Author Topic: [FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.6 / Remastered Version 1.1.6 (Read 77300 times)

Nikkolas · « **Reply #25 on:** 2020-12-28 02:00:13 »

Okay a couple big problems to cover in D-District Prison.

If you put Berserk on this guy so he can't do Evil Eye while dying, he's just immortal and will keep fighting.

Also when I tried to Mug Wedge I got the "Stole 0's" problem reported on earlier.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #26 on:** 2020-12-29 03:12:46 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2020-12-26 19:13:47

No problem. I just got to Galbadia Garden and having fun with the changes you've made.

I do have a few questions, though.
1. Would you say the game gets harder later on? Maybe I'm just overleveled (Squall is Level 16, Rinoa is Level 18 and Selphie is Level 21) but things haven't been too difficult for a while now. if this was a normal RPG you'd expect challenge to increase with time but since it's a mod, you usually see a huge spike in difficulty right from the start ya know? I dunno, I don't think it would hurt to increase damage and HP a bit on the enemies.

2.Do you ever get more GFs? I've already "mastered" all the innate abilities on a few of my GF's. Or do you just learn more abilities for the GF's you have?

3. Do you ever get Abilityx3 or Abilityx4? In general I'm just curious how I learn more abilities for my GF's since right now I've been Drawing all my magic and am sorely missing Refine abilities.

EDIT:

Okay just about to do Sorceress Assassination and Shiva is gonna learn Blk Mag RF 1. I guess i's a Level thing, maybe? Oh well, sorry for the dumb, impatient question.

EDIT 2:

Also I kinda cheated with Rinoa using Aero against the Brothers... Aero is a White Magic spell in many FF games but I just got Blk Mag RF 1 and it's Black Magic here. My bad. I def won't do it again.

Edea was a pretty sweet boss fight.

1. I would say so, in part because of how stat scaling works and because I feel more comfortable making difficult fights when you have more tools at your disposal. Also, on Disc 1 there are a few bosses that I think are in awkward positions, like Gerogero and Seifer. In the former case, you can't go back and do things like buy items once you start the train mission (I may make one of the Forest Owls sell stuff to get around this), and in the latter you can only use Squall and I don't want to have a hard Seifer fight followed immediately by a hard Edea fight. Sometimes I'm just waiting for the right idea for an enemy, or I'm okay with them being kind of weak (e.g. Geezard or Funguar). I'm not looking to make the mod a ball-buster, but if there are any enemies you think are particularly weak, I'll take a look at 'em.

2. No, though I might make them a reward for doing some side content late in the game. (I had intended to make a GF the reward for one of the sidequests I added in the last update, but after considering the implications of it I decided not to.)

3. Yeah. The info doc included with the mod files shows what everyone learns and when. Also, you can use Tool-RF to learn some refine and Junction abilities earlier.

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2020-12-28 02:00:13

Okay a couple big problems to cover in D-District Prison.

If you put Berserk on this guy so he can't do Evil Eye while dying, he's just immortal and will keep fighting.

Also when I tried to Mug Wedge I got the "Stole 0's" problem reported on earlier.

Thanks. I caught that issue with regards to Stop, but didn't consider Berserk. I'll fix that in the next update.

The 0s thing is harmless, but annoying... I don't understand why it does that considering I'm using the same "Nothing" slot that the game normally uses. A bug with Ifrit, maybe? I'll have to keep making enemies' Mug lists the same/similar as their Drop lists, I guess. Never mind. It's because they still have a Mug chance.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #27 on:** 2020-12-29 07:20:21 »

I appreciate you being considerate about boss placement and difficulty. In the old FFVIII Requiem mod, he had Seifer cast Flare in your first fight with him which means he could potentially open up the fight with it and oneshot you before you even got shell ready.

...that mod had a lot of bad ideas but it was all we had for a long time. Thank God this awesome mod came along.

I have definitely seen a general increase in difficulty so far and I agree with your reasoning. Too often JRPGs became trivially easy with more options so I'm glad you are reversing that, making it more challenging with more options.

Speaking of boss placement and selling items though, I just beat NORG and I'm very grateful he's so easy compared to how he was in Ragnarok Rebalanced. I was totally out of Phoenix Downs and very worried his fight would e a nightmare like the last mod I played. I had a team of Irvine and Quistis, sending Rinoa to the Missile Base so they had one great healer and I, with Irvine's heal gun, had another . But this meant I had no one who can use Raise so I was worried.

You don't need to tell me exactly what the added sidequests are but can you tell me when/where they occur? Just curious what I should be on the lookout for.

In any event, this mod is extremely interesting and I will recommend it to people on other FF forums I frequent. For somebody who has played FFVIII as much as I have, you've really re=energized my interest in the gameplay. I intend to see this through to the end and hopefully my comments can help a little bit.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #28 on:** 2020-12-29 14:15:26 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2020-12-29 07:20:21

I appreciate you being considerate about boss placement and difficulty. In the old FFVIII Requiem mod, he had Seifer cast Flare in your first fight with him which means he could potentially open up the fight with it and oneshot you before you even got shell ready.

...that mod had a lot of bad ideas but it was all we had for a long time. Thank God this awesome mod came along.

I have definitely seen a general increase in difficulty so far and I agree with your reasoning. Too often JRPGs became trivially easy with more options so I'm glad you are reversing that, making it more challenging with more options.

Speaking of boss placement and selling items though, I just beat NORG and I'm very grateful he's so easy compared to how he was in Ragnarok Rebalanced. I was totally out of Phoenix Downs and very worried his fight would e a nightmare like the last mod I played. I had a team of Irvine and Quistis, sending Rinoa to the Missile Base so they had one great healer and I, with Irvine's heal gun, had another . But this meant I had no one who can use Raise so I was worried.

You don't need to tell me exactly what the added sidequests are but can you tell me when/where they occur? Just curious what I should be on the lookout for.

In any event, this mod is extremely interesting and I will recommend it to people on other FF forums I frequent. For somebody who has played FFVIII as much as I have, you've really re=energized my interest in the gameplay. I intend to see this through to the end and hopefully my comments can help a little bit.

It's a shame that the only Squall/Seifer 1v1 happens on Disc 1 and immediately before a battle that I want to be a challenging introduction to sorceresses, 'cause I'd love to have a more difficult one later in the game. Maybe I'll try to work something like that in someday.

If this isn't the case already, I may make Joker continue to appear in the Training Center to sell items until after NORG is defeated. Glad you got some use out of Exeter, though.

Sidequests/additions to existing sidequests:

Spoiler: show

The sidequest section of the included info doc is a little more detailed about what you need to do should you need it.

I'm currently working on another sidequest--or rather, building on one introduced in the last update; once I'm done, I'll release it along with fixes to the issues you've found.

I appreciate the kind words and the feedback.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #29 on:** 2020-12-30 22:04:49 »

So you weren't kidding, things definitely get harder and all for the good. Galbadia Garden was one wild ride from the random encounters to Cerberus to Seifer 2. Edea 2 ironically was the easiest thing by far. With Haste on everyone she gets basically no turns and once it was just her, she only cast Stop over and over and over again and I think 2 Maelstroms. The real kicker though was the fact I swear each of my party members got 3-4 turns in for every single turn from her.

Seifer, my fave character, got a worthy boss battle at last. He certainly didn't get it in the original but I died more on this fight than any boss yet. Very creative mechanics, although I swear he just kinda bugged out and went crazy sometimes, attacking like 5-6 times in a row. My game also froze twice, only when two of my characters were down.

Spoiler: show

But yeah, dunno if you play Shin Megami Tensei but Seifer here reminded me a bit of an SMT boss with getting 3 or so moves in for his turn. Or like the Final Fantasy III remake where bosses get 2 moves in for their turn. I dunno if there's any rhyme or reason to it since sometimes he only got one move in.

Finding those Dispel, Protect and Shell Stones at Winhill was an awesome surprise, very useful. Gonna have to go load up on those now with Rinoa gone.

Thanks for the sidequest lowdown. I still got a little while before I have to worry about any of those except Winhill which I already finished and Dollet which I forgot about and gotta do now.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #30 on:** 2020-12-30 23:03:25 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2020-12-30 22:04:49

So you weren't kidding, things definitely get harder and all for the good. Galbadia Garden was one wild ride from the random encounters to Cerberus to Seifer 2. Edea 2 ironically was the easiest thing by far. With Haste on everyone she gets basically no turns and once it was just her, she only cast Stop over and over and over again and I think 2 Maelstroms. The real kicker though was the fact I swear each of my party members got 3-4 turns in for every single turn from her.

Edea used to be faster, but iirc I thought she was too overwhelming that way so I toned her down. I'll look into her AI first and decide if she needs any stat buffs after that. Maybe I should make her get faster after Seifer dies, if nothing else.

Quote

Seifer, my fave character, got a worthy boss battle at last. He certainly didn't get it in the original but I died more on this fight than any boss yet. Very creative mechanics, although I swear he just kinda bugged out and went crazy sometimes, attacking like 5-6 times in a row. My game also froze twice, only when two of my characters were down.
Spoiler: show
The "cast Zombie on characters in yellow health" mechanic is certainly intriguing and made me have to forfeit my other status defenses for Squall and Quistis. Quistis of course doesn't need Blind or Silence immunity since Acid isn't effected by either but I did have to give up Squall's Blind immunity after afew failed attempts when I realized how absolutely Zombie was fucking me up. I kept Silence on Rinoa's ST-Def though because of course. She rarely ever got low on health anyhow. Always gotta keep the healer safe. I'm gonna miss her for the next few hours.

But yeah, dunno if you play Shin Megami Tensei but Seifer here reminded me a bit of an SMT boss with getting 3 or so moves in for his turn. Or like the Final Fantasy III remake where bosses get 2 moves in for their turn. I dunno if there's any rhyme or reason to it since sometimes he only got one move in.

Sorry about the crashes

I'll see about fixing them--based on what you told me, I have an inkling as to why that occurred. One question, though: was the remaining character Zombified?

Glad you liked the fight otherwise though, as it's actually the one I'm most proud of. Dunno if I'd call myself a fan per se, but I think the game really underutilizes Seifer both in the story and in gameplay and I wanted to rectify at least the latter. I approached his fights with the concept of "Someone who fights dirty", and of all the ideas I had based on that, the Zombie thing is my favorite, lol. The first time I tested his fight, he used Zombie on someone right as I queued a heal for them and I was like "YES!" (I once considered giving him a version of Zombie that would ignore immunity, but I thought that would be too mean...)

Seifer has a lot of action chances, which is why he'd sometimes take many or only a few. He initially turned out that way as a result of my inexperience, but I decided I liked it on him and kept it. Makes him feel more like the "speed" to Squall's "power"...and lets him weave Zombies between his sword strikes.

Quote

Finding those Dispel, Protect and Shell Stones at Winhill was an awesome surprise, very useful. Gonna have to go load up on those now with Rinoa gone.

Hopefully I'll eventually be able to fix the issue with Edea... She was supposed to have Pray and Double in addition to an unlimited spell selection.

On another note, the next battle addition is currently in the testing phase:

Spoiler: show

Nikkolas · « **Reply #31 on:** 2020-12-31 00:11:16 »

I'm afraid I can't recall for certain if the lone survivor was Zombified or not. I wanna say Rinoa might have been in my last crash but I really can't say. I also stupidly saved over my save right before the Seifer fight but I still have one before the Garden Battle and I intend to replay up to the Seifer fight to try and record it so I'll see if I can experiment a bit if you need.

Speaking of Seifer being a tougher boss like he should be, did you do anything to Seifer 3? I've been wary of getting Odin because Gilgamesh ruins the final, climactic showdown with Seifer and I hate it. I might just forego Odin since he doesn't even have Double or Triple anymore.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #32 on:** 2020-12-31 00:34:36 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2020-12-31 00:11:16

I'm afraid I can't recall for certain if the lone survivor was Zombified or not. I wanna say Rinoa might have been in my last crash but I really can't say. I also stupidly saved over my save right before the Seifer fight but I still have one before the Garden Battle and I intend to replay up to the Seifer fight to try and record it so I'll see if I can experiment a bit if you need.

No worries, I'm pretty sure I know what's going on now. If you want, I can send you some updated enemy files before your replay to ensure that Seifer's fight won't crash.

Quote

Speaking of Seifer being a tougher boss like he should be, did you do anything to Seifer 3? I've been wary of getting Odin because Gilgamesh ruins the final, climactic showdown with Seifer and I hate it. I might just forego Odin since he doesn't even have Double or Triple anymore.

I did, though I feel I used my best ideas on Seifer 2 and Seifer 3 isn't as fun. I increased the number of turns needed for Gilgamesh to appear and defeat Seifer for you, though if you have Odin he'll still appear when you deplete Seifer's HP, of course. If Odin's level is greater or equal to 45, you can Draw Meteor and Arise from him, so it may be worth it to wait. Ultima is better than Meteor in this mod ~~as it should be~~, but the latter is easier to get ahold of. I'd say neither spell is as appealing a reason to wait after the release of 1.1, but Drawing them from Odin may help in getting the thing that caused Odin's high-level Draw list to become less appealing.

EDIT (12/31): I found a few problems (including the trigger for the Dollet sidequest somehow not making it into my release files...

), I'm gonna release an update later today.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #33 on:** 2020-12-31 22:02:17 »

FFVIII Crystal 1.1.1
Updated battle.fs 1/6/21

Content

- A new battle has been added to the Fire Cavern, accessible after the events at Fisherman's Horizon on Disc 2; altered some dialogue to act as a hint.
- Fixed issue in which Dollet sidequest battle wouldn't trigger.* ~~because I forgot to include the trigger~~

Characters/GFs:

Squall:
- Lionheart (Limit): Power increased from 11 to 14.

Rinoa:
- Angelo Cannon: Inflicts Confusion.
- Angelo Strike: Inflicts Slow instead of Confusion.

Enemies:

- Slightly increased enemy levels in D-District Prison.
- Fixed remaining instances of stealing 0s from enemies.

- Thrustaevis: Increased HP threshold at which its AI changes.
- G-Blue Mage: Fixed issue preventing enemy's death when inflicted with certain statuses.

- Seifer (2): Fixed issue causing crashes.
- Omega Weapon: Can now counter after a certain number of Limit Breaks have been used on it.
- Ultimecia (1): Always has Double status.

Misc.:
- Updated readme with a working link to Roses and Wine.
- Updated info doc with information on new sidequest; corrected listing of Bahamut's abilities.

Known issues:
The Aberrant Key items that replace the Occult Fan magazines can still be used in the menu.

*If you already triggered the scene at the Dollet Mountain Path that starts the battle, you can open your save file in Hyne, go to HexaEdit on the left side, click the Field tab at the top and change this byte from 80 to 00, or if you'd prefer you can send me your save file and I'll do it for you. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #34 on:** 2021-01-01 01:09:20 »

Hey dude can you fix my save file? I think I did the Dollet quest and nothing happened so maybe that is what you fixed in the lasted update?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KVxHxQLGCJEfngfX14sGkzY9YAmxYEuy/view?usp=sharing

Also I had another freeze when fighting Vysage, Lefty and Righty at the Great Salt Lake while Selphie was Cursed and trying to use Slot.
Dunno if that might have something to do with the memory problem you mentioned or if you can fix that while doing this.

Thanks again.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #35 on:** 2021-01-01 01:48:08 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2021-01-01 01:09:20

Hey dude can you fix my save file? I think I did the Dollet quest and nothing happened so maybe that is what you fixed in the lasted update?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KVxHxQLGCJEfngfX14sGkzY9YAmxYEuy/view?usp=sharing

Also I had another freeze when fighting Vysage, Lefty and Righty at the Great Salt Lake while Selphie was Cursed and trying to use Slot.
Dunno if that might have something to do with the memory problem you mentioned or if you can fix that while doing this.

Thanks again.

Here you go: https://mega.nz/file/dHBTCaTR#GppxgWLKcxvqL4nOPUh2JJgYVDxqUF79Kav5f5uMYb0 If it doesn't load, you may have to use Hyne to manually sign the save (it's under File). Just place the save in the same folder as your other saves and Hyne will find your metadata.xml file for you. By the way, the character level shows up lower on the save preview because Hyne assumes 1000 exp = 1 level, but it'll be correct when you load the save.

I'll look into those enemies and edit this post with a fix.

Edit: The crash was caused by a bug with Ifrit in which it misinterprets checks on the status of other enemies...at least, that's what it has to be, because I've changed Vysage, Lefty, and Righty's AI very, very little. Anyway, I edited Vysage's file and battled the three of them for a while and no crash occurred. Here you go: https://mega.nz/file/MaY1iAAK#kBWkh9I8Bc0XgiDI6-ac3kqOdTvh6Z4_rDw7aVrN8AU Thanks for your patience.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #36 on:** 2021-01-02 09:21:34 »

Thank you for all your help.

Would you say the Deep Sea Research Facility (up to Bahamut at least) should be done before Lunatic Pandora and completing Disk 3 or after? I made it up to Bahamut...and died because I'm a fucking idiot who didn't use the menu before the fight to heal. But my main point is, I gained so many levels from just walking there. I'm worried of overleveling and making the story too easy.

My main party is:
Squall Lvl 47
Quistis Lvl 40
Rinoa Lvl 36

All I recall for certain is by the time I lost, Rinoa had gained 5 levels.

What level do you think this game should be beaten at, by the way?

Leythalknight · « **Reply #37 on:** 2021-01-02 13:25:51 »

I realized that I forgot to hex edit Adel the last time I updated, so here's a new battle.fs: https://mega.nz/file/YbpymBpQ#38_JoRmfIv-I-LmAHVzSzBD8av9n5mdiDOHyTrRf6Tc Her model shouldn't explode into a million colors now.

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2021-01-02 09:21:34

Thank you for all your help.

Would you say the Deep Sea Research Facility (up to Bahamut at least) should be done before Lunatic Pandora and completing Disk 3 or after? I made it up to Bahamut...and died because I'm a fucking idiot who didn't use the menu before the fight to heal. But my main point is, I gained so many levels from just walking there. I'm worried of overleveling and making the story too easy.

My main party is:
Squall Lvl 47
Quistis Lvl 40
Rinoa Lvl 36

All I recall for certain is by the time I lost, Rinoa had gained 5 levels.

What level do you think this game should be beaten at, by the way?

No problem.

Enemies and bosses in late-game sidequests as well as those in Lunatic Pandora and Ultimecia's Castle will all scale based on your level, so no need to worry about out-leveling the enemies. I tend to do all of the sidequests before entering LP, but it shouldn't make much of a difference either way.

Were those levels gained just from fighting the Ruby Dragons, or were you moving while the light was shining?

The last time I played through the mod, my three most-used characters were in the 60s and 70s; the other three were lower. (I tend to cycle through characters, but this time I let a friend I was streaming the game for choose the party throughout the game, and he had a thing for Rinoa and Quistis...

). That was before I added the new sidequests, though. (One reason that I decided to introduce new sidequests was to reduce the amount of grinding the player would need to do in order to, say, learn all of a character's abilities or level to 100.)

Everyone gets their last GF ability at level 50, so I'd make sure they're at least that high. Also, Omega Weapon is always level 100, so you'll want to raise your characters to around 100 if you want to fight it. I may eventually introduce another boss or two that are always set to 100, as well.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #38 on:** 2021-01-03 12:06:57 »

Cool cool. I did walk while the blue light was shining because I was dumb and forgot about it triggering encounters.

I have no idea how you're supposed to defeat Bahamut without Selphie and her awesome Double ability to exploit his weakness. I tried with my usual team - like your friend Rinoa and Quistis are my favorites but Quistis and Squall just weren't gettingit done in terms of damage. Meanwhile, Selphie beat him all by herself doing 6200 damage a turn. Squall nd Rinoa were just on support and heal duty. Great fight, the second hardest all game next to Seifer 2.

But I think I fucked up and "cheated" by accident.. I'm right after getting Rinoa and first thing I did was go to Esthar touy items and then head to the Deep Sea Research facility. I got Hi-Potion+ and Mega Potions from Johnny's Shop. But when I go back after beating Bahamut to resupply, the shop says closed. But if you keep clicking on it enough, it will be open to buy items. Is that a mistake?

I guess I shouldn't have had those Hi Potion+ or Mega Potions....

Also I keep forgetting to mention, it seems like the Confused party AI is programmed to use the rarest item while confused? I had 2 Mega Remedies I Mugged from somebody A while ago now I did all the Chocobo Forests and when heading to the Sanctuary I stuck around trying to see if the Malboro was still there to steal a Tentacle from to learn Bad Breath. It was. When he used it on my party, a Confused Irvine used the Mega Remedy so Selphie or somebody could immediately then mug a Tentacle off the Malboro and then we fled.

Bad Breath is always so good to have in this game. It alone makes Quistis Queen when dealing with every non boss encounter.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #39 on:** 2021-01-03 14:54:25 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2021-01-03 12:06:57

Cool cool. I did walk while the blue light was shining because I was dumb and forgot about it triggering encounters.

I have no idea how you're supposed to defeat Bahamut without Selphie and her awesome Double ability to exploit his weakness. I tried with my usual team - like your friend Rinoa and Quistis are my favorites but Quistis and Squall just weren't gettingit done in terms of damage. Meanwhile, Selphie beat him all by herself doing 6200 damage a turn. Squall nd Rinoa were just on support and heal duty. Great fight, the second hardest all game next to Seifer 2.

Quistis and Zell can exploit Bahamut's Fire and Thunder weakness with Limits, and Irvine can do good damage with Fire Ammo. You can also Junction an -aga spell to Elem-Atk. Also, though they don't do great damage, normal attacks of any element will not add to Bahamut's Mega Flare variable. Lastly, you can still use other abilities to damage him if you're willing to let the Mega Flare variable go up, and by now you can get several that ignore defenses and/or have high base power. I agree that it's a lot easier with Selphie, though. Admittedly, it's a fight that would work better without restrictions on magic usage. I may lower his Vit a bit, but not so much that you can ignore the mechanics. Alternatively, I may allow you to put Bahamut to sleep for a brief period, limited to a certain number of times, to give you a few small windows in which to deal increased physical damage to him.

Quote

But I think I fucked up and "cheated" by accident.. I'm right after getting Rinoa and first thing I did was go to Esthar touy items and then head to the Deep Sea Research facility. I got Hi-Potion+ and Mega Potions from Johnny's Shop. But when I go back after beating Bahamut to resupply, the shop says closed. But if you keep clicking on it enough, it will be open to buy items. Is that a mistake?

I guess I shouldn't have had those Hi Potion+ or Mega Potions....

Nah, that shop is like that in vanilla too.

Quote

Also I keep forgetting to mention, it seems like the Confused party AI is programmed to use the rarest item while confused? I had 2 Mega Remedies I Mugged from somebody A while ago now I did all the Chocobo Forests and when heading to the Sanctuary I stuck around trying to see if the Malboro was still there to steal a Tentacle from to learn Bad Breath. It was. When he used it on my party, a Confused Irvine used the Mega Remedy so Selphie or somebody could immediately then mug a Tentacle off the Malboro and then we fled.

Bad Breath is always so good to have in this game. It alone makes Quistis Queen when dealing with every non boss encounter.

Good to know. IIRC, The party's confusion AI won't use items that have the "single side" flag set, so I'll change that in the next update.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #40 on:** 2021-01-03 15:44:07 »

Well, given Bahamut shifts elemental weaknesses and absorbs what he isn't weak to, isn't it a bad idea to load up a physical attacker with Elemental Attack- J for that fight?

But I've run into my first super serious and consistent technical problem as I tried to go deeper into the research facility. Made a video of both problems.
https://youtu.be/yR5ylHH-x4w?t=53

This doing 9999 damage wasn't the initial problem I saw; I had a CTD two times with a message saying an unknown exception occurred. I forget what the first crash fight was with but the second was with Tri Face. I didn't get to do 9999 damage for no reason that time, it just crashed immediately.

And the weird visual glitches with what sounds like a Bomb has happened all three attempts to go down.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #41 on:** 2021-01-03 16:42:53 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2021-01-03 15:44:07

Well, given Bahamut shifts elemental weaknesses and absorbs what he isn't weak to, isn't it a bad idea to load up a physical attacker with Elemental Attack- J for that fight?

In the worst-case scenario--a Squall/Zell/Irvine party--you could give Irvine Thundaga, Zell Blizzaga, and Squall Firaga. This would allow Irvine to hit two elements, Zell three, and Squall one. Irvine can also use AP Ammo if you don't mind increasing the MF count, or even Pulse Ammo, and Zell's Aurabolt also ignores Vit (and if I make Bahamut susceptible to Sleep, that'd be a good way of landing it on him). Additionally, if you swapped Zell out for Quistis, she'd be able to hit all three if given Blizzaga, as well as use the defense-ignoring properties of Gatling Gun and Homing Laser. It's possible Squall would be better off using a non-elemental Darkside, though.

Quote

But I've run into my first super serious and consistent technical problem as I tried to go deeper into the research facility. Made a video of both problems.
https://youtu.be/yR5ylHH-x4w?t=53

This doing 9999 damage wasn't the initial problem I saw; I had a CTD two times with a message saying an unknown exception occurred.

I'm certain I checked that exact battle to make sure Grendel wouldn't do that... Here's a fix: https://mega.nz/file/gDoSyKwK#DT9zWuUOpcjdRWOU6Yswlv9CjBedNKVYI6Qz-hKh_uo

I'm unsure why your attacks are doing that much damage to Tri-face (I'm guessing you don't have Firaga on your Elem-Atk, which Tri-face takes 2.5x damage from) but it may be some strange consequence of the graphical glitch. If it persists, let me know.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #42 on:** 2021-01-03 23:12:18 »

Okay, that does seem to have fixed everything right up, thank you.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #43 on:** 2021-01-04 15:47:48 »

So Ultima Weapon is kicking my ass. I Scanned him once and it said Level 70.

My party is Level 57 Squall, Level 49 Rinoa and Level 46 Quistis. Should I grind or am I just bad?

i def need to go and buy more revive items. Damn Light Pillar.

EDIT:

lol Squall with the suicide Darkside to clinch the win for just Rinoa. I think UW mostly killed himself what with his spamming Light Pillar on Rinoa and Squall in this successful run as I had Return Damage on them both. But a win is a win and no level grinding or buying more items.

Also really lucked out when heading down to him to fight Iron Giants and get the final piece for Punishment. I've had Flame Saber far too long and the damage increase for Punishment helped out a lot here, basically did 5K damage per turn with Quake on his Attack Junction and with Darkside. Also Mugged 3 Energy Crystals from a Behemoth. So just need to find 1 more Adamantine and a Royal Crown for Lionheart. You don't have to tell me where, I wanna try and find it on my own.

Actually, now I think on it, maybe I beat a weaker UW? I was doing 4700 damage with Darkside before but did like 5200 this time.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #44 on:** 2021-01-05 00:58:00 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2021-01-04 15:47:48

So Ultima Weapon is kicking my ass. I Scanned him once and it said Level 70.

My party is Level 57 Squall, Level 49 Rinoa and Level 46 Quistis. Should I grind or am I just bad?

i def need to go and buy more revive items. Damn Light Pillar.

EDIT:

lol Squall with the suicide Darkside to clinch the win for just Rinoa. I think UW mostly killed himself what with his spamming Light Pillar on Rinoa and Squall in this successful run as I had Return Damage on them both. But a win is a win and no level grinding or buying more items.

Also really lucked out when heading down to him to fight Iron Giants and get the final piece for Punishment. I've had Flame Saber far too long and the damage increase for Punishment helped out a lot here, basically did 5K damage per turn with Quake on his Attack Junction and with Darkside. Also Mugged 3 Energy Crystals from a Behemoth. So just need to find 1 more Adamantine and a Royal Crown for Lionheart. You don't have to tell me where, I wanna try and find it on my own.

Actually, now I think on it, maybe I beat a weaker UW? I was doing 4700 damage with Darkside before but did like 5200 this time.

Before 1.1 there were certain bosses that used standard level scaling + X; I removed it from most of them but it seems I forgot to do it for UW, despite it being one of the enemies that prompted the change...

It was still possible to beat it even when its level scaling was at the higher end, but if you didn't get an AoE Protect/Shell up ASAP, it tended to steamroll you. (I do kind of like how aggressive it is, though.) That aside, UW's behavior is actually the same as its vanilla counterpart. UW is a well-designed enemy--more difficult than vanilla Omega Weapon, really--but it's hard to appreciate that when you can kill it in a single Limit Break.

Sometimes I think I should revert the Return Damage buff or at least find something to replace it in Squall or Rinoa's learn list.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #45 on:** 2021-01-05 01:43:47 »

Oh yeah, I've always loved the UW fight except for how easy it is to kill him. Way cooler boss than Omega.

But how do you do AOE protection in this game apart from hoping for Invincible Moon? If Quistis still learns Mighty Guard, I haven't found it yet. But Quistis gets all the AOE in this game which is one reason I use her. Her White Wind was essential for winning here for, without Double or Triple, she's the only person who can really heal the entire party. Rinoa's Pray does not do anywhere near enough healing. So between MG and WW, Quistis is pretty much the best party member by far.

And yeah, did Return Damage always do 1/2? Maybe some mods I played changed it to 1/4. 1/2 is pretty broken, especially on two characters.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #46 on:** 2021-01-05 01:54:55 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2021-01-05 01:43:47

Oh yeah, I've always loved the UW fight except for how easy it is to kill him. Way cooler boss than Omega.

But how do you do AOE protection in this game apart from hoping for Invincible Moon? If Quistis still learns Mighty Guard, I haven't found it yet. But Quistis gets all the AOE in this game which is one reason I use her. Her White Wind was essential for winning here for, without Double or Triple, she's the only person who can really heal the entire party. Rinoa's Pray does not do anywhere near enough healing. So between MG and WW, Quistis is pretty much the best party member by far.

And yeah, did Return Damage always do 1/2? Maybe some mods I played changed it to 1/4. 1/2 is pretty broken, especially on two characters.

Aside from Mighty Guard, you can get Wall from Slot and Carbuncle gives Protect and Shell instead of Reflect. Irvine can also learn Med Data to increase the power of Mega-Potions. In the future I'm gonna add a way to get a small number of Wall spells intended for Rinoa's use. I once had Pray's base power set a little higher, but I found that for much of the game it was strong enough that you could ignore the Cure series much of the time and I find that even now it's often sufficient to patch up the party quickly. I've considered replacing Angelo Cannon with a healing ability, but I don't want to get rid of something as memorable as Angelo Cannon, lol. Oh, and you can also inflict Curse on many enemies, which in this mod will reduce their Str and Mag by 20%. The most reliable source of Curse is the Nightsword command, but you can also get it from Quistis' LV?Curse and Selphie's Tonberry summon.

It's 1/4 in vanilla. I think 1/4 isn't worth an ability slot, but 1/2 may be too much... If I go the removal route, I'll remove it from Squall. Originally, only Rinoa learned it naturally.

Nikkolas · « **Reply #47 on:** 2021-01-06 10:00:55 »

So things are going well in Ulty's Castle, I randomly encountered a Behemoth and it dropped a Barrier so I'm very happy about that

But I'm trying to figure out what to do with the switching parties and getting to new locations. I switched to my secondary team of Zell, Irvine and Selphie and tried to have them run through that sort of outside area with the save point that you get to by passing through the Art Gallery and that next room with the stairs and switch point, that leads to the two bosses if you keep going straight? I've had the game crash on me twice now as soon as the fight with the Torama and the two flying enemies starts.

Leythalknight · « **Reply #48 on:** 2021-01-06 13:05:32 »

Quote from: Nikkolas on 2021-01-06 10:00:55

So things are going well in Ulty's Castle, I randomly encountered a Behemoth and it dropped a Barrier so I'm very happy about that

But I'm trying to figure out what to do with the switching parties and getting to new locations. I switched to my secondary team of Zell, Irvine and Selphie and tried to have them run through that sort of outside area with the save point that you get to by passing through the Art Gallery and that next room with the stairs and switch point, that leads to the two bosses if you keep going straight? I've had the game crash on me twice now as soon as the fight with the Torama and the two flying enemies starts.

This will fix it: https://mega.nz/file/1bxAGZaC#5rzfrUxVcuA5EFQii7WdjgayK-LsXll8aClSSn0zP64

While I'm at it, here's something I'll be releasing in the next update:

Spoiler: show

Nikkolas · « **Reply #49 on:** 2021-01-06 21:54:59 »

Thank you, that sorted it all out.

The only sealing boss I have left is Tiamat. He killed me and I haven't gone back to him yet but I noticed something wonky about him. He kept trying to cast stuff and nothing would happen. I saw the abilities' names at the top of the screen and nothing happened until finally he did Dark Flare and annihilated me. Not sure if this is a weird bug so I won't fight him yet until I hear back from you.

Also I defeated Red Giant through Return Damage and Quistis Spirit and Vitality ignoring Limits. I feel like this isn't actually the intended strategy to defeat him but it's all I could come up with.