FFX Punishment Becoming Tedious, Does It Get Better?

I'm playing v1.5 for FFX International. Sanctuary and now Spectral Keeper absorb all elements and half physical attacks.  The only thing I can think to do is use the Fortune Spheres I've been given to get Miracle Drinks via Mix and have everyone Crit. I saw somebody on YT who knew how to get Trio of 9999 but I refuse to look up how to do it because that's cheating.   I might not even have the items for it.

You shouldn't need that anyway. This is getting ridiculous.  You basically have no real choice in this game at this point. I was using Rikku anyway but now she's useless outside of healing and Mix because bosses absorb elements so even my Gem collection is worthless.

my only hope is because we got Fortune Spheres right before Sanctuary and Spectral Keeper that means this was "intended" and future bosses won't be as stupid and require Miracle Drink or anything like that. But I have no idea since I've never finished the mod. Can anyone who has finished it tell me what is in my future? Does hestopdoing this BS?

Not familiar with the International version, but on the NTSC version it is roughly as ridiculous with the elemental absorption and monstrous HP (240k for Sanctie and 312k for Spectral Keeper respectively).

For Sanctuary Keeper, I had Auron with an Evade & Counter weapon on basically nonstop Sentinel duty (this setup is really good, helps loads in random battles) while the other characters did buffs/healing, which is basically necessary because his Tail Sweep counter is random and gets rid of all buffs which discourages attacking other than counters, but be warned this will take a while (took me about 2 hours when I was testing an OSG No Overdrives/No Escape playthrough).

Spectral Keeper is much easier in comparison, because he counters everything I just stocked up on Ethers (common steal from Behemoth) and Doublecast Flares when I had an opening (generally when Spectral's counter would miss), making sure to wear Berserk Ward armor. (Protect and Double HP were helpful because his normal attack still hurts, and Haste was virtually necessary as well.)

Seymour Flux and Yunalesca should also absorb all elements, and I am unsure about the final boss because the OSG No Overdrives/No Escape roadblock is Overdrive Sin because of his absurd agility.

Out of curiousity, have you been capturing enemies?

I caught all the ones in the Calm Lands, yeah and beat Chimerageist but I can't do any more since he wants Bikanel monsters next. Anyway to get the Malboro I used a Blk Mage Sphere to teach Tidus Demi which is now I got Blitz Ace pretty quick. Demi on these buckets of HP random encounters fills up his Warrior Overdrivegauge in no time.

I was thinking about Evade & Counter but I wasn't sure if it actually increased evasion. Auron isn't very spry after all. But if it can make Auron a dodging and damage machine, I will absolutely use one of my 2 TeleportSpheres to teach it to him. 

Seymour Flux absorbing elements wasn't a huge deal because he still took reasonable damage from physical attacks. Sad to hear Yunalesca will also make Rikku's offense useless but good to know I guess.

Spectral Keeper  isa  lot simpler than Sanctuary, agreed. It's just taking forever. BlitzAce + Miracle Drink  does about 11000 damage and Auron has Entrust so I can get off about 22,000 damage. Problem is the glyph mines as I just died because Tidus didn't get his turn fast enough. Sigh. Had him down to less than half HP, too.

Thank you so much for your promptly reply and advice! Really appreciate it.

EDIT:

As for Double HP, I only have one Stamina Tablet left and I dunno when I can get more. Mega Vitality is awesome but I'm reluctant to use it. I've never actually beaten FFX in terms of a lot of optional content. I just did story, ya know? So I dunno where or how to get awesome items. The Arena I hear and Omega Ruins too probablybut I just don't want to use special items if at all possible. 

EDIT 2:

Even a Miracle Drink Blitz Ace wasn't enough to Overkill Spectral Keeper...What the hell does this guy want from me?

I honnestly think the mod was great up to Seymour Natus, starting with Seymour Flux it's just become stupid bosses becomes nothing more than HP Sponge they aren't even hard at all as they almost have the same IA as Vanilla FFX just more stat and so they became just stupidly long for no reasons add to that that up to now the mod was clearly favorizing the use of magic and then all of the sudden every bosses start absorbing every so unless you grind for Flare magic become useless, I stopped playing this mod at Spectral Keeper it was clear at this point that the bosses from now on were unfun and nothing more than Stat bank and it's either you grind like crazy or spend who knows how many times in very long fights basically to do the exact same thing as you do in Vanilla except with ennemies with higher stats and complete immunity to everything reducing the amount of option you can go for.

20 hours ago, Nikkolas said:

EDIT:

As for Double HP, I only have one Stamina Tablet left and I dunno when I can get more. Mega Vitality is awesome but I'm reluctant to use it. I've never actually beaten FFX in terms of a lot of optional content. I just did story, ya know? So I dunno where or how to get awesome items. The Arena I hear and Omega Ruins too probablybut I just don't want to use special items if at all possible. 

 

You can get them randomly from Magic Urns in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth or from Treasure Chests in the Moonflow, but the chance is low. (You can also steal them from Yunalesca and rare steal them from Adamantoise, but that helps little with the Keepers.)

Interestingly enough, Evade & Counter Auron was surprisingly useful against Yunalesca, because her slap counter has the same effect as Tail Sweep.

20 hours ago, Nikkolas said:

I caught all the ones in the Calm Lands, yeah and beat Chimerageist but I can't do any more since he wants Bikanel monsters next. Anyway to get the Malboro I used a Blk Mage Sphere to teach Tidus Demi which is now I got Blitz Ace pretty quick. Demi on these buckets of HP random encounters fills up his Warrior Overdrivegauge in no time.

I was thinking about Evade & Counter but I wasn't sure if it actually increased evasion. Auron isn't very spry after all. But if it can make Auron a dodging and damage machine, I will absolutely use one of my 2 TeleportSpheres to teach it to him. 

Didn't think they changed the Arena, but I think you should be able to capture whatever after unlocking Chimerageist.

Evade & Counter is weird because it actually is better than increasing evasion, it evades any attack that can be evaded regardless of your Evasion stat. (Some attacks cannot be evaded, but the Counter part still works on those.)

I actually went back to the Thunder Plains after unlocking Chimerageist for Iron Giant and Qactuar (Light Curtain for Protect and Chocobo Feather for Haste), although I had to take more care because the random encounters are quite dangerous when I limit myself like I did. (Dream Powders did a lot of work.)

4 hours ago, Nesouk said:

I honnestly think the mod was great up to Seymour Natus, starting with Seymour Flux it's just become stupid bosses becomes nothing more than HP Sponge they aren't even hard at all as they almost have the same IA as Vanilla FFX just more stat and so they became just stupidly long for no reasons add to that that up to now the mod was clearly favorizing the use of magic and then all of the sudden every bosses start absorbing every so unless you grind for Flare magic become useless, I stopped playing this mod at Spectral Keeper it was clear at this point that the bosses from now on were unfun and nothing more than Stat bank and it's either you grind like crazy or spend who knows how many times in very long fights basically to do the exact same thing as you do in Vanilla except with ennemies with higher stats and complete immunity to everything reducing the amount of option you can go for.

I think this is a valid criticism, although changing the AI is probably difficult and changing HP/stat/ailment and elemental resistance is much easier because that is just changing some bytes so I can understand why the mod ended up as-is. I actually enjoyed v1.7 NTSC more than v2.6 NTSC because he actually nerfed Magic slightly between the versions, doubled the HP of the Keepers and added the elemental resistances, which made it more tedious instead of harder.

20 hours ago, Nikkolas said:

EDIT 2:

 

Even a Miracle Drink Blitz Ace wasn't enough to Overkill Spectral Keeper...What the hell does this guy want from me?

Overkill is probably something like 20k, I just ignored it for the most part.

EDIT: Apparently it is 14k in v2.6 NTSC.

2 hours ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

I think this is a valid criticism, although changing the AI is probably difficult and changing HP/stat/ailment and elemental resistance is much easier because that is just changing some bytes so I can understand why the mod ended up as-is. I actually enjoyed v1.7 NTSC more than v2.6 NTSC because he actually nerfed Magic slightly between the versions, doubled the HP of the Keepers and added the elemental resistances, which made it more tedious instead of harder.

Well to be fair up to Seymour Natus the stats multipliers were fair in the sense that you could still go through without excessive grinding by knowing the boss AI (which you never truly need in Vanilla FFX) and how it works (as for the most part FFX's story bosses have a fairly good AI that allow the player to learn the boss) which in my opinion is more interesting than a game that just forces you to grind I just think starting with Seymour Flux LandonRay just did go way to crazy on the multiplier, on International he also nerf the Strength sphere with Expert Sphere Grid while increase Magic Sphere (to put it in perspective for Seymour Flux by going straightforward with close to no grinding none of my physical fighter could reach even the 2000 without crit despite having 5 Cheers) so when you stack up The ridiculous increase HP, the increase Defense (and immunity to both Armor and Mental Break), immunity to statut, absorbing elements and the nerf on your character's stat it really become tedious and it's about nothing more than having enough raw power to beat the boss (or using Trio of 9999 but that's cheating).

2 hours ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

You can get them randomly from Magic Urns in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth or from Treasure Chests in the Moonflow, but the chance is low. (You can also steal them from Yunalesca and rare steal them from Adamantoise, but that helps little with the Keepers.)

Interestingly enough, Evade & Counter Auron was surprisingly useful against Yunalesca, because her slap counter has the same effect as Tail Sweep.

Didn't think they changed the Arena, but I think you should be able to capture whatever after unlocking Chimerageist.

Evade & Counter is weird because it actually is better than increasing evasion, it evades any attack that can be evaded regardless of your Evasion stat. (Some attacks cannot be evaded, but the Counter part still works on those.)

I actually went back to the Thunder Plains after unlocking Chimerageist for Iron Giant and Qactuar (Light Curtain for Protect and Chocobo Feather for Haste), although I had to take more care because the random encounters are quite dangerous when I limit myself like I did. (Dream Powders did a lot of work.)

I think this is a valid criticism, although changing the AI is probably difficult and changing HP/stat/ailment and elemental resistance is much easier because that is just changing some bytes so I can understand why the mod ended up as-is. I actually enjoyed v1.7 NTSC more than v2.6 NTSC because he actually nerfed Magic slightly between the versions, doubled the HP of the Keepers and added the elemental resistances, which made it more tedious instead of harder.

Overkill is probably something like 20k, I just ignored it for the most part.

EDIT: Apparently it is 14k in v2.6 NTSC.

Well I always have Dream Powders and Smoke Bombs and Silence Grenades and Petrify Grenades and...you get my meaning. Random fights in this game are becoming ludicrous. The only way I survive is having Sonic Steel on Tidus and Using some debilitating item on the enemies immediately when the fight starts. Otherwise they often oneshot any of my party exceptmaybe Auron.

Thanks for telling me about the capture stuff but I already got the airship. I went to the Omega Ruins to see what I could get. Somebody tipped me off that Bribe is the real key to success now and Steal is becoming less useful. Bribe is apparently how I could have gotten the item for Trio of 9999. ButI don't have the kind of money to be spending upwards to 100K to get itesm from enemies at present.

I watched an LP years ago that talked about how crafting armors with certain abilities was the best sourcee of money in the game but I forget which abilities. I'll try to figure taht out on my own. I kinda have to if Bribe is this essential to getting unique items and stuff.

I've already kinda given up hope on getting the full powered Celestial Weapons. I ain't dodging 00 lightning bolts. But with awesome items, I can craft my own ultimate weapons.

Bad news about Bribe: it is based on the enemy maximum HP totals, so you need 5x the gil of the vanilla game for anything Calm Lands and later. (International does have a minor advantage in that 10x max HP is as effective as 20x max HP is in the NTSC version for Bribe.)

Yeah, the random encounters are no joke, captures tended to be almost like a vanilla NSG game in that Poison and Sleep tend to be valuable statuses.

Funny thing is that you probably need Celestial Weapons, because of their special modifiers and the easy access to Break Damage Limit. (Rikku has a relatively easy to get/unlock Celestial Weapon, plus the sidequest is the best way to capture Cactaurs, and Auron's and Yuna's should be simple as well.)

For gil, the Mimics in the Omega Ruins are the best option as they drop 50k gil (100k gil with Gillionaire), but you will probably want to use a Candle of Life to kill them via Doom (takes 5 turns) unless he changed that in the International version. The encounter they can appear in (Treasure Chest and Zaurus) is rather common, even though the Mimic does not appear 100% of the time.

I should warn you that the final boss is absurd, but I don't want to spoil it for you.

3 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Well to be fair up to Seymour Natus the stats multipliers were fair in the sense that you could still go through without excessive grinding by knowing the boss AI (which you never truly need in Vanilla FFX) and how it works (as for the most part FFX's story bosses have a fairly good AI that allow the player to learn the boss) which in my opinion is more interesting than a game that just forces you to grind I just think starting with Seymour Flux LandonRay just did go way to crazy on the multiplier, on International he also nerf the Strength sphere with Expert Sphere Grid while increase Magic Sphere (to put it in perspective for Seymour Flux by going straightforward with close to no grinding none of my physical fighter could reach even the 2000 without crit despite having 5 Cheers) so when you stack up The ridiculous increase HP, the increase Defense (and immunity to both Armor and Mental Break), immunity to statut, absorbing elements and the nerf on your character's stat it really become tedious and it's about nothing more than having enough raw power to beat the boss (or using Trio of 9999 but that's cheating).

The issue with most of the statuses are that they are either quite crippling or useless (except for the Breaks, which are reasonable but have the issue of minimal counterplay because iirc Dispel would be the only way for a boss to remove a Break), so the issue is making the bosses interesting without making them all marathons, which probably requires some way to modify the enemy AI/skillset.

Thank you for the info on Bribe. This explains why my testing it out on Gagazet yielded dismal results for everything but a couple enemies. The one Mech at least I was able to Bribe to get a single Door to Tomorrow. That apparently can be made to Customize equipment with Overdrive > AP. It sounds like it could be useful, especially for Tidus with Warrior and Demi at the Omega Ruins. Of course, I have no idea how many Doors it takes to learn that ability. I was just testing.

I did discover the Mimics giving 50K, though. I beat it with Auron w/Sentinel + Evade and Counter. Your strategy sounds a lot faster though. Thank you. I should really go and stock up on Candles of Life. It was just that, by Zanarkand, I was getting really tired of random encounters being a struggle. I especially hate robots in this mod because the only status that works on them is Slow and it often misses. Those Cannon and Kick Robots are just BS. The cannons especially because they can hit the whole party and that move seems to ignore defense. My Protects never help.

4 hours ago, Nikkolas said:

Thank you for the info on Bribe. This explains why my testing it out on Gagazet yielded dismal results for everything but a couple enemies. The one Mech at least I was able to Bribe to get a single Door to Tomorrow. That apparently can be made to Customize equipment with Overdrive > AP. It sounds like it could be useful, especially for Tidus with Warrior and Demi at the Omega Ruins. Of course, I have no idea how many Doors it takes to learn that ability. I was just testing.

I did discover the Mimics giving 50K, though. I beat it with Auron w/Sentinel + Evade and Counter. Your strategy sounds a lot faster though. Thank you. I should really go and stock up on Candles of Life. It was just that, by Zanarkand, I was getting really tired of random encounters being a struggle. I especially hate robots in this mod because the only status that works on them is Slow and it often misses. Those Cannon and Kick Robots are just BS. The cannons especially because they can hit the whole party and that move seems to ignore defense. My Protects never help.

 

Here are my challenge notes for the Zanarkand area which I forgot to mention was also No Summon except the forced battles (Warning: for NTSC game, not sure if International changed any of this):

Defender Z: Easy, Provoke him with Tidus and you can't die.
The undead monks: Show them Life. Steal some Candles of Life if you can, they are useful against Mimics. (As an aside, they are vulnerable to Sleep.)
YKT - 11: Be sure to kill them first to avoid Thrust Kick.
YAT - 97: Same trick as the similar enemies in Bevelle, deal damage to them to avoid their full-party attack. (Attacks like Demi do count.)

In case you are wondering, the YAT - 97 cannon enemies use an unevadeable full-party attack unless you deal damage to them before their next turn, which forces them to do an evadable single-target attack instead which works with Evade & Counter. (You can also Flee if you want, they don't have anything special except maybe their rare drops.)

Auron is good against the Mimics, more so the Zaurus doesn't kill you before you can get the gil. (My notes say that they are also vulnerable to Provoke and they do nothing when provoked, so that could be an option as well.) There are four different types of Mimics, and three of them hit hard and they are all quite fast, so Candles of Life are much easier at getting the job done. Zaurus can be dealt with however after you Steal from the chest, I recommend a Petrify Grenade because that is their steal.

Worst enemy in Omega Ruins is easily Great Malboro, because the ailment resistance setup he demands goes against the elemental absorption setup that helps with many of the other enemies. It also has boss immunities and always ambushes, so I would just Flee.

Overdrive > AP would help with filling the Sphere Grid, but the enemies give enough AP that I would recommend against synthing it. (Best enemy to farm AP against is probably Adamantoise, because it only uses a full-party fire attack when Provoked. Too bad it is immune to Demi and Poison is slow, but I prefer not dying over something riskier like Master Tonberry. Also has a nice common steal in Healing Water, which is a full heal for the party.)

EDIT: Some of the enemies are immune to Sensor in the Omega Ruins, but they should all be vulnerable to Demi, so using a Break Damage Limit weapon you multiply the HP damage dealt by 40 to figure out the right starting point for Bribe. You will need a lot of gil, though.

44 minutes ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

Here are my challenge notes for the Zanarkand area which I forgot to mention was also No Summon except the forced battles (Warning: for NTSC game, not sure if International changed any of this):

Defender Z: Easy, Provoke him with Tidus and you can't die.
The undead monks: Show them Life. Steal some Candles of Life if you can, they are useful against Mimics. (As an aside, they are vulnerable to Sleep.)
YKT - 11: Be sure to kill them first to avoid Thrust Kick.
YAT - 97: Same trick as the similar enemies in Bevelle, deal damage to them to avoid their full-party attack. (Attacks like Demi do count.)

In case you are wondering, the YAT - 97 cannon enemies use an unevadeable full-party attack unless you deal damage to them before their next turn, which forces them to do an evadable single-target attack instead which works with Evade & Counter. (You can also Flee if you want, they don't have anything special except maybe their rare drops.)

Auron is good against the Mimics, more so the Zaurus doesn't kill you before you can get the gil. (My notes say that they are also vulnerable to Provoke and they do nothing when provoked, so that could be an option as well.) There are four different types of Mimics, and three of them hit hard and they are all quite fast, so Candles of Life are much easier at getting the job done. Zaurus can be dealt with however after you Steal from the chest, I recommend a Petrify Grenade because that is their steal.

Worst enemy in Omega Ruins is easily Great Malboro, because the ailment resistance setup he demands goes against the elemental absorption setup that helps with many of the other enemies. It also has boss immunities and always ambushes, so I would just Flee.

Overdrive > AP would help with filling the Sphere Grid, but the enemies give enough AP that I would recommend against synthing it. (Best enemy to farm AP against is probably Adamantoise, because it only uses a full-party fire attack when Provoked. Too bad it is immune to Demi and Poison is slow, but I prefer not dying over something riskier like Master Tonberry. Also has a nice common steal in Healing Water, which is a full heal for the party.)

EDIT: Some of the enemies are immune to Sensor in the Omega Ruins, but they should all be vulnerable to Demi, so using a Break Damage Limit weapon you multiply the HP damage dealt by 40 to figure out the right starting point for Bribe. You will need a lot of gil, though.

It's good to hear the Omega Ruins are still good for farming AP. This mod demands a ton of grinding so I was dreading the endgame in a way when I had to finally start trying to fill out the grid. But if even in the mod AP is still plentiful here, that'll help a lot.

But man, I wish I had done monster capturing earlier. For catching the three fiends on Besaid I got 99 Stamina Tonics. Insane. I could sit on those for the entire rest of the game. I could freely use them for Mix in boss fights for Hyper Vitality. Could have had them for Yunalesca, had everyone at 9999 HP. Oh well. And the 60 Three Stars, One MP Cost for my entire party, could make Quick Hit a viable move now for Auron and his pathetically small MP pool.

This game doesn't really tell you a lot I'm remembering. Like, the sandstorm in Bikanel blocking off the one area? It gives you no info on what to do about that. And those Cactuar Statues in the Thunder Plains, I have no idea what to do with them. I figure the two things are related but anyway I hate having to look things up.  But when the game gives you no assistance, what can you do? Some games just require a guide.

I appreciate all the help you're giving me is the point. Thanks again.

13 hours ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

The issue with most of the statuses are that they are either quite crippling or useless (except for the Breaks, which are reasonable but have the issue of minimal counterplay because iirc Dispel would be the only way for a boss to remove a Break), so the issue is making the bosses interesting without making them all marathons, which probably requires some way to modify the enemy AI/skillset.

Well I think we can have a balance with Punishment modification as such :

-Blind : Is really only crippling when the Ennemy is also weak to Berserk (which we can't inflict in FFX anyway) and has nothing else than physical attacks on bosses that use a fair mix of magic and physical blind could be made usefull without being broken by giving immunity to Silence (like for Seymour Flux Blind could be usefull for the first phase but not the second phase where he mainly use magic same with Sanctuary Keeper blind would be usefull against his claw and tail attack but not his other moves).

-Silence : Basically the same deal as Blind but with magick

-Poison : From what I get in FFX we can modify how much damage ennemies take from poison so the key would be to found a value that would make Poison relevant without being OP.

-Slow : Bosses that have already good speed could be made weak to it.

-The Break : The offensive break can indeed be OP best way would be to immune boss against one of the 2 but not the 2, Defensive break are fair in my opinion especially with how much HP boss have in Punishment (or Optionnal boss have in general the break could compensate from the fact that we can't grind stat to max in Punishment)

This statuts could all be made usefull in FFX, the other statuts would be arguably quite broken against bosses so we should keep them for mobs.
Also from what I saw in other mods and various ability in FFX it's possible to set how many turn a statut will last so we can limited them this way to. 

Okay so I figured out the Cactuar Sandstorm stuff and did all that.

...for nothing. The reward in the village is the Venus Sigil. I now have Lulu's Crest and Sigil, not Rikku's. My hopes for getting Gillionaire are dashed. I can only assume he switched them around and made me have to dodge 200 lightning bolts to get Rikku's full powered Celestial Weapon.  I guess I just have to try and find what item is needed to put Gillionaire on equipment. I would be blessed to dodge 100 bolts, let alone 200, especially so long as I don't have No Encounters.

5 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Well I think we can have a balance with Punishment modification as such :

-Blind : Is really only crippling when the Ennemy is also weak to Berserk (which we can't inflict in FFX anyway) and has nothing else than physical attacks on bosses that use a fair mix of magic and physical blind could be made usefull without being broken by giving immunity to Silence (like for Seymour Flux Blind could be usefull for the first phase but not the second phase where he mainly use magic same with Sanctuary Keeper blind would be usefull against his claw and tail attack but not his other moves).

-Silence : Basically the same deal as Blind but with magick

-Poison : From what I get in FFX we can modify how much damage ennemies take from poison so the key would be to found a value that would make Poison relevant without being OP.

-Slow : Bosses that have already good speed could be made weak to it.

-The Break : The offensive break can indeed be OP best way would be to immune boss against one of the 2 but not the 2, Defensive break are fair in my opinion especially with how much HP boss have in Punishment (or Optionnal boss have in general the break could compensate from the fact that we can't grind stat to max in Punishment)

This statuts could all be made usefull in FFX, the other statuts would be arguably quite broken against bosses so we should keep them for mobs.
Also from what I saw in other mods and various ability in FFX it's possible to set how many turn a statut will last so we can limited them this way to. 

The Poison damage value is specific to each enemy, although I am not sure that decimal values are compatible so the lowest would be 1% per turn. The actual real issue is that Rikku's items have effectively an infinite infliction rate, so casting Slow is relatively useless in comparison to using a Silver Hourglass because the item always works.

Honestly, changing some of the HP totals would be necessary because the Keepers definitely have too much HP.

IIRC he re-balanced all the Arena/Dark Aeon (less sure about the Dark Aeons, they are not in the NTSC version of the game) stats because he took away Sphere drops from the Monster Arena.

2 hours ago, Nikkolas said:

Okay so I figured out the Cactuar Sandstorm stuff and did all that.

 

...for nothing. The reward in the village is the Venus Sigil. I now have Lulu's Crest and Sigil, not Rikku's. My hopes for getting Gillionaire are dashed. I can only assume he switched them around and made me have to dodge 200 lightning bolts to get Rikku's full powered Celestial Weapon.  I guess I just have to try and find what item is needed to put Gillionaire on equipment. I would be blessed to dodge 100 bolts, let alone 200, especially so long as I don't have No Encounters.

International changed the sigil names around for some reason, so the Venus Sigil/Crest should correspond to Rikku's Godhand in the International version as per this FAQ.

9 minutes ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

The Poison damage value is specific to each enemy, although I am not sure that decimal values are compatible so the lowest would be 1% per turn. The actual real issue is that Rikku's items have effectively an infinite infliction rate, so casting Slow is relatively useless in comparison to using a Silver Hourglass because the item always works.

Honestly, changing some of the HP totals would be necessary because the Keepers definitely have too much HP.

IIRC he re-balanced all the Arena/Dark Aeon (less sure about the Dark Aeons, they are not in the NTSC version of the game) stats because he took away Sphere drops from the Monster Arena.

There was a mod for the PAL UK version made by pbirdman that actually reduce the Statut Hitrate's of Rikku's item so it's possible to modify these. 

The HP of the keepers are fine at this point if they had less defense or were vulnerable to either Armor Break or Mental Break and weren't absorbing elements we could deal fair amount of damage which would already reduce the tediousness, and as for Poison 1 or 2% at best (if we take Seymour Flux the Poison deals 2% in Vanilla with his Punishment HP (210000) that would be 4200 seems legit to me, if we do that on Sanctuary Keeper poison would deal 4800 per turns) per turn would be fine for bosses (especially when they have a lot of HP).

I wrote he effectivelly rebalance the Dark Aeons by reducing their stats, but not Penance however (apparently he is unbeatable in Punishment).

14 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

There was a mod for the PAL UK version made by pbirdman that actually reduce the Statut Hitrate's of Rikku's item so it's possible to modify these. 

The HP of the keepers are fine at this point if they had less defense or were vulnerable to either Armor Break or Mental Break and weren't absorbing elements we could deal fair amount of damage which would already reduce the tediousness, and as for Poison 1 or 2% at best (if we take Seymour Flux the Poison deals 2% in Vanilla with his Punishment HP (210000) that would be 4200 seems legit to me, if we do that on Sanctuary Keeper poison would deal 4800 per turns) per turn would be fine for bosses (especially when they have a lot of HP).

I wrote he effectivelly rebalance the Dark Aeons by reducing their stats, but not Penance however (apparently he is unbeatable in Punishment).

Was not aware that such a mod existed, that is nice to know.

Sanctie actually has Esuna in his skillset, but he only uses it when he has a status ailment and only when he would otherwise cast Curaga. The real issue is Sanctie is annoying enough that I would probably still prefer Sentinel Auron with Evade & Counter doing all the damage because of Tail Sweep removing all your buffs, but that is probably because I prefer to be as risk-averse as possible.

I still think the real answer is modifying the skillsets/AI although making status ailments a thing again for bosses would help.

1 hour ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

Was not aware that such a mod existed, that is nice to know.

Sanctie actually has Esuna in his skillset, but he only uses it when he has a status ailment and only when he would otherwise cast Curaga. The real issue is Sanctie is annoying enough that I would probably still prefer Sentinel Auron with Evade & Counter doing all the damage because of Tail Sweep removing all your buffs, but that is probably because I prefer to be as risk-averse as possible.

I still think the real answer is modifying the skillsets/AI although making status ailments a thing again for bosses would help.

In the case of Sanctie making him susceptible to Blind, balancing by making Blind last only a couple of turns (like 4-5 turns) and not giving 100% success (something around 50-60% would be good I think) would be a way to avoid his tail attack (at least for some times before having to reapply the status) but at the same time keep it relevant (if Blind miss you lose your buff) giving some times to deal damage without having to worry about the tail, of course we could change his AI and attack, but I think even with the current AIs we could make statut ailment good without being OP, the game would in my opinion be more interesting if statut ailment had some uses against bosses (which to be fair is already the case in some boss fight in Vanilla).

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

In the case of Sanctie making him susceptible to Blind, balancing by making Blind last only a couple of turns (like 4-5 turns) and not giving 100% success (something around 50-60% would be good I think) would be a way to avoid his tail attack (at least for some times before having to reapply the status) but at the same time keep it relevant (if Blind miss you lose your buff) giving some times to deal damage without having to worry about the tail, of course we could change his AI and attack, but I think even with the current AIs we could make statut ailment good without being OP, the game would in my opinion be more interesting if statut ailment had some uses against bosses (which to be fair is already the case in some boss fight in Vanilla).

Actually, I think every main game boss has ailment vulnerabilities in the vanilla game, even if it is irrelevant for a few of them.

A time limit for ailments would help less against Sanctie because he can cast Esuna, but in general it would be good for game balance for that to be the case.

The good news is that each enemy has specific ailment/debuff resistances, so you can actually adjust the base success rate once the items are adjusted to have 100% infliction rate (or less, if desired) rather than infinite for each boss.

The highest infliction rate possible without items is 150% with a -touch and a -strike ability on a weapon, so making such a weapon not possible would probably be needed as well.

So I wanna talk about Seymour Natus as earlier it was noted the game was fun or properly challenging up to him. I consider him the most fun and challenging boss in the game. Unlike Yunalesca who was just...ugh.

Anyway, the main problem with Natus is the Mortibody and its Desperado. So far as I could tell, Desperado triggers if everyone in the party is buffed. He'll still do it on occasion if they aren't but it only immediately triggers if everyone has a buff on them, especially Shell.

Natus always starts with ice spells so I could protect against that with my Arctic Winds or whatever creating three sets of Iceproof armor. The problem is, how to survive if we can't have Shell on everyone? My solution was Mega Vitality. I had 2 Stamina Tablets from grinding Rikku up to decent levels on the Moonflow because there's no other real choice. Anyway, my buf layout was this: Haste on Tidus and Auron because Rikku doesn't really need it. And Shell on Tidus and Rikku because Auron with 8000 HP doesn't need Shell. Incidentally, this has been my boss team ever since. I've given up on everyone else except for Yojimbo because physical attacks don't work there and a mage team can actually survive his attacks.

Anyway, this was my setup for victory. Auron even Overkilled him with a Crit. 

I noticed the first phase is substantially harder than the second or third phase.  I figured it had something to do with the way X's battle system works. Certain actions elay your next turn more, right? If the same is true for bosses, than Seymour Natus casting Flare and the Mortibody casting Cura cost them more turns than when they were doing the elemental spell attacks. It just felt like Seymour especially was getting less turns once the final phase kicked in.

I just grinded Yuna up to Reflect for Natus, because the enemies give godly amounts of AP on the Highbridge. Elemental resistance setups would work for the first phase, but Break and Flare could care less about those, so I prefer just casting Reflect.

Actions have a Rank value, with a lower rank being functionally faster. Most commands are Rank 3, but Flare is Rank 4 so your observations are not that far off.  (If you are curious, Quick Hit is Rank 2 in the International version, but it was Rank 1 in the NTSC version.)

Yunalesca is brutal, but I just used Sentinel Auron because her counter in the second and third stages gets rid of buffs except for Reflect. The hard part is making sure Absorb does not screw you over when setting up Double HP (as it is based on maximum HP), and since I was not using Overdrives, that meant I had to time the usage of Stamina Tablets correctly. (Luckily, Yunalesca has it as her steal.)

Out of curiosity, are there any other FFX gameplay mods/hacks out there?

Given how popular the game is and the fact it's been on PC for years now, I'm shocked I can't find more mods that overhaul the battle system to make the game different and more challenging.

A quick search gave me nothing on Steam other than graphics mods.

I am guessing that being a PS2 game originally makes it cumbersome to hack along with the lack of support from Square-Enix, although at least a lot of the mechanical stuff is documented.

So I just learned of the Don Tonberry trick. I tried it out with Tidus and got 13 levels in about a minute or two. So I think I'm gonna be doing this for at least my main trio. I'm sorry dude but I don't see how you could stand to level normally when AP > Overdrive gets you levels this quick and it is gonna take so long to max out even one grid.

It is my understanding you need that to defeat the Dark Aeons and probably also the Weapons since you didn't fight the Dark Aeons.

And I assume the final story bosses are leveled for parties that beat optional content.

Honestly, with Don Tonberry, I don't think grinding will be too bad. This is a No Aeon run so I'm not going to be boosting their stats which seems like it would take FOREVER.

I used all my Mimic grinding money so far to get Yojimbo at 3x the prize. I hope the Teleport Spheres are worth it. That's Evade and Counter for two more people. 

I got a four empty slot weapon for Tidus from a random fight in the Omega Ruins and I have the Flexible Arm just now from the Fayth Cavern.  Hopefully those will serve me well when I have tons of awesome items and thus abilities to put on them. I don't think it's possible to max out stats in this, is it? So Stat+ is still worth a slot ,s right?

On 10/11/2018 at 8:33 PM, Nikkolas said:

So I wanna talk about Seymour Natus as earlier it was noted the game was fun or properly challenging up to him. I consider him the most fun and challenging boss in the game. Unlike Yunalesca who was just...ugh.

Anyway, the main problem with Natus is the Mortibody and its Desperado. So far as I could tell, Desperado triggers if everyone in the party is buffed. He'll still do it on occasion if they aren't but it only immediately triggers if everyone has a buff on them, especially Shell.

Natus always starts with ice spells so I could protect against that with my Arctic Winds or whatever creating three sets of Iceproof armor. The problem is, how to survive if we can't have Shell on everyone? My solution was Mega Vitality. I had 2 Stamina Tablets from grinding Rikku up to decent levels on the Moonflow because there's no other real choice. Anyway, my buf layout was this: Haste on Tidus and Auron because Rikku doesn't really need it. And Shell on Tidus and Rikku because Auron with 8000 HP doesn't need Shell. Incidentally, this has been my boss team ever since. I've given up on everyone else except for Yojimbo because physical attacks don't work there and a mage team can actually survive his attacks.

Anyway, this was my setup for victory. Auron even Overkilled him with a Crit. 

I noticed the first phase is substantially harder than the second or third phase.  I figured it had something to do with the way X's battle system works. Certain actions elay your next turn more, right? If the same is true for bosses, than Seymour Natus casting Flare and the Mortibody casting Cura cost them more turns than when they were doing the elemental spell attacks. It just felt like Seymour especially was getting less turns once the final phase kicked in.

When I was playing I realise that if you buff this way :

1 character with Haste and Reflect
1 Character with only Haste
1 Character with only Reflect

And add nothing else he will not use Desperado (or very rarely) you have one character left vulnerable but the others are protected against his spells making them basically unkillable provide you have enough potion to heal but the only attack left that can damage you are Shattering claw, as for damage the aga spells are the best as well as the damage he takes from reflected spells.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

When I was playing I realise that if you buff this way :

1 character with Haste and Reflect
1 Character with only Haste
1 Character with only Reflect

And add nothing else he will not use Desperado (or very rarely) you have one character left vulnerable but the others are protected against his spells making them basically unkillable provide you have enough potion to heal but the only attack left that can damage you are Shattering claw, as for damage the aga spells are the best as well as the damage he takes from reflected spells.

I didn't even have the Aga spells at the time but I thought Auron did respectable damage with just his normal attacks.

14 hours ago, Nikkolas said:

So I just learned of the Don Tonberry trick. I tried it out with Tidus and got 13 levels in about a minute or two. So I think I'm gonna be doing this for at least my main trio. I'm sorry dude but I don't see how you could stand to level normally when AP > Overdrive gets you levels this quick and it is gonna take so long to max out even one grid.

It is my understanding you need that to defeat the Dark Aeons and probably also the Weapons since you didn't fight the Dark Aeons.

And I assume the final story bosses are leveled for parties that beat optional content.

Honestly, with Don Tonberry, I don't think grinding will be too bad. This is a No Aeon run so I'm not going to be boosting their stats which seems like it would take FOREVER.

 

I used all my Mimic grinding money so far to get Yojimbo at 3x the prize. I hope the Teleport Spheres are worth it. That's Evade and Counter for two more people. 

 

I got a four empty slot weapon for Tidus from a random fight in the Omega Ruins and I have the Flexible Arm just now from the Fayth Cavern.  Hopefully those will serve me well when I have tons of awesome items and thus abilities to put on them. I don't think it's possible to max out stats in this, is it? So Stat+ is still worth a slot ,s right?

Maxing out stats is not possible because all the stat sphere drops in the Monster Arena were replaced with Wings to Discovery drops.

Honestly, I think it is difficult to beat the Celestial Weapons with a custom weapon due to their inherent damage properties and innately having Break Damage Limit, although if you going towards Magic then a custom weapon probably wins out. (Break Damage Limit, Magic Booster, and Magic +20% are obvious, and the last ability is probably Magic +10%. In my challenge run, the issue is that I would probably have to replace Magic +10% with One MP Cost, but that might make Overdrive Sin possible. Too bad getting 120 Dark Matter is not easy, probably would involve me murdering Chimerageist repeatedly for them, so ~960 fights required given the 1/8 drop rate as it is a rare drop. Probably would just use a save editor at that point.)

If you want Overdrive > AP to be as efficient as possible, you really want Triple Overdrive and Triple AP as well, but that requires items and the time taken to get those items. I was suggesting against it because I thought International capped the AP you could get that way, but it seems I was wrong.

Don Tonberry has a common steal of Candle of Life x3, which should help you out as well.

2 hours ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

Maxing out stats is not possible because all the stat sphere drops in the Monster Arena were replaced with Wings to Discovery drops.

Honestly, I think it is difficult to beat the Celestial Weapons with a custom weapon due to their inherent damage properties and innately having Break Damage Limit, although if you going towards Magic then a custom weapon probably wins out. (Break Damage Limit, Magic Booster, and Magic +20% are obvious, and the last ability is probably Magic +10%. In my challenge run, the issue is that I would probably have to replace Magic +10% with One MP Cost, but that might make Overdrive Sin possible. Too bad getting 120 Dark Matter is not easy, probably would involve me murdering Chimerageist repeatedly for them, so ~960 fights required given the 1/8 drop rate as it is a rare drop. Probably would just use a save editor at that point.)

If you want Overdrive > AP to be as efficient as possible, you really want Triple Overdrive and Triple AP as well, but that requires items and the time taken to get those items. I was suggesting against it because I thought International capped the AP you could get that way, but it seems I was wrong.

Don Tonberry has a common steal of Candle of Life x3, which should help you out as well.

I appreciate the advice.  I'll see what I can do. As I said, my main party is Tidus, Rikku and Auron. I got Godhand for Rikku and I don't foresee me getting Tidus' full power CW. So that leaves Auron.

Tell me truly though, how screwed am I that I used up all my Fortune and Luck Spheres? You get a couple in Zanarkand and tehGagazet Cave and I used them both for Miracle Drinks against the Keepers. Everyone says Luck is very important, especially against the Dark Aeons, but I have no idea what that is all about. It helps with Evasion or something? I just have Rikku in teh Quick Pockets section right now and am looking sadly at those nodes I can't activate because I used up all my Luck Spheres.....

But right now I figure top priority is filling out the three grids. Then comes Gil grinding then comes item grinding. Then I can start beating stuff, hopefully.

Honestly, Triple AP seems wasted with the Don Tonberry trick. It would make things go a tad faster but so what? It's very simple and easy and fast enough as is. The main problem is, and this is something you maybe didn't notice because you played the North American version with the Standard Sphere Grid, is that apparently the Expert Sphere Grid is full of empty nodes. So I'm gonna be traveling around the Grid getting a lot of nothing a decent bit of the time. But oh well.

EDIT:

And I keep meaning to ask, are the final story bosses leveled for people who could beat the Arena and Omega Ruins? I have to max Sphere Grids and have the best equipment to beat the regular story, too?

Honestly filling the Sphere Grid is probably overkill for the final boss, although I have no clue what modifications he made since NTSC v1.7.

I would actually not just AP grind all at once because you will eventually run out of Power/Magic/Speed Spheres and you will need a source for those. I think you can still get Fortune Spheres from the Arena, but you are probably out of luck on the Luck Spheres. There are also some stat spheres in the temples you can't access because of Dark Aeons (until you defeat them, of course), and a few from lightning dodging.

I have the Remaster so I am somewhat familiar with the Expert Sphere Grid, and both sphere grids have a lot of empty spaces.

You could probably beat the next few bosses as-is, although Overdrive Sin requires some preparation because he is a damage and ailment resistance check.

Well how much of a difference could a few points of Luck have really made then.  He has to have actually weakened the superbosses to account for the fact he removed stat increase farming.

Thanks for the info.

Also there is an FFX PC gameplay mod somebody elsewhere just told me about:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1413607626

I am very interested in this but I don't have the PC version right now. Maybe next month. But incase anyone else is interested.

In fact I might put my playthrough of Punishment on indefinite hold. I just don't know if I have teh patience for LR's mod anymore. Running around the Omega Ruins casting Demi a billion times is giving me hardcore FFVIII Requiem flashbacks. There, Triple-casting Demi was the only way to beat the hyper inflated HP of certain enemies like Chimeras.  Here I have to do much the same, just cast Demi over and over and over and over and over and spend five minutes on each fight.

If there is another mod for FFX, I wanna give it a shot. It helps that the description of teh mod sounds very exciting. It isn't just raising their numbers and lowering your numbers. It changes up gameplay a lot it seems.

Honestly, there are a few changes I would make, probably starting with the Bribe formula. (True story - I found the offset for Mimic gil drops in the NTSC version, then was disappointed to find out that the cap was 65,535 before considering Gillionaire.)

The inflated HP in the Omega Ruins is actually manageable even at my low stats because Poison damage still has the same multiplier as the base game, quite a few enemies are vulnerable to Sleep, others can be Provoked, so the only difficult enemies are Master Tonberry, Varuna, and Great Malboro. (Demonolith probably would be but they can be Slowed, and Stoneproof is really the only ailment resistance you need because Pharaoh's Curse is basically countered with a Remedy.)

If you were ever to continue, I would stop at capturing one of each enemy for future Bribing purposes and just finish the game if you can. (60% stat increases are actually rather small compared to what Punishment eventually does, so the hope is that the AI/attacks of the enemies were changed somehow to make it interesting.)

Your best bet is waiting for a Steam sale which happens quite often (watching the game should work, then you get e-mail notifications when it goes on sale). 

9 hours ago, Nikkolas said:

n fact I might put my playthrough of Punishment on indefinite hold. I just don't know if I have teh patience for LR's mod anymore. Running around the Omega Ruins casting Demi a billion times is giving me hardcore FFVIII Requiem flashbacks. There, Triple-casting Demi was the only way to beat the hyper inflated HP of certain enemies like Chimeras.  Here I have to do much the same, just cast Demi over and over and over and over and over and spend five minutes on each fight.

Well you were doing the wrong then in FFVIII even in Requiem you don't need to kill monsters that much you could just Mug them to get item and then just run away, and even if you need to kill Quistis's Degenerator could kill almost every mobs ^^, and when Island Closest again Quistis's LV? Death could Instant-Kill everything since they are LV100 there LV is a multiple of 4,2 and 1 so 3 out 4 chance to Instant-Kill them AND Degenerator works on every monsters in Island Closest To Hell and the only other mobs you want to farm are Elnoyles which guess what can also be Instant-Kill by Quistis really just keep Quistis low HP all the time and with Initiative use Instant-Death immediatly that take care of all the mob fights you need to fight, to be honnest Requiem Mod was in my opinion less tedious than Punishment cause the grind is actually fairly fast in FFVIII compare to X and isn't require that much to be honnest, while in FFX sadly there is not as much possibility to get stronger than FFVIII and overall outside of Omega Weapon which was complete bullshit in Requiem and Ultimecia which wasn't to hard but quite tedious (took a minimum of 30 minutes to beat) I think FFVIII Requiem was the most enjoyable out of all LandonRay's FF mods.

2 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Well you were doing the wrong then in FFVIII even in Requiem you don't need to kill monsters that much you could just Mug them to get item and then just run away, and even if you need to kill Quistis's Degenerator could kill almost every mobs ^^, and when Island Closest again Quistis's LV? Death could Instant-Kill everything since they are LV100 there LV is a multiple of 4,2 and 1 so 3 out 4 chance to Instant-Kill them AND Degenerator works on every monsters in Island Closest To Hell and the only other mobs you want to farm are Elnoyles which guess what can also be Instant-Kill by Quistis really just keep Quistis low HP all the time and with Initiative use Instant-Death immediatly that take care of all the mob fights you need to fight, to be honnest Requiem Mod was in my opinion less tedious than Punishment cause the grind is actually fairly fast in FFVIII compare to X and isn't require that much to be honnest, while in FFX sadly there is not as much possibility to get stronger than FFVIII and overall outside of Omega Weapon which was complete bullshit in Requiem and Ultimecia which wasn't to hard but quite tedious (took a minimum of 30 minutes to beat) I think FFVIII Requiem was the most enjoyable out of all LandonRay's FF mods.

Really? You would say it's better than  FFIX Unleashed? To me, he clearly peaked with Unleashed. There he made significant changes to gameplay, altering Freya's, Steiner's, Amarant's and Quina's skills. He also gave the bosses lots of new moves and stuff. He didn't just make enemy numbers go up and your numbers go down. 

I still consider it by far his best mod, especially when combined with No AP. I beat normal Unleashed years ago and I got to the end of Disk 1 of Unleashed/No AP with no problem and quite enjoyed myself.

Although I still have to say Alternate Fantasy is the best FFIX mod at present, IMO.

5 hours ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

Honestly, there are a few changes I would make, probably starting with the Bribe formula. (True story - I found the offset for Mimic gil drops in the NTSC version, then was disappointed to find out that the cap was 65,535 before considering Gillionaire.)

The inflated HP in the Omega Ruins is actually manageable even at my low stats because Poison damage still has the same multiplier as the base game, quite a few enemies are vulnerable to Sleep, others can be Provoked, so the only difficult enemies are Master Tonberry, Varuna, and Great Malboro. (Demonolith probably would be but they can be Slowed, and Stoneproof is really the only ailment resistance you need because Pharaoh's Curse is basically countered with a Remedy.)

If you were ever to continue, I would stop at capturing one of each enemy for future Bribing purposes and just finish the game if you can. (60% stat increases are actually rather small compared to what Punishment eventually does, so the hope is that the AI/attacks of the enemies were changed somehow to make it interesting.)

Your best bet is waiting for a Steam sale which happens quite often (watching the game should work, then you get e-mail notifications when it goes on sale). 

Yeah that was my thinking. Steam has an Autumn sale apparently that kicks off around Black Friday so I'll just wait a week and hopefully get FFX and even X-2 for like $15 or something.

Thanks for all your help through this thread. I really appreciate it. If I didn't have this other mod to test out I would probably finish Punishment. But I just don't want to totally burn myself out, ya know? I might still finish it, we'll see.

12 minutes ago, Nikkolas said:

Really? You would say it's better than  FFIX Unleashed? To me, he clearly peaked with Unleashed. There he made significant changes to gameplay, altering Freya's, Steiner's, Amarant's and Quina's skills. He also gave the bosses lots of new moves and stuff. He didn't just make enemy numbers go up and your numbers go down. 

 

I still consider it by far his best mod, especially when combined with No AP. I beat normal Unleashed years ago and I got to the end of Disk 1 of Unleashed/No APwith no problem and quite enjoyed myself.

Although I still have to say Alternate Fantasy is teh best FFIX mod at present, IMo.

I didn't enjoy Unleashed personnaly especially toward the end I didn't like the idea of giving Auto-Protect and Auto-Shell at the same time on bosses combine with the removal of stat increase given by equipment and the nerf of weapon's attack power in general it makes the fight more tedious than anything else, and then you have some fights that in my opinion were just straight up bullshit like Lich who can randomely cast All Death in a game where you can't protect against Instant-Death what a great idea  or Necron who put Regen and Haste at the same time recovering like 4000HP every 2 seconds when you barely does 3000 damage whch is a stupid way to make a boss longer than it should IMO. 
I do give him credit for the work he puts in Unleashed but I didn't enjoy it, granted it was some years ago so maybe I should give it a new shot.

20 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

I didn't enjoy Unleashed personnaly especially toward the end I didn't like the idea of giving Auto-Protect and Auto-Shell at the same time on bosses combine with the removal of stat increase given by equipment and the nerf of weapon's attack power in general it makes the fight more tedious than anything else, and then you have some fights that in my opinion were just straight up bullshit like Lich who can randomely cast All Death in a game where you can't protect against Instant-Death what a great idea  or Necron who put Regen and Haste at the same time recovering like 4000HP every 2 seconds when you barely does 3000 damage whch is a stupid way to make a boss longer than it should IMO. 
I do give him credit for the work he puts in Unleashed but I didn't enjoy it, granted it was some years ago so maybe I should give it a new shot.

I do agree Necron was a nightmare. I only beat him with luck and I certainly could never beat Ozma.

And Zidane is kinda useless until he gets his Trance skills because without the stat bonuses from weapons magic is the only efficient way o do damage.

It's just, after having played several LR mods at this point, it seemed to me like he put in the most effort into Unleashed. I'm still gonna try his Xenosaga mods because I love Xenosaga and finally have a halfway decent PC that can emulate PS2 and beyond.

Unleashed was at least more interesting, even though Regen is broken in FFIX because it is based on time rather than an actual duration which makes Necron really annoying.

I think the intent of Lich was to max out Magic Evasion and try to survive that way, Auto-Life is also a thing as well.

IIRC Xenosaga I has a save point bug with PCSX2 in that some save points just reset the game so you probably want to save state before using a save point.

The problem for Lich IMO is that he also reduce effectivness of equipment so Magic Evasion isn't as high as it can in Vanilla and regardless it's still random if your character dodge it or not, and yes Auto-Life is a thing.... that only 2 characters out of 8 have access to and also since Boss's speed is increase, all death random and Auto-Life reset your ATB at 0 he might very well cast a second All Death, in my opinion this is just a cheap way to make a boss hard and Alternate Fantasy handle Lich better he has all death to in Alternate Fantasy but before using it he uses attack that inflict Zombie giving you actually a chance to survive without it being either complete RNG or force you to play a specific character.

Sorry for the necro and I probably should have asked this before.

Does anybody here have the older version of Punishment?  v1.7 seems so much more reasonable and it's what I'd probably like to use in any future replays.

Wayback Machine has it here (it is included despite the title).

8 hours ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

Wayback Machine has it here (it is included despite the title).

Fucking awesome. It even has the older version of International which I think must mean it was before he buffed the Keepers to insane levels.

That was what I really wanted to be honest. But I got both!

Thank you so much. I think I might actually try to finish FFX this time. I'll be frank, I gave up last time out of boredom.  I'm weird, I always have the most fun before these games open up and it's grind time, ya know? My favorite parts of replaying FFVII are never everything before you get the Highwind, at least mostly.

Thank you again now and for your helpful advice all those months ago.

You will still need Demi a bunch in the later random encounters, and the final boss is still difficult, so the late-game tedium will still be there. Luckily, most of the random battles are not that hard if you know what you are doing. (Sanctie in particular is going to be a lot less miserable, which is nice.)

16 hours ago, Wrath_of_Pie said:

You will still need Demi a bunch in the later random encounters, and the final boss is still difficult, so the late-game tedium will still be there. Luckily, most of the random battles are not that hard if you know what you are doing. (Sanctie in particular is going to be a lot less miserable, which is nice.)

Well the final boss being hard is not a problem at all. I welcome that. But yeah I think he just straight inflated HP on everybody, including the dumb Defender robots. God those fights are boring, especially the two of them in Omega Ruins.

Still, I did try that Sin Unleashed mod for Steam FFX. All that guy did was add HP to every enemy, something like 60% more HP. That wasn't a challenge at all and actually gave me some appreciation for LR reworking the Sphere Grid in addition to increasing enemy stats.

I guess I never asked, did you like the mod? You played through multiple versions right?

I think v1.7 was definitely better (I did enjoy v1.5 and finished the Arena, although the last boss there is incredibly boring), although the ultimate rebalance would probably require more than just changing stats for obvious reasons.

Considering the Defender enemies are vulnerable to Provoke, there really isn't much strategy past that, although they are somewhat vulnerable to Mental Break so that helps in defeating them faster.

60% more HP for every enemy is easy mode compared to Punishment, which goes up to 400% more HP (well, 500% in v2.6) and increases stats as well. Of course, increasing HP only does so much when you can just cast Demi, which hits everything except most bosses and Adamantoise for some reason.