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Hello everyone
I'm trying to learn the basics of scripting so far with some tutorials suggested. I need to learn a bit of scripting, to create windows showing up hero HP, enemy HP and so on. I do not really want to create battlesystems or menues or stuff like (Actually, I'd love to do so, but not in the near future).
I have made a battle system done with eventy, but I hate 'klicking' on an enemy to ask for it's HP. That sucks. I just want a window over their head to show their HP.
Anways...
I read quite a lot with confusing words, several phrases, new vocabulary and now I wanted to give it a shot on my own.
As I went through this tutorial, I wanted to create my own window.
This is the 'script' I came up with:

Spoiler: ShowHide

class Self_HP < Window_Base
  def initialize
    super(448, 160, 96, 64)
    self.contents = Bitmap.new(width - 32, height - 32)
    refresh
  end
  def refresh
    self.contents.clear
    self.contents.draw_text(0, 0, 100, 100, "Text.")
  end
end

   
To call the 'script' I use the command '$window = Self_HP.new'.
... and it does show up a window at the wanted location, but it does not show the text massage anywhere on the screen. I changed several numbers of the draw_text thingy (is it a method? Object? Whatsoever, I read so much, I'm confusing myself with the phrases anyway) but it still does not show up the next (e.g., I changed it to the same variables as I put in "super()"). The typical "Is you Mainscript correct? Does it have a font defined?" and so on does not seem to be the problem, because I allready took the main script from other working projects.
Edit: Looks like my window is too small to include a text. If I extend the window itself, the text can be seen. However, there is "huge" space between the borders of the Windowd and the actually text. Can this somehow be made smaller? I really just want a small window showing 2 variables (HP), like "100/102" - There's no need for more space than that.
I may repeat myself: I'm totally new, so maybe this is just something plain simple I absolutly do not get.

Next thing is, the window won't close for me. The tutorial states to use '$window.dispose' to dispose the window made in the tutorial, but sadly it does not tell me how to dispose any window just created. (Using '$window.dispose' results in an error.)
Edit: This is important. As I don't know how to actually refresh some variables or something (Like "Has the variable/Hp changed?" -> "change the shown number aswell), I want to erase the allready created window and create a new one with the correct numbers. I don't really get what  $window.dispose does, so it sometimes delets something, sometimes it does not and it just confuses me. So the question is: How do I delete shown windows?
Edit2: Done, thanks Blizz.

But while we are at it, there's another question (somehow) fitting to this problem: How do I show up variables defined in the databes/due to events? Like Hero's HP? I want this window to show up the actuall and the maximum HP of my (only) hero1 in the party in exactly that window (Actuall HP / Max HP). Do I have to first define a @variable and set it (=) to an 'normal' variable? (Yet again, those 'global', 'class' and other variables keep confusing me. Need to read those tutorials again).
Edit: Guess I figgured this out. Nevermind that then.
Edit2: ...It just does not refresh. I solved this with deleteing the old window and create a new one with the new numbers, but there is a problem. (Look above)
Edit3: Done.

Next thing is how to set up conditions (I did NOT read the tutorial for that so far, so maybe it will be clear after I read it. However, I'm asking it now to not open another thread later on or eventually double post).
I have a variable asking how many enemys the battle has. For every enemy excisting, there shall be a window over their head showing up their actuall/max HP, just like for my hero. I thought about something like this in general: (Of course, this is not something implementable)

Spoiler: ShowHide

HowManyEnemys? == 1
     Then create_window (over enemy head)
     draw_text("actuallhp / maxhp")
HowManyEnemys? == 2
     Then Do as above
     create_window2 (over second enemy head)
     draw_text("actuallhpmonster2 / maxhpmonster2")
HowManyEnemys? == 3
     Then do as above
     create_window3 (over third enemy head)
     draw_text("actuallhpmonster3 / maxhpmonster3")
HowManyEnemysAreDefeated? == HowManyEnemys #Every enemy should be dead until windows are removed (bc you can attack corpses (in my system))
     Then allwindows.dispose

First of all: Is this possible? It does not sound complicated (for me), but I'd better ask.
Second: Is it easy to set up or do I need to know a lot more about scripting?
Edit: I solved this somehow else, with a simple conditional branch "How many enemys?" -> 1? -> Call Enemy1_HP // -> 2? Call Enemy1_HP and Enemy2_HP and so on. Does work so far. However, I still got stuck in deleating and newcreating windows. Look above.
Edit2: Done.



Edit: How do I ask for an enemies' name in the database? I want to a window to show up, telling the name of [EnemyNumber10InDatabase]. How do I do that?


So, since that's quite some questions to ask for in the first place, I'd be very thankfull if somewould would help me out. Maybe it's something that easy that I have just overseen, but, as stated, ... I'm new to that kind of stuff.

Thank you very much for reading this!

Greetings,
StorocnekXx

Hello everyone and thank you for opening this topic.
I currently stuck at game designing and I somehow have no idea to solve this, unless I'll write and post my thoughts there. So if this is wrong here, or wrong in general, please (re)move this post where it belongs. Thank you very much.


So, what's this topic about?
The title probably says it all, but this is something I really keep asking me on and on:
How much does a battle system effect the game itself and what battle system will catch the players eye?

If I wanted to design a game, I want it to be unique in some way. Not something everyone can pull of, or something people might compare to other works. Having a unique battle system is one of the most important parts for me if playing a game. There are many ways of battle systems, but for the ease of it I want to put them into two major groups:

Turn based system (TBS) - Charakter have their turns, perfom actions, wait until several time has passed, perfom another action and so on.

Action battle system (ABS) - Charakter move freely, act freely, act when they want and what they want.

The thing for me is the following:
If I play a TBS, I feel like I'm less capable of what is happening in the fight. I have only a small amount of possibilities to turn a fight around. I have to plan a strategy and use my actions wisely. If I make a mistake however, I have to wait quite some time to act again, while enemys have time to act, counteract and I have little to none possibility to prevent them doing so. But, however, If I get the hang of it, pull of a good strategy, the battle seems to be to easy. Let's say you found out an enemy is weak to fire - What reason would there to not only use fire-based attacks? Maybe you ran out of Mana or whatever, but that's basically it. If you found out an enemy will use an high-damage spell every third turn, you will protect yourself every third turn. Of course, there are battle systems and games which will prevent that, by changing elemental weaknesses and strategies of enemys, no doubt, but, again, this is just for the ease of it.

If I play an ABS, I feel like I need to react as fast as possible, I feel like I have a lot to care about and a lot to think about - How to dodge the spell? What casting time do my spells have? What positioning do I need? And so on. Thing is, sometimes it's to much, sometimes it's to little. If I figure out, that an enemy is weak to fire, I can continue casting fire-spells, but I still need to hit them, I need to place them and I need to keep in mind that an enemy is probably moving aswell. Same problem with the TBS: If I make a mistake, cast a 3 second-spell into the middle of nowhere, the enemies have a lot of time to counteract.

That's that.

Let's say you want to create your own game and you definatly want to have battles (having no battles in the game is no option in this particular case) - Isn't the battle system one of the most important parts? A huge amount of time passes during battles, they give the feeling of actually being in the game, being part of it and so one. If the battle system sucks, the game itself seems to suck. You get the feeling like "Ehrmehrgehrd, again a boring fight I have to finnish, so that the story can go on". But if the battle system is good and you enjoy fighting, it's more like "Hell, yeah, I managed to pull off a good combo this fight, that's awesome!" and you get the feeling of being somehow "good" at that game, don't you?

For me this is clear: If the battle system is good, I can enjoy the game. If the battle system is might, I probably won't play the game for long.

So as most of us try to create our own games, I really want to know how much it is important for you to have a good battle system and what does it take to be a good one?

Does the battle system has to be something new?

Of course, I love ABS and I love TBS. I even like some shooters. But if I wanted to create my own game, I do not want to use any of this, because it feels like everyone uses them.

For example, let's take Blizz-ABS. It's awesome, I also put it in something I made up. It does what it should do, works fine, and even I am able to set up some battles and new spells with it. But as good as it is - it's just a regular ABS.

Let's take the GTBS from GubiD. It's also awesome. It's also easy to set up, and it also does what it should do. But again - It's just a regular Tactical battle system.

Let's even take the TBS from the XP itself: It offers a fair and common turn based system, which is easy to set up and stuff like that. But - I'm repeating - it's just a regular TBS.

I don't want to make any of these battle systems bad, the opposite is the case, I love those examples, and I love them being used in other games (FF-Tactics for example!), but I just don't like them in my own games.

But here lies the problem: If I wanted to create my own battle systems, I either need to put a LOT of work into eventing - Or learn scripting. I can't script a single bit (which is why I pointed out that even I can adjust BlizzABS), so that's not an option for me. Eventing would be the other deal. I set up an Sideview-Battle-System, but it's only for one Charakter agains a maximum of 3 enemies and is probably utterly boring and every scripted one would be better; that's for sure. I have a lot of Ideas for battle systems I'd like to use, but I just don't have the possibilities to set them up, because I lack the skill.

And that's exactly why I set up this topic. If I can not set up my own battle system, which forces me to use one a lot of people know, which is common, which is known, which is easy to set up and everything else - Will the people say "Oh yeah, that's BlizzABS, I know that", "Well, typical system", "Nothing special", "I don't like playing copied battle systems" OR will people look over it and say "Well, I don't really care about fights, I want to see the story" and so on?

That's really something that bothers me, as I, as stated, can't set up anything on my own in the nearest future, which will make myself happy, so that I am stuck in progressing, because if I don't like playing my own game, because I don't like my battle system, I have no motivation to carry on creating it. (I mean, why would I create something I don't like myself?)

Okay, so, well, that's a lot of text. I try to summarize it:
TL; DR: How important is a unique battle system for you? Would you play a game which uses "typical" systems like "BlizzABS" for the sake of the story/others or would you rather be sad for not having a unique battle system?

Thank you very much for reading this. I just came up with it. It may be full of mistakes, but I just made this up to put my thoughts somewhere. I'd be really glad if someone just writes something like "Aha", so that at least someone is responding. I don't expect anyone to join a discussion, but I really just wanted to drop my thoughts somewhere. Again, thank you for reading.


Greetings,
StorocnekXx

Hey everyone
Because I found this thread, I thought I'd share my music with someone, who want's to listen to it.
For now, it's not much to listen so (2 songs exactly xD) but at least I gave it a try.
I'd love to hear about feedback though.
I'm an amateur and know little about the programm I'm using, so I'm trying to do the best of little knowlegde.
Feel free to listen to it.
Bad/Good thing is, I wouldn't even know how to put those songs into a genre, so I can't tell what you are up to. Something orhcestral with electronic or something.
Have fun and enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/insert_name_sc/sachen-die-was-machen

https://soundcloud.com/insert_name_sc/like-i-care

Hey everyone!
I asked myself, is there a script or something which let's the player create his own skills?
Let me explain what I thought off.

The Player does not like the fact that every fire-based skill deals tons of damage and every water-based skill heals.
So he wants that to change.
He also does not like that all his magic skills are affected by his INT.
So he wants that to change.

He then talks ingame to a magic stone (whatever) and a window opens, asking him what skill he likes to create and he gets several options offered, looking something like this:

warning, a lot of pictures: ShowHide

Leads to...

Leads to...

Leads to...

Now let me explain how this should work:
Picutre 1:
First of all, you select a charakter, who shall have his spells changed. In this picture, I choose number 1.
- HP indicates his health.
- SP indicates his specialpoints/mana/whatever
- ZP indicates his "spellcreationpoints". creating a spell reserves those points. if he has 8 points, the charakter can create 1 spell that costs 8, two spells that cost 4, one that costs 5 and one that costs 3 and so on. he does not need to have them all used but he can not use more. removing/chaning a spell gives him back those points of course. they are only reserved. the amount of ZP needed by a spell is calculated on how much damage it does, what scaling it has and so on.
- CL insidcates the "creation level". if a spell should deal an enourmous amount of damage, the creation level needed for especially that spell is higher than a spell which deals only a small amount of damage. If the spell needs a higher lvl than the charakter has, it is not able to be created. the CL needed is calculated on how much damage it does, what scaling it has and so on.
- A indicates how much spells the charakter is able to equip together at any given time.
- "Spellname1" is the name of the spell
- "5firedmg" is dealt if the spell is used
- "0.4 Int" means that if the spell is used the damage is increased by 0.4*charaktersINT and added up to the 5firedmg as firedmg itself. (if a spell has 2 types of damage, like "Spellname 2" a factor (0.2 int) adds up both 0.2*INT fire AND 0.2*earth damage (which is why the scaling for the second spell is lower while still having the same cost)
- "single" resembles how many enemys/charakter are hit (single/all)
- "lvl1" indicates what CL is needed to create that spell
- "4 heal" indicates that 4 health is restored upon using that skill
- "0.3 Int" (together with heal) adds up 0.3*INT heal to every charakter affected by the heal
- "All" indicates that every enemy/charakter is affected

Picture number 2:
I clicked (enter, action button, whatever) on charakter one and i get the possibilites to:
- "change a spell" allows to select an allready created spell to change it
- "create a new spell" allows to create a new one, adding it to the list. only possible if the char has less skills learned than he is able to have (See: "A")
- "delete a spell" allows to select a spell to delete it, refunding it's ZP. The player is asked "do you really want to delete the "Spellname 3, 5 heal, 0.1 int, single, lvl2"?

Picture number 3:
I clicked (see above) "change a spell" and have the possibility to select one of my allready learned spells to change them.

Picture number 4:
That's where the fun starts.
- Enter name here: You have the option to enter a name here. Else it's just "Spellname 1/2/3/..." This name IS shown in the manue or something as it's name
- Damage: You can, by selecting the type of damage (scroll with arrows keys/'wasd' over a the damagetype you want, click enter/action key) and then pressing the right or the left arrow key do increase/decrease the damage by 1. using the up or down arrow key increases/decreases the damage by 10.
- Heal: Same as above, only does not deal damage, but heals (D'oh)
- Scaling: same selection as above, but right/left arrows keys increase/decrease by 0.1 and up/down increases/decreases by 1. The scaling factores your statistics in the damage dealt. Exampe: Scaling of 0.4 int means: if you have 40 int, 10damage is additionaly dealt to the hit enemy in the type of the selected element(s). Same as with heal. (With this option it's possible to have higher healing, if you have a lot of strength if you choose to have a high str-scaling for example)
- State added: Select a state with right/left arrow key, which shall be added if the spells hits. (positive or negative)
- State removed: Select a state with right/left arrow key, which shall be removed if the spell hits. (positive or negativ)
- Hit: select, if the spell hits one target or every target (in range/in the group, depending on the battlesystem used (database: One enemy/Ally enemys // One ally/All Allies))
- Animation: This is probably quite difficult. The player may recieve "Animations" throughout the gameplay, which he can use her as the animation for his spells. Those animations are not done by himself, but they are in the database. I have no idea of scripting, so i don't know if it's possible to do that like this. If the player once receives "Fire 1 - Animation" in the story, he is able to select this animation for every spell he wants.
- Suggested class: This is totally optional. If someones uses a class-system, one can add up that some classes are unable to learn special skills and some get a bonus. for example, if you are a mage, you deal 10% more damage with this spell (calculated at the end) and so one. This bonus depends on the skill itself and may hopefully be configured via the script (for example: "If firedamage is over 300 -> Monks are forbidden to learn, mages get 10% bonus";;; Other example: "If earth damage = 0 -> Gemoancer is forbidden to learn, every other class gets 5% bonus)
- Forbidden class: See above, optional. Maybe some classes are forbidden to learn magic or THAT spell especially. Every class not mentioned here is allowed to learn that class.
- SP cost: Using this spell will consume 2SP/Mana/Whatever
- CL Needed: Indicates what CL the charakter needs to have. If the CL is too high, the spell can not be created
- ZP reserved: reserves the ZP of a charakter (see above, "ZP")
- create!: will create the spell respectively change the spell if you choose the option "change a spell" instead of "create a new spell". It can only be created, if the requierements (free space (see "A"), CL is high enough, enough ZP are unreserved) are met. Else it's "Can not be created!"





ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooookay.
Well, THAT was a lot of explanation and I know this is not something easy.
Thing is, I might not be the only one who'd like to have this kind of scripts.
If someone ever wants to do this, please tell me so, so that I can merry you and give you everything you want and need. O_O"
This is just basic ideas (haha..), if someone really wants to do this to help me, I'd probably want some other elements/stats and so on. This shall just be a basic idea behind it...


I'd love to also hear comments about that idea.
Would you like to see that ingame?
Would you be pleased by the idea of creating your own spells?
Would it be to much afford for you?
Would you rather want given spells than creating your own?

And last but not least:
Thanks a lot for reading! It means a lot to me if someone reads my posts carefully and eventually share's his or her own ideas.

Thank you and greetings,
StorocnekXx

[individuality]

Hey boys 'nd girls.
I thought I'd introduce myself after I signed up here. I'm a 20 year old guy from germany, but I hope you'll still be able to understand my english.
I got the XP maker quite some years ago, but I, however, never set up anything which took my more efford than making a cup of coffee.
That said, I never got even close to finish a project at all and mostly I'm working alone, which is probably a reason for my slow progress.
Sad point is, my brain has so many ideas, so many things that want to be created, but I lack so much scripting skills, that most of those things will stay there forever and longer. I was able to create a side-screen-1-person-battle-system only done by events at least, but that's nothing much compared to the awesome scripts found around here. Yet, I lack time and motivation to learn scripting, so I somehow am in need of scripts from other persons. Sheesh. :c

My focus of my never-finished projects is probably the standart RPG-type. Something fantasy, smash some monsters, become awesome and so on. Probably getting boring from time to time, but yeah. They are all kind of the same in some point. ;p Still, most of the stuff I am doing is for myself. No one really tests my games beside myself. I just don't think they are worthy showing up, so I'd rather keep them for my friends and me.

The most important part of a game for me is individuality in terms of charakter development. I just don't like games where your main charakter is forced to be a swordsman, the girl is a mage, your final weapon is the ultimate sword and your main attribute is strength and so on. I just want to be free and change whatever I like. note: the "Bard" or "Dancer"-Class is always awesome, no matter what game you are playing.

If I had to rate myself in terms of doing projects with the RPGXP, I'd probably not get good grades, but I'll make it as good as for me possible and it would probably look something like this:

• Scripting 0/10 (Guess what.)


• Eventing 6/10 (Had no other choice, but I lack a lot of knowledge.)


• Story 2/10 (See above. Something fantasy-like stuff. There is potential, but I can't make use out of it)


• Mapping 3/10 (It's like "C'mon, finish that stupid map, I wanna move on to the next one", resulting in rubbish.)


• Graphic Design 1/10 (So, yeah. I recently got paint.net... Now THAT'S something, isn't it?)


• Music 4/10 (My friend does some music and tought me how to do that aswell. I think there are some... MP3 which aren't that horrible.)


• [[Ideas 8/10 (If I had the knowledge, time and possibilities to, I'd create super-awesome games! s: )]]


• Overall 2.6/10 (If you ever play my projects - Don't say I haven't warned you! )

The game I am currently working on is called... na, currently I'm not really working on a specific project, there are more or less some projects I keep oppening once a day, add a character/map or something and close it again. They all have the same main-charakter, called John McLaren, but in fact they are absolutly not related to each other.
One is about a dompteur in a circus, being transformed into animals himself, needing to recolour the world, with the 'powers' the animals provide. That's JML - Grey Circus.
Next one is about a normal day-life of a computer-junkee getting the chance to be in his own videogames, while stil needing to have his normal-day life. It does not have a name so far, but is completly oldschool somehow, since you have no charakter walking on a map, but you can change the map with the arrow keys only and every 'map' has it's own sorrounding and charakters there, like a point-and-click without the point-and-click (I accidently wrote 'point-and-lick', lol.) features.
Last but not least we have JML - Endurace, which is more a Side-Quest orrientated-Story, with the main part being 'Endurace' - the essenz of life itself. Lost HP in this game are hardly regained, so it's very important to dodge attacks, block and so on. It's setting is totally underground. This is the game I'm mostly spending my time on and can be seen in my (super-hyper-paint.net-photoshopped) avatar on the left. Yay.

So, I guess that's a lot of text for now. If there is anything you want to know, you'd like to ask, you'd like to offer or you'd like to talk about, please, feel free to contact me via PM or right below.

Oh, just something I'd like to drop here:
If someone is totally bored and wants to script something, I'm in need of a little bit. Some more statistics (not only atk, magic, pdef, mdef) would be nice and how they are gained should be something very specific a definatly need a new script for.

Well,...
Thank you a lot for reading this post!
I really got into the mood of writing all this, so I'd better let it flow, else I'd not have the time to.
Feel free to react however you want!

greetings,
StorocnekXx (which is pronounced 'Stroco'!  )