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

[magictrufflez]

Can anyone refresh my memory where the Precious Watch is? In 1.35, I thought I stole it from the X-ATM in Junon when Barret is the leader but I'm not getting it now. Is it a rare steal or is it else where?

Unless it's a rare steal from someone, the only one I found was in the Final Dungeon.

I am fond of shenanigans.

The first time I made it through the last 2 bosses and had to sit there and wait for those text boxes to take eternity to finish up, I about lost my mind.  Especially when the Scorp literally says he's trying to waste my time.

[SunnyD]

Two things:

1) I defeated Tseng in Rocket Town but have no Pulse Ammo. I even spoke to him afterwards but nothing happened there.
2) Any tricks to the Curator battle? I'm not sure if my party's just too weak but he obliterates me too quickly.

Can anyone refresh my memory where the Precious Watch is? In 1.35, I thought I stole it from the X-ATM in Junon when Barret is the leader but I'm not getting it now. Is it a rare steal or is it else where?

I stole it from Reno in the final Turks battle when returning to Midgar.

[Sega Chief]

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 off 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.

Melee is dependent on Level for it's damage output, using it twice in the calc, and what occurs is that as you get higher in Level the increase to physical damage rises exponentially. Early-game, spells have a definite edge as they can output more damage with lower base-power even without the aid of a Weapon attack stat like Strength gets. But when you start to push past Lv.30, Lv.40, Lv.50 that's when physicals start to jump ahead and magic needs much higher base power to just keep up (for comparison, tier 1 spells use a base power of 8 and will out-damage physicals with double the base power at 16 but by the end spells need 70+ base power to compete with that same 16 when higher level is involved).

Physical hitters early on won't hit as hard as a spell, but you can help them along using Elemental Materia, some STR+ equipment, and Added Effect to have them mop up enemies that survive +All spells or to disrupt larger enemies with a debilitating status. It's round about Great Glacier when physicals will start to catch up to Magic, because you'll get hands to Added Cut (an impromptu 2x-Cut with Deathblow or Mug until you find the actual 2x-Cut Materia). But in order to preserve the balance between physicals and magical, Level will be treated in-battle as Lv.44 once characters go past this threshold. I think this is roughly where the 'sweet-spot' is for physicals before they start to scale too hard for Magic to keep up with.

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. 

I considered going down the route other mods have taken where the core elemental spells are changed to be more unique rather than just higher base power versions of each other. Problem is, the base power for these spells is static and Level plays a big role in the damage calculation for it; if the base power is too high, it'll rip early-game to pieces but if it's too low then it won't be effective for late-game.

Short range spells might be possible; it has the flag for it, but the damage formula for magic itself might not be coded to make the check for that range flag. I'd need to test it out. As for application, it might be interesting to have some 'melee' spells in the Enemy Skill section; perhaps something for Beta, Trine, Aqualung? I'll need people's thoughts on it first, though.

The first time I made it through the last 2 bosses and had to sit there and wait for those text boxes to take eternity to finish up, I about lost my mind.  Especially when the Scorp literally says he's trying to waste my time.

On a not so unrelated note, Arrange Mode is quietly coming along. I have such sights to show you.

Two things:

1) I defeated Tseng in Rocket Town but have no Pulse Ammo. I even spoke to him afterwards but nothing happened there.
2) Any tricks to the Curator battle? I'm not sure if my party's just too weak but he obliterates me too quickly.

I stole it from Reno in the final Turks battle when returning to Midgar.

There's a NPC on the Highwind that'll appear on Disc 3 after visiting the bottom of North Crater (near the chocobo pen) that can give Pulse Ammo if it was missed. Make sure the latest flevel hotfix patch is installed. There may be an accidental fight with a Tonberry involved.

Tifa can be handy for the Curator as she'll survive the initial blast no matter what (a Sneak Attack/Magic Counter + Phoenix would be a good opener if the other party members can't survive). Protect Rings can also be handy for getting through it as you'll start with Wall. I think the beam itself is Shoot element, so Protect Vests will halve the damage as well (along with a lot of the other attacks it has). As for the rest, you'll need to use whatever tools and tricks you have at your disposal.

[magictrufflez]

Short range spells might be possible; it has the flag for it, but the damage formula for magic itself might not be coded to make the check for that range flag. I'd need to test it out. As for application, it might be interesting to have some 'melee' spells in the Enemy Skill section; perhaps something for Beta, Trine, Aqualung? I'll need people's thoughts on it first, though.

I would be interested to at least give melee enemy skills a try.  I was extremely underwhelmed with the majority of the elemental attack enemy skills--I tended to opt for just using proper magic attacks.  Outside of Shadow Flare, I really only used the support enemy skills like white wind or death force, with some situational exceptions.

[deha0002]

While we are on the subjects of enemy skill and arrange mod, i thought i might add a few thoughts.

Enemy skill:
Even though i know this might not even be possible ( from what ive seen by using ProdClod and Wallmarket) but having spells be affected by both STR and MAG would be awesome. Then you could finally go caster with lets say, Tifa and Cid.

Other then that wishful thinking, there are a few things;
Frog Song doesnt really feel good since we have Lagomorph. Not sure how to "fix" it but it feels like Frog Song need some love.
Big Guard feels too weak (used it twice since it was changed over diff NT versions), but if it could go through resist, now that would make it awesome for many fights. Ofc this would probably mean a large increase in MP.

Arrange mode:
So Sega, whats the plan? Are you going with the straight up increase in stats or adding more depth to it? I know my opinion might differ from the rest of the NT players, but i personally feel that Arrange boss fights should be in line with what we had at the start of 1.4.

I am talking about the Rude and Elena fight, where Rude was Berz immune, and you had to use you newly acquired Choco summon (+ Added effect) or stealing Conf item. This i thought would be amazing for Arrange, where you probably have already played normal and know in general what is waiting for ya, while forcing you to think both before and during fights.

[SirDrD]

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.

[Tavarcio]

Oh I'm not using any mods other than NT Sega

[Bowser9]

Changing the 2.5 level Enemy Skills into melee may not change anything in terms of whether it's used from the front or back row. The people that actually use Enemy Skill would still use it with reflect strats for massive damage without the need for +All.

Honestly, Enemy Skills feel pretty good right now. I've got no comment on the changes proposed by SirDrD because I'm an old FF fan. I've mentioned previously of how New Threat evokes the difficulty and diversity of FF5, and that's still true right now. I hold FF5's design as the best the FF series has ever achieved in terms of rewarding players for their decision making. Hell, a first-timer could win with with menu grinding alone as long as they used even half the jobs correctly. That's some serious flexibility awarded to intelligent players. So far, I haven't felt like anything was out of place or rigid in New Threat. I've been able to experiment with a crazy variety of strats and limitations. Barring super bosses, there really hasn't been an issue, and that's to be expected. New Threat is a blast to play every time.

[Sega Chief]

Oh I'm not using any mods other than NT Sega

I'll have a look then. Might be a missing model somewhere. You can disable random encounters using the save point to make it up the stairs to Hojo if need be, unless this is the catalog 1.35 version.

While we are on the subjects of enemy skill and arrange mod, i thought i might add a few thoughts.

Enemy skill:
Even though i know this might not even be possible ( from what ive seen by using ProdClod and Wallmarket) but having spells be affected by both STR and MAG would be awesome. Then you could finally go caster with lets say, Tifa and Cid.

Other then that wishful thinking, there are a few things;
Frog Song doesnt really feel good since we have Lagomorph. Not sure how to "fix" it but it feels like Frog Song need some love.
Big Guard feels too weak (used it twice since it was changed over diff NT versions), but if it could go through resist, now that would make it awesome for many fights. Ofc this would probably mean a large increase in MP.

Arrange mode:
So Sega, whats the plan? Are you going with the straight up increase in stats or adding more depth to it? I know my opinion might differ from the rest of the NT players, but i personally feel that Arrange boss fights should be in line with what we had at the start of 1.4.

I am talking about the Rude and Elena fight, where Rude was Berz immune, and you had to use you newly acquired Choco summon (+ Added effect) or stealing Conf item. This i thought would be amazing for Arrange, where you probably have already played normal and know in general what is waiting for ya, while forcing you to think both before and during fights.

Plan is for something in-depth; lot of events triggering that wouldn't fit well with a first-time NT run. It won't be stat gains for enemies either; there's more than one way to skin a cat.

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.

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.

Changing the 2.5 level Enemy Skills into melee may not change anything in terms of whether it's used from the front or back row. The people that actually use Enemy Skill would still use it with reflect strats for massive damage without the need for +All.

Honestly, Enemy Skills feel pretty good right now. I've got no comment on the changes proposed by SirDrD because I'm an old FF fan. I've mentioned previously of how New Threat evokes the difficulty and diversity of FF5, and that's still true right now. I hold FF5's design as the best the FF series has ever achieved in terms of rewarding players for their decision making. Hell, a first-timer could win with with menu grinding alone as long as they used even half the jobs correctly. That's some serious flexibility awarded to intelligent players. So far, I haven't felt like anything was out of place or rigid in New Threat. I've been able to experiment with a crazy variety of strats and limitations. Barring super bosses, there really hasn't been an issue, and that's to be expected. New Threat is a blast to play every time.

FF5 was pretty good for boss fights; I did more thinking getting through that game than I did with most other FF titles.

[SirDrD]

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.

[SunnyD]

Found something that doesn't seem intentional during the Hojo battle. If you have Resist on the party during the second form and have taken out his right arm, Hojo only casts Mako Spit and because of Resist it constantly misses. Does he have any other attacks or is he meant to inflict ailments on everyone first before using other attacks?

[Sega Chief]

Found something that doesn't seem intentional during the Hojo battle. If you have Resist on the party during the second form and have taken out his right arm, Hojo only casts Mako Spit and because of Resist it constantly misses. Does he have any other attacks or is he meant to inflict ailments on everyone first before using other attacks?

His AI is a bit limited; I'm going to re-do it from scratch so he has more abilities to use whenever a limb is gone.

Not sure if this is a glitch but the Fort Condor NPC doesn't teleport back to Fort Condor after he says "you need 4000 gil for troops". He just stands there....Is something else supposed to happen?

This happened at Gongaga after Temple of The Ancients and now Forgotton Capital (he's blocking a treasure chest)

Is the latest flevel patch installed? I can't remember if the fix is in the current files.

[Zara9]

Hey sega chief

you forgot to add a NT 1.4 picture on the first page of this thread

and how is the Dark cave side quest coming along

[Sega Chief]

Hey sega chief

you forgot to add a NT 1.4 picture on the first page of this thread

and how is the Dark cave side quest coming along

I decided to remove it; was taking up space.

I'm working on the DK sidequest just now; it's mostly adding small touches like ambience, dialogue, and fixing music triggers atm.

[badeco]

any have complete list  of monsters ,drop, morph and steal?in document text have  but  is not complete 

[SirDrD]

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.

[Sega Chief]

Yeah, I have both of the latest patches installed (29th April). He doesn't seem to teleport after he says "bring 4000 gil for troops".

I guess it's not in yet; might be in the IRO I made though, I remember that being slightly more advanced because I uploaded it separately last time. Was holding off for Dark Cave before updating everything in the Main/hotfixes.

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.
----
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.

----
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. off 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.

I can bump Added Cut into Midgar with an MP penalty on it or something (or set up to take a MP penalty if the optional .EXE patch is combined with it). Elemental is available fairly early, but again could be moved back. An issue might be having Elemental + [Bolt], Added Cut + [Bolt] together for a 2x effective elemental spell followed by a 2x effective physical attack...but that would also make a hybrid build viable and make a case for melee/front row spell casters to make better use out of the Added Cut follow-up. Hmm.

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.

Shops are tough because they have set inventories that can only be edited via the .EXE, and the tool for it is very unreliable due to it's age. The last time I tried to use it, I got one use after which it wouldn't work again. I can vary up the Materia shop inventories maybe, try and make status magic from Costa available for purchase a little earlier instead of the almost duplicate Materia stores in the Sector 5 Slums vs. Wall Market.

What do you guys think? Would it be more interesting to have options like Added Cut, Command Counter, etc. available from Midgar or am I front-loading the game too much?

[SunnyD]

Ended up with a soft lock on disc 3. Tifa was party leader and I went to Junon to enter the Meteor Cup for her level 4 limit. It loads but when I push start to end preparations on the truck it just stays on that screen with the animations still playing, but I can't do anything.

[SirDrD]

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.   

[deha0002]

I can bump Added Cut into Midgar with an MP penalty on it or something (or set up to take a MP penalty if the optional .EXE patch is combined with it). Elemental is available fairly early, but again could be moved back. An issue might be having Elemental + [Bolt], Added Cut + [Bolt] together for a 2x effective elemental spell followed by a 2x effective physical attack...but that would also make a hybrid build viable and make a case for melee/front row spell casters to make better use out of the Added Cut follow-up. Hmm.

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.

What do you guys think? Would it be more interesting to have options like Added Cut, Command Counter, etc. available from Midgar or am I front-loading the game too much?

I like the idea of "hybrid" builds early on, but i dont think adding "Added Cut" or "Slash-All" will really do anything. Just as it was mentioned before, if i am to put my char in the front row for Phy damage, it has to be worth it, and since Added Cut doesnt really have anything to combine with except spells, i can just as well just stay in back row and cast spells. Going from 150 bolt dmg to 150 + (25-50) dmg is not worth the extra materia slot used and the row change.

When it comes to slash all, same principle applies, low dmg that is getting split. The only time i can see end-game command type materia yearly in the game, is if there was a way to make completely new yellow materia from scratch.

On the otherhand, if we were able to have one materia with Boltstrike,Firestrike and Icestrike that somehow benefits from phy and/or STR then the hybrid front row build might work without to many materia slots used and a reason to mix str/mag on gear/rank up.

[Skirmish]

Doing my second playthrough and just got past the Huge Materia at Corel Reactor section again, I like the idea of each boss on the train having a weakness so that you can stop the train in time if you play it tactically. However there is a glaring issue I faced during this and that is the X-ATM Scorpion.

I feel that due to X-ATM Scorpion's rather high HP the only real way to defeat X-ATM Scorpion within a reasonable time-frame is to inflict Dual via the use of Neo-Bahamut. The problem is that Neo-Bahamut only has a chance to inflict Dual and if it doesn't get inflicted there's pretty much no way to stop the train in time, Neo-Bahamut + Added Effect in your weapon doesn't work because the kernel doesn't have the appropiate flags to inflict/protect from Dual with the Added Effect Materia, heck it won't even work for Paralysis and Ramuh.

This leads to the X-ATM Scorpion fight being effectively completely down to RNG based on whether you inflict that one status effect which just results in player fustration, especially if they were lucky enough to steal Ragnarok or Oritsuru from Wolfmeister/Eagle Gun on that attempt. It's even worse considering you have to go through 4 mandatory battles (including Corel Reactor Troops) and a cutscene for each attempt making any time you weren't lucky enough to inflict Dual extremely punitive.

The Runaway Train section of the game is mostly rather well done as you actually feel like you're against the clock but I would seriously consider adjusting the X-ATM Scorpion fight as currently it's a punishing RNG fest that really takes the fun out of that section of the game.

[Sega Chief]

Ended up with a soft lock on disc 3. Tifa was party leader and I went to Junon to enter the Meteor Cup for her level 4 limit. It loads but when I push start to end preparations on the truck it just stays on that screen with the animations still playing, but I can't do anything.

Yeah, a guy on ID reported this issue; the problem I'm having with fixing it is that I can't seem to replicate the issue. I'd recommend trying to enter with different party composition (with Cloud as party leader for instance) to see if that gets it to work. It might be that I have to rescript the leagues from scratch to work this problem out of it (there's stability problems with the leagues script in general too).

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.   

I think Tier 2 magic is supposed to unlock round about the Cosmo Canyon-Nibelheim area, maybe earlier if 2x AP equipment is being used. What I'd do with physical attacks around that area is attach a common element to them, say Elemental + Ice/Wind/Earth, and that'll proc 2x damage against any randoms that appear which are weak to that element (bugs/beasts tend to be weak to Fire and Ice, while Wind deals with anything airborne; you can also attach two elements to a weapon if you use multiple Elemental for additional coverage). So that 2-300 will jump to 4-600 and then you've got Deathblow/Crits to double that again to 8-1200.

I like the idea of "hybrid" builds early on, but i dont think adding "Added Cut" or "Slash-All" will really do anything. Just as it was mentioned before, if i am to put my char in the front row for Phy damage, it has to be worth it, and since Added Cut doesnt really have anything to combine with except spells, i can just as well just stay in back row and cast spells. Going from 150 bolt dmg to 150 + (25-50) dmg is not worth the extra materia slot used and the row change.

When it comes to slash all, same principle applies, low dmg that is getting split. The only time i can see end-game command type materia yearly in the game, is if there was a way to make completely new yellow materia from scratch.

On the otherhand, if we were able to have one materia with Boltstrike,Firestrike and Icestrike that somehow benefits from phy and/or STR then the hybrid front row build might work without to many materia slots used and a reason to mix str/mag on gear/rank up.

I think you'd see a bigger return on it if you add front row and elemental to the physical attack; Bolt would deal about 2-300 damage to a target weak to it, then the follow-up added cut would likely deal something close to 200 damage as well; so it'd be an extra chunk of damage at the expense of safety. Slash-All could also be handy for giving physical attackers a sweep option that casters have, not strong enough to murder the entire enemy group but perhaps handy for mopping up. If you had a group of Whole Eaters and Fire + Elemental with Slash-All you could probably get rid of them all fairly quickly. The drawback to all this is Materia slots, which are much more limited early on; but then that could be where the Four Slots armour comes into it.

I'm not sure what to do for Firestrike, etc. I can't make a Materia that executes an attack with an element on it's own.

Doing my second playthrough and just got past the Huge Materia at Corel Reactor section again, I like the idea of each boss on the train having a weakness so that you can stop the train in time if you play it tactically. However there is a glaring issue I faced during this and that is the X-ATM Scorpion.

I feel that due to X-ATM Scorpion's rather high HP the only real way to defeat X-ATM Scorpion within a reasonable time-frame is to inflict Dual via the use of Neo-Bahamut. The problem is that Neo-Bahamut only has a chance to inflict Dual and if it doesn't get inflicted there's pretty much no way to stop the train in time, Neo-Bahamut + Added Effect in your weapon doesn't work because the kernel doesn't have the appropiate flags to inflict/protect from Dual with the Added Effect Materia, heck it won't even work for Paralysis and Ramuh.

This leads to the X-ATM Scorpion fight being effectively completely down to RNG based on whether you inflict that one status effect which just results in player fustration, especially if they were lucky enough to steal Ragnarok or Oritsuru from Wolfmeister/Eagle Gun on that attempt. It's even worse considering you have to go through 4 mandatory battles (including Corel Reactor Troops) and a cutscene for each attempt making any time you weren't lucky enough to inflict Dual extremely punitive.

The Runaway Train section of the game is mostly rather well done as you actually feel like you're against the clock but I would seriously consider adjusting the X-ATM Scorpion fight as currently it's a punishing RNG fest that really takes the fun out of that section of the game.

It's possible to beat the train without dual-drain but what I'll do is reduce X-ATM's HP and set Neo-Bahamut to a 100% proc for Dual.

[GeoFlare]

Honestly I feel that physical characters are pretty much solid in the early game without added cut or slash all. That being said I wouldn't mind having slash-all earlier or even added cut earlier. I would like to see it around maybe Gongaga or Cosmo Canyon though. I feel like getting them both in Midgar would kind of be over powered. I currently really like the balance of magic vs physical. Magic really did need the boost it received and thats the only reason why it seems OP compared to physicals early on. 

[natepley]

A while back I had an idea related to the issue of making physical attacks with elements or added effects.  What if weapon and armor slots already had elemental and/or added effect built in.  So if you put an ice materia on your weapon, you'd gain the ice element on your attack or if you put ice on your armor, you'd have protection from ice damage but maybe weakness to fire.  This would eliminate the need for elemental and/or added effect materias.  Or maybe this would only work in some slots or some pieces of equipment.  I'm not sure if this is possible or could be balanced, but it might be interesting and would make the player more conscious of what materia they equip where.

[Baskra]

i made a post in the trouble shooting but found this

i saved just before pearl weapon (died as expected ^_^) reloaded now pearl weapon dont load up so im softlocked on the story (i do have a save from before you talk to bugenhagen and go to forgotten city so not too bad)

BUT theres also the stopping the next scene from loading by entering the menu when you do that on the same frame (really easy to do) you can run past the marker that takes you into the next page or world map and possibly (i havent found any point by accident YET) but it may be possible to get completely out of bounds

p.s. amazing mod i am loving getting rekt by most enemies ^_^ i hope i see more updates and more stuff to do with this mod thanks for making this

baskra