Question about a custom battle system.

[NWalterstorf]

I'm trying to create a battle system similar to one like Final Fantasy Tactics or something (Shining Force, etc.). Does anyone have any tips, guides, or places I should search? Any information would be well appreciated.

Oh, and how can I change the menu screen when the player presses the "x" button in-game?

- Nick

[Biggie]

Re: Question about a custom battle system.

A tactical RPG would be an immense effort! Enemy AI alone would be a ***** to program.

As for the menu X button, there is a flag, which I think is number 10, called "No Menus", turn that flag on.

[NWalterstorf]

Re: Question about a custom battle system.

Thanks for the help with the flag (but how do I replace it now?).

Yeah, it would be a pain in the butt, yet if I get the battle system down, everything else would be pretty much clear sailing.

[thetruecoolness]

Re: Question about a custom battle system.

Replacing it is going to take quite a bit of work, so get prepared to get your hands dirty with some scripting if you plan on doing that. And if you want it to look good get ready to make some VFX. But for the basics you can start out doing a menu command to make your menu, then for items you can use a shop like script and bring up the sell command. So if you can think of more specific things you want your menu to do that the regular one doesn't we can help you more.

Here is an example using duplicate events and VFX.



Still working on the menu part, which will take quite a bit of scripting, as getting spells to display is one of the harder things to do right.

[Saint Zomb-E]

Re: Question about a custom battle system.

Replacing it is going to take quite a bit of work, so get prepared to get your hands dirty with some scripting if you plan on doing that. And if you want it to look good get ready to make some VFX. But for the basics you can start out doing a menu command to make your menu, then for items you can use a shop like script and bring up the sell command. So if you can think of more specific things you want your menu to do that the regular one doesn't we can help you more.

Here is an example using duplicate events and VFX.



Still working on the menu part, which will take quite a bit of scripting, as getting spells to display is one of the harder things to do right.

Woah...

Any idea if I could replace the character models with enemy models?Because I'm using Dungeon Warden's CBS(Which I will give him credit for in the credits at the end of my game.)

[thetruecoolness]

Re: Question about a custom battle system.

You can but it would take a lot more memory, since each number is an event so I only need 10 VFX for the numbers, but if you want to make a VFX for every number, or have small numbers for health and such (around 10). So you can do it, it would just be quite a bit of work, but yeah it is possible just very tedious and space consuming, since you can't really place VFXs anywhere you want as easily in battle (though you can display them at various places on the Models body. So you could try to use enemy actions for it, and move the battle camera around or do similar to Dungeon Warden and use the message box for stats. Now if you do this in battle you won't be able to display items with the merchant script, and using items would be difficult (well subtracting them anyway). But I'm sure with enough work and a good understanding of battle and VFX commands you could pull it off.

[Saint Zomb-E]

Re: Question about a custom battle system.



Ummm...

How do I put in the characters and variables like that?

[thetruecoolness]

Re: Question about a custom battle system.

Well it took a while to figure out, but basically each number is an Event with a VFX being displayed in the action script. And each event is just a duplicate event of an event called number (this basically acts like a console on a computer an outputs one number at a time by leaving a duplicate event of itself when it moves and setting the Event Number variable to the number it should display). So for each variable you do some math to figure out the 100's place, the 10's place and the 1's place and put that in the [Event Number] Variable (#71). Eventually I'll post the how to make duplicate events and control them individually script in the tips and tricks, probably this weekend, since you have to know how to do that to pull this off (actually a lot of really cool things can be done with duplicate events in the world map). The characters are done the same way using duplicate events with each Event Input variable being equal to the character name, and then displaying the character model at that event.

Now you can do this all with normal events, and setting a specific set of variables. So one event would be Show leader avatar, and it would have it's model set to the leader. Then you have a display number event which will display a VFX number from 0-9, depending on the value of a variable you set, say VarEvent1-1. Basically to do this you need a good understanding of how duplicate events work, and then how to get duplicate events to act independently.

btw, Each number is the size of one block in the dungeon editor to make layout easier to do.