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Shmarter Shpells

Back when I had little to no knowledge of RGSS3, I made a bunch of different damage calculations, mostly emulating Final Fantasy VI or Final Fantasy VII. These days, as I learned how to more complex things, I started looking at calculations used in the more advanced titles in the series, like Final Fantasy X.

One thing that kinda irks me about RPG Maker VX Ace is how little control you have as a creator with applying and removing states. You basically can either add or remove and give a percentage of that happening. That's it. I learned a while back that you have way more control over these things if you write your own methods to determine state application and damage.

So, today, I took a look at a lot of abilities that alter states, and worked to make them act a little more intelligently. Take the Black Magick spell, Enfeeble, for example.

The spell always deals some light non-elemental damage, but also has a chance to apply any of the four "Break" states (Armor Break, Power Break, etc.). However, it can apply ALL of them in a single cast if you're very lucky, using the default methods. That's a little nuts (and totally unfair), so I rewrote the method for the spell and added the following conditional checks to it:

- Does the target already have any of these states? If true, do not add the same states.
- Is the target immune to any of these states? If true, do not even attempt to add these states.
- Did the target have any of these states newly applied when this ability was cast? If true, do not add any other states.

So, when you cast Enfeeble, you can add any of the four states (determined by a random number roll from 0-4, each corresponding to a state), but once you apply one of them, it won't add another state until you cast it again (and it won't add a state a target already has; in this case, the number will roll again until it lands on an applicable state).

My hope is that using skills like this won't feel like such a gamble. I've gone and done the same for a number of abilities that add have a chance to add more than one state.

Let's look at another Black Magick spell, Shatter. This ability deals light non-elemental damage, nullifies Reflect, cannot be reflected and has a low MP cost, so it's always a viable choice during battle. However, if it's cast on a target with Reflect status, it deals heavy non-elemental damage, for the same MP cost. This spell already existed in the game for a long time, but the damage increase for casting it on a reflected target wasn't up to snuff with tier 3 spells. Now, it's even stronger than those are, which I hope will cause players to immediately consider using Shatter on a reflected opponent, instead of always defaulting to spells like Ultima (which will still outperform Shatter, but it will cost 70 MP more per cast).

It's easy for me to get lost in making cool spells and not realize how overpowered they are, like the Null spells in White Magick. These now only target a single ally, rather than the entire party. I recall someone mentioning this in response to our RSD video.

Thoughts on this? Suggestions? Ideas? We're approaching our May 1st deadline for adding abilities and items. Once that date arrives, we won't be adding any new abilities to any party members (we can still change how the existing stuff functions, though!).