Xenogears/ Xenosaga-ish Game

[hyshu10101]

Yeah I know not too long I had a post up about this, but now I'm back. I just had to know if anyone out there knew the scripting for making a game that allows the player to switch their characters from "human" to "mech" mode by holding buttons together. In the game that I am trying to creat the machines (mechs) can be accessed through pressing the L2 and R2 buttons simultaneously. I just need to know what type of scripting I need to know how to do all of this in a nutshell. So if you can, please help. Thanks.

[Bigfoot]

Well, first things first, are you using the DBS, or are you making your own CBS?

By the way, you can't really do a combination of buttons with the button: wait: command, you can only do one at a time.

[hyshu10101]

What exactly is DBS and CBS? I'm not very good at all the ancronyms and everything.

[Bigfoot]

DBS = Default Battle System
Self explanitory, hit titles like Fuma! and Hippy Hunt 2(heh) use it.


CBS = Custom Battle System

You make it yourself through complex scripting. (its usually complex)

[hyshu10101]

I wanted to do it on DBS if possible, but if not then I'd have to go to CBS or whichever one is easier.

[Bigfoot]

Yeeeaaahhh.... Not to sound discouraging at all, really, but may I suggest that you maybe make a regular game first, just make something that doesn't challenge your abilities too hard, than come back and make your dream project? Its good to hone your skills with something simple you know?

[hyshu10101]

I know what you mean. I might just make a basic version of this that involves me forcing the characters to be a machine when they should be or whatever. I can't really go back to any of my other ideas because they have things that I can't do at the moment with the amount of time that I can actually put into the game. Thanks, I think I'll just go back to my original idea of the game or a basic structure of it.

[Deleted]

Yeah, in Xenogears, didn't they just put the party members in the robots in certain dungeons anyways? From what I remember the robots didn't actually improve the gameplay either. Because there was such a huge difference in power between the people party members and robot party members the enemies' power just conformed to whether the party was allowed/supposed/forced to be in the robots at that point. In other words, the robots didn't actually add any strategy or tactics to the game because the player had no choice but to use them to beat certain enemies. It's generally a good idea to ask 'How does this improve the gameplay/story?' before putting a lot of effort into making something for your game.

Anyways, it would be quite difficult to do what you asked in either the DBS or a CBS, but I'm sure there is something similar and practical you can do, perhaps something like FF7's Limit Breaks or FF9's Trances (the benefit I can see from the robots in Xenogears is the feeling of power the player gets from using them, but perhaps there's something else too). Going back to what I said before about asking 'How does this improve the gameplay/story?', I would recommend that instead of just copying what you liked from Xenogears (the robots), you think of why you liked it (how it improved the gameplay/story) and copy that because you can probably make a more beneficial feature with less effort that way.

The one roadblock already is that you can only check if a button is pressed not held and you can only check for one button press at a time. This wouldn't really prevent you from doing what you said though.

I was kind of referencing to this theory of game analysis from my rpgm2 guide here: williampaladin.tripod.com/id2.html

"To explain how Balance = Fun, the basic principle to making a game fun is allowing the player to do lots of different things to best the opponent. Think of a first-person-shooter (Golden Eye, Halo, etc.) - if you couldn’t move forward/backward, strafe side-to-side, turn horizontally, aim vertically/horizontally, etc.; the game would be very boring. All you would do is press the fire button, and whoever pressed it faster would win. Pretty lame, huh? You see, what makes it fun is being able to do all sorts of different things to win. Well, just like in a first-person-shooter, the more things the player can do to win in an RPG, the more fun the game will likely be. This is why it’s very important to have lots of different types of party members, equipment, items, abilities, etc. - which I will walk you through making those in this Guide.

The other thing to beware of is if one thing the player can do completely over-rides everything else the player can do, there by eliminating his other methods to win. I’m sure you’ve played some game sometime when you thought something was ‘cheap’ or ‘unfair.’ Well, that’s because it was unbalanced with the other things you or your opponent could do; it over-rode you and your opponents other methods of winning. And, just like in that game, you need your game to be well-balanced for it to be fun. This is why your stats must be balanced - so that your party members, classes, abilities, equipment, etc. (which are all dependent on your stats) can be more balanced."

In other words,

Doing what you have to do = work = not fun
Doing what you choose to do = play = fun
Therefore, more choices = more fun
And, choice negating other choice = less fun

[BloodKnight]

While the gears didn't add much to the gameplay, in quite a few battles you could use the human forms to beat big enemies. Don't get too brave though.

[kennyken]

Bigfoot is absolutely right and I know because it happened to me. It's not a great idea to start off with some sort of grand project if you've barely gotten your feet wet with the software. You'll run into a lot of frustration and by the time you know what your doing your realize what you've been working on is pretty much crap compared to your new skills. And if you don't comprehend why something works and why something doesn't, you'll never be able to debug a complex mess. I'm finally getting into doing complex scripting after experimenting with the software for about 5 or 6 months(my first project was trash so I'll just say experiment). I feel confident that I can do almost anything now. Just have fun and tell a cool little story, with a cool little game, Afterwords, you'll be ready for the type of RPG that you always wanted to make, and be able to theorize ways to script different things.

[hyshu10101]

It's funny though because I'm not especially new to the game but so far i haven't created one thing