[FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.99994)

[InfernAngelis89]

Instead of a mystery ninja encounter, you'll run into ziggy in the world map forests. If you find him/beat him you get a Materia; if you don't, then you can find this Materia in the rolling rock room of the Temple of the Ancients.

Awesome I just found him too! Are we only able to encounter him once or multiple times? Also do you have a list of other secret monsters found like this? I would hate to miss an encounter just because I was not aware. Thank you!!

[Sega Chief]

Awesome I just found him too! Are we only able to encounter him once or multiple times? Also do you have a list of other secret monsters found like this? I would hate to miss an encounter just because I was not aware. Thank you!!

It's a one-off encounter. Don't think there's any other missable secret enemies.

[Maziac]

Anyone else tried speedrunning this in Arrange mode?

A while back I started a segmented run to see if it's even possible, and it's brutal, but might actually be doable even in a single segment. Some bosses are insane though, and might require resets for better rng or strategic grinding for more levels and rank-ups. I've managed to make it to the very end in 13:30sh time, but the very final fight seems problematic.

Now, I actually never finished my first playthrough after growing bored of the endgame content and my randomized character builds, so I'm not sure how it is supposed to play out, and I can't find any mention of this fight online.

Spoiler: show

Cloud vs. Sephiroth and Jenova. At first I thought the goal was just to survive and the fight would end if I get my Omnislash off. But I was surprised that's not the case. They seem to do % based damage, and I'm forced to Full-Cure every turn and then Elixir up when out of MP. They seem too tanky to kill, Omnislash hitting Sephiroth for alot of 0s and Jenova for about 300 per hit.(Cloud is built as tanky magic support) Pearl damages Jenova for a good 6,5k, so I tried using my only Gospel Spark on my first turn to gain Peerless in hope to finish off Jenova, but it wasn't enough(no Quadra magic), and they murder me before I can heal.

Am I missing something? Under-leveled(lvl.75, rank 3 or 4, not quite sure) and geared? How's this fight supposed to be won?

[InfernAngelis89]

Not sure if its a known bug or not but the Speed Square in Gold Saucer has the battle type music, not the gold saucer music. Even after escaping from Corel Prison.

[kekko1285]

Hey Sega, I cannot find where you put the logchanges of the latest 30th December release. Would you point that out for me? Thanks

Suggestion time: I'd use some sort of sem-versioning for the new releases, so it's easier to refer back to different versions - something like 1.5.1 for example would make clear a new version has been released and that it's just tweaking some aspects of the previous release, not a major rework.

[Sega Chief]

Anyone else tried speedrunning this in Arrange mode?

A while back I started a segmented run to see if it's even possible, and it's brutal, but might actually be doable even in a single segment. Some bosses are insane though, and might require resets for better rng or strategic grinding for more levels and rank-ups. I've managed to make it to the very end in 13:30sh time, but the very final fight seems problematic.

Now, I actually never finished my first playthrough after growing bored of the endgame content and my randomized character builds, so I'm not sure how it is supposed to play out, and I can't find any mention of this fight online.

Spoiler: show

Cloud vs. Sephiroth and Jenova. At first I thought the goal was just to survive and the fight would end if I get my Omnislash off. But I was surprised that's not the case. They seem to do % based damage, and I'm forced to Full-Cure every turn and then Elixir up when out of MP. They seem too tanky to kill, Omnislash hitting Sephiroth for alot of 0s and Jenova for about 300 per hit.(Cloud is built as tanky magic support) Pearl damages Jenova for a good 6,5k, so I tried using my only Gospel Spark on my first turn to gain Peerless in hope to finish off Jenova, but it wasn't enough(no Quadra magic), and they murder me before I can heal.

Am I missing something? Under-leveled(lvl.75, rank 3 or 4, not quite sure) and geared? How's this fight supposed to be won?

13 hours is a long run; that's Legend of Dragoon territory.

Spoiler: show

The alternate final fight on arrange used to be a 2v2 but it was changed to a 1v2 which proved to be a poor decision given the debilitating statuses floating about. Sephiroth should be ignored until Jenova is brought down, as he'll die in 1 hit but is immune to damage until the other enemy is killed. While his attacks are %-based damage, Jenova's aren't; but there's a few things you can do to give yourself an edge.
1) Hidden element protection should negate some of the attacks
2) If being hit by Sequence/Combo, you can use Defend during it to reduce damage from the next hit(s); this can be handy if you're in trouble.
3) Avoid random-target attacks like Quadra/4x-Cut as Sephiroth will 'soak' some of the hits and reduce its overall effectiveness.

Speaking of Combo, Counter Materia is very effective against it because each hit is registered as a single action. You can quickly master Materia on the left-up path if you have some Ethers for the Magic Pots (probably faster if you can kill Movers too) while running/teleporting from anything else that appears. Magic Counter + Restore would greatly up durability. The other thing is the status ailments; a Vaccine or Ribbon would block anything coming in, but also prevent the use of Barrier/MBarrier/Regen if you plan to use those.

HP-Wise this boss doesn't have a lot compared to others; around 70k or so. I think MP Turbo isn't too far off the beaten path (might still be dropped by Jenova Death actually), which would likely be a better contender than Quadra Magic due to its random-target nature. If physicals aren't doing much, then materia like restore/revive + elemental in the weapon will buff it a bit; Limits won't see the benefit of it unfortunately. I'd also maybe swap Omnislash for Lv.1/Lv.2 to use Braver/Climhazzard as roughly half those hits on Omnislash/Meteor Rain are going to be wasted + the gauge will charge much faster.

Not sure if its a known bug or not but the Speed Square in Gold Saucer has the battle type music, not the gold saucer music. Even after escaping from Corel Prison.

I think I set different music for each square to try and break up the Gold Saucer theme a little bit.

Hey Sega, I cannot find where you put the logchanges of the latest 30th December release. Would you point that out for me? Thanks

Suggestion time: I'd use some sort of sem-versioning for the new releases, so it's easier to refer back to different versions - something like 1.5.1 for example would make clear a new version has been released and that it's just tweaking some aspects of the previous release, not a major rework.

Oh, it's log changes you're after? I thought it was a list of where things were. In any case, here's the list I meant:
https://pastebin.com/SiJkKDVa

As for log changes, I did originally have versioning on 1.0 through to 1.0.5 and should have carried on with that. But I stopped doing it when I lost track of changes and decided to just use the date of each iteration's release instead. I'll try and get in the habit again for any patches made to the final version.

[Fauve]

Yeah could probably do that.

Thanks, that would be great. That scene is one of my favorite moments in the game and the music is a big part of why.

On another note, I just fought with the Turks at the Gelinka ship. After Reno died, his death sentence triggered on two of my party members. However, they didn’t die for some reason even though the animation played out. Not sure why.

[Maziac]

13 hours is a long run; that's Legend of Dragoon territory.

Yeah it is, but there's a lot of room optimization and the different stat builds make it interesting.

Spoiler: show

The alternate final fight on arrange used to be a 2v2 but it was changed to a 1v2 which proved to be a poor decision given the debilitating statuses floating about. Sephiroth should be ignored until Jenova is brought down, as he'll die in 1 hit but is immune to damage until the other enemy is killed. While his attacks are %-based damage, Jenova's aren't; but there's a few things you can do to give yourself an edge.
1) Hidden element protection should negate some of the attacks
2) If being hit by Sequence/Combo, you can use Defend during it to reduce damage from the next hit(s); this can be handy if you're in trouble.
3) Avoid random-target attacks like Quadra/4x-Cut as Sephiroth will 'soak' some of the hits and reduce its overall effectiveness.

Speaking of Combo, Counter Materia is very effective against it because each hit is registered as a single action. You can quickly master Materia on the left-up path if you have some Ethers for the Magic Pots (probably faster if you can kill Movers too) while running/teleporting from anything else that appears. Magic Counter + Restore would greatly up durability. The other thing is the status ailments; a Vaccine or Ribbon would block anything coming in, but also prevent the use of Barrier/MBarrier/Regen if you plan to use those.

HP-Wise this boss doesn't have a lot compared to others; around 70k or so. I think MP Turbo isn't too far off the beaten path (might still be dropped by Jenova Death actually), which would likely be a better contender than Quadra Magic due to its random-target nature. If physicals aren't doing much, then materia like restore/revive + elemental in the weapon will buff it a bit; Limits won't see the benefit of it unfortunately. I'd also maybe swap Omnislash for Lv.1/Lv.2 to use Braver/Climhazzard as roughly half those hits on Omnislash/Meteor Rain are going to be wasted + the gauge will charge much faster.

Thanks for the advice!

Spoiler: show

I tried equipping Cloud with all my Counter materias and Magic Counter + Osmose earlier, to try and keep MP high, but they force me to heal up every turn or die. I'll try it with Restore and see if I can sustain that way, and do some damage. Hope that Hidden+Elemental works great too.

Great to hear Jenova doesn't do % damage, but what a pain in the ass she is. Physical and magic damage and statuses which you can't afford to affect you. Ribbon is nice but, lowers my defense being unable to equip Protect or Touph Ring. Not sure if those are worth it anyway as their attacks seemed to ignore Wall and Touph Ring halves restorations. But with Ribbon I can't buff myself, Haste would be so useful as Cloud is a bit slow. Could try it without Ribbon, buff up, and hope she doesn't status me before I can use Resist.

EDIT: Ok it was really easy with that setup; Hidden+elemental on armor, Magic Counter+Restore and Planet+MP Turbo, MP Plus, then fill the remaining slots with Stat boosting materias (Covers for Vit, no need to worry about Magic Defense as hidden element heals you) Then just spam Pearl on Jenova and chug ethers and elixirs when low MP. I was thinking there has to be some trick to this fight. Couldn't figure out that Hidden element is a thing, none of my materias even had the hidden element displayed but Comet works, even though it says non-elemental.

By the way, does Synthesis Cell work through Ribbon?  Also, does Hero drink II do anything but negative effects?

[PokeFaize]

Avoid random-target attacks like Quadra/4x-Cut

Pressing L or R will cause 4x-Cut to "focus" the attack to single target (similar to changing Materia paired with All Materia from Multi-Target to Single Target). The same does NOT apply to Quadra-Cast, sadly.

I think MP Turbo isn't too far off the beaten path (might still be dropped by Jenova Death actually)

MP Turbo is in the Great Glacier area. You replaced the All Materia found in the cave in the "Snow Field" area (where you use the Markers) with MP Turbo. Deathblow is also found in the Great Glacier area where Added Cut used to be.

[Sega Chief]

Thanks, that would be great. That scene is one of my favorite moments in the game and the music is a big part of why.

On another note, I just fought with the Turks at the Gelinka ship. After Reno died, his death sentence triggered on two of my party members. However, they didn’t die for some reason even though the animation played out. Not sure why.

If they're immune to death, either by death-force or Resist status, then death sentence won't kill them when it ticks off.

By the way, does Synthesis Cell work through Ribbon?  Also, does Hero drink II do anything but negative effects?

Yes; it has the ignore status flag. Status resistance in this game is actually more of a 'can toggle' flag. Resistance prevents toggle, so if a status is forced on it means it can't be removed through normal means, especially if the resistance was applied via equipment.

Hero Drink II gives nothing but negative statuses.

Spoiler: show

Unrelated Master Fist damage formula: Damage = Damage * (1 + 1 each for Near-death, Poison, Sadness, Silence, Slow and Darkness Statuses, + 2 each for Death-sentence and Slow-numb Statuses)

Pressing L or R will cause 4x-Cut to "focus" the attack to single target (similar to changing Materia paired with All Materia from Multi-Target to Single Target). The same does NOT apply to Quadra-Cast, sadly.
MP Turbo is in the Great Glacier area. You replaced the All Materia found in the cave in the "Snow Field" area (where you use the Markers) with MP Turbo. Deathblow is also found in the Great Glacier area where Added Cut used to be.

I forgot I'd done those.

[kekko1285]

Oh, it's log changes you're after? I thought it was a list of where things were. In any case, here's the list I meant:
https://pastebin.com/SiJkKDVa

As for log changes, I did originally have versioning on 1.0 through to 1.0.5 and should have carried on with that. But I stopped doing it when I lost track of changes and decided to just use the date of each iteration's release instead. I'll try and get in the habit again for any patches made to the final version.

So changes with the latest version were only for steal/drops/enemy skill? Thanks!

[UpRisen]

Anyone else tried speedrunning this in Arrange mode?

I run normal mode and its already 10-11 hours average. The boss changes in arrange mode makes it very unlikely to be possible without farming, which would add hours to the time.

Main issues with Arrange speedrun:
1. In the normal speedrun we turn off random encounters. arrange mode would almost certainly mean farming is required which just adds too much time.
2. All enemies have increased level in Arrange so unchanged bosses and any random encounters you have to face will be more difficult. the most notably being Aps. In the aps fight we morph him in order to get dragon scales for the elevator boss in shinra tower. With a higher level he will 100% 1 shot Aeris who will be level 1 due to the Guard Skip.
3. Guard skip is basically non skippable (combine with issue # 2 is enough to invalidate this as a legit category already). Plasma buster x2 is a very difficult fight that would end runs 90% of the time .I cant think of any reliable strat to beat it at base level with as few healing items as youd have in the run.
4. Shinra tower boss rush. This just isnt viable in a speedrun scenario. The elevator bosses come all 3 at once and they just annihilate you. This is avoidable by copying the speedrun strat which is to use the dragon scale you can morph from aps to end the fight instantly. Once you are past that you have to fight Rufus with an immortal Light Nation. This will be a difficult and tight fight but possible. And the hardest part is vs the Motor Ball boss at the end of the high way. In arrange he does not heal you, can confuse your party, and goes invincible late in the fight.

Those are just the major run enders inside of midgar. basically every boss after that is the same problem. even with the Shield Trick you just do too little damage and when its not active you take too much damage to reliably beat the bosses with no prior farming.

so TLDR would be too hard, would take farming which would make it too long. But if you want to attempt go ahead. I can send you my notes for the normal speedrun and you could tweak from there (hell after 2.0 is released and i reroute i might try an arrange route myself)

[Fauve]

1) Is there still a stronger version of Safer Sephiroth that you can unlock? If so, how do you fight him?

2) In disc 3, is the Dark Cave side quest unlocked by visiting the bottom of the northern crater?

3) I’d like to visit the materia caves. Is there a way to obtain the golden chocobo without breeding?

[Sega Chief]

1) Is there still a stronger version of Safer Sephiroth that you can unlock? If so, how do you fight him?

2) In disc 3, is the Dark Cave side quest unlocked by visiting the bottom of the northern crater?

3) I’d like to visit the materia caves. Is there a way to obtain the golden chocobo without breeding?

No.

Yes.

Guidebook, Morph a Ghost Ship in the Underwater Reactor tunnels (the ones where fish are visible).

[Maziac]

I run normal mode and its already 10-11 hours average. The boss changes in arrange mode makes it very unlikely to be possible without farming, which would add hours to the time.

Yeah, I don't turn off random encounters and fight some battles that are fast to win with magic when I need to get some XP. Plasmabuster is very hard/time consuming. I fought some Grashstrikes and Missile turrets on the way to get lvl 11 before the fight. I buy 3 Iron bangles for the high defense and 2nd Lightning + Restore and get the All materia from Beginners hall. Combine restore with all, and pray to rngesus they don't hit one character twice from the back for a kill. It's a bit too long fight though, I had to use all my MP on every character.

I just updated to the newest version where Sega Chief nerfed some arrange mode bosses and started another run. Aps and the 3 Elevator bosses seemed a bit easier. Not sure if they are changed a bit or not. Didn't Morph Aps, but I thought about it. Managed to make it out of Midgar under 3hours(In-game time), no skips, except Tifa and Aeris backstory which the mod enables. But Plasmabusters and the elevator trio required a few resets. And learning all the menuing before fights is another challenge cause you need to swap so much stuff in Midgar.

After Midgar I noticed some changes to Elena and Rude, beat Jörmungandr(Bottomswell) with lower level and Jenova on the ship is no problem like last time. Also, Summons have some wild new stat bonuses which probably change things up a lot.

Trying to scribble down some notes this time around, but they are a mess lol

[Katyhja]

Hi, currently playing the mod and ecountered a problem.
I just killed the boss in Yuffies Village and she was supposed to give me my materia back.
I only got the one Materia you find in the shop and she wears the materia she held before she left the party.
Evrything else is gone. is there any way to fix this ? Not too familiar with other mods, maybe there is something that lets me spawn/hack materia ?

[InfernAngelis89]

There is a NPC before Golden Saucer that lets you change your game to Arrange Mode. Is there an NPC to change it back?

[Fauve]

No.

Yes.

Guidebook, Morph a Ghost Ship in the Underwater Reactor tunnels (the ones where fish are visible).

Gotcha. Any tips or items I can use to make morphing easier?

[Sega Chief]

Hi, currently playing the mod and ecountered a problem.
I just killed the boss in Yuffies Village and she was supposed to give me my materia back.
I only got the one Materia you find in the shop and she wears the materia she held before she left the party.
Evrything else is gone. is there any way to fix this ? Not too familiar with other mods, maybe there is something that lets me spawn/hack materia ?

I've never heard of that happening before; it definitely isn't in the inventory? The stolen Materia is held in the savemap and is around 48 Materia overall assuming the player had that many or more. It's returned to the party through an opcode in the field script. Assuming nothing has happened to the save file, the stolen Materia should still be stored on the save file and will be retrievable so it hopefully isn't lost. I think best bet is for you to send me the save file so I can have a look at it; then I can set up a field script to get the stolen Materia released back to the inventory. If it is gone, then I'll restore it based on an older save (hoping you have one). I'll need to look into how the opcode in the default script could fail in the first place though.

There is a NPC before Golden Saucer that lets you change your game to Arrange Mode. Is there an NPC to change it back?

There isn't, no. If you send me the save file then I can try doing it through a script or something; I need to set up a battle to toggle one of the variables.

Gotcha. Any tips or items I can use to make morphing easier?

The 'Ancient' weapons (nail bat, work glove, rocket punch, etc.) ignore the Morph penalty I'm told, so those will make it easier. Sense should also be used to track its HP. But you should try to do it quickly, because Ghost Ship has an ability called Goanni that will eject the target from the battle. It's weak to Holy so have your Morpher come in with a Holy-element Materia + Elemental for 2x damage on Morph hits. I don't know what statuses are available, but Slow will probably work to buy you some more time.

[EternalLykaios]

Sega Chief, first off I just want to say thank you for this mod, it's amazing, I'd loved every bit of it, especially the trolls haha. I've been playing Normal with my mate over the past year, and I've just started Arranged, so the little changes are amazing. I cannot wait till your FFVIII mod is done, especially the triple triad version.

I'm messaging to ask for your help. I've had no problems with the mod in my entire playthrough, apart from a few crashes. Until today, where I've tried to go on the Dark Cave sidequest and upon the talk with Barret at the start of it, after a few lines, the dialogue stops and it doesn't continue and I can't progress. Cloud and Barret just staring deep into each other's eyes for all eternity.

Do you have any idea how to get passed this?

[PokeFaize]

While on the subject of Morphing, would you consider changing the Armored Golem's Morph Item to the Max Ray? Its current one, the Pile Bunker, is also its Steal Item, which kinda makes morphing it redundant (especially when most of the other characters' Endgame Weapons can both be obtained from their respective monsters in a single battle by stealing & morphing the monster (e.g. King Behemoth having Spring Gun Clip as its steal item and Behemoth Horn as its morph item)). Not to mention finding Armored Golems can be a pain, especially when the RNG decides it doesn't like you (made even worse when it's not a 100% drop item).

[Sega Chief]

Sega Chief, first off I just want to say thank you for this mod, it's amazing, I'd loved every bit of it, especially the trolls haha. I've been playing Normal with my mate over the past year, and I've just started Arranged, so the little changes are amazing. I cannot wait till your FFVIII mod is done, especially the triple triad version.

I'm messaging to ask for your help. I've had no problems with the mod in my entire playthrough, apart from a few crashes. Until today, where I've tried to go on the Dark Cave sidequest and upon the talk with Barret at the start of it, after a few lines, the dialogue stops and it doesn't continue and I can't progress. Cloud and Barret just staring deep into each other's eyes for all eternity.

Do you have any idea how to get passed this?

It's to do with other mods; disable them until you reach the next save point then reactivate them. I think it's to do with field animations or similar but that particular screen seems to be a bit erratic.

While on the subject of Morphing, would you consider changing the Armored Golem's Morph Item to the Max Ray? Its current one, the Pile Bunker, is also its Steal Item, which kinda makes morphing it redundant (especially when most of the other characters' Endgame Weapons can both be obtained from their respective monsters in a single battle by stealing & morphing the monster (e.g. King Behemoth having Spring Gun Clip as its steal item and Behemoth Horn as its morph item)). Not to mention finding Armored Golems can be a pain, especially when the RNG decides it doesn't like you (made even worse when it's not a 100% drop item).

If it makes it consistent then sure.

[InfernAngelis89]

After Cosmo Canyon, the Seraph Comb did not appear in my inventory. Are we not supposed to get it then?

[Kyliana]

So I want to start off by saying I think this mode is really well done and super fun. So great job! Now so far I have made it to rock town, and I have to say the first part of disc one was fun had to think of what to do Only attack once to see what the boss/ monster was going to do to see if I need to heal or whatnot. Once you get out of Midgar. that kinda ends. You have one person attack one wait. and the other just heal. While the 3rd is waiting to see if they attack or heal. I Feel like a lot of the fights are just super inflated with Hp(not bosses). making them take a really long time to kill and not really doing much. Like I have seen a lot of monsters heal when they attack.  Which sucks but again makes the fight for so long. I feel if they did something else rather then just heal would be awesome. Kinda like the beginning of the game, you had to pick what you did each turn waiting to see what the enemy was going to do made it feel amazing. Boss Fighting I think are perfect they are hard but not super hard.  Also <Mr. Happy> is the preson that got me into buying ff on steam and playing this mode.

[Fauve]

I’ve gots some new questions:

1) What does the Hero Medal do?

2) What’s the Dark Cave sidequest exactly? Is it like an extra dungeon?

3) Is multiple parties required for the Bizzaro Sephiroth fight? And are all 9 characters used when fighting the different parts?