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

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I think a "reasonable but fast-paced level of difficulty" might be a bit of an understatement.

The battle after setting the charge for the No.5 reactor, has wiped me over a dozen times, and I haven't even killed over half of the enemies in the battle. The bio-troopers (2) and the special combatants (3) are level 26 to my team's level 11. Their hits are averaging about 90 damage on my 350-400 life. There isn't a way to really farm at this point in the game - there isn't an area with enemies and a store to refill the potions accessible at the same time.

Any tips? I'd imagine I'm going to have to restart the game to progress past this point anyways.
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That bossfight you're at, is one of the harder bossfights for the first portion of the game. (at least from my experience). You're better off trying to just nuke one of the front enemies down as soon as possible (spells, grenades, limits, etc.), as they're an absolute pain. Once the first one is down, the fight is considerably easier. However, if you've spent a lot of potions and is severely lacking, you might be SOL.
Just give it your all, as you can flee from the rest of the battles during that mission.
 
I think a "reasonable but fast-paced level of difficulty" might be a bit of an understatement.

The battle after setting the charge for the No.5 reactor, has wiped me over a dozen times, and I haven't even killed over half of the enemies in the battle. The bio-troopers (2) and the special combatants (3) are level 26 to my team's level 11. Their hits are averaging about 90 damage on my 350-400 life. There isn't a way to really farm at this point in the game - there isn't an area with enemies and a store to refill the potions accessible at the same time.

Any tips? I'd imagine I'm going to have to restart the game to progress past this point anyways.
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Yea that's the first place I died, you just have to focus fire one right away, maybe have one person just heal every turn until you get two of them down from what I remember. It's not that they're strong it's just that there's 5 of them and they outgun/outturn you until you kill a few. If you have a save before, maybe try to go into the fight with your limits already full, use grenades if you need more dmg, have barret use Cover from the backrow and serve as somewhat of a tank because when he's in the backrow he gets those defensive stacks. Also try to go into the fight as close to full health as possible.
 
I think a "reasonable but fast-paced level of difficulty" might be a bit of an understatement.

The battle after setting the charge for the No.5 reactor, has wiped me over a dozen times, and I haven't even killed over half of the enemies in the battle. The bio-troopers (2) and the special combatants (3) are level 26 to my team's level 11. Their hits are averaging about 90 damage on my 350-400 life. There isn't a way to really farm at this point in the game - there isn't an area with enemies and a store to refill the potions accessible at the same time.

Any tips? I'd imagine I'm going to have to restart the game to progress past this point anyways.
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Did you pick Arrange mode and/or have the optional .EXE patch in? This fight gets much more dangerous even with just one of those in effect, due to the higher Level + the long-range flag on the majority of their attacks; Arrange itself is needing a heavy tune-up due to it making the early game too hard but being largely unnoticeable by the end.

If you need Potions/Downs then your best bet is to head up to the top room via elevator (the one which has a button you press to open the doors to progress on to the boss fight) and fight Blood Tastes there. They're weak to Fire/Ice and have 232HP, but more importantly they have a good chance to drop Potions and Phoenix Downs. You can also get grenades from the proto-machine guns, but that fight is likely dangerous on Arrange/with the .EXE patch.

As for the fight, Oleary has some good advice; an early salvo of Limits should flatten some of the Special Combatants early on but if you have that optional .EXE patch in then the power of these Limits will likely be less + be subject to range modifiers. Focusing down the S. Combatants is probably the best play as they have less HP and will use a reflect-inflicting attack after a certain number of turns called Beta Wave. Having someone Cover + Defend, one heal, and one attacking could work but if the damage coming at you is too high then you might need to be more aggressive to start off with instead. One thing to note is that if you do have the .EXE patch installed then Barret's Mindblow should inflict Confuse + Berserk (in addition to it's normal MP-draining) which could turn the fight right around; use it on one of the Bio Troopers and hopefully it'll work.

But I guess this highlights an issue with this Reactor; the player's item supply can run out and trap them. I'll either adjust the drop rates to be much higher or add some kind of vendor down there. If you do start again, make sure it's on Original mode or consider ditching the .EXE patch if you have it applied; both that and Arrange still need a lot of work.
 
Quick question to put to people; I'm thinking about making a certain number of 'filler' Materia drop as 1-Star mastered. Reason being that I generally find them to be a loose end and their benefit might not outweigh having them in your Materia set-up for a long time to get them the AP needed to level up; they tend to be either situational or an after-thought. The list is:

Chocobo Lure (Max)
Pre-Emptive (About Lv.3-4 effect)
Enemy Away (Max)
Enemy Lure (Max)
EXP Plus (Lv.1 Effect)
Gil Plus (Lv.1 Effect)

These are all obtained from field script rather than shops, and only sell for 1gil even when mastered. If the proposed change is made, you'd be getting the full effect of these right off the bat. EXP Plus is being set to Lv.1 so that I can use higher EXP yields on enemies without risking overflow, but I'll need to check if the effect stacks and/or if more than one can be obtained from Gold Saucer (or elsewhere). Gil Plus would be at Lv.1 because poverty to keep the economy going a little longer until Materia like All starts hitting max level for selling. I can set both EXP/Gil Plus to use the full Lv.2 effect instead if that's preferred, but I'll need to run tests with high EXP to find out what the overflow value is so I can avoid it.

Another set of Materia planned to be made 1-star/mastered are the rare ones that I think would be better balanced as unique one-off pieces. I reckon this could prove unpopular, though:

Mime
W-Magic
W-Item
W-Summon
Final Attack (1 use only)

Nothing's set in stone yet, all I have is an alternate kernel where I tested these changes and the effects all seem to be okay. The only issue was that Mime appeared as greyed out, like it' was locked, when viewed in the party menu (but functions normally in-battle). Let me know what you think.

All that aside and in the same vein as above, some news is that I'm bringing back the missing Plus Materia (HP/Speed/Luck/Magic) but they'll be 1-Star, unique/mastered, and have a set boost for 25% to their respective stat; the problem before was that a stacked bonus of +100% was too much variance for me to balance enemies or plot out progression but if they're one-off Materia and the boost can only be 25% then that should be a lot more stable and easier to take into consideration. MP Plus, which was already in the game, has been aligned with the other Plus Materia so it'll be more useful early on by giving +25% MP instead of only +5% at Lv.1.

Long Range continues to be missing.
 
Excellent changes to the materia, as I feel the same way about them.

What will be the drawbacks to these plus-materias? If you've decided yet anyway.
 
Excellent changes to the materia, as I feel the same way about them.

What will be the drawbacks to these plus-materias? If you've decided yet anyway.
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The only real drawback is that there's only one of each available and they won't be found until toward the end of the game (except for MP Plus, which can be obtained as early as the Junon area on the world map).
 
depends on at what point we receive these.

getting magic plus early unbalances the magic/phys even more.

the OCD in me will hate having characters at different levels due to exp plus, but i suppose having tifa several levels above everyone else will balance that out.

and is it possible to turn mug into an attack replacing command? always seemed like a better way to have it than having to keep low level steal materia.
 
Found some bugs. One is on the Carry Armor type boss in the dark cave. If you use Quad Ultima + Ultima MP Absorb the game hangs. Also, after I get the sector 5 key, I'm teleported to the north cave and after the dialog the game hangs. I can't get passed that point.
 
depends on at what point we receive these.

getting magic plus early unbalances the magic/phys even more.

the OCD in me will hate having characters at different levels due to exp plus, but i suppose having tifa several levels above everyone else will balance that out.

and is it possible to turn mug into an attack replacing command? always seemed like a better way to have it than having to keep low level steal materia.
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Most of the Plus won't drop until very late in the game, by which point physical attacks will be able to more than hold their own with Ultimate Weapons/advanced Limits backing them up.

Another way of looking at EXP Plus (and how I tend to use it) is catching up other characters to Cloud's level, as he invariably tends to end up higher level due to getting full EXP for the majority of the game. If you got your hands on a couple, then you could manage them to keep your party's levels much more in line with each other.

I think it's possible to separate Mug and Steal, but it's an .EXE hack and it had some problems if I remember right. Though if Slash-All/Double-Cut can replace Attack with no problems then maybe Steal/Mug can do it too? The risk would be that Steal would also replace Attack, which means separating the commands onto different Materia.

Found some bugs. One is on the Carry Armor type boss in the dark cave. If you use Quad Ultima + Ultima MP Absorb the game hangs. Also, after I get the sector 5 key, I'm teleported to the north cave and after the dialog the game hangs. I can't get passed that point.
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The first is a problem with the game's engine; it occurs whenever a Quad-Cast of Ultima + Absorb is used against any enemy with multiple parts: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Quadra_Magic_Ultima_glitch

And despite what the Wiki says, I can confirm that it does occur against against Jenova Synthesis :l

As for the second problem, that was (hopefully) addressed in the flevel hotfix patch. Try applying that and seeing if it still occurs, unless you're on the 7H version in which case let me know.
 
Another set of Materia planned to be made 1-star/mastered are the rare ones that I think would be better balanced as unique one-off pieces. I reckon this could prove unpopular, though:

Mime
W-Magic
W-Item
W-Summon
Final Attack (1 use only)
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I think it'd be a good idea to add Quadra Magic to this list as well: it was a large factor in trivializing the Extra Battle bosses and final battles for me. Cloud and Vincent spamming quadded W-Magic Tornado while Tifa mimed the spell tore through Safer Sephiroth before his third turn. I didn't expect such an easy battle after the nightmare that was the Dark Cave's final boss. D:

By the way:

Am I supposed to be able to steal Mystile from goblins? Getting multiples isn't really helpful, but it feels weird to get an end-game item midway through disc 2.
 
Speaking of Mystile; it says that it's "Yuffie equip", but Cait Sith is able to use it as well.
 
I think it'd be a good idea to add Quadra Magic to this list as well: it was a large factor in trivializing the Extra Battle bosses and final battles for me. Cloud and Vincent spamming quadded W-Magic Tornado while Tifa mimed the spell tore through Safer Sephiroth before his third turn. I didn't expect such an easy battle after the nightmare that was the Dark Cave's final boss. D:

By the way:

Am I supposed to be able to steal Mystile from goblins? Getting multiples isn't really helpful, but it feels weird to get an end-game item midway through disc 2.
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Safer was a bit easier because he appears after Bizarro with no save point/menu prep but for the new build I'm going to try something there, hopefully it works out and we can have a more climactic showdown to round things off.

As for Mystile & Goblin, I can't remember giving them that as a steal unless it's their rare steal? I'd better double-check all the distribution of the end-game armours, etc. in any case.

Speaking of Mystile; it says that it's "Yuffie equip", but Cait Sith is able to use it as well.
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Cait Sith doesn't have his own specific end-game armour so I set him to be able to use any of the other 8 character's armour. He can't use either of the gender-specific armours though (Escort Bangle or Minerva Armlet). On that note, how do people feel about character-specific armour? Should I just unlock them all again so anyone can use them?
 
On that note, how do people feel about character-specific armour? Should I just unlock them all again so anyone can use them?
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If the armour stays in their current forms, then you might as well. That being said, I would love to see character-specific armour, if only they had some kind of special effect.

Not sure what type of special effect I'd want to see, as I don't know the limitations you're working with.

Something to compliment their ultimate weapons perhaps, although that might limit choice when it comes to endgame.

Other suggestions could be:

- MP Attack effect (like the ability from FF IX) - spending MP on attack, to boost the physical damage.
- Some type of counter "attack" effect? Perhaps reacting to a specific status somehow.
- Percentage-based increase to a given stat, either befitting of their "role" or perhaps something that converts a stat into another? (For example turning Aerith into a STR-based support-healer.)
- Increased Limit-gain rate.
- Gain MP when hit by attacks and/or spells.
- Something to create a summoner-role perhaps, not sure how to go about this. Might just be something for Master Summon, should that make it back into the game.
- Perhaps an armor that gives a damage(?) boost, as long as you use different damagesources each round.


Edit: Doing my 2nd playthrough these days (Quite a difference with the intended hp stats  :-o ), and I find myself getting incredibly annoyed with the Mystery Prize from the Battle Arena. Killing Gilgamesh 20 times in order to try and get Dio's Special Set, only to be bombarded with numerous copies of endgame armour, throwables and other attack items.
I'd GLADLY pay the point-cap, to avoid the RNG.
 
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If the armour stays in their current forms, then you might as well. That being said, I would love to see character-specific armour, if only they had some kind of special effect.

Not sure what type of special effect I'd want to see, as I don't know the limitations you're working with.

Something to compliment their ultimate weapons perhaps, although that might limit choice when it comes to endgame.

Other suggestions could be:

- MP Attack effect (like the ability from FF IX) - spending MP on attack, to boost the physical damage.
- Some type of counter "attack" effect? Perhaps reacting to a specific status somehow.
- Percentage-based increase to a given stat, either befitting of their "role" or perhaps something that converts a stat into another? (For example turning Aerith into a STR-based support-healer.)
- Increased Limit-gain rate.
- Gain MP when hit by attacks and/or spells.
- Something to create a summoner-role perhaps, not sure how to go about this. Might just be something for Master Summon, should that make it back into the game.
- Perhaps an armor that gives a damage(?) boost, as long as you use different damagesources each round.


Edit: Doing my 2nd playthrough these days (Quite a difference with the intended hp stats  :-o ), and I find myself getting incredibly annoyed with the Mystery Prize from the Battle Arena. Killing Gilgamesh 20 times in order to try and get Dio's Special Set, only to be bombarded with numerous copies of endgame armour, throwables and other attack items.
I'd GLADLY pay the point-cap, to avoid the RNG.
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I can't make effects like that, I'm afraid. If there was a way for the AI to track what Armour ID you had on or something then could do it that way, but there isn't as far as I know.

I'll change that roulette on the Battle Square prizes so there's no RNG involved with it; it was a bad idea on my part.
 
I can't make effects like that, I'm afraid. If there was a way for the AI to track what Armour ID you had on or something then could do it that way, but there isn't as far as I know.

I'll change that roulette on the Battle Square prizes so there's no RNG involved with it; it was a bad idea on my part.
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Yeah, I figured I was asking a bit much with those suggestions/ideas. :>, glad to hear about the roulette fix!
 
Yeah, I figured I was asking a bit much with those suggestions/ideas. :>, glad to hear about the roulette fix!
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Too bad 4 d armour though those where some amazing ideas mithrain! :-)
 
Safer was a bit easier because he appears after Bizarro with no save point/menu prep but for the new build I'm going to try something there, hopefully it works out and we can have a more climactic showdown to round things off.

As for Mystile & Goblin, I can't remember giving them that as a steal unless it's their rare steal? I'd better double-check all the distribution of the end-game armours, etc. in any case.

Cait Sith doesn't have his own specific end-game armour so I set him to be able to use any of the other 8 character's armour. He can't use either of the gender-specific armours though (Escort Bangle or Minerva Armlet). On that note, how do people feel about character-specific armour? Should I just unlock them all again so anyone can use them?
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I stole a Mystile from a Goblin yesterday. I love the idea of character specific armor. How about giving a piece of Genji Equipment from Gilgamesh?
 
I stole a Mystile from a Goblin yesterday. I love the idea of character specific armor. How about giving a piece of Genji Equipment from Gilgamesh?
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Would have to be some kind of mid-tier item (as he's easily farmable; even killable before he gets a single attack off), which would be odd, considering he's closer to endgame.  ;D
 
Hello there,
I just post this to thank you so much for this new threat mode. I have been playing ff7 over and over for 10 years or so, and you gave a second life to this awesome game, so that I rediscover the game while keeping its best original features.
I just discovered the moding world with you, I did not know it existe before, and it is great. I am currently enjoying kicking some vlakorados' asses. They were pretty important in the originalgame but pretty easy to fight, in spite of the huge amount of HP. You gave that monster the credit it deserves, and it is only one of the great features you added, as I  discover everytime I play.
I knew the game by heart, but this new exploration aspect where one should better know the monsters he faces is really awesome.
Thanks again
 
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