[FF7PC/PSX] Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (Midgar Demo)

[Bosola]

Yes. I think that blue materia are some of the most interesting the game has to offer - that they reward careful thinking and complex planning with real yet reasonably balanced power. Unfortunately, by the time they're abundant, the player has other, far simpler means of dealing as much (or more) damage. As such, I'll be offering many of these blue materia - added effect, elemental, MP turbo, various counter and others - early on in the game.

[Timber]

So what is the first noticeable change in the game? Just to confirm that the ppf patch is working.

[Bosola]

'Ex-SOLDIER' will be renamed "Mercenary", and you will start with three smoke bombs.

[Bosola]

NEWS: I've released a Midgar demo! Along with the new mechanics, spells and materia, it showcases the new enemy encounters and AI for the Midgar chapter. Download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?rpja1qrb7iy7soo

You've all waited a long time, and you've given a lot of support, so it'd be amiss not to give something in return. So here you have it - the long awaited Midgar Demo patch.

This download includes the patch, a patching program, and full instructions. Use PPF-o-matic with the included PPF patch on an PS1 NTSC version ISO, and you're ready to play - whether that's on an emulator or on a 'chipped' playstation (modded to play backups).

This demo showcase the Midgar portion of Rebirth. You can still play after the Midgar chapter, but you'll be facing mostly vanilla monsters, and there might be bugs. Still, it's a fair taster of what the finished product will offer, and it's a great opportunity for me to sound out some ideas before I commit to them.

And that's where I become a little selfish again: I need feedback. Because I know the mod inside out, it's hard for me to know what is and isn't obvious to new players. And there's only so much debugging I can do - I need to crowdsource some more. That's why I'd really appreciate it if you could spare a moment to tell me your thoughts, what you did and didn't like, what you'd like to see more of etc. etc.

In the meanwhile, though, have a happy new year! And get playing!

[Bosola]

Bugfix: The demo had a bug. If Cloud had less than 50% HP in the reactor 'T junction' section, battles there would crash. This has been fixed - just redownload from the original download URL.

The cause was an attack the MPs use when Cloud has low health. I'd assigned an animation, but an invalid one (specifically, FF). The crash resembled a standard type 32 data error. Hey, at least it's something for me to add to my battle error thread.

[Armorvil]

I didn't experience this one, but I just experienced another : in the first battle against the Corneo Lackeys, I got a "Data error : Scene 384 / Code 32", preventing me from advancing.

Some more feedback :

- there is a battle freeze against the Sergeants you encounter, if you go down instead of up, after jumping off the train (you know; the ones that ring the alarm and force you to turn back). There is no error message - it looks like the enemies try to perform an action (they do their dodging animation), but the battle flow doesn't resume. Which means that neither ally nor foe can act afterwards, effectively freezing the battle.

- there is also a Wobbly Rocket enemy that has its Y coordinate off (it is flying) in the small area with two ladders, after going down in front of the security sensors (not the area where you find the Ether - the one just after. Lower sector 4 Plate, I think it's called).

- there is a typo in the circular area, after jumping off the train, in the battle against the enemies that put you to sleep : "Cure sleep with a physical atatck".

- Oh yeah, and AirBuster was too easy... ...It just had time to use one big bomber before Cloud Braver'ed it for +1000 damage, and Barret Big Shot'ed it for +500, finishing it. I admit that AirBuster is a pain to balance, though.

Other than that, it's cool. I was afraid when Wobbly Rockets kept killing Tifa in one hit and I was low on Phoenix Downs, but other than that, I'd say the mod is quite easy so far. Your changes are subtle... ...maybe too subtle ? Sure I only got to the Corneo mansion, but I feel the experience doesn't differ much from the original so far (Guard Scorpion was almost the same, etc) - but maybe I'm too used to my own mod that tries to turn the game into a completely new game.

EDIT:

Oh yeah, almost forgot that once the materia menu was available, I was surprised to own this mysterious materia :

http://img23.imageshack.us/i/screenshot1gya.jpg
http://img254.imageshack.us/i/screenshot2h.jpg

It's the same materia in the two screenshots ; it's just that the menu "copies" the data of the materia just above it. So, if you change your materia order, its AP / abilities become the ones of the previous materia.

[Bosola]

I didn't experience this one, but I just experienced another : in the first battle against the Corneo Lackeys, I got a "Data error : Scene 384 / Code 32", preventing me from advancing.

Found this almost immediately: the lackey has a counter script that uses an 'unauthorized' attack. PC didn't detect it when I checked attack, possibly because the script is oddly-written (and not to criticize PC - making a prog that can recognize any inappropriate attack calls is a real feat).

I think this is fixed now...

Some more feedback :

- there is a battle freeze against the Sergeants you encounter, if you go down instead of up, after jumping off the train (you know; the ones that ring the alarm and force you to turn back). There is no error message - it looks like the enemies try to perform an action (they do their dodging animation), but the battle flow doesn't resume. Which means that neither ally nor foe can act afterwards, effectively freezing the battle.

Ah, I'd forgotten about these guys. I've updated their animation data, but I'll have to redo these monsters at some point.

- there is also a Wobbly Rocket enemy that has its Y coordinate off (it is flying) in the small area with two ladders, after going down in front of the security sensors (not the area where you find the Ether - the one just after. Lower sector 4 Plate, I think it's called).

Thanks for the heads up. I think I know which scene you mean.

- there is a typo in the circular area, after jumping off the train, in the battle against the enemies that put you to sleep : "Cure sleep with a physical atatck".

Remember, Bosola, you're an English graduates!

- Oh yeah, and AirBuster was too easy... ...It just had time to use one big bomber before Cloud Braver'ed it for +1000 damage, and Barret Big Shot'ed it for +500, finishing it. I admit that AirBuster is a pain to balance, though.

Apparently, there's some code that makes him take x5 damage to back attacks. I'm not sure where it is - possibly the general battle AI (which PC can't yet edit).

Other than that, it's cool. I was afraid when Wobbly Rockets kept killing Tifa in one hit and I was low on Phoenix Downs,

Maybe I should up their Atk% and reduce their power a little...

but other than that, I'd say the mod is quite easy so far.

Noted. An older build was harder, but I worried about how people would find it. Maybe I overcompensated, though. Would you like to see more damage throughput (with more opportunities to steal potions, for fairness?)

Your changes are subtle... ...maybe too subtle ? Sure I only got to the Corneo mansion, but I feel the experience doesn't differ much from the original so far (Guard Scorpion was almost the same, etc) - but maybe I'm too used to my own mod that tries to turn the game into a completely new game.

Well, I suppose a lot of the differences - in things like elemental and status affinities - don't become clear until status and magic materia become more abundant, or limits are unlocked. Maybe I could bundle more materia with Tifa and Aeris? That way, you can play with a few more elements and statuses, even in Midgar.

EDIT:

Oh yeah, almost forgot that once the materia menu was available, I was surprised to own this mysterious materia :

http://img23.imageshack.us/i/screenshot1gya.jpg
http://img254.imageshack.us/i/screenshot2h.jpg

It's the same materia in the two screenshots ; it's just that the menu "copies" the data of the materia just above it. So, if you change your materia order, its AP / abilities become the ones of the previous materia.

Interesting. I'll look into this...

[Bosola]

I've posted a bugfix. If you have an old version of the patch, redownload and apply to either a fresh or already-patched ISO.

Many thanks to Armorvil, who spotted them.

[rmcin329]

Do any enemies actually drop potions in the reactor, or do they all have to be stolen? Haven't been at that point in the game for so long that i don't really remember.

[Bosola]

They all have to be stolen at present. Steal's really quite valuable in Midgar, because items are scarce.

Also, was it clear to you how 'leaders' improve the abilities of their peers? Watching Garland play the vid, I couldn't help but feel I needed to elaborate more on it. My message about 'L tags' is a bit unclear, and I don't explicitly refer to how leaders help others in-game.

[rmcin329]

uh sorry, i should have mentioned i haven't actually grabbed the download and tried it yet.  That last post was made mostly out of curiousity is all.  I don't usually play mods until at least a disc of them is complete, though in the case of this mod i'm actually thinking about making an exception and trying it before the first disc is done anyway.

[Timber]

Thanks Bosola

I just played a bit of the bombing mission, thinking from the perspective of a new player, here are some notes so far:

The (L) Tag comment in the first battle is confusing, because you can't actually see the enemy names unless you know to push Select for the help text, and a new player doesn't know to do that.
And when you get that up, you see that they both have an (L), so they are both leaders with no minions, further confusion.
What does being a leader mean? No idea at this stage.
So perhaps have "Press Select to view enemy names and help text" or similar as the first message instead, and leave the Leader explanations for a later date.
Also "Night Shift (L) B" looks a bit strange, would look better as "(L) Night Shift B" imo.
Does it have to be a tag, why not just (Leader)?

"Some enemies heal others, like the Engineer" seems a bit unnecessary, as it will become obvious anyway.
Seeing what the enemy does, and adapting, is the fun part
Also this message comes up in a battle with just 2 engineers without the robot, and there is no healing, extra pointless.

I certainly like your idea of having these helper hints in battle though.
For example, the scorpion battle would be the perfect place to explain how to access the Defend option, which is pretty hidden away.
Since Defend would be perfect to use after the 'Search Scope' scorpion move.

After the scorpion battle, I was left without any Potions or Phoenix Downs, and too weak to obtain more.
A bit harsh for the intro section, having to restart the game. And I even got the 2 free potions from the guards at the start, which some players may have missed.
I did try to steal twice on the way down, but only got an 'Almost...' and a 'Grenade'.
Didn't realise I had to steal to survive.

Thanks for listening, I look forward to playing more of this when I have time

[Bosola]

Thanks Bosola

I just played a bit of the bombing mission, thinking from the perspective of a new player, here are some notes so far:

The (L) Tag comment in the first battle is confusing, because you can't actually see the enemy names unless you know to push Select for the help text, and a new player doesn't know to do that.
And when you get that up, you see that they both have an (L), so they are both leaders with no minions, further confusion.
What does being a leader mean? No idea at this stage.
So perhaps have "Press Select to view enemy names and help text" or similar as the first message instead, and leave the Leader explanations for a later date.
Also "Night Shift (L) B" looks a bit strange, would look better as "(L) Night Shift B" imo.
Does it have to be a tag, why not just (Leader)?

These were all things I realized the moment I saw Garland playing the game. Seeing as I'm angling to become a technical writer, it's actually quite embarrassing. What's an (L) tag? Where do I find it? And what's so special about 'leaders'? I had included it in the manual, but I've a feeling most people won't read it.

"Some enemies heal others, like the Engineer" seems a bit unnecessary, as it will become obvious anyway.
Seeing what the enemy does, and adapting, is the fun part
Also this message comes up in a battle with just 2 engineers without the robot, and there is no healing, extra pointless.

I should fix this.

Didn't realise I had to steal to survive.

I guess the question is: how do I make these enemies a threat, but still give players a chance to respond?

Perhaps the answer is to use battle intros that promote using Steal...

Thanks for listening, I look forward to playing more of this when I have time

And thanks for the comments. These are a big deal to me, and they're all things I'll be addressing.

[Skiffington]

Hey Bosola.

I've gotten to the part where you recruit Red XIII. There's a problem with the Revive materia. It won't show up in any magic lists and cannot be used in battle.

Also, I received an error message in the battle with the specimen. It didn't happen until late in the battle and I'm not sure what action caused it.

Hopes this helps. And sorry I couldn't be more specific with the Specimen battle.

[Bosola]

Revive doesn't provide the 'Life' spell until it reaches Level 2. It's a bit like the Ultima materia.

Then again, maybe I should change this...

I'll look into the H0512 battle. Was it some kind of data error?

[Skiffington]

Ah, didn't see that. Ok.

Yes, it was (and I'm not too sure here) a data error in the five hundreds, then a 32. Sorry. It happened to me this morning and I exited out too quickly to properly remember it.

Oh, and I'd like to say that the error didn't occur during H0152 "screaming in agony" (nice touch by the way), It went through that action several times with no error. I had Cloud and Tifa as the other party members with no change in materia/weapon set-up than before the fight. I can only guess it was something done by H0152 or it's offspring.

An additional note; in some of the battles with the armored soldiers, when I got into a pincer(when you have to avoid the guards) a back attack by one of them would do enough damage to bring Barret down to less than 100hp. Not sure if that was intentional or not(so it made sure you avoided them), but it was kind of irritating having to restart all the way from outside the building.

[khoaskiiz]

Yayyy farmed 99 potions in like 1 hour after you finished the event of reactor no.1 and you're about to leave to destroy another reactor go to the right more and farm off the "sahagin". Also a great way to get limit breaks 1-2 and a few levels go back to the room above the hall of the beginners to rest, doesn't cost much . Just a tip to help those at the start who lost all their potions like me for example, goddamn buffed up hounds killed me like 3 times :O

[tylerkschrute]

I have ff7 in the form of bin and cue, what's the easiest way to convert these into an ISO? I have literally been googling for like and hour and tried a number of different things but nothing has worked.

Ripping it from my game disc directly is an absolute no go, it's so old and scratched there's no way I could get a quality ISO out of that. As a result I have to use a downloaded copy of the game and the only ones I can find are in the bin and cue format.

[Jenova's Witness]

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[Vgr]

Hi! Great Mod, and since I want my save as complete as possible, I steal everything is possible. And then, after Church's event, I save and went to Aerith's house. In the meantime, I ran into a random encounter (1 Whole Eater & 2 Heigdebod Pie (Dunno if it's like that you call them)) and stole from the Whole Eater a Tranquilizer, but then I got a Data Error : Scene 377 Code 32 once it was stolen. I couldn't do anything but restart. Hope that help.

EDIT : Oh yeah, I use the "Complete Menu" cheat code which xLostWingx gave us. I didn't even use Uso sub-menu and I use save-states. I dont remember of any others things that I could have. Want my inventory BTW?

[Skiffington]

When you get those errors you don't have to reset the game. If you press R1+L1+select it exits out of the battle and acts like it never happened.

[Vgr]

Ah, yeah, forgot. Didn't even try ^^ I'll extract scene.bin and see what is wrong with Proud Clod

[Bosola]

Guess? The Hedgehog pie shouldn't exist in that set of encounters, so he doesn't have animations defined.

I'll have to address the other comments a little later.

[khoaskiiz]

This is just a suggestion from my observation and experience of the original game. You know the junon alarm? where they spawn disc two monsters on disc one and some players manage to over level at that area. You should give them a surprise and that level grinding takes the fun out of the game!

[Jewbakka]

My feedback.

First of all, I heard about this today as I just happen to go explore Garland's new videos. Really interested in this and I can't wait until beta. Got to the end of Midgar just now.

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First complaint is with Tifa's survivability and/or the power of Wobbly Rockets. The rockets kill Tifa in 2 rockets which is insane considering the packs they come in. I'd recommend either buffing Tifa's lower levels or nerfing the Wobbly's power. Probably the latter since Tifa was fine throughout the rest of what I played. Maybe just a small damage decrease so she dies in three, instead of two.

Later in that area you go into a duct where Jesse tells you why the alarm went off so early. In that area, for some reason, the Wobbly Rockets would never make an action. I believe the area was called "4th Street Plate Int."

I got this error when I went into a battle in the area directly after where Aerith and Cloud jump off after being chased by the Turks. Can't remember what the area was called or what exactly I did. (Irrelevant but Aerith with only steal is because I was getting several ethers from Hedgehogs.. By the way.. noticed you lowered the sell price of them..)

From there everything was fine and had little trouble with anything (Great idea with the Shuagins, by the way.)...Double sided battles with Might Grunts are incredibly hard to survive as their attacks can kill someone in one hit if they're hit from the back. Not really a problem since the only place I can remember these sorts of battles was on that floor where you have to sneak past the guards.

Finally, Sample: H0512. Got this error very often. I reloaded too many times to count since I really wanted to defeat this guy without getting an error and using L1+R1+SELECT. What I noticed is that the error happened at random points through the battle. Although they occurred often when Barret was the first person to make an action and when it used that poison attack for a second time on the same person.

This is how I was finally able to do it. (Aka super lucky) First off, I completely forgot to equip the Star Pendant and I didn't buy a Mythril Armlet.. so no poison protection.. Not to mention I had no Antidotes..

The materia doesn't really matter except I had Cure and Bolt on Cloud and Water=All and Cover on Barret. By that I mean I have no idea exactly what I had equipped except I had Sense on someone.

When the battle started, Cloud was hit with the poison, and then hit again with it the next turn. Was about to reset but just decided to go with it. Had the two use a Phoenix Down and a Hi-Potion on Cloud getting him to full health. Nanaki attacked one of the adds while I had Barret use a Speed Potion on Cloud. When one of the adds die, it forces the boss to revive it instead of attacking so you can fight without him ever attacking other than the opening move. The adds have extremely low health. Cloud would cast Bolt every time his turn was up. Barret would cast Water. Nanaki would keep attacking the adds. (I had him use my only two damaging items. Bolt Plume (Stolen from Reno and casts Bolt2) and a grenade.) Everyone would use their Limits on the boss whenever they popped up.

Not the best method, but hey it worked and I was able to defeat him without an error.

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Amazing work. I REALLY can't wait to see what you have in store for us. I'm eagerly waiting for the beta and then the full release. Keep up the good work.