ELEVENTEEN'S PROFILE

Feedback and my modding to fix all the above issues and more:

So yea I modded the game as I played and ended up putting a lot more work into the mod that I ever did on other RPG Maker games. It worked out pretty nice, got the game to a very challenging, but not frustrating level with a custom difficulty system in the options menu I could change on the fly.

And fixed all the bugs above I mentioned:
-Used Hime's perma states script to keep hard mode state on, and have it actually apply when selecting hard mode, not "explain".
- Renamed it to Hardcore mode, since I added a bunch of more normal battle difficult settings "Hard, Elite, Epic, Ultra!"
- Added random BGM script, you included a ton of music in the game files yet it's always the same battle theme outside of boss fights so I fixed that by having them all randomly play, makes the music a lt more dynamic and interesting for a really long playthrough.
- Added cursor memory. Tons of grinding required when you lower the XP by 50% actually.. So having the classic final fantasy cursor memory (battle commands are remembered so you can more quickly repeat them) in place is a must have.
- About halfway through the game I still got bored of the significant grinding required to keep up on my harder modes, so I boosted exp earned on hard/elite/epic/ultra.. Essentially Hard gives 2x, so it offsets the 50% penalty and puts you on how "hard" actually currently plays (since its broken lol). The pharmacology penalty stays in place and enemy stats are increased.
- Enhanced the status menu so you can actually see these effects are indeed in place. As well as characters otherwise hidden stats like Agro %. Oddly Edri who you claim is the best tank character in the game.. But he's actually one of the worst because he is 25% less likely to be targeted than most other party members. Probably another bug so i reversed that to make him +25% more likely to be targeted. Not really changed other chars other than a minor -10% to magetypes to simulate a bit how row's worked in some FF games.
- Got rid the white flash on every summon animation some players complained about
- Speed the best early summons animation and removed it's hard coded white flash (Pipsqueak ) One of the only early ones that does more damage than a regular attack so worth the effort. Luckily almost no other summons have hard coded white flashes so most are left alone.
- Fixed protect like this: +175% Defense (Stamina), and +25% 2x stackable - which was already present in the base game, just undocumented - this only applies to spell version, the Iridium item version only gives the state, so +175% only .. Seems like a lot but keep in mind the game has massive fixed damage amounts, so this ends up mostly just being really effective at regular attacks (which take into account 2x your defense), and just moderately effective against boss physical specials. (Which ive fixed a LOT of to be properly physical where it made sense, but not all since the game has 1600+ skills lol) . At the mindway point in the game where I tested, this did roughly reduce strong physical specials by half or a little under half.. But yea due to the nature of how everything has fixed scaling, it will drop off later in the game except vs basic attacks.
I tried to fix it properly by using the built in PDR - but yea unfortunately doesn't work due to how many physical attacks actually are coded to "certain" hit.
Fixing it properly would mean assigning all 600+ monsters 1 by 1 the Atk element physical so there normal attack actually deals physical damage and ya I dont have that kind of time. I tried being clever and making it so the default basic attack is always physical, but that breaks players attacks since you need the "normal attack" element for elemental weapon's to work correctly. Should be possible to code in so players use different basic attack that monsters but im not familiar enough with the custom side view system used in the game to do that (doesnt help that its all in japanese lol, was hard enough to figure out how to remove the white flash).


- Shell I fixed by removing the elemental damage reduction and using the built in MDR (magic damage rate). So now it works versus non elemental spells as it should. I also edited a ton of spells incorrectly set to "certain" hit to be magical so it's not ignored. It still also grants +100% SPR for the spells that ignore MDR.

- Flare Per classic FF game logic (especially FF6 since this game uses it art) ignores Reflec and can't be dodges, but shell does lower it's damage. Unfortunately that can't be done without custom scripting not present, since "certain hit" ignores both MDR and Reflect together, so I comprised and at least hand fixed every Flare spell to use Mag properly and target SPR, and in the cases of bosses that do insane damage that your meant to surive, generally lowered its based damage, but increase there multipliers to compensate, so normal will be same damage but Break abilities will actually have an effect. And in a couple cases I have SPR be doubly effectiving, so while it ignores the 25% MDR - the double SPR buff at least applys more favorably.

- Made all player abilities actually tell the player how they work, so they have a much better chance at winning on my crazy hard modes and not need to spend endless hours testing them out. In general I also made very minor tweaks to increase multipliers but reduce based damage by around the same amount of MAG/ATK you'd like have at the point in the game youd get the ability. So normal's balance is mostly unchanged, but hard or higher your equipment,buffs an defbuffs matter more. Nothing major though, usually just +0.5 to +1 multiplier, sometimes a tad more for limit breaks that were way too weak/unscalable.

- Fixed a lot of item descriptions or bugs, without any nerfs: So in cases with items/weapons/armor had bonuses not listed in description - I added them, and in cases where they had extra bonuses listed in description but not actually implemented I implemented them.

- In a couple cases I upgraded items to work more like there classic FF counter parts. Biggest change is Genji Glove which I gave dual wield too, but -25% Atk. Pretty much exactly how it worked in FF6. Makes it quite strong but not really overpowered on the harder modes. Still worth using Haultley exploiting elemental weakness much more easily, until late game where ya having a ton of basic attacks does start to become the stronger strategy.. Which is how it works in classic FF games so why not.

- Lots more small stuff in the database. Not really touched the maps though except where needed for bug fixes.

So yea was a lot of fun to play through and really looking forward to your next game UPRC. I'm sure you learned lots making this and many of these errors hopefully won't be present in the next game heh.

Overall a really fun must play classic FF game. Bit too easy without my modding, but good challenge after I fixed it.

Only criticism ill offer is the mapping/flow felt a bit too formulaic.. Felt like just a continuous loop of 1 small dungeon, 1 town, 1 small dungeon 1 town, over and over. Classic FF games often mix things up with multipiple dungeons without a town, or multiple towns, etc.

I know that's not 100% true, the game does mix it up a tiny bit eventually, and has a medium length dungeon or two. And a long one at the end.

But yea I also think out of hte ton of classic 2D rpg's ive played, it had the most towns with every shop.. Felt like i spent so much time looking at shop that often offered no upgrades. Not every town needs every shop, and lore wise it also makes little sense, tiny town population 5 has more shops than it does placse to live (haha yea standard fare in these games, but its overkill here)

Could also mix up the dungeons with secret areas/items. The towns have their fare share of items not in obvious chests, but not really in dungeons.. In towns it's all too often just a very low value potion/tiny stat boost that feels like if I completely skipped searching every barrel, I'd be no worse off,and probably would of completed the game many hours sooner. 82 is a lot for a game like this, though I'd wager ~10-15 of those were just modding the game which I found fun.

Writing was great and the vast amount of enemies, abilities and loot is fun.

With your permission UPRC I could upload a link to the mod here for your viewing pleasure or other to enjoy.

It's been a few more years :)
Any progress on prt 2?

Looks awesome, any updates on your progress?