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Battle system updates from the past week

Status Effects
I implemented support for a fairly sophisticated status effect system today. Unfortunately there aren’t any screenshots to illustrate the work I had completed but the backend work is complete and fairly functional so far.

Status effects, like poison and so on, last not a number of turns but for a “time” duration I’ve devised. Time is defined as 1000 units equal to one turn, so if your attack takes 50% delay and you have the mean agility, you effectively take 500 units or a half of a turn. That propagates through the poison formula to determine effective damage.

What that means is if you do four attacks at 25% delay or one attack at 100% delay, you receive the same amount of damage from poison (give or take a few HP due to rounding).

I feel this is a more accurate approach instead of dealing static damage per turn. It makes speed-based characters just as equal in terms of damage received from poison.

Status effects also have ranks, which can be a number 1-9. A higher rank means the status is more potent. All this data is stored in a single integer. Cool!

From here I have a list of about twenty status effects I want to implement. Only one (poison) is implemented, but I can add more as I go. Each character can have a maximum of nine concurrent status effects, both positive and negative, and I need a good way to display those in-battle (either as a series of icons next to the HUD—if room permits—or an emoticon that cycles through all current status effects affecting the character).

After all the base cases for status effects are completed, I can move on to something fun like field effects or enemy movement.

Delay
So techniques with variable delay rates and a generic delay modifier (that additively affects all abilities) are completely implemented.

What that means is that one attack may take 100% delay, which is fairly standard, and then another slower attack may take 200% delay. On top of that, you have a modifier, which is something like an equipment or ability that reduces (or maybe increases) delay. The two values get added to determine the final delay. For instance, if a cape gives -10% delay, in our previous example, we would effectively have 90% delay and 190% delay.

Of course the queue alongside the bottom of the screen neatly sorts the turn orders in ascending delay for the next few attacks, so the result looks really professional as the queue is updated while you select your ability. (This is the best part of the strategy element involved with creating the turn order queue system.)

Fun fact: I liberally set the minimal cap at 10% delay and Andoru got in fifteen attacks before the wolfie got in one. Revenge for the bug from earlier today!

9/14 update: I’ve made the delay modifier multiplicative instead of additive. That means in my 100%/200% example with a -10% delay, it’s actually 90%/180% delay instead. I think this scales a bit better and is actually more intuitive.

Icons
All active skill icons are done. There's not a lot of text in-battle, actually.

Posts

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Wow. This is impressive and I see that you put a lot of thought into this system. This will definitely make this game even more unique and enjoyable.
That's a great way to handle poison damage when you have rounds. Also the icons are looking quite nice :D
chana
(Socrates would certainly not contadict me!)
1584
dhm, you're a pro.
*Stares blankly at the screen*

...
...

Finally... finally I have found the updates to Dragon Heartman...
I can't explain how happy I am... I have been searching for Chapter 4 of the game for 4 years now...
Ah...

Anyway, you should update the game info at Kobras Realm... that's where I first found about the game...
dragonheartman
Developer, Starless Umbra / Heroes of Umbra
2966
author=DragoonHP
*Stares blankly at the screen*

...
...

Finally... finally I have found the updates to Dragon Heartman...
I can't explain how happy I am... I have been searching for Chapter 4 of the game for 4 years now...
Ah...

Anyway, you should update the game info at Kobras Realm... that's where I first found about the game...

I've released up to chapter seven now, and chapter 1-4 sorta badly needs an overhaul.
I'm now on Chapter 3 and I have to say, playing this game never gets old...

And I noticed that you have done many changes, especially in intros... the new intros have made the story a little less mysterious... don't know if I like it or not...

And a question if you may, can the game be cleared without using Tech skills? (Meaning... there is no quest or special area that require a tech skills, is there?)...

And if I give a suggestion, please make the run feature like it was before, when the Shift key was required to press for the player to run...
The new system have made it too easy and I'm already on level 23 without trying?

Thanks once again for a wonderful game...
Im sure you only check your Tumblr now but hows the Battle System looking now?
author=Ashley_Lacure
Im sure you only check your Tumblr now but hows the Battle System looking now?


Read his blog on official website to find out more. Basically, he's having frustrations with implementing battle system in RPG Maker 2003.
According to this
What I'm getting with this is if you'd like to help with this project, in the coming months there will definitely be opportunities. Is there compensation? Some, but not much as if I actually owned a company or something. If you want to get in on this though, let me know. If you have any other questions you guys know how to find me.

Well, if you don't by now know how to contact me...
Any specific development work for my projects gets posted to starlessumbra.tumblr.com and @StarlessUmbra on twitter.
There's also a fanbase on facebook I'm trying to expand at facebook.com/starlessumbra. Sort of hard if there's no real current product to market, but I always check up on it. If you're really inquisitive, you can find my personal facebook there. Feel free to add me.

This project is sort of becoming a testament to my devotion and passion; it will always continue to march forward, even if I've been silent. I want this to be the best it possibly can.
dragonheartman
Developer, Starless Umbra / Heroes of Umbra
2966
I still want to implement this battle system, just not in RM2k3. :)
Have you looked into RM20XX?
dragonheartman
Developer, Starless Umbra / Heroes of Umbra
2966
Yeah, I don't want to have to rely on waiting for that to finish. I think what WC is doing is wonderful, and I'd even consider finishing the project if he finishes, but I'd like to take a bit of a diversion in the mean time.
dragonheartman
Developer, Starless Umbra / Heroes of Umbra
2966
Variable management/lack of object-oriented architecture makes doing things like this CBS a real pain, especially for my programming style. (quick, messy, optimize later). If I end up finishing this in 20xx the battle system will be a modification of whatever DBS WC comes up with.
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