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

[tjlg1377]

Hey Sega Chief,

Playing through New Threat in Arrange Mode. Excellent job. Really enjoying it. Thanks so much for the hard work you've put in.

New to Qhimm so I hope this post isn't breaking any protocols but encountered a soft lock in my play through and was wondering if you could help me out.

So again, I'm playing in Arrange Mode. Leaving Shinra HQ with Aeris, Barret and Red XIII. When starting the battle with ?Thousand Gunner? in the elevator, the battle screen loads with Thousand Gunner and his two chopper gunner supports on either side. Thousand Gunner shoots the elevator glass. The camera re-adjusts to the standard battle view and the two chopper gunner support enemies then kind of re-enter the battle frame by flying down from above. At that point the soft lock occurs. All battle gauges are frozen and no amount of time or button mashing seems to rectify the issue.

I've tried using both elevators (left and right), shuffling character order and materia and still can't seem to get it to budge. I am playing through 7th heaven via a steam Final Fantasy 7.exe with the following mods in the following load order:

Dynamic Cloud Weapons
Battle Models - Weapons
Field Models - Objects
Animations
Battle Models Characters
Battle Models Enemies
Field Models Main Characters
Field Models Non Player Characters
New Threat
Gameplay Tweaks and Cheats (Only using Always Run and Save/PHS anywhere)
Menu Avatars and Backdrops
Minigames Collection
Spell Textures
Word Models Vehicles

Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated!

 

[PokeFaize]

Something I wanna note real quick is that early to mid game, Mage Character builds are very starved of Materia slots if they stick to Magic+ weapons and armor, while physical and tank builds are drowning in Materia slots with no real purpose for most of them, aside from throwing in Command and Summon Materia to improve their Strength, Vitality, and Dexterity.

Also the Elemental and Added Effect materia have pretty harsh penalties, especially for early game where people will be the most experimental with their builds.

I also find it odd that Magic Materia would lower your Spirit Stat instead of Strength when, typically, Mages are notorious for having high Magic Defense. Even at endgame, Spirit in general is super easy to end up dropping to 0, while getting Strength anywhere close to or even below the character's innate Strength value is more difficult than trying to take on Zack.

Would you consider tweaking these problems for the final version?

 

[Sega Chief]

Hey Sega Chief,

Playing through New Threat in Arrange Mode. Excellent job. Really enjoying it. Thanks so much for the hard work you've put in.

New to Qhimm so I hope this post isn't breaking any protocols but encountered a soft lock in my play through and was wondering if you could help me out.

So again, I'm playing in Arrange Mode. Leaving Shinra HQ with Aeris, Barret and Red XIII. When starting the battle with ?Thousand Gunner? in the elevator, the battle screen loads with Thousand Gunner and his two chopper gunner supports on either side. Thousand Gunner shoots the elevator glass. The camera re-adjusts to the standard battle view and the two chopper gunner support enemies then kind of re-enter the battle frame by flying down from above. At that point the soft lock occurs. All battle gauges are frozen and no amount of time or button mashing seems to rectify the issue.

I've tried using both elevators (left and right), shuffling character order and materia and still can't seem to get it to budge. I am playing through 7th heaven via a steam Final Fantasy 7.exe with the following mods in the following load order:

Dynamic Cloud Weapons
Battle Models - Weapons
Field Models - Objects
Animations
Battle Models Characters
Battle Models Enemies
Field Models Main Characters
Field Models Non Player Characters
New Threat
Gameplay Tweaks and Cheats (Only using Always Run and Save/PHS anywhere)
Menu Avatars and Backdrops
Minigames Collection
Spell Textures
Word Models Vehicles

Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated!

Have you ever had 60fps mod installed or in use at any point? It seems to leave alterations behind when uninstalled as there was a user recently with the same issue; the Gunners battle would specifically freeze at that point (it's probably something to do with frame interpolation).

Something I wanna note real quick is that early to mid game, Mage Character builds are very starved of Materia slots if they stick to Magic+ weapons and armor, while physical and tank builds are drowning in Materia slots with no real purpose for most of them, aside from throwing in Command and Summon Materia to improve their Strength, Vitality, and Dexterity.

Also the Elemental and Added Effect materia have pretty harsh penalties, especially for early game where people will be the most experimental with their builds.

I also find it odd that Magic Materia would lower your Spirit Stat instead of Strength when, typically, Mages are notorious for having high Magic Defense. Even at endgame, Spirit in general is super easy to end up dropping to 0, while getting Strength anywhere close to or even below the character's innate Strength value is more difficult than trying to take on Zack.

Would you consider tweaking these problems for the final version?

I went more with defensive penalties over offence penalties because when you load up on Magic materia it can badly affect characters built for strength. Spells like Revive and buff/status magic are a good fit for strength-builds/tanks so they can take some of the MP/slots burden from the casters, but strength penalties make that less attractive. There's also hybrid builds that can use both, say spell + added cut, that benefit from not having strength penalties to deal with.

As for the slots, I knew that casters would want for them so I had the other type of gear have slightly better slots to make it less of an easy decision; the magic buff comes at a cost of less versatility in their slots in most cases. Strength-based characters can use their extra slots for utility Materia, like Sense or Barrier+All for instance.

Elemental and Added Effect offer a really good defensive buff if used properly against special attacks, so the defence loss helps account for it. I think it's the way to go with it, but I'm thinking of tweaking the elemental damage reduction itself in the final, which means I'll be adjusting the penalties on the Materia accordingly. I might make the Added Effect one different from the Elemental one.

 

[PokeFaize]

I went more with defensive penalties over offence penalties because when you load up on Magic materia it can badly affect characters built for strength. Spells like Revive and buff/status magic are a good fit for strength-builds/tanks so they can take some of the MP/slots burden from the casters, but strength penalties make that less attractive. There's also hybrid builds that can use both, say spell + added cut, that benefit from not having strength penalties to deal with.

I personally found the Enemy Skill Materia to be the best option for Hybrids since it gave a ton of options for a mere single Materia Slot, and didn't ruin their defenses. Though I do see your point for them. As for Strength/Tank builds, I find the Status Effect Materia and Summon Materia work perfectly fine for Elemental Materia pairing and providing solid buffs to their important stats.

As for the slots, I knew that casters would want for them so I had the other type of gear have slightly better slots to make it less of an easy decision; the magic buff comes at a cost of less versatility in their slots in most cases. Strength-based characters can use their extra slots for utility Materia, like Sense or Barrier+All for instance.

early to mid game, there's not a whole lot of Materia that physical characters really want, so a Physical Aerith can easily do an Elemental=Status/Summon Materia, Added Effect=Status Materia, and Time/Barrier=All and have plenty of room to spare, while a Magical Cloud with the Mythril Saber and Silver Armlet has just enough for Recover=All, 3-4 Attack Spells, and 1-2 Command Materia depending on how many Magic Materia you give him.

Elemental and Added Effect offer a really good defensive buff if used properly against special attacks, so the defence loss helps account for it. I think it's the way to go with it, but I'm thinking of tweaking the elemental damage reduction itself in the final, which means I'll be adjusting the penalties on the Materia accordingly. I might make the Added Effect one different from the Elemental one.

At endgame, you're better off using Shield, so using Elemental defensively is kinda moot. Not to mention using Elemental defensively is fairly tricky outside of boss battles, since there's rarely, if any, locations where monsters primarily use one element.
Meanwhile Added Effect has strong usage both offensively and defensively with Contain and Hades being a thing. Though both of those are fairly late game, so Added Effect isn't very useful defensively until then. Lagomorph and Seal Materia keep it useful offensively, though.

 

[Torus]

Are there any plans to update the documentation for the mod? I've had a big headache today because I was trying to learn the now non-existent Magnitude8 from the Gaea Dragon as per the documentation... Only to realize it was changed to Time Flare after googling it... Only to realize an hour later it was, yet again, changed to Dragon Force and not even available from Gaea Dragon as it was immune to Manipulation. Not fun times.

 

[tjlg1377]

Have you ever had 60fps mod installed or in use at any point? It seems to leave alterations behind when uninstalled as there was a user recently with the same issue; the Gunners battle would specifically freeze at that point (it's probably something to do with frame interpolation)

Hey; thanks for getting back to me.

I have not. I do however configure the animations mod with Faster battle animations, enemy deaths and summons.

I removed all mods besides New Threat and was able to progress through the battle. Switched all the mods I listed back on for the bike chase and have encountered no problems since.

 

[OhGodAnOwl]

Hey! New to this forum, made an account just to post here;

Great mod! Definitely spruces up the game and gives it enough freshness to last a while
Downloaded it and started my first play-trough, currently I am before Gongaga but after the Desert Prison, sitting in the battle square and trying to get myself some of those sweet accessories.. but there is a problem that I ran into, The game either bugged out and keeps giving me slots that are impossible to win or the mod is trying to prevent me from getting too powerful too early.

To elaborate a bit more, each time I enter the Arena, the first series of slots will all be the "Break Magic Materia", next one will all be "Break Accessory" after which will come all "Disable Items", then all "Poison", then all "Minimize" etc.
My question is, is this mean to be some sort of a block to stop people from abusing Reflect Ring&Cursed Ring too early? Is this A bug?
My game is the Steam version, NT was installed directly with no other mods, on a fresh copy of the game.

 

[Sega Chief]

Are there any plans to update the documentation for the mod? I've had a big headache today because I was trying to learn the now non-existent Magnitude8 from the Gaea Dragon as per the documentation... Only to realize it was changed to Time Flare after googling it... Only to realize an hour later it was, yet again, changed to Dragon Force and not even available from Gaea Dragon as it was immune to Manipulation. Not fun times.

I think there's a link to a more up to date version on the front page; the files in the download itself are old though.

Hey! New to this forum, made an account just to post here;

Great mod! Definitely spruces up the game and gives it enough freshness to last a while
Downloaded it and started my first play-trough, currently I am before Gongaga but after the Desert Prison, sitting in the battle square and trying to get myself some of those sweet accessories.. but there is a problem that I ran into, The game either bugged out and keeps giving me slots that are impossible to win or the mod is trying to prevent me from getting too powerful too early.

To elaborate a bit more, each time I enter the Arena, the first series of slots will all be the "Break Magic Materia", next one will all be "Break Accessory" after which will come all "Disable Items", then all "Poison", then all "Minimize" etc.
My question is, is this mean to be some sort of a block to stop people from abusing Reflect Ring&Cursed Ring too early? Is this A bug?
My game is the Steam version, NT was installed directly with no other mods, on a fresh copy of the game.

The reels come in 'sets' that are supposed to be randomly chosen but the RNG in some cases can repeat if the game is reloaded from a save file (as it's a hard reload). Are you closing the client and then reloading the save when you see that particular reel set? Try going in, then escaping, then going in again. That should get you past that reel set.

 

[jdhayward]

How do you beat the sub bosses in the northern cave? Getting my arse whooped repeatedly.

Just want to be able to access the new end game stuff!

 

[Sega Chief]

How do you beat the sub bosses in the northern cave? Getting my arse whooped repeatedly.

Just want to be able to access the new end game stuff!

Spoiler

So there are three routes which means 3 bosses. To reach the bottom and unlock the Disc 3 stuff, you only need to beat one. You can also teleport back out once you're at the bottom, so the left-down path isn't mandatory for exiting like in default. To make things easier, set Random Encounters to Off at a save point so you can quickly traverse the place.

The bosses are:
Left-Down: Tyrant
Left-Up: Protoroth
Right: Abyss

Tyrant is weak to Earth and while he starts off relatively weaker he gets stronger at the end of each attack cycle before 'enraging' and gaining a significant buff. The trick to that one is to go hard early to take full advantage of his lowered defences early in the fight. Establishing a speed advantage can help a lot using Haste/Slow, and having a super solid tank is a good idea as he has a lot of single-target physical attacks. I've an unlisted video of a team fighting him which may be useful for reference:

Protoroth can be a bit awkward because both halves are aspected to physical/magical attacks and will become stronger when hit by the type they are weak against. There's also a kamikaze ability to watch out for if the Magic side is destroyed. Both sides are weak to Holy, so get that equipped onto weapons and come in with Planet Materia leveled to make use of the new Pearl spell. You can bypass their buff to an extent using Counter Materia as these won't trigger it.

Abyss is essentially a Malboro so there are a lot of status ailments flying around. I think you can get it to waste turns casting Esuna on itself if you inflict statuses on it so try using Bad Breath or similar. This one is also weak to Holy, so tee up on that element. Wind, Water, and Poison were elements that it uses I think, as well as Shout; you can block Shout by combining a Bahamut Summon with Elemental Materia.

I can provide more detailed info when I get home if that doesn't help.

 

[jdhayward]

Hey Sega Chief,

Thanks for the help.

I actually managed to beat Tyrant not long after posting!

I'm now going through and beating all the 'New Threats' and getting ultimate weapons.

Is there something up with steal? I've been trying to steal from armoured golems in the northern cave and even after trying 20+ times I cant steal anything.

Thanks.

 

[Karsh Highwind]

Hey Sega Chief,

Thanks for the help.

I actually managed to beat Tyrant not long after posting!

I'm now going through and beating all the 'New Threats' and getting ultimate weapons.

Is there something up with steal? I've been trying to steal from armoured golems in the northern cave and even after trying 20+ times I cant steal anything.

Thanks.

For stealing, do you have the Sneak Glove equipped? If not, stealing stuff from the North Crater is practically impossible to do. If you need the Sneak Glove, it's in the same place as it is from the base game (You need the Sector 5 Key from Bone Village and 127k Gil).

Hope that helps!

 

[EmperorZerbo]

Hey Sega Chief,

I noticed something regarding materia layout during the Wutai side mission, I thought it might be useful to know.

In my play-through, which was on the July 5th release, Some of the

Spoiler

materia wasn't removed when yuffie leaves the party

. It seemed random which materia stayed and which materia remained exactly where I placed it before the encounter. If this was intended, cool, but if it wasn't I figure you'd like to know.

I uploaded a couple of screenshots that give a visual of what happened on my end here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1v9qAfs_WIGM04wQnArKpqJUCpRK_2M9r?usp=sharing

Thanks for the mod and all the work you still do on it, this is so cool!

 

[Sega Chief]

There's a limit to what she can take; what she leaves behind is determined by a static list of Materia by ID and I think AP factors in. I think Summon Materia were top priority, and Cover was surprisingly high as well. Usually what gets left behind is some standard elemental Materia.

 

[Shampignon]

Hello,
I'm about to complete this amazing mod (thanks Sega Chief for your work) but I don't find Ozma...I played the piano in Shinra Mansion, I get the message "something has escaped" but I don't see where he is. Can someone help me please?

I have a suggestion for an ultimate quest : launch all the fights of the game in a row. Satsuki Yatoshi did this, you can ask him how he scripted this if you're interested ;-)

 

[Sega Chief]

Hello,
I'm about to complete this amazing mod (thanks Sega Chief for your work) but I don't find Ozma...I played the piano in Shinra Mansion, I get the message "something has escaped" but I don't see where he is. Can someone help me please?

I have a suggestion for an ultimate quest : launch all the fights of the game in a row. Satsuki Yatoshi did this, you can ask him how he scripted this if you're interested ;-)

After playing the piano, it should be encountered in the Nibel Reactor.

A battle rush isn't overly complicated, you just set the Next Battle flag in the formation so that they activate in a chain. Karifean's mod (https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/10178/) does it this way, with the addition of a menu to select specific fights to start from + scales and adjusts the bosses to match an end-game party. I think that would be the right approach for it as it's not worthwhile to fight older bosses with an end-game party without adjustment; they'd go through the majority of them without any trouble.

 

[Shampignon]

After playing the piano, it should be encountered in the Nibel Reactor.

Ok, I didn't think it was like Zangan. Thank you for your answer, I can't wait to see it !

A battle rush isn't overly complicated, you just set the Next Battle flag in the formation so that they activate in a chain. Karifean's mod (https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/10178/) does it this way, with the addition of a menu to select specific fights to start from + scales and adjusts the bosses to match an end-game party. I think that would be the right approach for it as it's not worthwhile to fight older bosses with an end-game party without adjustment; they'd go through the majority of them without any trouble.

I didn't know this mod, it's a good idea.
But I think the real challenge in the Satsuki's version is not really the difficulty, but the endurance it takes to make 700 fights in a row!  :-D

I have a message for those who say that the documentation is not update, or who say they don't find an item, a materia or an enemy skill : you should use Wall Market, Hojo and Proud Cloud softwares. You will find all informations about magic, enemy skill, states, enemy's weaknesses, enemy's attacks, what they drop, how they transform and what they have to steal. I made this and it's very very usefull !

 

[Fauve]

A few questions about SP and levels:

1) Does everyone in the active party get the same amount of SP?

2) Do characters in the non-active party still get SP as well?

3) Will characters that join later have multiple rank ups ready to go?

4) Since stats come from the SP system, are character levels irrelevant?

 

[Sega Chief]

A few questions about SP and levels:

1) Does everyone in the active party get the same amount of SP?

2) Do characters in the non-active party still get SP as well?

3) Will characters that join later have multiple rank ups ready to go?

4) Since stats come from the SP system, are character levels irrelevant?

When you touch a save point, SP accumulated to that point is allocated to the active party. Other characters not in the party get half. Characters that join later in the game have 1-3 ranks 'free' to catch them up. Level affects damage dealt, HP/MP, and steal/manip success rate. It also affects magic accuracy but there has to be a wide gulf between character and enemy level for it to really matter.

 

[Fauve]

When you touch a save point, SP accumulated to that point is allocated to the active party. Other characters not in the party get half. Characters that join later in the game have 1-3 ranks 'free' to catch them up. Level affects damage dealt, HP/MP, and steal/manip success rate. It also affects magic accuracy but there has to be a wide gulf between character and enemy level for it to really matter.

Sweet thanks. Do bosses also reward SP? Or just normal encounters?