Useless rank-ups?

Hi!! my bro is playing the mod as i speak, i noticed the Mr. smile gimmick(Mr. smile NPC is priceless )

still i noticed what looks like a flaw among the rank-up options... for example Cloud's EX-SOLDIER option doesn't look very good, if you ask me(+5 to 3 parameters),

especially if you consider that if you compare getting EX-SOLDIER option twice with getting both the 2nd and the 3rd options once you can notice that basically the choice is among +5 to SPR

and +5 to 3 parameters, which i think is quite unconvenient. my bro told that even other characters have a weak option too, so i wonder... are we missing something about those options?

3 hours ago, Tenkarider said:

Hi!! my bro is playing the mod as i speak, i noticed the Mr. smile gimmick(Mr. smile NPC is priceless )

still i noticed what looks like a flaw among the rank-up options... for example Cloud's EX-SOLDIER option doesn't look very good, if you ask me(+5 to 3 parameters),

especially if you consider that if you compare getting EX-SOLDIER option twice with getting both the 2nd and the 3rd options once you can notice that basically the choice is among +5 to SPR

and +5 to 3 parameters, which i think is quite unconvenient. my bro told that even other characters have a weak option too, so i wonder... are we missing something about those options?

Players get 5 stat items for ALL of the stats. The "Rank Up Options" the player picks then determine what extra bonuses characters then get on top of the initial set.

The idea behind some rankups giving more stats is that they give stats that the character isn't as easily able to leverage (example: Aeris has naturally better Magic than Strength and tends to benefit more from Magic than Strength on the whole, so she needs more from any +Strength ranks). As to if that works,  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There is something notable about a couple of the characters in that they have rank ups that are flat out worse than simply alternating ranks in two different... Ranks. If one looks closely at Barett and Red13's rank options then you straight up lose stats. Example: Barret with 8 Ranks in Marauder has a total stat bonus (not counting the +5 to all that everyone gets) of +40 Str/Vit/Spr but a Barret with 4 ranks in Vigilante and 4 ranks in Heavy Metal has a total stat bonus of +40 Str/Vit/Spr AND +20 Dex.

I guess i might use this topic also to pinpoint some weirdness of my bro's gameplay:

i saw him fighting against king(macho) bomb... the one inside quadra magic cave, nice gimmick... the 4 bomb can't be killed or you'll be sorry... right?

well they will kill you even you sneak attack AoE like ultima and them make the boss finish 'em off with chained blast as soon as the battle starts, which makes me

think that the modder DOESN'T want the player kills the minions.

Well, if Cloud uses finish touch they disappear and won't counter at all... and the gimmick is gone forever. the fight is trivialized and the boss use some attack that would never

make sense(at a certain point of the fight) unless there are his minions.

So i wanna confirm... does the modder want that? if no it might be a good idea to add them the immunity to that type of death.

PS. i didn't tested it, but it might happen even with similar effects(maybe Flash command?)

King Bomb can also be cheese with Odin, Odin will killed the Bombs 100% combine with Sneak Attack and if you are lucky the Bombs will never get a turn, using this and the Landing glitch to reach the cave without even start the chocobo sidequest and you can beat as soon as you get the Highwind and when King Bomb is alone he isn't that tough especially when you know he is weak to earth, and if not for Instant-Kill Sleep works to against them, so I guess putting them to sleep and kill them with Magic is also an option, this fight would be more interesting I think if King Bomb could resummon them.

Bugs/Glitches aside. Every boss battle's point is to figure out a strategy that works to win. I don't see that being any different as you have to specifically gear your party towards what is required to win the fight. As for his weakness, that's obvious if you're paying attention.. large = earth, robots = lightning, etc. It would be nice if there were an AI check for the bombs being dead, to do something else but I'm not sure the limitation on that. The rank up lost points thing is also a concern.. agreed on that. I'd prefer something that didn't involve reviving them though... imo... if you're already properly geared for the fight resummoning is just a minor inconvenience than anything strategically significant.

I think Respec and point rebalance were on my list for Santa.

6 hours ago, Hordequester said:

Bugs/Glitches aside. Every boss battle's point is to figure out a strategy that works to win. I don't see that being any different as you have to specifically gear your party towards what is required to win the fight. As for his weakness, that's obvious if you're paying attention.. large = earth, robots = lightning, etc. It would be nice if there were an AI check for the bombs being dead, to do something else but I'm not sure the limitation on that. The rank up lost points thing is also a concern.. agreed on that. I'd prefer something that didn't involve reviving them though... imo... if you're already properly geared for the fight resummoning is just a minor inconvenience than anything strategically significant.

I think Respec and point rebalance were on my list for Santa.

Well yeah... keeping them in sleep is a strategy, AoE insta-kill(with counter denied) is cheese.

Respawn sounds fair enough, maybe only the bombs who didn't explode with death counter

@Sega Chief

uhm... there's a problem: my bro entered inside the cave in Sleep Forest that tosses you inside Midgar(is that the dark cave?), well when he goes inside the church

there are 3 shinra troopers in the flower area, but when he gets closer they disappear and it's not possible to access to the rear of the church... which means he's stuck forever inside the cave, appearently.

All what i know is that he spoke to the debug guy inside Highwind and set Aerith "alive" flag for a moment, then he put it back to "dead" and proceeded with the game normally.

Is that a known issue? Any wayout?

EDIT: crap, my bad... my bro said a bullshit, he actually was able to proceed through the cave

I'm sorting the rank ups at the moment, there's a patch for 1.5 about to go up that fixes them + other issues. I'll probably be uploading that patch later tonight or tomorrow once I've checked it all through.

Oh i see... i noticed also that, while summon materia have 1 star to prevent duplication and more than one cast for battle, master summon hasn't it. That allows to cast

KotR endlessly, so i'm confused... i thought that was exactly what you were going to avoid in this mod

Master Summon wasn't originally intended to be made available but I decided to re-add it along with the other two in the end. The single-usage of Summons can be broken through the use of Quadra-Magic so when I was told about that I figured why not. I think for the future I'll need to revise how I've got Summons set up in the mod; single-use isn't a good method of balancing them on its own.