Safer Sephiroth not so safe?

[LimitBreak]

Has there been any attempts at a difficulty tweak?

IMO the fights need to be ramped up. They're good, but they could be way more hardcore. I'm not talking about a complete balance overhaul or anything crazy like that, but just increasing the difficulty of monsters and especially bosses. Making status effects more widespread (more enemies use them and less enemies immune to them of course) so things like the Poison Ring and spells like Mini are actually useful. I think it would add a lot to the game if the Jenovas were comparable to... say... the Materia Keeper, or if the final Sephy battles rivaled Ruby Weapon (For destroying an entire solar system, Seph's summon break does suck). What if the Guard Scorpion (first boss) could poison you? It would add some challenge there!

Now, I know what you're thinking. This could very well add in a ton of horrible grinding to one of the only RPGs that thankfully doesn't overwhelm us with that crap. BUT I think the real ticket here lies in the status effects, and if they could be worked out and employed properly, a real tactical element could be enhanced. Another problem would be to not fix things up right, so the mod really does feel like a mod and not part of the game. That would be tough. You can't just randomly add in a bunch of status effects to enemies without extensive testing.

Has anyone attempted this? Succeeded? Utterly failed? Possible with the current tools? All the projects on here have gotten me motivated and difficulty is one area that I'm really interested in that I haven't seen worked on.

[Timu Sumisu]

i have no idea, but something to consider is the plausibilitiy of which monsters cause what stat fx, eg why would the guard scorpion cause poison? maybe stop if he did his tail attack, or darkness with search scope... things that fit in well. I do agree that jenova could be harder. also safer seph could be harder... however although super nova ends up not being very powerful, its main purpose is to scare players that dont get the system. Say you had all yer characters with 9999 hp, you'd sudenly have a fraction of it and get loaded with a bunch of statuses. Anyhow, find out what could be done about it, and make a plan about what changes you'd make, to get feedback. i think you can do this with some of the editors.. i beleive there is a monster attack editor, and one that can edit their hp etc, but i may be wrong.

[Kudistos Megistos]

*cough*

[LeeHiOoO]

Not this one (posted by LKM) only... there are plenty of attempts... and lots of versions around the forum..

[LimitBreak]

*cough*

Didn't see that... and it's so recent too...

However, I don't like a lot of his edits. I guess I'm not looking for a hardcore mod so much as a challenge mod still in tune with the original game but adding some thinking to fights (NOT just bumping up damage and HP).

[Kudistos Megistos]

I think that this is the only hardcore mod that doesn't just do that; there is some AI modding in there as well, and the new bosses (there are lots of them) are all very hard.

[Swampthing15]

idk if youve attempted it, but if ur chars are lvl 99 (or a hundred dont remember the cap atm) the summon break does pretty much instant kills if i remember correctly. so the higher lvl you are the harder the final fight is.

[LimitBreak]

I think that this is the only hardcore mod that doesn't just do that; there is some AI modding in there as well, and the new bosses (there are lots of them) are all very hard.

Yea, I see. The headband and ribbon tweaks I like, the magic breath change, MDef/Spirit, the Odin lance, and the character stat tweaks (the concept - since he doesn't list any numbers), but that's about it.

idk if youve attempted it, but if ur chars are lvl 99 (or a hundred dont remember the cap atm) the summon break does pretty much instant kills if i remember correctly. so the higher lvl you are the harder the final fight is.

Interesting.

Doesn't make much sense why it would be easier if you were weaker, but interesting. Instant kills aren't fun though.

[Kudistos Megistos]

Well, when the player gets stronger, Safer Sephiroth gets *much* stronger.

  Safer*Sephiroth
  Lvl: 87         EXP: 0             Win:      -         
  HP: 80000       AP: 0           Steal:      -
  MP: 680        Gil: 0           Morph:      -
  ---
  Void:   Earth, Gravity
  ---
  Att: 230        Def: 100         Df%: 1           Dex: 160
  MAt: 100        MDf: 180                          Lck: 0
  ---
  Immune: Death, Sleep, Poison, Confusion, Silence, Stop, Frog, Small,
        Slow-numb, Petrify, Regen, Reflect, Death-sentence, Manipulate,
        Berserk, Peerless, Paralysed, Seizure

  Safer*Sephiroth's stats change depending on various factors:
   +30,000 Max HP,  2 Att, 20 Def,  5 MAt, 16 MDf per character at L99
   +80,000 Max HP if you cast Knights of Round on Jenova*SYNTHESIS

  Note again that Aeris does not count with regards to characters at L99.

  Also, for each time you killed Bizarro*Sephiroth's Head, Safer*Sephiroth's
  HP will be 100 lower than his Max HP, up to a maximum of 24,900 HP lower.

  At maximum power, Safer*Sephiroth will have:
         400,000 Max HP, 246 Att, 260 Def, 140 MAt, 308 MDf

[LimitBreak]

Thanks. That's.... very interesting. I had no idea so many different elements went into his power. Where did you dig that up from and is there more?

[Kudistos Megistos]

From Terence Fergusson's FAQs on gamefaqs:

Battle mechanics

Date Mechanics

Enemy Mechanics

Party Mechanics


These are our holy books at qhimm.com

[Timu Sumisu]

do make it particularly interesting, you'd have to rework everything form equipment to monster abilities, probably ai as well, to stats... it'd be a fair ton of work. otherwise i imagine it'd feel very modlike, n not as smooth as can be.

[LimitBreak]

LKM: Thanks again! I need to read through those. I don't see why I couldn't do something like this. Edit a few numbers here and there... easy. Well... maybe not.

Anyways, here are some preliminary ideas. Tell me what you think. Note that I just quickly drew these up and I haven't looked at the enemies, which is where I plan to make most of the changes (I have some stuff to do concerning endangered indigenous languages of Brazil and I need to get back to it!).

Character Tweaks
(Physical damage will be lessened because, at least in my experience, materia quickly becomes useless)
(basically I just want to exemplify their inherent strengths/weaknesses so they'll be further pigeonholed into their roles... except Cloud, because he needs to stay the way he is)

Accessory Tweaks
White Cape prevents Frog, Mini and Silence
Silver Glasses prevent Darkness and Sadness
Peace Ring prevents Berserk, Fury and Confusion
Headband prevents Sleep, Slow and Stop(Idea from gjoerulv’s Hardcore Mod)
Ribbon prevents all status changes; good and bad (Idea from gjoerulv’s Hardcore Mod)

Magic Tweaks
(I actually don't plan to do much in this area except tweak some of the enemy skills because I think everything works as intended... it's just not all useful in the current context)
Magic Breath damages MP (Idea from gjoerulv’s Hardcore Mod)

Armor Tweaks
Precious Watch has 8 linked slots but no materia growth
Equipment adds Spirit instead of MDef (Idea from gjoerulv’s Hardcore Mod) (eh... actually I'm not too sure)

Summon Tweaks
(I need to find out if I can add status effects when you level up the materia; for example, leveling up Typhoon to level two (maybe three) will net you the added effect of Confusion)
(Basically I want to make them all unique and be useful when fighting the more challenging and status inducing enemies... I'll probably up the MP cost on them all too)
(Note: "Causes" = definitely happens; "Can Cause" = random chance
Kjata’s Tetra Disaster can cause Silence or Darkness and damages MP
Typhoon’s Disintegration causes Confusion, next level (if that's possible) can cause Darkness, final level can cause Berserk (all effects are cumulative... but the former two are random) can cause Confusion, Darkness, or Berserk
Choco/Mog's Fat Chocobo can cause Confusion
Ramuh can cause Paralysis or Fury
Titan’s damage and MP cost is greatly increased
Ifrit’s damage increased, but it casts Haste on the enemy
Shiva’s damage increased and causes Silence, but it casts Barrier on the enemy
Leviathan’s damage increased and causes physical damage in addition to water-elemental (possible?), but it casts MBarrier on the enemy
Neo Bahamut causes Slow
Bahamut-ZERO causes Stop
Odin’s Lance works as DeSpell (Idea from gjoerulv’s Hardcore Mod) and DeBarrier
Choco/Mog and Typhoon deal Wind damage as well (Idea from gjoerulv’s Hardcore Mod) (he puts this in, but the FF7 Citadel says they already do deal wind damage, so I need to check it out)

The whole idea with Ifrit, Shiva, and Leviathan is to intelligently weight the benefits and drawbacks before you decide to use it.

Item Tweaks
Items cost more and can be sold for less (will expand in more detail); and MP restoring potions have their usefulness lessened (a counter to the spruced up summons)

Boss Tweaks
Guard Scorpion’s Search Scope causes Darkness (Idea from timu sumisu)

Enemy Tweaks
None yet!

[Kudistos Megistos]

(I need to find out if I can add status effects when you level up the materia; for example, leveling up Typhoon to level two (maybe three) will net you the added effect of Confusion)

No. Well, yes if you create a separate attack that is identical to the first one in every way other than the status change, but you'd have to get rid of another attack first...

Equipment adds Spirit instead of MDef (Idea from gjoerulv’s Hardcore Mod) (eh... actually I'm not too sure)

No longer needed. There is a patch to fix the bug.

Guard Scorpion’s Search Scope causes Darkness (Idea from timu sumisu)

Fairly straightforward. In gjoerulv's mod Search Scope causes paralyse.

(Physical damage will be lessened because, at least in my experience, materia quickly becomes useless)
(basically I just want to exemplify their inherent strengths/weaknesses so they'll be further pigeonholed into their roles... except Cloud, because he needs to stay the way he is)

Do-able. It's best to change the stat curve instead of the starting stats. If you only change the latter, the way the curve works will take them back to their normal levels fairly quickly. Lessening physical damage should be easy enough; make all of the weapons less powerful, or fiddle with each character's stat curve.

I'm also making the weapons more individual, so that each one has it's use, rather than being a minor upgrade of the last. For example, weapons with more materia slots have less power, those with a high critical hit rate have a high miss rate, some cause status changes and some attack all enemies; my machine gun style weapons for Barret work like magic paired with all: I can switch between attack one and attack all, and attack all does 2/3 damage (my slash-all command works like that as well).

Editing the AI is probably the best way to make a good hardcore mod, but unfortunately, it's harder to do than everything else put together

[LimitBreak]

No. Well, yes if you create a separate attack that is identical to the first one in every way other than the status change, but you'd have to get rid of another attack first...

It would probably get too complicated anyways if it was possible. I'll just take a page from the Hades summon.

No longer needed. There is a patch to fix the bug.

Cool. I had no idea about that one.

Do-able. It's best to change the stat curve instead of the starting stats. If you only change the latter, the way the curve works will take them back to their normal levels fairly quickly. Lessening physical damage should be easy enough; make all of the weapons less powerful, or fiddle with each character's stat curve.

I'm also making the weapons more individual, so that each one has it's use, rather than being a minor upgrade of the last. For example, weapons with more materia slots have less power, those with a high critical hit rate have a high miss rate, some cause status changes and some attack all enemies; my machine gun style weapons for Barret work like magic paired with all: I can switch between attack one and attack all, and attack all does 2/3 damage (my slash-all command works like that as well).

Editing the AI is probably the best way to make a good hardcore mod, but unfortunately, it's harder to do than everything else put together

I wouldn't touch weapons. If I do attempt this I will probably just mess with the level curve. What you're doing sounds really interesting though! Again, I wouldn't mess with them, but making all the weapons have their own benefits would certainly add a whole new element to the game since you wouldn't automatically say "Oh hey, new town. Time to throw out all my old stuff and get new stuff." Square kind of touched on this concept with the materia growth rates. But then again, buying new stuff is always good, so there should be some obvious upgrades, IMO, to prevent equipment stagnation.

I wouldn't call what I'm proposing a hardcore mod, because I don't plan on doing "hardcore" things like bumping up HP and handing out insta-kill attacks, or multiplying the enemies on screen. I'll have to look into editing the AI of course, but I do have next to no experience at all in the area, and I don't want to mess things up or go overboard. It's about improving the original game and not trying to create a 'moddy' new one.

[Kudistos Megistos]

Some things you may or may not find helpful:

A while ago, I found out how to change the prices of things in shops. Maybe you'll want to do that, maybe not. I would recommend changing the multiplier for the price of master materia.

And in case you want to edit limit breaks, this. Unfortunately, you won't be able to do it with wallmarket; you'll need to hex edit manually.

[nfitc1]

No longer needed. There is a patch to fix the bug.

Cool. I had no idea about that one.

It's extremely new. As in, it wasn't even started six days ago.

[Timu Sumisu]

thinkin of adjustments so i figure i'll list whatever i can think of:
-midgar zolom normal attacks - chance to poison
-elemental spells should have the same kinda of adjusments as some of the summons, just at a much lower chance, (summons 100% if possible.. spells maybe 20%) - eg
ice spells have a chance of slowing and casting barrier on enemies (small chance)
-most attacks that have some kind of a smoke animation should have a chance to cause one of darkness silence sleep stop poison er petrify depending on the attack/context (by context i mean the point in the game... earlier sleep, later silence/dark, then petrify or stop)
-have more attacks connected wtih elements - i beleive some explosives were considered physical, where it might make more sense as fire... though i may be wrong, i never used items much.
-more elemental weaknesses/strengths (be more strategic with your magic, making sure to use the right one, adding a little more use to sense... dunno i never used it)
-a little more oomph from limit breaks.. extra damage... and lvl 4 limits should have a break damage limit (made all those characters whose lvl 4 was one hit seem rather weak.

can't think of anything off hand but i'll continue adding thoughts... take what you like, leave what you don't

[Kudistos Megistos]

-midgar zolom normal attacks - chance to poison

Easy to do with Heidegger (see bottom of post). I took my Zolom in a different direction - he's meant to be impossible on disc one; the player has to come back to fight him on disc three. Some more info is in the video description.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gsH2lLrJ3Tk
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ1PfveXzgw

-elemental spells should have the same kinda of adjusments as some of the summons

What do you mean by adjustments?

-a little more oomph from limit breaks.. extra damage... and lvl 4 limits should have a break damage limit (made all those characters whose lvl 4 was one hit seem rather weak.

Not sure whether that's possible. There is a "break damage limit" patch (it's part of YAMP), but I doubt it could be made to apply only to limit breaks. Of course, there's nothing to stop you powering-up the limit breaks in other ways.

All of the other things you've mentioned are fairly straightforward.

[Timu Sumisu]

'm just putting out ideas to thicken the list of stuff that could be modified. as to the element thing, he had shiva also giving barrier it hink, ifrit giving haste, to whatever it hit, having drawbacks. i was thinking to give magic the same thing, just with a lesser chance. dunno if its doable.

[Kudistos Megistos]

Oh, I see. You're talking about letting elemental spells giving positive status changes (I remember than gjoerulv made KotR have a certain chance of causing "peerless"). Yeah, that can be done, and the chances of it causing the status can be anything you like.

[Timu Sumisu]

it would make for interesting strategies... if u can absorb fire say, cast it on yourselef n you get heald + haste lol.

[nfitc1]

Maybe you can get Regen to apply regen AND poison and get Poisona to cast Confu on the target as well .

Ooh, How'z 'bout KotR inflicting Peerless and the Bahamuts increasing stats like Dragon Force/Hero Drink? I also like the idea of Megalixer healing all parties, ally and enemy alike. I wish there was a restart spell like in FFV.

I've wanted to do things like this for a while, actually. I've got some ideas if you want to collaborate.

[LimitBreak]

Easy to do with Heidegger (see bottom of post). I took my Zolom in a different direction - he's meant to be impossible on disc one; the player has to come back to fight him on disc three. Some more info is in the video description.

Based on the Safer Sephiroth info, I'm hoping there's a way to apply that to the Zolom to make him gradually stronger. I wonder if I could flag some story event (Aeris Dies, get Cid, etc) that would change his stats. By the end of disc 4, he'd be comparable to Emerald. The Zolom is one of my favorite bosses.

[dziugo]

(...) By the end of disc 4, he'd be comparable to Emerald. (...)

Oh, shoot. I missed that one! What happens on disc 4?

On a side note, there was a version of FF7 with cds labeled as Disc1 (InstallCd), Disc2, Disc3 and Disc4, but I suppose it was still Disc1-Disc3 in the game.