Glazius posted:It'll be interesting to see how this whole "vampire conversion" thing works. Well, we've actually fallen victim to a bit of a complicated choice of words here. What we've unlocked now is "conversion" - the act of changing a human into an item. What we've yet to unlock is "transforming" - the act of turning a human into a vampire. I end up getting confused by that myself later on. It'll be a bit until we unlock transforming.
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Nov 3, 2017 12:43
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Man, Asgar is such an unrepentant smirking dick, particularly to Valnar. It's pretty great. 
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Nov 3, 2017 21:09
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It's worse in German when it's umwandeln and verwandeln and I can never remember which is which.
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Nov 3, 2017 21:53
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I'm more curious about if you can actually win without making more vampires and if there is any reward for going that path.
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Nov 4, 2017 08:54
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Blademaster_Aio posted:I'm more curious about if you can actually win without making more vampires and if there is any reward for going that path. There aren't any rewards per se for not making *any* vampires, at least none that I know of. It's just that every vampire you make is a drag on your Humanity (-2, to be accurate), and that determines the ending your get.
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Nov 4, 2017 12:27
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I also quite expect the plot to force at least one vampire conversion. Nyria has to join the party eventually. I could be completely wrong and we'll have Jayna of course.
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Nov 4, 2017 12:35
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Mokinokaro posted:I also quite expect the plot to force at least one vampire conversion. Nyria has to join the party eventually. If I recall, it was said somewhere earlier that humans can be revived post battle. No reason Nyria can't join us and remain human. I can have moments of... eccentricity and sometimes be quite curious about things. Please forgive me if I do something foolish or rude.
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Nov 4, 2017 12:43
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TheMcD posted:There aren't any rewards per se for not making *any* vampires, at least none that I know of. It's just that every vampire you make is a drag on your Humanity (-2, to be accurate), and that determines the ending your get. Is there a way to increase your humanity outside of the choices you make?
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Nov 5, 2017 03:12
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Stephen9001 posted:If I recall, it was said somewhere earlier that humans can be revived post battle. No reason Nyria can't join us and remain human. I could've sworn that was saying that the created vampires and humans both cannot be revived after battle, so you have to get them back up before the battle ends or lose them permanently.
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Nov 5, 2017 03:35
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Blademaster_Aio posted:Is there a way to increase your humanity outside of the choices you make? Quests give opportunities to boost Humanity, and... apart from the choices you make, I think that's it. So Humanity is definitely a finite resource in this game to be budgeted. Eopia posted:I could've sworn that was saying that the created vampires and humans both cannot be revived after battle, so you have to get them back up before the battle ends or lose them permanently. Yeah, that was the way it was explained to us. Created vampires and humans would be non-essential party members.
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Nov 5, 2017 12:10
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TheMcD posted:Quests give opportunities to boost Humanity, and... apart from the choices you make, I think that's it. So Humanity is definitely a finite resource in this game to be budgeted. Does this game have both an overly large encounter rate and punishes you for skipping battles with a bad ending like the first game?
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Nov 5, 2017 12:14
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Eopia posted:Does this game have both an overly large encounter rate and punishes you for skipping battles with a bad ending like the first game? Can't vouch for the encounter rate yet, since we still haven't really gotten out into the world yet (and the "more battles" option I ticked at the beginning of the game is menacingly haunting me in a foreboding fashion again), but escaping too much isn't going to get you a one-way-ticket to Badendington. The only factors relevant for the ending are your difficulty and your Humanity.
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Nov 5, 2017 12:26
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TheMcD posted:- - - Pose: This sets the type of pose used when using the skill. Poses are something we'll still need to define later, but for now, we have stuff like "Skill Use", "Damage", "Defending", "Idle Stance" and similar things. I dunno what "Afterimage" is. I couldn't figure it out. As the name suggests, it adds an after image when the character moves.  Like so. But I think that only works if you use the default animation type (but if you're using battle animations, as VD seems to, you're clearly capable of adding your own after images anyway).  "What a love of doors these pathetic humans have."(I can't help it, once Simon Templeman says something it cannot be forgotten.) TheMcD posted:
Yeeeeah those art styles kinda do not fit together at all. (The bit where they chop the monster in half is pretty great though. I rather enjoyed the books, too.)
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Nov 5, 2017 13:59
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vilkacis posted:As the name suggests, it adds an after image when the character moves. Huh. I thought I tested this in my playground with the default animation types, but couldn't get it to work. I think what might have happened is that I used an attack that didn't actually move the character, so of course there wouldn't be any movement to add afterimages to. D'oh. Well, it's good to know somebody knows what they're talking about, so I can be corrected when my combination of haphazard testing, old-rear end forum posts and the shoddy original help file for the RPG Maker fails me. Thanks! vilkacis posted:(I rather enjoyed the books, too.) The books really are the hidden highlight of the game. It's why I always make sure to check out all of them. It's just stuff that has gently caress-all to do with... well, anything, but that's why it's so great. Nowhere else could you put in a conversation like "Wait, you inherited books?" "Yeah, from that old guy I ate." in.
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Nov 5, 2017 15:23
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How does difficulty tie in the ending? Does the game punish you for playing on easy, or punish you for playing on hard? Or does it just have different requirements for both?
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Nov 5, 2017 20:26
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vilkacis posted:Yeeeeah those art styles kinda do not fit together at all. I don't mind it that much, largely because it reminds me of Final Fantasy 6: 
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Nov 5, 2017 20:37
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Blademaster_Aio posted:How does difficulty tie in the ending? Does the game punish you for playing on easy, or punish you for playing on hard? Each difficulty just has its own high humanity and low humanity endings.
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Nov 5, 2017 21:40
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a cartoon duck posted:Each difficulty just has its own high humanity and low humanity endings. Oh, okay. Do happy endings exist? Are high humanity endings happy?
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Nov 5, 2017 21:57
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Blademaster_Aio posted:Oh, okay. That would be telling. We will be looking at every ending anyway, so we'll find out then.
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Nov 5, 2017 22:37
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TheMcD posted:That would be telling. We will be looking at every ending anyway, so we'll find out then. Okay, thanks!
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Nov 6, 2017 01:56
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Behind The Fangs, Part II - RPG Maker Basics: The Database, Part II ♪ BGM: Beautiful Dead ♫ Welcome back! If you're reading this, that means that you didn't run away screaming from the first part! That's good! Now, we've started digging into the Database in the first part, and will continue doing so for the next few parts, as there is still quite a wealth of poo poo to go through. So without further ado, let's move on to Items. To note, before we go into items, a quick definition: There are two kinds of items - either they're "in inventory", which means they're in your pack or whatever it's called and can be used both outside of combat and in combat, or they're "equipped", meaning you have to go into the equipment menu and equip them before they do anything. I figured I should clarify this because "in inventory" could also mean "equipped" from a certain point of view. Anyway, on to items. When it comes to items, the most important part is the Type of item we have. There's a fair share of options, which are as follows: - - - Common Item - - - Weapon / Shield / Armor / Helmet / Accessory - - - Medicine - - - Skill Book - - - Seed - - - Skill Scroll - - - Switch We'll go over these in greater detail now, since every type has different things that can be set.  Now, first, let's go through what every type of item has. - Name & Description: These should be obvious by now. - Type: In this case, we're set to Common Item. - Price: How much the item costs to buy in shops. Selling items will always net you 50% of the price that is set here, from what I can tell. I've looked around, and I can't see a way to change this. A price of 0 means that the item cannot be sold. Every other type of item has more options to set, but Common Item just gets the basic ones. So, what is a Common Item? Well, you might already be able to tell from the example. They're quest items, basically. They are items that cannot be used in any capacity by the player. The system can then use the presence or lack thereof of that item in order to proceed in branching events, or only open certain things up if you have a particular Common Item. So we have Nyria's throwing knives, which we needed to find before we could proceed. Same with the Strong Soul that Asgar got from Alyda - it was an item we couldn't use from inventory or equip, it was just there to be there and then eventually removed when we "used" it as part of a cutscene.  Next, we have the assortment of Weapons, Shields, Armors, Helmets and Accessories. These all generally work the same, so we'll go over them by the example of Alaine's Blunt Claws weapon. You can see quite an assortment of new options here. - Hands Required: If it's set to Both, you can't use a shield with the weapon - or another weapon if you're doing the "two weapons instead of weapon and shield" thing. I think that's all this does, basically. - Invoke Skill When Used: This is interesting. This allows you to make weapons (or shields, or armors...) that you can equip, but also use as items from your inventory. When equipped, they'll function as you'd expect an item of that type to function. If you don't equip them, however, you can use them in combat or outside of combat as items, which then use a certain skill. So to take an actual example from VD2, there's an artefact weapon that puts the status effect of regeneration on you if you use it from inventory. Alternatively, you can do something similar to Final Fantasy V where you have staves that cast a powerful spell on enemies when used from inventory. However, if you use this option, the item will not be used up by using it from inventory. I don't think you can do something like staves breaking from overuse that easily - it'd probably revolve around something similar to Sarabian Fire back in Unterwegs in Düsterburg, which was something that had supporting code baked into every potential battle it could be used in. We'll see where we can do that when we get to Monster Groups. - Usable By: Pretty self-explanatory. You can set the usability by both the particular hero and the class - in our case here, the usability is managed by hero, so it's just set that all classes can use it, since the hero setting overwrites that. - Statistic Change: Also pretty self-explanatory. You can raise and lower stats with this, so you can have items that raise some stats but lower others. - Options: Most of these are self-explanatory as well, with one exception: "Cursed" applies the regular "cursed equipment" state - once you equip a cursed item, you can no longer unequip it unless it is forced by an event. - MP Consumed: In case you want your attacks to constantly use MP. - Hit Probability: In VD2's case, almost all weapons are set to 95% with the exception of some "surestrike" weapons that have a 100% hit chance and Ignore Enemy Evasion. - Critical Bonus: This just adds on to the base critical chance the class/hero already has. - Attack Attribute: This sets an attribute for the attack that this weapon has, so for instance, if an enemy has weakened resistance to fire, then a weapon with the fire attribute would deal more damage to this enemy. Can also make weapons useless (see VD1, where weapons would frequently become useless against bosses because they had an elemental attribute and bosses in the endgame were frequently immune to most of them). - Conditions: This sets if a weapon should inflict or remove a condition. This, from what I can tell, refers to the enemies both times. So, Marlex might have a set of claws in the game that is supposed to protect against blindness, but it doesn't work that way. It will only remove the blind condition from enemies instead. Whoops! - Attack Animation: This will play over the enemies when you use this weapon. Finally... - Animation: This is another one of those that opens a new window, so away we go!  Alright, so there's a lot to process here, and part of it is particularly hard to explain because VD2 completely bypasses the combat animation system for its own system using battle animations, but we'll get to that later. - Movement Before Attack: This describes what the character sprite does before attacking. It can do nothing, step forward, jump forward and move to the target. I think VD2 primarily makes use of "jump forward" and "move to target". - Number of Attacks: Self-explanatory. You can pick between once, twice and thrice. - Animation Type: OK, this is more complicated. So, we have two options to pick from: Weapon and Battle. This simply sets the animation type that should be used - weapon animations or battle animations. We can't really go over the details yet because we don't know these animations yet. So we'll have to put this on the backburner until we get to animations. - Ranged Weapon Properties: If you use weapon animations and the weapon is ranged, you can do some additional stuff setting the projectile animations here. Again, this will make more sense after we've gone over animations, and I'd say that it's probably self-explanatory once you actually know the animation stuff. - Monster Group Shown: Like before, this is just for the little preview image. Now, that was a lot to process, but we're not done yet. Now, let's take a look at the other part of the group - the shields, armors, helmets and accessories. These have different options, but amongst themselves they are all the same apart from the slot it takes up in the equipment screen.  Ultimately, not a lot is different. The options have changed, but they're largely self-explanatory. Don't ask me how exactly "increased evasion" works. It increases evasion, but there's no real numbers that I can see for that. It just kind of makes you dodge more. In this case, the conditions that can be inflicted or resisted are referring to the character equipping the item, so this is where you want to make items that protect you from some status effect. Furthermore, you can inflict status effects constantly with an item, so if you want to have an item that gives somebody +100 Attack and constant Berserk status, go right ahead. In the end, this stuff is mostly similar to the weapons, though, just kind of inverted in spots. Let's go to the next one.  Medicine is basically what you'd expect for healing items, though VD2 actually approaches things differently - almost all healing items are actually Skill Scrolls, which we'll look at later. I don't think I need to go through all of these options in detail - they should all do exactly what you imagine they'd do.  Skill Books are also pretty simple. They teach a certain skill to the characters you allow it to, and do it either once, twice, thrice, four times, five times, or infinitely.  Seeds are another simple affair, they're stat-boosting items that boost stats the way you set them.  Skill Scrolls are technically also very simple, but VD2 uses them to an interesting effect, by essentially making a whole bunch of items that would normally be of the medicine type into skill scrolls instead. Now, from what I can tell, the reason Marlex did that is because if you have them be skill scrolls, you can associate battle animations to them. So you can have customizable sparkles appear for healing items, for the revival item, for the status effect clearing item, and so on. From what I can tell, this is the only reason this was handled in such a way, because ultimately, there's little difference between using medicine to heal or a skill scroll to use a skill that heals.  Finally, items can also simply be used to trigger switches. This can then be used in connection with common events to do different stuff, like saving, in this case. Opening that extra menu is also done with a switch item. We'll see more of this when we get to common events proper. That's it for the items, and it only took so long I've already crossed the threshold where I normally consider when to start cutting the update, but let's ignore that and instead knock out the monsters and monster groups as well, so we don't just have one thing in this update.  Monsters are a relatively simple affair. I'm just realizing that I'm calling a lot of stuff simple, but it really is quite simple. - Name: In certain configurations, this name will actually never be shown. VD2 uses a configuration like that, and as such, even in this English version of the game, the Elras novice still has a German name. Furthermore, Marlex put numbers after a ton of enemies to note the level recommendation for this enemy. So these enemies, which I was fighting with the majority of my party at level 1, were recommended for level 3. I suspect this disparity will only get worse. - Base Statistics: Here, you set attributes for monsters just like you set them for heroes. - Spoils: What does the enemy drop when you kill them? In VD2, enemies are set to never drop money, and *almost* always drop a Soul item with 100% rate. There are exceptions, but generally that's the rule. - Critical Hit Probability: Crit rate. Can be anything from 0% to 100% in 1% increments. In VD2, I can't really see a rhyme or reason behind which creatures can crit and which can't, or their rate, for that matter. - Option: Not sure why "attacks often miss" was considered important enough to make it into a proper option, but hey, here it is, in case you want it. - Monster Graphics: Here, you can set some options regarding the graphics of the monster. There's settings to make the sprite transparent (similar to how it was with the hero sprite), and make it fly (which basically means it just kind of floats a bit up and down). Furthermore, there's a bit of an interesting thing in the "Set" menu:  Primarily, you can just pick a monster sprite, but you can also fiddle with the colors on a basic slider.  So moving the slider around allows for easy palette swaps. Might come in handy! - Condition and Attribute Resist: We've been over this multiple times now, I think you know how this goes by now. - Behavior: This is the most important one. This allows you to set the different things that the monster will do in combat. This opens up a new menu, so let's jump in there.  We have a fair share of things to set here. - Preconditions: This is what has to happen before the monster will consider using the attack. There is a fair share of options here too: - - - Switch: The attack will only be used with a specific switch on. Note that you can't check if a switch is off - just if one is on. - - - Turns Elapsed: Pretty simple. You can set the first turn it will be used on, and then the interval until it is used again. For instance, you can set the first number to 3 and the second to 5, meaning that the attack is available on turns 3, 8, 13, etc. - - - Monsters Present: The amount of monsters that have to be present for this attack to be available. So for instance, you can have a special attack that only gets used once the monster is alone. - - - Monster's HP: Pretty simple. Set as a range, where you can choose any percentage between 0% and 100% as the lower end and the higher end of the spectrum. - - - Monster's MP: See Monster's HP. - - - Party Level Average: This can be set as a range, with numbers between 1 and 99 available. Not exactly sure how you'd use this, to be honest. I guess you can have stronger attacks that only get used if the party is overleveled as an anti-grinding measure? - - - Party Exhaustion: This is kind of tricky. Again, we have a range where you can go between 0% and 100% on the spectrum. Now, what is exhaustion exactly? Well, the help file defines it as follows: 100 - 100 x ((Current HP/Max HP) x 2 - (Current MP/Max MP) / 3). I don't know if that does some sort of average for the different party members, or adds them all together, or whatever the gently caress it does, and this isn't something that is easily tested, given the obtuseness of the formula. So let's just accept it as allowing for "use attack if party is hosed up" cases. - Priority: Oh, gently caress. And thus comes the point where I have to admit I don't exactly know how the gently caress this works. Well, first, what does the help file say about priority? "If 2 or more actions have the same preconditions, the one with the higher priority will be used." Well, that's great, except... it doesn't seem to work like that. I've read through a discussion from 8 years ago on GameFAQs (because this is the kind of poo poo you have to dig through if you want to figure out this kind of stuff), and poster Sky Render had the following to say about a poster that had three attacks with the same preconditions and priority, where one attack seemed to be used a lot more than the others: "The priority system isn't quite as simple as it should be. Even if you have all skills set to the same priority level, the AI will still favor whatever is at the top of the list more than anything else. To get it to use the lower skills, up their priorities by 1 (ie. have skill A at 50, skill B at 51, and skill C at 52). The numbers are close enough together that they will happen more or less as often as each other." Note that this also means that skills with a slightly lower/higher priority have a chance to be used. What chance is that? hosed if I know! To elaborate on that "favor whatever is at the top of the list" point, let's look at Alyda for a second:  Remember how I said "man, she sure seems to be using that fireball spell a lot, even though I figured that she should be using her regular attack more"? Well, now we know why - it's because they're close to the top of the list and are therefore prioritized. What does this mean for my listings of boss attacks and their probabilities? Well, they're completely wrong. Go me! So in the future, I'm just going to be putting down the behavior list in that particular order, since it's more of a representation of what is most likely to be used. Anyway, so that's basically the priority setting. You can use it in order to force enemies to use specific attacks in certain situations by jacking the priority really high for certain ones under certain circumstances, but otherwise, it's a really temperamental gently caress to deal with. Here's another bit from the help file to hammer home just how futile it is to try and understand it: "The action the monster will take is determined by the following. 1. The possible actions are sorted into those whose conditions are met and those whose are not. For identical conditions, the actions are sorted by priority.. 2. The effectiveness of the action in the current situation is calculated. This value is compared to all the other actions and produces a probability of each action being used. 3. The executed action is chosen randomly based on the probability calculated above." So basically, MATHEMATICS AND PROBABILITY happens in a big-rear end black box, and it spits out an attack. Fun! EDIT ALMOST A loving YEAR LATER: Well, thanks to resident Welsh tyrant of the LP Discord, JamieTheD, we finally have an answer as to how priority basically seems to work. JamieTheD posted:Oh, and, reading over the VD thread in an effort to understand RPG Maker more, I can clear up the mystery behind Priorities, @TheMcD ... It's procedural. So things higher on the list get checked first, then next one down... So, by sticking the fireball at the top, well... It always gets checked first, so it's more likely to fire. This is also why things you want to have a similar priority should be next to each other, but incremented in priority as you go down the list... So in this example, the chance for Alyda here to attack is something around 0.5 * 0.5^5 (the first item in the list and the fifth), and Fireball would be something around 0.5^2 + 0.5^3 (the second and third item in the list). This is incredibly unintuitive, and I can guarantee that basically nobody understood this system at the time, because it's not documented at all. We still don't know what exactly goes on with the last item, and what happens if it decides it doesn't want the last item. RPG MAKER! - Action Turns Switch ON / OFF: Again, fairly simple. Attacks can turn on and off switches, allowing for some fairly complex scripting if you really want to get into it. It'd probably be an insane clusterfuck of switches, but hey, you do have a maximum of 5000 switches to play with! - Action: Oh hey, right, this thing we've been loving with all this time should actually also DO something. Anyway, here we have three options. Skill allows the monster to use any skill you've previously defined, MP costs permitting. Transform allows the monster to change into any other monster, which is most commonly used for multi-phase fights. Finally, we have Basic, which ironically is the least basic, as it has several options we need to go through. - - - Attack: Just a plain attack. - - - Double Attack: A plain attack, but twice! Zounds! - - - Defend: Defending, with the boost to physical damage resistance we know from when the hero does it. - - - Observe Battle: To quote the help file: "The monster does nothing. A message is shown." This will differ from a later option. - - - Charge Up: The monster does nothing for a turn, then uses a regular attack the next turn, dealing double damage. This is apparently useful? - - - Self-Destruct: The monster blows up, killing itself and dealing damage. - - - Escape: The monster runs away. This seems to basically always succeed unless the monster is surrounded - surrounded being a special battle state that we'll get into later. - - - No Action: To quote the help file: "The monster does nothing. No message is shown." See, crucially different to Observe Battle. And with that, we've gone through the Monster part! So with that, we've gotten... 5 parts out of 17. gently caress me, this is going to take a while. Then again, it's not like this game is going to go by quickly either, so we've got plenty of time. However, since Monster took so god drat long, I'll save Monster Groups for the next time. TheMcD fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Sep 2, 2018 |
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Nov 9, 2017 16:04
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Blademaster_Aio posted:Oh, okay. Heh.
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Nov 9, 2017 20:56
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Andyzero posted:Heh. That is not suspicious at all or anything, nope. I guess I'll just wait.
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Nov 10, 2017 01:58
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Honestly the palette swap slider is simultaneously my favorite and most hated tool. If you're making a game it's a godsend (Blue slimes are ice and red ones are fire!) if you're playing one, it sucks.
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Nov 10, 2017 02:28
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Blademaster_Aio posted:That is not suspicious at all or anything, nope. Well the high humanity good ending of the previous game resulted in the setup for this one.
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Nov 10, 2017 03:09
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Eopia posted:Well the high humanity good ending of the previous game resulted in the setup for this one. True, but according to Valnar and Aliane, the world was at peace! Even if it wasn't at the end. Or more like, the 'let's not stay at peace' elements existed and again put the world into a state of not-peace, but whatever. Anyway, maybe the weird mysterious exposition guy who is very suspicious and definitely has a plan is also an Elras or something. He was around before the world shifted, but so was possessed Janna.
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Nov 10, 2017 03:30
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TheMcD posted:Well, it's good to know somebody knows what they're talking about, so I can be corrected when my combination of haphazard testing, old-rear end forum posts and the shoddy original help file for the RPG Maker fails me. Thanks! I know waaay too much about RM2k(3) for someone who's never put out a single game.  ultrafilter posted:I don't mind it that much, largely because it reminds me of Final Fantasy 6: FFVI's backgrounds have limited palettes that work with the characters, though. They also don't have the kind of blurring that the bridge shot does. Like, the bridge background alone probably has more colours in it than any given screencap from FFVI, including sprites. TheMcD posted:I don't think you can do something like staves breaking from overuse that easily - it'd probably revolve around something similar to Sarabian Fire back in Unterwegs in Düsterburg, which was something that had supporting code baked into every potential battle it could be used in. Yeah, you'd basically have to run a script at the start of every battle that removes, say, all fire staves and replaces them with consumable items with the same name and description. And then another script after battles which does the opposite. TheMcD posted:- Priority: Oh, gently caress. And thus comes the point where I have to admit I don't exactly know how the gently caress this works. Yeah, I don't have the foggiest on this one. I mean I would have guessed that it's a %-based chance, and that the game rolls them in the order they're listed, so Aldia would actually have a 50% chance to attack, and a 50% chance to continue down the list. But that's clearly not the case, because if you have a priority 40 move, a 50, and a 60, it'll pretty much spam the last one non stop. Regardless of what the actual numbers are, a 10 point difference seems to mean the lower priority move will "never" show up. (I don't know if it's literally never, but I've tested it and seen the 60 trigger like 40 times in a row.) Even with very high numbers and small differences, like 92, 95, 100, the 100 appears to trigger considerably more than the 95, and the 92 hardly ever. RPG maker! SSNeoman posted:Honestly the palette swap slider is simultaneously my favorite and most hated tool. If you're making a game it's a godsend (Blue slimes are ice and red ones are fire!) if you're playing one, it sucks. I'm fine with it as long as it makes sense (like slimes). But then there are times when-  ...You guys don't looks so good 
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Nov 10, 2017 20:36
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Is the palette-swap just replacing a couple colors, or do the monster sprites use opacity so you can replace along a color gradient?
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Nov 12, 2017 02:10
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Glazius posted:Is the palette-swap just replacing a couple colors, or do the monster sprites use opacity so you can replace along a color gradient? It looks like it's literally a whole-image hue slider.
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Nov 12, 2017 02:23
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^ Yup. 
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Nov 12, 2017 02:40
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vilkacis posted:I know waaay too much about RM2k(3) for someone who's never put out a single game. I hope that all this Behind The Fangs stuff at least makes one person pick up RPG Maker and actually put something out. It'd be pretty grand if us non-game-making folks gabbing our faces off about the minutiae of this design kit actually gets somebody to create something. vilkacis posted:Yeah, you'd basically have to run a script at the start of every battle that removes, say, all fire staves and replaces them with consumable items with the same name and description. And then another script after battles which does the opposite. That'd work, yeah. The Sarabian Fire had some interesting code built in - basically, it was a consumable item that could only be used in battle. If you do, the Sarabian Fire is replaced with a Lit Sarabian Fire and a counter starts counting down. If you don't use the Lit Sarabian Fire (which is a strong attack on all enemies) within a certain amount of rounds, the counter hits zero and it blows up in your face, doing damage to the entire party. I kind of wish I showed it off, but I completely forgot how much leeway I had with using it and just didn't end up using it at all outside of destroying the coffins it was supposed to be used for. vilkacis posted:Yeah, I don't have the foggiest on this one. I mean I would have guessed that it's a %-based chance, and that the game rolls them in the order they're listed, so Aldia would actually have a 50% chance to attack, and a 50% chance to continue down the list. But that's clearly not the case, because if you have a priority 40 move, a 50, and a 60, it'll pretty much spam the last one non stop. Regardless of what the actual numbers are, a 10 point difference seems to mean the lower priority move will "never" show up. (I don't know if it's literally never, but I've tested it and seen the 60 trigger like 40 times in a row.) Even with very high numbers and small differences, like 92, 95, 100, the 100 appears to trigger considerably more than the 95, and the 92 hardly ever. I feel like I'm going to dive into Priority a bit more at some point, but man, I can't blame Marlex at all for just going "gently caress this poo poo" and setting everything to 50. vilkacis posted:I'm fine with it as long as it makes sense (like slimes). But then there are times when- Zombie mode engaged! wiegieman posted:It looks like it's literally a whole-image hue slider. vilkacis posted:^ Ayup. I couldn't imagine the amount of coding that would be required to make it replace certain colors in an image with other colors or do anything more detailed than just shifting hue. It's just a quick and dirty thing that can help in specific cases - if you want to do more detailed things, you should be doing them yourself in image editing software.
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Nov 12, 2017 02:46
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Update XXI - I Think This Game Is Kind Of Starting Now, Maybe ♪ BGM: Syrahs - field4.mid ♫ Alright, so let's go and check out this town. But before that, tutorials!  You'll note that we have both the tutorial for transforming people into vampires and the one for converting people into items dropped into our inventory. However, converting will not be available until a later point in the plot. Let's check out sucking blood first.   After choosing "Suck Blood" via the ring menu for interacting with humans, the interface for blood sucking shows up. If the blood level reaches zero, the victim dies, and the party receives a bonus on all attributes, as well as a soul. Note that your humanity will only decrease in after this process in case the victim dies.The bonus works in such a way that it randomly picks one attribute to improve, and improves it by 5 on Easy, 3 on Normal and 1 on Hard, making it kind of pointless for us, really. Lots of work (and loss of Humanity) for no real gain.  If you wish to end the process before the blood level of the victim reaches zero, briefly HOLD the ENTER key! There is also the possibility to suck blood from certain animals. In that case, there won't be an additional interface, and the animal dies immediately. You won't lose humanity from this, though. Since Valnar, Asgar and Alaine have greatly improved their technique in draining blood over time, they can suck blood from humans without other people around them noticing. The victim will get stunned while getting their blood sucked, and they won't remember what happened to them.I assume there were some complaints about constantly having to either use the day-night spell or wait for night if you wanted to suck blood in the first game. That'll come in handy. Next, let's check out the converting tutorial.  What item is acquired through converting a human is random. The higher Valnar's level, the better his ability to convert humans will be, and the better the quality of the acquired items will be. An important point is the fact that Valnar will obtain Soul Fragments by converting humans, which are used in the creation of runes. Converting humans reduces the humanity of vampires.Hrm. I've looked over the drop tables for converting, and they're not good. But this soul fragment thing seems like it might be an incentive. Finally, let's look at transforming, even if we can't do it yet.  Additionally, transformed humans can join the other party members.We will transform a human ASAP because of that. There's no reason not to have an extra party member if you can have one. After choosing "Transform" via the ring menu for interacting with humans, the interface for transforming shows up. If the blood level reaches zero, the victim dies, and the party receives a bonus on all attributes, as well as a soul.Again, it's not on all attributes, it's on one out of all of them. Note that your humanity definitely decreases after transforming humans.Not any more than killing somebody by sucking blood or converting them, though. In our case, it's a hit of -2. Unlike with sucking the blood from victims, the blood of your party members does not replenish during this process.  During this process, the small skull will move around to a certain extent. Your goal should be to finish the transformation by HOLDING the ENTER key at the exact moment the skull is on the desired position on the bar. The bar is divided into several fields. If the skull lands on a blue field at the end of the transformation, the victim will turn into a vampire warrior. If the skull lands on a yellow field, the victim will turn into a vampire mage. And if the skull lands on a red field, the victim will become a vampire lord. The skull, however, only moves around in a limited radius. Therefore, you shouldn't wait too long for the skull to reach your desired position, because if the blood gauge of the victim reaches zero, they die.Read: The game can gently caress you and keep you from getting the vampire type you want. We'll go over the difference in the vampire types once we unlock this system. If the transformation was successful, you can find the newly created vampire in Asgar's Castle.And that's our lot for the tutorials... for now. Let's check out this town now.  A grand total of six houses for us to rifle through for secrets, quests and more, and we'll start by talking to people, as always.   Hello, you, too! My mommy told me not to speak with strangers. So why are you doing it? I'm not! Oh, and what would you call this, then? Uhhhh... wuaaaahhhhh...And he runs away.  Stupid kids... I want to know if it's true that Lisa had kissed that stupid Martin. Bah, kissing is only something for girls!Well, we have the opportunity, let's take this blood sucking capability out for a spin!  There's some things that I can't really turn into GIFs, but I still want you to see in motion, so there'll be some short videos for you to gawk at. Anyway, blood sucking is a fairly simple process, as described in the tutorial. We start sucking blood, eventually hold the ENTER key, and stop sucking blood. Probably not going to get into eating people for stat boosts, since it's not really worth it on Hard. Also, we're probably going to be looking at how Marlex made this thing work in a Behind The Fangs chapter, though we'd need to get through the basics first.  We are new here, after all. Well, as long as you stay away from Stand, you can have a wonderful time in Syrahs. Stan? Who is that? Um, better if you don't know. He's crazy. Where can we find this Stan? No, I don't want to tell you that. I don't want him to find some customers, too. 1) Okay, 50 Filar? - 2) Your hair is pretty! (Lie) - 3) Never mind, then... It's better this way. He is crazy.We'll figure out who Stan is later anyway. Also, we're not good at lying yet, so that wouldn't help us right now.  Hm, these strangers do look a little pale. Well, I hope they are at least friendly. Those disgusting pigs from last week were terrible. I just can't stand those filthy jokes! Let's check out the shop, maybe there's some upgrades here. Not that we'd buy them yet.  that many good weapons are crafted from the noble metal Eldium.  There's a couple things we could use here, like helmets, shields and armor, but we need money for The Secret Plan, so we just sell a few things instead. Ah, customers. I'm sure they will appreciate my goods. On to the next house.    In what kind of dreadful times do we live!? That doesn't sound very good... You can say that again! My poor sheep disappear at night! One after another... Theft? I'm afraid so. Those cursed thieves! I hate them! Shall we take a look around your pasture, perhaps? You would do that for me? 1) Sure! - 2) Well, not really, actually...Side quests! Well, my sheep are on a pasture right to the north of Syrahs. Every night, one of them disappears. But when I let my shepherd boy watch guard, nothing happens at all. But apart from him, no one wants to do this job, so I can't let him work day and night. Since this whole thing only happens at night, I'm assuming there are thieves behind it. I'd be glad if you were able to shed some light on this... I guess we'll take a closer look around the pasture... If I catch those thieves, I will cut their heads off personally! CUT THEIR HEADS OFF! That's the only thing those bastards deserve!We'll get to that side quest eventually. I think.  This building also has a basement, where we find somebody else to talk to, and more books! Short", or "The Little Poison Mixer". Looks like someone's planning something... Stan? That drat coffin seller. He's got his shop south from here....he sells what, you say? Hm, I think this guy could come in quite handy. What do you have against him? He is crazy, insufferable and simply someone no one can stand. He's annoying. Oh, I'm sure he can't be that bad... I have a proposal for you. You steal from him and bring me his money. If he goes bankrupt, he has to close his shop soon, and then he will leave, hopefully. 1) Okay, we'll do it. - 2) No, not a chance!No, I think I'd rather keep the coffin seller in business. We might need that guy. In fact, we will need that guy, because I don't think we'll be getting coffins anywhere else soon. That guy doesn't deserve any better. His way is just obnoxious.You know, I need to find somebody to turn into a vampire once we unlock that capability, and you're looking quite like a convenient target. That terrible Stan. I HATE him! The way he babbles to people with his stupid coffins is terrible. No one can stand him! He's a disgrace to Syrahs! Looking around town, we find this not at all suspicious looking character. I'm sure this guy will not at all turn out to be the thief we're looking for. And because I'm so certain, we're going to look through the rest of the town first.   Nothing much in here, but there's a couple neat items. The Retreat Potion teleports us back to Asgar's castle, and the Sunblock Cloak protects us from the sun. We pick up one Retreat Potion just in case, and three Sunblock Cloaks, since they're required by the plot. Hehe, my goods are simply the best in the world. Yes, pretty nice here. If only we didn't have any problems with thieves, then our life here would be truly perfect. Thieves? Yes, unfortunately, there have been a few thefts here and there. So far, no one has been able to catch the thief. But luckily, it's only been some small things that were stolen. A few Filar here, some healing potions there... but it does add up. Well, if we can find the thief, we're going to bring them to justice... Well, good luck with that! I hope that annoying thief will get captured soon. All that perpetual stealing is really getting on my nerves. citizens you're causing harm.I just went and checked, and yeah...  ...that dog would loving murder us.   A true classic.Am I going to have to keep a running tally of this poo poo, Marlex?  We just wanted to ask if there's anything we can do to help. Yes, by getting out! Can't I just live peacefully in my own house without some kind of strangers just walking in all the time? Very hospitable... Hospitable? We're not some kind of tavern for restless wanderers... Hrmpf... Let's just leave. What is it this time again? There's another bunch of weird looking strangers just walking into our house! We really should start locking up the door! worship some joke figure? Hehe, their god looks like a real wuss! What kind of god do they worship? Oh, no idea. At the very least, he looks really extremely dumb! Well, well... Hm, where did I put my wallet again? Maybe under the bed? drat it, I should really train my memory from time to time.  200 Filar obtained!Yoink! Ours now!  This is another place that has a basement for us to check out. Hello to you, too! Say, do you need any kind of help? No, but I'm wondering why you are downstairs? Didn't my parents stop you? They aren't exactly very open-minded towards strangers. We noticed. Anyway, if you need money, you should talk to Jakob. He's got a problem with his sheep, and he could surely use a few capable men and women. Thanks for the tip. Sure, no problem. Argh, how am I supposed to find a boyfriend if my parents never let me go out with anyone!? drat it, I wish they weren't so distrustful towards strangers sometimes...Now, off to another house - we still have the tavern/inn to check out.   And what's in first place?Those of you that remember the first game should know what is coming now! First place is "SephiMike's Noble Beer". Second place is "Boar Brew" from Syrahs. And third place is the "Dudel Beer", a beer that captivates with its high amount of alcohol and herbal sugar. Grandy has killed a vampire called Wahnfried. Wahnfried? WAHNFRIED? The poor vampire... with a name like that, he probably got bullied all the time......hang on, I wanted to refer back to something here. Where did I put this again... ah, here it is. TheMcD posted:
This is the "something that's going to be coming up" I mentioned. So even though Grandy very clearly stated he hasn't saved Düsterburg yet, here's a book telling his story with him having defeated Wahnfried... and remember we're many, many years in the past right now. "Time paradox" doesn't even begin to describe this.  it is a huge hit. Well, they probably should wait a bit. Even a book doesn't become a huge hit over night.Dreamland is another series of RPG Maker games. They're more in the horror genre, and they're also some of the more popular games out there in the German RPG Maker scene. Personally, I don't actually remember them - what I thought was Dreamland was actually Die Bücher Luzifers - so if somebody remembers those games, feel free to chime in!  Oooh, shiny!  the one of a kind "Boar Brew"! A true delectation! And what's so special about it? Well, it's so strong that you have to be a real boar to not get knocked out after one glass! Beer is disgusting! Yeah, yeah, women simply have no taste. Watch your tongue, or... You wanna beat me up? HARHAR! I could send you to the dream world with just one smack of my pole, girl. I'm good at it.Please don't whip out your pole, man. There's children around. Come, we're going. Or otherwise, this is all going to end in a blood bath. Stupid old fart! Oh, this beer is a real joy for the palate. I'm looking forward to the first time I can buy my grandson a glass for the first time. I still remember how my grandfather bought me my first beer back then... Sounds like you're having pretty big problems. Problems? My whole life is one entire problem! Oh, I can help with that... My wife has left me and took our kids with her! She said I drink too much! But I'm only coming here three times a week! drat it, can I even just relax with a delicious "Boar Brew"? Um... Ah, you don't get me at all, either! It's best if I just drink myself unconscious and forget my worries... Alcohol, the big problem solver... That drat bitch! Just because she caught me drinking a beer with Lilly, she goes completely nuts and leaves me! Argh, those drat women! We just wanted to talk with you a little... What about? About whether you have heard any kind of news, perhaps? No, not really. Only that the crazy Stan is still running his business. Stan? He's selling coffins in his shop south from here. We should stop there some time. What is this disgusting beer? I'm never going to order this again! "Boar Brew" should be renamed "Nasty Brew"! No, we're actually just looking around. Of course. Here in the "Grazing Stag", everyone is free to look around and make themselves comfortable. If you want to drink something, just say the word. Don't say anything, Asgar... What, why would you think the word "drink" makes me want to say something cynical? Hm, that's a nice revenue again today. If this continues for the whole month, I can finally open a second bar soon. Then, I'll continue expanding until I finally don't have to work anymore... Not sure if this is supposed to be a reference or something.  Oh, we didn't want to bother you... Some Margus root here, a pinch of cat tongue there, and a little bit of lotus flower... yes, this will be a fine meal!Now, let's head downstairs here.  There is only one kind of food that's relevant. And that's blood... No, we're not. Well, never mind then. Well, ever since they put up their quarters north from here, some of them have been coming here on a regular basis. Their quarters? Yeah, a little to the north from here, hidden in the forest. You should walk on the east side next to the desert. Thanks for the information. They're nice guys, as long as you have the required money... All right, now I should finally take care of the supplies. Where's the yeast for the beer? Let's hear it, sounds interesting. "The Blood Rose takes its name from the mysterious fact that it can only grow with sufficient blood. Normal water makes the Blood Rose wither. This makes the plant all the more rare. If its leaves get cooked with water, it will take on a deep red color. A tea made from those leaves can lead to hallucinations and heavy paralysis even with just a small concentration. That's why the Blood Rose is often used to make poisons." A plant that needs blood instead of regular water? Very peculiar... Oh, I was just about to ask you the same question. If you're looking for work, talk to my husband. He can always use some help. Where can we find him? Inside the house north from here. Thanks. What was it I needed to bring again? Ah, yes, that's right... a few Harlus roots for the meal tomorrow... When we approach this door, we hear the sound of a baby crying. It's quite annoying.  Oh, I'm sorry. We actually just wanted to ask if there's anything we can help you with... Help me? Pfff, if you can silence this little noisy brat, that would be a nice start! Well, that won't be a problem... I'm used to silencing people all the time... That's definitely not what he meant, Asgar! Pffffff... Of course my wife has something better to do again... but, oh well. So, what will it be? Will you help me? 1) Let's see what we can do... - 2) No, we don't feel like it. Well then, good luck!Alright, we got another side quest! And it's to shut up a crying baby. Rad. But we're not going to be solving that quest just yet.  And then, outside, I pause the recording for a reason I don't remember because it's been ages ever since I recorded this. I would then go on to continue playing the game without unpausing the recording, leading to me having a whole bunch of new stuff that wasn't recorded. Then I realized I hadn't saved in ages either, but would still have to reload. Thank Christ I didn't save over my one save file, though, that would've caused some real issues. Anyway, next time, we're going to solve this baby problem, go check out that not at all suspicious guy from earlier, and have a cameo from some kickass NES music.
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Nov 19, 2017 02:32
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Well, so do you two!
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Stan the coffin seller? That sounds like a monkey island reference.
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Nov 19, 2017 02:56
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How long do we have until The Secret Plan comes into play?
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Nov 19, 2017 11:02
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SSNeoman posted:How long do we have until The Secret Plan comes into play? Approximately two and a half hours of footage.
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Nov 19, 2017 12:12
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TheMcD posted:Approximately two and a half hours of footage. If you were to place it in gameplay timeline, early or mid game? Also 'make baby stop crying' and 'steal from coffin seller' are pretty... odd requests. Even if we didn't agree to steal. Blademaster_Aio fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Nov 19, 2017 |
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Nov 19, 2017 13:21
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Blademaster_Aio posted:If you were to place it in gameplay timeline, early or mid game? Very early. It's basically the moment the map *actually* opens up.
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Nov 19, 2017 13:23
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I look forward to seeing what the Secret Plan is going to be. I mean, I realize buying equipment in an RPG is sometimes a mug's game, but even then this seems a little much.
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Nov 19, 2017 19:46
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It's update 21 and we're still basically prologuing and tutorialising. Marlex has many ideas, both for story and gameplay, and he takes his absolute sweet time making sure they all get across to the player as early as possible, as slowly as possible.
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Nov 19, 2017 20:52
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 05:10 |
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TheMcD posted:
quote:
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Someone's in fine form this update. a cartoon duck posted:Marlex has many ideas, both for story and gameplay, and he takes his absolute sweet time making sure they all get across to the player as early as possible, as slowly as possible. It's probably less noticeable if you're just playing it over a shorter period of time.
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Nov 20, 2017 00:33
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