[FF8-PC Steam/Switch] FFVIII Crystal 1.5.6 / Remastered Version 1.1.6

For Seifer 3:
Rinoa Level 55
Squall Level 61
Quistis Level 52

As for sidequests, just Winhill, Deep Sea Lab, Diablos, Shumi Village and...I think that might be it? A

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Okay, thanks.

I went back to Dollet after I got my save but nothing changed. The giant spider was still dead. That was what I was supposed to fight, right?

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Are you sure the save you used is the one I edited, or one made from that save? I tested the file I sent you again and the soldier is standing there like he should be. If you open your save file in Hyne, this byte should be set to 7 instead of 87: https://abload.de/img/sdfwerwefbk03.png

Sorry for the trouble; can't believe I forgot to add the battle trigger in 1.1... 

I had no idea about the painter kid, though. My bad.

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No worries. Tool-RF reintroduces a little of FFVIII's non-linear progression, but the initial reason I added it was really to give the player more freedom to build the characters the way they wanted. For example, since you didn't use Zell much, you could've used Tool-RF to place all of the WHT/BLK RF abilities onto Ifrit in order to free up an ability slot for the other characters, or deleted BLK-RF 1 late in the game with the knowledge that you could get it back if you wanted it. (And also to give the sidequest a better reward, since that's something vanilla was pretty bad at when it came to small sidequests like that one.)

I got the 4 UFO triggers, I was in the wrong part of the area I knew I was supposed to be in. Oh well. I'll do it and the Sorceress Memorial stuff later today. Sorry I missed all this content.

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Good to hear because if there really was something wrong with the UFO triggers, I'd be at a loss as to what was wrong with them. Currently there's only one NPC who hints at the Sorceress Memorial and Fire Cavern sidequests and only a few who hint at the Esthar one... Might change that in a future update.

FFVIII Crystal 1.2 released.

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Content

A new sidequest has been added to Trabia Garden.

Characters/GFs:




Enemies:




Misc.:

Hello Leythalknight,

I've been playing your mod and I quite like it so far. The basic concept is great and the balance so far has been decent. I'm still on disc one so I can't offer comprehensive feedback but I am curious about some things.

First, was there any particular reason you choose Tonberry and Cactuar as GFs for Selphie and Irvine? The rest of the GFs fit the characters and their classes imo, but these two are a bit odd. Maybe it's just that they are mascots, but I can't help but think that Diablos would have been better for Selphie as a black mage and that Cerberus would fit Irvine better as he's all about speed and luck. You'd have to change GF attacks, but only a little. Cerberus could cast a party-wide haste instead of double and triple and Diablos could just have Tonberry's attack power. So Diablos would function exactly as Tonberry and Cerberus's haste would replace the gimmicky level-based damage of Cactuar and offer a second support-type GF.

Second, I've looked at the character stats using Doomtrain and I'm a bit concerned how the characters will work in the long term. I know there are abilities and weapons to consider, but are you sure everyone has the stats they are supposed to have?

Here are each character's stats at Level 100, according to Doomtrain:

Code:

 | STR | VIT | MAG | SPR | SPD | LUC | Total Points
Squall | 92 | 148 | 52 | 82 | 62 | 40 | 476
Zell | 152 | 105 | 115 | 94 | 77 | 50 | 593
Irvine | 93 | 90 | 130 | 90 | 84 | 77 | 564
Quistis | 120 | 123 | 125 | 112 | 68 | 49 | 597
Rinoa | 119 | 102 | 160 | 134 | 78 | 40 | 633
Selphie | 65 | 95 | 205 | 123 | 81 | 35 | 604

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To me, Squall's stats in particular seem really low. I added all them up and as you can see, his total is 100 points less than everyone else's, but more importantly, his magic is really low, less than half of Zell's. His spirit is also the lowest and his strength is also the second lowest. I don't know how much abilities play into this but regardless, this doesn't seem quite right, even Rinoa's attack outdamages Squall's while she's supposed to be a white mage.

I've first noticed this during the Dollet mission. While it felt well balanced overall, I couldn't help but notice that Squall simply couldn't keep up with Selphie or Zell in terms of damage, which would have been fine, but even as a healer he wasn't particularly good. His low magic makes it so that his basic cure spell can't even heal as much as a standard potion and in boss fights he spends most his turns mitigating damage. Not just that, but with the lowest spirit stat, he is still not very durable. While he can take a punch with his high vitality, magic wrecks him, which doesn't make him a particularly good tank either, which I assume is what he's supposed to be as a knight archetype. Maybe it's just me but I think he needs more strength, and either more magic or spirit, or even both. He's always in the party and he by far seems to be the worst character so far.

Am I missing something? Does he get better with GF abilities and weapon upgrades? His stats seem too low for those to make a difference.

Hello Leythalknight,
I've been playing your mod and I quite like it so far. The basic concept is great and the balance so far has been decent. I'm still on disc one so I can't offer comprehensive feedback but I am curious about some things.

First, was there any particular reason you choose Tonberry and Cactuar as GFs for Selphie and Irvine? The rest of the GFs fit the characters and their classes imo, but these two are a bit odd. Maybe it's just that they are mascots, but I can't help but think that Diablos would have been better for Selphie as a black mage and that Cerberus would fit Irvine better as he's all about speed and luck. You'd have to change GF attacks, but only a little. Cerberus could cast a party-wide haste instead of double and triple and Diablos could just have Tonberry's attack power. So Diablos would function exactly as Tonberry and Cerberus's haste would replace the gimmicky level-based damage of Cactuar and offer a second support-type GF.

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I gave Selphie Tonberry because both are cute but deadly. Irvine's GF was originally Doomtrain, but I switched it to Cactuar out of a mistaken belief that doing so would allow Jumbo Cactuar to function as it does in vanilla, but I actually never considered changing it after learning I was incorrect. I like the idea of giving him Cerberus, though; I just might roll with that in a future update. I'll sleep on giving Diabolos to Selphie. It'd make a nice Curse GF.

Irvine aside, my choices were as much about the character's image as their class, though there are exceptions. For Squall, I remembered that really expensive statue of him with Bahamut and Bahamut is just cool; Rinoa's GF was originally Leviathan as it's water-elemental and was the GF she had in the FFVIII demo, but I switched it to Carbuncle at some point in order to give her another support ability and make the GF command a little more worthwhile.

Second, I've looked at the character stats using Doomtrain and I'm a bit concerned how the characters will work in the long term. I know there are abilities and weapons to consider, but are you sure everyone has the stats they are supposed to have?

Here are each character's stats at Level 100, according to Doomtrain:
To me, Squall's stats in particular seem really low. I added all them up and as you can see, his total is 100 points less than everyone else's, but more importantly, his magic is really low, less than half of Zell's. His spirit is also the lowest and his strength is also the second lowest. I don't know how much abilities play into this but regardless, this doesn't seem quite right, even Rinoa's attack outdamages Squall's while she's supposed to be a white mage.

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I made Squall's base Str lower than you'd expect because of the gunblade trigger, but he is one of only two characters who can equip two Str+% abilities (the other being Zell) and also the only character who will learn Darkside naturally. You'll be able to learn Elem-Atk-J when Bahamut reaches level 20, but you can also learn it using Tool-RF before the end of Disc 1 with the right item. He's also the only character who can learn Defend, which still nullifies physical damage and halves magical damage, so I think giving him low Spr is fair. Defend also raises his Crisis Level a bit, an effect I intended to increase in 1.2 but forgot to do and will include in the next update instead. He's meant to be more physically defensive while Zell is the straightforward physical attacker, but Squall still punches above his weight in damage. Some weapons increase base attack power, though admittedly the increase is not that large with the exception of Irvine's Ulysses.

Also, keep in mind that damage and enemy health caps in this mod are overall much lower compared to vanilla.

I've first noticed this during the Dollet mission. While it felt well balanced overall, I couldn't help but notice that Squall simply couldn't keep up with Selphie or Zell in terms of damage, which would have been fine, but even as a healer he wasn't particularly good. His low magic makes it so that his basic cure spell can't even heal as much as a standard potion and in boss fights he spends most his turns mitigating damage. Not just that, but with the lowest spirit stat, he is still not very durable. While he can take a punch with his high vitality, magic wrecks him, which doesn't make him a particularly good tank either, which I assume is what he's supposed to be as a knight archetype. Maybe it's just me but I think he needs more strength, and either more magic or spirit, or even both. He's always in the party and he by far seems to be the worst character so far.

Am I missing something? Does he get better with GF abilities and weapon upgrades? His stats seem too low for those to make a difference.

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I think his Cures being a little worse than a Potion is fair since the former is easier to acquire and doesn't cost anything, but I see your point. I'll consider shifting his Mag and Vit growth to give him more points earlier without raising the cap so he feels a little better to use early on.

Gotcha, I'll keep using Squall and see how he compares as the game goes on. I guess once he starts learning some abilities, he'll have more utility.

As for the GFs, I'm glad you're considering Cerberus. I think your overall choices are pretty good, they fit the characters and lore and have a logic to them:

Squall - Bahamut:
Bahamut is the dragon king, so him bestowing Squall with "knightly" abilities makes sense. He's also one of the cooler summons, so it fits the main character. Plus in FF9 Bahamut has a big cutscene battle with Alexander, and you made Alexander Seifer's GF in Dollet, so I think that also fits in a meta-sense, the rivals having rival GFs.

Quistis - Shiva:
Shiva is a classic. She fits as well as any other GF for a blue mage. The only other one I could think of is Leviathan, because it makes more sense for Leviathan to have Devour than Shiva, as Leviathan devours ships in some FF games, but other than that Shiva is great and the other abilities (Aura, Move-Find, etc) fit her well.

Zell - Ifrit:
Big brute GF for the monk, and a classic summon, best choice.

Rinoa - Carbuncle:
I think you made a good call here, having a support GF is great and also the idea that Carbuncle bestows white mage abilities on Rinoa makes sense too as Carbuncle is always portrayed as a friendly summon that provides support. I think it's the only one that makes sense for Rinoa.

For Irvine, as I said I prefer Cerberus because it would be a second support GF and also because Cerberus in vanilla FF8 has SPD-J, Alert and Auto-Haste, which I think fit with Irvine's focus on speed and his role as a sniper. Plus he mainly uses support magic in your mod, so a support GF makes sense. Also Cerberus is an FF8-original so I think he deserves a bit of spotlight.

Selphie is a tough one because Tonberry, Diablos and Doomtrain would all work for her. Personally I prefer Diablos. She is a black mage so I think the idea of a devil-like GF giving her offensive magic makes sense to me, plus Diablos' summon involves him using all sorts of magic sigils and pure dark magic energy to attack. I think his summon attack is similar to what black mage Selphie can do, which fits more than knife-wielding Tonberry. Plus Diablos is also FF8-original so it would be appropriate, and the juxtaposition of cute girl Selphie having the devil as her partner is kinda funny too. Doomtrain would also work for her because she loves trains, but I think that's a bit shallow for a reason.

Anyways, it's up to you what you'd prefer but I figured I'd provide my opinion. I just think it's a bit of a waste for two characters to get the mascot summons with funny animations while others get more "serious", staple GFs. However I might be biased as I dislike Tonberry and Cactuar as summons because they also serve as regular enemies you can encounter instead of unique creatures, which makes them feel "lesser" than other GFs imo.

Gotcha, I'll keep using Squall and see how he compares as the game goes on. I guess once he starts learning some abilities, he'll have more utility.

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In addition to what I stated above, I'm considering swapping Darkside/Defend and Spr+20% in his learnset (so Darkside would appear at level 10 instead of 15), but we'll see. I worry both are a little too good to give that early in the game, especially Defend.

As for the GFs, I'm glad you're considering Cerberus. I think your overall choices are pretty good, they fit the characters and lore and have a logic to them:

Squall - Bahamut:
Bahamut is the dragon king, so him bestowing Squall with "knightly" abilities makes sense. He's also one of the cooler summons, so it fits the main character. Plus in FF9 Bahamut has a big cutscene battle with Alexander, and you made Alexander Seifer's GF in Dollet, so I think that also fits in a meta-sense, the rivals having rival GFs.

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I also saw the FFIX connection at some point, though I think my reasoning for giving Seifer Alexander was "A knight needs a castle." Also, I think it being a Holy-element summon provides an additional contrast between how he sees himself and what he actually becomes.

Quistis - Shiva:
Shiva is a classic. She fits as well as any other GF for a blue mage. The only other one I could think of is Leviathan, because it makes more sense for Leviathan to have Devour than Shiva, as Leviathan devours ships in some FF games, but other than that Shiva is great and the other abilities (Aura, Move-Find, etc) fit her well.

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Way back when this was only a self-imposed challenge, I gave Quistis Draw and Devour with the reasoning that a Blue Mage "takes things from enemies." I eventually decided to put Hungry Cookpots in Dollet's shop, so while I wouldn't call Devour a signature skill of hers I figured I might as well leave it in her learnset. The choice of Shiva was more of an image thing.

Rinoa - Carbuncle:
I think you made a good call here, having a support GF is great and also the idea that Carbuncle bestows white mage abilities on Rinoa makes sense too as Carbuncle is always portrayed as a friendly summon that provides support. I think it's the only one that makes sense for Rinoa.

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I had also considered Siren for her, again due to one of those expensive statues as well as the wings.

For Irvine, as I said I prefer Cerberus because it would be a second support GF and also because Cerberus in vanilla FF8 has SPD-J, Alert and Auto-Haste, which I think fit with Irvine's focus on speed and his role as a sniper. Plus he mainly uses support magic in your mod, so a support GF makes sense. Also Cerberus is an FF8-original so I think he deserves a bit of spotlight.

Selphie is a tough one because Tonberry, Diablos and Doomtrain would all work for her. Personally I prefer Diablos. She is a black mage so I think the idea of a devil-like GF giving her offensive magic makes sense to me, plus Diablos' summon involves him using all sorts of magic sigils and pure dark magic energy to attack. I think his summon attack is similar to what black mage Selphie can do, which fits more than knife-wielding Tonberry. Plus Diablos is also FF8-original so it would be appropriate, and the juxtaposition of cute girl Selphie having the devil as her partner is kinda funny too. Doomtrain would also work for her because she loves trains, but I think that's a bit shallow for a reason.

Anyways, it's up to you what you'd prefer but I figured I'd provide my opinion. I just think it's a bit of a waste for two characters to get the mascot summons with funny animations while others get more "serious", staple GFs. However I might be biased as I dislike Tonberry and Cactuar as summons because they also serve as regular enemies you can encounter instead of unique creatures, which makes them feel "lesser" than other GFs imo.

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After thinking about it more I decided I'd give Irvine Cerberus, maybe in 1.3. I'll continue to think over Selphie's, though I don't see her having a goofy summon as a bad thing. Between the two I'd probably choose Diabolos, for the reasons you stated as well as it being another favorite of mine. It was actually the first enemy whose AI I ever changed significantly which is why it needs a rework.

Honestly, I didn't think anyone would bring up my GF choices...  ;D Maybe I've just been working on this for so long that I only see them as gameplay functions.

Honestly, I didn't think anyone would bring up my GF choices...  ;D Maybe I've just been working on this for so long that I only see them as gameplay functions.

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Sorry about that I didn't mean to make a big deal out of them really, like I said your choices are overall good. However I really liked your concept for this mod and I was immediately impressed when I saw GF like Bahamut, Ifrit, Shiva, Alexander early in the game and how their abilities fit the characters, the GFs themselves, and even the classes they were meant to bestow upon each character. It's really creative how they all fit together so well, and thanks to that the pairings don't stick out or feel fan-made. It feels like this could have been an official class system. So really, it's not so much that Tonberry and Cactuar are bad fits or anything, it's just that the others feel so perfect to me, that those two stick out a bit. So yeah, once again, great job on the core concept of your mod, it's probably the first FF8 gameplay mod that I've really enjoyed and made me rethink my approach to the gameplay completely.

Out of curiousity, you mentioned that you couldn't get Edea to work without a GF if I understand correctly? If this bug is proving unsolveable, is there some way you could work around this perhaps? Maybe give her a unique GF like Seifer? Or rename one of the GFs to a blank name (if possible) or "Sorceress/Sorcery" and assigning that to Edea? That way she would have abilities and it would at least look like she doesn't have a GF in the menu.

Sorry about that I didn't mean to make a big deal out of them really, like I said your choices are overall good. However I really liked your concept for this mod and I was immediately impressed when I saw GF like Bahamut, Ifrit, Shiva, Alexander early in the game and how their abilities fit the characters, the GFs themselves, and even the classes they were meant to bestow upon each character. It's really creative how they all fit together so well, and thanks to that the pairings don't stick out or feel fan-made. It feels like this could have been an official class system. So really, it's not so much that Tonberry and Cactuar are bad fits or anything, it's just that the others feel so perfect to me, that those two stick out a bit. So yeah, once again, great job on the core concept of your mod, it's probably the first FF8 gameplay mod that I've really enjoyed and made me rethink my approach to the gameplay completely.

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Nah, nothing to apologize for, lol. It's helpful to see how others view things, and I think your idea to give Irvine Cerberus is a good one that I wouldn't have thought of on my own.  And thanks for the kind words  ;D

Out of curiousity, you mentioned that you couldn't get Edea to work without a GF if I understand correctly? If this bug is proving unsolveable, is there some way you could work around this perhaps? Maybe give her a unique GF like Seifer? Or rename one of the GFs to a blank name (if possible) or "Sorceress/Sorcery" and assigning that to Edea? That way she would have abilities and it would at least look like she doesn't have a GF in the menu.

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Well, I have both Seifer and Edea set to start out with a GF equipped without making it available to the player. This works basically fine in itself, as seen with Seifer; the problem is that whenever switching to and from Laguna's party, the game unequips everyone, including characters like Seifer and Edea. So by the time Edea joins the party, she doesn't have a GF anymore.

I actually have the values for forcing Edea to be equipped with Eden and/or some abilities in the mod's hext file, but they're disabled because the values of those addresses just get overwritten when the game begins to load, and again when you load a save file. I think the only solution is a dll file that could force those addresses to be set to those values, similar to this video I made a while back using Cheat Engine: https://streamable.com/metsc0 If I could lock Seifer and Edea's GFs in, I could also do the same for the main party to make the mod feel a little more "authentic," for lack of a better term. I've gotten a little more familiar with Cheat Engine and I know it has some kind of scripting template, so maybe it'd be possible now, but my technical skills are pretty low.

Well, I have both Seifer and Edea set to start out with a GF equipped without making it available to the player. This works basically fine in itself, as seen with Seifer; the problem is that whenever switching to and from Laguna's party, the game unequips everyone, including characters like Seifer and Edea. So by the time Edea joins the party, she doesn't have a GF anymore.

I actually have the values for forcing Edea to be equipped with Eden and/or some abilities in the mod's hext file, but they're disabled because the values of those addresses just get overwritten when the game begins to load, and again when you load a save file. I think the only solution is a dll file that could force those addresses to be set to those values, similar to this video I made a while back using Cheat Engine: https://streamable.com/metsc0 If I could lock Seifer and Edea's GFs in, I could also do the same for the main party to make the mod feel a little more "authentic," for lack of a better term. I've gotten a little more familiar with Cheat Engine and I know it has some kind of scripting template, so maybe it'd be possible now, but my technical skills are pretty low.

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Oh, I see. I figured it wouldn't be as simple as I thought since Seifer didn't have this issue. I'm not very good at the technical side (especially with FF8) but it sounds like you might be right. The only other solution I can think of is that you could try to edit the field scripts for these events. I know the "109 - Junction" Opcode is connected to the Laguna junction switches, but I'm not familiar enough with it to understand how it all connects. I'm also aware of the "128 - ResetGF" Opcode but from what I've seen that's kind of a mess.

For example, this is what happens right before the second Laguna dream:

   resetgf(4)
   resetgf(1)
   setparty(0, 5, 3)
   junction(1)

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The character digits are 0 for Squall, 1 for Zell, 3 for Quistis, 4 for Rinoa and 5 for Selphie. Irvine is 2 but not yet in the party, and Seifer, Edea, Laguna, Kiros and Ward are 6-10 for reference. So the game uses resetGF on Rinoa and Zell to remove their junctions I'd assume, then sets the party to Squall, Selphie and Quistis. Then it uses 1 for junction , which according to documentation is as follows:

When set to 0, ends all "dream world" related stuff (GF junction carryover, Squall->Laguna, party lock, etc).
When set to 1, only Squall's junctions gets carried over.
When set to 3, the whole party gets carried over.

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This matches up, as the second Laguna dream has those three characters, but only Squall's junctions are carried over. As you can see though, no mention of removing anything from Seifer and Edea, in fact, I only found one ResetGF opcode with Edea's ID of 7 and that is actually before the final dream sequence. What is also weird is that ResetGF does not seem to be always used for the Laguna dreams. It's possible that ResetGF is a leftover and Square built in the junction removal differently in the end. Maybe the Junction Opcode itself automatically removes GFs from everyone, in which case the only way to keep Edea's junctions would be to remove the opcodes somehow and disable the Laguna junction transfer, I guess? I found an old thread of someone attempting something similar and managing to make manual junction exchange possible between Laguna and present party members, but it didn't go far: https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/11206/

In the end it might be better to use a dll to modify memory addresses like you suggest. Looking at all this though, I have a feeling that maybe if the Junction Opcode for the Dream World switch was removed and Laguna and co were added to the party as regular members, then removed at each dream's end, maybe Edea's junctions wouldn't get removed. Maybe I'm completely wrong but it seems to me like that particular opcode is directly tied to the removal of GFs... I honestly don't know if this method would be easier or harder, I've never tried modifying FF8's scripts before.

Or you could just have Edea share Carbuncle with Rinoa since they are never in the same party together, but it would be a shame for Edea not to have her own abilities.

Oh, I see. I figured it wouldn't be as simple as I thought since Seifer didn't have this issue. I'm not very good at the technical side (especially with FF8) but it sounds like you might be right. The only other solution I can think of is that you could try to edit the field scripts for these events. I know the "109 - Junction" Opcode is connected to the Laguna junction switches, but I'm not familiar enough with it to understand how it all connects. I'm also aware of the "128 - ResetGF" Opcode but from what I've seen that's kind of a mess.

For example, this is what happens right before the second Laguna dream:

The character digits are 0 for Squall, 1 for Zell, 3 for Quistis, 4 for Rinoa and 5 for Selphie. Irvine is 2 but not yet in the party, and Seifer, Edea, Laguna, Kiros and Ward are 6-10 for reference. So the game uses resetGF on Rinoa and Zell to remove their junctions I'd assume, then sets the party to Squall, Selphie and Quistis. Then it uses 1 for junction , which according to documentation is as follows:

This matches up, as the second Laguna dream has those three characters, but only Squall's junctions are carried over. As you can see though, no mention of removing anything from Seifer and Edea, in fact, I only found one ResetGF opcode with Edea's ID of 7 and that is actually before the final dream sequence. What is also weird is that ResetGF does not seem to be always used for the Laguna dreams. It's possible that ResetGF is a leftover and Square built in the junction removal differently in the end. Maybe the Junction Opcode itself automatically removes GFs from everyone, in which case the only way to keep Edea's junctions would be to remove the opcodes somehow and disable the Laguna junction transfer, I guess? I found an old thread of someone attempting something similar and managing to make manual junction exchange possible between Laguna and present party members, but it didn't go far: https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/11206/

In the end it might be better to use a dll to modify memory addresses like you suggest. Looking at all this though, I have a feeling that maybe if the Junction Opcode for the Dream World switch was removed and Laguna and co were added to the party as regular members, then removed at each dream's end, maybe Edea's junctions wouldn't get removed. Maybe I'm completely wrong but it seems to me like that particular opcode is directly tied to the removal of GFs... I honestly don't know if this method would be easier or harder, I've never tried modifying FF8's scripts before.

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Not that it matters much, but the documentation is incorrect in that a value of 1 carries over the Junctions of everyone in the current party. That's probably why the game moves Selphie and Quistis into the party before switching to Laguna's group.

iirc RESETGF also gets used for things like removing the Junctions of the Missile Base party before switching over to Squall's group.

I just opened Cheat Engine, loaded a save right before the first Laguna dream and watched the address for Edea's equipped GF get changed to 00, so it's definitely the JUNCTION opcode unequipping her. If I were to remove it, it would also prevent the main party's spells from carrying over to Laguna's group and may even interfere with the transfer of exp between Squall's group and Laguna's. Maybe I could get around the magic issue by doing something similar to the person in that thread you linked and adding the other characters to the inactive party while also making them unavailable to switch in, though that seems...kinda clunky and unintuitive. I once considered removing JUNCTION and giving Laguna's crew their own GFs, but decided against it. The only other thing I can think of is altering the JUNCTION opcode itself, but that may be beyond my skill level, lol.

Or you could just have Edea share Carbuncle with Rinoa since they are never in the same party together, but it would be a shame for Edea not to have her own abilities.

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I considered this too, but I want to have as few "rules" as possible.

Yeah, I definitely agree with the Junction Opcode being the culprit, no idea what could be done with it either.

The only other idea I have would be to obtain Eden normally when Edea joins, like with regular characters. Then when she leaves the party, you'd need to add a script to remove Eden from the available GFs as well. Unfortunately I don't know if this is possible with just the field scripts, but it would be the cleanest solution. I don't have much hope for it working to be honest.

Something worth noting is that the Hyne save editor is capable of disabling GFs you have. You can open up a save, uncheck the "Available" box for a GF you want to remove, and the GF will disappear from the menu (although it will stay junctioned to a character if they have it on, so to remove it fully, you need to unjunction them first). That gives some hope that there should be a memory address to turn Eden off from the available GFs when it's time, however the problem would be to implement this in a way where it happens only when Edea leaves. I don't know if hext would be capable of injecting a change to the memory address at a specific point in the game. You'd probably still need a dll or Cheat Engine. :\

Plus this would all come with a compromise: Edea's GF showing up in the menu while Seifer's doesn't would be inconsistent. :\

Yeah, I definitely agree with the Junction Opcode being the culprit, no idea what could be done with it either.

The only other idea I have would be to obtain Eden normally when Edea joins, like with regular characters. Then when she leaves the party, you'd need to add a script to remove Eden from the available GFs as well. Unfortunately I don't know if this is possible with just the field scripts, but it would be the cleanest solution. I don't have much hope for it working to be honest.

Something worth noting is that the Hyne save editor is capable of disabling GFs you have. You can open up a save, uncheck the "Available" box for a GF you want to remove, and the GF will disappear from the menu (although it will stay junctioned to a character if they have it on, so to remove it fully, you need to unjunction them first). That gives some hope that there should be a memory address to turn Eden off from the available GFs when it's time, however the problem would be to implement this in a way where it happens only when Edea leaves. I don't know if hext would be capable of injecting a change to the memory address at a specific point in the game. You'd probably still need a dll or Cheat Engine. :\

Plus this would all come with a compromise: Edea's GF showing up in the menu while Seifer's doesn't would be inconsistent. :\

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So I may have made some progress on this.

I tried using CE to see what addresses wrote to Edea's GF value, but it didn't pick up anything...until I upgraded to a more recent version of the program, which picked up something; I used the "Replace with code that does nothing" option on it and everything seems to be as I want it--Edea's GF value didn't change, the party still switches, they still get Squall's group's GFs and magic. It'll require testing to make sure that it doesn't break anything, but maybe I'll be able to reintroduce Edea in 1.3. Thanks for getting me to look into this again.  ;D

(I feel a little dumb now, though. Like "Wow, it was that easy all this time?" lol.)

So I may have made some progress on this.

I tried using CE to see what addresses wrote to Edea's GF value, but it didn't pick up anything...until I upgraded to a more recent version of the program, which picked up something; I used the "Replace with code that does nothing" option on it and everything seems to be as I want it--Edea's GF value didn't change, the party still switches, they still get Squall's group's GFs and magic. It'll require testing to make sure that it doesn't break anything, but maybe I'll be able to reintroduce Edea in 1.3. Thanks for getting me to look into this again.  ;D

(I feel a little dumb now, though. Like "Wow, it was that easy all this time?" lol.)

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Nice work! I hope the testing turns up nothing. From the sound of it it shouldn't break anything, but you never know. If it all works out, I'll be looking forward to 1.3 with great anticipation. Glad I could help a little bit!

And don't feel dumb about it! From what tech experience I have, I can attest that this happens. Sometimes you'll find a simple solution that will have you facepalming and wondering how you didn't think of it before.

Nice work! I hope the testing turns up nothing. From the sound of it it shouldn't break anything, but you never know. If it all works out, I'll be looking forward to 1.3 with great anticipation. Glad I could help a little bit!

And don't feel dumb about it! From what tech experience I have, I can attest that this happens. Sometimes you'll find a simple solution that will have you facepalming and wondering how you didn't think of it before.

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I've tested out the fix on the transitions to the first two Laguna dreams and everything seems to be in order. I need to test it out more thoroughly, though. If you'd like to try it out in your playthrough, you can use Hyne to equip Edea with Eden and swap these files in: https://mega.nz/file/wfQmHJrB#zjJ5wIwgFrafwrFT_FcKY5jmeclOwHvk2yBVXb0jRmI I went ahead and gave Edea some stat buffs since she felt too weak in some respects, and it also includes various other stat changes as well, including faster Vit growth for Squall--just keep in mind that I haven't tested them out yet beyond using Doomtrain's damage calculation tools.

EDIT: Scratch that. I completely forgot that the field files will have to be changed for Edea too. If you want to try it out, let me know and I'll send a new field archive.

At least I know now, lol.

I'm not sure when 1.3 will release; From before 1.1 up to 1.2's release I spent several weeks working on the mod a ton and decided to take a short break from doing any "heavy" work afterward. I'm also trying to make one new content addition in each major update and I haven't yet decided which of my planned sidequests I'll work on.

I've tested out the fix on the transitions to the first two Laguna dreams and everything seems to be in order. I need to test it out more thoroughly, though. If you'd like to try it out in your playthrough, you can use Hyne to equip Edea with Eden and swap these files in: https://mega.nz/file/wfQmHJrB#zjJ5wIwgFrafwrFT_FcKY5jmeclOwHvk2yBVXb0jRmI I went ahead and gave Edea some stat buffs since she felt too weak in some respects, and it also includes various other stat changes as well, including faster Vit growth for Squall--just keep in mind that I haven't tested them out yet beyond using Doomtrain's damage calculation tools.

EDIT: Scratch that. I completely forgot that the field files will have to be changed for Edea too. If you want to try it out, let me know and I'll send a new field archive.

At least I know now, lol.

I'm not sure when 1.3 will release; From before 1.1 up to 1.2's release I spent several weeks working on the mod a ton and decided to take a short break from doing any "heavy" work afterward. I'm also trying to make one new content addition in each major update and I haven't yet decided which of my planned sidequests I'll work on.

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Sure, feel free to send them over or post them. Is Hyne necessary if I restart the game? I figure I might as well restart in full as I'm not too far into the game yet, and then I'll be testing from the start to the end. Although it will probably take a couple weekends to get to the last Laguna dream, I'll be able to give feedback.

If you don't want to do 1.3 just yet, you could release what you have with the Edea fix as a 1.2.1 once you are satisfied with the testing results. It's not a big content update but restoring Edea to a full character is a big enough change I think.

It's good to see that the first two Laguna dreams are working fine now, hopefully the remaining three will also be good! It's definitely a good sign.

Sure, feel free to send them over or post them. Is Hyne necessary if I restart the game? I figure I might as well restart in full as I'm not too far into the game yet, and then I'll be testing from the start to the end. Although it will probably take a couple weekends to get to the last Laguna dream, I'll be able to give feedback.

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Here you go: https://mega.nz/file/we4zmAaJ#kZdxxEymG0EiEEzA91i3h1xdp_FAe3zKc6R9psnmDF8

You won't need to edit anything if you start a new save file. Since you're starting a new file, I also went ahead and switched Irvine's GF to Cerberus and buffed Defend's Crisis Level boost. Let me know if you have any problems.

EDIT: You probably know already, but don't forget to put the .txt file into the Hext folder.

If you don't want to do 1.3 just yet, you could release what you have with the Edea fix as a 1.2.1 once you are satisfied with the testing results. It's not a big content update but restoring Edea to a full character is a big enough change I think.

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I just might, especially now that I switched Irvine's GF.

It's good to see that the first two Laguna dreams are working fine now, hopefully the remaining three will also be good! It's definitely a good sign.

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Fingers crossed  ;D I'll test the others soon too.

A quick update, I've also reached the second Laguna dream and according to the Hyne save editor, Edea is still equipped with Eden on my end too.  I'm hoping to finish disc 1 soon.

As for some observations, you were right about Squall's strength. While he initially seemed lacking, once I got to run around the world map a bit and he started to approach level 20, I noticed that his damage output became a lot more solid. For Rinoa, I think it might be better to have her limits be magic-based to give her some extra damage since she is limited in offensive options. Whenever she gets down to yellow health, I'd rather just have her heal herself than use Angelo cause the damage she deals (at least with Angelo's initial limits) just isn't worth the risk of keeping her at low health for one turn.

The rest of the characters so far feel good to use, no complaints with them. Although I have to ask, are any of Quistis' limits missable or rare? By rare, I mean situations where the item is only dropped by enemies in a specific one-time only area, and then don't show up again until the disc 3/4 or at all. For example in the Vanilla game Gespers in Laguna's Cetra dream are the only way to get Quistis' Degenerator apart from card modding.

A quick update, I've also reached the second Laguna dream and according to the Hyne save editor, Edea is still equipped with Eden on my end too.  I'm hoping to finish disc 1 soon.

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I also checked out the third Laguna dream and it also keeps Eden. I haven't tested the last two yet, but I feel fairly confident in saying that the issue is fixed now.

As for some observations, you were right about Squall's strength. While he initially seemed lacking, once I got to run around the world map a bit and he started to approach level 20, I noticed that his damage output became a lot more solid. For Rinoa, I think it might be better to have her limits be magic-based to give her some extra damage since she is limited in offensive options. Whenever she gets down to yellow health, I'd rather just have her heal herself than use Angelo cause the damage she deals (at least with Angelo's initial limits) just isn't worth the risk of keeping her at low health for one turn.

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What did you think about Squall's Cure spells in the early game? I shifted his Mag growth so that the baseline for his Cures would be around 350. Also, what are your party's levels?

The thing about making Rinoa's Limits magic-based is that magic damage doesn't scale very well. For instance, if I made Angelo Cannon magic-based and gave it a base power of 42--the same value that it's set to right now as a physical attack--it might do pretty solid damage in the early game, but it would be awful later on. At level 100 she'd do about double the damage with physical Angelo Cannon as magical, even with the large gap between her Str and Mag stats (156 vs. 232). I added the Confusion effect in one of the updates to try and make it more useful while playing into her role of healing/mitigation (enemies can't hurt you if they're hurting themselves), but I think the real solution is to shift her Str stat to be higher earlier, similar to what I've done with other characters. I might also bump Cannon and Strike's base power up a bit (Wishing Star doesn't really need it since it's multi-hit and ignores Vit). As I was telling Nikkolas earlier in the thread, I've thought about replacing Cannon with a heal using Invincible Moon's animation, but I don't want to get rid of Cannon and I also don't want to turn IM into a healing skill since its invincibility keeps some of that FFVIII "flavor" and adds an additional perk to using Rinoa.

The rest of the characters so far feel good to use, no complaints with them. Although I have to ask, are any of Quistis' limits missable or rare? By rare, I mean situations where the item is only dropped by enemies in a specific one-time only area, and then don't show up again until the disc 3/4 or at all. For example in the Vanilla game Gespers in Laguna's Cetra dream are the only way to get Quistis' Degenerator apart from card modding.

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None of them are missable but you may have to go out of your way and/or get lucky to find them/find them at the earliest you can get them. Degenerator is the only one that I've removed outright.


In update news, I'm currently working on another battle in the aberrant monsters quest for 1.3:


I'm also strongly considering removing Irvine's Magic command and replacing it with Draw. His spell selection is not that useful and the command is a remnant of a time when I was less sure of what to do with him.


EDIT: I should mention that mid- and high-level Abyss Worms will sometimes use a Scan Stone; it doesn't crash the game or anything, but they're supposed to be using Aero. I'll have that fixed in the next update.

What did you think about Squall's Cure spells in the early game? I shifted his Mag growth so that the baseline for his Cures would be around 350. Also, what are your party's levels?

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They worked better this time around. I think the increase was enough, Squall had more turns attacking than previously because his healing was more potent. Previously Squall's healing often couldn't fully heal a bigger hit in the early game, now it does and usually adds a little on top. Now I no longer had Squall constantly healing to keep up with the punches.

Currently I finished Laguna's second dream, Squall is 21, Selphie is 19 and Quistis is 18. I kind of took a bit longer in the dream than I expected and I also ran around the map a bit, so Rinoa and Zell are also 17.

The thing about making Rinoa's Limits magic-based is that magic damage doesn't scale very well. For instance, if I made Angelo Cannon magic-based and gave it a base power of 42--the same value that it's set to right now as a physical attack--it might do pretty solid damage in the early game, but it would be awful later on. At level 100 she'd do about double the damage with physical Angelo Cannon as magical, even with the large gap between her Str and Mag stats (156 vs. 232). I added the Confusion effect in one of the updates to try and make it more useful while playing into her role of healing/mitigation (enemies can't hurt you if they're hurting themselves), but I think the real solution is to shift her Str stat to be higher earlier, similar to what I've done with other characters. I might also bump Cannon and Strike's base power up a bit (Wishing Star doesn't really need it since it's multi-hit and ignores Vit). As I was telling Nikkolas earlier in the thread, I've thought about replacing Cannon with a heal using Invincible Moon's animation, but I don't want to get rid of Cannon and I also don't want to turn IM into a healing skill since its invincibility keeps some of that FFVIII "flavor" and adds an additional perk to using Rinoa.

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Ah, fair enough. Shame magic damage is so wonky.

None of them are missable but you may have to go out of your way and/or get lucky to find them/find them at the earliest you can get them. Degenerator is the only one that I've removed outright.

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Good to know!

Hey man, do you have any hope of ever porting this to the remaster version?

Asking for a guy on Reddit.