Couple questions this time. Less spammy than before, I assure you.
1. Best way to allow the player to choose a party lineup in RPGM3? Most console RPGs these days let you drag around more PCs than you can fit in the active party at once and you can switch people into the active party from reserve at any time in the menu. As far as I can tell, there's no way in RPGM3 to do something like this. So the substitute, as near as I can tell, is to set up a question and answer tree: make an NPC you can talk to who will list the available PCs for you and let you choose the ones you want. Does this sound workable? It seems a rather cumbersome and unwieldy method to me, but I can't see any other way to do it. (For the sake of background, what I'm trying to set up is a steady main character who goes through several short episodes, where there are two temporary PCs in each chapter; in the end section you can mix and match any of the people you had earlier).
2. Whenever a certain character is in the party, I want the party to receive certain extras from visiting a shop or private home. Five-finger discount, yes. I have an idea of how this could be set up, but I thought I'd run it by someone else since I haven't had a chance to try it out yet (making the maps first). It seems easy to link up with the the QA tree mentioned in point #1 above. Put an invisible event in any shop/house you want the guy to steal something from and set it up so that it only activates when a variable equals one. Normally the variable is set to zero, but when you choose this guy's name from the QA tree the variable gets flipped over to one. Now the event can be executed and you'll find random items popping up in your inventory courtesy of the party klepto. If you take the guy out of the party, the variable goes back to zero and you can no longer steal.
Of course, the trick is that this theft should only happen once in each location, otherwise the player's got an infinite source of ready-to-sell items on their hands. That's the bit I'm not sure how to set up.
3. Last issue is the horrible slowdown that kicks in when I try to test out the more complicated dungeons I've put together. This is an extreme nuisance that I'm not expecting to get rid of, but I thought maybe more experienced folks would have some pointers on how to minimize it, at least, because it's really cramping my style.
1. Best way to allow the player to choose a party lineup in RPGM3? Most console RPGs these days let you drag around more PCs than you can fit in the active party at once and you can switch people into the active party from reserve at any time in the menu. As far as I can tell, there's no way in RPGM3 to do something like this. So the substitute, as near as I can tell, is to set up a question and answer tree: make an NPC you can talk to who will list the available PCs for you and let you choose the ones you want. Does this sound workable? It seems a rather cumbersome and unwieldy method to me, but I can't see any other way to do it. (For the sake of background, what I'm trying to set up is a steady main character who goes through several short episodes, where there are two temporary PCs in each chapter; in the end section you can mix and match any of the people you had earlier).
2. Whenever a certain character is in the party, I want the party to receive certain extras from visiting a shop or private home. Five-finger discount, yes. I have an idea of how this could be set up, but I thought I'd run it by someone else since I haven't had a chance to try it out yet (making the maps first). It seems easy to link up with the the QA tree mentioned in point #1 above. Put an invisible event in any shop/house you want the guy to steal something from and set it up so that it only activates when a variable equals one. Normally the variable is set to zero, but when you choose this guy's name from the QA tree the variable gets flipped over to one. Now the event can be executed and you'll find random items popping up in your inventory courtesy of the party klepto. If you take the guy out of the party, the variable goes back to zero and you can no longer steal.
Of course, the trick is that this theft should only happen once in each location, otherwise the player's got an infinite source of ready-to-sell items on their hands. That's the bit I'm not sure how to set up.
3. Last issue is the horrible slowdown that kicks in when I try to test out the more complicated dungeons I've put together. This is an extreme nuisance that I'm not expecting to get rid of, but I thought maybe more experienced folks would have some pointers on how to minimize it, at least, because it's really cramping my style.
So, you can use events to serve as non-vital NPCs if you're willing to stretch the believability of your game a bit.
I really have to thank you for your idea with the objects like your gossip pots to replace people. This will really help me because I'm going to make a long game and I've already taken up like twenty characters just in my first town. I hate that blasted character limit... especially with an empty memory card. Anywho I'm rambling again...
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