New FF8 Mod (New Threat) - Discussion Thread

So with FF7 NT completed, I've been preparing to start work on a follow-up mod for FF8 that'll be geared at rebalancing the game's systems and eventually adding new content like events and fights. But to do that, I need to get more familiar with the game itself and hear ideas/feedback from more experienced FF8 players & fans of the game.

So first off, we've got this Google Doc here that people are free to contribute to; it's a sounding board for suggestions on how to fix certain things that are broken or not working very well in FF8 and suggestions for things to add. There's scope to work on the game's story as well, but that's not a priority right now; suggestions still welcome on that though.

The document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19yxhvgv-H56vZ_JPNtMV85tHyLSDfpQtqZc7xmtHrBA/edit

I've also got a challenge run on YT going where I fight each boss at their highest possible level with a party at the same level but no stats junctioned with Magic. It's to get me a bit more familiar with the game's systems and how the stats translate in actual gameplay (looking at formulas isn't very practical). Feel free to drop in and offer any feedback or advice as I'm very rusty with the game. I'll be uploading each boss once every couple of days: 

Please note that we do not, in fact, have Dank Memes.

5 minutes ago, Sega Chief said:

Please note that we do not, in fact, have Dank Memes.

The fuck we don't. You shut your lying whore mouth.

Mate, you can't censor the truth; although I'm not going to debate the whore mouth thing.

Just now, Rynzer said:

I wonder if BGH or XATM will be the Guardian Scorpion of this mod...

Nah, too obvious. For my money, it'd be Biggs and Wedge.

1 hour ago, Rynzer said:

I wonder if BGH or XATM will be the Guardian Scorpion of this mod...

Who could possibly say

100% completed you mean? (FF7 new threat)

sounds cool doing something similar with FF8, since the other existent mod has a significant amount of flaws...

Maybe this time Omega Weapon won't be a matter of farming HP with devour command(for example)

42 minutes ago, Tenkarider said:

100% completed you mean? (FF7 new threat)

sounds cool doing something similar with FF8, since the other existent mod has a significant amount of flaws...

Maybe this time Omega Weapon won't be a matter of farming HP with devour command(for example)

I try to implement a curve that cuts down on grinding wherever possible, with the best EXP/AP/Item yields toward the end of the game as an incentive to keep moving forward.

This sounds awesome.  Sega Chief needs a reward or something.  So I will ask... Do you like your BJs extra sloppy?

5 hours ago, ninjasdf said:

This sounds awesome.  Sega Chief needs a reward or something.  So I will ask... Do you like your BJs extra sloppy?

D; 

Well, to actually start, we'll have to analyze what's wrong with the game in the first place (yeah, I know there's a lot anyone could rant about, but we need to focus on the big things). 

Levels: Don't matter in this game at all. As a matter of fact, in many instances, the levels are actually detrimental to the game. Sure, you get some extra hp and a little bit of stat growth, but the reality is that for the most part, leveling is bad because the enemy growths far outstrip the player growths. That's not necessarily a bad thing in some regards, because it can mean that the player needs to focus on mastering the junction system instead of just trying to brute force their way through the game, but the problem is that this also consequently has the result of causing people to just not level up at all, and reap the benefits of junctioning without actually leveling and thus closing the gap between monster stats and ally stats. 

My proposed solution? I actually have two solutions that are possible. 

1) Give the characters normal stat growths that can sort of compete with monsters and are specialized with any junctions applied being bonuses to either enhance what characters are already good at, or mitigate their weaknesses. 

2) Have monsters have set levels so that way the entire point of remaining lower leveled is effectively removed. You could have key boss fights be the party level like Seifer, but I don't see much point. It makes for better pacing and it's more difficult to have difficulty jumps when enemies aren't insanely spread out among their stat distribution. 

Acquisition of Items: Some of the refine abilities are ridiculous. And the worst part? You don't even need that much power. Their existence isn't the problem, as it's nice that you can actually use money and abilities to get better items, but some of them need to be toned down. Refining a Bahamut card just straight up gives you 100 MegaElixirs. Are they serious? Let's think about this for a minute. Okay, so 10 Elixirs are 1 MegaElixir, so having the Bahamut card is essentially worth... 1000 Elixirs. Come on devs, you cannot be serious. Yes, the card is rare, but it's not THAT rare! Honestly, I'd tone down the refines from most of the refines-- more so card mod than anything else. Most of the other ones aren't nearly as insane as they require multiple version of the card etc. In other words, make "rare" items less rare / tedious to acquire later on, but make some of the refines nerfed making for a more progressive feel to the game. 

Characters

There's almost no reason to ever use Selphie. Well outside of beating people up with a girl in a yellow dress. Quistis is pretty much straight up better, I think Selphie should get more than 1-3 for a spell if she's going to hang around. "The End" doesn't even need to be what needs to appear more often, she just needs to be able to do something that a player can't do about half of the way into the game. Full Cure is a nice start and should stay though, maybe making it appear more frequently would help. Perhaps change rapture to the Phoenix summon? So she has Revival, Full Cure, Wall, and The End? That'd be a lot better. Although, Wall should change to "Mighty Guard" essentially. It doesn't make sense that Quistis basically has all of Selphie's moves but better (with the exception of Degenerator versus The End with Degenerator only be listed for being more usable).  Also, kill Degenerator. It's too good. Or at the very least, making it a stat debuff would be useful and cool. 

I'd also lower the multipliers on Zell's duel. That way people can't just use Punch Rush -> Booya combos for days. 

Honestly, maybe I'm a horrible person, but if you can, I'd make Renzokukuen use both magic and physical. The standard hits are physical, but the proc portions are all magic damage. That way, it's not enough to ignore Squall's magic and pump his strength. 

I'd also make some of the shots that Irvine uses magical in nature. Thus not pigeonholing all of the guys into melee builds and all of the females sans Rinoa into magical builds (seriously, was there any reason for this?).

GFs

It also might be worth your time taking a BNW approach and limiting which GFs people can get so that way you can make each character a bit more unique. I know this means basically ignoring compatibility on the GFs, but I'm not sure there's really much you can do to make this interesting-- although, if you could limit abilities that could be equipped based on affection between the partnership of the GFs and the unit in question, that *could* be interesting if they didn't all cap at 1000. I sincerely doubt that this is possible at the moment -- perhaps ever, so I suggest the initially proposed "limit who can equip what." 

Speaking of limitations, I think you should also limit how many GFs a person can equip. I'd say they should be limited to having 4 on at a time. Thus, making it pointless to just equip 3 people constantly and ignore the other 3. That's a huge problem in 8. There's almost no reason to use anyone except 3 units. It's really goofy. It could also serve to make the Laguna parts a bit more thought provoking rather than just jamming all of them on the 3 men. 

Also, magic should just plain hit harder. Considering I have to go out of my way to get it, it shouldn't suck so much. 

Fixed levels on bosses could work because then you've got the option there to power up a bit if a fight is proving problematic. Randoms might need to keep their scaling though, because they get reused a lot throughout the game and if the level is set via script, then it means world map enemies would be tricky to set up.

The two possible solutions to Cards is to either lock Card Mod behind a high GF level, or to modify the Card Mod results so that they're less game-breaking. I want to go with the latter because the card game is popular and I don't want to undermine it by gating the item side of it right to the end of the actual game. The other Refines should be easy to set up though.

I've got draft notes similar to FF7 NT that'll set characters up with strengths and weaknesses. Selphie is being specced as a glass cannon; high attacking stats and speed, but low defensive stats & HP. I'm also re-gearing her Slots so that every result should spit out something worthwhile (so no Thunder x1, etc).

For a BNW-style GF system, we'd need to code that in from scratch and an adjustment made to the way in which the Stat+ abilities work (so that they're automatic rather than needing to be equipped). There'd also need to be a restriction of one (or two) GF per character (FF6 BNW it's 1 esper at a time). Then there would need to be a way to limit the amount of stat growth that can be acquired as FF8 has no EXP arcs, it's a flat req value per level with enemy EXP being adjusted based on level difference.

The current system I was planning to use was having GF affinity drop when they're used with regular Magic raising it again; for damage, they'll use a SPR-ignoring formula. Idea would be that if you rely on GFs too much then they get slower and weaker, so using them sparingly on high SPR targets would be the way with it.

But yeah, I think GFs will need hard hacks of some kind to get it interesting. A limitation on the number that can be equipped at a time would be a good first step.

I'm also not sure what to do with stat-progression at the moment, it's just going to be normal arcs that go up with Levels but I'd like to do some kind of system where the player can make character builds again.

Maybe limit how many copies of each spell can "exist" and casting the spell does not consume it.
E.g. you can only have 3x Fire1 in total, either for high stat boost on one char, medium stat boost on 3 chars or as a castable variant.

P.S.: I know nothing of this game.

4 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Maybe limit how many copies of each spell can "exist" and casting the spell does not consume it.
E.g. you can only have 3x Fire1 in total, either for high stat boost on one char, medium stat boost on 3 chars or as a castable variant.

P.S.: I know nothing of this game.

3 hours ago, Augestein said:

[sorry, I seem to have had a glitch where it keeps adding a quote box from your post augustein]

There is a hack I've got that'll stop magic being consumed when used; it should help with the problem where people don't want to use Magic that has been junctioned.

1 hour ago, Sega Chief said:

Fixed levels on bosses could work because then you've got the option there to power up a bit if a fight is proving problematic. Randoms might need to keep their scaling though, because they get reused a lot throughout the game and if the level is set via script, then it means world map enemies would be tricky to set up.

The two possible solutions to Cards is to either lock Card Mod behind a high GF level, or to modify the Card Mod results so that they're less game-breaking. I want to go with the latter because the card game is popular and I don't want to undermine it by gating the item side of it right to the end of the actual game. The other Refines should be easy to set up though.

I've got draft notes similar to FF7 NT that'll set characters up with strengths and weaknesses. Selphie is being specced as a glass cannon; high attacking stats and speed, but low defensive stats & HP. I'm also re-gearing her Slots so that every result should spit out something worthwhile (so no Thunder x1, etc).

For a BNW-style GF system, we'd need to code that in from scratch and an adjustment made to the way in which the Stat+ abilities work (so that they're automatic rather than needing to be equipped). There'd also need to be a restriction of one (or two) GF per character (FF6 BNW it's 1 esper at a time). Then there would need to be a way to limit the amount of stat growth that can be acquired as FF8 has no EXP arcs, it's a flat req value per level with enemy EXP being adjusted based on level difference.

The current system I was planning to use was having GF affinity drop when they're used with regular Magic raising it again; for damage, they'll use a SPR-ignoring formula. Idea would be that if you rely on GFs too much then they get slower and weaker, so using them sparingly on high SPR targets would be the way with it.

But yeah, I think GFs will need hard hacks of some kind to get it interesting. A limitation on the number that can be equipped at a time would be a good first step.

I'm also not sure what to do with stat-progression at the moment, it's just going to be normal arcs that go up with Levels but I'd like to do some kind of system where the player can make character builds again.

 

 

Fixed levels on bosses sounds like a good compromise. It was done in the original game anyways with the final dungeon anyways. So I have no qualms with that. For other monsters, I was wondering if the game was broken up by disc? If so, then it might be possible to actually have them be certain levels based on the Disc? Otherwise, yeah, that could be a problem. Running into Red Dragons for instance? That could be a huge problem. 

Yeah, I like Card Mod, as I find it much less of a hassle than Mugging enemies, so I'd rather see it nerfed than out and out removed. Plus, if you did put it on the late GFs, the only thing that would happen is that people would go through most of the game without it, and then snap the game in to the minute that they get it. 

Sounds good to me. I figured that was the case, I felt that it should be mentioned regardless. 

That could be interesting, but there's also the fact that in many cases, the GFs still do so much that I would consider doing damage with them regardless. I'd just turn the battle speed up higher to be less annoyed. However, perhaps combining it with the User's magic stat could be a thing? So instead of thinking of GFs free damage, think of them as a "physical attack" for mages. Though I do like this idea as a way of slowing down the dominance. For BNW, the 1 esper limit is actually a base game aspect. It's the limitation of what kind of Espers each character can equip that's interesting. My idea was to actually add more variance with level up bonuses as a passive (so you start with them instead of having to unlock them), which can immediately allow everyone to start being customized. 

Agreed on that front. 

How about limiting how much magic can be junctioned based on character level?
Bam, no more max stats at Lv1 and an incentive to level up further.

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

How about limiting how much magic can be junctioned based on character level?
Bam, no more max stats at Lv1 and an incentive to level up further.

That'd be a pretty cool way of doing it.

I love that idea actually. Especially because incidentally, FF8 does have a level 100. 

Any way to move the check for a Limit from how it is now to only when the ATB bar fills up?  The idea is to disable fishing for Limits.  A character would need to take their turn to have another chance at a Limit.

21 hours ago, Love Colored Magic said:

Any way to move the check for a Limit from how it is now to only when the ATB bar fills up?  The idea is to disable fishing for Limits.  A character would need to take their turn to have another chance at a Limit.

good idea: in the other mod i saw my bro doing almost always the glass cannon with squall against any strong enemy/boss and the others were there just to make sure the cannon was still in condition to shoot

22 hours ago, Love Colored Magic said:

Any way to move the check for a Limit from how it is now to only when the ATB bar fills up?  The idea is to disable fishing for Limits.  A character would need to take their turn to have another chance at a Limit.

I hope so, it'll take some kind of hard-code hack to set it up but if it proves impossible then there might be other options. There's code to disable Limits in-battle (Ultimecia's Castle) so some kind of flag must exist to do this which could be manipulated in some way for character AI.

Would it be possible to prevent people from using a spell they junction or allowing people to junction multiple spells to a single stat? Think of allowing people to make an Ice mage by junctioning Fire and Lightning to Magic or straight up forgoing elemental magic entirely to focus more on Melee builds by junction them all to Strength. This could be expanded by letting you make real Red Mages and make people more likely to junction lesser junctioned spells to open up more customized spells lists for each character.

That said, I also really like the idea of there only being so many of each spell available among all of the characters, like 9 Fire, 6 Fira, and 3 Firaga, 2 Flare and 1 Ultima with each going up to 100 and tied to your level. This game is a balance nightmare in vanilla, good luck!

I don't think I've seem anyone mention how fundamentally irritating the draw system is in the first place. Functionally there's very little difference between having 1-3 copies of a spell vs 99 outside of stats, but they are basically the only equipment in the game so every random battle early on you sit and spam "draw fire" for like 3-4 minutes straight. That system is awful, and makes it one of the grindiest ffs if you want to get max of every spell. It also makes the power curve very weird since 3 fire does very little, but 99 far too much. 

I'd suggest making the limit for spells much lower (like 10) and preventing them from being consumed on cast. Would make balancing a lot easier. If you want to get really weird you could try locking spells to specific characters to give some more individuality.

On 8/29/2017 at 4:39 PM, intri said:

I don't think I've seem anyone mention how fundamentally irritating the draw system is in the first place. Functionally there's very little difference between having 1-3 copies of a spell vs 99 outside of stats, but they are basically the only equipment in the game so every random battle early on you sit and spam "draw fire" for like 3-4 minutes straight. That system is awful, and makes it one of the grindiest ffs if you want to get max of every spell. It also makes the power curve very weird since 3 fire does very little, but 99 far too much. 

 

I'd suggest making the limit for spells much lower (like 10) and preventing them from being consumed on cast. Would make balancing a lot easier. If you want to get really weird you could try locking spells to specific characters to give some more individuality.

I think you've identified the problem correctly, but I'm not sure I think your solution is best. There's been some conversation on the Discord, and I've been convinced it's probably the best balance of effectiveness to practicality-to-implement, but I'd still rather shoot for a revision that makes makes some of the following changes:

1. Drawing can fail completely, but as long as you succeed you draw a minimum of between 10 and 25 of a spell.
2. Junctions provide a percentage bonus rather than an additive one, so that junctioning 100 of the best possible spell can still only double a stat.
3. Spell stock provides diminishing returns, so that 80% of the benefit is applied at 20 of a spell in stock.

What I like about how this interacts with the Draw system is that it makes it easy to get reckless with using a spell that's easily available. It also doesn't punish you for using rare spells in a pinch, because a few uses have basically no effect - it's only when you let yourself start running out, because you use a spell too regularly, that you start taking meaningful stat penalties. I could see trimming the stock cap down to 50ish, just because the 60 or so casts of a spell that are almost consequence-free can last most of the game, though.

One thought that just occurred to me - what if spell stock decayed over time somehow for folks who don't regularly cast spells? It could be a balancing factor between mages (who risk eroding their stats by using their most potent abilities) and physical attackers, but I could also see it getting annoying. It'd definitely be a pain in the ass to implement, but I'd be interested to know thoughts on the matter.

Minor subthought - the game has a sliding elemental system, so would be it be at all interesting to make higher-tier elemental spells more elemental? So say that the Fire spell is only considered 25% Fire elemental, so it only gets a 1.25 multiplier in situations where Firaga gets a 2.0 multiplier.

I have an alternate suggestion, though I'm not sure it's possible to code easily. Make it a blend of the ff1 + ff8 system.

Let there be a certain cap on how many stores of each spell a person can have, and let those spells be replenished after battle. They would either be restored outside of battle or with resting, either would be fine. If the cap is low enough this still allows for there to be a purpose to using the draw ability in battle. (I'm imagining either the ff1 9 max cap or perhaps even 5 if spells are restored outside of battle). The caps could increase either linked to level (ie lvl at <10 only able to store 1-2 lvl 1 spells, lvl <20 2-3 lvl 1, 1-2 lvl 2, etc.) or linked to drawing certain spells (ie drawing thundara grants a cast of thundara and an extra cast of thunder). The spell bonuses would obviously be adjusted to be proportional. This may require disabling the trading magic function to make any sense.  

I'm somewhat unfamiliar with how ff8 handles spell consumption, but it would add a bit of strategy if using one of your only spells reduced the associated stat drastically.

Do you like 8 as much as 7 mister or misses Chief?

Is this for PC/Steam or PSX?

PC/Steam.

Really interested in this mod project. Any updates? New videos? Anything?

Hey Segachief,

I just finished your FF7 New Threat mod and LOVED it. I can't describe how excited I am about FF8 getting the same treatment.

I'm really curious to see / hear what you're doing about balancing junctioning and card mod since they are both obviously super over powered. Also, please change how drawing functions. As much as I love FF8, there is nothing more boring than staying in a fight I don't like drawing for like an hour just to get 300 of a spell that I then cannot use because it will lower my stats.

Someone else already mentioned making junctioning weighted towards the lower end of the spectrum (i.e. getting like 60% of the benefit at 20 spells). I think thats an awesome idea. May I also suggest having the benefit top out at 60, leaving people with up to 40 instances of the spell to use for free before it starts affecting your character a little bit. 

Story wise, I don't have a suggestion as much as a request. Any chance you can make it "cannon" that Ultimicia is Rinoa in the future because Squall dies at the end leaving her alone in a world torn apart by time compression? (Its my favourite interpretation of the game).

Update on current progress, a demo of the Alpha build is currently out with a few people for initial testing; a public release of the demo will be out soon once technical and balancing problems are sorted out.

Could you alleviate the pressure to immediately draw 100 of everything by limiting the number of spells that you can draw from each enemy?  Grinders gonna grind, but at least this way it's more like EXP in that it will build up slowly over the course of a dungeon if you're not explicitly grinding.  Of course, it would probably have the issue of making the player even more reluctant to actually cast things.

What about removing the absorbed spell from Draw list? like when you do it with GF... so that you also have to decide whether to cast free spells or stack some of it(mostly before landing the final blow)

Monsters basically become living Draw sources packs

FF8 being really close to my heart despite its flaws, I find this project to truly be a godsend. Especially after Segachief already sexed up FF7 to such remarkable heights, I can't help but count days until this thing becomes a reality. 

I'm really curious as to the current gameplan/verdict on some of the more fundamental aspects and mechanics of the game.. 

Is the current plan, or more profoundly, the starting point and philosophy of the mod more along the lines of: 

           -Attempting to preserve some of the more unique aspects of FF8 and bringing attention&focus on balancing said aspects or.. 

           -Creating whole new systems/taking a merciless axe to the mechanics that made the game "broken" in the first place and then implement something entirely original and/or tried&true in their place?

For context, here's some of the more interesting aspects about the systems and how they could contribute to the game, were they working as intended...

1. Junction system (=Giving players freedom to spec the characters&the strategic choice of using spells in favor of the stats they yield and vice versa)

2. Limit Breaks (=The option to go for a high risk, high reward playstyle&the possibility of Limit Breaks happening more often due to crisis system, giving way to challenge runs such as only Limit Breaks)

3. Refinement&Card Mod system (=An alluring option for old school Farmaniacs such as myself, high amounts of one item refines to better ones&the obvious benefits of Triple Triad and card collecting[though none of this should be mandatory, just a bonus/alternative method for those who want to indulge])

4. Drawing magic (=To risk it and draw high level magic from a hard boss, or not to risk it and draw high level magic from a hard boss? Sadly, this is about as far as this mechanic can go as-is.)

5. GFs... Well, this is one I never much cared for in FF8. How they worked, that is. I suppose them unlocking stuff is neat, but it'd be more strategic if they only unlocked a few stats, for example, so you'd have to think which ones you want junctioned&buffed for each character instead of being able to buff every stat for everyone.

Anyways those are some of the things that make FF8 what it is, methinks, and differentiate it from the rest of the series. Personally I hope you've opted for retaining the uniqueness, however unbalanced the systems might've been and simply work to realize those intended goals in a more successful way than the original game. 

I have a proposed solution for Zell's limit break (This is assuming you keep the one limit per battle rule) 

 each combo he does could either debuff the enemy's stats or buff his so he can adapt to the fight,

he is a martial artist after all so it fits with his theme to learn an enemies weakness as he fights and to adapt his fighting technique so for instance

punch rush could increase Zells speed by 5% or debuff the enemy Speed by 5%  ( I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass for an example )

It depends on balance whether he buffs his own stats for the rest of the fight or debuffs the enemy, both themes fit, he is making himself more capable by adapting

or

He is exploiting the enemy in such a way to weaken it for the party 

This would  give incentive to not just booyah spam and for the sake of balance you could nerf the damage of those attacks given the stat component to them 

You could also increase the stat bonus for high level combos like final heaven to reduce enemy Vitality by a % or flat number , or give the buff to Zell if that's too strong 

There could be a mix such as half the moves debuff the enemy and the other half buff Zell as he has more combo's than there are stats and some stats may be too strong

to debuff on certain bosses.

Just out of curiosity Segachief,

How are you finding working with FF8's code in comparison to FF7's? Does the code look like a natural progression from FF7? Is it completely different?

My understanding is that the games were worked on concurrently, so I'm not sure how much overlap exists between them. That being said, FF8 seems far more....not a pile of glitches held together with duct tape than FF7 is.

i think in this mod will have a way to bring Edea and Seifer back to the party becuse the slot missing on the party selection and expended events like Edea coming with you to the lunar base on space that would be awsome instead of leaving her at esthar think in some way to Edea to become a permanent party member like the party on vanilla a cast 6 is too small do like expand the cast like Edea Seifer laguna ward and kiros to be on the permant party to give more variety to the party selection that would be pretty awsome to put on your mod did someone think like this too?

On 2/23/2018 at 0:32 PM, Rafael duque said:

i think in this mod will have a way to bring Edea and Seifer back to the party becuse the slot missing on the party selection and expended events like Edea coming with you to the lunar base on space that would be awsome instead of leaving her at esthar think in some way to Edea to become a permanent party member like the party on vanilla a cast 6 is too small do like expand the cast like Edea Seifer laguna ward and kiros to be on the permant party to give more variety to the party selection that would be pretty awsome to put on your mod did someone think like this too?

Having Seifer rejoin the party before Ultimecia's Castle is what SHOULD have happened in the main game and if it was in this mod, I would instantly love it, regardless of any other alteration.

8 hours ago, Nikkolas said:

 

Having Seifer rejoin the party before Ultimecia's Castle is what SHOULD have happened in the main game and if it was in this mod, I would instantly love it, regardless of any other alteration.

 

 

I think Edea has to rejoin too like you can have the opition to take her with you she can go to the lunar base with squall and like she can be at the ragnarok to be permanent party menber like she can say i dont have my sorcerres powers but i can still fight along with you that would be nice. you are thinking Laguna kiros and ward can go too?

1 hour ago, Rafael duque said:

I think Edea has to rejoin too like you can have the opition to take her with you she can go to the lunar base with squall and like she can be at the ragnarok to be permanent party menber like she can say i dont have my sorcerres powers but i can still fight along with you that would be nice. you are thinking Laguna kiros and ward can go too?

Hm, I dunno. FFVIII's narrative is not the best unfortunately. I really feel like Adel should have been the main villain because then it really connects the struggles of Laguna's group with the modern heroes', ya know? With Adel as the Big Bad, bringing Laguna along to finally totally defeat his old nemesis would be very rewarding, just like how bringing Seifer and/or Edea to defeat Ultimecia would be the logical conclusions of their character arcs.

But Laguna has no real connection to Ultimecia so the story element would seem ab it less climactic, ya know?

i understand i think he will revise the script like squall dont be dumbass most of the game and like he open his feelings more to his friends like at the begining with quistis talking about her demission and squall conforting the story of the game is confusing i think he will fix that like more laguna dreams to explain more of the past and ellone and how squall and company end got arested some history elements i like to see on the mod that dont have in vanilla to explain more and why rinoa comatose status happend they dont explain this i would like to see

That's literally the point of Squall's character arc, dude. That's like complaining about Cloud just trying to copy Zack - no shit, that's the point.

i understand

So if you don't have it, there is a Steam sale going on right now and you can pick up FF8PC for $6.

http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/39150/

Between this and SC saying there will be a build released to the public so much sooner than I ever dared to hope (I was expecting like, a year or two) i am very happy.

If you plan on making any changes to the script or adding new scenes, you should totally make Ultimecia be future-Rinoa, it's legitimately more interesting than her just being some sorceress.

It's a gameplay not story mod if he add scene it will be for the sake of new quest or new stuff 'and by the way Square confirm Ultimecia is not Rinoa), by the way how about making Edea as a permanent party member ?

Hey Sega Chief,

I played through your New Threats remake (for the most part) of Final Fantasy 7 and I was very impressed. I had a lot of fun figuring out the little tricks and secrets that ,ade your remake both fun and challenging.
I was actually inspired to eventually make a jrpg game of my own (using something like rpg maker), but right now I lack the time and resources to even remotely consider such an undertaking on my own, so I've decided to just dump my ideas here in the hopes that some might help you out. FF8s junction system is one of my favorites ever for a classic rpg. I actually have 3 absolute favorites, and all three of them are from Final Fantasy. The job system from 5 (never played tactics), Materia from 7 and Junction from 8. I thought all of these were unique and very creative, and so when I did my own brainstorming, I considered a plausible way to combine the three that is in no way over-the-top, and still practical. 

this message system doesn't allow me to attach a word doc, so I'll just copy and past the contents below:
 

Junction system for stats
Job system for character growth, abilities, magic etc.
All magics are generally available throughout the world like in FF8, but you can only make use of a type of magic/ability that your job allows, but you can still junction any magic to any stat at any time regardless of whether or not you can use it.
For example:
My guy is a barbarian job ATM, but barbarians can't naturally use any magics. So I'll take all of the magics he has (fire, cure, wind, etc.) and junction them to his various stats. Meanwhile learning his multi-attack ability that he'll be able to use with future jobs. So this is helpful when he has a very high strength stat and pummels his enemy into the dirt with multi-attacks, which offsets his inability to learn magic.

Each job has default abilities that allow it to be unique, such as "cast ELM Magic" as a Green mage. However, each of those abilities can become available for equip once the job is maxed out.
So if my main character has just made it to level 10 of green mage (effectively reaching max level) aside from obtaining the 4xCast ability which allows him to cast any given spell 4 times, he also gains the basic "cast magic" ability which can be used to endow a warrior class (such as barbarian) with the ability to cast spells.

I might also incorporate equippable accessories as well (as the only kind of equipment) which, among other more basic things, might give an ability like "Swap ATK with MAG" which would allow a fighter to use his spellcasting stat in place of his strength stat, and in the case of having the above mentioned "cast magic" ability equipped, can treat his physical attacks like spells and vice-versa. A combination such as this could be overwhelmingly powerful, as a barbarian can already attack up to four times in a row. This combined with the above attachments can equal a round of 16 attacks in a row. But such a thing would be considered "advanced gameplay" and would only be available toward the end of the game. Such tricka would be highly necessary however for secret bosses as they would otherwise be nigh-impossible to kill.


Also, if I made a New-file plus, then I could make such builds even more relevant and call it a "nightmare mode" by making previously chumpy bosses into some seriously terrifying badasses that are just ridiculous to kill.

Junctioning could become increasingly useful as the game progresses, but also increasingly challenging to manage, but in a fun way. Because, where yes, you can equip a certain kind of magic to certain stats and status attacks and defenses, you also deplete your reserves as you cast them. So, for instance, if I am a red-mage, and specializing in time and status magics, then having a high MAG ATK stat wouldn't be as relevant as it would be for a Green Mage. And I could use the Fira magics that I had equipped to my ATK stat from when he was a Knight, and deplete my reserves in order to deal damage to my enemies.



hit me up with any questions, as I'll be happy to help. and good luck on the mod!

oh, also, I do have one direct recommendation for FF8. please make it so that you can syphon a MINIMUM of like 9ish magics from a given creature (not a pool though) so you aren't stuck in battle for 20 minutes using the same command over and over.

On 26/05/2018 at 6:18 AM, Guy Hat said:

oh, also, I do have one direct recommendation for FF8. please make it so that you can syphon a MINIMUM of like 9ish magics from a given creature (not a pool though) so you aren't stuck in battle for 20 minutes using the same command over and over.

Late reply, but good news on this front; I've figured out how to do exactly that. I've set 9 as a minimum and no ceiling on how many you can draw at a time.

I'm hyped enough for this that I went and bought FF8 during the last steam sale. 

On 8/6/2018 at 10:15 AM, Sega Chief said:

Late reply, but good news on this front; I've figured out how to do exactly that. I've set 9 as a minimum and no ceiling on how many you can draw at a time.

this is the most important thing that could have happened

If possible, you may consider trying to make it so that certain magics can't be junctioned unless you're a certain level. For example, since Curaga junctioned to hp early is so broken, make it so that Curaga can't be junctioned until level 40. Combine that with a full rebalance of the rewards from card modding and you may have a chance at making the game remotely difficult.

7 hours ago, Foyboy said:

If possible, you may consider trying to make it so that certain magics can't be junctioned unless you're a certain level. For example, since Curaga junctioned to hp early is so broken, make it so that Curaga can't be junctioned until level 40. Combine that with a full rebalance of the rewards from card modding and you may have a chance at making the game remotely difficult.

In mexico's french mod what he did is to make sure that no magic could be gotten before the point of the story he wanted or only in limited amount (aka if you stay LLG you will not be able to get strong magic until the endgame which is balance by the fact that late game bosses were strong even at Low Level) unless leveling up (and so make ennemy stronger) and Card Mod was only available in Disc 4 and only if you get all the cards in the game before Disc 4 (and he removes the possibility to collect cards in Disc 4 so rare card can only be transform one time (and the item they give was nerf no more 100 Megalixir with one card for instance)) which in my opinion was a great idea making Card Mod effectivly a nice reward for completionnist and makes it an ability that upgrade your characters without being to overpowered since Ultimecia's Castle bosses, Omega Weapon and Ultimecia herself were made good enough so that having Card Mod doesn't cheese them. 

Looking forward to this project! I personally think the game should be balanced in a way that keeps the "spirit" and game mechanics in tact as much as possible, so nothing super crazy. Here's a couple of my thoughts on some posts here and the game in general on what I'd implement. 

- I like setting a minimum draw amount of 9 per draw to speed up the draw process. Maybe raise the failure chance though to balance.

- Another idea besides the above though is to remove the "quantity" part of magic altogether. Let me explain.. so basically you would draw say a Cure spell but instead of drawing say 4 Cures or 9 Cures you would just draw the Cure spell as is, in an unlimited quantity. How you balance this is by making each spell very difficult to draw with a high failure chance. On top of this you set a limit of how many times a magic can be used per battle. (Perhaps if a char is lvl 1-9 it is one time, lvl 10-19 two times and so on up to 10 times per battle at max level?) This would make players want to use magic in battle, it would remove the tediousness of drawing 100 magic and keeping it at 100 since you just do it once and also provide a reason to level up. You could also make Junctioned magic scale better according to character level. 

- I like the Card Mod ability being tweaked/balanced and made less overpowered on Disc 1.

- I would much prefer the available magic selection be limited rather than placing some kind of level requirement. If you don't want players to have Curaga early, don't allow them to get it on Disc 1, much better than level requirement IMO.

- I also like giving each character an innate element that they have an infinity towards. For example Squall could be Fire and thus cannot Junction Ice magic and cannot Junction Shiva and receives better compatibility with Ifrit. (Quistis could be Ice as an example too, perhaps Zell would be Thunder, etc)

- I would make weapon upgrades more substantial/important and perhaps add a couple extra ones to flesh out the selection a bit. I would also gate certain materials behind specific events, so players can't skip weapons in favor of stronger ones.

- Limit Breaks should definitely be toned down, with only one possible chance per turn (no abuse) and maybe only allow them one use per "critical state" so that there is an incentive to heal themselves? I don't know about this one, but I think players need a reason to stay full HP and not purposely put themselves to critical to spam Limit Breaks and break the game. 

- I would also give each character a natural affinity towards certain stats, with higher base stats than the others to differentiate them a bit more.

- I would also prefer the system in which you earn Gil to be based on battles instead of steps taken, so I don't run around in circles in town lmao

- I would also prefer if the amount of money you earn per tier is toned down dramatically, but in compensation your Seed Rank never lowers. Maybe you all could discuss this point further.

I'll either edit this post or reply again if I think of other stuff. Can't wait to play whatever you cook up, I'm sure it'll be as awesome as FF7!

On 18/8/2017 at 3:29 PM, Augestein said:

Well, to actually start, we'll have to analyze what's wrong with the game in the first place (yeah, I know there's a lot anyone could rant about, but we need to focus on the big things). 

Levels: Don't matter in this game at all. As a matter of fact, in many instances, the levels are actually detrimental to the game. Sure, you get some extra hp and a little bit of stat growth, but the reality is that for the most part, leveling is bad because the enemy growths far outstrip the player growths. That's not necessarily a bad thing in some regards, because it can mean that the player needs to focus on mastering the junction system instead of just trying to brute force their way through the game, but the problem is that this also consequently has the result of causing people to just not level up at all, and reap the benefits of junctioning without actually leveling and thus closing the gap between monster stats and ally stats. 

My proposed solution? I actually have two solutions that are possible. 

1) Give the characters normal stat growths that can sort of compete with monsters and are specialized with any junctions applied being bonuses to either enhance what characters are already good at, or mitigate their weaknesses. 

2) Have monsters have set levels so that way the entire point of remaining lower leveled is effectively removed. You could have key boss fights be the party level like Seifer, but I don't see much point. It makes for better pacing and it's more difficult to have difficulty jumps when enemies aren't insanely spread out among their stat distribution. 

Acquisition of Items: Some of the refine abilities are ridiculous. And the worst part? You don't even need that much power. Their existence isn't the problem, as it's nice that you can actually use money and abilities to get better items, but some of them need to be toned down. Refining a Bahamut card just straight up gives you 100 MegaElixirs. Are they serious? Let's think about this for a minute. Okay, so 10 Elixirs are 1 MegaElixir, so having the Bahamut card is essentially worth... 1000 Elixirs. Come on devs, you cannot be serious. Yes, the card is rare, but it's not THAT rare! Honestly, I'd tone down the refines from most of the refines-- more so card mod than anything else. Most of the other ones aren't nearly as insane as they require multiple version of the card etc. In other words, make "rare" items less rare / tedious to acquire later on, but make some of the refines nerfed making for a more progressive feel to the game. 

Characters

There's almost no reason to ever use Selphie. Well outside of beating people up with a girl in a yellow dress. Quistis is pretty much straight up better, I think Selphie should get more than 1-3 for a spell if she's going to hang around. "The End" doesn't even need to be what needs to appear more often, she just needs to be able to do something that a player can't do about half of the way into the game. Full Cure is a nice start and should stay though, maybe making it appear more frequently would help. Perhaps change rapture to the Phoenix summon? So she has Revival, Full Cure, Wall, and The End? That'd be a lot better. Although, Wall should change to "Mighty Guard" essentially. It doesn't make sense that Quistis basically has all of Selphie's moves but better (with the exception of Degenerator versus The End with Degenerator only be listed for being more usable).  Also, kill Degenerator. It's too good. Or at the very least, making it a stat debuff would be useful and cool. 

I'd also lower the multipliers on Zell's duel. That way people can't just use Punch Rush -> Booya combos for days. 

Honestly, maybe I'm a horrible person, but if you can, I'd make Renzokukuen use both magic and physical. The standard hits are physical, but the proc portions are all magic damage. That way, it's not enough to ignore Squall's magic and pump his strength. 

I'd also make some of the shots that Irvine uses magical in nature. Thus not pigeonholing all of the guys into melee builds and all of the females sans Rinoa into magical builds (seriously, was there any reason for this?).

GFs

It also might be worth your time taking a BNW approach and limiting which GFs people can get so that way you can make each character a bit more unique. I know this means basically ignoring compatibility on the GFs, but I'm not sure there's really much you can do to make this interesting-- although, if you could limit abilities that could be equipped based on affection between the partnership of the GFs and the unit in question, that *could* be interesting if they didn't all cap at 1000. I sincerely doubt that this is possible at the moment -- perhaps ever, so I suggest the initially proposed "limit who can equip what." 

Speaking of limitations, I think you should also limit how many GFs a person can equip. I'd say they should be limited to having 4 on at a time. Thus, making it pointless to just equip 3 people constantly and ignore the other 3. That's a huge problem in 8. There's almost no reason to use anyone except 3 units. It's really goofy. It could also serve to make the Laguna parts a bit more thought provoking rather than just jamming all of them on the 3 men. 

 

Also, magic should just plain hit harder. Considering I have to go out of my way to get it, it shouldn't suck so much. 

 

 

The major issue about levels aren't actually enemy stats, but drops.

Higher level foes drop higher level items? Neat! You may think... annoying is the reality. Commit the mistake of getting too much exp and you are gonna swear and a lot.

In ff8 there are plenty of skills that let you convert enemy drops into spells or other useful items, the problem is that when you need a certain drop from a monster, you often have to spam skills that raise/lower the enemy's level just, to increase the chance of getting the right item.

Sure, there's the card command, but still.

Now, to talk about what really bothered me when I played the game: DRAWING

Drawing is way to slow, it takes hours to get the spells you need to make your build, but that could be a matter of point of views, to me it's an issue, to others not.

The real fuck up IMO was that in the game I never, I say NEVER saw an enemy except for the final boss to draw magic from my party... and that's a very sad thing.

Think about it: the game lets you raise stats by boosting them storing magic, let's say you meet a boss that's vulnerable to physical attacks, good! If I was to develop the game, I'd make it so that boss was such a cunning bastard, that he would draw from my party the same magic I put into strenght, to lower my attack and strike me down at the same time. How cool would that have been?

And consider many enemies you encounter in the game are actual soldiers specifically trained to draw and use spells.

I think it would be very cool if that feature could be added to FF8, it would be a major improvement to the game.

10 hours ago, SWhite said:

The real fuck up IMO was that in the game I never, I say NEVER saw an enemy except for the final boss to draw magic from my party... and that's a very sad thing.

Think about it: the game lets you raise stats by boosting them storing magic, let's say you meet a boss that's vulnerable to physical attacks, good! If I was to develop the game, I'd make it so that boss was such a cunning bastard, that he would draw from my party the same magic I put into strenght, to lower my attack and strike me down at the same time. How cool would that have been?

I can't think of anything that would bother me more than having to deal with drawing magic only to then have it stolen from me and thus have to draw that same magic again. Draw was a stupid system from the start and there have been numerous suggestions in this very topic to reduce or nearly entirely remove this mechanic. Beyond that bosses with exploitable AI like that tend to not fare well, slow down fights with constant counter attacks, or are highly gimmicky.

That's why you don't stack on magic

If you can steal magic, and magic can be stolen from you, no point in stacking.

Also, if stacking is inefficient, you can't exploit the broken junction system, so you can't get massive stat bonuses and "easy win" fights

Added a few bits to shared Google Doc regarding Magic Stock system. @Bauglir -- I'm with you on many general aspects, but the implementation I proposed is different. What do you think of mine ideas?