Sega Chief

New FF8 Mod (New Threat) - Discussion Thread

58 posts in this topic

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

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

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

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

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

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5 minutes ago, Sega Chief said:

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

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

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Just now, Rynzer said:

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

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

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100% completed you mean? (FF7 new threat)

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

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

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42 minutes ago, Tenkarider said:

100% completed you mean? (FF7 new threat)

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

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

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

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

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5 hours ago, ninjasdf said:

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

D; 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Characters

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

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

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

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

GFs

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Edited by Sega Chief

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

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

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4 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

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

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

3 hours ago, Augestein said:

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

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

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1 hour ago, Sega Chief said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

 

Agreed on that front. 

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

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1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

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

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

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

Edited by Augestein

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

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21 hours ago, Love Colored Magic said:

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

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

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22 hours ago, Love Colored Magic said:

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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