MrMo's ABS Ultimate

[DerVVulfman]

BUMP!
To Version 3.2

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The attack, skill and item systems have been reworked in a manner so that when an attack (or like) action is decided, the system can first begin to play the character's animation and wait a litttle while before actually performing the action calculation. I know that some people reading this may think... 'Huh?' ... so let me explain.

If you pressed the attack button in the original system and had your character swing to attack, your target already GOT hit even though your character just started his animation. Your target already starts to get knocked back even though your sword just got raised rather than on the downward slice. Visually, this is ... Ugh!

So now, weapons, skills and items have an animation delay value associated with them. If you have a sword, you could set it to a small delay (hopefully to match your animation) so your target gets his just moments after the animation starts... and when your character's sword actually connects. On the other hand, you can set it to a slightly larger delay (again to match your animation) so a sledgehammer takes a longer time to swing and hit your target. This can be applied to the skills where the character clasps his hands before a cool effect, or to items where the character's arm appears to throw something before the item is generated and hurled at the target.

You don't need to have these delays and can set the delays to '0' so they work like the original system, but now the system can give a more visually correct appearance while being more challenging. After all.... your target may actually dodge your blow now there's a delay after you trigger your attack. ^_^

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To get the enemies to function like this, the aggressiveness system was reworked. No longer are enemy attacks and skills based on the old "frame_count / aggressiveness" system, but is using a more fluid delay and action system that mimics the player's.

The player has a feature called 'button mash' which controls how much of a delay the player has before he can perform an attack. Now introduced to the enemies, they now have their own mash time that is augmented with the aggressiveness system. This means that if a player uses a skill that prevents them from performing another attack for 2 seconds, a matching enemy may have to wait 2 seconds themselves. In the meantime, a more aggressive enemy may have only a 1 second delay while a less aggressive enemy might need to wait 3 seconds.

* * *

It was found that the 'trigger on death' system was rendered ineffective on the upgrade that used the SDK Addon script. This was unexpected, though technically it should have been foreseen. I won't go into actual details on why it went 'Boom', but it has been reworked so it now functions again. The only caveat is that you need to use a new system to create your triggers. It is not difficult. Just annoying. Your trigger values must now be held within an array. So your original triggers such as Trigger 0 must now read as Trigger [0], and a trigger that turns on switch #2 will read as Trigger [1,2] rather than Trigger 1 2. All it entails is that you surround your values in brackets and put commas between the values.

Don't forget that you have 'default values' now. Very likely, your config already has the trigger set to '0', so adding Trigger [0] to your enemies isn't necessary anymore. ^_^

Yeah... if you didn't notice that before, you probably could reduce your regular enemy's comment list a great deal now.

* * *

Something totally nagged me when I got paralyzed by the zombies in my demo. Even though my player's paralyze status disappeared, I was still moving slowly and couldn't effectively attack. What the heck? I found that while I didn't have party members with me, the actors in the party were having to handle the temporary status afflictions as the player. Oookay...

The real problem was how the system handled the remove status system. While the system would cycle through every actor to apply and update states, it 'exited out' of the system once it found the first ailment to remove. So if Aluxes and Basil were paralyzed, it would find Aluxes's paralyse state and cure him but leave Basil stuck. Ugh. While the player could actually attack, his move speed was stuck because Basil was still listed as paralyzed. THAT had to be fixed.... and fixed it was. The initial status effect system wasn't made for a full party, but now should handle companions with ease.

* * *

Landmines....

Everyone probably uses the Game_Landmines class for ballistics, but almost no one uses the interpreter's simplified landmines command. Who would? You have no hit points for a mine. The player cannot place them as ordinance. You cannot give them a range or make them chain together.

But a minor change was made. The plain interpreter driven landmine routine only used the default '99' explosion effect. Pretty lame. So now the explosion effect is keyed on the item whose damage stat its using or the landmine stats in the configuration system, like the others. Not a big deal, but something better than what it was.

* * *

Did anyone notice that the confuse state for MrMo's ABS didn't work? He had the state available as s configurable option, but that was all it was... a configurable. Now, you have an actually functioning confuse state. If confused, the character will move erratically and you have a 50/50 chance that a key pressed will or won't work. Careful about being in battle with that. You might not be able to use a remedy that can cure you in time!!! Yep, that's evil...

* * *

And finally, a number of methods used have been renamed and reordered in the system for convenience and neatness. Within the ABS engine section, all the enemy based methods are grouped together, followed by the player's methods, companion methods, and so forth.



........ Oh, and a few people wondered why I gave the player's traveling party members the nickname, Companions, rather than something like Game_Frinds, Game_Allies, or the like. The answer is simple. I'm a fan of Doctor Who. Those who travel with him are called Companions.