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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.94)

« on: 2020-09-11 19:32:06 »

How about reducing the effect of items in combat? Lets say potions heal 300hp in field and only 100hp in combat, ether heals 50mp in field and 25 in combat... Something like that. Just make it less profitable/exploitable early game. I second the idea of pheonix feathers being removed as field/battle item to make revive magic more valuable. Or make them a rarer item to counter the spam.

I dunno about the idea of restricting item command to single use tho... I feel like a big part of the strategical possibilities would be erased this way. Item usage doesnt consist of healing items alone. Just remove the w-item bug and tweak some of the items in general for hardmode imo

Well restricting item command is probably  not that doable anyway so isn't an option.   But when i self imposed such rules on myself it didn't reduce strategy, but increased it.  As when you can't use potions it makes the other ones more necessary.   And without being able to spam some item in one battle, it requires them to be spread out. And I am just talking about early game here so far, but items like spider web, shrapnel, ghost hand, deadly waste, and more I didn't even know existed before. Now I became reliant on them, but not in any way that felt overpowering.

But there is likely no way to change the kernel for that, so it is not an option.But healing potions, ether, and phonix downs need to be greatly reduced. Otherwsie best strategy is just too sell most items , and buy ehter. And then in battle use your most powerfull magic , and when you run out, drink an ether potion. And it turns battles into a matter of endurace instead of strategy.

Try to do the first reactor mission with the rule of not using potions outside of save points. I find that now you have to watch your magic as you can't get more, balancing it with melee. And you need to use  character inates, limit  moves, and grenades to their full potential.

But anyway, I would rather have hard mode reduce healing availble, rather then forcing you to need to do it constantly.Healing all the time isn't fun.Not does it feel heroic.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.94)

« on: 2020-09-11 08:42:24 »

And here is my opinion on making a hard mode.   It is difficult to balance while the character can just use an unlimited number of items. In particular ether and healing take away from strategy. The moment you don't have ether potions, you need to be more strategic in your use of magic. And healing potions just feel like cheating.

I had the most fun, and the most challenge when I played with restrictions on the number of items characters use in battle.I treated it instead of having access to this dimensional space that allows for unlimted items, they could only carry a few items on their belt.  It work best when I said the party could only use each type of item once in a battle. So they could use at most one potion, one ether, one grenade etc .  It really forced me to be more strategic with magic, and items. Barriers in particular I had to limit as they use a lot of mp.And I was using items which I had  never used much before such as spider web etc, to help get me through battles. It made me more reliant on items, while also limiting their use.

I know the above is immposible to implement. But I don't think you can make a hard mode,  without limiting item use. But the following should be more doable:
- potions and ether are only usable on save points, forcing carefull conservation of resources as you try to make it from save point to save point.This can also encourage use of different items such as grenades you wouldn't use otherwise.
- If this is possible have it so that each character can only use the item command once  per battle. After they use an item, it dissapears as an action command in their menu. You could also have some special  materia that gives more uses of the item command per battle. (an extra use to begin with, and more as it levels up.) But potions have to be removed as battle items for this to work, or else that one item will always be potions.
- and phoneix downs should count as a potion too. So they only can be used at save points.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.94)

« on: 2020-09-11 08:00:47 »

Playing final fantasy  vII and this mod again and love it. Everyones inate abilites, revised limit moves,  and specialized weapons is a lot more interesting the the class system (white mage, black mage,etc ) of other games.  Yet each character plays different.  Here are some comments:
- Clouds innate is interesting and a lot of fun. But it seems too lead him towards a cover/vitality build, and he is supposed to some one who is versatile in both attack and magic.  It is a fun ability, just not sure if it is on the correct character.
- I like how caa vastly change character stats by what items and materia they have on them. 
- Type B story was a lot of fun, especially the long stretch with cloud and Aeris. And i found the Aeris dialog hilarious.  "Yes Don Corneo is a bit shady. But don't worry , if he tries anything we can just beat him up."  She is the best. 
-  I haven't really got much past Midgar yet, but here is some miner story errors that felt a bit odd. When they all in those jail cells, Barret talks about reforming avalanche when all the members are still arround. And Tifa and Aeris were acting like friends, when they barely had even met yet,  and Tifa would have had no idea who this girl actually is. And outside of Midgar, Barett  still seemed to think it was Aeris mother who hid Marlene.
- If you are going to be making more changes to the story, a couple things I would like to see is a more integrated way for Yuffie, and Cait Sith to join the party, instead of them just deciding to tag along and the others are okay with it despite them not seeming trustworthy.  It was just hard for me to get attached to them, because they didn't seem like they belong.  I don't know if you changed anything in the gold saucer but,  with Yuffie it would be fun if they run into her a few times (such as with a mini quest where they have to find her after she steals the chocobo Lure from the farm) before they finally let her join after she has proven herself in some way.  But that is just a fun idea. Do what inspires you.
- With hard mode I didn't like the idea at first of no Gil. But after playing it , the fact you have to work for everything seems more rewarding.
- The tournament that cloud and aeris competes in was a lot of fun. It took me a number of tries to figure out a way to beat it. It was more fun then just bosses.  Bosses with minions, or just regular enmies presented in harder ways, is a good alternative from just over powered boses.   Such as  a battle where you fight wave after wave of some animal type enemy, or battles where minions can keep summing each other and you have to find some way to kill them all at once. Just again for ideas. You can have difficult 'boss fights' without a boss to add variety.
- Oh and Aeris is awesome.

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

« on: 2016-05-22 16:43:17 »

I personally think Added Cut and Slash All being included within Midgar is a bit over-tuned in terms of front-loading attacks per turn + elemental optimization. However, at the same time it's an incredible tool for characters like Cloud or Barret whom may otherwise be relegated to tanking or support. Tifa, too, I guess, but, as you know, I never considered her damage output to be a problem. My personal feelings aside, it seems like a worthwhile change.

No one has suggested moving Slash All to Midgar. That would be overpowered there. My suggestion for Slash-All was to have it available at about the time of Cosmo canyon. At this point players will have characters available with all-2 and summons , which means they have the potential to hit all enemies with magic at least three times. Slash-all is reasonable to have at an option at this time.
And I don't want to see things at the beginning over-tuned in terms of front-loading attacks per turn + elemental optimization, just have more options available to build melee heavy characters. Right now it easy to argue that the materia options at the beginning are over-tuned in terms of magic casting, as physical ones don't arrive till later in the game. But I wouldn't want to see front-loading attacks becoming the dominant option either just a viable one. I would just like more physical options available for role playing reasons, and to add variety. The game has been played  a while with the same material progression, that a change would be refreshing.

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

« on: 2016-05-21 03:46:18 »

Slash-All might have to be left where it is though; I don't think it imposes a damage penalty/split damage on the attack. If I can make that happen though then I'd have no issues with making it available on Disc 1 so I'll tinker with the flags. If it does work, then it might also be possible to toggle between single target and multi-target like with spells but won't know until I try it in-game.

Well just for comparison purposes. Right now I just arrived in Neifleheim, and Cloud is level 35. Damage that can be done with melee attacks is roughly 200 to 300 without deathblow.  But damage on spells where  is about 700 to 1000. (most are at level 2).   And 'all' is at least at level 2 , and the options of summons are available.   Slash-all with a proper elemental element would still be behind in damage, and the character would not be able to be in the back row. So I don't think there would be a problem having slash-all unaltered at this point.    But this could have been related to the number and type of random encounters I had.    Other players at this point might not have the spells advanced as far, and might have closer magic to physical damage rates.   

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

« on: 2016-05-20 23:16:07 »

I was looking through the materia list earlier, and it got me thinking on a few things.   There is a lot of interesting materia that helps physical combat, but they don't appear until later in the game.  The early part of the game has mostly magical type materia. But since physical powers are weaker at the beginning, it would not unbalance things to have more of the physical materia a lot earlier.  This would include ones like counter attack. More elemental materia wouldn't hurt, and more of the ones that apply's status effects to weapons, or command counter. Is there a reason counter attack is received so late? Since there is just a percentage chance that counter attack works,  it is less  powerful then 'all' and the barrier materia.

I really enjoy the challenges in this mod. But a role playing aspect is also important to me. And another reason I like this mod is because of the increased distinctness of characters that was added to this mod over the base game. I like the SP system, and how we can build characters the way we want.  I like to see Cloud have builds and win battles in a way that makes sense for Cloud, etc. More physical materia options earlier in the game would help with that. It would give options, while not imposing restrictions, and not unbalancing anything. Shops in particular would be nice if most did not just sell magic materia, but had some options to help build physical characters.
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And Cloud in early concepts was supposed to be a mystic knight. Which I suppose meant being able to use magic and elemental attacks with his sword. He wasn't supposed to attack and cast separately. They were supposed to be combined. And the cut scenes make him look that way, and his graphics make him look that way.  I would really like to play Cloud as much as possible as the Mystic Knight it looks like he is supposed to be. The two materia that are most Mystic knight like are 'elemental' and 'Added-Cut'. Added-Cut in case I got the name wrong is the materia that allows for a physical attack with the materia it is paired with.  It is not is received until late, and is considered by that point less good then other options, yet it is more Cloud-like then any other materia.  I would therefore like to see Cloud's starting materia  being a lighting materia  linked with an elemental material, and a fire materia linked with Added-Cut.  This would give Cloud a strong 'Mystic Knight' feel.    I do not think it would change early game difficulty that much as against robots most of us probably just cast lightning anyway, and 'all + restore' is arguably more powerful. It can easily get balanced by less 'ether' being available. Or Added-Cut could give a 10% MP penalty, or something  The idea is to make Cloud fit the role he seems he should fight, help increase the utility of fight line fighting, but not impose restrictions. Cloud with added-cut just sounds fun too me.

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And at the time when the deathblow materia becomes available,  and spamming 'quake 2 - all'  is easy to do,    getting a 'slash-all' material would not be overpowered. I am at his point right now, and regular  melee attacks are feeling pitifully weak compared to other options.  And since Red being a fast moving beast would make thematic sense to put it on, putting it in the cave where he finds out about his father would be a good story place to have it.  It would feel like he gets out that cave with a character fitting power boost. Of course people wouldn't necessarily put it on Red, but close to where you can get deathblow makes sense to also have 'slash-all', so those caves for a location works.

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

« on: 2016-05-19 22:11:18 »

Locking Materia to a character is doable, but it requires a lot of set-up to make it happen (enough that it would have to be a separate mod built around the idea of character-specific abilities). Armour needs to be set to have zero slots and the Materia option in the menu disabled, along with any unequip calls made in the flevel script removed. Might be something for another project though.

Oh, sorry, I think what I said was misunderstood. I wasn't really suggesting character-specific abilities, just commenting on something I would like to try for myself.  Where I would myself  put enemy-skill on a character who doesn't have other casting materia, just for variety, and watch that character advance with abilities. If some of the abilities are sub par that also poses the challenge of finding the best ways to make use of it, and force other strategies of getting through parts of the game.  And although in my own playstyle I do theme the materia that goes on each character I do understand that  character specific abilities are not what this mod is.    At most I was suggesting that balancing enemy skill with other materia will be difficult. It could be considered to be there for players who want an alternative to the basic casting system. So redundant enemy skill abilities are ok.

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

« on: 2016-05-19 18:27:05 »

I haven't used enemy skill much myself.  It doesn't seem to fit in with the game very well. And it seems a bit hard to balance with the regular spells.

How I myself would use it would just be to add variety to the game. I would actually like to see it available at the very beginning. Like perhaps have Barett start with it. Then I would give it to one of either Cloud, Barett or Tifa, and have that be the only magic material that, that character uses throughout the game.  It would be used to make that character distinct, and add variety rather then min maxing. And it would be much easier to balance the skills among each other rather then with the basic magic system.

So that's one thought. The enemy skill material could give  a good bonus to both strength and magic, but disables the magic command when equipped. And yeah, having a  lot of the skills it has be close range would be interesting.

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

« on: 2016-05-18 22:35:47 »

The following is some other random ideas that I have. They are not ones that I expect to get implemented, as  they would likely interfere with the balance that has been built into the mod, but hopefully might inspire something anyway.

I have never like the way spell progression works, such as with fire1, fire2 and fire3.  As well as not being creative, they make it feel like leveling up material is more important then the characters stats. I really think that 'fire' should be a bit more dependent on the mag stat, so that fire2 and 3 are not needed.By the  time a character would normally get to fire3, 'fire' should be doing the same damage 'fire3' would based on the mag stat increase.

I would like to see instead of fire1,2 and 3, they are changed to allow for more variety, with different ones doing different things, and none of them becoming obsolete. So instead of those, we could have:
Fire1 =>Flame Strike: shoots fire at a single target from a distance, . (LIke the fire spells work now)
Fire2=>Flaming Hands: A close range version of flame strike, but is faster to cast.
Fire3=>Fire Dart: A long distance spell that has the advantage of both of the above, but is the least efficient in  MP consumption.

Ice1=>Icy Breath: A close distance ice spell
Ice2=>ICe Dart: A long distance ice spell that does slighlyt  less damage then  Icy breath, but can work from a distance
ICe3=>Freeze: Does the most damage, and from a distance,has  a chance to slow, but uses the most MP, and is slowest to cast.

I don't like the names of the above, (they don't seem very Final Fantasy-ish), but I do like the idea of each set having at least one short distance version, that is most efficient in either speed, MP, or damage.The fact is Final Fantasy VII is a game that incorporates magic into  fighting, so warriors usually do both. And even Aeris is more physically tough then white mages in usual FF games.   It makes sense for there to be short range spells, if that is possible to mod. And I always thought that even if Cloud has caster build, he is a warrior and has a large sword. Their should be an incentive for him to cast from the front, as that's what it looks like he should be doing and it is what his personality is like.   And like I said, I don't like the idea of spells becoming obsolete, and the materia level mattering more then the users magic stat.

But such as approach would also require characters gaining a lot less MP as they level, since Magic stat matters for damage more then higher level spells that consume more MP. I think a formula of 50 + Spirit would be about the right amount.

And as I said at the beginning of this post, this is mostly wishfull thinking. But maybe at least there is some way to give some sort of casting advantage to the front row. 

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

« on: 2016-05-18 21:11:19 »

I do like the idea of the number of people in each row determining the modifiers, but like you say it'll be tricky to mod correctly. AI can implement an effect of some kind, though not the actual %-damage reduction and I'm already out of space in the kernel.

I was expecting that was wishfull thinking. It would be cool though, and give the feeling that the fighters in the front row are protecting the back row characters. Anyway as I am progressing through the game, and I specialize Tifa more on strength and speed, and can do more to raise her vitality, it does make more sense to use her as melee.  (For progress I just left the gold saucer for the first time.) But for cloud, who I am keeping the stats balanced, he does seem to do better with magic then melee. And this is with his original weapon still, not the ones that give magic bonuses. It is easy enough to cast some element that enemies are weak too, so it almost always does more damage then melee.  And he seems to have more then enough MP to cast continuously. I think it is the amount of MP that he has that is the balance issue. I think it should almost be halved. But I am not taking into account that melee attacks are faster, and can critical hit. So maybe melee does give better damage output, but it is just harder to notice. And maybe it will be balanced better once I get him his first sword upgrade.

For the back row vs front row, I don't think the back row damage reduction should be reduced. It is there to make low vitality character viable. But there needs to be more front row advantages. There should of course be fights designed to be fought from the back, but the players should feel more handicapped in those fights. (My vote would be to give short range too many of the limit breaks. Tifa's should be short range, but Cloud can have a mixture of short and long range limit break options. Such as braver being long range, but cross slash short range) And some of the enemies attacks (particularly the ones that effect the whole party) should be set as ranged so they do just as much damage to the back as the front row, but have damage reduced to match what they do currently to the back row.

And Saga Chief, as you suggested else where I do think sadness damage reduction should be reduced. It should be a bad status effect that players don't want, not a good one. And barriers should be an aid, but not feel so essential. Haste and slow are spells help, but they are not required. Barriers should also help, but not be required.

And there is that defend option, which me along which probably most players, completely forget about. But it would be cool if knowing when to use defend in some fights is needed too survive instead of players abusing back row, sadness, and barriers. You might have even designed some fights that way, but we haven't noticed because we forget about defend. It would require enemies having either predictable sequences, or the most powerful attacks having a long recharge time. To get people thinking in terms of defend, it would help if there was in combat dialog the first time such a fight occurs, with Cloud mentioning something about it.

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

« on: 2016-05-16 05:52:28 »

@SrDrD

Decreasing the benefits of back row wouldn't do much for variety. People will still put the characters with low HP in the back, even if it's a 15% damage reduction to physical attacks, because they will get nuked by physical attackers.

It is okay if people put just the low HP characters in the back. But the problem is that it seems like the best strategy to keep all the characters in the back. Tifa was modded with the highest strength in the game, but it feels like the best way to use her is to invest in magic stats and equipment for her, and have her spam magic in the back row. The front row is just too deadly compared to the back. And it is just more fun if she is played like the martial artist she is supposed to be.

Anyway, I think the best way to handle things will probably also be the most complicated to implement. The purpose of the back row was probably meant so the tougher fighters can protect the weaker mages, which are kept at the back. And this is needed so that all characters should not need high vitality and Hp. But that should only work if the mages are in fact behind the fighters.  If the fighters move to the back row too, that means from a tactical/technical standpoint that the back row is really now the front lines.And it would no longer make sense that the mage gets damage reduction. So ideally I would say:
- If two characters are in the front row, and one is in the back, the one in the back gets 50% damage reduction.
- If one is in the front, the two characters in the back get 25% reduction.
- If all three are in the front, then all three can be considered to be in an aggressive formation, and it would be fun if they had some sort of small physical attack and magical attack damage bonuses.Or maybe a slightly faster ATB growth for some kickass action.
- If all three are in the back, it can be considered a defensive formation,  without the benefit of a front row to protect them. And they should get both the benefits, and the penalties of what makes sense for a defensive formation. Something like a small defense bonus, but also a small ATB penalty would make sense.

This is probably too complicated too mod, but it would allow  for the strategic importance of tough front line characters, more  squishy back row characters, and a variety of options and builds. And a long range material could probably get modded back in.

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

« on: 2016-05-15 21:08:22 »

Thank you. This mod has put new life into this game. So far in progress I have just left Midgard, and fought the Turks in the cave. Some things I have liked:
- The distinction between the characters, does make each character feel different. What I disliked most about the base game was that all that seemed to matter was the material
- The weapons and armor. The choice of equipment really matters, more then any other game I have seen. The choice changes the use of the character. Did I want steel, titan, or mithral armlets? Should Tifa keep the weapon that does more damage, or the one that raises dexterity? Those were all hard choices.
-The special encounter where Jessie fights with you, was a nice easter egg.
- The special designed boss fights. The fight where you first get Red, and you fight a boss that starts off with extreme high defense but keeps getting weaker, combined with Red getting stronger through out the fight was genius. The fight in the elevators where one of the helicopters gets healed from lighting, was an unexpected challenge, especially since I gave Barret elemental and lightning materia in his weapon, Red's demi was ineffective against it, and Aeris was struggling to keep up with healing. I did win that fight on the first try, but I did need to adjust my strategy.
- That was a much better introduction to Yuffie.
- I noticed a lot of interesting dialog change. Did Barret always &%$#?%@ that much? or was that added in?
- Best moment of all:
            Tifa:  "Jessie said we need to hit these three switches at the exact same time."
                     (I pull the switch totally out of sync)
           Barret: "@?#@?#@ close enough."   
                       (and the door opens anyway.)  That was hilarious.   

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The main thing that I would like to see changed is the difference between the first row and the back row. It seems to me that the difference between the two rows is too much, and it seems like a better strategy is to almost always keep characters in the back row and spam magic. Even melee favoured characters like Tifa, seem to be able to better this way. She has enough MP to spam spells like lighting during long battles. I do keep her in the front row and fight with fists usually for role playing reasons, but it doesn't seem like the best strategy. I do think the back row defense should only be about a 25% bonus. And their needs to be more advantages to the front row, such as limit breaks suffering the same range penalty as default attacks. Or if the front row gave a bit of an ATB speed boost, then it would make even choosing whether to put casters in the front or the back a bit of a choice.  In general I think the game would  be more fun if the front row is usually the better choice, with the back row available for special occasions or builds. Even Aerius generally being considered better on the front row would be more fun. She can use spells most of the time, but then hitting someone with her stick is always a possible choice.  But right now, that front row is the scary line of doom.
And the basic spells might not use enough MP. Life drains MP fast, and  with extended cure spells I can run out. But with lighting and fire, I don't usually have to pay attention to MP at all.