Insane Difficulty: Beta 14 - Insane Difficulty

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http://www.insanedif...-vii-hard-type/

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Alright, so...I'm not sure whether or not this was a previous problem, because this is the very first mod I've played, but...

...Did you change any of the limit break settings? Because I just entered the Shinra building, and I still haven't learned any. I swear that I've used Braver and Beat Rush at least 20 times each, but unfortunately, I still have no Cross-Slash nor do I have Somersault. =(

I didn't see any notes about the limit breaks being changed in the other releases of the mod, so I wasn't sure whether or not this was a feature. Sorry if it is.

<Accidental double post, because my internet sucks and I sometimes have to send through requests multiple times before a page loads. Sorry.>

This post has been edited by mwhitco91: 24 March 2013 - 10:30 PM

mwhitco91, on 24 March 2013 - 10:28 PM, said:

Yeah, the requirements for limit breaks were changed. I don't know why it isn't in the description, because I could swear I saw it in a changelog...


Anyway, keep using them and killing stuff and you will get them sooner or later.

Rascanuvols, on 24 March 2013 - 11:27 PM, said:

Ah, okay! Thanks a lot for the help! I wasn't sure if it was a bug or if it was a feature. =P

It takes a lot longer to learn the part 2 limit break of a level. The part 1's seem to take about the same amount of time to get, though. By the time you've gotten your 1-2 limit break, for instance, you'll often have nearly unlocked 2-1 already.

Learning finishing touch after getting meteorain took a huge chunk of disc 2, IIRC.

The first limmit level requires you to kill a certain number of enemies, the second level requires you to use the first level a certain number of times, the later one of those two values have been increased since you take more damage in this mod, It's not mentioned as a change in the description since its not supposed to be a change, my intention was to increase the required amout of limmits to get the second level to make you get it about the same time as you would in the original game. But if you feel it takes too long then maybe I increased the requirement too much?

GalenMyra, on 25 March 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

Well I wouldn't really say that you'd necessarily have to do that. It's just that in the original version of the game, I would normally grind and grind at the part in the subway tunnel on your way to Sector 5's reactor, when you can go backwards and run into the endless amount of security guards. I'd usually grind until I learned Cross-Slash, Somersault, and Mindblow. But for some reason, it was taking a really long time, so I just went ahead with the game. I've got Somersault and Cross-Slash now, and I just got Blade Beam after the fight with Rufus. So I was just confused, I wasn't sure if it was a change or a bug. It's just that it happened a little later than it normally would. Heck, I'll take it for what it is as an extra challenge!

Got past Palmer at level 20, here are my thoughts so far:

Bosses still get wrecked too hard by Slow and Paralysis IMO. Materia Keeper wasn't all that much harder as he spent half of the battle doing nothing.
Powersoul is still a bit OP - Tifa at level 17 was doing 800 damage just with low hp+Death Sentence.

Add Cover to more materia shops? I considered using it for a strat but then realized you can only buy it early in Midgar and if you forgot, you are screwed.

Not sure how much was Magic Hammer nerfed(heard about 20 MP per steal), but I would consider giving all bosses from Palmer on infinite MP unless you already have.

Other than that it's a great mod so far.

There's a free cover in Midgar as well (by Aeris' house), and it's not really the kind of materia you NEED multiple copies of.

Magic hammer now deals 20 MP damage and doesn't restore any MP. It never seemed like a good idea to drain a boss instead of just beat it normally.

One cover is 20% and they stack additively(at least in the original) - in other words, if you equip 5 Covers you get 100% without having to master anything...having only 1 is kinda useless.

Draining bosses is kinda OP in the original actually, it should only take 15 hits to drain Carry Armor in this hack. As he uses Lapis Laser only 1/4 of the time at 100-75% HP, draining probably is the easier strategy here even with the nerfs assuming it wasn't taken care of. As for Schizo and the second and third Jenovas...it would take a long time with 20 MP a hit and their AI script doesn't change IIRC.

EDIT: Rapps seems to have infinite MP. Good stuff.

If you're playing the game in a "normal" way, you'll get levels of Cover at a reasonable pace. It's one of the fastest materias to level. When mastered it provides 100% cover, so at that point having multiple copies is useless.

I realize you are playing in a much more "low level" way than normal (I seem to recall being around level 30 by Palmer, without much grinding); but if this is your goal then the game doesn't have to cater to you by making it impossible to miss things.

Re: carry armor. I don't know if his MP was buffed. Even if it wasn't, you probably need to choose between destroying the arms first without damaging the body too badly, then draining MP, then killing the body, or just using multi-hit attacks (e.g. Ultima) to take him down as quick as possible (destroying the arms quickly in the process). With the drain taking many hits to work, you are bound to get hit by Lapis laser at least a couple times. Still sounds tough enough to me either way.

Obviously this fight will be hard if you are low enough level that a single Lapis laser will wipe your team. I don't know if he still has only a 1/3 chance to open the fight with Lapis laser, but in my game he did immediately cast it and it wiped two of my 3 party members (and this is at a medium level). Once you get MBarrier up it isn't quite so bad, but if you're not able to survive a Lapis laser there's a really big chance you'll just get wiped while draining him.

What level were you for Demons Gate? Took me about 20 attempts at level 23. Seeing how it was immune to Slow after Rapps with infinite MP I'm pretty sure GalenMyra patched all the common easy strats for everything. Now I wonder if beating the game in the 40s will be doable.

The only boss I wanted to use Cover against was Materia Keeper because of the death proc I heard about, but the chance of it happening is pretty low anyways and Hell Combo was an instant kill either way. So it doesn't matter I guess.

I was around 35-37 for Demon's gate, IIRC.

I just never escaped from battles, and I hadn't played the game in a few years, so I probably faced a few more encounters than strictly necessary. I didn't grind too much aside from earning limit breaks a couple times. I did essentially play a "100%" game, doing everything I could along the way.

I made it to the north cave around 55-60 or so. I grinded to 75 before Sephiroth, which almost certainly wasn't totally necessary, but it was still a good challenge nonetheless. I regret that last grind a bit; beating the game at 60 probably wouldn't have been too terrible, and it made Jenova Synthesis and Bizarro a bit too easy. I seem to recall these bosses have been buffed since I played though.

Beating it in the 40's sounds a bit rough, but I wouldn't doubt it can be done with a bit of patience. You'd need to prioritize your materia growth correctly most likely, as if you don't you'll have to gain some extra levels just to get good enough materia. (Getting several high level HP plus materias seemed really important to not wipe to multi-hit attacks too easily).

Later in the game the fact that you can't use both ribbons and haste/barrier is really rough, particularly against Sephiroth. If your HP is too low his (admittedly few) multi-hit attacks will be very strong without barrier, but if you don't have ribbons you have to deal with his many status effects. One member can have Added Effect + Hades, but Barrier and Haste take a lot of actions to keep up if they're only hitting one party member. Even around level 75 the Sephiroth fight took ~45 minutes, even with fast-forwarding through Supernova (although now that has been removed). I'm not sure what Supernova has been replaced with since I haven't played since Beta 11 or 12. If it's some kind of multi-hit attack that isn't gravity based, it could be really rough.

There's no shame in just playing the game through once normally to see what it throws at you, then coming back and trying to low-level it.

(Cover materia was extremely valuable throughout the game, by the way. Being able to have one party member that is loaded up with counter attacks, HP Plus, and doesn't have lots of HP penalties from magic materia is quite useful. I was gaining enough experience and AP though that for a large part of the game my single materia was 60-80% cover, and then 100% at the end.)

Was the Curse Ring steal rate from Ultimate Weapon changed? According to the formula I'm supposed to have a 9% chance or so to steal it at level 28...tried over 100 times and nothing.

I don't know the answer to that, but potentially the level of Ultimate Weapon has changed. At such low levels this could make it extremely difficult to steal.

Managed to steal it now.
By the way, even by barely fighting any random encounters, the game isn't all that hard. Plus now that I have Curse Rings and ultimate weapons are becoming available it's going to be even easier.

Some big boss weaknesses I noticed:
Way too many bosses are vulnerable to Paralysis. Jenova Life and Death especially, one can easily spam it to death with Dazers(I didn't do it though).
Schizo is still vulnerable to MP drain, you just have to set up 2 characters with ice/fire immunity instead of 1 and revive from the double breath until it runs out of MP.

I have a small problem and i don't know if it's the patch (Wich i doubt it seeing how it's working for everyone but not me XD i downloaded twice and it still does the same problem) Or the Emulator point is that either way i stopped playing FF7 because i made it to the Cave ready to kick some butt but damn that fight takes too long XD 45min + so i pretty much gave up on the game and moved on to FF8 Requiem (Pretty amazing) But gave up on that too due to some real life stuff and what not -.-

So i came back once and i a while to the site and check the stuff... Noticed you made Beta 14 (Wich i noticed you buffed Sephi, Put W-Item back "LOL i still didn't picked it up" and well increased the Movers AP gain "meh i was having fun killing 2 Dark Dragons XD" ) And well i decided to download the patch and give it a try see if i could defeat sephi and move on to the weapons.

Now heres the problem... before i tried Beta 14 i was still on Beta 12 and i loaded up Beta 12 and started playing and what not... everything was fine killed a few monster tried sephi again etc etc you know i played the game, So i downloaded Beta 14 and patched it and what not and now everytime i load up the game it kinda freezes and it's not that kind of freeze that even sounds go off... I use Save States for farming so i loaded up the one in North Cave and well i can move the character and do everything just fine... until a Encounter... if i go to battle it just freezes but the music keeps playing... At first i thought it was my emulator with the video settings but like i said i played the 12 with the same settings and what not so that can't be the problem right?

To make it short - Game "Freezes?" on encounter but music keeps playing i just can't see or hear the monsters attacking etc just the music, If anyone would know the solution please let me know i'm no expert at this i'm here to try the game and give feedbacks. Thank you and sorry for the long ass thread >.<

Just to make sure, did you patch a fresh copy of the ROM or did you patch your beta 12 ROM?

Just beat Carry Armor at lv30...the MP drain strategy is indeed way easier than just beating it up normally(possibly even broken). Trying to beat it normally was pretty much impossible with 600 HP.