GTBS v1.5.1.4 - A FFT Styled Battle System (5/19/2010)

[Dylan Kenny]

Cool, seems like a shining force tactical battle system.
Im also currently using ZTBS, but who knows, ill have to wait for an update on this becasue it has great features

 

[masquerade__]

Similar to your last problem I would guess. You now have a victory event that is met before you start and thus you win immediately. That may be the root of this and the other problem you mentioned. If not, please pm me with a link to the download of your demo so I can figure out what is happening.

I actually hadn't specified any victory condition. I'll try to get a demo up so you can check it out.

 

[ubcfreakiest]

I hate to chime in to give some major change ideas to such a great script but I've been slightly spoiled. The only turn based strategy games like this that I've ever played are Shining Force 1 and 2. The simplicity of shining force made it very easy to control and based on the TBS's I've seen created and the many screenshots I've seen of other tactical battle games Shining Force seems to be the most intuitive as far as controls. Let me explain...
http://www.ignitionmaine.com/Pictures/s ... e_move.gif[/IMG]
Like I asked about earlier it seems to me that the logical first step is not a choice. It's move. When you move it's not a cursor where you select a location and confirm, you actually control the character itself which seems much more interactive. It gives you a greater feeling of direct control. If you don't want to move then you can immedietely open the menu to make your selection. Most of the time in a tactical battle you are trying to get from one end of the map to your enemy anyways. I know this is a very subtle thing and seems like it wouldn't be worth changing but the simpler the battle system is to play, the more intuitive and fun it is. I also should mention that while moving, you can also hit cancel which brings up the cursor and you can look around the entire map to see your individual character stats, and how they are doing. (this would subtract the need for a "status" item on the menu.
Secondly, the menu system itself.
http://www.ignitionmaine.com/Pictures/sf/Menu.gif[/IMG]
This menu system is designed so that you never need to do any scrolling. 4 options: Attack, Stay, Magic, Item. Magic and Item menus open up into other 4 choice menus. The beauty is, press down for stay, up for attack, left for magic, and right for item. Then the confirm button to select. Once you've played this game for a while it's all intuitive and you get really fast. It's nice not to scroll down a 6 piece menu. And since you've already moved, move isn't an option. However, you can cancel at any time to change your location and open the menu again. Another logical feature is that when you are not in attack range the menu opens up on the attack option, when you are not in attack range the menu opens up on the stay option.

http://www.ignitionmaine.com/Pictures/sf/ADecision.bmp[/IMG]
Just thought I'd point out that when you press attack when you are in attack range it will automatically select an enemy whether you are facing the enemy or not.

http://www.ignitionmaine.com/Pictures/sf/Attack.gif[/IMG]
The only other thing I wanted to point out actually isn't the fact that shining force opens up a seperate animation sequence but notice the enemies HP bar on the bottom left. I've always felt a great sense of accomplishment watching an HP bar drop. Just an idea.

I counted button hits for moving a character and then making him stay. With GTBS it's 10 hits (assuming you are only hiting one arrow key on the move phase). With Shining force it's 4! (I'm adding one button press to shining force because you don't do anything with character facing in the game). When attacking someone GTBS is 8 and shining force is 4. I know I sound lazy but I just thinking logical simplicity in gaming is pretty important.

Thanks for reading my ramblings! This script is the best TBS I've seen and even without these changes would still be awesome! Great job!

 

[TwistedDragon]

I agree with What ubc, says. And what can I say, Good luck and consider ubc's "Advice" with great thinking!

ubc, Good job !! :thumb: 2 thumbs up! :thumb:

 

[masquerade__]

I have a question regarding skills: Is there a way to set up a capture skill? That way, you can capture a monster and learn to summon it.

I could try using events, but I just wanted to know if you knew of a way to make it easier.

 

[Gubid]

While I agree with you UBC that it would be cool to do those things, I think I am a little late to change directions. I think the easiest change would be to change the menu from a menu to icons. Wouldnt be that hard. As for the capture skill, tell me more about it.

 

[masquerade__]

Basically, I would want it to work like this:

There is a skill called "Capture" or maybe "Soulseize"

Anyway, using the skill on a monster will allow you to capture its soul. It would probably have a low success rate that increases as the monster's HP drops. The "soul" is added as an item in your inventory, and equipping the soul as an accessory allows you to learn how to summon that monster.

That's how it would work in my game anyway, since the majority of skills are learned by equipping items in that way.

I've also noticed that a lot of Trickster's custom skill effects aren't compatible with this system. Things like the Random Skill and Multi-Attack aren't working. For the Multi-Attack, instead of showing each hit individually, it's combining it all and showing one big damage pop. Any idea why it would do that?

 

[Evilupstart]

is there any way of incorporating some kind of cover system for protection from projectiles or even magic/psychic powers using terrain tags?
for example:
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/2364/exampleis0.jpg[/img]

The bench has a terrain tag of 1 and is equal to one grid height 'tall' so it creates cover for the one grid square behind it. A small wall could be terrain tag 2 giving two squares of cover behind it.

 

[Gubid]

That will likely not come until I can do projectiles, but sounds like something it needs indeed.

As for the "capture" skill. That sounds pretty cool and shouldnt be that hard to do. Actually it reminds me of the mediator skills in FFT. You could per sway enemies to join your team, the weaker they where the greater chance of success. You will just need to setup the skill however, and when doing the skill_effect run a specific check against the skill_id for that effect, and just do it with an if/else statement.

 

[groudyogre]

OMG a turn based battle system! YAY! I can finally make FIRE EMBLEM GAMES WHOOOOOOOOOOO I Heart You

 

[masquerade__]

As for the "capture" skill. That sounds pretty cool and shouldnt be that hard to do. Actually it reminds me of the mediator skills in FFT. You could per sway enemies to join your team, the weaker they where the greater chance of success. You will just need to setup the skill however, and when doing the skill_effect run a specific check against the skill_id for that effect, and just do it with an if/else statement.

Heh, well... I honestly have no idea how to do that. I'm not asking you to do it for me, but perhaps you could elaborate a little? As I said before, I'm worthless when it comes to scripting.

Oh, and I was wondering if you'd be adding the enemy fade out feature. I know it had been mentioned earlier, but I really like that idea.

One more thing... Sorry if I'm bombarding you with requests. Anyway, I was wondering if there is a way to have a battle teleport you to one of many maps. My idea was to have 3 or 4 Battle Maps per dungeon in my game. I tried just putting an array in the Module_GTBS for the map setup stuff, but it didn't work.

On another note, the system seems to be working fine in my game now. I think it's because I copied all those scripts over. Thanks for taking a look.

 

[Gubid]

Yes the fade out will be part of the next update, I still need to buckle down and finish it. I have a couple other features I am trying to finish.

Well, each battle should be its own separate map right? You just have one lead to the next. If that is not the way you plan to do it then you can setup death events to trigger a certian exit strategy based on what events are setup for a victory condition.

For the skill..

if skill.id == #
  effect = false
  success == user.int-((self.hp/self.hpmax) * int)
  if success < 100
    effect = (rand(100) > success)? false:true
  end
  if !effect
    self.damage = "Miss"
  else
    self.damage = "Captured"
    $game_party.add_item(1, ITEM_ID)
    self.hp -= self.hp
  end
else
  ALL THE EXISTING CODE HERE
end

that is very rough draft but would be able to get the job done with a little tweaking.

 

[Sabao]

How are status effects in this system, by the way? I had suggested this to Mac earlier, maybe you'd be interested as well. Maybe you could somehow add additional status effects like Immobilize which would disable Movement and Disarm which would disable Actions.

 

[Gubid]

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, just like FFT. I will do that. I setup most of the other things, but I guess I forgot that.

 

[WooX]

When it will be released?

 

[Gubid]

It? The update? Should be by later tomorrow evening or sometime next week. I ended up being a lot busier at home than I was expecting.

 

[Monk]

Amazing work, man.

 

[The Wizard]

This is a great script I really like the style in which it was implemented.

 

[Ragura]

Extremely well done. To be honest I went into this expecting a hack job but it completely blew me away.

I haven't read the entire thread so it may have come up, but corpses remaining on the field and taking up the tile are a bit cumbersome.

Next to that, depending on how adjustable this system is (Damage formula, abilities, conditions, ...) this would be an excellent choice for anyone wanting to create a TRPG. I'd have done one myself if this had been out a couple of months ago, but now I'm in the middle of a project already.

Keep up the good work, I'll be sure to keep tabs on the progress you make.

 

[Taylor]

This reminds me of a request I made for an edit of the ZTBS. Except a certain person... seemed to forget about it. *cough*
Plus I got sick of waiting so I kinda stopped the RPG. Er. Anyway.

A nice battle system. Although I'm not much of a tactical fan, I kinda prefer playing them on the DS and GBA lying on my bed. ^^

Sometimes enemies when dying turn to other graphics for a second before changing to their dead sprite. e.g one soldier was a dead dog for a moment.