[FF8PC-Steam] Xylomod Overhaul

[ducladoncladon]

Hello, I'd like to introduce this overhaul I uploaded on Nexus Mods
Xylomod Overhaul, and its Modboro Update

The overhaul description is available there so I'll avoid copy pasting it here. But to summerize : It's a gameplay overhaul that focuses on quality of life improvements and rewards good use of the status junctions.

Here is the FF8_EN.exe file that changes the cards' names in the menus. It really is not mandatory. Feel free not to use it if it's preventing you from using another file :FF8_EN.zip
Other link just in case the first one didn't work : FF8_EN.zip

I hope everyone's work has been credited. Tell me if it's not the case or you want your work removed from the mod.

Note : Xylomid is the name of Malboro in french.
A huge thank you to all the people who made the tools and mods I found on this forum.

Artwork Triple Triad overview :

Spoiler: show

Artworked Triple Triad - Card Replacement














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Dressing overview :

Spoiler: show

[MrMadakey]

Some cool ideas but there's a balance issue very early on.

With the amount of statuses that enemies cast and limited ways to deal with said statuses it becomes a farming game of draw points or money for items.

I definitely see what you're going for, however a lot of the early game feels a bit out of shape and a lot of the end game ends up being a bit of a cake walk.

With that said I wanna focus on some of the positives.

The card mod.. Very very cool new cards, I was never a big fan of triple triad and only really did it because it's a very abusable system, however, with the new cards you added I found myself actively wanting to play triple triad just to collect said cards.

Generally all round it's a nice mod but I highly suggest looking into the early game a little more right now. Sadly the only suggestion I have is maybe having their earlier spells on a later cycle. Say needs to attack the whole team at least once before casting spell depending on the enemy if that's possible, or something like this.

To give an example, in the Dollet mission, I don't think it's very fun to have a soldier open up with a fire attack and instantly blind my one main attack character. Or should biggs and wedge immediately open up with a muting ability to basically render most characters useless since mute in ff8 is one of the most op statuses there is.

[ducladoncladon]

Hello,

Glad you enjoyed the new cards.

Yes I agree. Some statuses are too OP to be left as is. I'll ask on the discord where to change them. That'll allow to tweak many things and to put a duration for status that are too strong.
Your example of the silence status is very relevant as it is hard to deal with early game for the player and harder for the enemies to deal with, which makes it too strong. I was thinking that a simple duration, short preferably, would mitigate it's usefulness on each side.
Plus I wouldn't be sorry to change protect, shell, etc... for them to last forever, until you die or are hit by dispel. And some status effect display, especially the Zombie effect which is performing very badly with the costume change feature.

The other point you made about the game being a grind fest is true too. I noticed the first thing I do when starting a new game is stacking 100 spells of every one I can find on balamb island. I wanted to give a good headstart in the early game by giving Squall some spells to split with Quistis. But it is still insuficient. I'll probably go for a more drastic solution by giving every SeeD the same treatment as Squall benefited of. And add some Esuna along with it. The early game should feel "finger in the nose" easy. At least until you beat Ifrit.

For end game I don't know how to fix it in any way, I'm afraid. It depends too much on the player to do side quests, grind for level and stack magic. I can only envision speedrunners having a hard time beating the end game.
That's a problem, but it is too much linked to how FFVIII works to be tweaked. They tried to remedy that in Ultimecia's Citadel by locking your abilities but it is still present. I'm not sure anything can be done about it unless giving incentive to the player to speedrun.

Thank you for taking the time to give me your thoughts on it. I'll get back to it.

[MrMadakey]

Keep it up regardless. I'm definitely keeping my eye on this mod. It looks fun! A little unbalanced but definitely fun, also a lot of the speedrun strats rely on being very yolo and kind of risky. I probably wouldn't try and balance around said speedrunners.. Them getting hit by 1 status can turn the tide of an entire fight and that seems to be what you're going for here anyway.

Keep it up!