Two game mechanics I would like to implement, How would/can these be pulled off? (Or the best way to pull them off) Options

[Teriki Tora]

Hello, I've actually gotten myself hooked on RPGMaker again ^^;; I always come back to such an easy to use Program that makes my favorite genre of games ^^;; However I actually have a couple of questions on how I can implement a couple of mechanics I want to use in an over-haul of my original Apprentice Diary game (WON'T even be called Apprentice Diary, but it will use a lot of scripts I had in the original).

I actually realized the biggest mistake I keep making in my RPG games. I have this "LARGE WORLD" for my characters to walk around in, but I work on the DETAILS of the world before I even figure out how I want to do my land masses. That's like working backwards in art; like creating the hands on the Mona Lisa before you even know where her head is going to be. (This is only one of things I realized @.@)

Now without further a-do, I would like to know if I can implement these systems:

1) "Create a Character"
Now, I know what you're thinking, "It's going to take a ton of programming to create the sprite exactly how a player wants it.", however that's not exactly the kind of "Create a character" I want to create. What I envisioned for the beginning of this overhaul, is that the main character chooses different classes that he/she attends (actually going to school at the beginning of the game), and depending on what classes you selected, is how your character's stats grow. So if I choose all fighter-based classes (FOR EXAMPLE), my Mana will grow slowly, while my Health, Offense, and Defense will grow rapidly. And on the other end of the spectrum, mana and speed grow, etc. etc. etc. But they ALSO determine what spells your character learns. So if I made the character take one "Black mage" class and one "Healer" class, they will learn Cure1 and Fire1 spells when they're leveling up, while a fighter will learn skills like "Jump" or "Dash" and never learn the other spells.

Now, I know of one way to do this, and that's to create a bunch of multiple copies of the main character. Considering I probably have six different class types, that's going to be a lot of multiples. And even if I were to slim down those classes, I still get about 4 or 5 distinct types. I would -LIKE- to know if there is an easier way to do this. Because even with 3 class-types, and four different classes for my character to take, I'm coming up with 12 different combinations, which means 12 main-character copies. That's why I'm asking if there's a simpler way to do this.

2) "ASCENSION!" *Bang Boom!*
Recognize the spell name? If not, let me give you a hint. It comes from the Breath of Fire series, allowed you to come up with a bunch of different combinations, and each form cost different amounts of Mana. That's right Breath of Fire 3's Ascension system. I'm looking to try and mimic that system. Where you can choose up to 3 different "genes" And that combination gives you a different transformation. Now, I'm not asking if this is possible, I'm actually asking if someone has recreated this system in code, and if it is public to use.

So why this system, which is probably the most difficult to replicate in RPG Maker, why not something else? Because I need my main character to be able to do something that no other character can. Because the character can be -WHATEVER- you want, the other characters that will party up with the main character will basically overshadow him/her because they're specialized. Have a black mage character? There's a mage character that is specialized in Black magic, want a Fighter character? There's basically a "tank" that covers that job better. The only thing I could come up with was mimicking the ascension system so that the main character can transform in to various different forms (And I'm not using dragons. Although they have plenty of elements, for my game world, sentient dragons are reserved as gods and gods only)

If someone has this system mimicked, awesome, am I able to use it? Otherwise, I need another thing that my main character can do that my others cannot... This is excluding the "Warp" and "Exit" spells that I plan on utilizing for my main character. It's such a handy feature that I can't really put them on characters that you can exchange in and out of the party.

Otherwise, I do know how to change sprites and statuses for being in a transformed form (to a certain extent), I'm just mainly wondering if it's possible to do a combination type of thing, not just general transformations.

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And yes, I am asking this as an RPGM script question on purpose, I'm hoping there's scripts out there that help with these functions that I'm trying to pull off.

This post has been edited by Teriki Tora: Aug 13 2011, 06:22 PM

[Turkwise]

#1 is quite possible, with a rewrite to the stat and leveling systems. I don't know how much you know about scripting, but you can remove the stat calculations based on the player's level, and replace that with a custom method. The method would look at custom stats stored for each character, determined by what classes they took. (for example, black magic = 2, healer = 3, etc or perhaps fighter = true if there's just one class to take in fighter) and determine stats and skills based on level that way. This would allow for unlimited combinations, greatly expandable if you choose, but you'd have to learn a bit about scripting if you don't know already.

As for #2, I can't help you there...

[Teriki Tora]

Thanks for the reply actually, I did find a Class-based Stat system script, but I would have the same problem with point allocation to certain classes (making multiple classes). I do know scripting as well, but not Ruby, I'm stronger in Java-scripting. I can look into the stat problem via script, however I doubt I'd be able to get the engine to react in a way I want it to. I might need to skip the idea, as thus far, what I've tried, all result in multiple copies of the main character, causing a lot of unwanted trash.

As for #2, yeah I've looked around myself, and I haven't found anyone that's mimicked the ascension system either. I figured it'd be an interesting system to use if I had something like transformations, or even using it to allow different summoned creatures (Humanoid + Thunder + Force = Zeus or something). Sounds like I might have to think of something else my main character can do that none of the others can.

[Turkwise]

I might need to skip the idea, as thus far, what I've tried, all result in multiple copies of the main character, causing a lot of unwanted trash.

The problem you're having is thinking that stats must be tied into the actor's stat parameters. (the boxes on the database actors tab) What you need to do to get this to work is to bypass this entirely.

I'm not sure if by "Java-scripting" you mean Java or JavaScript. Either way, they're both largely based on C, as is Ruby, so learning Ruby shouldn't be too difficult. (it wasn't for me, having had experience with C++ and Java) Becoming familiar with the RMXP scripts is probably the bigger hurdle, but one that must be overcome if you're to do any serious scripting yourself.

[Teriki Tora]

I'm not sure if by "Java-scripting" you mean Java or JavaScript. Either way, they're both largely based on C, as is Ruby, so learning Ruby shouldn't be too difficult. (it wasn't for me, having had experience with C++ and Java) Becoming familiar with the RMXP scripts is probably the bigger hurdle, but one that must be overcome if you're to do any serious scripting yourself.

Eh, I'm a stickler with spelling and following the auto-correct feature, I put in JavaScripting and it was all like "NO NO! THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL THAT!" So I put a dash in to shut it up ^^;;. I know C++, although it's a lot tougher than Java, which is basically the simple equivalent (I'm pretty sure it's JavaScript, considering that Unity3D used it... JS files). But I'm not the programming type, so even if I do understand code (and was able to alter my game to only allow 3 party-members rather than 4, and altered all the screens to reflect that change), I wouldn't be able to program something to completely omit the actor database boxes (or even harder, just one actor's set of database boxes).

I mean, I'm more of a writer, I'd rather write the story of a game than programming; thinking of something radical over something logical is more my thing. I'll look into the scripts to see how it figures out stats later, but I won't promise changing anything. Mainly because I'm giving the main character multiple different paths, while the extra characters stay on one path (stat-growth wise). To have multiple different stat and skill-learning paths for just one character (at this moment) goes into the "feature-creep" category. It's a nice feature to have, but to change my effort to the script and trying to get it to alter only one character's stats depending on choices made in the game, is something to look at later.
*Opens up file and begins to jot down story path again*