Insane Difficulty: Updates! (Version 2.00) - Insane Difficulty

**Version 2.18** Huge update!

1. New r/s/m abilities - Effect Spore (counters with Bad Bracelet), Flare Star (counters with Giga Flare), Apocalypse (counters with Ulmaguest), Runic (Works as Blade Grasp, but for magic damage), Anger Point (double damage done by a critical unit). These are given to various enemies, watch tooltips! More coming in a later version.

2. Blade Grasp, Arrow Guard, Abandon, Finger Guard moved into supports instead of Reactions. Weapon guard removed, and W-Ev is now always active. This is to allow for more reaction abilities to be written.

3. Cachusa/Barrette/Ribbon reworked to block less statuses, grant more hp/mp/pa/ma. Read tooltips for new effects.

4. Counter Flood flag applies to more abilities. This is to better separate Flood flag from HP damage trigger.

5. New battle outside Orbonne ch 3 (before the book storage sequence). This is a new superboss! New plot hook in the event preceding the battle. First Book storage battle now has new enemies. New enemies also added to a few battles.

6. A penalty now applies to any weapon attacks or abilities using formulas 01-07 if a unit has 2 swords support. The attacks now do 75% damage. Unfortunately this still applies if you have the support but aren't actually carrying 2 weapons (Ninja with a bow, for example).

7. Monk reduced to 6 speed.

8. Tooltips for reaction abilities now list the priority of the ability.

9. New untested Deep Dungeon battles:



**EDIT** Version 2.18a fixes a bug where some early encounters have a blank reaction ability and counter with Bahamut..

**Version 2.19**

1. Save point at Gariland (2nd fight of the game) has been fixed. Thank you Elric! Due to the nature of the fix, will require a reset. However, the fix is preferred to how vanilla was, because it allows the player to learn all the free abilities for the fight!

2. "Thunder Cats" and similar weirdness with reaction abilities (where some things randomly have a blank reaction that isn't actually blank) should be gone now. In case it's not, I labeled the blank slots. If this appears again, please tell me the number of ?'s that appears before the spell cast.

3. New status effect - Rasp. Deals 1/4 total MP damage per turn. Innate immunity given to Bombs, Tiamats, Dragons, Flotiballs, Apandas. Anything with Mist innate automatically blocks it, and several enemy only classes as well. Mist and Rasp cancel each other.

4. New reaction ability - Grudge. Priority 2, deals MP damage (as a physical attack) and sets Rasp at 100%. Given innately to all Flotiballs and a certain boss... ^_^ Also given for general (human) use to the Oracle class.

5. New battle added - Dorter 3. This is in ch 3, after the Orbonne Sequence.

**Edit** Version 2.19a fixes Slow, Slow 2, and puts Grudge on the right enemies. Oops...

**Edit2** Version 2.19b moves Grudge's slot, in case some other code is screwing up what it was doing

**Version 2.20**

1. Velius rewritten - No longer is the pushover he was in previous versions. Now is the hardest battle at its point. Also, no more Wiegraf battle. Wiegraf is a joke compared to Velius anyway.

2. New battle - Riovanes 3 - This is after the Velius fight, in the castle's conference room.

3. XP Gain hack - New XP gain formula = 30 - speed*2 per action, no bonus for kills, min 1 (so the game doesn't crash vs. speed save enemies). While this is still not perfect, it goes a long way in decreasing the gap between the xp gained by fast offensive units like Byblos and Ghosts, and slow units like Trees and Bombs.

4. Goug 1 nerfed, -1 enemy. This was because this battle was a bit hard compared to other ch 2 battles.

5. New ability - Evil Brand - gives undead status, pa/ma/speed +2, immune frog/petrify; stacks with all other innates. This ability was created to make tougher enemies which don't take up new class slots.

6. Knight class now has monster Circle/Square in place of MA/PA break. Also now has Break Accessory.

7. USM 2.0 now replaces the old version of this enemy in the DD. Special plans are in the works for a pre-DD test battle.

**Version 2.21**

1. Bug which causes the Pudding to not join fixed. A Pudding now joins at the start of ch 4.

2. Doguola Pass changed for more variety. Now has Sacreds (including 1 with Evil Brand) in place of the Chocobos. This makes the battle a decent amount harder, but is still not bad for ch 4 standards.

3. Stat tweaks! Humans now have lower HP/PA/MA base. Monsters globally got a HP buff and an evasion buff, while several got reduced PA/MA. These stat tweaks are minor, but the net result of them is that some ohko's turn into 2hko's and such; and most monsters now have physical evasion comparable to a human with an average weapon and shield.

4. Item tweaks! Most items have reduced WP/WE. Carpets keep their high evade but are forced 2 hands. Power on Main Gauche and Defender reduced significantly. Range reduced on guns to 7. Bow Gun now has Range 8 and low WP (for niche use later in the game). Guns and Harps no longer have evade (when's the last time you saw someone parry with a harp?)

5. Meliadoul changed a hair (now with Flare Star instead of Counter Flood).

6. Dialog at start of ch 4 changed to make more sense with the rewritten Velius/Riovanes 3 events.

7. A few minor bugfixes.

8. Demon group now has Hayai and PA/MA Save in place of CT Save. Bull group now has Anger Point in place of Attack Up. Behemoths now have Short Charge in place of M-atk up.

**Version 2.22**

1. "Thunder Cats" bug removed entirely. Several minor bugfixes as well... These include wrong tooltips and a bug that caused Mustadio to randomly not come with bio for no reason.

2. New ability Frenzy: This doubles a unit's speed when it's berserked.

3. New ability Concealment: Grants Transparent and immunity to evadable attacks. Given to enemies only...

4. Innate Dead coded to the "cannot enter water" skill - this frees up class slots while still allowing for the dead for cutscene units.

5. Zeltennia Castle expanded to 4 battles. 3 of these appear on maps that weren't normally accessible in vanilla. There is also a save directly before Zalmo 2, so you no longer have to go through a huge ass cutscene before that battle.

6. The no longer current "battle guide" removed from Faq. Please consult tooltips for questions on specific units.

**Edit** 2.22a fixes a typo in the code that causes the Zeltennia sequence repeat indefinitely. Please download 2.22a before attempting Zeltennia.

**Version 2.23**

1. New class Ranger replaces Archer. This class has a few elemental cures/buffs, revival, and Giga Drain.

2. Several class innates/movesets were moved around slightly. This includes giving Flee innately to Bard/Dancer, Defense up innately to Ranger, Phoenix in place of Spark on Bomb group, and a few small changes I'm not telling here.

3. A bug at Zarghidas where the Plagues don't get their full movesets have been fixed. Germinas Peak has also been given a slight buff.

4. Poeskas Lake rewritten entirely. This battle is a bulky undead group. Good Luck.

5. Evil Brand nerfed slightly (+1 speed instead of +2). Riovanes 3 gained a unit to make up for this change.

**Version 2.24**

1. Class M-ev now exists! Thank you Xifanie for rewriting my code to work. Monsters can now evade evadable magic attacks. Unfortunately it doesn't display on the screen in an expected manner (the game hardcodes the portion under p-ev to be 0%, and I have no idea where this data is), but M-ev amounts are added to tooltips now next to damage reduction amounts. Looks like this:



2. Arcane Focus added (works as Concentrate, but for spells). Given innately to Summoner and Skeleton group, learned by Summoner.

3. Graphical data for Mist status (so it displays the text) included now. Thank you BigManStan for figuring this out.

4. Speed tiers reconsolidated to 3 tiers (6, 7, 8 speed) for playable characters. Several things got a HP buff/nerf to make up for this change. Enemies changed speed on a case by case basis (most remained the same). Anything that was 5 speed is now 6 speed. Several 6 or 7 speed things buffed by 1.

New tiers:


Main reason for this is to increase the number of viable options for all sorts of strategies. A side effect is that some battles will get a bit harder/easier than in other versions.

5. Limberry Gate rewritten. Now features a new enemy, Couatl. No longer is a complete joke of a fight. Good Luck ^_^ Couatl enemy also added to random battles.

6. Limberry Office battle added. Fight Vormav, Elmdor, Celia, Lede, and a surprise guest!

7. A few changes on the Inside Limberry battle. Elmdor's class changed to be a bit more interesting. Both special enemies are now reasonably hard (the easy one was buffed).

8. Vanilla Bugfix - if you mash triangle and land on a boss, you no longer have to reset because there's now an End button. Active statuses are also visible on bosses on this screen. Stats, etc are still ???'d out but the boss can be tooltipped here. To view the CT bar, PA, MA, Speed, etc, go to Unit List. Screens look like this:



9. Ward moved from Priest to Ranger.

10. Critical = 1/4 of hp instead of 1/5. Reason for this change is to extend critical on bosses, and slightly boost utility of critical abilities (Flee, Critical Quick, etc) for the player.

**Version 2.25**

1. Sicken improved. You no longer have to be Critical - it adds poison to all physical attacks, in addition to regular effects of the attack. Applies poison after damage, does not apply poison to targets that are immune.

2. Zalera rewritten. No longer a complete joke of a fight. Good luck!

3. New battle at Igros Gate. Features a new enemy, Half Dragon.

4. Murond Gate battle rewritten. Humans are now gone, replaced with monsters. I know some people have wanted to fight humans, but the old version of this fight was a complete joke at lv 99 due to human stats being mostly static.

5. New enemy Yuan-Ti added to Murond Gate and random battles.

6. Taiju given Energy and Triple Cure (huge HP faith based cure, procs random good status).

**Version 2.26**

1. Rewritten battle Murond 2 (possible spoilers):



2. Zalbag changes - Now with items on the squad, and more r/s/m's on all units. Considerably tougher than it was before, probably #2 in the story section of the mod right now.

3. Deep Dungeon preliminary battle! Deep Dungeon is now unlocked with a *very* tough fight. Good luck! It's considerably harder than anything in the story, but is confirmed as possible. Stay tuned because DD overhaul is coming up later.

**Version 2.27**

1. Newly revamped DD in progress! DD is now derandomized and each battle comes with an uber recruit! 2 battles (Bridge, Valkries) completely done while 2 more (Horror, Mlapan) need more testing.

2. New ability Serene Grace (doubles proc rate, crit rate). Given innately to Dragon group, Geomancer, and several other enemies have it equipped now. Learnable via Geomancer class.

3. New ability Move PA up, given to Holy Tiamat in place of PA Save. This is to give more flexibility to the class in optional battles while being a similar encounter to fight.

4. Several things have innate abilities moved around in general, while having little/no effect on the encounter. I mention this because it changes how those enemies are in random encounters. I did this to have more flexibility with how the class is used elsewhere in the game.

5. Puddings given AOE 1 PA/MA drain moves.

**Edit** Please download version 2.27a, 2.27 is bugged. I'm sorry for any inconvenience caused.

**Version 2.28**

1. New battle Death City Entrance added to ending sequence. Lots of enemies here.

2. Extra Battles functionality added! Thank you Xifanie for making the hack and Elric for teaching me how to use it. This replaces Propositions (which previously had no function in the mod). Mini-tutorial on how to access Extra Battles (copied from faq):



3. Newgame+ feature added. Beating Altima no longer ends the game. You will return to the world map, where you can save, play sidequests or random battles, or replay the ending sequence. Ending scene is accessed the same way you would Extra Battles.

4. 2 battles added to Extra Battles: Public Cemetary and Mutant Garuda.

5. Deep Dungeon Nogias added. Not fully tested, but as far as I can tell this battle is a complete pain in the ass.

6. Some slight nerfs on end sequence bosses:

hey emmy ive been meaning to ask, is it me or are you a bit of a pokemon fan? i can see many references to pokemon even so early on in the game and it kinda had me wondering >.>

Of course. ^_^ People have said early on that it had a bit of a Pokemon feel to it (catching monsters, early monsters have 4 abilities, etc).

Also I really suck at naming things/coming up with descriptions. Too often I've had progress halted when I didn't have a good name for something, and probably about 60% of the attacks names come from Pokemon and D+D so that I could go back to testing. Also the ability lists have given me ideas for things to work on, asm wise, so it kinda feeds into that.

Should make Hyper Beam have a cooldown.

Laith, on 17 June 2016 - 08:29 AM, said:

or dont act for 1 turn

I do want to make a few other Pokemon moves to replace some of the formulas I'm not using, but I need to figure out how to make it so that Immortal targets are always immune to some of them (Pain split, Endeavor). I'm not sure how viable a cooldown period is to code, but longish ct kinda works. Recoil moves could probably also be done with a modification to the vanilla Worker 8 formula that'll make the damage scale appropriately with the rest of the mod/be worth the action to use.

Emmy, on 17 June 2016 - 12:59 PM, said:

yea i think it "might" be easier to have stuff like hyper beam inflict dont act on the user for 1 turn to represent the recharge but i could be wrong

Except that's actually more complicated. The way the game works, anything that inflicts a status such as don't act does so for a set number of ct. To inflict a status for one turn only, you have to make it so that the number of ct it lasts will only affect one turn, make that adjustable for the speed of the target, and make it so that it doesn't affect Don't Act's regular use (such as Paralyze). You're looking at a huge amount of code right there for something that's not worth coding.

I was just kidding, though. :c

Although, I suppose long CT could serve that kind of purpose, as to charge the beam (would feel more like a Solar Beam, but hey, they're powerful beams, and we gotta work within the games' limits). I'd think it'd have to be a particularly powerful move for it to be like that, kind of like how Meteor is devastating and has long CT. Of course, I'm not suggesting to make it like Meteor, but since longish CT seems to be an option... Might as well make it pack a punch.

I personally don't recall it being all that powerful, though I never got to see much of it, neither did I use it.

**Version 2.29**

1. Immortal flag immune formulas. Immortal units are now immune to fractional damage, Ignite, and a couple other formulas, as noted by the tooltips. This completely eliminates the need to make everyone and their mother immune to Dark element, while still preventing low level 999'ing bosses. It also allows for greater flexibility in creating extra battles that use the arena feature (Bosses won't get into Ignite wars with each other anymore).

2. Elemental resistances on bosses have been changed to reflect this fact. Undead units still absorb dark, and Lucavi now cancel dark. Nearly everything else loses its dark immunity, and is updated with resistances to other elements. Since it also eliminates the need for several enemy classes to exist, I might phase them out in a later version when I think of ways to use the slots.

3. Endeavor added! Works similarly to the move with the same name in Pokemon. (target hp = caster hp). This formula is immortal immune. Will display as hit rate 100% on units you can use it on, and 0% on ones you can't. Given to Goblin Engineer and Tiamat.

4. Mana Bomb added! Damage = current MP, MP cost = damage dealt. Given to Demon group and War Chocobo.

5. 3 Extra Battles added!

6. Deep Dungeon is no longer pitch black. Now permanently has the shadowy illumination of being lit by several crystals, which makes a few characters look a bit "off" in coloration. Low spoilers example screenshot: