WHITE_RABBIT'S PROFILE

And here is the first screenshot of my progress on a custom battle system in rpgmaker2k3.



It is a bit like the Grandia System with the huge timeline. While the hero icons are upside of the time-line, the monster icons are going to be shown below. I'm not sure yet weather they're represented as skulls (only bosses going to have their own icon) or if I'm going to make an individual icon for each monster. Though, if I'm already drawing every singly monster + it's animations, I guess making a little icon for each of them on top wont hurt.

The general idea:
CL1-7 means "Cell Level". During every section of the line, every character can act once. Attacks can be used once per line and wont move the icon back. Skills will move you back for a certain amount depending on the skill itself. Also, weather a certain skill can be cast or not depends on the current position (aka what cell level your character is).
I will also implement a Limit-System, which makes it possible to use Limits the same way (better limits available with higher cell level). Whenever your turn is used up for the current section, the icon will turn grey.

So far the timeline works great. The most time I spent on figuring out how to make Agility affect the speed of the icon moving to the right. I found a solve on how to make every single point in agi affect the speed, but also balance it. Especially because the player raises stats of the characters individually, able to get agility from ~50(at start) to 999. This huge difference shouldn't cause problems with the speed of how icons move to the right.

Just in case anyone else is going for such a system, here is how mine works (for one icon)

setting a variable for Y coordinate first. Then X is a random number between (in my case) 15 and 35, this just to make it random where the icons start and not having them hide behind each other. Now set a variable for the hero and call it "Agility Boost". I set Agility Boost to 500. Now set a Label. Make now another Variable for each hero ("Agility Pot") and add the 500+ the hero's Agility. Now add a branch: If Agility Pot is higher than 1500, add X coordinate+1. Then also subtract 1500 from Agi Pot.
Then add a waiting time (or empty battle animation if you want a more exact FPS timer). Then Jump to Label. You can also add Slow, Haste and K.O. to affect the moving speed or even halt it. For Slow, I set another variable (slow pot) equal to Agi Pot, divide it by 2 and then put it into a branch - if hero in slow subtract slow pot from agi pot. Haste, I simply set an additional +1 to the x coordinate (making the icon move 2 instead of 1 pixel). For K.O. just set the whole labeled process under a branch with an else option. Set the branch into if hero K.O. - change x coordinate to 15. In Else, just put everything you had labeled. If you want to stop the icon movement (for example to give the player time to think chosing a skill), you could also add a switch operation before the whole label and turn it on every time you want the process to halt. set a branch, if switch is on, and then only insert "jump to label".

For the mob intelligence: I didn't implement it yet, but it's theoretically easy. Make a random number between 15 and ~300 (the lenght of your line), set this as the destination in his x coordinate, then make him start moving there. More clever system would be of course to make it check before this, whatever curcial happens during the fight. Like when a hero casts a certain skill, the monster will try countering it with a reaction based on his own skills. Since this system is custom and self-made, it is FAR easier to make monsters act intelligent.

Edit: Since I'm at it right now: It can be a bit more complicated based on how the engine works. Making the monster decide for when to attack, you need to set a parallel process event first (I have absolutely no idea why it's not recognized when called, like all the other events). Set Label1 first. Then insert a Variable (Mob Dice) between 31 and whereever you want your monster's limit on the time line to be, set it to the end of the line if you want it to be able to wait until the end. Now set another Label (Label2). Add a Branch - if Monster X (the X axis) is equal to Mob Dice (=when the icon that moves to the right hits the random spot decided by mob dice), then fill the branch with the action it takes (you can include another variable with random nrs. between 1 and (amount of attacks the mob has) to make it chose randomly, you could even add on top, that it's based on where your monster icon is to make certain skills available for it depending on the time line. Just add branches in - if monster X axis is higher than - then include the skills that become available. But you set a new variable with 1 more random number for each branch, or make another label that re-dices if the monster decides for a skill that can't be cast yet. Finally, for this big branch (if X axis = Mob Dice), make an Else-Handler. Put Jump to Label 2 inside. This is because if Label 2 doesn't exist, the whole process will repeat like mad, making your monster attack almost at every single pixel it moves.

I'm so damn proud of myself, programmed a materia system all by myself without any tutorial in rpgmaker 2k3. When I started this, I never thought I'd get this to work ever, especially because you only find discouraging posts when you google materia system for 2k3. Anyways, here's a screenshot:



The basic concept: The party levels up 10 times in total (usually after boss fights). Every time you get a levelup, it raises HP, and either gets you access to a new Cell-Level (enabling better spells of the same kind), or a new cell (those hexagon forms). They are filled with Apps, which serve very similair to FF7 Materias. There are stat-apps (raising stats and HP), tech-apps (adding new magic skills) and support-apps (adding supportive abilities, such as protection from certain conditions, auto-positive conditions like regen or haste, double attack, double cast, etc. etc. - a lot like yellow/blue materia).


I'll post a video as soon as I'm done with registering all items (currently at ~50 of 200 apps, and I'll go to bed before I end up with a tendonitis. With this part of my custom menu, it's pretty much finished. After that, I'll start working on my custom battle system :D.

I'm not 100% sure but I think I found the miraculous variable.
At the end of the tutorial's showlist, you've put an Var Oper ItemListPtr - 3. I didn't have this in mine (I repeated the ItemlistPtr+1 / itemlisttmp set car V itemlistptr, which came after every spot). I've changed it into -3 now aswell but it didn't work. However, testing it in your tutorial, after changing 3 to whatever else, it started changing pages in a similair way to mine (showing random items and numbers). If that is the case, I might have to use a different variable, but I haven't figured out yet why you've actually set it to -3, or in what relation this stands to.
Edit: nvm it was 9. I finally got it to work now!!
Sorry for the troubles.

Nonono, I set it from 41-80 instead of 41-50. that's what I ment. Also I didn't say I put greater than, but that Greater than leaves my cursor where it is, while less than (the proper option) pushes him into the upper left corner of the screen. Again, 78-80 less than = cursor gets pushed into the upper left corner. At 77 it gets pushed only to the left corner, at 76 (and less) it stays normal. In all cases, changing pages still doesn't work. The problem lies way deeper. I've even gone that far that I've cloned the whole menu from your tutorial, only keeping my own makelist and showlist (and self explaining, returning the variable/switch links) , but it didn't work, so the problem could come from either of these (makelist/showlist). One of these also includes these variables -

I don't know if changing these could fix anything, as -31 and /10 where assumption-based as well.

Almost none of the games you mentioned has anything close to a realistic proportion-styled character sheet. Compare the head-body proportion relation in almost all of the titles you listed before using them as argument (if you don't see the SD factor naturally). And no idea why you even mention Super Mario.
Also check the last sentence you quoted off me.

Besides, the spritecheets I posted can be considered non-SD as well, even though the heads are still way bigger than for real human proportions. Meaning, of course it's possible to make sprites look more "realistic" in a certain pixel limitation, the question merely is how much you're willing to sacrifice of the silhouette (showing legs, perspective on figure etc.) and detail (for example because human proportions mean small heads = barely any space to show at least even something that could be recognized as the eyes).