+++ DYNRPG - THE RM2K3 PLUGIN SDK +++

@Bulma: Yeah, dunno how good KazString would be for me to use when there's 50 some characters total that I'd have to deal with. Ehehehe....^^;;


So, here's some things I'm wondering if they're doable or not in DynRPG. Be warned, this is a big post and will all be based on FF as most of my posts in this thread tend to be!


Statuses:

Quick: Allows the user to get 2 turns in the same turn. I THINK I saw this around here at some point, but not sure as it's probably buried by this point (we need a Master Thread for everything that gets released I feel...).

Bubble: Doubles Max HP while active. I tried to do this via eventing but it doesn't work out very nicely at all. I never tried with Double Max MP (both appear in FFX at first).

Auto-Life: This CAN be done via eventing as that's what I do, but I'm wondering if DynRPG can't handle this easier and with less coding? Although I still don't think it'll prevent Game Overs if everyone dies despite having Auto-Life. This also extends to accessories that would give Auto-Life too (they wouldn't give infinite Auto-Life though, don't want another Chantage from FFT!).

Reverse: Anything that damages now heals and anything that heals now damages while status is up. It COULD be done via eventing, but that'd be a looooooot of eventing to make it work properly (and it wouldn't work on regular attacks either).

Disease/Wound: HP cannot be recovered, and if HP drops below current HP, Max HP = Current HP as long as the status remains. I tried to do this via eventing, but it didn't work out nicely at all...

Freeze (ala FFIX)/Petrify (ala FFX): These versions are different from the regular ones in that if the target is attacked, they are KO'd (in Freeze's case) or destroyed and removed from battle (in Petrify's case). They could be done via eventing as well, but wondering if DynRPG can't make them more viable to do? Likewise, for Petrify, is it possible to flag it as a dead status at all and make it so that enemies will not target said character/character takes 0 damage from anything?

Vanish: Target cannot be damaged by physical attacks, but can be damaged by magic attacks with 100% accuracy. Wondering if this is doable at all, and possible to do the other way around (avoids magic, damaged by physicals)?

Nul statuses/elements: Ala FFX where the Nul spells would make the target immune to a specific element for one hit. I'd like to do something like that, but not sure if it's feasible or not. Or at the very least make it so that they're temporarily immune for a brief time. Also wondering if it'd be possible to do something like that for weapons, where the ability grants the user's weapon that status or element as long as it's active? I have it coded in my game, but it takes a looooooooooooooooooot of coding (7 months worth it took me to get it all situated and going, and that's not with all of the inventory either!). Likewise, wondering if it's possible to do the opposite and temporarily decrease resistance to elements/statuses?

Runic: Celes's ability to absorb one magic spell to regain MP. Wonder if this is doable at all? Would be nice to be able to mimic this command for a character.

Confuse/Charm: I'm not talking about the built-in crappy Confuse status, but the actual one where enemies will actually use things like their skills and whatnot on enemies/allies. Is this doable at all? As it stands right now, the current Confuse status is just terrible.

Doom: Countdown before target dies. Wondering if this is doable without having to do too much eventing?

Lucky Girl: All hits are Critical Hits. Wondering if this is possible to do?

Heat: Taking any action at all while under the status results in a KO on the victim. I have this in my game coded, but wondering if it's possible to do without too much eventing? Note: This prevents the target from using the ability at all. If the ability is chosen to use, like a regular attack, they will die BEFORE the attack goes off.

Detecting statuses on monsters is another thing that bothers me, and would make some things more doable (such as damaging an enemy depending on what statuses they have, reversing statuses, etc).

I'm also wondering if it'd be possible to make it so that the player can target enemies and allies with anything (item, regular attack, skills, etc.). That also annoys me that that cannot be done in 2k3.


Those are just some things that came to mind last night! I'm sure I brought these up before, but eh! That was quite a long time ago so yeah! ^^;

Well, I already have Auto-Life, Burn, and the battle removal stuff all set up (including putting party members back into the party. If they get removed, it sets a variable for that particular party member, and in my Battle Cleanup event after battles, it adds anyone removed during battle back into the party). My Auto-Life and Burn work perfectly as it is, just wondering if it's possible to do less coding and referencing it or something.

Ah yes, I think I saw something like that for the Provoke skill, something similar for that (where it allowed you to reference the status ID for the status). That'd help a lot (and I think it was like that for that one plugin that did have Quick too).

I'd recommend downloading my game again then and checking out the events if you need to try it out (since you have far less characters than me, should be simplier). It should be in battle events, or if not, it'll be in one of the common events (probably the one that runs every turn in battle).

Ah yes, that'd be nice to have. I have that in a way for my Armor Elemental Bless, where as long as a status is on, a piece of armor will have increased resistance to that. Except the way I had to do it, I had to have every single piece of equipment that the ability could affect copied multiple times (note: I have 12 elements or something like that, so every piece of equipment was copied 12 times). For Weapons, this is more nightmarish as I have to do that for every piece of weapon, and THEN in the coding, if they can equip two weapons, do EVERY SINGLE COMBINATION to make sure it equipped/unequipped things properly. Pain in the butt...

Quick: I feel like I did this at one point during a long programming binge. You can probably do it by setting the hero's atb value to its max immediately after casting that spell, but the problem is everyone else's atb values. A monster might still be able to interrupt the hero before they choose their 2nd attack.

Bubble: Also possible in theory. Max HP/MP is accessible via RPG::DBActor, so you are literally changing the database value in-game. You'd just have to change it back to what it was before after the spell or battle ends.

Auto-Life: I'm not sure what the right way to do this would be. On the one hand, you could have event scripts handle the actual Life animation (since DynRPG can't force a battle animation to play yet). The plugin could basically check if a hero has a particular status (Auto-Life), and then check if their hp falls to zero, turn on a switch to play the animation or something, and resurrect them via the plugin.

Reverse: Yeah this would be easy with a plugin in theory, but you can't directly alter damage given... so if you had to do it, you'd have to use event scripts or attributes. I'm not totally sure how you'd get it to work, but if you set an attribute to a negative %, the spell of that attribute will heal instead of do damage. Might be able to do something with that.

Disease/Wound: You could probably do this with a similar technique as Bubble. Store the original Max HP, and the current Max HP and do checks to make sure their HP doesn't go over.

Runic: Might be able to do this in a similar manner as Reverse (assuming you can do that).

Doom: This is probably doable as a plugin actually. Make a condition trigger some kind of counter that checks the # of turns that have elapsed, and display the numbers on-screen.

Lucky Girl: All hits are Critical Hits. Wondering if this is possible to do?


I'd like to add one that I've been thinking about all day:
Transform: Transform any enemy into another enemy (like a frog or something). You could have some hacky way to do this by having an invisible enemy, but DynRPG would make this way easier since you have access to the enemy's database ID. I'm gonna experiment with this when I get home, but I think this would work pretty easily.

There's a few things I'd maybe like to see, not sure if they've been requested yet:

-Disable monster targeting. Set unique switches for each 8 possible monsters. If turned ON, that monster cannot be selected as a target by player characters. (may be useful to force the player to kill other monsters on the field first)

-Show target name. Not sure if this would be possible at all, but when the player has a monster selected (before confirming action) have a window pop up (maybe at the top of the screen?), displaying the name of the monster currently selected. The name could be taken automatically from the database, or have the player manually edit the DynRPG.ini file with monster values and write down the names there (whichever would be better or easier to make if it's at all possible).

-Safeguard: If character is inflicted with this condition they are unable to go below 1HP by the effect of attacks and spells (basically full resistance VS dying).

author=PepsiOtaku
I'd like to add one that I've been thinking about all day:
Transform: Transform any enemy into another enemy (like a frog or something). You could have some hacky way to do this by having an invisible enemy, but DynRPG would make this way easier since you have access to the enemy's database ID. I'm gonna experiment with this when I get home, but I think this would work pretty easily.

I'd love to see this. I have several enemies that have transformations and switch between different forms, but using hidden enemies and constantly killing off the form that's being replaced, while then reviving+healing the other form is clunky.

target name is possible! create a status with the name of the monster and assign it when the battle begins.
Also in this way you can also choose the color, so you can differentiate the boss from common enemies.

Shame about the targeting but I already thought that would be tough/impossible to work with. Would the Safeguard be possible to make, though?

Looking very much forward to the transform plugin, that'll be amazing.
Not sure if I understand what the monster run plugin would do exactly. They fade out... and then run away (wouldn't they be invisible at that point?) The idea of making the enemy run away instead of killing it is quite funny, though. Probably could think of some funny battle scenarios using that if it could be controlled by a switch.

Screen scrolling in pixels (in addition to tiles). Since, why not. Maybe someone finds a use:

download ScreenScrollBug-in

So here's another thing I just thought of, since I'm trying to come up with a skillset for a boss (and theoretically a skillset for Hope who will get some of the boss's abilities), which is everyone's favorite Final Fantasy ability, Everyone's Grudge! I bring this up as I've already done multiple other abilities that have formulas (such as FFXII's Traveler and Horology abilities, which work perfectly as intended), as well as various Level spells and Arithmetician abilities. HOWEVER! The issue here is that there's no nice way to do Everyone's Grudge. For those who don't know, it's usually (# of enemies killed x V ) to one target. Obviously, if I give this to Hope as an ability she can learn it'll be TOO good probably, but may be just relegated to my boss/enemies (unless, which is another thing I was wondering, it was possible to make it so that skills that targets one enemy can somehow call a common event instead of doing what they do? That way, it'd be easier to do an actual skill like Everyone's Grudge without targeting the entire party...).

Conceivably you could have personal hero kills stored inside a variable. Then have a targetting event that uses the different variables. Yea that would probably take some weird plugin.