[FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2.3 & v1.1b)

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Thanks for the guide it's coming in real handy. I just finished Disc 1 due to me being a bit busy. So far i'm really enjoying everything though i feel Irvine is a bit weak compared to Squall and Zell when it comes to overall usefulness, maybe i'm misusing him though.
 
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Hi,

Thank you for the awesome mod, been enjoying it alot

I have a question I would like to ask,if I may?

Just spent 2+ hours trying to get the Zell Card from his mom, I then read that the location has changed.
Is there any clues you can give as to where this is?
Is it obtainable in Disk 1?
Is it part of a Side Quest? eg Queen of Cards or the CC group?
Dont want to know exactly where it is,yet. but would like a vague idea of where it could be.

Thanx
 
@Nikito: Irvine's strong points are his Speed and Luck, to offset his lower HP, Strength and Vitality compared to Squall and Zell. His natural Speed growth is planned to be increased further for the next update, while Speed gains from junctions will be lowered, so Irvine's advantage in Speed over the other characters will always be noticable (only Selphie will come close). Besides that, all of his weapons will receive an innate critical hit bonus, not just Exeter. I hope this will make him more worthwhile overall.

@demondrakeza666: Yes, the Zell card has become part of a sidequest in this mod, rather than being won by a Triple Triad player. This sidequest can be completed at the beginning of disc 3 at the earliest, until the point of no return at the end of disc 3 at the latest. You don't have to care about any prerequisites prior to disc 3, the card can be found anytime during disc 3, no matter the circumstances. If you need more information about where to find items, cards etc, let me know.
 
I was wondering how do you obtain Seifer's card now since Cid doesn't seem to have it.
 
I was wondering how do you obtain Seifer's card now since Cid doesn't seem to have it.
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Nothing has changed in regards to the Seifer card, only the Kiros and Zell card locations are different from the original game.

Are you playing at his office? The probabilties of Cid using the Seifer card are different depending on where you play him. It's only 20% in his office, while later at Edea's House chances increase to about 50%. So I'd suggest keep trying.
 
Hey Callisto. I played this game back in December, and I never realized before that Omega Weapon has a set attack pattern that makes him entirely too easy to beat once you know the pattern. That made the game a bummer for me as I'd always played it with an end-goal of dying over and over until I finally beat him. What does your mod do to Omega Weapon? Is there a way to make his attacks more random so that you can't just cheese him? After realizing how easy he is this game completely lost appeal for me, and I'm hoping this mod can make Omega Weapon a nightmare (like he was when I first played this game and he absolutely mauled me). You know... so it actually feels like you deserve that achievement for beating him.
 
In the current version of the mod, Omega Weapon uses a different opener than normal (not Lv5 Death), deals noticably more damage with his attacks (especially spells) and can use Light Pillar anytime. The latter is no longer an instant death attack in this mod, but very difficult to survive.

Other than that, Omega Weapons physical attacks are harder to dodge, as the Speed gains through junctions - and therefore also Evade stats - have been toned down by quite a bit, and he can't be easily put under the Vit 0 status effect by just casting Meltdown, so the fight will probably go on longer than usual - also because Squall's, Zell's and Irvines' Limit Breaks no longer inflict absurd amounts of damage. Character stats are generally harder to max out since the latest update, which should help with the difficulty of this battle as well.

I'm not sure if this is enough to turn him into a nightmare, but it should be a noticable step up frome the base game. I guess there's still more potential to this battle, like slightly more randomization of attacks, so his pattern becomes less predictable. I'll think about something for the next update, which should release soon.
 
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The earliest point you can get Doomtrain is identical to the original game (excluding Chocobo World): After leaving Esthar for the first time, head to Tears Point, get the Solomon Ring and active it when having 6 Steel Pipes, 6 Remedy+ and 6 Malboro Tentacles in your inventory.

Steel Pipes must be mugged from Wendigos (they appear very frequently on the dirt ground area near Deling City), as they are no longer available through Card Mod. As for the other items, the ways of obtaining them are the same as always. Here's a link:

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Doomtrain
 
Hey Callisto, just wanted to drop by to let you know how much I'm enjoying your mod. It's my first time revisiting this game in well over a decade and I'm having a blast with all the gameplay changes you've made. I actually restarted partway into my playthrough after finding out about your mod since I was finding the original game to be too easy. I'm still relatively early in but I've already found it to be much more engaging. The balance so far is spot on: boss fights are challenging and sometimes require multiple attempts and even normal battles can be deadly. It's a lot of fun learning which monsters I have to be vary of instead of just breezing through every normal encounter. I also love all the little extra things you've added throughout the game, like the side quests or extra rewards during the story. I can really see how much heart you've put into this.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the game and hopefully I'll report back with my thoughts after playing some more. Cheers!
 
Hello, started this up with the Lunatic Pandora mod pack and am using the ultimate launcher.

Three things I wanted to bring up, I noticed in a previous comment that you changed the queen of cards quest. I lost my minimog card to her and she gave the text saying she was moving to dollet. I haven't gone back to check if she's actually gone. Also, could you put together a list of the card changes?

Second thing was during the late night visit to the training center with Quistis I was back attacked by a T-rexaur and before I could act was tail whipped for roughly 900 damage a pop and wiped out Quistis and Squall.

Third was Double doesn't seem to do anything. I have the option for single and double cast after I buff someone with it, but the second spell never goes off. Edit: Something in this process resolved -
If using Lunatic Pandora Mod Pack v1.0:
1. Delete the HL_Files/ folder.
2. Download THIS FILE to replace the UV Injector that comes with Lunatic Pandora
3. Place that file into RaW/GLOBAL/Hext along with the ragnarok mod and any other Hext files you have.
4. Run the game from the normal launcher.
 
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Another thing I just found, the guy that is supposed to be the vendor in the train base in Timber doesn't give you the ability to choose a response. The options are there, but you can't choose.
 
Hey Yuey, thank you for the feedback, much appreaciated. I am somewhat satisfied with the overall balance as well, but I still feel like a few bosses are in need of further adjustments - mostly small ones, though. For example, the damage the Iguions can inflict with their Resonance attack is a bit overtuned, and the enemies at the top of the prison are still a bit too fast. So watch out once you get there, and don't set battle speed to max for bosses in general. Anyway, have a good time and feel free to report back with any impressions you have.

@Fooli: It's best to wait with starting the Queen of Cards sidequest until you have the Quezacotl card from Mayor Dobe in Fisherman's Horizon, as the whole quest chain now starts with this card instead of Minimog. All in all, not much has changed about this sidequest otherwise. Click spoiler tag for more details:


Instead of the Minimog card, you need to lose the Quezacotl card to the Card Queen. This creates the Kiros card, which can then be found at Winhill Inn. Second, instead of the Sacred Card, the Card Queen now requests the Pandemona card. This will create the Irvine card, which can still be won from Flo in Fisherman's Horizon. The rest of the quest remains the same as in the base game.


As for the T-Rexaur wipe, I'll look for a way to prevent back attacks against this enemy, or will just decrease the power of its tail attack a little.

Rechecked shop options in Timber train, and can confirm the bug you described. It only happens when talking to this NPC right after getting Rinoa out of her room though. After the actual train mission and right before facing Gerogero, the options work as intended. Will fix this very soon, thanks for the info.
 
I am currently playing through the latest version of the mod and noticed that Cactuar still has the Stat Bonus abilities. Is that intentional? It seems like an oversight to me since his ability inventory is overcrowded (i.e. one needs to make him forget 5 abilities in order for him to learn everything he is supposed to learn naturally).
 
Oh, that was an oversight. That's actually a very important thing you've spotted there. Will be fixed as soon as possible, thank you.
 
I guess there's still more potential to this battle, like slightly more randomization of attacks, so his pattern becomes less predictable. I'll think about something for the next update, which should release soon.
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The other things you said make the battle sound way better than Vanilla, but less predictable attacks would (in my opinion) be a huge improvement for Omega Weapon. Thanks so much for everything you've put into this! I want to replay FFVIII again! ;D
 
Is there still an NPC who can abolish card rules on Disc4? I looked around a fair bit but couldn't find any such person.
 
No, there isn't such an NPC for disc 4 yet. I'll try to add this function to Joker, but I can't promise if I can get it working, as it seems more difficult than at the other locations.

What you could do in any case is relying on the RNG for you to remove a certain rule from the card players on the Ragnarok, as long as you are able to carry rules to certain players that don't already play them. Check out this link, for example:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/197343-final-fantasy-viii/76700194
 
Just finished disc 2 and it's been a ton of fun so far. I have a few thoughts, but I'll save them for until I finish the entire game to better organize them.

One thing that I do want to mention though was the Cerberus fight. That was probably the hardest fight for me up until this point and man what a fight that was! I thought I was more than prepared for anything (had pretty much full stock of every possible spell so far on my entire party and was a solid lvl60 on squall / 40-ish on my other two members) and he still wiped the floor with me. I ended up having to dedicate both Rinoa and Quistis to full time buff and healing duties just to stay alive. Both tornado and quake would do half of my party's hp even with aero and break junctioned to ele-def and sometimes he would back to back cast them. I felt like I needed protect at all times because of his physical/acid rain and haste/double on both my casters in order to keep up with healing. I tried using shell/float too but opted for just healing through since he kept dispelling and it was too many buffs to try to maintain. Oh, and that acid rain attack has got to be the worst part of the fight. The dispel plus the heavy physical damage of it meant that if it followed a tornado or quake before I could heal, it was likely a KO on one of my casters. Not to mention he really likes to spam it and he's so freaking fast! All in all, very fun fight and even more satisfying once you beat him.

On the other hand, the boss battle right after that felt like a joke in comparison. Maelstrom hurts a lot but she just didn't have the speed to really follow up to make it deadly and I could easily heal up to full before anything happens. The RNG deaths were annoying but nothing I couldn't deal with since once again her slow speed makes it easy to recover.

Also, is triple still available as a drawn spell from enemies at some point in the game since neither Odin or Cerberus has it. You can just tell me a yes or no so I know if I would need to refine it or not.

Edit: In hindsight, I think much of what made the Edea fight easier for me compared to Cerberus was the fact that I had two treatments already by that point and since a lot of her skill set revolved around inflicting status ailments, that kind of trivialized the fight. Gaining an extra Spd-J also really upped my party's survivability since both of my casters had 50+ spd.
 
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I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but the SeeD Rank salary fix reverted to normal at the beginning of the second disk. Just opened my inventory and i have a quarter million gil, watched the next pay amount and it was like 23k. Edit: It kicked back in after the fight with the Iron Clad in FH, back to 6500. But I now have 1.1 million gil. Uhh.

The Missile Base commander and his two side kicks wiped me twice oddly enough. First time I silenced them all with Siren, then the two mooks started spamming hi potions while the officer had them gang up on whoever was lowest HP. Action economy was seriously busted, it was like they were all hasted. Second time I tried dropping the officer without scanning him, he had a ton of hp I wasn't expecting lol.

Something seemed super wonky with the random encounter rate where you fight the oilboyles. Went through it twice and had at least six random encounters each time just walking across the room. Most of Garden seemed pretty high, Galbadia doesn't need missiles when there are that many bombs running around the halls.

Not sure if it has anything to do with your mod, but the text font occasionally goes back to the original every other letter. Opening the menu usually fixes it.

Been enjoying this run quite a bit as the characters feel distinct. Selphie is seriously MVP so far, she is higher level than squall at the missile base just from how many killing blows she deals. She just murders everything with her limit break and her innate magic stat. However I can't seem to make Zell useful compared to anyone else, and I've yet to get his finisher to show up when Duel-ing. Did the command order get changed? Irvine is kinda in the same boat outside his limit.

What does Angelo's damage scale off of for Rinoa? It seems to be super weak.
 
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