Making an undead immune to Instant-Death (FFVII) ?

[Armorvil]

The case of Gi Nattak is well known, I think. This boss absorbs Restorative and is immune to the Death status, but it will still die if you use the Life spell / a Phoenix Down on it. I wonder if there is some way to fix this... ...I tried to make it "absorb" the Death status, among other things, but none of my efforts proved useful. The boss always dies when Life is thrown its way.

Any idea ? I'd like to have Zombie bosses that can't be insta-killed. Through AI, maybe ?

 

[Vgr]

Nullify restorative element

OR

if_last_attack = (Enter command here) set flag_dead = 0

 

[Armorvil]

Nullify restorative element

I want an undead boss that blocks instant-death. Won't be much of an undead if it blocks restorative instead of being hurt by it.

OR

if_last_attack = (Enter command here) set flag_dead = 0

From what Bosola told me, yes, we could check for the Life spell's ID (among others) in an AI script, but I don't get your "set flag_dead = 0". AI scripts don't work like that. And there is still the problem of the Phoenix Downs / X-Potions / Elixirs, which would also need to be blocked (especially the former) - but you can't check for a specific item use in the AI, as far as I know.

 

[Vgr]

Ok, let's reformulate what I meant... I meant nullify the "Recovery" element, AKA Mega-elixir doing. So that he's still hurt by Cure and the like, but things like Elixir would miss or something else, well, a video would maybe show what I mean. Not exactly the same thing, but here it is in any case.

About your set flag_dead = 0 I meant something that would've check for the last action performed and then set the flag "dead" to 0 or 1 (Bosola might know, as he's doing something similar in FF7 +) and so "cancel" the last attack's effect... Now the only problem is with W-Item (which you removed from TG so no big deal) and W-Magic, in which case it wouldn''t work (or either you remove that). Am I clear enough?

 

[Bosola]

There is no 'recovery' element. Only 'health'.

Also, pretty sure many undead enemies already have the death flag turned on. They just handle death differently.

 

[Armorvil]

Vgr, that video you posted features no AI-editing. Still, it made me want to try messing with elements again. Because yes, if blocking the element of an attack makes you immune to its status effect (your example of Demons Gate being Poison-able while being immune to the poison element), who's to say this wouldn't work with the Death status on an undead ?...

Sadly, the undead's weakness against life-recovering items and abilities takes precedence over all elemental modifiers. I tried to give the Life spell a second element (Shout), and to make an undead block or absorb Shout, but it didn't work : Life still successfully inflicted "Death" on it. It looks like this "Life_on_Undead_=_Dead_Undead" has a very high priority in the game mechanics.

 

[nfitc1]

There is no 'recovery' element. Only 'health'.

Also, pretty sure many undead enemies already have the death flag turned on. They just handle death differently.

It's called "restorative" element, but that's not really important.

There is no "death flag" in that way. It's only a flag that indicates if the actor is active and targetable. If the actor is inactive then they are conceived as dead and will be treated as "defeated" rather than "dead" for battle purposes. See the Mystery Ninja's scripts for examples of this being handled in other ways.

The only special attribute that defines undead enemies is that they absorb the already-negative damage that the restorative element does. "Curing" death is technically non-elemental, but in order to keep the target alive actions that do this also have to heal and, thus, get the restorative element. Furthermore, the game engine is programmed to cause insta-death when an elemental action a target absorbs attempts to "cure" death. Try making a fire elemental remove the death status and do it to an enemy that absorbs fire elemental and you'll see what I mean.

If you really want a non-insta-death-able (I love making up new words ) then you'll have to hack the exe to prevent ts behavior.

 

[Bosola]

NFITC1, I don't have access to PROUD CLOD right now, but I'm sure some of the Gi enemies have a PreBattle script that sets InitialStatus.Death to 1.

As for 'recovery' vs 'health', Vgr isn't asking for the element's name (which I suppose we can only give accurately in Japanese, anyway). He's asking if the Recovery effect is actually caused by a seventeenth element, as opposed to Health / Restorative /  聖 (?). This isn't the case - elixirs just deal 100% restorative damage.

The easiest solution would just be to 'revive' the creature after taking a hit from a move with a particular ID (eg spells Life, Life 2, items Phoenix Down, Elixir and Megalixir).

 

[nfitc1]

NFITC1, I don't have access to PROUD CLOD right now, but I'm sure some of the Gi enemies have a PreBattle script that sets InitialStatus.Death to 1.

Nope. The only thing that makes them "undead" is the restorative element is set to be absorbed. If the InitialStatus.Death was set to 1 then the battle would end as soon as the initial camera movement ended. Even if it were, then Life/Life2/Phoenix Down would always work and we know it can miss.