Party switching.

[Lausen]

I was wondering if anyone knows of an effective way of switching in and out party members? I found a way to do it with the modes, but I came across some problems.

First it takes up 9 different modes Per switch spot. That could use up alot of space.

Second, I have to make a new switch point each time a new player joins the party that includes him or her in it. Then I have to replace the old ones with the new ones. I find this to be way to much work. I was hoping there may be a better way using veriables.

Please reply if you know a good way of doing this and if you could leave a small example so I can learn from it.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Party switching.

Check answers to basic questions, sticked at the top of this forum.

[Lausen]

Re: Party switching.

Hito, I was looking through there and didn't see exactly what I was looking for. It tells me how to put one person in at a time, but I wanted like a character selection screen. Like say I had 7 people, but can only have 4 out at a time. I want to be able to go some place and switch out characters.

I will keep looking because I may have missed it. Thanks.

[Ωbright]

Re: Party switching.

There are several different ways of doing this, but I found this way to be the best:

Have a seperate variable for each person that can join, and increase it by 1 when they join. You'll also want to declare another variable to be your 'number of party members' variable. When it equals 4, the party is full, and can accept no more people. You can set that up with a V-C branch that checks the # of members.

If the party is full (var. = 4), then show message ("Your party is full. You must first remove someone before you can add another.") Event END. A good way to actually remove the caracters is to have an event that removes characters...and that's all it does. You can do that with a series of V-C branches, one for each possible party member. First it checks the 'is _______ in the party' variable, and if it equals 0, then it skips over that option completely. In other words, you won't see a choice branch to 'remove character 1? Y/N' if character 1 is not in your party.

That method works well if you have a HQ, where possible allies can gather as you find them. I personally like that method, but it means you have to have 2 copies of each hero...save for the main one.

The other way is to have only 1 of each ally, but have them go back to the place where you first met them if they're not in your party. If you want them again, you have to go and track them down. In that case, you'd have all of the variable-checking, joining and expelling coding within each playable character, unless you wanted to centralize the 'expelling' codes into 1 event, as in the first example.

So basically...do you want a HQ or not, and do you want to centralize or not? If you decide which you want to use just say, and I'll try to help if you need any.

[Lausen]

Re: Party switching.

Well I was planning on having a few of them at INN's across the map, but It would be really easy to make an HQ that fits into the story.

What I don't get is why do you need two of each character when using variables?

[Ωbright]

Re: Party switching.

Well, because there's no event code to 'move NPC or event', so if you encounter someone at an inn who joins, their display in the INN would have to be turned OFF, and their HQ display would have to be turned ON. You could set up an option where the character joins the battle party right then, but then you'd need to include all sorts of code to check for character variables in EVERY playable character. If you're going to have a HQ, then it might be easier to have them say 'I'll meet you at your HQ!' when they join, instead. In their HQ version, you can put all of their value-checking codes.

[Perversion]

Re: Party switching.

This exact situation is why I gave up on the original version of Series 2. There originally was supposed to be 7 characters to switch back and forth between in each of the arena battles, but the way I laid it out took up too many lines per mode. So I reduced it to only having four characters. The porgramming was not going to be helped by the fact that I also wanted to incorporate a mechanic where one of the party members might not be in the party at any given time (I was going to incorporate something similar to the quests in FFTA, where a character leaves, and through a variable check, would rejoin the party later either having succeeded or failed in his quest).

And I was going to have to program this monstrosity in at least 40 seperate times, as there were originally supposed to be 40 arena battles, and no method for cloning events. So I gave up on it.

As for your question, I got it to work, but not without many headaches. Just thought I'd share.

[Ωbright]

Re: Party switching.

I ran into that same problem, and so in SotT I used event transitions (which I had more luck with than mode transitions...especially when branches are split by said transition). LOL!!!...the 'Active Duty Roster' which removes characters in SotT is 11 events long...I can't even imagine having to copy that ONCE...let alone several times.

[Lausen]

Re: Party switching.

I guess my method should work. It will just take some time.

I set a event that starts out with a decision branch. It asks who do you want to remove from your party. It has the first 3 names of the characters then it says next page.
Lausen
Isaiah
Azulia
Next
Then if you select next it brings up the next page of characters.
Elizabeth
Karge
Layna
Next
The next comand brings up the next few characters.
Kelzak
Fayt
None
None means nothing happens, but if you pick any other character it will switch them to party out. The problem with this is you can pick a character that is not in the part. Then it will do the same thing except if you pick a person it will add them to the party.

This has some bad sides that is why I ask if there are better ways. It might still work if I put a good tutorial in the game on how to use it, but I will have to copy it several times.

Thanks for them other tips. If you have any more please post them.

[Ωbright]

Re: Party switching.

That's why you'd probably want to use variables. You could keep the system you have there...it can work, but doing it with a series of v-c branches would mean that you'd still go through 4 menu windows, but each would ask if you wanted to remove 1 of your 4 party members (if your party was full). You'd also want to start off with a v-c branch that checked to make sure that the 'number of party members' variable equaled at LEAST 2, because you must have at least 1 person in your party at all times.

I do see the value of having multiple characters displayed simultaneously, and it will work, but there's no way (that I know of) to have options greyed out. However, you can have a v-c branch that checks if the character is in your party, and if you try and remove them when they're not, it could say 'That character is not in the party'.

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: Party switching.

Oops, too slow. Again.

[Lausen]

Re: Party switching.

That sounds like it will work well. I think I will try it and get back to you some time tomarrow.

Thanks Obright.

[Ivan Rosenguard]

Re: Party switching.

Well, the method I have for party switching is kinda lame, but there's a very good reason why it is set up the way it is. You see, when you wish to switch party members, you head to the "Extraction Point". This point can be used for a few things:

Healing all party members Hp to full.
Teleporting the party back to the Illanya--the spaceship used in the game.
Summoning.
and Party Switching.

If you select party switching, you are automatically transported to a place called "Party change" which is basically an enclosed space in a dungeon where the floor was removed. Ivan, the main character, will almost always be in the party, so he won't be removed, but all the other characters will and the value used to let the game know that the party is full will be reduced to 0.

All five of your usual party members are present (if they have been obtained at that point in the game), and you basically just have to talk to them and select "Yes" to add them to your party. The most your party can hold in The God Gene is 3 (to make room for summoned creatures and temporary characters). I also have a variable system set up so that the game knows which extraction point you came from so that you will be transported back when you've made a party of 3. So why did I make it this way? Well its simple:

The elemental system in my game is quite deep. Not only does each character's elemental alignment affect strengths and weaknesses, but they also affect each other's stats. Two elements that are opposed (such as Ivan's Fire and Father Kevin's Water alignment) will weaken each other's stats. But two characters who's elemental alignments are complimentary (such as Ivan's Fire and Zatch's Earth element) will serve to boost each other's stats. This is why I had to create a dungeon are for party switching. Also, because I knew damn well I never wanted to have to redo the codes for every area. Hell naw!

Summoned creatures also work this way because they also affect party members' stats based on their alignments.

(Note that enviroment affects character stats based on their alignment as well. Ivan will be severely weakened in an ocean area, but powered up in, say, a volcano).

[Ωbright]

Re: Party switching.

Hey...that's pretty cool! It's like a warp point...plus! It might get kinda tedious to reproduce a bunch of times, but with only 5 characters it shouldn't be too awful. Throw a save point in that 'party change' room, and I'm 100% sold.

So you centralised both joining AND removing...was that hard to do?

[Ivan Rosenguard]

Re: Party switching.

No, not really. And though it does take away one of those precious dungeon slots, the amount of data used was completely negligeable. Only about .9% for the whole thing (Elemental effects on characters and all).