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1

Archive / Re: [Release} ARMs Patch to make the final Battle Much harder.

« on: 2007-11-04 04:57:45 »

When I get back home I'll fight him again using lvl 70 characters with natural stats. I fought him with 9999 HP the first time since I never used the 9999 limit breaking patch with this game. Since I had max def I took full advantage of the wizard bracelet but this time I wont. (Cloud is still gonna be maxed out but the fight should still be harder)

-EDIT- I fought him again today with the same party, Cloud, Barret, and Yuffie, all with max stats leveled in the high  80's, but this time I disabled "breaking the damage limit". I said I didn't use dizugo's (hope i spelled that right) patch before; I lied. Actually I used it to break the damage limit but what I meant when I said I didn't use the patch earlier was that I didn't use it to break HP and MP limits. I'm still using gjoerluv's (I hope I spelled that right) hardcore mod where Ruby Weapon is invincible  and Knights of the Round does absolutely nothing. I don't know if you edited the script that determines sephiroth's stats based on how many level 99 characters you have and if you cast KotR on Jenova or not, but I intentionally wasted 255 MP to cast a useless KotR on Jenova to make the final battle harder because it was too easy last time.

The rematch was incredibly easy at first. I had immunity to fire so on my entire party (contain + elemental on armor) so beta did nothing. Sephiroth's wing attack hit my 255 defense characters (without dragon force) for moderate damage, when it actually hit me. Barret almost died before I full-cured him and I had 2 characters under resist with Cloud under 3 dragon forces and getting "shield" or invincibility status every other turn, so I received no status changes and very little for the majority of the match. (Cloud went untouched for 5 whole minutes.) So then Sephiroth is almost dead and he starts casting "Meteor Raine" Since Yuffie and Barret were under resist, thanks to gjoreluv's mod, they could not be shielded or dragon forced (should've done that before I gave them resist) and thats what put them in critical condition. As the meteors rained they started a cycle of dying and reviving with final attack + life2 then sephiroth casts supernova and its game over. Because Yuffie and Barret had "resist" and because Sephiroth's Super Nova ignores all status immunities, yuffie and barret suffered severe status changes that could not be remedied since resist prevents all status changes good or bad in gjoreluv's mod. Because of sephiroth's stupid unavoidable attack, Cloud, who had invincibility status, dropped to 1 HP after super nova and when I fed him an X potion, it had no effect (healing fails increase an "invincible" character's HP the same way attacking fails decrease it) and I ended up dying from poison.

I didn't live long enough to see heartless angel, but I've beaten him before I'm sure I can do it again. This time I'll level ALL my characters to 99 (using jenova of course) to see if that makes Sephy even harder.

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Archive / Re: [Release} ARMs Patch to make the final Battle Much harder.

« on: 2007-11-01 04:19:26 »

I beat Sephiroth. For some reason he didn't use Meteor Rain or Heartless Angel on me at all, and it seems like I did nowhere near 1,000,000 damage to him. I went into the battle with Yuffie, Cloud, and Barret, all with max Defense and Magic Defense (cause I morph trained in the sunken ship until I got bored and used Jenova  ). I used Dragon Force on all 3 characters 3 times. I thought Sephy had a move to take off positive stats? He didn't take out Dragon Force because Shadow Flare was only doing 70 damage to Cloud and Yuffie the entire fight. Super Nova killed Barret, and Barret ended up dying 4 times the entire fight because dragon force wore off after he died and I never got a chance to recast it. With max magic defense, Beta did 3000 to Barret while Shadow Flare did about 7000 to him. Super Nova put Cloud and Yuffie in Death Sentence and surprisingly, I managed to kill sephiroth by the time both of their death counters got to "04". Since Sephy didn't have a move to take out Cloud and Yuffie's Dragon Force defense, the only real damage he did to them was through Super Nova and Sephiroth's Wing Attack. Sephiroth's Wing Attack did about 1000 to Cloud and Yuffie with 3 dragon forces (I would hate to see how much damage that would do without them).

I don't know why he didn't use meteor rain or heartless angel on me and I don't know why I kept all my positive stats the entire fight. I'm sure if these things worked the way they were intended to I probably would have died.

EDIT: None of my characters were at level 90 or above (they were all in the High 80's) if that has anything to do with me winning the fight so easily. (I shouldn't say it was easy, but it wasn't that difficult either.)

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-30 18:05:04 »

Hey I'm relaxed, just thought I'd let you know how things were from a gamers perspective.     And yea I was using the new kernel that changed exit materia so I wouldn't be tempted to use it. The new kernel is perfectly fine except for the KotR thing. There is no way to damage Ruby efficiently.

Shadow Flare does about 8000 damage to Ruby Weapon with a magic stat of 255. This is without hero drinks, as hero drinks in this kernel give you the same effect as the "Shield" spell, and do not raise attack damage or defense. I actually tried hero drinks in this fight and the damage was the same as before. Shadow Flare isn't the strongest move you can use on Ruby, Bahamut ZERO is but shadow flares animation is much faster so I use that instead. (Actually that is closer to 125 shadow flares but who is counting?)

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-30 09:39:39 »

Cool, I'm glad I can actually use materias the way the game intended for them to be used without worrying about instantly healing sephiroth. Does sephy still cast pandora's box, (or was that the move you took out for Beta?) I'm not using dizugo's limit breaking patch anyway so Im sure beta will still hurt like **** .

Gjoerulv, how do you expect people to beat Ruby weapon?  One-Hundred Thirty. That is how many times a character with a magic stat of 255 has to cast shadow flare in order to kill Ruby. Two Hours. That is how long I spent casting shadow flares at ruby before I made a slight misjudgment and Ruby finally killed me. I spent so much time fighting Ruby HE actually ran out of MP.  Lets see, what other tactics are there for taking down Ruby? Well the most common would be to cast Knights of the Round 21 times, but with your mod it does zero damage to Ruby. Another common tactic would be to swallow a million Hero Drinks and beat him to death with mimed limit breaks but Hero Drinks act like shield in this mod. The other famous way to defeat Ruby is to abuse 7777 while counter miming a limit break that hits repeatedly. Getting 7777 HP is easy to do with Jenova and basic algebra skills, however, my game always freezes for some reason when I use the save where Jenova sets Yuffie's base HP to 7777. Honestly I believe I can beat ruby using Jenova and the 7777 tactic (it would still take a good hour), if my game wouldn't freeze. But then I wouldn't have the "bragging rights" of saying I beat a hardcore Ruby without cheating.
 
Making a boss hard is one thing, but making a boss with so much defense and HP and no decent way to damage it is just ridiculous. I honestly believe the developers of FFVII made Knights of the Round FOR Ruby weapon. (They even give it to you in the form of Master Summon Materia, before you even fight Ruby.) How else did they expect you do deal 800000 damage to a monster with near max defenses? How do you expect us to deal 1000000 damage to a monster with max defense without cheating? Please enlighten us. (Its too bad I couldn't just poision Ruby, use an elixer, and keep counter miming it while I take a nap....lol)

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-30 04:49:46 »

If your talking to me ARMs then no... I haven't even reached disc three yet, and I probably won't get there until Thursday of this week. (Yea from reading my last reply you might figure that I used Jenova to get all the enemy skills from within the North Cave.... once I go in I HATE going back out).  I'll let you know if I can manage to beat him but from what I've heard/seen about him, he seems extremely cheap. Just please tell me that there are no moves you can use against him that give him instant recovery, like a few of the bosses in this mod.

Seriously TC, either make it do 0 damage to them, or make it heal them for as much as it would have hurt them, but to make it an instant full heal is just stupid.
If you make fire fully heal bosses because you don't want them to use phoenix, then just make phoenix so weak it's almost useless. Why not? I already threw  KotR away for its uselessness. Don't punish the player for trying to use one of their resources 30 min into a tough boss fight by fully healing the boss because you don't want them to use a "cheap" tactic. But hey, don't change the mod for my sake, (I look forward to the release of your next project) I never used phoenix all that much anyway.

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-30 01:14:39 »

Has anyone defeated Ruby Weapon using this mod yet? I keep dying of boredom before I get the chance to kill him. 

Does Ruby have a weakness? I don't really feel like spending the next 2 hours W-Quadra Summoning Bahamut ZERO and casting Pandora's Box to kill him. I'm afraid to cast KotR on him because every monster I've thought to use it on gained a full recovery from it.... lol. Giving bosses godly stats and attacks that inflict status effects are a good way to make them more difficult, however this can easily be countered with the right defensive measures. (4x Dragon Force + Resist = God Like) This is why ARMs gave Sephiroth spells to destroy positive status effects as well as spells that inflict status effects that ignore resistance. Don't give Ruby such spells unless he has a weakness!!! lol.

So if anyone knows a fast way to kill Ruby using this mod please let me know. (KotR + W Summon =/= fast, assuming that even works on him) Until then I guess I'll read a book or something until he dies.

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-23 21:57:36 »

Cool a higher MP cost makes remove slightly less cheap, more AP makes the game harder as you won't be able to access it until much later, and without easily mastered materia you won't be able to afford enough tents and ethers to abuse it nearly as much.... works for me. So will replacing this new Kernel with the old one mess anything up, such as materia I've already mastered? (For Example, I mastered exit materia, do you know what will happen to it when I install the new kernel? I'll probably just trash it and equip a new exit materia instead.) Can I use this right away or do I need to start a new game in order to use this new kernel?

Oh and let me clarify, Remove WILL give you regular EXP and AP as if you killed all the enemies normally. Remove WILL NOT give you any gill or dropped items. This is why remove costs 100 MP and Escape (which gives you no items, no GIL, no EXP, and no AP) costs 16.

And when you say you weakened Odin, may I ask how so? Does his Gunge Lance do less MP damage, or does his Steel Bladed Sword no longer deal instant death, or both?

EDIT: I am currently at Gaea's Cliff. When I use your new kernel and walk outside (in the area where marlboros appear) and you enter a random battle the background is wrong. You see the background as if you were still inside the cliff as opposed to the background that is outside. This also means that the monsters you fight outside are the same monsters that you fight inside the cliff, and the monsters you are supposed to fight outside don't always appear. (sometimes the background and monsters are right but mostly its wrong) I've been looking for that marlboro for a while now and I keep running in to Stalivas and and those bats. I didn't think this was a big problem at first, but when I got the th room where you had to fight the giant Icicles to make them fall to the floor below, I fought a single bomb instead. I don't even recognize the background that I fought him in either.

I'll be using the old kernel until this is fixed because god knows what other scenes could be messed up. Until then I'll just opt not to use Exit materia.

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Archive / Re: A more complete editor than jenova?

« on: 2007-10-23 16:14:31 »

lol @ sarcasm. Your extremely welcome! 

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-23 06:12:46 »

EDIT: I check a few videos on youtube of the final fight and no one could use items. I guess I was wrong.


Gjoerulv, I believe I have found a bug with materia growth. (Unless of course, you did this on purpose but I don't see why that would be the case.) I was leveling up near Wutai (however you spell it) and fighting against those giant turtle monsters whose name I cannot spell. My revive materia had 1 out of 3 stars. Once I got enough AP to reach the 2nd level (2 out of 3 stars) I actually gained two levels and went from 1 star to 3. The same thing happened with HP Plus materia. I was at 3 out of 5 stars, and once I got enough AP to reach 4 stars I went straight from 3 stars to 5 mastering the materia. This bug is bittersweet however as it can make the game too easy.

I have a question for you Gjoerulv. Why did you remove Flash from Slash-All materia if you didn't take out "remove" from exit materia? Doesn't it do nearly the same thing? I've never used flash and all I know is that it has a chance of instantly killing all enemies. "Remove", removes the enemies from the battle still giving you EXP and AP so its not much different from flash besides it costing 100 mp and being a spell. You can easily learn this before Temple of the Ancients, making the rest of all the random encounters in the game easy for the most part assuming you have enough money to buy ethers. Oh wait, I forgot, some materia skips a level when it levels up which causes it to master instantly, meaning that I can sell my glitchy mastered materia for loads of cash to buy hundreds of ethers so I can just "remove" everything in my sight in between boss fights....   

Here are some suggestions to make the game harder (if these things are possible, I know nothing about hex editing or how the FFVII engine works):

1) Take out Remove from exit materia (you might as well leave it in Master Magic Materia since you've most likely defeated one of the toughest monsters in the game to get it)

2) Change Odin's "Steel Bladed Sword" from instant death, to heavy damage (or piercing magic damage, but NOT BOTH) to regular enemies, while leaving "Gunge Lance" for bosses the same as it is now. That way you can't deal heavy (or piercing) damage to bosses (or things immune to death) but Odin is still effective in regular fights without being too cheap as causing instant death. Why would take out Odin's instant death? For the same reason you took flash off of Slash-All materia and made Master Command flash. If you put a really difficult enemy in every area and you could just OHKO them with Odin (or Remove) that would defeat the purpose no?
For example, I know you intended to make those giant turtles near Wutai hard (I can tell because they have alot of HP and physical attacks do next to nothing on him) but I just OHKO them with Odin or Remove and get a reward of 800 AP. I think the 800 AP is a good reward for killing something that is abnormally "difficult" but Odin and Remove just make it easy AP. Talk about making the game easy, I've mastered things near Wutai before I've completed the Temple of the Ancients using your mod that I normally would not master until after Cloud rejoins your party in disc two. (Such as Restore, Revivie, and HP Plus materia.)

3)Leave master command and slash-all the way it is.

4)Fix the materia glitch I described before to prevent easy money.

Don't get me wrong though, these were just suggestions and so far I LOVE your mod. From what I've played my favorite parts were the First Reactor and Mt Nibel. I've seen the game over screen a few times in those places lol.

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-23 02:38:44 »

What about the one-on-one battle between cloud and sephiroth? Did you (Gjoerulv or ARMs) mod that sephiroth's stats so that you will acutally have a fight with him or does he still die after one omnislash? I tried to edit his stats so you actually did have to fight with him, he hit me first and cloud counter attacked (just a regular counter attack, not omnislash) and he died. If you did edit his stats to turn him into a regular fight (if that is at all possible) can you use the item command? If I recall correctly, on the PSX version of the game you can use items but on the PC version you can't use items, because the item command is gone. (At least on my Asian-Pacific PC edition of the game you can't use items, I don't know if its that way for all the other PC versions of the game although I would assume so.)

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-21 01:58:18 »

I added your final battle to this mod after watching the video, it seems great. Do you have some other scenes of regular monsters that you modified to make them into optional boss fights? I was wondering because the video of your final battle was under SaiNTDragon (or something like that) on youtube and he also uploaded videos of bosses that he created himself. For example I saw a video where Ultima Weapon fought as Omega Weapon from FFVIII. Are you (ARMs) and saiNT the same person? If so can you release some of these scenes for "optional boss" fights? (or am I smoking crack because you uploaded your final battle video under a different name?)

And Gjoerulv I'd like to congratulate you on the first reactor, it was hard. I had to use Jenova to give myself 2 more ethers and 5 more potions to beat it. Once you get access to restore materia, however the game gets MUCH easier.

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Archive / Re: A more complete editor than jenova?

« on: 2007-10-20 08:08:55 »

Umm.... the stats saved perfectly fine when I used Jenova....

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-19 23:00:47 »

Thanks thats good to know. I'll use that program along with this mod.... I just hope it doesn't get too easy after Jenova Death.

After looking at the Scene.bin of this mod I can't wait to try it!

Lol @ Hell House's outrageous 255 defense.

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Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2007-10-19 22:51:03 »

So are all the bugs worked out in this mod? I just finished FFVII editing the scenes myself but since I have No Idea how to edit the hex values so I want to try this out. I don't want to install it until its completely finished (bug free) however because I don't want to have to wait for weeks just to pass one buggy part. Will this work for all versions of the game? I have the Asian-Pacific edition of this game and I'm asking because some things that work for the US version of the game don't work for my version of the game. For example, I used Scene Edit to edit Safer Sephiroth's stats and when I fought him in the game his stats were still normal. Safer and Bizzaro are the only monsters that Scene Edit doesn't seem to work for with my edition of the game.

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Troubleshooting / Still can't get movies to play for FF7

« on: 2007-09-29 23:49:57 »

Originally I could watch in-game movies by configuring Final Fantasy VII to 640x480 (Quarter Screen) resolution. I got sick of staring at that small screen so I upgraded to 640x480 (Full Screen) and thats where all the problems began. (The movies stopped working).

I looked at the wiki and downloaded the TrueMotion codec, installed it and ran FF7, the opening movie did not play. I looked at the Sticky here in the Tech Support forum and found information on copying the movies to the hard drive for better playback. I went ahead and copied all the movies into my Final Fantasy VII folder from the disks and edited the movie path in the registry. I knew this would not fix the problem so I followed the link in the sticky to Agent009's guide. After reading those instructions I downloaded the K-Lite Codec pack, disabled true motion decoding (among other things his guide said to disable), I restarted FF7 and the opening movie still did not play.

By now I'm pretty pissed, so I open FF7 Configuration, change the settings to the way they were before (640x480 Quarter Screen) and the opening movie still doesn't play. I went back into the the registry and modified the "Movie Path" back to the default (to read from the FF7 CD) I ran FF7 and the movie STILL doesn't play! I've come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in the steps I outlined in the previous paragraph, because what was working before is not working now. I spent an hour searching these forums (used the search feature) to try to find someone with a similar problem to mine (or better yet a solution) and I have found nothing.

And no I don't have any of those fancy nVidia cards that everyone else has. ::Jealous:: All I've got is this crappy Intel 945G Chipset with dynamically allocated VRAM (128 MB max) if that matters. Btw I'm running FF7 on Windows XP SP 2.

Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this? Even If I can't get videos to play at full screen, I would at LEAST like to get them to play at quarter screen like they were before.

Please Help!

EDIT: I uninstalled the K-Lite Codec Pack, I Uninstalled Final Fantasy VII (deleting the registry items), I reinstalled it and now for some mysterious reason, the movies play at Full Screen (640x480) now. I would like to put the movies on my hard disk and tweak the movies too look better, but I'm afraid to do that  and mess my FF7 up again. I'd rather look at crap quality FF7 cutscenes than no cutscenes at all. If anyone has insight to what I did wrong above or insight on how to make the movies look better please let me know.