What's up, RMers?

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

@SteelBeast6Beets: It sounds like you might've accidentally set one battler to Invincible in the Troop tab when you went to test battle. Also, perhaps you have the Death state unintentionally attached to one of your weapons. Just a couple of theories, you might need to open a support thread if you keep running into this issue.

BTW, I like your avatar, who is the artist? I'm looking for all kinds of study and inspiration, would like to see more of their work :D

I checked out everything you suggested and the problem still persists. Thankfully, I had a backup copy of my project in case something like this happened. Still, I can't help but wonder what could possible went wrong.

As for my avatar, it's from SNK's Metal Slug series. The games are famous for their renowned spritework and incredibly fluid animations.

[MechanicalPen]

I think I ran into some kind of glitch after I decided to start my game's bestiary and troop configuration from scratch. I tested the scrub baddies I created in a battle and for some odd reason a couple of them die in one hit regardless of HP while others are basicaly invinsible.

Any hypothesis about what could be happening?

Is it possible either your bestiary or troop config scripts are unintentionally changing the HP values of enemies?

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

I think I ran into some kind of glitch after I decided to start my game's bestiary and troop configuration from scratch. I tested the scrub baddies I created in a battle and for some odd reason a couple of them die in one hit regardless of HP while others are basicaly invinsible.

Any hypothesis about what could be happening?

Is it possible either your bestiary or troop config scripts are unintentionally changing the HP values of enemies?

Well, I'm not using any custom bestiary or troop scripts and I haven't messed with the default ones either.

Thinking about it, perhaps the problem was caused because I decided to copy and paste my monsters over the RTP monsters rather than deleting the default ones first?

EDIT: Nevermind, I found the problem. It turns out that I had installed a script that messed with the max HP of enemies, despite my previous statement saying otherwise. So yeah, false alarm.

[Kain Nobel]

@Steel Beast 6Beets : Glad you resolved the issue! Also, thanks for pointing me out to SNK, I found a couple key fighters from Capcom VS SNK that serve great inspiration for some work I'll be needing to get done! :D

-

We've been brainstorming a little bit of ReGaL stuff in IRC, so I posted a discussion and presentation thread on the subject of character graphics (battlers, event characters and faces, collectively.) It sounds complex but, really, it's designed to be as simple or as extravagant as needed on a per-character basis. Your enemies can be a single sprite like a typical RM enemy usually is, or you can full on make a ton of animated action frames if that is your desire. Freedom and flexibility are the aim, giving people important options.

Also, trying to keep up with my deadline goals;

5 Animated Battlers, Cycle 1 - Deadline January 15th, 2014
#1 - Ghost
#2 - Basilisk
#3 - Hellhound
#4 - Bateye
#5 - Hellrazer

5 Animated Battlers, Cycle 1 - Deadline January 31st, 2014
(List is secret ;D)

What this means is, before February arrives, I need to have 10 full sheets drawn out, but they're all supposed to be low color, low detail, complete enough to fulfill all their required combat actions. With that said, I'm only focusing on fluid motions in this cycle, as well as actually setting them up within the script of course.

Here is a sample of battler #2, the Basilisk, still in early development.



The Hellhound has actually taken much improvement since the last post, every action set has finally been drawn, I'm almost satisfied with each animation cell... almost. Visually, he's still as plain as the Basilisk up there, but I'm not supposed to be focusing on shading or detail this cycle anyway, thus it must wait.

Well, that's all for today, hope everybody has a great Christmas Eve!

[Kain Nobel]

Next battler, Ghost. Actually I've got like seven different versions of a ghost battler, but this seemed like one of the more promising concepts so that's what I rolled with. He's somewhat based off an enemy from the Shining Force series, or the Poes from The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time. As the concept grows hopefully it can be appreciated more, for now it's just rough draft.



Certainly the battlers on their own aren't very big, but I'm trying to keep them in scope with the characters. Even in my main project, I'm gonna attempt to keep character size small, but maybe a bit larger than what is current. Anywho, I pasted this sample screen together real quick to demonstrate what an enemy formation would look like, the only one missing from the party being BatEye.



I'm close to being a bit ahead of my deadline already, so tomorrow might be the day to draft the new animated ATB system, at least the planned setup. Also need to get some documentation done to properly put together the layout for ReGaL's Database/Enemies tab. So much to do...

So here's the progress so far for animated battlers series 1 cycle 1 :D

Ghost : Idle frames done.
BatEye : Idle frames done.
Basilisk : All frames done. Might make two attacks for bite and scratch.
Hellhound : All frames done. Then again, might edit all to make it look more 'wolf' like.
Hellraizer : Idle frames done. Not sure if I'm gonna stick with this particular concept though.

That's all for now, until tonight at least. Merry Christmas guys, have a good one!

[DerVVulfman]

My connection is currently being a $%#@( .... Otherwise, I woulda had a Christmas Bump. Waaahhh!

[Kain Nobel]

I'm having a rather irritating issue with certain Input buttons not responding (mostly Input::C and Input::Down). Not really sure what's causing the issue, as I'm only using RM's default input, but it happens in any project, whether play-testing from the editor or directly from the Game.exe application. No clue how to purposely recreate the issue, nor how to fix it, but I'm gonna see if AnyKey's input system resolves it tomorrow.

In other news, I've got more stuff added to my original snow field tileset; trees, rocks, logs, the start of an ice pattern, etc. (You can view an older version here.) Also, all objects have a normal and a "covered in snow" version now, so this tileset should be able to convey a smooth transition from a grassy, rocky forest to a snowy one.

Lastly, I've been trying to compose a very dreamy (read; sappy) track for a scene I'll be needing, it's supposed to convey some kind of "love at first sight, I'm stuck in a fantasy" kind of atmosphere. What I get instead is something that sounds like a "Bittersweet Reunion", so that's what I titled the damn thing. Gotta keep trying until the right track finally comes about.

I'm out! Hope everybody had a great Christmas :D

[JayRay]

btw, I want to acknowledge Kain Nobel - In one night of brainstorming, he helped me to click a switch in my brain that with a little work will completely resolve my mapping problems for good!!!!

Some members of this forum ahd tried to guide me through small filesizes, while I wanted my current game project to have a prerendered feel to them. Kain turns around and told me about a modular pre-render he had seen in another game, and it got me thinking on how to implement this in my game and keep my filesize small at the same time.

I think I have done it.

By making my maps 32x32, I can store corner and wall Terrain renders in my B, C, D, and E tilesets, each one is only like 468k each, and I can use enough variations for like say 8 of each of these corners, and 4 wall pieces per map. This will give me greatly increased productivity, as I can just change the tilesets that I use in the DATAbase, not the paint brush. I can then use either Yami's Overlay Map for a 'ground' paint of various areas I'd like to texture, or ground events that will always be below characters and events for everything from roads to terrain changes, even just globs of different flowers or whatever. My A5 Terrain acts as the base terrain, with all my little tile corners, walls and even some base terrain variations that do NOT look blocky in the game at all. I'm going to work on some more of these soon, but it's looking like a definite winner so far.

KAIN YOU ARE A GENIUS!!!

[Kain Nobel]

New cells for the animated Ghost battler! They represent ready, low HP, defend, approach (mirrored for return), attack and cast skill.



What makes these things a pain in the ass to fight is they have a tendency to go invisible at the slightest hint of damage, rendering physical attacks difficult to land. It is wise to reserve MP for these guys, as their "can't see me" defensive shenanigans have proven to be a good offensive maneuver. Still, invisibility only lasts a couple of short turns, which in ATB terms means not very long, so they shouldn't be too hard with patience and timing. Watch out when you start averaging a higher level though, these guys will kill your party off (and heal themselves) with the Drain spell.

Progress...

BatEye: Ready and Weak frames done.
Ghost: Most frames done, need hurt and (maybe) death animation.
Basilisk: All frames done.
Hellhound: All frames done.
Hellraizer: Ready and Approach frames done.

The balancing act of enemy routines has greatly improved. Fights can potentially drag on a little bit longer when the party averages at low levels, but enemies are mostly balanced between defending, healing themselves and doing chip damage attacks. At higher levels, they're quick to spam all they have until they're out of MP, but it really does work in your favor if equipment is kept up to date. Not changing out your armor is the difference between "haha, that tickles!" and "$*#^ I'm dead!"

Much happier with how it is now, it feels like the difficulty transition is not too hard, not too soft but just right.

That's all for now, hopefully will get some more work done today :D

[yamina-chan]

I'm currently tring to set up a choice box that runs under a timelimit. So that if you don't choose fast enough, a choice set my the game developer will be activated.
...It's proving more difficult to set up then I was hoping it would =b