Last year I tried RPG Maker XP out for the first time and, coming from a longtime user of the console version, it absolutely blew me away with its power, flexibility, and ease of use. It's a truly fantastic platform for game making, and its quality is aided by a strong diaspora of game makers and script makers around the net.
Occasionally, I come across an area where I wonder "nine out of ten things work so well... what the heck happened on number ten"? Sometimes it's an oversight, sometimes it's just something really unintuitive, sometimes it's a missing feature that would have made the program perfect. I've been writing them down for a while, and since the ideas won't do anyone any good if I keep them to myself, here's my grand list of features and changes that I think would let the PC RPG Maker series make the jump from good to incredible.
If you have ideas of your own on how the PC side of this series can improve, feel free to post them. I'll add the most popular ones to the list.
Maps
Change Tileset Command – An event command to immediately change the tileset used by a map. Each tile will be replaced by the corresponding tile (based on position) in the selected tileset. (DONE in RPG Maker VX Ace)
Dynamic Tileset – Only load what’s necessary based on what tiles were actually used on a map
Unlimited Autotiles – No one likes the eight Autotiles limit! Keep the Autotiles on a separate canvas from the tileset, and allow them to be used freely on any map.
Multiple Event Layers – Just like the multiple terrain layers. This would be good to have for both gameplay and aesthetic reasons. If two events are on the same tile and the activation condition is met for both, the event on the higher layer takes precedence.
Battle System
Choice of Sideview of First Person Battle System – Yeah, I know it’s much easier said than done. But the popularity of custom sideview battle systems and the upsurge of support for a legal RM2K3 should really drive home how much more popular the PC RPG Makers could be if they allowed you to use a battle system where you could see your characters move and attack.
Animated Battlers – In both types of battle system, it would be a great feature to have a system built in to animate the battlers, based on spritesets that either come with the game or could be imported by the player like any other graphics.
Customizable Damage Formula – Allow the creator to define the default damage formula for attacks and skills (in general) in the editor. (DONE in RPG Maker VX Ace)
Skill-Based State Success – Instead of a Checkbox for the Add/Remove State list on the Skills tab, include a numeric entry field. This number would be multiplied by the target’s sensitivity to the State (this sensitivity is how success is currently determined in RMXP) to determine the percentage chance that the State will be added to the target. Chance to remove a State could be specified with a negative number.
“Force Action” Command Affects a Specific Character or Enemy – Rather than a battler in a specific slot. I really never understood why it was done this way in RMXP.
Absolute or Relative Stat Changes for States – Currently, states allow you to multiply a character’s stats by a percentage. This is good, but there are certain times it would be useful to add or subtract a specific number of points instead.
Improvements to the Battle AI – For example, knowing when an action will be a waste (because it has already used an elemental spell on an enemy with full resistance to that element, or because it won’t have enough MP to use that action), and choosing a different action instead.
Threat Calculations – Enemy parties take note of which player characters are dealing the most damage, taking the most damage, healing their allies, etc., and target those characters more often. Additionally, a “Caster Threat” and “Target Threat” numeric field in the skills definition tab that adds or subtracts threat from the Caster and Target, making them more or less likely to be targeted after this skill was used by/on them. Finally, an option to turn off this system entirely.
Track Battle Details – Track information such as the last character to act, the last spell that was used, or the last amount of damage that was done, and allow these to be referenced like variables so they can be used in battle event conditions or in custom code.
Aesthetic
More Weather Effects – The existing weather effects are cool. It would be great to see more, such as wind, lightning, or falling embers. Additionally, more control over weather effects, like choosing the angle of the rain and the tint of the snow.
Enhanced Screen Tint Control – The ability to apply a screen change to only a certain terrain layer and below. Or, alternatively, to allow the creator to select a Priority, and only tiles/events with that Priority or lower are subject to the effect.
Relative Screen Tints – The ability to set a relative screen tint, such as “Red +20, Grey -5”, in addition to the current method of defining the screen tint using RGB coordinates. This relative screen tint would take the current tint and add 20 to the Red value and subtract 5 from the Grey value.
Menu Editor – To customize the look and feel of the menu screen.
Window Display Options – Basic options to customize the standard look and feel of windows, like Font and Background Color.
Party Control
Support for Up To Six Characters in Battle – With the ability to change the max party size limit via event commands.
Party Member AI – Ability for the creator to assign party members AI settings, the same way you’d assign AI and movelists/conditions to an enemy. This would be useful for creating NPC characters that join your party.
Bench for Party Members – A “bench” of party members that are not in your active battle party, but that can be accessed for Equip, Item usage, etc. The player could switch these characters in and out with the active battle party outside of battle, although Event Commands would be available to disable this switch for either a specific character or for all characters (which might be used, for example, if a character was incapacitated by a storyline event or if the player had to choose a battle party in advance).
Database Editor
Custom Fields – Renamable custom fields in the database editor on items, skills, characters, and so on. These would do nothing by default, but could be used in event/branch conditions or manipulated and used in the RGSS code.
Simple Music Editor – One more feature that’s easier said than done, I’m sure, but it would be incredibly cool to have a Mario Paint-like editor that allows creators to choose a tempo, take sounds and place them on note clefs to create songs. All of the included music could be made using this in order to allow creators to edit the default songs.
Switch/Variable Control Tab – A tab in the Database Editor that allows the creator to see the list of all switch and variable names in a list, and click the name of a switch or variable to see all events in the game that use or modify the value of that switch/variable.
Events
8-Way Option Branches – Simply put, 4 option branches on a Player Choice Branch isn’t enough sometimes!
Combined Message + Options Box – So the player can see what they’re responding to as they decide which option to choose when presented with a choice.
Combined Message + Character Portrait – Ability to add a character’s portrait to the left or right of a message box, to give it a lot more personality. (DONE in RPG Maker VX Ace)
Options Box Autopopulation – Ability to specify that an options box should include all spells, or all party members, or all items, etc. Only the items in the player’s inventory, or the spells that the party has learned, etc., will appear in the options box. Even better, an option to have the Autopopulation only show choices that meet a certain condition, such as “Items that heal 1HP or more”. Additionally, standard (non-Autopopulated) options could be specified by the creator. The creator would specify what happens in the scenario where each possible choice is chosen, and may also specify a default if any other choice is chosen. An event command (such as Lose Items or Add State) could also be activated upon the chosen item/member/etc., rather than needing to specify that item/member/etc. by name.
Expanded Event Conditions – Allow anything that’s used as a Conditional Check Branch (e.g. “Actor X knows Spell Y” or “Posses Z gold or more” to be used as an Event Condition. Also, allow multiple conditions to be checked for a single event/page, allowing the user to specify “All conditions must be met” or “Any condition must be met” for the event/page to activate.
Enhanced Alarm Functionality – The Alarm functionality in RPG Maker XP is nice, but it could be a lot better:
Onscreen Text Command – A command that displays text on the screen in a specified font, size, and location on the screen, without using a message box and without freezing the action on the map.
Save Game Event Commands – Event Commands that directly affect a player’s Saved Games would be useful for “roguelikes”, quick-saves, or to prevent Save Scrumming (such as the lottery in Evolution: Worlds). Additionally, Event Commands that bring up the Save Screen for the player and Conditional Branch conditions that determine whether the player saved their game, saved in a new slot, saved in a specific save slot, etc.
Event Command Find/Replace – Like in most Microsoft Office programs, but for Event Commands. Sometimes you come back to an event later in the creation process and realize you need to do it differently, but the event might be hundreds of lines long.
Example Find: Find and Highlight all instances of Gain Item in this event.
Example Replace: Find all instances of Gain Item: Red Potion in this event and Replace Each Instance with the Event Command Gain Money: 300 Gold.
The Complete Package
Sample Game as Part of the Program – Yes, sample games are included on the official website, but including one as a saved game that comes with the base download would encourage even more people to play it, either for fun or as a great learning experience.
Event Commands Tutorial as Part of the Program – A step-by-step, interactive tutorial that can be run at any time, which teaches a new creator how to use different Event Commands to create gameplay content.
Guide to RGSS Commands as Part of the Program – RGSS (Ruby Game Scripting System language) really is an amazing tool, but I for one had to spend hours upon hours on Google trying to figure out what kind of syntax to use to refer to an attribute on a character or erase a state from an array. A guide to the different keywords you can use in RGSS and the syntax you should use to work with them, accessible from the main program, would be massively helpful.
Community
Clear License/Royalty-Free Info – RPG Maker 1 had a Royalty-Free license in the manual, and as far as I can tell the PC RPG Maker series allows you to create games for commercial distribution. However, a lot of people are unclear about this, so it would be nice to have right there in the manual.
Official Place to Share Games – Is it sacrilege to post this suggestion on the RPG Maker Pavilion? Maybe! But it would be great for the community to have an official place, run by the makers of RPG Maker itself, to submit their finished games. Aside from helping the series feel more legitimate as a viable development tool for actually getting your game out there, this would also help combat piracy by ensuring that only legal copies of the software can create games which will be hosted at the official site.
Official Place to Share, Vet, and Develop Scripts – Like the above. The ability to create, share, and use scripts is one of the finest elements of the RPG Maker PC Series. Might as well take full advantage of it!
Miscellaneous
More Mapped Keys – Ideally, there should be enough slots for mapped keys that most keys on the keyboard should be recognized by RPG Maker as a possible input, if the creator wants.
Ability to Combine Two Existing Animations Into A Single Animation – Rather than manually needing to add every single element from the second animation onto the first.
Minimap Editor – A tool that allows the user to create minimaps of towns and dungeons, and specify what should appear on the minimap (passable terrain, impassable terrain, events marked as a “Treasure”, events marked as a “Battle”, etc.). Options to have the minimap off, on, or dynamic (displays each part of the minimap only after you explore it) by default, plus event commands to turn it on or off.
Debug Tools in Playtest Mode – When in Playtest mode, the player should have access to a debug menu that allows warping to any location in the gameworld, seeing and editing variable values, forcing an event to trigger regardless of its conditions, etc.)
Occasionally, I come across an area where I wonder "nine out of ten things work so well... what the heck happened on number ten"? Sometimes it's an oversight, sometimes it's just something really unintuitive, sometimes it's a missing feature that would have made the program perfect. I've been writing them down for a while, and since the ideas won't do anyone any good if I keep them to myself, here's my grand list of features and changes that I think would let the PC RPG Maker series make the jump from good to incredible.
If you have ideas of your own on how the PC side of this series can improve, feel free to post them. I'll add the most popular ones to the list.
Maps
Change Tileset Command – An event command to immediately change the tileset used by a map. Each tile will be replaced by the corresponding tile (based on position) in the selected tileset. (DONE in RPG Maker VX Ace)
- Rationale: Maybe the evil empire razed your beloved peasant village, or maybe you just have a seasons system and want the autumn leaves on the building to turn into snow. This command would be much more useful than making multiple maps, because it means you only have to create one set of events and any changes to those events will persist on the map.
Dynamic Tileset – Only load what’s necessary based on what tiles were actually used on a map
- Rationale: There are a lot of people who use “master tilesets” that consist of thousands of map tile designs, so they aren’t constrained to one specific theme on each map. I assume only loading the necessary tiles would greatly improve performance on such maps.
Unlimited Autotiles – No one likes the eight Autotiles limit! Keep the Autotiles on a separate canvas from the tileset, and allow them to be used freely on any map.
Multiple Event Layers – Just like the multiple terrain layers. This would be good to have for both gameplay and aesthetic reasons. If two events are on the same tile and the activation condition is met for both, the event on the higher layer takes precedence.
Battle System
Choice of Sideview of First Person Battle System – Yeah, I know it’s much easier said than done. But the popularity of custom sideview battle systems and the upsurge of support for a legal RM2K3 should really drive home how much more popular the PC RPG Makers could be if they allowed you to use a battle system where you could see your characters move and attack.
Animated Battlers – In both types of battle system, it would be a great feature to have a system built in to animate the battlers, based on spritesets that either come with the game or could be imported by the player like any other graphics.
Customizable Damage Formula – Allow the creator to define the default damage formula for attacks and skills (in general) in the editor. (DONE in RPG Maker VX Ace)
Skill-Based State Success – Instead of a Checkbox for the Add/Remove State list on the Skills tab, include a numeric entry field. This number would be multiplied by the target’s sensitivity to the State (this sensitivity is how success is currently determined in RMXP) to determine the percentage chance that the State will be added to the target. Chance to remove a State could be specified with a negative number.
- Rationale: This would allow one version of a poison skill, for example, to be more powerful than another one via a higher chance to inflict Poison. Most professional games have this. It would also allow skills that have a chance to, but do not always, inflict a positive State on an ally.
“Force Action” Command Affects a Specific Character or Enemy – Rather than a battler in a specific slot. I really never understood why it was done this way in RMXP.
Absolute or Relative Stat Changes for States – Currently, states allow you to multiply a character’s stats by a percentage. This is good, but there are certain times it would be useful to add or subtract a specific number of points instead.
Improvements to the Battle AI – For example, knowing when an action will be a waste (because it has already used an elemental spell on an enemy with full resistance to that element, or because it won’t have enough MP to use that action), and choosing a different action instead.
Threat Calculations – Enemy parties take note of which player characters are dealing the most damage, taking the most damage, healing their allies, etc., and target those characters more often. Additionally, a “Caster Threat” and “Target Threat” numeric field in the skills definition tab that adds or subtracts threat from the Caster and Target, making them more or less likely to be targeted after this skill was used by/on them. Finally, an option to turn off this system entirely.
Track Battle Details – Track information such as the last character to act, the last spell that was used, or the last amount of damage that was done, and allow these to be referenced like variables so they can be used in battle event conditions or in custom code.
- Rationale: This would be very useful in creating events that trigger if, for example, you kill a certain enemy using a Fire spell, or in creating “achievement” systems that reward certain feats in battle, such as dealing over 1,000 damage in a single hit.
Aesthetic
More Weather Effects – The existing weather effects are cool. It would be great to see more, such as wind, lightning, or falling embers. Additionally, more control over weather effects, like choosing the angle of the rain and the tint of the snow.
Enhanced Screen Tint Control – The ability to apply a screen change to only a certain terrain layer and below. Or, alternatively, to allow the creator to select a Priority, and only tiles/events with that Priority or lower are subject to the effect.
- Rationale: There are times it would be useful to black out only the terrain but not the objects on it, or apply an atmospheric effect to the land but not to characters and events.
Relative Screen Tints – The ability to set a relative screen tint, such as “Red +20, Grey -5”, in addition to the current method of defining the screen tint using RGB coordinates. This relative screen tint would take the current tint and add 20 to the Red value and subtract 5 from the Grey value.
- Rationale: If player-activated events change the screen tint, it’s possible two different effects will take place at the same time, and the creator would intend for those effects to stack with each other.
Menu Editor – To customize the look and feel of the menu screen.
Window Display Options – Basic options to customize the standard look and feel of windows, like Font and Background Color.
Party Control
Support for Up To Six Characters in Battle – With the ability to change the max party size limit via event commands.
Party Member AI – Ability for the creator to assign party members AI settings, the same way you’d assign AI and movelists/conditions to an enemy. This would be useful for creating NPC characters that join your party.
Bench for Party Members – A “bench” of party members that are not in your active battle party, but that can be accessed for Equip, Item usage, etc. The player could switch these characters in and out with the active battle party outside of battle, although Event Commands would be available to disable this switch for either a specific character or for all characters (which might be used, for example, if a character was incapacitated by a storyline event or if the player had to choose a battle party in advance).
Database Editor
Custom Fields – Renamable custom fields in the database editor on items, skills, characters, and so on. These would do nothing by default, but could be used in event/branch conditions or manipulated and used in the RGSS code.
- Rationale: Yes, a good coder could simply create the variables in the RGSS code. However, this would be useful for people who aren’t strong coders, and would also contribute to better organization of game content. These custom fields could be used, for example, to determine whether a battler should receive a bonus from a certain skill, to determine whether an item should activate a custom event, or to track a second kind of “experience” that a character can earn.
Simple Music Editor – One more feature that’s easier said than done, I’m sure, but it would be incredibly cool to have a Mario Paint-like editor that allows creators to choose a tempo, take sounds and place them on note clefs to create songs. All of the included music could be made using this in order to allow creators to edit the default songs.
Switch/Variable Control Tab – A tab in the Database Editor that allows the creator to see the list of all switch and variable names in a list, and click the name of a switch or variable to see all events in the game that use or modify the value of that switch/variable.
Events
8-Way Option Branches – Simply put, 4 option branches on a Player Choice Branch isn’t enough sometimes!
Combined Message + Options Box – So the player can see what they’re responding to as they decide which option to choose when presented with a choice.
Combined Message + Character Portrait – Ability to add a character’s portrait to the left or right of a message box, to give it a lot more personality. (DONE in RPG Maker VX Ace)
Options Box Autopopulation – Ability to specify that an options box should include all spells, or all party members, or all items, etc. Only the items in the player’s inventory, or the spells that the party has learned, etc., will appear in the options box. Even better, an option to have the Autopopulation only show choices that meet a certain condition, such as “Items that heal 1HP or more”. Additionally, standard (non-Autopopulated) options could be specified by the creator. The creator would specify what happens in the scenario where each possible choice is chosen, and may also specify a default if any other choice is chosen. An event command (such as Lose Items or Add State) could also be activated upon the chosen item/member/etc., rather than needing to specify that item/member/etc. by name.
- Example: The party encounters a wounded soldier and can offer him a healing potion in order to gain favor with the military.
Originally posted by An Example
- Note that every healing item in your inventory will be displayed (most will trigger the ‘Any Other Selection’ branch), and that those first three options won’t be displayed if you don’t have any of that type of potion in your inventory. "Do not give him a Potion" is an example of a standard option that will be available regardless of your inventory.
Expanded Event Conditions – Allow anything that’s used as a Conditional Check Branch (e.g. “Actor X knows Spell Y” or “Posses Z gold or more” to be used as an Event Condition. Also, allow multiple conditions to be checked for a single event/page, allowing the user to specify “All conditions must be met” or “Any condition must be met” for the event/page to activate.
Enhanced Alarm Functionality – The Alarm functionality in RPG Maker XP is nice, but it could be a lot better:
- Ten or more alarms, rather than just one. Ability to have these alarms run concurrently.
- Event command to copy the number of seconds left on an alarm to a variable.
- Ability to hide the timer for alarms so the player does not see the remaining time onscreen.
- Ability to name alarms, and display the name next to the time remaining onscreen.
Onscreen Text Command – A command that displays text on the screen in a specified font, size, and location on the screen, without using a message box and without freezing the action on the map.
- Rationale: This could be used to give the player information (such as the name of a location they entered or a hint about an accomplishment they just achieved) without interrupting the action.
Save Game Event Commands – Event Commands that directly affect a player’s Saved Games would be useful for “roguelikes”, quick-saves, or to prevent Save Scrumming (such as the lottery in Evolution: Worlds). Additionally, Event Commands that bring up the Save Screen for the player and Conditional Branch conditions that determine whether the player saved their game, saved in a new slot, saved in a specific save slot, etc.
Event Command Find/Replace – Like in most Microsoft Office programs, but for Event Commands. Sometimes you come back to an event later in the creation process and realize you need to do it differently, but the event might be hundreds of lines long.
Example Find: Find and Highlight all instances of Gain Item in this event.
Example Replace: Find all instances of Gain Item: Red Potion in this event and Replace Each Instance with the Event Command Gain Money: 300 Gold.
The Complete Package
Sample Game as Part of the Program – Yes, sample games are included on the official website, but including one as a saved game that comes with the base download would encourage even more people to play it, either for fun or as a great learning experience.
Event Commands Tutorial as Part of the Program – A step-by-step, interactive tutorial that can be run at any time, which teaches a new creator how to use different Event Commands to create gameplay content.
Guide to RGSS Commands as Part of the Program – RGSS (Ruby Game Scripting System language) really is an amazing tool, but I for one had to spend hours upon hours on Google trying to figure out what kind of syntax to use to refer to an attribute on a character or erase a state from an array. A guide to the different keywords you can use in RGSS and the syntax you should use to work with them, accessible from the main program, would be massively helpful.
Community
Clear License/Royalty-Free Info – RPG Maker 1 had a Royalty-Free license in the manual, and as far as I can tell the PC RPG Maker series allows you to create games for commercial distribution. However, a lot of people are unclear about this, so it would be nice to have right there in the manual.
Official Place to Share Games – Is it sacrilege to post this suggestion on the RPG Maker Pavilion? Maybe! But it would be great for the community to have an official place, run by the makers of RPG Maker itself, to submit their finished games. Aside from helping the series feel more legitimate as a viable development tool for actually getting your game out there, this would also help combat piracy by ensuring that only legal copies of the software can create games which will be hosted at the official site.
Official Place to Share, Vet, and Develop Scripts – Like the above. The ability to create, share, and use scripts is one of the finest elements of the RPG Maker PC Series. Might as well take full advantage of it!
Miscellaneous
More Mapped Keys – Ideally, there should be enough slots for mapped keys that most keys on the keyboard should be recognized by RPG Maker as a possible input, if the creator wants.
Ability to Combine Two Existing Animations Into A Single Animation – Rather than manually needing to add every single element from the second animation onto the first.
Minimap Editor – A tool that allows the user to create minimaps of towns and dungeons, and specify what should appear on the minimap (passable terrain, impassable terrain, events marked as a “Treasure”, events marked as a “Battle”, etc.). Options to have the minimap off, on, or dynamic (displays each part of the minimap only after you explore it) by default, plus event commands to turn it on or off.
Debug Tools in Playtest Mode – When in Playtest mode, the player should have access to a debug menu that allows warping to any location in the gameworld, seeing and editing variable values, forcing an event to trigger regardless of its conditions, etc.)
Comment