dungeon encounters

[ReverendWolf]

yes, i still intend to use random encounters...don't kill me

i'm wondering if there's a way to increase the levels of monster parties, or alternatively if there's a way to change the encounter settings with event coding? i havent seen anything there, but i'm probably not looking in the right spots. any ideas?

[Crythania]

Re: dungeon encounters

I was looking for that option, too.

As far as I can tell, there's no "Property Control" that affects encounter rates. A future project of mine is gonna have random encounters. I wanted to have a limited number of encounters per area; like, say, after the 10th encounter the area is considered cleared and no more encounters happen. To do that, I'd have to be able to turn the encounters off. I didn't see a "Property Control" that changes the encounter rate. In fact, I didn't see anything at all that affects REs.

I'm not sure if there's a way to increase individual monster levels with a "Property Control". Seems to me, that's where it would be. It wouldn't be under "Control" or "Party Control". If it's not in "Property Control", it's probably not there.

[Linkman712]

Re: dungeon encounters

Crythania, you could put invisible events around the area that turns them off after the ten fights. (Although, that would be a lot of complex programming over and over, and maybe it'll include an item that you get after 10 kills that swithches the variable or something...)

It probably won't work, but it couldn't hurt to give it a shot.

[Crythania]

Re: dungeon encounters

Crythania, you could put invisible events around the area that turns them off after the ten fights. (Although, that would be a lot of complex programming over and over, and maybe it'll include an item that you get after 10 kills that swithches the variable or something...)

It probably won't work, but it couldn't hurt to give it a shot.

Event-based battles scattered about on a field map. I hadn't thought of that.

Problems with this idea:

1. A player could miss some of them.

2. There's a 20-event limit per field map, dungeon floor, and town. 20 events. That's all you get per region.

The reason why I was thinking of using random encounters is because this future project is gonna have completely customizable characters. They accumulate experience points and can spend it like money to improve attributes, gain new abilities, and stuff. Each attribute/ability is gonna have a different Xp cost to improve it.

The easy way to give out experience is to have a treasure item called "Experience" and a single auto-event that detects the presence of "Experience" in the inventory, gives the player experience points (increase variables), and takes away the "Experience" item to reset for the next encounter.

Having a finite number of encounters prevents the player from "power-leveling" (or in this case, "power-experience-gaining"). You'd have to make choices. Do I want one guy to be a super-strong melee fighter? Should this other guy be a super-strong mage? Maybe this other guy could be a balanced combination, but he won't be as strong as those who specialize in melee fighting and magic. It's up to you to decide how your guys develop.

[Linkman712]

Re: dungeon encounters

Oh, that's a cool idea! I didn't mean event battles in the field, I meant that you could make kind of a circle of events around the area to stop the fights after 10, but I guess that would take up too much space event-wise.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: dungeon encounters

Why would you need a circle of events? Wouldn't one event work?

[Linkman712]

Re: dungeon encounters

I don't think so, because they could walk right past it and it wouldn't trigger.

[Zeos]

Re: dungeon encounters

I don't think so, because they could walk right past it and it wouldn't trigger.

You could set the event to auto and put the conditions a variable. Then, right when you fight 10 or whatever, make a mode 2 and have it empty. All you have to do in event mode 1 would be setting ecounters off and going to mode 2.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: dungeon encounters

I don't think so, because they could walk right past it and it wouldn't trigger.

Oh, you mean for the player to step on. Well if you did that, the player could walk outside the ring before reaching 10 encounters, or they can run circles inside the ring and leave well after having 10 encounters.

[Dusk Raven]

Re: dungeon encounters

You can't change anything about random battles, period, once gameplay starts.

[Crythania]

Re: dungeon encounters

You could set the event to auto and put the conditions a variable. Then, right when you fight 10 or whatever, make a mode 2 and have it empty. All you have to do in event mode 1 would be setting ecounters off and going to mode 2.

As I noted above in my other post, I couldn't find an event code that turns off random encounters for a region.

You can't change anything about random battles, period, once gameplay starts.

Thank you! That's what I was saying in my first post on this thread.

Now if people would just start paying attention to what I say...

[MagusMartovich]

Re: dungeon encounters

Do I want one guy to be a super-strong melee fighter? Should this other guy be a super-strong mage? Maybe this other guy could be a balanced combination, but he won't be as strong as those who specialize in melee fighting and magic.

Unless you make an extremly balenced game, though, would players figure out that its better to be either one or the other? Also, wouldn't equipment skew this as well?

[Crythania]

Re: dungeon encounters

Unless you make an extremly balenced game, though, would players figure out that its better to be either one or the other? Also, wouldn't equipment skew this as well?

This "future project" I've been mentioning is something I'm gonna eventually do completely and totally for me, and for me alone. If it sucks but is still fun to play, I ain't gonna care. If no one else digs it, that'll be fine by me. I'd like to see an entertaining game engine where I have total control over how my party develops. It likely won't matter one way or the other, but the point is to have fun deciding what to spend Xp on, instead of being spoonfed generic level gains.

I haven't really put much thought into it yet. I have to make two more games before I'll even be able to work on this project.

[Perversion]

Re: dungeon encounters

I already had this idea in mind for the original version of Series 2, and now have grafted it onto the first episode of Series 4. In it, you will fight arena battles or event battles, and each time you fight, it gives you Attribute points. In the first castle, you can go and spend those attribute points on (you guessed it!) attributes. Once you've acquired a certain level of points spread amongst all your attributes, you can go to another event in the same castle, and level up, and pick which spell/skill you want to go with that level.


Only problem I foresee is balancing all those encounters, because I have no way of knowing how the player is gonna develop their character. I don't want to make the battles too hard if they develop their character a certain way, but not too eaasy if they develop him a different way. And yes, there is only going to be 1 playable character in this game.

In the original version of Series 2, I was going to try to do something similar to this with all four characters, and also have a system of them leaving the party to go do side quests ala FFTA, but to do all this, I would have needed modes with more than 50 lines of code available to me. So yes, Cry, it's a good idea, and can be done, but if you make it happen for 4 or more characters, it might get a bit unwieldy.

[Crythania]

Re: dungeon encounters

Thanks, Perv.

Yeah, I'm planning on doing it for a party of four. The event coding just to purchase a Strength increase is gonna be... an enormous, mind-numbingly complicated undertaking. I'm not looking forward to all that hard work, but I'm looking forward to playing the game (actually, that's true of all of my projects).

As for balancing the game... that's not something I'm really worried about. "Might & Magic VI" can become very difficult or incredibly easy depending on what choices you make. Although, for a party of one, I'd imagine the difficulty skyrocketing. You've just got one guy, who could possibly find himself in trouble if he makes bad decisions.