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Releases / Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2b & v1.1b)

« on: 2023-04-27 04:00:21 »

What did you do to the Abadon encounter? It one-shot two characters with what seemed to be instadeath moves, and then got to move like 5 times in a row against Squall. I'm not playing the Lionheart mode so such cheap tactics shouldn't exist...

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Releases / Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)

« on: 2021-06-19 02:43:46 »

I finished disk 2. The balancing at the end was absolutely superb - especially the Seifer/Edea fight in particular. I do think that Seifer could've been a bit harder in his solo fight, but my main party of Squall/Selphie/Rinoa was overpowered at that phase (lv 60/47/43 with Curaga HP junctions) so they had enough HP to survive Flare without Shell. Being overpowered for that fight felt like a reward, not a design oversight.

The Seifer/Edea fight was pretty brutal in the beginning, so I had to use the Remedy+ from the dungeon to cleanse the initial slows and burst Seifer down with twincasted Flares and autocrits from Squall (one of the dragons in the lobby dropped one of those items that refined into 20 flares). Edea's mug was fantastic: a net 20 percent increase to Rinoa (and temporarily Edea's) magic brings her close to 200 overall at this stage in the game (I'll swap her junctions with Selphie when she gets in danger of capping out at 255). My main healing strategy is tossing Mega Potions with Squall with Med Data (since he has the lowest magic stat and thus deals the lowest overall damage at the moment). I've been burning most of my salary on tents to refine into Mega Potions (though I did farm some Mesmerizes to get their blades as well).

I do have a pet peeve with the status defense junctions. In my humble opinion, junctioning 100 Death to status defense should provide 100 percent immunity to Death. You can just have Death deal like 1-2k damage when it's resisted or something - that way you're not COMPLETELY cheesing it. The game's buff system is clunky enough, so having to revive people even though you made the right preparations just feels cheap to me. Also, Edea's Maelstrom slowed me 100 percent of the time even with Slow junctioned to Status Defense - I was not a happy panda and felt like I was being messed with in that fight. Still, the fight was a really nice micromanagement check - it wasn't a raw HP check like Ironclad, but it required very careful turns to maneuver. Unfortunately, the fight kind of lost its challenge once Seifer died, and her HP was surprisingly low given my toolkit at that phase. Bumping her to 50k HP with an ice cleave immediately following a third Maelstrom at the 1/3 health mark would probably make that fight feel perfect and require the player to quickly heal or rely on ice defense elemental junction (I went into that fight with Blizzaga and Firaga on my elemental defenses, with Thundaga being used as a stat junction). I don't think this is a bad thing, though, as the opening phase of the fight is insane enough. Seifer's low HP felt perfect given the challenge.

The Ruby Dragon fight was okay, and I'm glad I had all 3 party members because that fight WAS an HP check. Ruby Breath can only be juked with Protect, I believe, and once again, junctioning 100 Death to status defense seemed to fail me all too often with the Forbiddens. Meh.

Everything started going to crap for me when I got to the Salt Lake. I don't know if enemies are starting to level up with me, but the jump in difficulty is extreme. I'm fighting lefties and righties that are casting Meteor and slapping me for 2500 damage. I swapped in Zell and Irvine to try and get them some levels, but the enemies were still brutal. Each fight has become a slog. Abadon was a piece of cake, though - I used one triple and had Edea, with her 198 magic stat, hit it with about 10 or 12 Curagas while Squall healed and Selphie supported/mugged/drew my third and final stack of Quake/did damage. 80k HP felt spot on. Damage felt spot on because it was fast - one of the first fights where I really felt the need to use haste. But it's way easier than the quad lefty/righty encounter, that's for sure.

And that's where I am at the moment. I'm a little worried about what's in store for me, not gonna lie. I really hate the fact that you're stuck with Squall in the main party - gotta love FF8's design decisions, heh. Disk 3 is loaded with them. Laguna flashbacks that remove your complex GF setups, having to find the White SeeD Ship and then get PERMISSION to speak to them, wonky story events like the party exploring an entire continent on foot while Squall crosses an intercontinental bridge...the game really goes off the rails here in spectacular fashion, falling from the best game in the series down to 4th or 5th (IMO of course).

Honestly, I'm actually kind of surprised that I already have full stacks of Quake. I figured those would become available at Esthar, not before. I don't have full stacks of Tornado yet, though. I was only able to draw 100 from the Ruby Dragon. Overall, though, the spell progression feels right. I anticipate being able to get more Tornadoes/Holy during the Esthar arc and then being able to get Flare either at Lunatic Pandora or the Research dungeon. I predict that Ultima, Full-Life, and Aura won't become readily available until Disk 4.

Edit: I ended my run in the final Laguna flashback due to all the rough RNG I was getting. Death/Stop spam despite status junctions, one-shot crits...yeah. Ran out of time, too, but maybe I'll finish it at some point. Great job on the whole (the whole run felt spot-on except for the prison fight, IMO, and that last Laguna sequence).

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Releases / Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)

« on: 2021-06-16 02:48:14 »

Everything from the missile base to the mobile garden post-Fujin/Raijin feels perfect. Zero issues to speak of. This was by far the best stretch of the game so far (minus my desire to skip cutscenes, but meh). Oilboyle could probably use a slight buff, but every other fight was amazing. The Ironclad fight felt great, and the Fujin and Raijin fight might be my favorite of the whole disk so far.

I made it up to the ruins with Tonberry King, but for some reason, I didn't think I'd get a game over if I let the timer expire in the dungeon itself. I thought the player was merely punted outside. It's been a while... Needless to say, I wasn't very happy losing 30+ minutes of my life. Oh well. When I lose a lot of time I tend to let things sit for a while, so I'll probably revisit the mod in a few weeks.

The Centra ruins segment just reeks of questionable 1990s video game design, but that's not your fault. (Rant: that's one of the things that prevents FF8 from being the best game in the series - everything is either too hidden or feels too much like a chore to discover. That's why people never understood the plot, and that's why people became dependent on strategy guides. If the game was a bit more open about its lore and sidequests and had balancing on par with this mod, it would be the greatest Final Fantasy). At least you lowered the Tonberry requirement. Honestly, I think it should be even lover (like 3 or 4, since most of your players will be FF8 veterans anyway).

Tonberry King itself has far too much HP, making the fight feel like a tedious time sink. IMO, boss fights should last a few turns longer than the reapplication of protect and/or shell - this gives players the challenge of buff reapplication without wasting their time. In the case of Tonberry King, I had to reapply my buffs TWICE - I was dual casting water with all 3 party members when I wasn't healing or using Esuna after Junk. The damage seems fine, but I think he needs a solid 30k reduction in HP. It felt 3 or 4 turns too long.

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Releases / Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2a & v1.1a)

« on: 2021-06-14 04:02:24 »

Loving the mod so far. Most of my experience with this game is through the vanilla version back in the day. I'm trying the Lionheart version and I just finished the Prison slog. Most of my characters are in the low 20s with Bio, Demi, Berserk, Regen, Drain, etc. Someone even has a full stack of Death because I was able to card some of those Thrust-whatever flying enemies into Abadon cards of all things! Rinoa is killin' it with her 120 Magic stat.

Only two fights have given me difficulty so far: Diabolos and the mechs/elite guards at the prison. I decided to switch to easy mode for both of these, as I don't really have the time or patience to grind or try to develop the perfect strategy with the perfect RNG. I wanted Diabolos before Deling City (when esunas become readily available) so I could get a head start on grinding its abilities. Both fights were obviously a pushover on easy mode.

I was stupidly using max speed up until Deling City. It could be why Diabolos gave me so much trouble on Lionheart mode. Once I turned it down to normal speed, the game because a lot more manageable.

The only fight I really hate so far is that prison boss. It's just plain unfair, man, especially after that slog of a dungeon. I must've tried it 6 times. I even tried using status ailments but nothing would land (combat RNG in traditional RPGs is a huge pet peeve of mine, silly Squaresoft). Plus FF8's targeting and clunky buff management are enough to make me lose interest in extreme difficulty. I saw Ayoyo's strat, but I didn't have Quistis available, nor did I want to spend time grinding Cover. I really feel that fight needs to be nerfed or relegated to an optional boss. At the very least there should only be one Elite Guard. Sure, it can still toss Aura Stones and Meltdowns, but I shouldn't have to restart just because the enemy got lucky with their first turn. I'm really curious if anyone else was able to beat that fight aside from that one player.

Aside from those two fights, the balancing has been absolutely spot on. The magic progression is great as well - you just might want to take a look at that Abadon card situation, as I feel Death is a bit too strong for the end of Disk 1. Not game-breaking in any way, but yeah.

My only major pet peeve with the overall balancing is that physical attacks feel a little weak, even with elemental attack junctions. My go-to party is absolutely going to be squall and 2 of the girls. Squall's physical attacks are passable because he gets the trigger damage and 255 percent hit, but Zell and Irvine leave much to be desired. I think Elemental Attack should be enhanced a bit - perhaps tier-1 spells grant a 60 percent elemental buff, tier 2 80 percent, and tier 3 100 percent.

I really like the pseudo-exploit at the Galbadian Hotel. It feels like cheating to spam the souvenirs, but in reality, it's not THAT broken. I was able to farm about a half dozen Mega Potions there (as well as a few extra goodies that I decided not to sell). I used two of those Mega Potions on the Edea fight (to answer her two Malestroms) and one on the missile base fight.

I've never modded something before, so I'm not sure if these can be done, but here are some QoL suggestions:

A really nice QoL change would be to have the moombas lower the barriers on all floors after rescuing Squall. I'd also recommend moving the last save point in the Prison to the next screen - it kinda sucks having to walk through two screens of encounters to replay the boss.

I think it would be cool to make the Adamantoise enemies vulnerable to Zombie so that you can counter their White Wind.

I feel that Water should be available at the end of Disk 1 - perhaps in the Sewers somewhere. By the time I had easy access to Water (e.g. the Chimaera enemies in the prison). it wasn't even worth using as a junction spell.

 I agree that Doubles should remain hard to find through the first third of the game. No complaints here. I only found a couple draw points, though I was able to mod a Grendel item to get a few more.

I'm a little hit and miss on some of the GF commands so far. The aoe damage/healing moves feel a bit too weak and should probably be stat-based. Ifrit's damage reflect ability is amazing and I used that a lot.

More later