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Game Design and Modifications / Re: TF7 - The Final Fantasy 7 Rebalancing Mod
« on: October 17, 2018, 01:31:37 PM »
Beat this. Sadly, I didn't keep a detailed playlog, so I guess it'll just be assorted thoughts and bosses that stand out (mostly on the difficult end)
- Outside of the rather rough early game (since you're generally pushed onwards through dungeons with no ability to head back to town areas to resupply if needed), the difficulty is generally fine - enough of a challenge to make you think, but not taking up a grueling 2 hours per boss fight like in other romhacks.
- Limiting E.Skill to 1 copy and Restore is kind of interesting, though I think E.Skill got hit a bit too hard (though I didn't go out of my way to learn any E.Skill specifically) even with the supposed advantage of packing a lot of options into 1 materia slot. Not being able to connect Support Materia with E.Skills actually hit the damage options pretty hard and a lot of the utility was gutted so it falters a bit from an action economy perspective. I think Big Guard is one of the few remaining power moves it has but I didn't end up learning it.
- I really like how some of the Support Materia were available much earlier in the game - Steal as Well with a Magic Materia ended up being my main Steal method through the game, and Magic Counter has interesting utility. Counter is a bit iffy due to how bad most of the early game options for it are but hey free steal.
- Limits ended up not mattering a lot to me in late-game - either the boss is easy and I blow through it or it OHKOs constantly and I can never build up meter. Built-in FF7 system flaw so I can't fault here.
- Magic feels rather weak late game - Comet/2 seems like the only decent attack spell option now.
- Didn't feel like doing most sidequests
- Not sure if Battle Square is worth doing now that Omnislash is received elsewhere.
Notable Bosses
Air Buster: Lost the first time until I figured out that you shouldn't attack except from the back because of counterattacks.
Materia Keeper: I have no idea what the intended strategy is supposed to be after he takes one character out of the fight permanently (which is also annoying because it's a reset if it happens to be the E.Skill holder) - he Hastes himself periodically and you don't have Time yet so Slowing by Spider Web is a questionable option and his attacks are brutal. I ended up winning through completely luck-sacking Cait Sith's Dice twice.
Palmer: Wrecked me until I remembered "Oh, Reflect"
Snow: Sexy Palmer - didn't realize this was gonna be a turbo-charged boss but significantly easier with pre-battle prep. A bit annoying considering how far the save point is.
Also no Circlet Steal despite the doc listing (it's stolen from Ultimate Weapon).
Proud Clod: I have trouble figuring out how to mitigate the giant laser (I had it dealing 2k damage on Cloud and then it jumps to 5k after I messed around with my setup) and I can't figure out why it takes 0 damage from physicals and gets reflect casted on it though eventually I figured it suddenly gets reflect up when it starts kneeling. After that it was a matter of bringing in some actual weak spells to remove reflect.
Ultimate Weapon: Tried a bunch of setups for 2 hours. Figured I wasn't going to win this because I hadn't made the proper materia investments (I only had one maxed Elemental materia)
Surprisingly Easy List:
Gi Nattak, Jenova Synthesis, Both Sephiroths after I came back with proper Status Resist.
Character Thoughts:
Cloud
Not very impressive overall. Early Omnislash is nice even with the nerf and you can get it Disc 1 but as I've said, Limits stopped mattering as the game goes on so he always felt like the leftover guy who takes care of healing and utility for me. He sometimes pulled the standard counter build (Cover / Counter Attack / Counter + Mug) if I needed to run 2 mages but I don't think there's ever a time when he has a weapon that would make him the best for it.
Has a bit of an awkward weapon situation near the end where you need to do at least the Gelnika for an end-game weapon. Compared to how easy most characters get their ultimate weapons Cloud kind of stands out for needing a lot of effort to kill a boss that's now properly post-game level.
Barret
You really don't want to be slow in FF7, but Barret does seem to have certain fights that specifically caters to his niche of being a tanky Long-Range guy who exploits Shot weakness like Bottomswell. Generally if you can hit something with magic you're better off doing that though.
Tifa
I didn't use her this time because I did in my last run of Vanilla FF7 but on paper, it seems that the Powersoul build is nerfed (but probably still her best build) while her physical game with other weapons are greatly improved. I'm really bad with slots so the 40% base crit rate on her weapons actually end up outdamaging limits quite often, which is odd.
Aeris
Probably the strongest magic user while she exists now, which is nice.
Red
Really good utility limits, especially Mass Haste now that you can't All-Time, though the low HP is actually kinda scary if you put too much Magic Materia on him and I never ended up unlocking his Level 4 because he kept dying on me. Easy Ultimate Weapon that's pretty easy to upkeep if you just turn him into a Physical build with utility.
Yuffie
Didn't use her for the same reason of Tifa. In theory game best speed is worth something like being a utility caster (even with that lackluster MP) and item tossing. I kinda like how her weapons are all high power balanced out by her meh strength because it provides a good source of Throw damage (Superballs are fairly cheap and does as much damage as a Fire 3 from Cloud).
Think Conformer was nerfed going by the numbers but I don't know how much that hurt her.
Cait Sith
On paper, this character shouldn't work. Terrible Barret level speed and either worst to game worst in most categories except Luck and HP, the latter of which is somewhat nullified by the poor Vit/Spi scores and Luck doesn't amount to much, but I admit don't know how FF7 numbers work. Slots also took a power hit because of collateral changes (such as most of the Summons having reduced numbers) which it didn't really need - bad attack stats means iffy offense actions while bad speed means iffy utility actions (he's not a good user of his own Manipulate Materia because the turns seem to be based on his own slow speed!)
Cait's saving grace is a handful of really good weapons, so when the weapons have worn out their welcome you should generally just switch him out since he doesn't need to build Limits up, an advice which I probably should have personally followed but hindsight 20/20.
These are
Silver M-Phone: Fixed 320 Damage (Man I miss its 8 slots from the original though)
Starlight Phone: Dice damage, 50% Accuracy.
I've used the Red M-Phone (No Slots, Mag + 51) but I suspect a different character would have been better during that period.
Looking at the White M-Phone I feel this has some use with intentionally attacking your own characters with Elemental Absorption for a quick Heal + Haste rolled in one action but that's just theorycrafting.
Sadly, HP Shout is bugged and always deals 0 damage.
The standard Counter set-up with 2x Cut (couldn't get enough AP for 4x) with Starlight Phone is pretty ridiculous and reminds me of Fixed Dice Setzer - I wore the Mystile to counteract its low hit rate. Only weakness is probably not being Long-Range, so don't bring Cait to any battle that requires that.
Vincent:
Didn't use him much - his Limits could probably stand to use more boosts since it's conceptually pretty flawed... and if I'm not wrong, if his physical stats were lowered it should actually be worse in this version.
Cid
Didn't use except when forced - I have trouble figuring out what his role is supposed to be. Looking at the stats, he's slightly better than Cloud in physical stats but has significantly worse magic, which is not a great trade-off given that this is in comparison to a character that's already meh. I believe in Vanilla his niche was a handful of good weapons with Double Growth but that doesn't exist in TF7 any more and "character with some super good weapons" got taken by Cait so he's left out to dry.
- Outside of the rather rough early game (since you're generally pushed onwards through dungeons with no ability to head back to town areas to resupply if needed), the difficulty is generally fine - enough of a challenge to make you think, but not taking up a grueling 2 hours per boss fight like in other romhacks.
- Limiting E.Skill to 1 copy and Restore is kind of interesting, though I think E.Skill got hit a bit too hard (though I didn't go out of my way to learn any E.Skill specifically) even with the supposed advantage of packing a lot of options into 1 materia slot. Not being able to connect Support Materia with E.Skills actually hit the damage options pretty hard and a lot of the utility was gutted so it falters a bit from an action economy perspective. I think Big Guard is one of the few remaining power moves it has but I didn't end up learning it.
- I really like how some of the Support Materia were available much earlier in the game - Steal as Well with a Magic Materia ended up being my main Steal method through the game, and Magic Counter has interesting utility. Counter is a bit iffy due to how bad most of the early game options for it are but hey free steal.
- Limits ended up not mattering a lot to me in late-game - either the boss is easy and I blow through it or it OHKOs constantly and I can never build up meter. Built-in FF7 system flaw so I can't fault here.
- Magic feels rather weak late game - Comet/2 seems like the only decent attack spell option now.
- Didn't feel like doing most sidequests
- Not sure if Battle Square is worth doing now that Omnislash is received elsewhere.
Notable Bosses
Air Buster: Lost the first time until I figured out that you shouldn't attack except from the back because of counterattacks.
Materia Keeper: I have no idea what the intended strategy is supposed to be after he takes one character out of the fight permanently (which is also annoying because it's a reset if it happens to be the E.Skill holder) - he Hastes himself periodically and you don't have Time yet so Slowing by Spider Web is a questionable option and his attacks are brutal. I ended up winning through completely luck-sacking Cait Sith's Dice twice.
Palmer: Wrecked me until I remembered "Oh, Reflect"
Snow: Sexy Palmer - didn't realize this was gonna be a turbo-charged boss but significantly easier with pre-battle prep. A bit annoying considering how far the save point is.
Also no Circlet Steal despite the doc listing (it's stolen from Ultimate Weapon).
Proud Clod: I have trouble figuring out how to mitigate the giant laser (I had it dealing 2k damage on Cloud and then it jumps to 5k after I messed around with my setup) and I can't figure out why it takes 0 damage from physicals and gets reflect casted on it though eventually I figured it suddenly gets reflect up when it starts kneeling. After that it was a matter of bringing in some actual weak spells to remove reflect.
Ultimate Weapon: Tried a bunch of setups for 2 hours. Figured I wasn't going to win this because I hadn't made the proper materia investments (I only had one maxed Elemental materia)
Surprisingly Easy List:
Gi Nattak, Jenova Synthesis, Both Sephiroths after I came back with proper Status Resist.
Character Thoughts:
Cloud
Not very impressive overall. Early Omnislash is nice even with the nerf and you can get it Disc 1 but as I've said, Limits stopped mattering as the game goes on so he always felt like the leftover guy who takes care of healing and utility for me. He sometimes pulled the standard counter build (Cover / Counter Attack / Counter + Mug) if I needed to run 2 mages but I don't think there's ever a time when he has a weapon that would make him the best for it.
Has a bit of an awkward weapon situation near the end where you need to do at least the Gelnika for an end-game weapon. Compared to how easy most characters get their ultimate weapons Cloud kind of stands out for needing a lot of effort to kill a boss that's now properly post-game level.
Barret
You really don't want to be slow in FF7, but Barret does seem to have certain fights that specifically caters to his niche of being a tanky Long-Range guy who exploits Shot weakness like Bottomswell. Generally if you can hit something with magic you're better off doing that though.
Tifa
I didn't use her this time because I did in my last run of Vanilla FF7 but on paper, it seems that the Powersoul build is nerfed (but probably still her best build) while her physical game with other weapons are greatly improved. I'm really bad with slots so the 40% base crit rate on her weapons actually end up outdamaging limits quite often, which is odd.
Aeris
Probably the strongest magic user while she exists now, which is nice.
Red
Really good utility limits, especially Mass Haste now that you can't All-Time, though the low HP is actually kinda scary if you put too much Magic Materia on him and I never ended up unlocking his Level 4 because he kept dying on me. Easy Ultimate Weapon that's pretty easy to upkeep if you just turn him into a Physical build with utility.
Yuffie
Didn't use her for the same reason of Tifa. In theory game best speed is worth something like being a utility caster (even with that lackluster MP) and item tossing. I kinda like how her weapons are all high power balanced out by her meh strength because it provides a good source of Throw damage (Superballs are fairly cheap and does as much damage as a Fire 3 from Cloud).
Think Conformer was nerfed going by the numbers but I don't know how much that hurt her.
Cait Sith
On paper, this character shouldn't work. Terrible Barret level speed and either worst to game worst in most categories except Luck and HP, the latter of which is somewhat nullified by the poor Vit/Spi scores and Luck doesn't amount to much, but I admit don't know how FF7 numbers work. Slots also took a power hit because of collateral changes (such as most of the Summons having reduced numbers) which it didn't really need - bad attack stats means iffy offense actions while bad speed means iffy utility actions (he's not a good user of his own Manipulate Materia because the turns seem to be based on his own slow speed!)
Cait's saving grace is a handful of really good weapons, so when the weapons have worn out their welcome you should generally just switch him out since he doesn't need to build Limits up, an advice which I probably should have personally followed but hindsight 20/20.
These are
Silver M-Phone: Fixed 320 Damage (Man I miss its 8 slots from the original though)
Starlight Phone: Dice damage, 50% Accuracy.
I've used the Red M-Phone (No Slots, Mag + 51) but I suspect a different character would have been better during that period.
Looking at the White M-Phone I feel this has some use with intentionally attacking your own characters with Elemental Absorption for a quick Heal + Haste rolled in one action but that's just theorycrafting.
Sadly, HP Shout is bugged and always deals 0 damage.
The standard Counter set-up with 2x Cut (couldn't get enough AP for 4x) with Starlight Phone is pretty ridiculous and reminds me of Fixed Dice Setzer - I wore the Mystile to counteract its low hit rate. Only weakness is probably not being Long-Range, so don't bring Cait to any battle that requires that.
Vincent:
Didn't use him much - his Limits could probably stand to use more boosts since it's conceptually pretty flawed... and if I'm not wrong, if his physical stats were lowered it should actually be worse in this version.
Cid
Didn't use except when forced - I have trouble figuring out what his role is supposed to be. Looking at the stats, he's slightly better than Cloud in physical stats but has significantly worse magic, which is not a great trade-off given that this is in comparison to a character that's already meh. I believe in Vanilla his niche was a handful of good weapons with Double Growth but that doesn't exist in TF7 any more and "character with some super good weapons" got taken by Cait so he's left out to dry.