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

[Callisto]

-Ultima Weapon: Light Pillar has been changed from 9999 fixed damage to the most powerful single-hit physical attack in the game with a 100% crit chance. So it can be survived, but Vitality requirements are very high. Vengeance won't be used before turn 17 to give players more time to draw Triple or Ultima spells. After turn 17, it will be used at set intervals (every 4th turn), so Ultima Weapon won't be able to spam it to keep things in check.

-Iron Giants have around 190 Vitality no matter where they are encountered, so most physical attacks will be next to useless against them. They retain their weakness against Gravity attacks though, so using one or two Gravity Bombs (new item), and then some Thundagas is a good alternative to finish them off. But of course, Shockwave Pulsar works very well too, due their naturally low Spirit stat.

-Lunatic Pandora Laboratory battles: It's really good to hear that you found a use for Quistis' Ray Bomb here. I never liked that it was next to useless in the base game, so it now reliably inflicts Vit 0, as long as the target is not immune to it. But using AoEs is actually quite risky against the 3 Cyborgs, as in this particular battle, each one has a 50% chance to cast Ultima upon defeat.

-Fire Cavern sidequest: Bomb using Suicide on himself at the end was not planned. I wanted it to target the character who last attacked, and in case it dies from a Counter or Return Damage, do nothing and just die. Guess it isn't as easy though, so I'll make it target a random party member instead.

Thanks for all the feedback again. It's interesting to read about the various strategies you've tried, like Angel Wing working for you against Ultima Weapon, which I'm pleased to hear. Also always good to get some feedback about the additional sidequests - so I guess the battles at Lunatic Pandora Laboratory could be made a little more difficult, and Elnoyle could be made immune to Vit 0, or perhaps be made an undead enemy to raise its natural defense against physical attacks (at least it would fit quite well).

Spoiler

The spell with the 1/256 probability is Apocalypse.

 

[Nesouk]

-Ultima Weapon: Light Pillar has been changed from 9999 fixed damage to the most powerful single-hit physical attack in the game with a 100% crit chance. So it can be survived, but Vitality requirements are very high. Vengeance won't be used before turn 17 to give players more time to draw Triple or Ultima spells. After turn 17, it will be used at set intervals (every 4th turn), so Ultima Weapon won't be able to spam it to keep things in check.

Well thought then regarding leaving the player time to draw, I guess I don't have enough vit at the moment to survive it,

-Iron Giants have around 190 Vitality no matter where they are encountered, so most physical attacks will be next to useless against them. They retain their weakness against Gravity attacks though, so using one or two Gravity Bombs (new item), and then some Thundagas is a good alternative to finish them off. But of course, Shockwave Pulsar works very well too, due their naturally low Spirit stat.

So they have an even higher Vit than Jumbo Cactuar as I thought no wonder Zell's Duel damage for my testing were lower than the one you give for Jumbo Cactuar. But Yeah I figure Magic, Gravity and Statut Effect were the way to go against them.

-Lunatic Pandora Laboratory battles: It's really good to hear that you found a use for Quistis' Ray Bomb here. I never liked that it was next to useless in the base game, so it now reliably inflicts Vit 0, as long as the target is not immune to it. But using AoEs is actually quite risky against the 3 Cyborgs, as in this particular battle, each one has a 50% chance to cast Ultima upon defeat.

Yeah Ray Bomb is good in this mod probably the best way to inflict Vit 0 hands down, it was definitly a useless move in the base game and even in other mod like Requiem and Reloaded, especially for how hard it is to get it if you didn't do anything in Laguna's second flashback.

Thanks for all the feedback again. It's interesting to read about the various strategies you've tried, like Angel Wing working for you against Ultima Weapon, which I'm pleased to hear. Also always good to get some feedback about the additional sidequests - so I guess the battles at Lunatic Pandora Laboratory could be made a little more difficult, and Elnoyle could be made immune to Vit 0, or perhaps be made an undead enemy to raise its natural defense against physical attacks (at least it would fit quite well).

Or make Elnoyle resistance to statut effect as great as Ruby Dragons, currently Ruby Dragon can be slowed, sleeped and put to Vit 0 however inflicting these with regular Magic is almost impossible you have to use Limit Break (Quistis's Bad Breath, Homing Laser, Ray Bomb or Irvine's Dark Ammo) to have reasonnable chance of inflicting them, which I think it's fine for some of the toughest ennemies in the game.
Also regarding regular ennemies while I like that Statut Effect are usefull overall I feel there is to much ennemies that can be Berserked, which completly Trivialize them most notorious are Blue Dragon and Behemoths which I feel should be strong regular encounter (especially since most of the time they are alone), and overall Berserk + Blind combo has been a pretty consistent strat against regular ennemies.

Regarding Angel Wing honnestly this is the Limit Break that beneficiate the most from the Damage Limit being remove, outside of Meteor it was a useless Limit Break cause none of the other Spell could break the damage limit of 9999 due to that outside of Meteor it was always better to do a triple cast than Angel Wing, I wasn't sure about removing any sort of control the player have over it by making Rinoa's spell selection independant of her magic inventory, but considering this is a relativly safe offensive option (you lose control of Rinoa but the fact that it immune her to most crippling statut effects and unlike other Limit Break you can heal her and not give a damn about Crisis Level somewhat make up for that), on Ultima Weapon the lowest damage Rinoa could do was 8800 with Bio (didn't get any Pain tough) so from 8000 to 20000 per turn is fine considering it require 0 input on the players part.

So By the way regarding new sidequest :

-The Ruby Dragon of Trabia Canyon : A good fight can definitly caught you off guard the first time, being immune to Zombie and Berserk is a very good idea in this fight, he seems to act in a set pattern from what I understand and counter Regular attack by Pain, Limit Break by normal attacks and Magic by casting Reflect on himself, Putrefy is a nasty move setting Zombie on everyone, so I casted Triple on Rinoa who then cast Renew on everyone, main damage dealer was then Squall with Darkside and 100 Blizzaga to Ele atk he could deal almost 20k and also Irvine if he ever got the chance with AP Ammo can definitly do some serious damage (AP Shot does 5000, 10k with a crit), and I really should have done this quest earlier as the Dark Matter you as a reward is now pretty much useless to me as I already got shockwave Pulsar and Ultima.

-Saving the little girl at Esthar : Fight against 2 Behemoth Berserk make them powerless, then they have a pretty low Physical defense so I used Irvine with Darkside with Crit he can deal around 28k and he has a pretty good crit rate.

Also I'm trying to do Odine seeking for Mithryl sidequest, I got the Goddess bell item, but it doesn't appear in my inventory, when I go to the Tomb of the Unknown King I can't find the Rare Adamantoise anywhere so am I missing something here ?

 

[Callisto]

Or make Elnoyle resistance to statut effect as great as Ruby Dragons, currently Ruby Dragon can be slowed, sleeped and put to Vit 0 however inflicting these with regular Magic is almost impossible you have to use Limit Break (Quistis's Bad Breath, Homing Laser, Ray Bomb or Irvine's Dark Ammo) to have reasonnable chance of inflicting them, which I think it's fine for some of the toughest ennemies in the game.
Also regarding regular ennemies while I like that Statut Effect are usefull overall I feel there is to much ennemies that can be Berserked, which completly Trivialize them most notorious are Blue Dragon and Behemoths which I feel should be strong regular encounter (especially since most of the time they are alone), and overall Berserk + Blind combo has been a pretty consistent strat against regular ennemies.

Ok, will do something to make Elnoyles a little more resilient, but will probably leave the Degenerator back door open, so farming Elnoyle in Esthar won't be overly time-consuming. What I would really like to do is changing enemy status resistance dynamically for the same enemy, mid-battle or depending on battle. It can be done for elemental resistance (see Blobras or Thrustaevises), but in the case of status effects, it looks like a similar enemy AI instruction doesn't exist, unfortunately.

Berserk is indeed quite a cheap way of dealing with certain enemies, as they don't even get the increased Strength when berserked, and just use their regular physical attack unbuffed in almost all cases. It's possible to control which attack enemies use when under Berserk though, and I already managed to make Iguions actually inflict more damage when under Berserk, but a lot more enemies should get that treatment, so using Berserk always comes with a risk, especially if enemies are not blinded at the same time. It will take a little time, but more changes to enemy Berserk behavior will follow soon.

Regarding Angel Wing honnestly this is the Limit Break that beneficiate the most from the Damage Limit being remove, outside of Meteor it was a useless Limit Break cause none of the other Spell could break the damage limit of 9999 due to that outside of Meteor it was always better to do a triple cast than Angel Wing, I wasn't sure about removing any sort of control the player have over it by making Rinoa's spell selection independant of her magic inventory, but considering this is a relativly safe offensive option (you lose control of Rinoa but the fact that it immune her to most crippling statut effects and unlike other Limit Break you can heal her and not give a damn about Crisis Level somewhat make up for that), on Ultima Weapon the lowest damage Rinoa could do was 8800 with Bio (didn't get any Pain tough) so from 8000 to 20000 per turn is fine considering it require 0 input on the players part.

Yes, especially the last point you made is actually very important in tougher battles, as no time needs to be spend on selecting Commands or targets, so the enemy won't be able to interrupt your actions as often. So I think Angel Wing is currently in a reasonable spot overall. I'll probably remove Demi from the table though, to make it slightly more useful. I can imagine it's quite frustrating if Rinoa uses it against bosses.

As for the new sidequest in Esthar, you have everything you need to find the Adamantoises inside Tomb of the Unknown King (the Goddess Bell is rather just a variable than a real item; too bad there's no inventory for key items in this game). Have you already looked at the middle tower from all possible angles?

 

[Nesouk]

Ok, will do something to make Elnoyles a little more resilient, but will probably leave the Degenerator back door open, so farming Elnoyle in Esthar won't be overly time-consuming. What I would really like to do is changing enemy status resistance dynamically for the same enemy, mid-battle or depending on battle. It can be done for elemental resistance (see Blobras or Thrustaevises), but in the case of status effects, it looks like a similar enemy AI instruction doesn't exist, unfortunately.

Berserk is indeed quite a cheap way of dealing with certain enemies, as they don't even get the increased Strength when berserked, and just use their regular physical attack unbuffed in almost all cases. It's possible to control which attack enemies use when under Berserk though, and I already managed to make Iguions actually inflict more damage when under Berserk, but a lot more enemies should get that treatment, so using Berserk always comes with a risk, especially if enemies are not blinded at the same time. It will take a little time, but more changes to enemy Berserk behavior will follow soon.

That would be interesting indeed, in fact this could open some option for making Berserk a key factor in some battle (something I wanted to do in some boss battle when I was trying to mod FFIX (I should really come back to it by the way ^^) cause in FFIX to you can set which attack the berserked ennemy will use which I think could make some fight interesting if use properly).

Yes, especially the last point you made is actually very important in tougher battles, as no time needs to be spend on selecting Commands or targets, so the enemy won't be able to interrupt your actions as often. So I think Angel Wing is currently in a reasonable spot overall. I'll probably remove Demi from the table though, to make it slightly more useful. I can imagine it's quite frustrating if Rinoa uses it against bosses.

Yeah Angel Wing is in a good spot.
By the way speaking of Rinoa's Limit Break I did some testing with her Angelo Limit Break, I didn't use it like at all cause I was focusing on a Magic use for Rinoa but since I tried pretty much anything else I thought why not trying just to see what it can do and My God I think underestimate this Limit Break really bad it's actually a very good one :

-Angelo Canon and Angelo Strike are VERY strong geez, with 244 Str Angelo Canon is actually stronger than Zell's My Final Heaven with 255 Str on Iron Giant My Final Heaven does around 4500-5000 Angelo Canon does around 5200-5500 (double with Crit) this might be the best Physical AoE in the game actually cause since it's a Crisis Level 1 it's the most likely attack to get off and require no skill unlike My Final Heaven and is more likely to get than Squall's Finisher, and Angelo Strike is even stronger around 7900-8500 on Iron Giant with 244 Str (double with Crit of course) I actually reach 45k on a Behemoth with Vit 0 with this attack criting so this is a very strong single target attack.

-Awakening Moon is a free heal but it's honnestly an inconvenience more than anything else and I think this is the least usefull of Angelo's Limit Break, cause the problem is you cannot predict it and so if you plan using Rinoa as a damage dealer with her Limit Break this full heal will prevent you from using Limit Break and you will have to set up again and even if you want to actually heal why would you risk using something random like this when you can use Quistis's White Wind or simply a Triple Curaga ? You definitly want to nerf Invincible Moon but this new move is honnestly an annoyance more than anything else in a Limit Break Random as this one. So as of now I just didn't learn it so that at least I can be sure that Rinoa will do damage which the main goal of using her Limit.

-Wishing Star : Now that is the one that worries me the most it scale with Rinoa's magic which is good, and I think it's definitly the most powerfull Magic Attack in the game, with 255 Mgi Wishing Star deal around 72000 damage to an Iron Giant (which has 0 Spr apparently cause after setting Vit 0 on a Behemoth I was reaching the same damage output), that is quite a lot, on a Behemoth which apparently has a good Spr it does 30-32k that's quite a lot to put in perspective it's around the 2 time the damage of a Triple Ultima, and this is even stronger than Quistis's Shockwave Pulsar (who at best deal 65k to Iron Giant down to 45k depending of the Crisis Level with 255 Mgi and I didn't even exceed 17k on Behemoth) and this isn't mentionning this is an AoE. Tough the fact it require highest Crisis Level to pull off, make this move unlikely to being pulled off unless you really do your best at increasing Rinoa's Crisis Level (by reducing her HP a lot and put several Statut Effect on her).

As for the new sidequest in Esthar, you have everything you need to find the Adamantoises inside Tomb of the Unknown King (the Goddess Bell is rather just a variable than a real item; too bad there's no inventory for key items in this game). Have you already looked at the middle tower from all possible angles?

Manage to found them in the end, so the fight against them was pretty fun, having to keep an eye on what Ward they use, so immunity to Silence and Petrify is welcome, junction 100 Thundaga to Element Attak on Irvine and Squall, Rinoa as my magic damage dealer with Triple Thundaga, you can actually put Vit 0 on them quite easily and as such they over 30k from Triple Thundaga, and you can Blind them to make their physical attack and Sand Storm (cause it's physical for some reasons), overall most dangerous thing is the last one will use Ultima instead of Quake.

 

[Nesouk]

OK So did the CC Club sidequest and finish disc 3, I don't like being negative in general but I guess it is better to be honnest, this is honnestly the most lacking part of the Mod up to now End of Disc 3 and early Disc 4 is quite a disappointment regarding the boss fight :

-Fujin and Raijin : there is some good idea, I like the fact that Fujin act as more of a support here, but she is just to focus on support and outside of it don't do much she only did 1 Zan, 1 fix Meteor and 1 Bio, Raijin is more focusing on damage, except the issue here is they are severely lacking in damage even Raijin's Special didn't do more than 2000 with Protect, Fujin's support can simply be dispel and completly neutralize (really playing this I now understand why Mexico did something similar to FFVII and creat a spell that only dispel Protect, Shell and Reflect and is available for most of the game, and left the spell that dispel all buff for late game only, cause dispel just make any sort of ennemies using buff irrelevant unless it's a special buff like what you did with the Rare adamantoise and their wards or Defend), so basically I just Mugged them and kill them with Triple Bio, Squall using Darkside and Irvine regular attack (both with Bio on Element Attack).

-Mobile Type 8 : Well to put it simply if it wasn't for trying to mug all 3 of them I could end this fight before they even start to separate, Mugging took me a LOT of time don't know why but the right pod just didn't want me to mug him, I no joke must have try over 20 times before I succeed, at least Str Ups are a good thing, my main offensive was Irvine using is Limit Break (Pulse Ammo or Demolition Ammos), Squall using Darkside with 100 Thundaga to Elemental Attack and Selphie with Triple Thundaga, if he ever got the time when he separates he put himself in defense becoming immune to physical and halving magic at that point Squall just stay on support while Selphie rain down the thundaga. So the only thing to watch for is his Homing Laser Counter and the fact it inflict Sleep so immunity to sleep is good to have and be ready to revive Irvine.

-Seifer 3 : The lamest fight of the entire mod, what happen here ? He did nothing but regular attack, his regular attack doesn't do more than 1700 with Protect and don't even do Statut Effect and I don't know if I got lucky or what but he really did nothing else, no Bloodfest, no magic, nothing this one need a serious overhaul in his AI and his abilities and furthermore his HP seems pathetically low it didn't even last 2 minutes. Honnestly it's the final fight with Seifer he should pull off a big fight for the occasion, you already take away Gilgamesh auto killing him after some time.

-Adel + Linoa : The only good fight of this entire part, than one was good, Ray Bomb is a good idea as setting Vit 0 dramatically increase the damage we take, the damage Adel deals to Linoa is very high (1500 with Shell), I somehow manage to keep her alive but I kinda luck out here, the spell that inflict Doom on all the party is a good idea to, due to the nature of this fight we have to deal with Vit 0 and Doom, while keeping Rinoa alive and damaging Adel, Irvine was my main damage dealer here  with Pulse and Demolition Ammos, combine with Squall's Darkside with Tornado on Elemental Attack and Selphie using Triple Flare when she got the occasion, as for Renew casting Renew on her and healing her from time to time, this is complete by the fact Adel has quite a lot of HP and so she doesn't go down easily. So not hard but it's a fun fight.

-Sorceress's gauntlet : Well as I said Adel was the only good fight of this part of the game, I can understand the first and second type of Sorceress being weak HP Wise to not drag this fight, however I think you should make it so they act at least 1 time as soon as they appear that would keep thing interesting at least as they go down really fast also remove the physical attack for the first type really a useless move, Squall one shot the first type with Darkside and when they are 2 of them Irvine can kill both with Fire Ammos. The last Sorceress like Seifer is lacking she did nothing but Gravija and Normal attacks, Gravija can't kill me and her normal attack does like 1500 damage with Protect, and she has low HP for that point of the game so again Irvine's Pulse Ammo and Squall's Darkside take care of this, think that one need a buff not necessarily to make it hard but more to make it fun at least.

So I think what happen here is you probably wanted to make this bosses to be beatable without doing the sidequests at Disc 3, as I guess if I didn't did all of them I would have been at a way lower LV with less good magic to junction which would have make these fight harder, however considering this is a mod that add quite a lot of sidequest and, in FFVIII unlike FFVII or FFIX finishing Disc 3 is really a point of no return locking up the player preventing his to get back, as such I think most players will do all the sidequests (at least as much as they can) before going to Lunatic Pandora, so you should take account how strong the player can be at this point, cause clearly I think these fight weren't design to a strong team, of course I'm not asking for each of this fight to be as challenging as Ultima Weapon, but really Jumbo Cactuar, Bahamut, that Special Red Dragon you add and even the Special Adamantoises were more interesting and/or challenging than these fight (save for Adel again she was a good fight overall).

Anyway so here I am to Ultimecia's castle now I'm gonna get the Ragnarok back.

 

[Callisto]

The problem with Seifer probably was that his AI script still consists of weighted random checks for the most part, without any pattern in regards to the attacks he chooses. I thought reducing the probability of his regular physical attack being used to about 40% would suffice, but it apparently wasn't enough to prevent him from spamming it, as it happened in your case.

So reworked Seifers script to something more structured with way fewer randomization in it, to make sure all his moves will be seen. The other bosses you mentioned (except Adel) have been buffed as well, but not all that much for reasons you already mentioned (I also don't want to make casting Protect and Shell mandatory for every single boss battle). You can check out a preview here if you like (replace main and battle files in lang-en folder). Any further opinions would be much appreciated.

 

[Nesouk]

OK I will try them again with the update in any case I beat everything in Ultimecia's castle only Ultimecia herself is left so I'm gonna go in the order I did them :

-Sphinxaur : Well since we only have Normal Attacks this as a result is a very straight forward boss, I took all 3 boys junction Holy to their attack and I just keep attacking, he doesn't do that much damage, just have to be carefull hitting him and not the jelleye he summons in the second phase, I recover Magic and the 2 next bosses will be girls time.

-Tri Point : So the gimmick of this one is to alternate between Fire and Ice magic, so I use Triple on all 3 girls and Rinoa and Quistis use Triple Firaga and Triple Blizzaga respectivly while Selphie buff and heal. I recover the Limit Break option.

-Krysta : Still girl team, this time however I wasn't expecting his regular attack to do Stop so as a result only Selphie was immune via Auto-Haste, so she was the main Damage dealer with Triple Flare while Rinoa and Quistis were healing and buffing preparing for his Ultima. I recover the resurection option.

-Trauma : Took Squall, Irvine and Selphie. An interesting one, so apparently as long as even 1 Droma is here he gain a sort of auto-heal for almost 9000HP, the Dromas themselves aren't to threatning and go down easily with Squall and Irvine's physical attacks (with Tornado to Elemental Attack) and Selphie using Triple Tornado, Trauma's most dangerous attack is definitly Mega Pulse canon who does around 7000 damage and ignore Shell but this move is also a great occasion to use Limit Breaks to damage him. I recover saving ability.

-Red Giant : An easy one for once a mod doesn't remove his gimmick of being weak to Gravity XD. So just beefed up everyone Vitality, set protect cast Triple Demi 2 or 3 times and finish him off with Irvine's AP Shot. I recover the Command ability.

-Gargantua : Using Zell, Quistis and Rinoa first off we have to take off Lefty, Righty and Vysage no big deal a Triple Ultima will do the trick, Gargantua himself might be the second toughest of the 8 Guardian, mainly cause he can set Vit 0 on us, has Berserk and can use Vengeance yep this move again and his physical attacks are quite damaging, so just like Ultima weapon I putted Rinoa on Angel Wing as soon as I get the chance, so that he can't interrupt my offense while buffing/healing with Zell and Quistis.

-Tiamat : Using Zell, Quistis and Rinoa again, toughest of the 8 gardian but that's my fault I was focusing on Limit Break didn't know he could counter them with Ultima I realise that to late, so I switch strat mid battle using only Zell's Limit Break, outside of Ultima counter the most dangerous thing is he can now use Dark Flare whenever he wants and it's a 8000 damage in the face without Shell so yeah quite a damaging move.

-Catoblepas : Using Squall, Selphie and Irvine, well this guy only dangerous move his Heaven's Wrath just like Odin so my main Damage dealer was Irvine with Pulse Ammo and Squall using Darkside since he has low physical defense, Heaven's Wrath give a nice opportunity for using Limit Break due to the damage it does just have to be carefull in case it set Stop.

And so now for the big boy himself Omega Weapon, with he is definitly the toughest boss of the mod took me 4-5 tries to found a somewhat consistent strat against him and well show don't tell as they say so I record a fight :

So basically he has all kind of nasty moves including Megido Flame, Light Pillar, Vengeance and Terra Break, Megido Flame doesn't deal 9998 damage thank god, seems to deal damage depending of characters max HP, Terra Break is the big one without Defend this move alone make the fight luck base, for Light Pillar Squall can actually survive it without Defend (with 232 Vit and Protect Squall take 8000 from Light Pillar) so basically :

-Squall here is my tank set Renew, Haste and Triple then putting him in Defend and he stays in Defend in case Terra Break, at least Omega can't use Megido Flame and/or Terra Break back to back (however he can use Vengeance follow by Terra Break it's rare but this is definitly the most dangerous thing that can happen in this fight) so Squall is safe to be on support when either of them is used, is role is to tank and resurrect the other after Terra Break.

-Quistis is the support, use Ray Bomb to inflict Vit 0 then assist Squall on support, using Renew on her and resurrecting Irvine when he die, also throw Aura Stone at Irvine (first time I use them cause yeah this is the strongest boss in the game normally so no holding back on that bastard XD).

-Irvine is the main damage dealer with Pulse Ammos, Pulse Ammos might be a little to strong with Vit 0, despite our dear XenoKyros labelling Irvine as garbage he can pull off ridiculous damage here Pulse Ammo deal 11000-12000 damage and up to around 24000 per Shots, I even got an extremely lucky turn where I pulled off 6 Shots and all them Crit that's over 130k here so much for Irvine being a garbage XD.

Got to admit I got lucky on certain part especially on the first Terra Break not Killing Quistis, this is honnestly the first time it ever happen usually she died (I did 5 tries and also did this fight using Zell instead of Irvine and on all of them this is really the only time I saw Quistis surviving Terra Break), and after the Ultima Omega Weapon didn't use anything that could have killed Irvine leaving Irvine a lot of turns to damage him. Showing my junction after the fight if anyone is interested.
Also you might want to nerf the Pulse Ammos a little for that fight tough XD.

Also I think Light Pillar as some damage overflow thing notice how at 3:40 on the video Irvine has 8000HP game tell you that Light Pillar has 3754 yet this killed Irvine regardless XD

EDIT : Well Ultimecia defeated decide to leave Irvine and Zell out for once so I took Squall, Quistis and Rinoa, Squall as a physical fighter with 100 Water to Elemental Attack, Quistis and Rinoa as mage, just make sure to have a Holy and Thundaga spells :

-Ultimecia : Basically just a warming I just try to survive waiting for my team to come up, once I got my team I set up them with Triple, Renew and Haste, then since she has a good Magic Defense and no good weakness to exploit I just use Squall's Darkside and some triple Meteor.

-Griever : Poor dude only did 3 actions (including the fix Schockwave Pulsar) before dying he is very weak to Holy so with Triple Holy Rinoa does over 40k and Quistis (who has less magic around 32k so over 70k per turn Squall just healing if needed, so yeah around 3 or 4 round of Quistis and Rinoa using Triple Holy and he is done, his Schockwave Pulsar does around 3000 with Shell.

-Ultimecia + Griever : Now Squall can get some good damage as she take a lot damage from Water element Squall can hit for 28-29k with Darkside, Rinoa around 27k with Triple Thundaga and Quistis 24k with Triple Thundaga so yeah almost 80k per round since I have by far the advantage in speed I manage to cut her tail before she even get the time to summon one of her little thing. Once her tail is off she acts a lot faster but she doesn't do anything dangerous except maybe Demi Schock but hey my Elixir are here for that.

-Final Ultimecia : Alright this one is a lot longer to kill than the 2 previous one, since she has no weakness to exploit I decided to just put Rinoa into Angel Wing and let her do damage (PS : I actually got an Apocalypse here who did 47k so that was nice XD), Squall can do damage with Darkside hitting for 14k and his Limit Break if he got the chance, Quistis is on support. She actually has her own version on Vengeance except it also dispel Angel Wing, but she only used it once in the entire fight so I just had to rebuff. She can still remove are spells, and something weird happened by the way at one point the game told me that she removed Quistis's Ultima, but it was Squall's Ultima that were remove, so that was weird and because Squall has become useless for dealing damage but that wasn't an issue cause this happen once the inferior part appear, at that point I just draw 31 Apocalypse with Quistis and was using her for dealing damage with Triple Apocalypse (1 Apocalypse hit for 10k with 207 Magic stat), while Rinoa was continuing her job, Ultimecia didn't get the time to use Apocalypse in fact after Drawing she losed time casting Flare.
Once the inferior part is gone at this point she is nearly done, she does however recover more than 20k between each of her monolog lines, but she also seem to become more trigger happy with Hell's Judgement so I use that as an opportunity to use Schockwave Pulsar who can deal at best around 45k on her

So yeah that was the Final Boss, so Griever and Ultimecia + Griever needs some more HP I think to accomodate for the fact they do have weaknesses, especially Griever Holy being one of the strongest spell in the game he suffers a lot from it, cause as of now they barely get the time to act. As for Final Ultimecia my only complains would be that she uses Flare a lot to much compare to her other spells (or maybe that was just luck in that case nevermind) and she should cast her Apocalypse right away instead of wasting time casting something else, otherwise Final Ultimecia is good she is a fun fight, she has enough HP to take a lot of punishment without making it to tedious which is what you would expect from a final boss and she does has some trick to spice the fight a little.

So I'm gonna retry the End of Disc 3/Beginning of Disc 4 bosses and then I think I will be done and will sum up my conclusions.

 

[Callisto]

-Red Giant: Well yes, it's a little cheap that Gravity attacks still work on him, but being able to draw Demi from directly or simply destroy his defense using Vit 0 was even cheaper. Also, he is the only boss after Cerberus that is vulnerable to Gravity attacks, so I thought why not leaving the vulnerability in for a change. He also has as massive amount of HP, so he should always get at least a couple of turns, and damage is quite high if Vitality stats are below ~150, so I think Red Giant is fine overall. Could perhaps increase the hit rate of his single-hit sword attacks though, as they are quite easy to dodge even with only mediocre Evade stats.

-Omega Weapon: Damage overflow shouldn't have happened, as damage is always capped at 60,000 HP in this mod. Do you have any other hext files under RaW/Global/Hext that mess with damage limit? That could explain it.

Otherwise, very well done fight. I don't mind that Pulse Ammo is superior to anything else in this battle (after setting Vit 0), as Omega Weapon is one of the few end-game enemies that are actualy vulnerable to Vit 0, and I think there should be a way to inflict massive amounts of damage on an enemy that enforces defensive play so much that it can be difficult find the right time to attack at all, as you noticed yourself. If anything, I would rather change the resources for getting Pulse Ammo instead of further reducing its base power. If you do the fixed Elnoyle encounter in Esthar repeatedly, it's actually quite easy to get a full stock in no time. As for the overall usefulness of Irvine's Limit Break, yes, Xerokynos' conclusion was a bit hasty (if I remember right, he tried AP Shot when Irvine had a Strength stat of only 32, then dismissed it for the rest of the playthrough) - if Irvine's Strength is high enough, then it's still very good.

I would be interested in seeing the stats by the way, especially Irvine's Luck. Maybe some spell junction effects are still too generous on it.

-Griever: It's honestly quite disappointing that he only got 3 attacks in your case, so I looked at his AI script again and found another, less obvious turn skip, which slows him down considerably. So removed this skip, and now he acts noticably faster. The third form has a similar turn skip as well, but it's difficult to remove without Ifrit enemy editor (the tool doesn't work very well with this enemy in general). I'll give it a try with manual hex editing though.

-Final Ultimecia: The time lapse between "Draw Apocalypse" and actually casting Apocalypse isn't any longer than in the base game. It's just that in this mod, Ultimecia acts at times she normally wouldn't, so she now uses another move between these two actions, when she would normally just skip a turn. Making it so that she casts Apocalpyse immediately after drawing it from her lower half would be quite difficult to achieve due to the complexity of her AI script, and similar to the previous enemy, the Ifrit tool doesn't "like" her file very much, so a lot of manual editing would be necessary, at least if you want to keep her Ability that destroys GF. I'll try to make her use Vaporize a little more often, and Hell's Judgement less frequently when near death. Thanks.

 

[Nesouk]

-Red Giant: Well yes, it's a little cheap that Gravity attacks still work on him, but being able to draw Demi from directly or simply destroy his defense using Vit 0 was even cheaper. Also, he is the only boss after Cerberus that is vulnerable to Gravity attacks, so I thought why not leaving the vulnerability in for a change. He also has as massive amount of HP, so he should always get at least a couple of turns, and damage is quite high if Vitality stats are below ~150, so I think Red Giant is fine overall. Could perhaps increase the hit rate of his single-hit sword attacks though, as they are quite easy to dodge even with only mediocre Evade stats.

Well I wasn't complaining ^^ for once Gravity attacks are usefull on a boss and kinda mandatory (as killing him with AP Shot would just take to long otherwise).

-Omega Weapon: Damage overflow shouldn't have happened, as damage is always capped at 60,000 HP in this mod. Do you have any other hext files under RaW/Global/Hext that mess with damage limit? That could explain it.

I check but I have nothing else in the Hext folder than your mod, back when I fight Ultima Weapon I effectivly saw 60000, however remember when I also said on Ultima Weapon that at one point Light Pillar was dealing more damage on Squall than Quistis/Rinoa despite Squall having highest Vit (Squall was 50k at the time while Quistis just 11k), so far Light Pillar is the only attack I saw an overflow.
However I got over 60k with Quistis's Schockwave Pulsar (did go up to 65k with Vit 0) but Demi didn't do more than 60k, unless this is intentionnal for Schockwave Pulsar it seems certain attacks break the 60k damage limit.

Otherwise, very well done fight. I don't mind that Pulse Ammo is superior to anything else in this battle (after setting Vit 0), as Omega Weapon is one of the few end-game enemies that are actualy vulnerable to Vit 0, and I think there should be a way to inflict massive amounts of damage on an enemy that enforces defensive play so much that it can be difficult find the right time to attack at all, as you noticed yourself. If anything, I would rather change the resources for getting Pulse Ammo instead of further reducing its base power. If you do the fixed Elnoyle encounter in Esthar repeatedly, it's actually quite easy to get a full stock in no time. As for the overall usefulness of Irvine's Limit Break, yes, Xerokynos' conclusion was a bit hasty (if I remember right, he tried AP Shot when Irvine had a Strength stat of only 32, then dismissed it for the rest of the playthrough) - if Irvine's Strength is high enough, then it's still very good.

I would be interested in seeing the stats by the way, especially Irvine's Luck. Maybe some spell junction effects are still too generous on it.

Yeah and Irvine happen to be the best way to get somewhat consistant high damage here, Zell is a good alternative and I suppose if you got lucky with Lion Heart proc Squall can be great to but I think Irvine's Pulse Ammo is the fastest way, I actually show my Stats and Junction at the end of the video but I'm gonna put the screenshot :

Squall :

Irvine :

Quistis :

-Griever: It's honestly quite disappointing that he only got 3 attacks in your case, so I looked at his AI script again and found another, less obvious turn skip, which slows him down considerably. So removed this skip, and now he acts noticably faster. The third form has a similar turn skip as well, but it's difficult to remove without Ifrit enemy editor (the tool doesn't work very well with this enemy in general). I'll give it a try with manual hex editing though.

So some skipping turn again, figure I wonder why they did that when they developped the game, kinda curious, well if you can remove it that should be better effectivly.

-Final Ultimecia: The time lapse between "Draw Apocalypse" and actually casting Apocalypse isn't any longer than in the base game. It's just that in this mod, Ultimecia acts at times she normally wouldn't, so she now uses another move between these two actions, when she would normally just skip a turn. Making it so that she casts Apocalpyse immediately after drawing it from her lower half would be quite difficult to achieve due to the complexity of her AI script, and similar to the previous enemy, the Ifrit tool doesn't "like" her file very much, so a lot of manual editing would be necessary, at least if you want to keep her Ability that destroys GF. I'll try to make her use Vaporize a little more often, and Hell's Judgement less frequently when near death. Thanks.

I'm wondering actually I'm not that much of a GF user myself but considering you tried to make them more usefull end game, is it worth to keep the Final Boss just basically pulling a "Screw you" move for people who use GF ?
Otherwise Final Ultimecia is pretty good fight already, the few tweak you mention should put her in a good spot I think

 

[AbsoLootAaron]

How's the gameplay mod coming along?

 

[Callisto]

Planning to release a new version that will contain some more suggestions made by Nesouk earlier, among some other things, and also Remaster compatibility soon.

Just finished work on the mngrp.bin file that contains all data relevant to menus. It needed a lot of manual adjustments as it's different from 2013 release. Next are Battle and Field files, which are also different, but shouldn't take that long to port over.  The only thing I'm quite unsure about is certain exe changes (such as Angel Wing, or the new Dispel damage type) and the way of applying the mod changes to the Remaster version. It will probably be a little more complicated than for 2013, but Maki's new Demastered Tool looks promising and could make the process easier. Have to check.

If there's anything in particular you'd like to see in this mod, don't hesitate to tell

 

[Lunareste]

Planning to release a new version that will contain some more suggestions made by Nesouk earlier, among some other things, and also Remaster compatibility soon.

Just finished work on the mngrp.bin file that contains all data relevant to menus. It needed a lot of manual adjustments as it's different from 2013 release. Next are Battle and Field files, which are also different, but shouldn't take that long to port over.  The only thing I'm quite unsure about is certain exe changes (such as Angel Wing, or the new Dispel damage type) and the way of applying the mod changes to the Remaster version. It will probably be a little more complicated than for 2013, but Maki's new Demastered Tool looks promising and could make the process easier. Have to check.

If there's anything in particular you'd like to see in this mod, don't hesitate to tell

Looking forward to playing this once again on Remastered version, Callisto. Thank you so much for all the hard work you've done for our community!

 

[goodmorninpluto]

Definitely looking forward to Remaster version!
Played an old build, and since then mod got quite a lot of changes and additions, would love to try them with new visuals.

 

[AbsoLootAaron]

I love the idea of adding new side quests, items, attacks/spells, secrets, and challenges. Unique tough bosses for example... It's like putting extra icing on the cake lol.
More things to enjoy in-game. :evil:

 

[Callisto]

v1.2 for Steam 2013 and v1.0 for Remastered are now available.

Note that the Remastered version currently comes without any exe changes. A compensation for some of the missing features has been done, though. See below for more information.


Changes Overview

Balance changes

• Each party member's core base stats and natural stat growth have been increased.
• Spell junction values for defensive stats have been reduced in the mid-late game.
• Hitrate for Irvine's weapons has been increased.
• Break base spell power has been slightly increased.
• Aqua Breath availability has been delayed from D-District Prison to Centra Ruins/Kashkabald Desert.
• Base power for Desperado and Massive Anchor Limit Breaks has been reduced.
• Desperado has a chance to inflict Confuse on all enemies.
• Angelo Cannon and Angelo Strike base power has been slightly reduced.
• Selphie's and Edea's Limit Breaks now proc slightly earlier than usual.
• Mega-Potions now heal 1500 HP instead of 1000 HP.
• Remedy+ is now multi-targeting and has been made slightly more common, but can no longer cure Doom.
• Doom Command Ability inflicts magic damage in addition to causing Doom status.
• Absorb Command Ability has been changed to Heal, restores HP to all party members for 18,75% of their max HP.

Enemies

• A slight to moderate damage reduction has been applied to most bosses in the early and mid-game.
• Evade stats for most flying enemies have been increased.
• Overall stats have been increased for many high-leveled common enemies.
• Some status immunities have been lowered for certain bosses, especially in regards to Poison and Vit 0.
• Enemies now do more damage under Berserk, and some will try to use this to their advantage.
• Vysage, Lefty, Righty, Elnoyle and Gargantua are now undead enemies.
• Meltdown can be drawn from the Hexadragons that appear in Galbadia Garden on disc 2.
• Pain can be drawn from the Tri-Faces that appear in Galbadia Garden on disc 2.
• Curaga can be drawn from high-leveled (LV40+) Mesmerizes.
• Many enemies can no longer spam powerful attacks and require a cool down of at least 2 turns before they can be used again.

Spoiler: Boss changes in detail •

Elvoret: Magic damage slightly increased, but its magic stat drops by 20% after Siren has been drawn
Granaldo, 3x Raldo: Raldos have been slowed down, Granaldo's Poison Gas inflicts less damage
Gerogero: General damage reduction
Esthar Cyborgs: Boomerang Sword can no longer be used right away and can no longer be used in two consecutive turns; damage reduction
Brothers: Confuse hitrate of Sacred's physical attack further reduced; Mower damage slightly reduced; new attack for Minotaur mixed in
Iguions: General damage reduction
Seifer: Slight damage reduction for Fira; uses Silence once after a couple of turns
Edea: Snowstorm is no longer a direct counterattack, she now needs to spend an actual turn to use it; damage reduction for most attacks
Elite Soldier, 2x GIM52A: Damage reduction
NORG: Magic damage decreased
Odin: Magic damage decreased
Seifer (2nd): Can no longer spam Demon Slice multiple times in a row; uses Drain occasionally to keep total damage dealt under control
Seifer (3rd): Noticable drop in defensive stats so he can be dealt with quickly
Edea (2nd): Slightly lower Speed, slight reduction in magic damage
Propagator: Anti AoE spam measures, but general increase in stats
Jumbo Cactuar: Ker Plunk can no longer be used multiple times in a row
Bahamut: Anti AoE spam measures
Ultimecia/Griever: properly edited for the first time; they are much faster and use an additional attack
Final Ultimecia: Something new happens after her HP drop below 30%; uses Vaporize more often

Drawable GF

Drawable GF can no longer be missed and will be automatically added to the player's inventory after beating the respective boss. Cerberus can be drawn from Catoblepas if missed earlier, and Eden can still be drawn from Tiamat as an alternative to Ultima Weapon. It's still possible to draw all the GF in question though, and doing so will grant the party a certain advantage in battle:

• Elvoret: Its Magic stat drops by 20%
• Iguions: Loses Auto-Reflect, as usual
• NORG: Loses access to the Water spell, as usual
• Fujin (1st): Loses access to the Tornado spell only (will still use Aerial Slash)
• Edea (2nd): Her Spirit stat drops by 20%
• Ultima Weapon: Is now under Auto-Protect and Auto-Shell unless Eden has been drawn
• Catoblepas: Uses Meteor as its final attack, otherwise Ultima
• Tiamat: All of his stats drop by 10%

Qol additions

• Another save opportunity has been added in Balamb Garden during the NORG events on disc 2.
• The Save Points near the auditorium in G-Garden and the one right before fighting Adel are now visible by default.
• The very last Save Point in the final dungeon now offers the possibility to warp out of the castle.
• Random encounter rates have been reduced at some locations, most importantly Centra Ruins.
• Random encounters are now completely disabled in D-District Prison until the alarm goes off.
• Caterchipillar has been added to the random encounters in BG Training Center, so Cure can be drawn before fighting Granaldo.
• The number of button presses required to open the valve at MD Levels has been lowered.
• Damage variance during the Paratrooper airborne battle has been reduced, outgoing damage has been slightly increased.
• Party members will no longer be chosen randomly before the final battle (but still vanish if left KO'd for too long).
• A completely unnecessary Junction reset has been removed after beating the boss at Fisherman's Horizon.
• The active party will be locked to Squall, Quistis and Selphie after leaving Timber on disc 1 until heading to the forest near G-Garden, as only their spells will carry over to the next Laguna flashback.
• Edea will temporarily leave the active party in the area between the Great Salt Lake and Esthar, as her spells will not carry over to the next Laguna flashback.

Sidequest changes or additions

• A new sidequest is available in Deling City on disc 2 or 3.
• A new sidequest/cutscene is available in Balamb Garden and White SeeD Ship towards the end of disc 3.
• A hidden boss battle is available in Lunatic Pandora during the 1st visit.
• A hidden boss battle is available in Ultimecia's Castle.
• The Elite Soldier at Grease Monkey's house in FH can be challenged to a duel as Irvine.
• The player will now be informed about the inability to leave Centra Ruins after examining the blue orb.
• The timer will now show during the new scripted battle at Centra Ruins.
• A battle against two LV 100 Tri-Faces will trigger after picking up the Solomon Ring at Tear's Point after the Lunar Cry event .

Other changes or bugfixes

• Each of Ultimecia's minions now guards a specific seal instead of being able to choose which one to remove from a list.
• All Command and Character Ability tutorial entries are now unlocked from the start.
• All GF base compatibility values have been increased.
• Lots of EXP will be gained from the soldier boss battle at Missile Base, to keep the level gap compared to the other party low.
• The random encounter condition has been changed (corrected?) for field "fhtown1" in Fisherman's Horizon.
• A hint about how to defeat BGH251F2 (2nd) most easily will be given at the beginning of the battle.
• Another scripted battle has been added to Galbadia Garden on disc 2.
• The Light Pillar enemy attack can no longer cause damage overflow.
• Fixed a potential softlock during the new Fire Cavern sidequest.

Compensation for missing features in Remastered

• Draw points: Some contents have been swapped around via Field edits.
• SeeD salary rebalance: Max initial SeeD rank has been lowered from 10 to 6, prices in shops have been increased.
• Return Damage: Returns only 1/4 of the damage, as in the base game, but AP cost has been halved.
• Darkside: Doesn't unlock before Diablos reaches LV 40.
• Enemy magic damage: Enemy magic stats have been increased; enemies use custom versions of Flare, Holy, Meteor and Ultima.
• Vit 0 immunity: Some enemies have been made immune via AI instructions; Meltdown status hitrate has been lowered, so they can block it more easily with their Spirit stat.
• Draw cap in battles: Draw resistance values have been reduced for most spells; M-Stone Pieces and Magic Stones drop in higher quantities; the first 3 Refine Abilities are learned by default, and the party starts with 20 M-Stone Pieces in their inventory.

 

[AbsoLootAaron]

You're doing gods work, Callisto. lol
Btw, could you give examples as to what exe changes weren't able to make it into the Remaster version at the moment? Just curious.
Can't wait for the next updates to arrive! I feel like a kid during Christmas every time you pop up in the forums. :-D

 

[Callisto]

Most of the missing features in Remastered are rather negligible in my opinion, and only a few a real bummer.

The biggest thing is probably the changes to Angel Wing power and mechanics. In Remastered, the damage multiplier is set to 5 and spells are selected from Rinoa's spell inventory, as in the base game, so endless Meteor spam at five times the power is still possible.

Other than that, your characters' standard physical attacks can currently not break the damage limit, not even with Darkside equipped, which limits the usefulness of your physical attackers in the late game, to some extent.

Not being able to draw more than 9 units per Draw in-battle is a little unfortunate too, but Refining has been made more accessible from the start as a compensation, so I would use that as the main source for acquiring spells (along with the new shop in Deling City).

Other changes that are currently absent and haven't been mentioned before include:

- A new damage type that allows dispelling status effects while doing magic damage
- X-Potions and Elixirs being excluded from the Auto-Potion item pool
- The fix to the Rare Item Ability (don't use this Ability if you want an enemy's rarest item)
- Some alterations to ATB bar filling speed in relation to a character's Speed stat
- An alteration the magic damage formula that allows up to 60,000 HP damage for magic attacks (like Shockwave Pulsar)
- An alteration to the Draw amount calculation that generally allows for more Draws in-battle
- An adjustment to the SeeD rank calculation that allows staying at SeeD rank A for a little longer than usual

Anyway, thanks for the comment. I'm going to implement the features as soon as I found out how to do that.

 

[Ayoyo]

Hmm, a year since my last playthrough+quarantine... time to come check what's up and put this back on my to-do list. Glad to see it still under active development. See, New Threat didn't quite take the spotlight from Ragnarok yet! (and I don't think it ever will)

In all honesty though and unsurprisingly, coming from me, can't help but feel turned off by what looks to be a major nerf to difficulty & bosses that you just put out, I wonder what's the reasoning behind that? I don't see any nerfs on the player's side of things to balance it out either, so the mod seems just universally easier now especially with regards to bosses, whom I thought were the best part of the mod before. That's super off-putting for players like me, though I always thought you had good reasons for doing stuff.

In other words, hard mode when? I'll be you guinea pig for that one. I'm sure it would heighten people's interest and give more replay value as well.

 

[Nesouk]

Hmmm most bosses seems to have reduce damage, but there is also the nerf in defensive Junction might be to accomodate for that nerf, tough I don't know how bad the drop in defense junction is.
Well the mod is a rebalance one not an HardType one so I don't mind it being on the easier side, might redo a playthrough with this huge update ^^

 

[Ayoyo]

Junction defense was lowered but natural growth increased, it's reallocating the stats rather than reducing them. And it's not only lowering damage from bosses, they can also be further weakened by doing what you always did anyways(drawing the gf). That's pretty huge.

Yea I know what the mod is(or used to be, at least), believe me; there's walls upon walls of text from me in this topic alone. Hence my shocked reaction to the drastic difficulty nerf, and curiosity with regards to a potential hard mode becoming an option at some point if the regular version is being geared towards being a much more casual gaming experience where previous amounts of strategy & planning isn't required.