What's up, RMers?

[Taylor]

I've been thinking on and off about how to handle scan/analysis of enemies. As I showed off months back, I originally had a system that instead of showing specific numbers or skills, the enemy analysis gave a blurb. This blurb varied depending on the character that last used a scan skill. You could view all obtained blurbs in the main menu.

• While this allowed for a varied system and showing character personality in their observations of the enemies, I would have to write something for every enemy for every party member.
  
• It also - as others pointed out - gave the impression of needing every character to scan enemies, either for completionism or simply out of necessity, and that the character with the best analysis power should just be used alone. This is regardless of the unlock data being shared across save files.
  

I want a simple system, but I also feel like I want something more than "get all info from defeating an enemy", since that would also lock out bosses on initial runs. (Although I may make it that some enemies have hidden data when fighting them anyway?)

• I think it's been suggested before of a system where enemies require a certain number of defeats to unlock stages of data. That's one idea, but it still runs into the same problem and it sounds tedious or unclear how to achieve data stage unlock.
  
• Another method could be copying Persona and that a mission control character can be asked to do the analysis which takes a few turns to do. The problem there is that there doesn't exist a mission control character. However there does exist a character who makes sense to have analytical ability. This makes me biased to making the analysis/scan ability an actual skill, so it works for character narrative.
  
• I got a suggestion earlier to make analysis work through something during enemy attacks, like reaction time events. It could be that during some attacks a character can avoid it with a button press, and this opening is what gives them the ability to give an enemy the once over and obtain bestiary info. However I do understand people don't exactly like QTEs.
  

As an aside, I will probably still have blurb-based enemy data (or I could be lazy and just display STR/INT/DEF/AGI as per usual), but it will be more generic instead of character based, given half of them are optional/obtained whenever the player wants.

EDIT: Addendum; currently the system functions that an Analysis skill is cast, enemy data is updated, and then when it's the player's turn, they can press [Q] when selecting a target to see data. This is in contrast to the Final Fantasy method (select data for a few seconds) or earlier Atlus games (full screen data only after using Analysis, have to use it again to check data again). It does though require being in select single enemy target mode, so it could perhaps be a separate function.

... alternately I could remove in-battle data entirely, though I'm not sure how much of a detriment that will be at this stage.

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

I think it's been suggested before of a system where enemies require a certain number of defeats to unlock stages of data. That's one idea, but it still runs into the same problem and it sounds tedious or unclear how to achieve data stage unlock.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey has a system like that. You have to fill out an analyze bar to get all the info on the target and the number of defeated enemies to do so varies. You never have to beat the same monster more than 5/6 times to accomplish this, though.

I'm also using a scan script in tandem with a bestiary script: the scan only reveal basic info on the enemy such as stats as well as elemental weaknesses and status vulnerabilities while the bestiary offers the whole package.

[Ahzoh]

Infrasonic sounds can cause anxiety, uneasiness, extreme sorrow, nervous feelings of revulsion or fear, chills down the spine, and feelings of pressure on the chest... on top of not being consciously detectable...

Maybe I should incorporate that in my horror game... >=D

[kyonides]

I've been trying to craft a Gem script, even if it might be predictable but it keeps getting harder to complete.

By now I've received one to several requests to keep it simple, to forget about actual gem forging or synthesis and some other things. Sadly, I wouldn't feel OK if I took such a easygoing decision just to get it ready for publishing. How could I simply throw away an idea that inadvertently haunted me for quite some time? That would sound quite contradictory IMHO. Perhaps the scripts ends up being quite different from what I first imagined or watched on some game but wouldn't it make it more interesting, more appealing to the viewer or player?

What a very stressful situation for a Maker fan!

[Taylor]

I have a "side" project I've been poking every so often. (It's currently getting subjected to my purchased Time Fantasy tiles.) I was stuck on how to do the world map, so I generated one in a generator, used it as a panorama, and went to paint tiles over it.

The resulting map was 216x144 tiles (6912x4608px), and it lagged VXAce so much. From 60fps to 35-40fps with a 95% empty map. It wasn't the panorama image, it was the map size itself. I wondered for a moment how well VXAce dealt with its own sample maps so I tried its big world map sample, and it was perfectly fine - that map is 140x140 tiles.

A short experiment and I discovered a map 160x144 was perfectly fine, even with the massive panorama image. (It does however take about 4 seconds to load the map if the panoroma is present.) When I increased it to 180 tiles wide, I started getting 55-57fps.

So there you have it. VXAce cannot handle a map beyond about 140-160 tiles either direction (or perhaps 19600-23040 tiles total) without beginning to curl over, and I didn't even add varied tiles or events. (In fact running around the map gave an infrequent 57fps, so I dunno if it can even deal with 160 tiles.) So I dunno how well that'd go.

Addendum: A map from my main project is 150x62, 9300 tiles. That's far beyond the total tiles of the above mentioned maps, and I haven't experienced any lag issues. So it's probably a total tile issue.

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

I have a "side" project I've been poking every so often. (It's currently getting subjected to my purchased Time Fantasy tiles.) I was stuck on how to do the world map, so I generated one in a generator, used it as a panorama, and went to paint tiles over it.

The resulting map was 216x144 tiles (6912x4608px), and it lagged VXAce so much. From 60fps to 35-40fps with a 95% empty map. It wasn't the panorama image, it was the map size itself. I wondered for a moment how well VXAce dealt with its own sample maps so I tried its big world map sample, and it was perfectly fine - that map is 140x140 tiles.

A short experiment and I discovered a map 160x144 was perfectly fine, even with the massive panorama image. (It does however take about 4 seconds to load the map if the panoroma is present.) When I increased it to 180 tiles wide, I started getting 55-57fps.

So there you have it. VXAce cannot handle a map beyond about 140-160 tiles either direction (or perhaps 19600-23040 tiles total) without beginning to curl over, and I didn't even add varied tiles or events. (In fact running around the map gave an infrequent 57fps, so I dunno if it can even deal with 160 tiles.) So I dunno how well that'd go.

Addendum: A map from my main project is 150x62, 9300 tiles. That's far beyond the total tiles of the above mentioned maps, and I haven't experienced any lag issues. So it's probably a total tile issue.

It never ceases to amaze me the crushing downgrade the map engine suffered in VXAce.

[Taylor]

Wait, oh.

Oh.

Goddamnit.

The problem is NeonBlack's no autoshadows script. I didn't even remember I was using this. (I didn't even realise it was in my other project, since it's more VXA-styled.) I started investigating to see if I could corner off the map and draw it in segments - not sure if that's how viewports work - and then wondered, hey, maybe the problem is this autoshadow stuff.

So. yeah.

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

Ha, that reminds me of a similar issue I once had. When testing my game, I noticed the first enemy in the bestiary died in a single hit and the second monster had basically infinite HP, regardless of how much HP they had in the database.

Turns out I had a script to break the HP limit on enemies that I had completely forgotten about. Oops.

[Taylor]

VXAce doesn't have a damage cap by default. That doesn't work out so nice with damage pop.

So I fixed that. (It's in apply_guard along with a few other elements, since apply_guard is the last damage calculation done.)

PHP Code:

<?php 

value = [[value, -9999].max, 9999].min 

[yamina-chan]

Because it's been lost in the shoutbox again: You might want to chec out the Humble Game Making Bundle over at humblebundle.com

From the describtion:

Content Hidden

Let the games begin! Sure, playing games is fun, but what if you could easily make your own games? You could have action, romance, weird plot twists and plot holes, and even half-centaur/half-apricot monsters if you so desire. The options are aplenty! All you need is the software to get to work, and that's what we've got here (plus some games too!).

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There are a lot of good things in that. 12$ will currently get you the entire collection. With the included Cupons, you can get the rm2k, rm2k3 and the XP from the Humble Store for 90% off each, so roughly an other 10$ perhaps. Let's say it's 22$ in total; that's about the price of the rm2k alone normally. VXace is also in this, and lots of other things.

Basically, 4 of the RPG makers for the Price of 1.
That's too good of a deal to not mention it, I'd say XD