triggered – game crashes. I tried different areas too.

Sure, here’s the link for save file:

https://ufile.io/bmwiru21


Whenever you have a minute. Thanks again!  8)

Here, this should fix the problem: https://www.mediafire.com/file/bz4haldpj05xelt/battle_05-06-22_%2528SWITCH%2529.7z/file Just replace the existing battle files with these. I'll release a proper update another day.

Thanks for telling me about this. Let me know if you have any other issues.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.5 / Remastered Version 1.1.5
Post by: gypsymania on 2022-05-07 02:15:08
It worked, thanks a million! I will keep you posted if I'll find anything else. Thanks again.  8)


EDIT/UPDATE:

Hey, found another issue – this time it is the Sorceress Memorial fight – game crashes after I defeat 5th or 6th sorcerer and ‘Magic Summon’ is triggered.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.5 / Remastered Version 1.1.5
Post by: Leythalknight on 2022-05-07 18:14:33
It worked, thanks a million! I will keep you posted if I'll find anything else. Thanks again.  8)


EDIT/UPDATE:

Hey, found another issue – this time it is the Sorceress Memorial fight – game crashes after I defeat 5th or 6th sorcerer and ‘Magic Summon’ is triggered.

Here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/x2h4di5q8tbozj1/battle_05-07-22.7z/file

 Sorry about the issue. There's only one other place I used Magic Summon when spawning enemies and it works there. It may have something to do with the quality of the enemy model.

I'll release a proper update later.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.5 / Remastered Version 1.1.5
Post by: gypsymania on 2022-05-09 13:54:28
Thanks, it works now! Im on disk 3 now and I collected all the key/defeated all the quest monsters. Your document says that I need to buy an item in secret shop on disk 4 in order to fight the secret boss, but when I went to Trabia Canyon (still disk 3) I got a message that I’ve collected all the keys and then got attacked by super strong Geezard who killed me in like 4 turns lol  :?. I’ve never found any info on this in your text document so my question is – is this the secret boss from secret shop or this is a different boss? Thanks.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.6 / Remastered Version 1.1.6
Post by: Leythalknight on 2022-05-10 03:38:54
I've updated the mod to 1.5.6 / 1.1.6.

Nexus (https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy8/mods/6) / itch.io (https://hasardore.itch.io/ffviii-crystal)

Thanks, it works now! Im on disk 3 now and I collected all the key/defeated all the quest monsters. Your document says that I need to buy an item in secret shop on disk 4 in order to fight the secret boss, but when I went to Trabia Canyon (still disk 3) I got a message that I’ve collected all the keys and then got attacked by super strong Geezard who killed me in like 4 turns lol  :?. I’ve never found any info on this in your text document so my question is – is this the secret boss from secret shop or this is a different boss? Thanks.

The canyon boss is the one that ends the Aberrant Keys quest. The secret shop that sells the item needed for the other is located

Spoiler: show
at the Crash Site, but only on Disc 4. Talk to the Queen of Cards and you can buy it from her. She also sells certain items that are otherwise missable.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.6 / Remastered Version 1.1.6
Post by: gypsymania on 2022-05-24 19:13:48
Just finished the game and want to write a short feedaback. Maybe it would help people to decide whether they want to give this mod a shot or not.

Gameplay

Basically this mod turns ff8 gameplay into more traditional jprg gameplay with leveling, classes and gridding. Game still keeps core elements, so you can adjust your characters as you want and not stick with the provided class system. You can still shuffle all the GFs and magic between characters, so you won’t have a problem to build a tank-Selphie if you want.


Difficulty

I would say the difficulty in this mod is reasonably challenging and difficult. It’s challenging where it needs to be, but it’s not Dark Souls either (although there are some bosses that will make you sweat a lot). I had more difficulties in the beginning (Ifrit kicked my ass multiple times and so did some other bosses on disk1) but once you progress and get more different spells and commands game gets easier.

Some bosses will be very annoying since they can attack 2 or 3 times in a row. You will need to adjust your party and strategy for those fights.

The only boss that I couldn’t beat in a fair fight is an overpowered Geezard and I really think he is the most difficult boss in this mod, I had no trouble with Virtuoso Weapon and Omega Weapon (the last one was super-easy for some reason, felt like his hp were cut), but this dude kicked my ass multiple times. Virtuoso Weapon is sick though, his skills combo can kill you fast, had to adjust my status defense, first time he got me with berserk on the whole party. It’s very very impressive how he is programmed and the whole idea of skill combo is great.

Content

There’s plenty of new content – new quests, new bosses, new items, new spells and abilities, but a lot of OG content was removed  – most of the GFs were cut and some magic and commands are not usable anymore (this however is done to keep the balance and favor the new gameplay and mechanics, but it is little bit sad).

Should you play it?

If you want to re-play ff8 in an un-orthodox way and you are looking for a challenge, then this is might be your cup of tea. The amount of new content added is insane and the new scenes/dialogues don’t even feel like a fan-fiction or anything like that, they are super-organic and really feel like og game.

Thank you for your effort, I had a truly awesome experience.
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.6 / Remastered Version 1.1.6
Post by: kapilapis on 2022-06-18 14:48:05
I have been playing through your mod and encountered a bug with the aberrant monsters quest.

Spoiler: show
In Esthar, after defeating the special summoned Behemoth with the Blaze Spikes, it does not drop its aberrant key. Initially I thought that maybe I had ruined it by mugging, but even after reloading and killing again I did not get the item. I have killed it in two different pre-summon formations, too. Here is a clip of Behemoth not dropping the key https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1507255157

I am playing on version is 1.5.5 and I could upload my savefile somewhere if you would like to check it. Luckily I kept a backup before killing the Behemoth. I also had killed all three other key monsters before Behemoth. That being said, I already solved the problem for myself by using a save editor and adding in the third Aberrant Key into my inventory, so my playthrough is doing ok.


Before I forget, I found two other bugs involving Renzokuken's finisher with the Stop proc. The first one was Fujin's AI breaking when I got the final hit on her at the same time I inflicted Stop. Her AI stopped working and she never said the line to end the fight, even after Stop ended. I tried to restart her AI by healing and killing again, but I was just soft locked on an endless fight.  The second bug involved a Stopped Elnoyle which froze the game after being hit by Renzokuken. I assume the game was trying to put the model back in place after the special animation should have knocked it down but couldn't because he was already stopped middair or something like that.

That being said, I have been playing through the entire FF series, with a lot of modded games on the way, and your mod has been by far my favorite so far. FFVIII has fantastic mechanics and a really tense and intense ATB system which combined with your creativity just resulted in absolutely fantastic fights. I fell in love with the mod the moment I saw Ifrit use his special thing and my opinion of it hasn't changed at all since. Good job!
Title: Re: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.6 / Remastered Version 1.1.6
Post by: NapazTrix on 2023-06-12 19:08:31
Really enjoyed my time with this mod, though I got a few suggestions for changes and notes I made through my playtime.

0: Shiva grants Mug to Quistis but with her low Speed the rate of it is low and Shiva never unlocks any Speed-related abilities. Whereas Irvine has a higher speed stat, and gains 2x +15% SPD, making him a much better candidate for this, and what I changed to when getting Mug at Fisherman's Horizon. Is this intentional?

1: Desert Prison Floor 2 gives a Pet Nametag as OG, but the item pickup said it gave 2x bioblasters.

2: Had a freeze when I had Rinoa, Squall, and Quistis versus NORG. Squall did a critical trigger hit and the screen froze as it landed. Not sure if it is just the mod or base game though.

3: The Chocobo World add-on wasn't considered during the mod creation, but for non-remastered it can play a big part in balance and is an avenue for Mog and Boko to be used. I'd prefer if these had some form of implementation if not just an easier way to get some items without grinding in-game.

4: I defeated Odin with 0 seconds to spare and it gave me his rewards, but also counted as a failure so it kicked me out. This allowed me to beat him again and get his rewards a second time.
    4a: Tonberry King had quite a lacklustre reward since he really only gave the Kamikaze ability. For how tough he was, at least working around his almost Insta-kills and Junk counter, it didn't seem worth it. Especially since Kamikaze removes that character from the battle, making it have little worth as VIT 0 isn't as good as another character for their actions when considering most of the bosses can get up to 5 turns before yours.

5: The Card Club side-quest didn't recognise that I won 15 matches in the Garden, I finally was able to get into the CC quest, after 25 wins in the Garden. Did it all, but no item rewards, just cards, which are kinda pointless in the mod.
    5a: Following on from Cards, since there is no CardMod ability the card game has a severe lack of purpose when compared to the base game. You can get the Card skill from the guy in Dollet, and a few items from the prison fellas that have been changed to be worse, but mostly there's not much point to play the card game from my experience.

6: Zombie has a weird texture glitch that makes the character see-through and like a MissingNo from Pokemon. Curse has a similar issue where the visual stops showing when it is still active.

7: Adamantoise's drop rate of Adamantine feels far too low, I had to grind on them for 10+ levels to get 3, leaving me at 50-60 levels.
    7a: Probably too much to implement now, or too hard to do regardless, but it would be nice to be able to Mug an enemy and still get their normal drop. I agonised so much over if I should Mug or let the enemy drop their item. At least for Adamantoise, I believe you stated in the thread that it's better to let them drop Adamantine. I can't follow an online guide on who drops what as you changed most things past the Dollet Mission. At least some bosses had set drops, that you still get with mugging, but it was hard to gauge if a boss dropped anything good when just looking at their drops.

8: The Red Dragon in Fire Cavern I feel is a bit overturned. If not just for its harsh scaling with your level, you're unable to make yourself immune to fire damage or Daunt, plus the use of Flare and melee attacks dealing so much damage. The fire healing per turn would be fine if it wasn't healing almost 4k for every other action I can take. It seems heavily geared towards a mage party since the junction element doesn't stop the healing which isn't fun if you've spent so much making a physical team. It's just not enjoyably designed in my mind. Even after getting it done with Selphie doing Double-Blizzaga, the Red Dragon still had its regen at times and failed to show the text for the element stopping it. Not sure if it's just a chance of it stopping the healing or if it just glitched out at times.

9: There is seemingly a lack of enemies to easily get the -aga spells from before Disc 3. You gotta look in really small areas or story/boss fights to get those. This is seemingly prevalent with Blizzaga in preparation for the Red Dragon. Adamantoises of 56 still had Blizzara, and many other enemies seemingly stopped at -ara on the map before Ragnarok.

10: Seifer felt too harsh in his solo and duo fight with Edea in the Galbadia Garden invasion. His crit rate was so high he was doing 1800-2000 damage a hit, meaning most died in 1-2 hits, with a follow-up Firaga doing the job if I didn't have high hp or shell active. Edea was fine as she could be countered well enough with Auto-Reflect.

11: In the Abaddon fight, the boss counters spells which interrupts and stops the second cast when using Double, which is a major pain. Unsure if that is a glitch or not. I found this happened a few times with normal enemies and a few bosses, where Double just didn't cast the 2nd spell.

12: Edea as an ally was quite underwhelming. She didn't have that great of a Magic stat, nor many spells or the ability to draw more. I had to give her spells to cast. In the end, I didn't use her much because she was uninteresting.

13: The Esthar enemies in Laguna flashback while on the elevator have way too high a crit rate too, being able to kill anyone who isn't Squall/Laguna in 2 hits or so, with a cracked speed or just double actions.

14: The Sorceress Memorial gauntlet was rather fun and felt fair, however, the steals from them are atrocious. I can buy shell stones and the like with ease, I don't want a hidden boss to give those. This might just be because they are the same ones you fight in the story, but I would prefer items to refine into Ultima, Flare, or Meteor.

15: When using Double with Selphie, she would sometimes not use the stock of spells, but other times she did. I am not sure why this happened, but it mostly occurred with Pain and Double.

16: I felt that the shops could have been made a bit more unique, it ended up being 3 or so stores I would use since the rest had nothing I needed. Possibly more options for buying materials from shops, like Esthar mostly did for Life Rings into Arise.

17: The Sorceress fight at Edea's House was a bit too long/reactive for me. It took 45 minutes to beat her since I had to keep healing, buffing, and reviving. Either I missed something or it's just a game of return damage and keep yourself alive to attack every other turn.

18: Diablos was a fun fight, but like the Red Dragon it is a massive pain if you're low-level with little skills to back you up. Same with Vivian, but I had two characters with Ribbon due to Chocobo World, so I feel I had more fun with it due to not having to worry about as many statuses. Vivian's reward was great, much better than Diablos who just gave Nightsword.

19: The behemoth for the third key was underwhelming. It didn't really do anything unique except the fire-counter and ending with Starfall. I had no issues with it except a crit on Selphie so I had to revive her. The reward was nice for it.

20: The Abyss Worm fight was very anti-climactic. I was expecting a different phase or something else to spawn. Nice rewards though.

21: Bahamut was an engaging fight with the affinity changes, however, I feel a copy of Darkside is kind of a lacklustre reward, since Squall gets it anyway and you're forced to have him in the party. I expected more stat ups, like VIT or SPR since he is meant to be Squall's Knight class.

22: The run down the Deep Sea Lab was not fun at all, and not really that hard. There are just so many fights against enemies with so much health that it's a slog. It took me 1hr 40mins to get to the bottom where you start getting the fixed encounters. Without easy access to gravity spells, this was just a terrible experience.

23: The Ultima Weapon fight was fun and engaging, having to keep everyone up, use actions wisely, and finally being able to double-ultima was satisfying. I will say that Licht Säule (Light Pillar) could be done with 50% usage, as it was a bit heavy-handed. The reward was nice, but I was expecting some more stat-ups due to the difficulty. I suppose drawing Ultima is a good prize on its own.

24: The Seifer fight in Lunatic Pandora was annoying with the Hellbiter, as he would get up to 8 attacks in 1 turn, with a good chance of making everyone zombied for his Alexander attack. The main issue is that this forces mega-remedy usage if you want a chance at even healing. I think he should have fewer actions, if not use Hellbiter a bit less, as it was mostly 2 characters using a mega-remedy and then mega-potion to not die. I had Selphie using double magic over and over to hope she could win it. Also, I stole 2 Shell Stones from him, and the boss gave no reward, that is terrible for how late in the game this is.

25: I don't think I understood how the Keys Geezard fight was meant to work. Is it just killing him x times? He died to a poison proc after I had run out his HP close to what seemed like 50 times. The reward for 6 casts of Wall is great if it wasn't the culmination of four bosses previously and all the work to get to that point. I feel like there should have been more hints as to how he was meant to work.

26: The Virtuous fight was pretty great, the double insta-kill was annoying but I had tons of Arise at that point. The full-heal was a bit confusing, I surmised it was just a DPS check at the end as I rushed it after the first time he used it. Though, the boss had normal fight music and the boss had no attack audio most of the time.
    26a: Diablos is an amazing reward, his damage is cracked. Easily deal over 15k with him in Ultimiciea's castle. It actually feels like an end-game reward, but I actually get to use it in this mod, rather than getting it after the final boss with no purpose. Siren and Doomtrain didn't have their status effect proc often, making them a bit underwhelming. I felt as if they should have come with more abilities, such as Elem x2 and Status x2 for defence and attack.

27: It was very surprising, and nice, to see you removed the damage limit. I only really got over it with Selphie and Ultima, and the GOAT that is Diablos. I am unsure if Boost stacks with Boost+ though.

28: Jet Engine says it grants +20% speed in the text, but it actually grants the 2nd variant of +15% when used.

29: Most of Ultimecia's Castle was fun, mostly from Diablos's damage output. I am glad you didn't make the bosses too difficult, due to us not having all our actions. Tiamat was a bit annoying though, as I couldn't keep my team alive except for Squall, who had to use Arise to bring the other two back up. Not sure if I just missed a mechanic here. I had Firaraga/Thundaga Elem Def and Shell active.

30: As with the base game, Omega Weapon is just not fun. I can't really build around him due to not having any of the normal junctions, plus his seemingly higher Speed stat and several actions. It did seem like you reduced some of the damage, as our HP stats cannot get too high, but I just gave up trying to attempt the fight. So I don't know if its rewards are even good.

31: Final fight gauntlet seemed like the base game. I had fun with it and was able to work it with mostly my normal team. No issues with that.

Overall, the mod was a fun change from the base game and a lovely time for actually being able to level up. I would mostly prefer if the Cards had more use in the mod, more quests in the towns to engage in, and the possibility to get 3x Ribbon for a whole team of it as statuses become an annoyance rather than fun in late-end game. I was sad there were no items to grant Aura either, as that was a major fun factor of the base game.