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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.993)

« on: 2022-02-08 16:26:44 »

Hello Sega Chief, great job keeping the mod active.

Small question / request. ¿Any chance for a "Vanilla Combat" variant of the 2.0 version of the mod?

Thanks in advance for your answer.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.993)

« on: 2022-02-08 04:13:35 »

I prefer to have them thrown into the lifestream during the earthquake against their will and Aeris would be forced to reveal the knowledge she gleaned from the Forgotten City

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I like your idea a lot, it would make Aerith's character feel more real, after all, the prospect of spending the rest of your life disconnected from reality, with the voices of thousands of dead souls screaming at you, all at the same time, constantly bombarding your mind with a incompressible mismatch of their memories, regrets and fears, its probably one of the most terrifying things anyone could imagine, it will be quite realistic for Aerith, to be way too scared of the possibility of failing, to even tell Tifa the true about Cloud's condition, but at the same time feel a desperate need to help her friends, in the mist of that moral dilemma, watching Tifa and Cloud fall into the lifestream during the earthquake in Mideel, knowing that they will be forever lost if she does not act immediately, would be the "push" she need to overcome her fear and face the danger of the lifestream.

One issue with your suggestion though is (not sure whether you are aware or not) that this directly clashes with the optional conversation between Aeris and Cloud at the Chocobo Ranch in Disc 3. There, she says that she doesn’t want to be a Cetra because it entails putting the interests of the planet above all else and that she just wants to lead a normal life. She even asks Cloud whether she is being selfish for harboring such thoughts. That conversation ought to be removed if your suggestions are actually taken on board. 

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I was not aware of this optional conversation, thanks for telling me about it, I like it a lot and think it is perfectly in character for Aerith, but I don't think it clashes with my suggestions, in fact, I think it rounds up Aerith's character arc even more, the way I see it, her arc is not about accepting her fate as a Cetra at the cost of abandoning her "human" life, her arc is that she was always a Cetra and she must learn to accept that part of herself, (according to Elmyra's flashback she used to vehemently deny having any powers when she was a child) but that does not mean she has to forsake all the other parts of her personality, she could achieve a balance in which she uses her heritage for the good of the planet, but still lives her own life in search for her own happiness, and to do that, she must rely on the support of her friends, specially Cloud and Tifa.

Achieving a healthy balance between fulfilling your responsibilities and pursuing your passions and dreams is a quite realistic character arc, and a very relatable one in my opinion.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.993)

« on: 2022-02-07 22:49:12 »

"One part of the original story that was left unexplained is how did Tifa's mind survive after being drenched by the lifestream when Cloud got lost under similar circumstances? It was speculated that Aeris (after her death) actually guided Tifa in the lifestream; preventing her from getting lost. So, I think that it will be instructive if Aeris plays a more active role (alongside Tifa) in restoring Cloud's memories in the NT mod since she lives (or given the chance to live rather)."

Hi there everyone.

I was lurking around seeing what is new with the mod and AhBeng2' s suggestion made me remember of a post I made here sometime ago, I agreed Tifa and Aerith could work together to repair Cloud's mind, here is how I proposed it could be done:

The “Mental recovery” of Cloud in Mideel, as it happens in the original history this event seems a little too convenient, almost a “Deux Ex Machina”, Tifa has no idea of how to help Cloud recover from his Mako poisoning (in fact nobody in the party has any idea about how to help Cloud), Weapon attacks, the earth cracks open and totally by accident both Cloud and Tifa fall into pure life stream, (Something that up to this point in the history has been presented to be something very bad, leading to dead or permanent insanity) and without any explanation Tifa resist all the negative effects of the life stream, somehow enters Cloud’s mind and helps him put back his memories and personality back together.

I think Aerith could help here, instead of making it a happy accident, it could be an intentional calculated risk, when the party visit Cloud and Tifa in Mideel the second time, (After completing the Corel Train Mission) Aerith would tell Tifa that when she visited the City of the Ancients by herself (Before she were attacked by Sephiroth), she listened the thoughts and memories left behind by the Cetra, and she came to understand the nature of the life stream a little better, due to this knowledge she thinks that maybe it could be possible to enter Cloud’s mind and repair it if the three of them enter the life stream together (Aerith because she could control the life stream to a degree, Cloud because she is the one in need of help, and Tifa because she was present during the Nibelheim incident and has the “Real memories” of that event, memories that are the key to repair Cloud´s persona), at this point Tifa will ask Aerith why she didn’t tell her this sooner, an Aerith will admit that is because she is really afraid of trying, as it’s is a very dangerous method and there is no way to know if it will actually work, if she is unable to keep the life stream in control the three of them will become permanently insane with Mako poisoning, but after searching her feelings she came to the conclusion that she has to try, because she cares too much for Cloud and for Tifa, to just let Cloud remain an empty husk for the rest of his life, Tifa thanks Aerith for being willing to do this for her friends, and together the three, voluntarily submerge themselves in a naturally occurring “Mako Hot spring” in Mideel.

The rest of the event plays out pretty much the same, Tifa manages to repair Cloud s memories and the three friends managed to get out of the Mako bath exhausted but alive and well. The only change to the original progression of the story is that the town of Mideel won´t be destroyed by an earthquake, but I don´t think that is too drastic of a change.

  I am not familiar with the PC version of the OG dialogue (I bought the steam version to play this mod) but I can verify that in the PSX version, whilst not identical, the dialogue is very similar. Therefore, it has always been my contention that Aeris was somewhat doubtful of her plan to use Holy and its efficacy in stopping Sephiroth. She was also oblivious to the fact that Sephiroth had the power to contain Holy and never had the intention to sacrifice herself. I was curious about your interpretation of her dialogue and why you wrote her lines the way you did. It is interesting to learn that we are on the same page on this matter because many people seem to believe that Aeris was in control all along, she was “aware” that she was going to die and willingly sacrificed herself to save the planet.

I agreed, Aerith was not some all knowing oracle, I think she was just trying to follow the instructions of her ancestors, to the best of her understanding, in fact, I think a good way to develop her character arc, would be she getting sad and distant after nearly getting killed by Sephiroth, not just because the physical pain of her injury but because her faith would be shaken, she followed the wishes of her ancestors, prayed with all her hearth, hoping for a miracle, and all she got for her troubles was a sword to the back, she would feel like she failed to fulfill her duty as a Cetra, or like her ancestors had forsaken her, so she would be understandably depressed, but after viewing the "video" in the waterfall of the City of Ancients, she would understand that her prayers were heard and that there is still hope for everyone, so she would recover her confidence and usual cheerful character.

Well that is it, I just wanted to share my ideas with AhBeng2, since we both seem to have a similar opinion about those plot points.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.91)

« on: 2020-08-18 15:47:15 »

Thanks for the quick answer Sega Chief.

I'm giving it a try right now, the normal battles aren't so bad, but the bosses are quite tought, speacilly since the Migdar part of the game does not give much chances to grind for levels.

As always thanks for the mod, and have a good day.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.91)

« on: 2020-08-18 01:39:37 »

Hi Sega Chief and people of the forum.

So I haven´t come to this page in a while and I was pleasingly surprised to find there is a 2.0 version with apparently a lot of interesting changes to the how the history of the game unfolds (Type B), I would love to check this but as I have pointed before I’m not hardcore gamer so I was wondering if there are plans for a “Vanilla Combat” of version 2.0. Type B. Or maybe and Easy Mode, so we could have the complete difficulty progression Easy - Standar - Hard.

I really enjoyed “Vanilla Combat” 1.5. so I was wondering if this option could be implemented for this new version, as always thanks in advance for your answer, and congratulations for all the hard work poured in this project.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2020-04-05 00:24:09 »

Oh I see, I would have like to see a little more of her, but just having her back in the party is good.

I wonder if she will have a little better luck in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, I think I heard a line about "Changing fate" in the trailer, so maybe she is no doomed this time, who knows, anyway that remake is looking awesome.

Thanks for the quick answer and have a nice day.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2020-04-04 16:57:15 »

Hi Sega Chief and people of the forum.

There has been a long time since I posted here, is nice to see that the project is still goin forward, I just wanted to make a small question.

I remember that in one of the previous posts Sega Chief mentioned the possibility of expanding Aerith's role in the history of the game when you decide to save her, is this possibility still being considered, and if so, have been any progress in that front? 

Ayway keep the good work and stay safe. 

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-11-23 04:25:28 »

Hey there Sega Chief.

I just took a look at the forum's and see you are planning a "Final Version" of the New Treat mod, could you please also make a "Final Version" of the Vanilla Combat version of the mod, removing the small bugs that are still present in the current version (I think most of them are left over data from the extra quest / fights that were included in New Treat but no longer exists in the Vanilla Version) I would be really gratefull if you could do that.

Thanks in advance, and keep up the good work.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-11-03 16:51:52 »

Lol, Now I keep imagining a Red XIII / Aerith, pairing option within the game, with gold saucer date and everything, and at the end the surprise reveal that Aerith and Red are the forefathers of the Moombas of Final Fantasy 8, I mean you could not deny the family resemblance

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Moomba?file=Moomba-artwork.png

I know the Shumi tribe say the Moombas are evolved Shumis, but those are filthy liiieeesss. 

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-11-03 14:48:49 »

I noticed that part in my play through too, but personally I think the edited version makes more sense.

When I play the original game I thought that the “breeding” suggestion from Hojo was just a dirty joke that the evil scientist was making to piss off Cloud and company.

I mean Hojo is obviously evil enough to try to achieve something like that, but evil as he is, he is not stupid, if he wanted to make a hybrid, it would make a lot more sense to extract the ovum from Aerith and the sperm cells from Red XII, combine them in controlled conditions, and then implant the fecundated ovum in Aerith´s womb (That is, assuming it is even possible to crossbred a Cetra / Human with a Panther / Fire Dog / Hellhound whatever the heck Red XIII is supposed to be).

Instead he just locks Aerith in a crystal tank, fully clothed and unrestrained, and then puts Red XII into the same crystal tank without any other kind of preparation, now remember that up to that point Red XII has been hiding his true intelligence from Hojo, so as far as Hojo knows, Red XIII is basically a wild animal, that would mean that Hojo’s “plan” was to lock together a scared girl and a feral obviously carnivore animal, and hope that they will start err… “mating” instead of naturally try to kill each other.

Unless previous experiments have shown that Red XII has a natural propensity to try to r.a.p.e. any female of any species that he is presented with, Hojos “breeding” plan is beyond retarded, unless it all was just a dirty joke at the expense of the poor flower girl. (Actuallyg that sound exactly like the type of sense of humor a guy like Hojo would have).

If anything the dialog, there need a little more editing, because right after the incident Tifa says (talking about Aerith) “She is fine… in more than one way” maybe implying that is not only she physically unhurt but that her “virtue” was not stained by the lecherous Dog Thing, and Red XII retorts saying “I have a right to choose too, I don´t like two legged things” maybe implying “Bah, I didn´t wanted to f.u.c.k. her, she is not even that hot anyway” needless to say all this sound like nonsense in the changed “breed less”  scenario. 

Edit because I also wanted to add that the plan to make Aerith fight to increase her powers actually make sense within the game mechanics and Shinra’s plan.

The Shinra needs Aerith because they want to use her Cetra power of communicating with the planet, in order to find information about the location of the “Promised land”, within the gameplay, Aerith´s power manifest in her limit breaks, where she basically “talks” to the planet to ask for protection / help in the battles (Healing wind, Breath of the earth, Gaia´s gospel), and as everyone else in the party, Aerith gains new limits the more monsters she kills, and the more she uses her already learned limits, This means that the more battles Aerith survives, the stronger her “communication” powers will grow, making her more useful for the plan of president Shinra, in other words Hojo’s plan was resorting to the classic RPG tradition of “grinding”, which is quite appropriated given the circumstances.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-31 01:32:05 »

Thanks a lot to Quid and Sega Chief for your answers and your advice.

I think I will start by writting the dialogues in a word doc before try any editting, to make sure they are good enough, unfortunately my day job does not leave much time for hobbies, but I will make a new post if I make any progress.

Thanks again and keep up with the good work.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-29 02:01:49 »

Hello Sega Chief and friends of the forum.

As you may have notice, I joined this forum only recently, so I begin this post by admitting that I´m a total noob when it comes to videogame modding.

With that said, I came to think that I would like to try my hand at adding some little changes to Final Fantasy 7 for my own personal enjoyment, I have already described some of the changes I would like to see in previous posts, but I´m especially interested in changing the story a little from the temple of ancients onwards, so I have a couple of questions that I hope you could answer.

As of now my objectives are:

1.   To change some lines of dialog in existing scenes.
2.   To add some extra newdialogue to existing scenes.
3.   To add some new scenes with new dialogs. (with “scene” I refer to the moments in the game where the characters enter into a place, walk around, their models do some animations, talk to each other, all without input from the player except for pressing the “confirm” button to make the dialog advance, for example the “date” scene in the gold saucer).

My questions would be:

1.   ¿How difficult would be to do those changes?
2.   ¿Is there any program / tool that would allow someone to do those changes without prior programing knowledge?
3.   ¿Could I apply those changes on top of the “Vanilla Combat” version of N.T.?
I should clarify that I intend to create this mod only for personal use, and in no way I mean to disrespect the authors of N.T. I ask this because I wish to use Aerith in the story changes I want to implement, and N.T. already has her modded back into the game, also because the translation of the scrip is a lot better in N.T. version that it is in the base game.

Well, that is it, many thanks in advance, and I hope to read your answer soon.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-25 01:06:27 »

Hi there Sega Chief and friends of the forum.

Just playing a little ff7 and a little ff8 remastered, good times.

Anyway I wanted to present some ideas in case you decide to increase Aerith’s participation in further revisions of the Mod, I would not go in great detail because I don´t want to sound demanding or appear as I´m trying to impose my ideas in another person´s project, so instead I will just mention places in the story where I think Aerith could add some more participation and still feel natural.

1.   In Icicle Inn town make watching the tapes of Ifalna and Professor Gast mandatory and add a little scene of Aerith reacting to it and some comments, support from the other party members.

2.   Add a conversation between her and Tifa regarding Cloud’s state when they found him in Nibeel and Tifa decides to stay to keep taking care of him.

3.   Add a scene where she explains that the plan of Shinra of using Huge Materia to blow up Meteor is doomed to fail and why they need to stop it.

4.   Add a conversation about the lifestream between her and Cloud after him recovers from his Mako poisoning.

5.   Add a conversation between her and professor Hojo before the battle with him in the Sister Ray, (Since Hojo is practically responsible for the dead of both of her biological parents, it would be an opportunity to show her truly enraged, something that we don’t see in the rest of the game).

6.   This one is not only about Aerith, but I wanted to included it anyway; after Cloud tells everyone to go back to their loved ones and find their reason to fight, it would be nice if we actually see each of the playable characters going to their hometowns and having a conversation / monologue, with an NPC that is important for them, here are my suggested NPC for each character:

Aerith – Elmyra.
Barret – Marlene.
Cid –  Shera.
Red XIII – Seto’s Petrified Body. 
Cait Sith – Revee.
Yuffie – Godo.
Vincent – Lucrecia’s Cave.

Obviously Red XIII and Vincent are monologues about them remembering Seto & Lucrecia, and yes I know that Cait Sith and Revee are technically the same person, but the game drops hints that Cait Sith is sort of alive on his own, so I think it could be interesting if handled correctly. 

Well that is all, as always I would really appreciate to read your opinions and other ideas about possible additions to the game. Thanks again and see you later.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-19 14:06:09 »

Thanks for your post magictrufflez. You make an excellent point about balance, as introducing changes to the game system always has the chance of breaking balance in unexpected manners, maybe an option will be to make the Alternative Materia System a sort of mini mod independent from New Treat, to see how it affects the vanilla combat, and see if it is a good for the original game as well as NT or other mods.

Is also worth noting that the point of the new system would be more about giving the characters a more distinct “identity” through more clearly differentiated combat roles, (similar to the combat “jobs” of other final fantasy games), than to increase or decrease the combat difficulty, not being able to build a “optimal” character is a limitation that is within that intent.

It would also be necessary to tamper with the weapons / armor a bit, to ensure all nine characters have access to weapons and armors with gradually increasing number of slots starting at one slot and culminating at eight slots, so sixteen slots max for everyone , also one of the proposals of the system was to modify support Materia so it counts as “linked” to all the Materia equipped in the same Weapon / Armor, so “Linked” Materia Slots would no longer be necessary (I don’t know if this is actually doable programing wise, so please forgive me if I’m proposing the impossible ). 

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-19 04:26:36 »

Hello Sega Chief. Thanks for your  quick answer.

I see your point about the spells of the Magic Materia, other option would be to “create” New Materias that contain the high level spells, for example Fire Materia allows you to use Fire 1 and only Fire 1, Fira Materia allows you to use Fire 2 and only Fire 2, and Firaga Materia allows you to use Fire 3 and only Fire 3, but if you equip the three of them together, you can use all the three variants of Fire spell and get a nice power boost for stacking the three Materias of the same “Family” together. Also Elemental Summons could be considered part of the same “Family” of their corresponding Elemental Magic Materias, so for example, stacking Infrit Materia with, Fire, Fira and Firaga Materia will nicely boost  Infrit’s power.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-18 02:29:22 »

Hello everyone, I wish to present an idea for consideration of the forum, an Alternative Materia System, the rules of such system will be as follows:
1.   Materia don’t gain AP, grow or reproduce in any way.

2.   Multiple copies of the same Materia equipped in the same Weapon or Armor stack up creating greater effects.

3.   For Magic Materia equipping more copies of the same Materia allows the character to cast more spells, i.e. equipping one Fire Materia allows your character to cast “Fire 1” equipping two Fire Materias allows your character to cast both “Fire 1” and “Fire 2”.

4.   For Independent Materia equipping more copies of the same Materia increases the potency of the effect, i.e. equipping one “HP Plus” Materia gives your character 20% more HP, equipping two “HP Plus” Materia gives your character 40% more HP.

5.   For Command Materia, equipping more copies improves the effect of the command. i.e. equipping one Steal Materia gives you the command “Steal”, equipping two Steal Materias gives you the command “Mug”.

6.   Summon Materias are unique, but they gain more power the more of them you equip together, i.e. equipping Shiva Materia alone allows your character to summon Shiva at standard 100% power, equipping Shiva and Infrit Materias together allows your character to summon any of the two of them at 110% power, equipping Shiva, Infrit and Ramuh Materias together allows your character to summon any of the three of them at 120% power and so on, also each eidolon could be Summoned only one time per battle, but each consecutive summon receives and additional power boost of 10%, so for example if your character as a weapon with three slots and equips Shiva, Infrit and Ramuh Materias, and summons the three of them in three consecutive turns, the results will be: 1st turn: Shiva at  120% power, 2nd turn: Infrit at 130% power, 3rd Turn: Ramuh at 140% power. The “consecutive” power boost is lost if the character uses a command different to “Summon” or is knocked out (K.O. status).

7.   Support Materia is a little tricky since its effects are more varied than the other types, but it follows two principles, 1° It will no longer be paired with a specific Materia, the effect applies to either all Materias equipped in the same garment (For Elemental & Status Attack / Defenses), or to a random one each time the effect activates (For Magic or Command Counters). 2° The effect becomes more potent with each copy of the same Support Materia equipped in the same garment. For example, in an Armor with three slots, if you equip one Elemental Materia (Support), One Fire Materia (Magic) and one Ice Materia (Magic), your character acquires a 50% resistance to both Fire and Ice attacks, and can cast “Fire 1” and “Ice 1” but if in the same Armor you instead equip two Elemental Materias (Support) and one Fire Materia (Magic), your character acquires a 100% resistance to Fire, what is to say immunity to Fire, and can cast only “Fire 1”.

¿What would be the use of this Alternative Materia System? Well I think it could make the game more fun if applied correctly, the current Materia system is too easy to abuse, with some light grinding all the characters could be “masters” of everything at the same time, (Hit hard, resist heavy punishment and cast a big variety both offensive and defensive spells) making them easily interchangeable between them (You could literally just switch all the equipped Materia from one character to another and barely note the difference in battle), also there is no much incentive to have more than one copy of each Materia since every new Materia starts at the minimum level; with this new system you will be force to make hard choices, because you will need more Materia to access the stronger spells and skills, so with limited slots you may have to choose between Cure 3 or Fire 3, but at the same time the game becomes more versatile, as you no longer need to grind AP to learn Fire 3, you just buy three Fire Materias and equip them together and you have an attack mage ready for action, that way there is more reason to “tailor” each character for a specific battle role and try different party combinations.

Of course to make the best use of this system, Materia should become much more plentiful, sold cheaper at the stores and in more variety, and “Rare” Materias that are usually only available near the end of the game should be obtainable from treasure chests, or from stealing, morphing and killing enemies, (Steal, Morph and Item drop should have higher success rates to incentivize the use of these abilities).

Well that is all, sorry for the extra-long post, and hope you have liked some of the ideas posted here.   

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-16 01:02:58 »

Thanks for the quick answer Sega Chief.
Obviously is up to you to decide what to change or no change in your mod, sorry if I did sound a little pushy with my suggestions, intend is not always properly communicated in text, with that said, please humor me as I try to explain my idea a little better:

The way I imagined the Mideel scene modification was actually simple, during the visit to Cloud and Tifa in the clinic:
1.   Remove the trigger that starts the earthquake scene and the fight against Ultimate weapon.
2.   Insert a trigger to make Aerith enter the clinic and start a conversation with Tifa to explain to her what she knows and her plan to help Cloud.
3.   Add a small scene of the girls and Cloud in his wheelchair entering a mako pond with forest background.
4.   The Tifa “mission” inside Cloud’s mind happens without any modification.
5.   Add a small scene of the girls and Cloud waking up next to the mako pond.
6.   The earthquake and the fight against Ultimate Weapon triggers automatically the next time the party enters Mideel keeping the destruction of the town canon.
So not that much tampering is needed, or maybe you mean that you don’t want to change the history too much, but as I said before, there is no change to the events, only to the method (from accidental to intentional)

Well that is it, as always thanks for reading and have a good day 

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-15 01:45:11 »

Hi Sega Chief and participants of the forum.
I’m getting close to finish my third play through of Final Fantasy 7, which is kind of funny since I haven’t played this game in literal years  , this makes me really appreciate the power that mods have to revive your love for great games of the past.
To the point, I just remembered that Sega Chief mentioned the possibility of expanding Aerith’s role in the history if you decide to save her in the City of the Ancients, and I think there is a couple of good places where she could be given more relevance without harming the overall quality of the history:

1.   The first place would be the “Mental recovery” of Cloud in Mideel, as it happens in the original history this event seems a little too convenient, almost a “Deux Ex Machina”, Tifa has no idea of how to help Cloud recover from his mako poisoning (in fact nobody in the party has any idea about how to help Cloud), Weapon attacks, the earth cracks open and totally by accident both Cloud and Tifa fall into pure life stream, (Something that up to this point in the history has been presented to be something very bad, leading to dead or permanent insanity) and without any explanation Tifa resist all the negative effects of the life stream, somehow enters Cloud’s mind and helps him put back his memories and personality back together.

 I think Aerith could help here, instead of making it a happy accident, it could be an intentional calculated risk, when the party visit Cloud and Tifa in Mideel the second time, (After completing the Corel Train Mission) Aerith would tell Tifa that when she visited the City of the Ancients by herself, she listened the thoughts and memories left behind by the Cetra, and she came to understand the nature of the life stream a little better, due to this knowledge she thinks that maybe it could be possible to enter Cloud’s mind and repair it if the three of them enter the life stream together (Aerith because she could control the life stream to a degree, Cloud because she is the one in need of help, and Tifa because she was present during the Nibelheim incident and has the “Real memories” of that event, memories that are the key to repair Cloud´s persona), at this point Tifa will ask Aerith why she didn’t tell her this sooner, an Aerith will admit that is because she is really afraid of trying, as it’s is a very dangerous method and there is no way to know if it will actually work, if she is unable to keep the life stream in control the three of them will become permanently insane with mako poisoning, but after searching her feelings she came to the conclusion that she has to try, because she cares too much for Cloud and for Tifa, to just let Cloud remain an empty husk for the rest of his life, Tifa thanks Aerith for being willing to do this for her friends, and together the three enter a naturally occurring “Mako Hot spring”  that in centuries past was used as “therapy bath” by the people of Mideel, but have been close since the negative effects of Mako in the mind and the body became known. The rest of the event plays out pretty much the same, Tifa manages to repair Cloud s memories and the three friends managed to get out of the mako bath exhausted but alive and well. The only change to the original progression of the story is that the town of Mideel won´t be destroyed by an earthquake, but I don´t think that is too drastic of a change.

2.   The second place would be the Huge Materia missions, in the original history, the party decide to sabotage Shinra´s plan to gather Huge Materia and use it as a bomb to destroy Meteor, they explain that this is because Huge Materia contains ancient knowledge and thus is too valuable to be used as ammo, that is a fair reason enough, but considered how desperate the situation was, it makes our heroes seem a little petty, sabotaging a sincere attempt to save the world (that as far as they know, could have worked), just because they disagreed with the method. 

Aerith could also help here, she could explain to the party that in the Temple of the Ancients, the Cetra spirits explained to her the terrible “true nature” of the Black Materia, meteor is not a simple big rock from outer space, it is a magical construct that will keep advancing and keep repairing itself as long as the one that summoned it keep exerting his will on it, (in fact in the original history even if you left the Huge Materia in the rocket, meteor “repairs” itself immediately after the rocket impacts on it) in fact, there is reason enough to believe that meteor is actually the “seed” of Jenova. This way the heroes have a much more solid motivation to stop Shinra’s plans, they know for a fact that that plan will fail, and will also waste precious resources that the planet will need to heal itself once the meteor crisis has been dealt with.

Well that’s is about it, sorry if it was too long, but what I love most about these Final Fantasy games is how they capture your imagination with their worlds and their histories, anyway, hope you decide to go ahead with the idea of giving Aerith more prominence in the history, I know you have the talent to make it great.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-13 22:31:16 »

Hi Sega Chief and people of the forum. I Just wanted to share an idea I had while playing Final Fantasy 7 (original version without mods).

¿How about a "classic job" mod? I noticed that the characters are too similar when it comes to battle roles, so I think it will be interesting if they had a fixed "job" and only some characters could learn certain spells / skills, like the way it works in Final Fantasy 4 or Final Fantasy 9, that will make you consider your strategy a little more when forming your party, and give you a reason to "train" all your characters (just to see what skills they learn and also to have them ready in case you need their specific role in a specific battle) I guess the most obvious way to do it would be to make the character weapons  come with "fixed" unremovable specific materias, and remove the materia slots from armors, in my opinion the jobs suggested by the canon characterisaction would be: Cloud: Warrior / Knight, Barret: Gunner, Tifa: Monk, Aerith: White Mage / Summoner, Red XIII: Blue Mage, Yuffie: Thief / Ninja, Vincent: Black Mage, Cait Sith: Gambler, Cid: Dragoon.

Also a little request, please keep working in the "vanilla combat" mode, I know it is not as popular as the main project, but I really like it, and it still needs a little more polishing, speacially regarding the changes that were unintentionaly left over from the main mod.

As always thanks for your great work, and hope to read you soon.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-09 00:15:27 »

Thanks for your answer Sega Chief.

I agreed completely, proper characterization is the backbone of a good history, I actually tried to base the dialogue in the cannon characters of the girls, Tifa is in my opinion the more caring of the group, that is why I chose her for that scene (I think Cloud could work there too, but I wanted the scene to be about “friendship” and making it with Cloud could make it look like it is about “romance”), also it is true Tifa does not swear a lot like Barret or Cid, but I think I remember her using some harsh language when stressed or angry , the “damn” in the middle of the sentence was supposed to convey that she was angry at Aerith for being reckless, also at that point Aerith have been through a lot, she got stabbed, Holy apparently failed and she just listened to a record of her dad being shot dead, that is why she is sad and crying, even though she is usually pretty cheerful. Of course all this is only my point of view as character and dialog interpretation are pretty subjective, I only wanted to add my two cents in case you decide to continue with the idea of giving Aerith more prominence in the late game.

Also I wanted to congratulate you for the great work you did with the rewriting of the script, I started a new game without any mods and the difference is very notable, I just realize how many of the lines of the original scrip are awkwardly written, are difficult to understand or are just plain nonsense, your scrip is easily ten times better than the original.   

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-08 01:19:27 »

Hello everyone, so during the day I keep thinking about the idea of giving Aerith more participation after saving her from her fate, and I came up with a little scene between her and Tifa:
This scene takes place in the Icicle Inn town, after watching the tapes of Aerith´s parents, she asks the party to stay in the town for the night so she could process what she just learned, during the night Tifa visits Aerith in her room, and the following conversation occurs:
Tifa: Aerith, forgive for being blunt, but I just need to know, ¿why did you left us behind? ¿why did you decided to go to the City of the Ancients all by yourself? that was incredibly dangerous! I mean damn, you almost got yourself murdered by Sephiroth.
Aerith: You don´t understand, I didn´t left because I wanted to, I did it because I had to, because only a Cetra could unlock Holy, and I am the last Cetra… my mother is dead, all my people are dead… I am all alone.
Tifa: Aerith, you are a Cetra, that much is true, but you are also a human, your dad was a human, the woman that raised you was a human, Cloud, Barret, and me, we are all humans, and we are all your friends, we all care for you, you are not alone! You never were.
Aerith: I… I am sorry… (Aerith begins to cry a little, Tifa hugs her in comfort)
Tifa: It´s ok, it´s ok, just remember we are all here for you, you don’t have to save the world by yourself.
Aerith: …You are right…. Because we are going to save this world together!

…Well, so what do you guys think? too cheesy? Sorry, the scene just keeps playing in my head and I needed to share it.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-07 02:14:39 »

Hello Sega Chief, Thanks for your answer.

I too would like to see more of Aerith as I,m a fan of hers, I think that the way she is incorporated in the story is already pretty clever, (she thinks that the Holy invocation failed, so we still have a reason to do the quest with Bugenhagen (Red's granpa) in the city of ancients to understand what really happened) so maybe one way to inolve her more would be to have her become a little depressed after the Sephyroth "incident", because she thinks she failed to summon Holy and in doing so failed her duty / destiny has a Cetra, and them have her recover her confidence when Bugenhagen shows her that her prayers were indeed answered, also maybe give her some more interactions with the other members of the party, especially Cloud and Tifa

Also she should have some reaction to watching the videos of her parents in the Icicle town as they would be very personal to her, and finally give her some more weapons after the princess guard (in the original game the princess guard is found in the temple of the ancients and is literally the last weapon of the staff category) so she has more or less the same amount as the other characters, her ultimate weapon could be change to something like "Queen's guard" or "Empress guard" or "Sorceress guard" (ffviii reference  )

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-05 16:28:29 »

Hi Sega Chief -- Just finished my second playthrought of the Vanilla Mode, i'm  happy to report that all the game breaking bugs a have been eliminated, I was able to play from start to finish without having to resort to save editing, I have a few suggestions/wishes in case you decide to keep working in the Vanilla Mode:

1. Return the materia to their original locations and return its original stat values: I notice some materia have been move to later in the game, and some have their stat boost / penalties severely increased, I guess this was done for balance reasons in the NT version, but it is not really necesary in the Vanilla Mode, since that one is the easy one anyway, also it will keep the Vanila Mode a little closer to the original.

2. Change the line that Cloud says when he revives Aerith to something a little more serious, my suggestion will be someting like, "I can´t belive... she still breathing! quick give me a phonenix down!" has the previous scene shows that Cloud was certain that Aerith have been killed, and is very distraught over the fact, so the casual line used in the current version "We dont have revive  level 4 but this does the trick too" sound out of place in what is otherwise a dramactic and serious scene.

3. If possible, remove the "Fainting" mecanic from the great glacier map, (Cloud faints after a set number of steps and wakes up in the mountain climber's cottagge) since it does not really contribute much to the gameplay and it is rather annoying when you are triying to explore the whole glacier and found all the treasures.

That is all, off course I'm very gratefull with what you have already done, as the Vanilla Mode is already functional and very well done, but please consider these friendly suggestions, Thanks again, and read you later. 

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-10-04 04:06:00 »

Hello Sega Chief and people of the forum.

I just wanted to note a couple of minor errors I found while playiing Vanilla Mode:

In Wutai inside the Da Chao mountain, whe youn collect the "Steal as well" materia using Leviatan,s Scales to extinguish the fires, a Yuffie models sudenly appears out of nowhere in the field and says some lines to some "ghost girl", then a battle occurs, (a common crustacean monster with a beach background) and after you win, you receibe  the "Steal as well" materia and Yuffie s 4th Level Limit, I guess this is a leftover from the complete mod, where this is the normal way to adquiere that Limit, but in the Vanilla mode the event is gliched, Yuffie appers out of tin air and remains in the field event after the battle, both the monster and the background of the battle are wrong, and it actually gives you a second copy of that Limit, since you obtain it normally by winning the fight again Yuffie´s dad. My point is that to make the Vanilla version a little cleaner, it would be advisable to remove the added events and battles that give you rewards that could be obtained using the "normal" method of the original game.

Also in the Sunken Gelnia Plane there is one single treasure box that could not be opened or interacted with.

That is all for now, as always thanks for the mod and for this active forum.

25

Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v1.5)

« on: 2019-09-28 13:57:13 »

Hi Sega Chief, I have been playing the Vanilla Mode these days, and just arrived at the North Corel Town, and the NPC that offers to active Arrange Mode is still present in the station of the cable car that takes you to Gold Saucer.

 I remember you mentioning that you removed him because the "arrange mode" was causing some problems with the "vanilla mode" so I thought I should report it, even thought so far no problem has appeared.

Also, I suggest, if its not too troublesome, removing the "Mr Smile" rank up system, from the Vanilla Mode, since its no really necesary, because the characters level up norally and are more than strong enough to beat the normal enemies and bosses of the Vanilla Game, and leaving the Rank Up on, could make the characters too strong, breaking the balance of the game.

Anyways, thanks for the mod and your constant support in this forum.