[FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.999992)

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Do you mean where the optional miniboss is right before the screen with Dyne?  Yeah there was a Save point there.

I think i just missed Morph because I'm a dumbass. I remember searching the garden but I didn't notice it. Well then I am probably screwed.  The earliest you can get back into Midgar is middle of Disc 2.  I just hope the game isn't impossible without it....

I will miss all those Ethers...
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Alright, that's a relief. I guess the Morph Materia is trickier to see because the colour of it blends into the dirt now. You don't need it to win, it was just another option besides Steal.

EDIT 2:

Okay, I lied, I went and did most of the GI Cave but now I'm stuck on Gi Nattak. I cannot for the life of me figure out the solution to this puzzle since it has to be a puzzle boss, right? The little things heal him for about 5K with their Demi3 and obviously there is no way I can deal with that kind of recovery.  So there has to be a trick to beating him that I'm just not seeing.

EDIT 3:

So was the answer "just outlast them"? Because that's what I ended up doing. Once they expended all their MP they couldn't do crap anymore and then it was a relatively simple matter of killing the main boss with plain old physical attacks.
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No real trick, it's just best to deal with the Flames first because they'll heal any damage done to Nattak; best thing to do is go with a quick mini-nuke strategy. Let your character's ATB gauges fill and then wait for the remaining Flame (the other one is usually sent away by Take Over on Nattak's first turn) to cast Demi3 on itself; then hit it with a bunch of high-powered spells like Summons or Limit Breaks before it's turn comes around again. The Demi3 heal is based on current HP so even if the Flame doesn't die, it won't be able to heal itself enough to cover the damage you dealt (assuming it doesn't die outright) and you can finish it off on the next turn. When the second Flame returns, it's rinse and repeat; once both flames are gone, Nattak himself isn't too tanky with his HP but he can cast Reflect when his HP has fallen far enough. I've got a vid of the strategy in action here:

But because this is a fairly early story-boss fight, to prevent people getting stuck there's the fail-safe of MP. Demi3 costs a tonne to cast and either Flame can only cast roughly the same number of times as the original Flames could cast Fire2. Once their MP is fried, it's a relatively simple fight as you said.

Loseless has a good suggestion there; if MP is a problem, then consider swapping party members in and out to make use of their fresh MP. Some characters are better suited to certain roles than others but anyone can make do as a caster in a pinch. I think the best way to restore MP is with Tents or Inns, preserving Ethers for boss fights.
 
I guess I'm just a creature of habit. I never use my entire party in any RPG I've ever played. I concentrate on my main three/four and that's it. Equipping an entire party is way too expensive in a normal game, let alone a mod like this where I'm barely scraping by in terms of Gil.  Plus I'd have to keep swapping my Materia  around and I don't want to do that. I'm just lazy like that I guess.

I really don't need Ethers as much as I used to anyway. As you said, Tents/Inns work just fine  when grinding out in the field or during a dungeon and I save my Ethers for boss fights. I haven't even needed them for that the last couple of boss fights. Plus it does seem like MP has really become more abundant with  the past few levels so I haven't been running out of it nearly as fast as I was earlier.

Anyway, I think I'll stop for tonight for real now. At Mt. Nibel, with Vincent replacing Aerith in my main party. Died to that big dragon. It totally dominated me. I suspect if I had been at full health I might have fared better but we wee a couple hundred HP down from the last fight and it opened up with a couple flame breath things and wiped out my party. Well, I managed to come back from that but I was just delaying the inevitable. It used some other move and killed all three of my characters at once. I didn't ant to beat it, just Steal whatever it had. Sadly Steal is not that reliable and I noitce that my hardest random encounters are those I waste time trying to Steal.  i have the MP for it now so perhaps it's time I just start opening every fight, Random Encounter or no, with Barrier/MBarrier.
 
The random encounters can be tough early on sometimes, but they can be dealt  with summons, tier 2 magic + all (ESPECIALLY GRAVITY: Cast Demi 2+All, then finish with another spell), or with enemy skills when you start to acquire them later.  Also remember that you have a great chance of putting things to sleep, mini, or confused status. But I finding myself running away a lot too, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I would highly suggest go picking up white wind from Junon area, as that can be useful for later bosses, otherwise Cure+All will be your best friend.  Take advantage of inns when farming for exp and gil near a city, rather than using tents early on.
 
Well I am right before the Temple of the Ancients. Calling it a night now.

I spent most of this night Gil grinding. I was doing as suggested and getting White Wind and I stumbled upon this area in Mythril Mine where there's like steps or something leading up to a chest with a Tent. It's the area right off the Marsh entrance. Anyway, in there, you only get groups of enemies that give you about 700-900 Gil per battle. These are also weaksauce enemies which meant I could slaughter them en masse with just physical attacks and never worry about dying. I grinded up to 60,000 Gil and right now I foresee no money woes in the nearby future.

For optional things, I beat the Powersoul Keeper and the Wutai sidequest. Neither were too hard once i was properly prepared, got Vincent casting Quake2 and had Earth-Elemental on Cloud's weapon and together they destroyed Mr. Spider. (although the first fight my game froze when it trid to do the last Charge, the one that gives it Berserk) Same for the Pagoda bosses, once I had Yuffie immune to Frog and Silence it was a cakewalk. Is she only supposed to get Bloodfest then or was that just a happy coincidence? Because Bloodfest was how I kicked the Pagoda's ass in another mod.

Speaking of Limits though, is it unique to this mod or does Cloud always have such ridiculously slow Limit Learn Rate or whatever you want to call it? He was obviously in my party long before Yuffie and got off several LBs before her yet she still got to Level 2 before him.

Is it possible to beat the Battle Square when Dio has you try it? Because I tried, I really did! But I can only get up to Battle #5 and then the mass of enemies just swarm me. Even with Barrier and MBarrier on the cumulative damage of 200 from one and 200 from another and another and another is too much. I tried some crowd control with Trine but I am so busy just trying to live that I can't focus on offense. I just gave up after losing abut ten times in a row since I was sinking Ethers and Hi Potions into it when I didn't need to.

Also did anyone complete the Battle Square when Dio makes you do it? Because I've spent over an hour at it and no luck. I've come close several times but it's not all about skill and preparation, it's the luck of the damn roulette thing. For example, I just lost on Round 2 because I got Damage X30. What the hell. Overall it was a vanity project of mine, to prove how strong I am and make it to the end. But it's a stupid, pointless waste of items and time and I should have given up a long time ago.
 
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It's odd that you're getting these random freezes; do you have other mods installed?

In the default game, Cloud's required kills were a bit higher probably to compensate for him being in the party longer while later characters have quite low requirements by comparison. There's no special trigger for limits either, so you learned Bloodfest through happy coincidence.

Battle Square is a super-tough thing to balance because it dumps enemies in there with a 25%+ HP upgrade (and I think the stats get buffed too); on top of that, the character fights alone and they get hit with handicaps. I think I'll set some time aside and tackle it properly, re-assigning enemy formations for each of the three tiers to make it a bit more balanced (there's bound to be 'kill' groups in there somewhere, but at least there's no Red Pyramids like in another mod that will remain nameless ._.). I might be able to put some AI in there to counter-act the automatic stat buff that enemies get too.
 
I have a few other mods installed.  I mentioned before trying to add Graphical Mods with Bootleg? Well the battle menu/interface being different seems like it might be the most pertinent difference.  Otherwise I have FF7Music and some stuff to make the Fields look nicer. Essentially, everything that wasn't overwirten by the NT Installer.

Yeah, the Battle Square is a nightmare of randomness. For example, it seems like every 2 fights of groups you get one solo monster. I had about six solid attempts where the first solo monster I fought was this plant thing that I think is a new monster of yours? I ran into it at Gungaga the other day. Well Demi 2 takes care of its first couple forms easily enough but the last part is a bitch and kept killing poor Cloud.

On other runs with a better lineup of monsters, such as Boxer, I've come close to winning the Square. I've made it to the second-to-last fight a couple times now I gave up on physical offense and keep Cloud in the back row. I just have him spam Enemy Skills and that does the trick most of the time. I also have Odin there to give me a little respite in the later group fights should I make it there. He helped clear the path in the third-to-last fight in my last attempt. I regret wasting him though because the next round I fought these snake things which must use Stop or something when they attack because Cloud got swarmed by them and couldn't use the damned Hi Potion i had ready for him.

My pigheadedness and stubbornness made me continue to try and win when I knew I should have given up. I was just so close those few times ya know so I figured I had a chance at winning. Do you get a prize for completing Dio's Battle Square?
 
The prize isn't great; I think it's the same as before, a Protect Vest (which can be bought at Rocket Town) and a Chocofeather (which is bought at Wutai). I'll change the prize too, make it something worthwhile or maybe a roulette of equipment that's not available yet.

The plant thing has always been in Gongaga, but it's likely too much to handle for a solo character at that level. Boxer too, because it has an eject attack when it explodes. I'll be looking to change those formations out, and others, for something else.
 
Yep, I have plenty of Protect Vests already. The monster in the Nibelheim Mansion on the pendulum dropped them as well as Talismans. Also I stole one off of this big robot looking thing I found near Cosmo Canyon.

And Boxer wasn't too much trouble. One time it did Eject Cloud but I've beaten it several times with 3 Bio2's. Still, simply having an Eject move in a place like Battle Square is pretty cheap.

Well if that's all there is, I am glad i went ahead and decided to save my Hi Potions and Ethers. What about for later though? Are the rewards in the Battle Square still the same? This is far, far off in the future of course but just wondering should I ever make it to the end of the game if I'll want to return to Gold Saucer and start trying to get said rewards.

If all goes well though I hope to be at the end of Disk 1 by the next time I post. :) Now it's time for sleep though. Everyone is at Level 31, I have the best equipment and Materia i can find or buy and I finally am not stressing about running out of Gil.
 
Battle Square's top prize is a roulette drop of four different item packs; the prizes below it are lackluster, though; I'll probably change them up while I'm at it.
 
Oh man...this has been the night (and morning) of grueling repeating boss fights.

Dual Devils Gates? You monster! I was kinda confused at first since when i killed one the other started wrecking me. i thought "maybe I need to kill them both around the same time?" Then I got a brain and realized I just had to do away with the second DG's buffs.

And then Jenova WAR... It was insultingly easy the final time I beat her considering how many failures I had going into it. The trick was:
1. Actually read her Sense data and see she's weak to Earth.
2. NEVER LET BARRIER FADE.

As long as Barrier is up her attack spam does nothing. Let it down though and there's no hope of recovery.

That was pretty awesome though with the two guys from back outside Shinra Manor showing up. Will I be seeing them again? Although I must confess, as cool as it was at first, it got annoying when I couldn't use Tirfa's or Yuffie's Limits because it registered my friends as opponents and attacked them as well....

But that was a nice sort of story change with fighting Sephiroth first and then those guys showing up against Jenova. Will there be more things like that?

Also does Aerith being alive have any story repercussions or sidequests or anything? And how about weapons for her? The Icicle Shop didn't sell any obviously.

Finally, I have to say this - YOU ARE THE BEST. Gil Plus? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! I was just thinking earlier that "with the mod making money so hard to come by, I really wish FFVII had something like FFX's Gillionaire." And then i find Gil Plus in the Temple of the Ancients. So awesome.

Anyway, it's been an eventful night. I blame Tifa for why Jenova WAR took me so long. I anted my preferred party of Cloud/Aerith/Yuffie and then Tifa had to boob in. Ah well... Everyone is about Level 39, Yuffie just got Doom of the Living thanks to the Jenova WAR boss fight and I have tons and tons of money and I can easily make more. Thinks are looking good.
 
The DGs used to be a case of 'rush one down then rush the other one' but I put the Wall Augur death counter in there to turn things on their head a little. If the player doesn't have Dispel, then it's a case of deciding whether to rush one down and deal with a tougher DG or fight both and then kill them at roughly the same time.

The two back-up fighters are actually part of a mechanic with Jenova WAR's attacks (originally they couldn't be targeted). The boss has an irregular counter-attack called Cell Smash which only targets the two 'allies' behind you. If they die, though, then Cell Smash starts to target your party instead which can get a bit tricky as you're already dealing with two attacks per turn. This makes multi-target spells, Berserk, and certain Limits (Tifa's in particular) risky to use because those two will soak up the damage.

Story-wise, you'd be surprised at how little was needed in the way of editing for Aeris. For the most part only a few lines needed to be re-worded here and there and they're very close to what they originally were. There was one scene that got a more major revision, though, and that was the one in Bugehagen's Observatory just before the return to Forgotten City to use the Ancient Key. In the original game, they basically decide to try and figure out what Aeris was doing but this creates a problem in this mod because she's, well, there. But then I remembered she had these two lines during Cloud's 'dream' just after the Temple segment:
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{AERIS}“The secret is just up here.”{AERIS}“At least it should be. …I feel it. It feels like I'm being led by something.”
That implies to me that she wasn't sure herself what her plan was, so I played that angle and it more or less solved the problem. As for weapons, she doesn't have any extra but Jenova WAR should have dropped the Fairytale which should cover it. Her only other weapons at that level are the Wizard Staff (re-specced for high level), Princess Guard, and Guard Stick (triple AP).

I think you're the first person who saw the Gil Plus and thought it was a good thing. Most people grumbled about it.

Good to hear it's going well, though; I was Lv.41 when I finished up Disc 2 so you should be alright for levels.
 
Yeah I got the Fairy Tale. Was the Princess Guard still in the Temple of the Ancients? If so, I missed it.  I couldn't remember what rooms in the clock i had checked or not and eventually I just said screw it and moved on.

And that's pretty awesome you put that much thought into the new Aeris dialogue.  The gameplay is already providing a pretty different experience for me and any story modifications are welcome as well. I like FFVII's plot quite a bit but I just appreciate little surprises here and there when something isn't quite how I thought it would be. Like fighting "Sephiroth" for example.
 
The Princess Guard isn't in the Temple anymore; actually, both it and the other ultimate weapons haven't been placed yet. I'm still working on the side-content that'll unlock them. So you've not missed anything that I can remember.
 
On Disk 2 with Highwind and Cloud back, before Diamond Weapon and all that. Thinking about doing some Chocobo Breeding. You know, everyone's favorite tedious BS. Anyway, are the rewards still the same? Is KOTR still in that one cave only accessible by Gold Chocobo? I seem to recall thee was another one too....

Also for the life of me I cannot defeat that Cactuar in the Highwind. First time I got the highwind, I went into that other room and just tried to talk to the one guy and now I was in a fight and got horrifically stomped. Now I'm a little over Level 41 but I still can't beat it. it Ejects me from battle wheN i get it to what I assume is the final form. Am I just not ready to beat it yet?

Speaking of irritations, I visited the sunken Shinra ship and the Turks there were annoying. Died so many times. Why? Not because they were hard but because I wanted to Steal from them and it just wasn't happening. I could have killed them ten times over but I died ten times over because I wasted so much time trying to Steal. Still, in the end, I won and got both the Tough Ring and Champion Belt. Worth it.

So what Ultimate Weapons and Level 4 Limit Breaks are still in the game? I mean, I found that Great Gospel was no longer with the Mythril guy. Does "Ultra Weapon" still have ultima Weapon?

Oh and that reminds me! What was up with the super-easy Tseng fight? That was kind of random. I mean it wasn't at all what I expected, I was dreading the Rude fight there because another mod I played of FFVII made that boss fight a nightmare. But instead Tseng is there and then he's not since I one shotted him.

Other than the Turks though, this night was fairly uneventful in terms of bosses. I failed the Train time limit once but I'm used to failing once in every challenge or boss by now. First attempts are to look for weaknesses and second attempts are the actual real runs for success.

no wait, I'm forgetting something! That boss down before the submarine, the weird mech that Reno sicks on you, that fight was BS. Did you make the Arms invincible? Because I'll tell you what, that fight is entirely random and luck-based. I died so many times because sometimes it would open the fight with grabbing one or two characters almost immediately. Then on my successful run it didn't grab anyone until it was almost dead. I realize a lot of fights in games are based on luck since enemy AI may make them spam one move or never do that move at all but this was really frustrating. It was just several hours ago so I kinda forgot about how annoyed I was back then.
 
Right, so a few things here:

First off, the Gold Chocobo is only for accessing the KOTR cave on the Round Island. It's also great for winning races with minimal effort.

The Cactuar fight isn't supposed to be there, I was using it as a debug fight to test out his new AI. It was supposed to be removed before release, so I'll get that done now. It's the boss fight for the Purple Materia cave.

Steal rates depend on level, so the higher the enemy level the harder it becomes to Steal/Manipulate.

Ultimate Weapons aren't in yet, but they've lost their damage formula effects in any case in favour of a heavy stat boost to Dexterity and Luck (with some having a Magic boost instead of Dex or Luck). The Lv.4 Limits are won from sidequest bosses once they're unlocked, with one per character (Cait Sith has one too, but it's for a key item that helps unlock an Extra Battle boss). Ultra Weapon drops an item also used for an Extra Battle boss.

The Rocket Town enemies were temporarily specced to low HP while I tested out a problem in the rocket (a crash happened on a ladder so I needed to investigate it) but I forgot to set their HP back to the original values before release. It was fixed in a recent patch, along with some other problems; I'd recommend downloading and installing them (they work in the same way as the main installer, and patch right over the top of the current installation). To be honest, the Tseng fight is generally easy anyway; I was considering making a different model based on Vincent's and expanding the move-set a little.

I'll have a look at Carry Armor again; I've an idea for a small tweak that'll make Arm Grab less dangerous.
 
So wait, is Steal Rate determined by Character Level vs. Enemy Level? Reno for example was Level 50 I think while Yuffie might have only been Level 40 at the time. But if it is just determined by the boss' level and nothing else, then a Level 99 Boss would be nigh-impossible to steal from wouldn't it?

How do I unlock the sidequests/Extra Bosses? Does it just happen once you get to a certain point?

And "Purple Materia cave"?

I honestly haven't done extra stuff in FFVII for....shit, almost a decade. Even the I never did everything. Plus I wasn't that good at the time to be honest. So there's a lot of "original game" content stuff I'm clueless about in addition to all the stuff you've added. Also I'll be sure to download that patch right now.

Thanks for your reply.
 
The steal/manipulation rate is character level vs. enemy level. However, if you have a Sneak Glove or Hypnocrown equipped then the odds are always quite good, regardless of level. Thing is, the Sneakglove isn't available until you can return to Wall Market (earliest this can be done is just after Diamond Weapon is defeated, by talking to the guy at the locked Sector 5 door inside Midgar and then heading to Bone Village to dig up the access key; look for Normal Treasure and it should be on the upper level, close to the steam. There should be maps online pinpointing the location to dig in).

The Extra Battle in Gold Saucer's Battle Square and other end-game sidequests all unlock on Disc 3 when you reach the bottom of the Crater for the first time. Cloud will get a phone-call from the Highwind confirming it.

There are four Materia caves dotted around the world, and each holds a different colour of Materia. The Blue Materia Cave (Quadra Magic) is near Mideel and can be accessed with any special Chocobo (or without, using the Highwind landing glitch). The Purple Materia Cave is near the entrance to Mt. Corel (Costa Del Sol side), on the small patch of desert across the river; this has the Mega-All Materia inside (I think it needs a Green/Black/Gold to access). The Yellow Materia Cave (Mime) is on the Wutai continent and definitely needs a Green or higher to access. And finally, the Red Materia Cave has KOTR inside and requires a Gold Chocobo; that's on an unmarked island in the top right of the ocean.

Generally speaking, the Blue Chocobo is the most worthless of the specials. There's no Cave that can be accessed that a Green couldn't get to, and in races they're slowed down on two sections of track that a Green/Black/Gold can run through without slow-down (giving them a big advantage over the other racers).
 
Okay man I'd like to report my first real problem with the game. It's not a game breaker since it only happens during the optional Ultra Weapon fight but it is the only consistent "error" I've had. I've had several in field glitches and maybe two battle freezes but this is something new and has happened to me about ten times.

I was hoping it was NT conflicting with my Bootleg so I completely uninstalled FFVII and deleted the Registry Keys. Did a fresh install of FF7PC98 with the October 15 patch.  Still got the freeze. I figured it had to be somethign to do with the mod or my computer and not Bootleg because I've had weird "camera freakouts" in battles before but this is something new.

What happens is, in the final fight with Ultra Weapon at Cosmo Canyon on Disk 3, nothing happens. It doesn't freeze, it just....I'm not sure how to describe it. It's like the game is trying to load a move of his and cannot. On occasion the camera zoomed in on him like he was trying to do a move but more often than not he's just hanging there and nothing is happening. I can still input commands if my turn is up but othrwise, as soon as I put in said command, nothing more happens. Music plays, everyone stands around or floats around in UW's case, and that's it.

I'm not sure if this is something completely unique to my comp. I just know I've been playing the game 60 hours and in spite of various odd difficulties, nothing like this has happened. I don't know if you or someone else can test itout or give me advice on what might be wrong with my computer that is causing this.

I might just forgo the fight entirely.  I'll certainly go on and do other things in the meantime.
 
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Went to go check it out after reading your comment, I can confirm  8-) Kinda reminds me of Cloud running in place at a certain reactor =P

looks like the A.I locks up

 
Yeah, that's caused when an attack doesn't have a valid ID it just kind of soft-locks the game. Usually happens if an attack is changed and the removed Attack ID is still in the enemy AI.

So had a look, and turns out there's a 'draft' script I left lying around in that particular form of Ulty's counter-attack script when I was building it into his main script to extend his attack-pool a bit for the final encounter (to avoid it clashing with his regular HP calculating stuff). Silly mistake on my part, just forgot to delete it when I was done. I'll fix it up and update the scene.bin patch.

Edit: That's the scene hotfix patch up.
 
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