FFX-style turn system

[Nje789]

I'm making an rpg with a tweaked default battle system, featuring a real-time dodge system(simpler than it sounds, but you do try to dodge as the attacks already started), and a turn-based system similar to FFX's, where your speed not only determined who would attack first, but how often you attack.
I made a formula for this, one where a given target's database # would be checked, then an appropriate script would be called that used a speed comparison check 'n balance system with 2 battle variables assigned to that database #'s script.

Ignore all that for now, though I believe that part may have it's own bugs, at this point I'm merely trying to figure out how to get the most basic part of this system to work- for both enemy and party member, when your speed's less than the fastest battle participant, you can't act some rounds, based on how slow you are compared to that speed.(I've tested the formula, and half as fast means half as many free rounds, and equal speed means always free rounds, and even things like 1/10 the speed means 1/10 the free rounds)

What should I use for this, and what form of incapitation/observe ability should I use in the script?

At this point, I just need to test the turn disabling part of it. Should it be a trait? A status effect always applied of some sort?
Is this possible at all?
I tested setting it with Trait>trait?(the third trait option where you can't control them), and they lost a round when this happened, but I need something where you still have control of your characters.

[Rodak]

I know you can hijack the traits scripts and open custom menus for the battle system. This allows for "real time" actions in battle as opposed to everyone entering their commands and then everyone executing them.

DungeonWarden did that for his Crown of Order demo.

Check that out and see if it is along the lines of what you are trying to do.

He has posted explanations of how he did it, but I am unsure where.

If you like what you see there, post again and I, or somebody else, will find the thread where it was discussed and link to it for you.

I hope that helped.

Peace.

[Nje789]

What was this real-time system like?

Free movement? Attack multible times in same round? Dodging?

Did it still use the battle system and enemy models?

I have no idea where that demo is, but I'll look for it, though it'd really be better if this kind of thing was explained rather than observed.
You can't know for sure what's going on when you just watch it.

[Rodak]

OK, I'll look for the explanation he posted.

I am not even sure it is on this site, but I'll find it for you.

I'm at work and won't have time to dig around until tonight.

Meanwhile, here is a link to his latest demo of

Crown of Order (http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2366)

so you can see if you like what he did.

It does have dodging, but it is just an animation of the character avatar on screen determined by the character's stats (I think).

I don't wanna try to explain his system. I'll say something wrong and confuse the issue.

Until tonight then....

Peace.

[WilliamKirk]

http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1995

Good luck. With the DBS (Default Battle System) I can usually help.

[thetruecoolness]

Well if you want free movement from the DBS then I think you will sorely disappointed. You can kind of mimic this by using DW's strategy of making "enemies" represent your characters. Basically you can set up your members as enemies who aren't really part of the enemy party so you can use enemy models to represent the characters. The main problem with this approach is there can only be 3 or 4 different enemy models in battle at one time (don't remember which one I'm sure DW did as he messed around with this much more than I did) so you can only have maybe 2 or 3 party members and would have to fight only one type of enemy per battle, as opposed to being able to have mixed groups, which isn't too big of a deal. Now this is quite difficult to set up and do correctly, but can be done. You could then have some kind of input scheme in the attack scripts of the enemy so you could move the "enemy model" for your party member, and make it look like dodging. Though if you want to go this far you might want to look into just making a custom battle system, don't know anyone here anymore who knows about that but I'm sure someone has successfully done a Custom Battle System here.

As for the other stuff I know you can attack twice in the same turn as I have gotten that to work, though it takes a lot of tweaking to get right, and is very confusing at first. I got it so you can combine attack with magic in a turn and such, of course the DBS has a script which will allow you to attack twice with the same weapon on the same target, but mine allowed you to choose target on each attack. The way I did it was with a trait script which displayed a custom menu. You can look for screens of my battle system here (http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg445h/RPGMaker2.html). Haven't had time to work on it for a while so it hasn't gotten much further than that.

For having real time stuff like FF7, that would be hard to simulate but you seem to be on the right track setting other characters to observe. You will still be brought back to the main turn screen with Fight Auto Setup Flee, since if you try to bypass this all kinds of things in the DBS stop working correctly without lots of tweaking, and I don't think you can flee correctly without using the flee command there (I tried for a while but was never able to get it). So what you suggested by making it so the character has to use the observe command seems to work right, you can do this within a trait script, can't think of the correct math right now for figuring out who should go and such. Now having people interleave in the same DBS turn might be a bit hard to impossible to do, since I'm not sure you can get your turn again after you went and it's now someone elses turn, but if you mess around with Check Who Goes First and Check Who Goes Next you might be able to do it, just be prepared for some wierd things to happen with the DBS, and a lot of debugging.

But keep at it, and if you need any help ask away.

[Nje789]

I was only asking one thing- To have a FFX-style turn system, how should I disable participants when the formula for their speed came up as a lost round to faster participants? Trait>trait will do this, but you lose control unless you want to mess with it by giving a menu in there and all that BS..
I'd rather stick with the default menu system, it's just easier that way.

Can I disable them but still have control over my characters using trait>action or trait>custom?

I can't get results with these, and action status may only work right at the beginning of a battle, and can probably only be used to incapacitate my character then. Custom status seems to ignore disabling.

Perhaps, a paralysis status with an extremely low priority that lasts 1 round would work better than giving a "use observe" action command. Maybe it's just that action commands don't work in scripts other than trait>trait..

Custom status trait seems to be the best bet, so does anyone know what script commands work when applied here?

[WilliamKirk]

"Can I disable them but still have control over my characters using trait>action or trait>custom?"

I don't know, but one thing I did was make a Trait>Custom constant Indirect Effect on all my Party Members and I was able to apply an action status that canceled their action for one round (I put it in the Error Messages script where it says 'Unable to Flee.'). I believe you can do the same thing with Enemies too. Comparing their speeds (switching from unit to unit the way you desire) is where I get lost. Good luck.

[Dungeon Warden]

Someone (I thought it was William) discovered that if you try to remove an action condition from a character without checking if that character has an action condition, their turn will be skipped. This is the easiest way to force a character to skip a turn.