[FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.99994)

[Sega Chief]

hey sega chief

how is the ultros boss fight coming along on your mod?

It's on the backburner until the mod's fundamentals are fixed.

lol ultros?

what battle map is he on, the same one as bottomswell would probably work well for him.

There isn't one; Zara suggested adding Ultros into NT and I had a look into it, but it's complicated because any enemy I make needs to use a pre-existing one as a base. I can change the look, but not the animations (animations can be changed, but it's very time-consuming so I generally try to avoid it outside of small tweaks to unused ones that look a bit jittery).

on the materia thing I think you should just remove AP and chuck it out the window, I'm not sure what the point is in going half way like you are saying about giving people a base amount of materia, and the people that keep materia equipped 24/7 will have more than someone that does not.

I'm considering setting up both alongside each other because it's a drastic step to remove AP altogether and it'd force players to use what the game gives them, rather than letting them choose which Materia to develop.

If it's possible for the game to check for materia that aren't supposed to be equipped, perhaps the NPC that you fight could eject you from battle like the Zolom does if you equipped materia you aren't supposed to.  If he sees you've equipped fire in addition to bolt, he ejects you (or even kills you!).  Or possibly, he could have an attack like Emerald Weapons big move that deals damage based on how many materia you have equipped.  If you're supposed to equip a bolt and cover on each person, that's a max of 2 materia per person.  Maybe his attack could kill anyone equipped with 3 or more materia.

Not sure if these ideas are possible but if they are, it could be cool.

The battle AI can't check for Materia (I think) and it doesn't seem like the field script can either, though Makou lists some functions that make it seem like it can. Doing it with a battle = ejecting the player, etc. seems a tad too fiddly and there's that room for mistakes/abuse where they don't get the AP they need or they get it onto other Materia.

What I might do is separate the Materia systems into Original and Arrange. Original would use traditional AP & stores, while Arrange would use the proposed system of dropping Materia 'upgrades' instead. It could all be handled through field variables fairly easily, and I can add script to the Materia stores where perhaps one-off purchases can be made.

[Sega Chief]

\\Progress Update//

So I started my playthrough last night, and one thing that's quickly become painfully clear is that the mod is in dire need of a renovation for enemy stats & attacks; the changes made since 1.1 have taken a serious cumulative toll and as things currently stand, enemies aren't keeping up anymore, at least early on in the game. Aps in particular was a bit of an eye-opener; he was landing attacks for 30-40 damage compared to his original 150 or so. We'll see how it pans out later, but I'll be fine-tuning every single enemy as I go through each area.

Edit: Found a small issue; a deactivated battle is still used in Floor 1 of Shinra HQ when choosing to enter the building through the front door. Fortunately, it seems harmless enough; just two Grenade Combatants called 'Blank' who can't attack. I've changed the battle to it's identical but working counterpart. That'll be present in the next update.

[Walter253]

PNJ is the french acronyme for NPC. My mistake, sorry, i'm more familiar with PNJ then NPC.
It means Personnage Non Jouable as NPC means No Playable Character

[Sega Chief]

I see! I'll remember that; speaking of, I'd better get that Fort Condor PNJ up and working finally.

[selius]

Or would combining the two be a bad idea

Yes.

there's nothing wrong with the current materia system.

[Rufus]

other people would disagree but lets stick to new threat mod content instead of making statements like that.

[Sega Chief]

I wouldn't say FF7's Materia system is perfect, but it is quite solid. I'll work something out.

[ohhhhyeahohhellyeahbaby]

Sega Chief,

I've restarted the game under what I think is the most recent update. It's going very well so far and I'm attempting it a little differently than the first time I played, I'm grinding a tiny bit rather than rushing from place to place so it's been fairly smooth, albeit a little more time consuming.

Couple bugs I've found:

- Some NPCs seem to be missing dialogue or have it displayed improperly. For instance, in the building with the big spiral staircase in Kalm, the NPC there doesn't say anything. No dialogue window comes up and she'll turn towards the PC as if she was speaking normally. I have also had instances where dialogue choices haven't displayed properly, usually in the form of spilling over to the next line. The only one I can recall off-hand was the fellow in the house who tells you about the keystone, the issue occurred when I tried to give him mytheril.

- The battle square doesn't appear to work at all. When I spoke to Dio I was able to go through his challenge no problem, but if I speak to a receptionist and attempt to fight, I'm instead sent to the same battlefield found around Midgar, fighting a sweeper and one of those red motorcycle guys who are encountered around there. I've tried the battle square four different times with four different characters and the same issue persists.

Other than that it's been pretty seamless, haven't had any crashes that I can recall, and nothing else seems to have gone wrong.

One last thing too: I personally don't think the materia system ought to be changed too much, if only to avoid overly messing with the spirit of the original game. I agree that it's not a perfect system and may potentially involve some grinding, but I like the fact that it gives the option of grinding if the player considers it necessary. I feel that altering it too much could also result in a lack of flexibility, which seems to go against how you've designed this mod in the first place.

I do think that redesigning and shuffling around abilities isn't a bad move though, like tossing osmose in with Heal and remove with Destruct. Exit seems awful lonely though!

edit: whoops, totally missed the suggestion of using the two materia systems based on what difficulty you play, seems like the best compromise.

[Sega Chief]

Yeah, I've just passed through Kalm in my playthrough and fixed that NPC; he had some left-over script from a scrapped event that was interfering with it. I've set it back to normal. I'm also re-working the dialogue boxes to catch any alignment issues.

As for battle square is this with the Main Installer + Flevel hotfix patch applied? If so, then it seems that something slipped through the gap for the correct battle mode flag. I can hopefully correct that easily enough. Glad to hear there were no other issues popping up.

As far as Materia goes, I won't be doing anything too drastic with Original; maybe a few side events here and there where the player can nab a pre-leveled Materia drop. I think I'll go with a 'rare' Materia system for Arrange though, could be quite interesting.

[Rufus]

yeah as mentioned I would make life2 & 2x cut a rare materia you get after defeating a new threat boss, it should be the special materia needed for defeating the last story bosses.

[ohhhhyeahohhellyeahbaby]

I hadn't actually installed the hotfix, doing so has solved the Battle Square issue, thanks. Looking forward to seeing what else has changed.

[Sega Chief]

Ah, I see; the hotfix patches are mostly for just repairing any issues that pop up. It should be mostly the same.

[Doully]

yeah as mentioned I would make life2 & 2x cut a rare materia you get after defeating a new threat boss, it should be the special materia needed for defeating the last story bosses.

I'm pretty sure that already is the case with 2X cut?

I can see why some would perceive Life2 as overpowered though. It kind of is but it is just your bog standard full-heal/resurrect kind of spell.

I'm on the side of maintaining the materia system as is personally. My spellcasters were no more powerful than my melee characters with Dragon Force///Lucky girl and I think the balance is just right.

School holidays soon and no work for 2 months. Looking forward to getting stuck into an updated version!

[Sega Chief]

School holidays soon and no work for 2 months. Looking forward to getting stuck into an updated version!

It'll have Arrange mode in it, so that might be worth checking out for a different take on the mod.

\\McUpdate//

So according to feedback, a common headache caused in a FF7 playthrough is hunting through Junon's forests for Yuffie (this is where she has the lowest chance to turn up, unless it's based on level). While this isn't strictly an NT issue, it's still something worth tackling.

There's also a potential problem on the horizon with the Bizarro encounter in this mod, which forces a three-party fight; at present, if the player doesn't recruit at least one optional character before entering this fight then they'll become stuck, as they won't have enough people to form three parties (the game demands three characters for the first two teams). Not a likely scenario, but it has happened to at least one person which makes it something to be fixed.

So to remedy both problems, I've set up a new event at Kalm which immediately follows the flashback and which will add Yuffie to the party. There's a small amount of evidence that Yuffie was going to be recruitable before passing through the Mythril Mines anyway, if theories about the position of the unused TRAP field and the impossible Zolom/Mythril Mines dialogues are anything to go by.

Just going to fine-tune it then continue my balancing playthrough.

[Rufus]

is this the forced yuffie feature you were thinking of adding, or is it more of a dirty hack for now.

would you not have to find someway to force vincent as well?

[Sega Chief]

It's a fully-functioning event, just a bit rough around the edges and in need of tweaks. I kept a copy of the original flevel fields too, just in case it proves unpopular. And only one of the two optional characters is needed for the Bizarro fight to function at the moment, so there's no need to make Vincent's recruitment mandatory just now.

[Rufus]

wow cool, okay can't wait.

but i think vincent should be a boss you fight in order to get him, not sure if Vincents theme should be the music to use, but it's at least an idea.

for his new threat maybe lucricia could be a boss fight, when you visit her in those caves, but maybe vincent already has a new threat boss already, I don't know.

but I do like the idea of the new threat bosses giving people ultimate weapons or limit breaks, kind of reminds me of ff6 when recruiting your party members, only unlike ff6 this is actually cool and not totally lame.

I'd really like a readme explaining what I get for doing the new threat bosses and any other extra bosses, as well as where rare materia like 2x cut and w item is, i know you think that would spoil things, but i'd like that option and i think others would as well.

personally i think w item materia is overpowered, as you can phoenix down and potion in one move, so i would remove it, but i'm not expecting you to feel the same, i just wanted to say how much i hate that materia, its also not in any other final fantasys further solidifying my thought that its an overpowered command.

[Aquarii]

Hi,

my Game freezes, when i enter the Cave in the Ancient Wood (Sidequest), after Cloud and Barret finished their first dialogue in Midgar. I have installed the newest patches.
Error Message: An unknown exception has occurred.

Greetz Aquarii

[Sega Chief]

I'll look into just now and see what I find.

Edit: Encountered the error, now I need to figure out what the cause is. It's likely something to do with the new difficulty modes option that was added to the script here; it'll have interfered with it somehow. Once it's fixed, I'll upload a field hotfix patch for it.

[Zara9]

hey sega chief

what are your plans for the dark cave side quest

are you gonna anything new to your dark cave sidequest

[Sega Chief]

Looks like I fixed that problem; I think adding the new script in caused two short-jump labels to no longer reach their targets. Changed them to long-jumps and gave it a few runs, seems to be okay now. I'll upload the hotfix for it just now, should take an hour or so.

what are your plans for the dark cave side quest
are you gonna anything new to your dark cave sidequest

Just general scripting improvements, really.

Edit: The new flevel patch has been uploaded; it only contains the fix, not the new stuff I've been working on.

[Doully]

wow cool, okay can't wait.

but i think vincent should be a boss you fight in order to get him, not sure if Vincents theme should be the music to use, but it's at least an idea.

for his new threat maybe lucricia could be a boss fight, when you visit her in those caves, but maybe vincent already has a new threat boss already, I don't know.

but I do like the idea of the new threat bosses giving people ultimate weapons or limit breaks, kind of reminds me of ff6 when recruiting your party members, only unlike ff6 this is actually cool and not totally lame.

I'd really like a readme explaining what I get for doing the new threat bosses and any other extra bosses, as well as where rare materia like 2x cut and w item is, i know you think that would spoil things, but i'd like that option and i think others would as well.

personally i think w item materia is overpowered, as you can phoenix down and potion in one move, so i would remove it, but i'm not expecting you to feel the same, i just wanted to say how much i hate that materia, its also not in any other final fantasys further solidifying my thought that its an overpowered command.

Give 1.3 a go.

Many of your suggestions are already implemented.

[Rufus]

I may do when the next major patch gets released, or when 1.4 comes around, not sure yet, I want to feel a more different experience from what I did last month with the 1.2 completion.

I did read the 1.3 readme, but as I said there is still no explanation of 2x cut and w item locations, and as I mentioned much earlier I couldn't figure out what to do with barret and tifas new threat boss, i'd also like to know how ruby weapon comes into play and what you get for all that.

[Sega Chief]

The location of items, Materia, etc. are detailed in the Database that can be found next to the ReadMe link on the main page (or at least, they should be). It's use is limited with 1.2, but most Materia is in the same place in 1.3 so it'll be handy for that.

[Rufus]

Oh right, I see, I see it now.

yeah thankfuly piosona and esuna have melded together,I don't think I saw that in my 1.2 though.
as we talked about before debarrier and despell should be put together as dispell for the same reasons, but i know you want it seperate.

Oh right so you are making cure ignore mbarrier, well I was on 1.2 and that wasn't the case.