i hate the dbs

[vespuleth]

pardon me while i rant:

i havent played rpgm2 in a while. i had some personal issues. ive started playing again recently. things are going well. i have never messed too much w/ the dbs, as well, it was unappealing and i wrote my own. ive started working on a few ideas that would work great w/ the dbs in some shape or form, and have found myself trying to learn the ins and outs of it. i reinforce the word trying.

why would anyone write scripts for the player, that the player cannot delete. has anyone tried deleting the ambush script? you cant. someone was missing half their brain when fleshing out the dbs. why would you make part of it where it can be seen, and manipulated, and then make the parts that use the pieces behind the curtain. as a creator, i wanna see the strings that make peter pan fly, you know? i need to know exactly how it works. stupid. so anyways, you dont get to see all of the dbs.

i load a 'hard' mode game, to see what scripts are there. guess what? no ambush script. ? but no 'any remotely useful script' either. so now i cant learn how the dbs works, because its not their. so much for learning the shell first.

scripting battle commands. inexplicable. sure i know that the 'check who goes' line checks to see who goes, but how? does it just cycle through the battle participants one at a time, regardless of any attributes?
how exactly does it decide who goes next. i think there is probably an entire script behind this one command, hidden in the depths of rpgm2, just so the creators can laugh at us.

variables. tell me why i can manipulate none of the battle used variables. the particpateEnemy, the participateMember, (tells how many enemies and members are in a battle respectively) none of them. since i hate the stupid dbs, at least youd think id be able to use the variables in my cbs, rather then using other variables to do the same thing!

so someone tell me, what were the creators thinking?

bottomline: you dont show people elements that the cannot manipulate (variables) and you do not give people the 'idea' that they can edit something, but then only give them half of it to edit. and you dont make them keep that half even if they dont want to just because the things its connected to are hard wired. this is creation software were talking about. and very precious space. that i have to waste on scripts that im not using and variables that i have to duplicate, because i cant use the originals.

/rant

so, over the next few days, im gonna post the battle scripts, and we can all go through them and learn what they do (i know some have already done this. maybe theyll share their knowledge so i can finish w/ some sense of sanity).

DW: please tell me how the stupid 'Check who goes' commands work. i realize they check who goes first/next, and appearantly cycle, but how are they checking who gets to go? am i missing something? also, if you could, as i post the battle scripts and other battle necessary parts of the game (traits and such) w/ my notes, feel me in on anything im mistaken on or miss.

also forgive anypart of this that may be blatant ignorance. i havent worked w/ the dbs much. ive seen it by playing the little bit of fuma that i could stand, and not much other then that. that being said, im done.

stupid battlesystem...

edit: oh and given that the actual dbs discussion is technical in nature, it will be in the tech forum. yeah.

[Deleted]

At the gameFAQs RPGM2 Board there should be a huge topic started by RPG Learner with most of the preset scripts. And I'm sorry about all that. My guess is that they did that so it wouldn't freeze up on someone when playing the DBS, but I dunno. Trust me, OgreNix, and Dungeon Warden though in that the DBS can be made quite good.

[Dungeon Warden]

Welcome to the Default Battle System, Vespuleth. Dispare all Ye who enter here.

I will now explain so things that it took me months to figure out.

1) The ambush script controls what happens when there is an ambush. If you switch to hard mode, you can delete this script and all other Hard scripts. I know someone deleted all the scripts to see if the memory recovered was the same as if you started on hard (it is).

An ambush only happens on the first battle round, and this part of the script is hardwired.

2) the Check Who Goes commands are used to see the battle order. It doesn't effect battle order. Battle order is controled by agility and kept in an Order variable (not sure of exact name) which can be modified if you want the make someone faster or slower.

3) You can't modify many of the battle variables because they are infomation holders not control points. i.e. they change after the fact, they don't cause change themselves. There are several battle variables you can control (most importantly the Action variables) that in turn effect the other variables, so you can effect all the variables, just not directly. This was a major breakthrough for me in understanding how to control and change the DBS.

4) There are some things that are controlled internally. The menu system can't be changed, you can't call the item or ability lists, ambush is internal, and flee is internal (you can determine if the party can flee, but you can't force the party to flee).

I know the battle system can be confusing, and I was planing to write an FAQ about the battle system sometime (using RPG Learner's notes) but I ran out of time before I went back to school. If I have some extra time this weekend, I'll post the battle system variables and flags with a full explanation of what they do and now they can be modified.

[Draygone]

The menu system can't be changed

True, but the option to add a few things to the menu is a major plus.

[Doan the Nado]

I hate just about everything that is default. The more I work with java, the more I realize how nice it would be to be able to write everything myself. Of course, the graphics would be a problem, but I hate the fact that RPGM2 has unmodify-able variables and flags and that certain options like controller vibration and text speed can only be accessed through the X-menu. One of my main objectives with my feature game is to completely remove all traces of anything default.

As for the DBS specifically, at some time I may end up trying to create a modified version of it, possibly making a game that involves only one hero, and displaying him as one of the enemies. That may end up being a project for the Pavilion contest, who knows?

[Deleted]

Yeah, I think it's pretty important not to use any default graphical things (others than objects). That's definitely one big chunk of my time.