A way to buff monsters in FFVIII to make the game more difficult?

[renegade]

After mastering the Junction/Refining system, the game becomes so easy, it's annoying. Getting 100 Waters on STR before fighting Ifrit pretty much spoils the game, and I don't want to intentionally avoid what the game puts in my face, since that would also spoil the game.

I love the break damage limit patch, as I always found it was dumb that 9999 should be the limit. With this patch, we can finally see which ability is really strong, as in the past, no matter which ability we chose with whatever character, the damage would ultimately be 9999 (if you know how to use the junction system). I kill Edea in 5 hits by Squall alone...

So the patch is cool, but with it, the game will be so easy, I'm going to lose my mind.

So my question is, is there a way to buff the monsters/bosses? As we all know, FF8's monsters level up with Squall. Is there a way to alter that system in order to add 10 levels to their current level? In this way, at the beginning of the game, at level 7, you'd be fighting monsters level 17, and I'd finally enjoy a nice boss fight once in a while. I saw on another thread that we have access to the database of monsters. Is there a way to open it up and tweak the monsters to my liking?

If not, is there a way to gain no EXP? Or not level up? This way, my characters would be entirely based on their junctions, and although the monsters will all be at level 7, the strong ones will be proportionally stronger, just as Bite Bug is proportionally weaker at level 100 than at level 7.

Thanks in advance.

 

[obesebear]

So you're planning to release a mod or program of some sort then?  That's why this is in Game Tweaking, right?  Oh... oh wait I guess not.    Check the rules.  In them you will find some helpful hints as to what goes in which board.   That crazy information can also be found as you are choosing which board to click.  You've been warned.  Thread moved.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

Even though he did break the rules. the rules are counter-intuitive in this case. After all, he is asking how to tweak the game; it's only common sense that such a thread would go in game tweaking. The board descriptions also indicate that the question he's asking is better placed in game tweaking than anywhere else. Even the rules themselves aren't that clear. When the rules and the board descriptions aren't clear and contradict themselves, and when common sense dictates that a thread about tweaking the game should go in game tweaking, what this person did is forgiveable.

 

[obesebear]

General
For vague questions.  Anything pertaining to one of the Final Fantasies.  If it's not a question specific to a program or mod, it goes here.

Game Tweaking
For released programs and mods.  If you are beginning work on a program or mod, start it here if you plan to release it.  Ongoing projects (such as Ultima Espio's Aerith revival) belong here as well, and discussion will be allowed in their threads.   Once the projects have a release, all discussion and problems will be moved to Programming Feedback.

It's clear enough for me.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

It isn't if you weren't the one that wrote the rules, especially when the board descriptions and the board names contradict what is said there. The rules on what goes in general are extremely vague, and it's not too unlikely that someone coming here might see the rules, bit be entirely sure where a thread like this should go, and simply use common sense or the board names or descriptions as a guide and decide that it's best to ask a question about tweaking the game in game tweaking.

BTW, I have an idea: why not just cut out the middleman and place everyone on the watch list by default? There seems to be a movement at the moment to have everyone under some kind of moderation for any minor infringement. It would save a lot of energy to just raise everyone's moderation level at the same time.

 

[obesebear]

No movement,  I personally have had no trouble at all following the rules (outside of going severely off topic here).  Let me ask you then, is it really too much to ask that everyone else understand and follow them?   You seem to do just fine, as do plenty of others.  I know nothing about renegade, he might be smart as all hell.  But IRL I have zero tolerance for lazy/stupid people, and that carries over onto qhimm.   If you still want to discuss this, feel free to PM me so this thread isn't cluttered further.

 

[renegade]

If you have checked, I just signed up to this forum, so expect one or two mistakes on my part until I get acquainted with the rules. I'm sorry if I might be at the wrong place, and if it's necessary, I'd be happy if it were moved to where it should be. But please greet new users differently, especially if their mistake might not be a mistake at all. What I hate is when someone begins a never-ending debate over something totally unrelated to the subject. If my thread is out of place, point it out, move it to its place if you can, and let's move on without unnecessary arguments. But first:

I have checked some other threads in this section, and have noticed (https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/6487/) that questions were asked and answered without a problem, so I somewhat did make sure that my thread is not out of place before posting it. Plus, in most cases, the questions led to a thread that contained the tweak itself (or solution), and became the thread where others find it from. And like Kudistos Megistos mentioned, this section is about Game Tweaks, so my thread is very well at its place.

As for something on the subject:
I'm not a programmer (at least, not a good enough programmer), but I figure this would be an easy tweak. We have access to save files, and can edit characters. Why not monsters? Plus I'm sure many people would enjoy it.

 

[Furzball]

That post was before the recent update where Obesebear got moderation rights and put a proper and much needed update on the rules. Trust me, kiss a55 for awhile and do something for the community even in a small way and all should relatively be forgiven. Which does mean living, breathing, dreaming, and following the rules.

 

[random_npc]

Welcome on this forum Renegade! I'm a newcomer too, but I share you point of view about FFVIII. It was reasonably difficult for a starting player who understand nothing about the junctioning system, and haven't discovered all the tricks -such as the powerfull water magic easily available at the begining of the game.  But for veteran players, it's way to easy.

There are currently three way of increasing the difficulty :
- editing enemy stats : check out Ifrit program somewhere on this forum. It doesn't require any strong modding level
- editing enemy strategy and moves (ai) : that's what I'm doing from my side, but I haven't seen anyone else on this forum doing that and there are no cool - easy to handle program (I use translhexion, a hex editor)
- changing enemy level : this is quite doable but I haven't seen that documented on this forum. I can provide you the required informations thought. As for your idea, if I remember correctly there could be indeed some monsters which have your level + some value (monsters of deep research center I think, need to check)

 

[Colly]

Welcome on this forum Renegade! I'm a newcomer too, but I share you point of view about FFVIII. It was reasonably difficult for a starting player who understand nothing about the junctioning system, and haven't discovered all the tricks -such as the powerfull water magic easily available at the begining of the game.  But for veteran players, it's way to easy.

There are currently three way of increasing the difficulty :
- editing enemy stats : check out Ifrit program somewhere on this forum. It doesn't require any strong modding level
- editing enemy strategy and moves (ai) : that's what I'm doing from my side, but I haven't seen anyone else on this forum doing that and there are no cool - easy to handle program (I use translhexion, a hex editor)
- changing enemy level : this is quite doable but I haven't seen that documented on this forum. I can provide you the required informations thought. As for your idea, if I remember correctly there could be indeed some monsters which have your level + some value (monsters of deep research center I think, need to check)

There is connection between moves in the kernel.bin and the moves inside battle files. But for me, the moves should be the same, only the strategy should be changed. All enemies has "INT" stat, so increasing it will make game more difficult.
I'm ending my hardcore patch (version 2.0) now and I will release it very soon, for PC and PSX version.

 

[Bosola]

I imagine it would also be fairly simple (well, relatively simple) to find the data which determines how much junctioned spells affect stats. By nerfing some of these, or boosting the effects of quite rare magic, you could subtly increase the difficulty level.

 

[renegade]

General
For vague questions.  Anything pertaining to one of the Final Fantasies.  If it's not a question specific to a program or mod, it goes here.

Game Tweaking
For released programs and mods.  If you are beginning work on a program or mod, start it here if you plan to release it.  Ongoing projects (such as Ultima Espio's Aerith revival) belong here as well, and discussion will be allowed in their threads.   Once the projects have a release, all discussion and problems will be moved to Programming Feedback.

It's clear enough for me.

Whoever said I don't plan on making this mod? My brother's a programmer, and with some information about it, we might end up making a little mod for this, if we're able to. It's true that my post wasn't too clear about my intentions (making a mod or requesting a mod), but it wasn't as "misplaced" and "retarded" as you make it sound. Plus, was my question so vague that you had to move it to "General" where people go to to discuss the number of hair in Barret's eyebrows (so to speak)? If you're so fond of having threads at their place, why place mine in an unrelated section in which you know I will not get much help unless someone who can help passes by by chance? If I'm not mistaken, I read "If it's not a question specific to a program or mod, it goes here" for "General." According to the rules, my thread doesn't belong here because it's a specific question about programming/modding/tweaking the game.

Programming feedback
Suggestions, bug reports, requests, etc. for released programs.

It could have been a suggestion for programs such as Ifrit, which I have found thanks to this thread (I haven't tried it out yet, but it might be a good suggestion for it if it's not already done).

or

Tech-related
Discussions about programming or the inner workings of things should go here.

Bull's eye for now.

Aren't those more relevant?

Plus I'm being watched for this? Did I insult anyone? Was a rude? Did I disobey the rules intentionally, or more than once? Whatever man, if you have enough time to "watch me," go ahead. I have no problem with that as long as you don't abuse your authority. It's not like I'm here to piss people off, I'm here to get help and possibly contribute. I know it's not worth making a big deal about this, but I don't like to get stepped on, and I don't like your rude, impatient attitude. Thanks to all of the other guys who were actually constructive and are helping me.

That post was before the recent update where Obesebear got moderation rights and put a proper and much needed update on the rules. Trust me, kiss a55 for awhile and do something for the community even in a small way and all should relatively be forgiven. Which does mean living, breathing, dreaming, and following the rules.

Why hasn't he moved that one, and others like it, to its relevant section, then, so newcomers with good intentions like me could see that there are no exceptions. Anyway, it's fine, now that I know. . But I don't do that kiss a55 part. If I'm not forgiven for a simple, human mistake, then so be it.

Anyway, back to the subject:

Welcome on this forum Renegade! I'm a newcomer too, but I share you point of view about FFVIII. It was reasonably difficult for a starting player who understand nothing about the junctioning system, and haven't discovered all the tricks -such as the powerfull water magic easily available at the begining of the game.  But for veteran players, it's way to easy.

There are currently three way of increasing the difficulty :
- editing enemy stats : check out Ifrit program somewhere on this forum. It doesn't require any strong modding level
- editing enemy strategy and moves (ai) : that's what I'm doing from my side, but I haven't seen anyone else on this forum doing that and there are no cool - easy to handle program (I use translhexion, a hex editor)
- changing enemy level : this is quite doable but I haven't seen that documented on this forum. I can provide you the required informations thought. As for your idea, if I remember correctly there could be indeed some monsters which have your level + some value (monsters of deep research center I think, need to check)

Thanks for the info. I'll check out that Ifrit tool. The ai would also be a nice tweak since some monsters are really stupid, but in general, FF8 ai is not too bad compared to other games. It's a Square game after all, and those guys were geniuses. Triple Triad has a very good AI.

I'm not a programmer (I do little things from time to time, but don't count on that, I'm a beginner), but my brother is studying in it, so he should be able to help me out on some minor needs of programming knowledge. I'd like to have the information you were talking about for changing the enemy level, if you have time. I am aware that some monsters/bosses depend differently or not at all on your level, but that's no big deal, as long as most of the monsters are fun to fight.

I'm ending my hardcore patch (version 2.0) now and I will release it very soon, for PC and PSX version.

I'd like to see that patch. It would be nice to have the option to break the 9999 damage limit integrated.

I imagine it would also be fairly simple (well, relatively simple) to find the data which determines how much junctioned spells affect stats. By nerfing some of these, or boosting the effects of quite rare magic, you could subtly increase the difficulty level.

Well, I'd rather not change the way junctioned spells affect stats. I don't mind having 255 STR, since I'd like to see how much damage I possibly can make with the break damage limit patch. But I'd like to have monsters strong enough to endure a fight like that.

Although I agree with you that the rules on what goes where are a little odd, there's no excuse for quadruple posting; use the modify button when you're the last one who posted in a thread.

You'd be best off editing those four consecutive posts, putting all the info in the first one and then removing the other three.

Gotcha!

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

Although I agree with you that the rules on what goes where are a little odd, there's no excuse for quadruple posting; use the modify button when you're the last one who posted in a thread.

You'd be best off editing those four consecutive posts, putting all the info in the first one and then removing the other three.

 

[renegade]

All right, Ifrit pretty much does what I want. If only it had the option to mass edit.

 

[random_npc]

There is connection between moves in the kernel.bin and the moves inside battle files. But for me, the moves should be the same, only the strategy should be changed. All enemies has "INT" stat, so increasing it will make game more difficult.
I'm ending my hardcore patch (version 2.0) now and I will release it very soon, for PC and PSX version.

Can't wait to try your hardcore patch, but I disagree about not changing enemy moves, and I'm not too sure about this 'Int' stat. I am working on a little mod I'll release sooner or later : it focus on Dollet landing, and should give a general idea on how I perceive it. Nothing as big than your hardcore patch of course.   
Eventhought I was not convince by your hardcore patch ver.1, it did gave me the best Ultimecia fight ever.  :lol:

Well, I'd rather not change the way junctioned spells affect stats. I don't mind having 255 STR, since I'd like to see how much damage I possibly can make with the break damage limit patch. But I'd like to have monsters strong enough to endure a fight like that.

On the contrary, I think it's the first thing that should be changed, as well than the availability of some magic that are too easy to get. Anyway, against max-outed characters with LionHeart-style attack and using the Meltdown spell trick, no monsters can last long, no matter their stats. That's not my way of playing.

All right, Ifrit pretty much does what I want.

Good. Just be carefull with Str and Mgi, last time I checked the formulae were not quite right... But you know, if that's what you want to change, you might just wait for Colly mod.
If you don't need enemy level data anymore, I don't think I'll post it right now. Might not be the better thing to start with. Oh and crap, I had the thing all written, I'll post it anyway :

I'm not a programmer (I do little things from time to time, but don't count on that, I'm a beginner), but my brother is studying in it, so he should be able to help me out on some minor needs of programming knowledge. I'd like to have the information you were talking about for changing the enemy level, if you have time. I am aware that some monsters/bosses depend differently or not at all on your level, but that's no big deal, as long as most of the monsters are fun to fight.

I'm not a programmer either...
In FFVIII, the great majority of common monsters follow your level. A lot of boss are capped : they follow your level up to a maximum value. Some always have the same level (monsters in the Ifrit cave, monsters with level1 at Lunatic Pandora, monsters with level 100 at Island closest to Hell...). Monsters in Ultimecia castle have got random levels. And well, some have got higher level than your party - I need to check again those.

So well, how to edit enemy level... I used those two programs : FF8_AC and Translhexion. (available somewhere in this page https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/5565/)


As a rule, always make some backup before editing something... So copy from your FFVIII directory, in the DATA folder, all three 'Battle' files and paste it somewhere else.

Now you need to extract a file out of the 'Battle' in order to edit it. This file is "Scene.out". FF8_AC allow you to do that.

Open this file with Translhexion. You'll see... well, a big mess of numbers, in hexadecimal.
If you are aware of the FFVIII debug rooms, you know that in one of them you can trigger all fights of the game, by entering 4 numbers.
Scene.out contain data about all fight in game, in the same order than those you can trigger in the debug room : as an example, when you trigger fight 0000 in debug room, game use data from the first sequence of Scene.out, when you trigger fight 0001, second sequence, etc.
Member aladore384 could provide you a list of all fights of the debug room, you might want to send him a message.
 
First thing to do : all sequences in Scene.out are 128 bytes long. So in Translhexion, go into "Options",  "Preference", and change the value for "byte to display per line" to '128'. Now each line is an entire sequence.

Enemy level data is at the very end of the sequence. For each fight, you can have up to 8 enemies, but never more than 4 at the same time.
So what you want are the last eight bytes. First one is for enemy 1, second for enemy 2, etc... 

Now what the numbers are for...

'FF' and 'FE' means those monsters follow your level (FF 'more or less', FE 'exactly' - most monsters are 'FF' and 'FE' are mostly bosses)
'FC' is random level. 'FB' is Ultimecia.
number up to 100 are constant level : Ifrit for example have 06, he will always be at level 6 no matter what. (fight 0094)
number between 100 and 200 are capped monsters : they will follow your level, but have max value equal to 100 minus given value. (ex : the spider-like robot at Dollet have got 6F, that's 111, so max level : 11. Fight n°0009, 0010, 0013)
Numbers higher than 200, I forgot and still need to check... I was thinking it was 'current level + some value' but in my old notes I see it labeled differently, so I fear it's rather 'around party_levelx2' (used values are d2 and d7).

 

[renegade]

Seriously, thanks for all the info. It's really interesting. I wonder if there's a way to edit the "FC" or "FF" so it's (party [average] level + 10).

Anyway, on my side, I have a problem... The programs I used are "multipatcher" (break damage limit patch), "Eight," "Ifrit" and "Garden." I had many problems, and solved them, until I have no clue what to do anymore. I replaced everything with my backup, checked if it works, and when confirmed, I restarted from scratch and the result is the same. Let me say exactly what I did, step by step. Tell me where I made a mistake. It's in the exact order of what I did.

0. At this point, my game works perfectly fine, at 1080p resolution, with FF8_Launcher.exe.
1. I backed up everything in case.
2. I used "Eight" to extract the right c0mxxx.dat files from battle.fs (c0m001.dat to c0m143.dat except c0m127.dat, as specified by Ifrit's help.) I placed the files in a different directory.
3. I used "Ifrit" to buff the monsters (for now, I just raised their HP).
4. I saved every time I was done modifying a monster (as specified by Ifrit's help).
5. I copy-pasted "multipatcher.exe" to the main directory of the game and ran it. It quickly opened and closed, but I'm guessing the patch was applied (I don't have a save file far enough to test if it worked -- breaking the damage limit).
6. I tested the game to see if it's working, and it is, without a problem. Battles work perfectly fine.
5. I opened up Garden 0.8 (an already compiled, polish version I found here: https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/5565/)
6. I clicked "Decompile" and saved the file as ff8project.gpr and it started to decompile the game. The folder it created (ff8) is 1.39Gb. I closed Garden.
7. I copied the modified c0mxxx.dat files (Ifrit) to replace the original files in the decompressed folder.
8. I reopened Garden, loaded my ff8project.gpr, and pressed "compile." In the box, I clicked "Selected Files" and unchecked everything except "battle" and clicked on "Compile."

Once it was done, I ran the game, which worked fine, until I entered a battle. The music plays, except the battle never starts (the screen stays black). What did I do wrong?

EDIT: I know I should have used the files decompressed by "Garden" but I didn't have Garden until only after I had already extracted the files using "Eight" and modified them in "Ifrit."

EDIT: I used FF8AC to recompile the files and now everything works!