Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

[MagusMartovich]

I had a cool idea in RM1 where as a player, you could pick the main character (out of the four primary characters) and play through 4 essentially different/unique stories focusing on whichever character is the "main" character of the game.

I like the above idea still, but I also have another mechanic I would like to add/try for my latest attempt to make RM3 work for me. Player still picks main character and all that, but instead of playing through 1 story per play through, after finishing with the (let's say) Ninja, player can pick from the remaining 3 until you've played through each story line.

My big question is, since all 4 playable characters will be appearing in each individual character's story, how do I make it so that the on the 2nd-4th stories characters don't start with a level boost, but that characters can keep levels/equipment for the last part of the game once all the backstory has been finished.

Thanks for any help/suggestions!

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

Isn't there an event command that can directly change a character's level?

[Wavelength]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

First of all, let me say I think it's an awesome idea to let you play through a game from the perspective of any main character. I've seen it in a few games before (SaGa Frontier and Star Ocean 2 are coming to my mind immediately) and I've liked it every time.

Now, I'm slightly confused at what you want to accomplish. Is it like this?
1) You play through most of the game from the perspective one character of your choice
2) You play through that same story from the perspective of the other three characters in whatever order you wish, and you don't start with any of the experience or equipment from (1)
3) You play through a final arc from the perspective of one character, or maybe from a "group perspective", and you have all of the experience and equipment you gained from (1) and (2)

If this is right, I'd recommend creating four copies of each character. The reasoning here being that I don't think offhand that you can reduce levels, and even if you can, it would take an extreme amount of scripting to make your party lose every item in the game that you could possibly acquire (if you use any type of custom stat increases, that's even more complicated to reverse). In the game from character 1's perspective, you could have characters 1A, 2A, 3A, and 4A as your party members. From character 2's perspective, have characters 1B, 2B, 3B, and 4B. And so on. In that final arc, use characters 1A, 2B, 3C, and 4D (the "main persepctive" character in each respective play).

Let me know if I misinterpreted what you were going for; I've got some ideas for ways to make it work if your system is something else.

[Ωbright]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

If you're going to try this on 3, I foresee a problem.

In order for this to work, you would HAVE to change your main hero with an event, not from the game menu (where you're supposed to). I actually don't think you CAN do that with an event code.

So yeah...there's no way to check to see who the active person is that I'm aware of.

[EDIT] Wait...there might be a way, if you use creative party switching, and used variable changes to track it. But on second thought there's no way to disable the game menu option to change the main hero, and no way to track that, so yeah.

[Wavelength]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

If you're going to try this on 3, I foresee a problem.

In order for this to work, you would HAVE to change your main hero with an event, not from the game menu (where you're supposed to). I actually don't think you CAN do that with an event code.

So yeah...there's no way to check to see who the active person is that I'm aware of.

[EDIT] Wait...there might be a way, if you use creative party switching, and used variable changes to track it. But on second thought there's no way to disable the game menu option to change the main hero, and no way to track that, so yeah.

Obi's got more RM3 experience than me so take what I say here with a grain of salt, but I'm guessing that if you removed all the party members except for one, then add all the others back, that would force that one character to be made the Leader. If the player then wanted to go and change it using the gameplay menu, so be it.

After all, it's not really so much about making them the technical leader (a lot of RPGs allow you to select any character as the "Leader" in battle or even on the map) as it is about watching the story from their perspective. And based on whose perspective it is, different characters might not be in the party at a given time, and the player won't be able to designate them as the Leader at those points.

So if I understood the intention correctly I think you're still okay...

Big O, let me know if I overlooked something completely.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

Yes, you can change the leader through the event, as demonstrated here:



I think you just have to make sure the person you're replacing the leader with is in the party at the time. And of course, you'd have to check who the story leader is with a variable.

And, Obright, didn't you make a game in which you could choose your starting party?

[MagusMartovich]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

Wavelength got it right off the bat: playthrough as A, then B-D in any order, but only keep equipment from each character's "own" playthrough.

I would have to make 4 copies of characters anyway because I don't want individual items to change over, like healing items or advanced equipment. I was going to have only basic equipment through the first part anyway, but starting with a +50 instead of +5 is still not going to work, or make sense.

Its funny you mentioned those other games because they had slipped my mind. I was actually playing through FF6 and I got angry that they introduce characters one way, the world ends and for no good reason all the characters get recast and are totally different and the game did a poor job of explaining why. With my plan, I get rid of flashback dungeons and having to revisit past events making a more lucid and straightforward story for the player to be able to easily follow.

I already planned to remove the extra characters (if there are any) near the end of the first part so I'm good with that, and since its player's choice who is up next it doesn't matter if I have to have a 3 way choice or event set up 3 (6) different events for the player to advance the story. I was kicking those ideas around anyway.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

and for no good reason all the characters get recast and are totally different

They did? Always seemed like the same characters to me.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

They did? Always seemed like the same characters to me.

The only reason my characters MIGHT seem recast is that each character is specific to his/her own storyline. So if ABC got to level 30 in his own story (as well as all the other members) ABC will start the "group story" at level 30. If XYZ only got to level 20 in her own story (but 30 in the previous story) she'll only be at 20 at the start of the "group" line.

Its player abuseable because if you are aware of the breakdown you can give all items/equipment to the "main" character and sell/redistribute as needed once you get everyone together. I like the "continued story idea though and it has bits of a lot of different ideas all rolled into one. Its a great way for me to combine a lot of my other game ideas and get them all taken care of as cleanly as possible without having to sacrifice what I'd really like to get as far as playability is concerned.

[Wavelength]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

Its player abuseable because if you are aware of the breakdown you can give all items/equipment to the "main" character and sell/redistribute as needed once you get everyone together. I like the "continued story idea though and it has bits of a lot of different ideas all rolled into one. Its a great way for me to combine a lot of my other game ideas and get them all taken care of as cleanly as possible without having to sacrifice what I'd really like to get as far as playability is concerned.

Only you truly have a feel for how your game plays and balances, but in general I would actually advise encouraging that kind of player abuse. If I obtain a good weapon or something in one part of the game, I like when it's useful later.

So, maybe have a "room" after each initial story where the player is told to switch anything they want to keep to the "main character" of that story, and then walk through a portal into the next story...

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

Actually, Magus, I was referring to what you said about FF6.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: Party Questions That Relate Directly To Characters

None of the equipment found at this part of the game won't be anything all that great or irreplaceable: like a playable prolouge is what I'm going for.

Each character will start (more or less) at their home town and progress through 2 or 3 other towns and then fight a low grade boss and then the main story begins. Level wise anybody can grind but I'd be surprised if you need to get to 5 much less 10.

The idea itself is what I'm working out still and it seems to be straight forward enough. I need a day off to work a mock up of characters and see if its as easy as I have in my head.