[TechDemo] Final Fantasy Battle System

[BeasTie]

Looks good!

[NickyP]

  Finished editing the Fighter, and I even added 2 extra frames. I feel pretty proud of myself, considering I rarely do sprite edits!

Click spoiler to see:
Spoiler

[Plombo]

Ooh, close to the original FF Fighter sprites.  Now I won't be able to play the game without thinking about "I like swords".  Thanks.

Oh, and nice edits.

[Bloodbane]

 Looks great!

 BTW about NPCs, I believe you should show their health in single player mode.
 Hmmm... do enemies attack NPCs? I asked cause I hardly see them killed aside of that evil elf on 2nd stage.

 About Phantom Train, you should do it in FF6 style. In that style, heroes are running with Phantom Train chasing from behind. When attacking, heroes turn around and attack the train.
 This might require alternate model but it's better than static fight like Dawn of Soul has.

[BeasTie]

I know it's meant to be FF style, but I think if you got this running how you really want, it could be great as a battle system base for other games.

Obviously stuff like MegaMan power battles etc. and other similar games could be made... 

But I also see the potential of creating new kinds of games.  What if for example all the final fantasy stuff was replaced for graphics from the original FALLOUT games.  Or something closer to fantasy, original diablo graphics, or even  warcraft.  How about super mario turn based? doesn't necessarily need to be a RPG game/genre is all I'm saying.

Lol, I can even imagine I could probably make something erm, interesting at least, if I replaced what you have now with DOOM sprites  as another example.

Even thou it's not my really kind of thing, I see great potential for infinite kinds of turn based fighting games.

Suddenly a lot of those awesome old games you'd love to remake or reuse sprites from, but have limited sprites have great potential.

Sticking closer to the beat em up genre, I could imagine a pocket fighter style turn based fighting game.  Or even one using standard KOF chars etc.

Anyhow just find what you've been doing interesting, keep up the good work this has more potential then a simple novelty. 

[NickyP]

BTW about NPCs, I believe you should show their health in single player mode.
 Hmmm... do enemies attack NPCs? I asked cause I hardly see them killed aside of that evil elf on 2nd stage.

Enemies can and do hit NPCs. The problem is the system I have set up... In order to simulate turn-based combat, Players and NPCs are temporarily invincible during their ready frame (after you pick a command, not the "Ready!" frame), and during their attack. If it seems that NPC's rarely get hit, it's probably because I make them attack too often. This can be fixed if I make them attack less often, and thus, give them a bigger window where their bbox is on. Another reason why NPCs might not get hit often is the way the attackone command works. With the testing I've done, it seems like it's prioritized... for example, if you have all 4 players standing in the same spot, and an enemy does a screen-sized attack, it'll always only hit player 1. So, I think what happens is if player 1 is available to be hit, then the engine will hit player 1 instead of NPCs. Thus, it's usually when player 1's bbox isn't active that NPC's take damage. I wish I knew how to modify this.

The reason I have it made this way is because I don't know how to have characters display a pain animation without it interrupting an attack. In true FF games, you can get hit multiple times as your character is casting a spell or preparing to strike. I sadly didn't know how to replicate that here, so I did the next best thing by making characters invincible during their attacks.

About Phantom Train, you should do it in FF6 style. In that style, heroes are running with Phantom Train chasing from behind. When attacking, heroes turn around and attack the train.
 This might require alternate model but it's better than static fight like Dawn of Soul has.

  I have a problem with that. The real Phantom Train battle in FF6 has the screen scrolling from left-to-right. I could not make that happen whatsoever in this mod, so the Phantom Train boss here scrolls from right-to-left. If I made the heroes run away like in the real fight, then it'll look like they are running backwards while the train is rolling backwards. So I don't know what to do.   

How about super mario turn based? doesn't necessarily need to be a RPG game/genre is all I'm saying.

One of these days I plan to use this system with Mario RPG sprites. Using what I currently have going here, in addition to clever use of the cancel command, I could replicate Mario RPG's battle scenes pretty easily!

Anyhow just find what you've been doing interesting, keep up the good work this has more potential then a simple novelty.

Posts like this are the most encouraging to me, really. I'm always trying to invent new genres with this engine, and while most of my techdemos end up as amusing novelty, some of them do become more. So when I see that someone appreciates these kinds of things, I feel pretty good inside.  It would make me proud to see someone use this as a base for a similiar style mod.

[BeasTie]

Cool I'm glad I posted then,  I always like seeing anything 'out of the box'

[k_du_mal]

nice work dude! go on...

[NickyP]

I always like seeing anything 'out of the box'

Check the first link in my sig then, good sir. 80% of what's there is 'out of the box'.

In the meantime, I'm having a little problem. I can obviously get Players to heal other Players, and I can get NPC's to heal other NPC's... but I can't get Players to heal NPC's and the other way around. 

[Bloodbane]

The real Phantom Train battle in FF6 has the screen scrolling from left-to-right. I could not make that happen whatsoever in this mod, so the Phantom Train boss here scrolls from right-to-left.

 Oh that bug! I hope this will be fixed. I usually trick this by having a bglayer scrolling in reverse to make it scroll left to right. Here's an example from Contra mod:

Code: [Select]

background data/bgs/industop/hyper.png
bglayer data/bgs/industop/hyper.png 0 0 -320 0 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 -1
panel data/bgs/highwdes/panelE.png
bgspeed 14
...
 Do you notice that bglayer uses same image as background? That's the trick! This bglayer has relative scrollspeed -1 which means scroll in reverse than background.

...but I can't get Players to heal NPC's and the other way around.

 Healing players should be easy cause we can acquire them right away.

Code: [Select]

void P1 = getplayerproperty(0, "entity");
 With this line, we can get Player 1 and we can heal him/her or do anything. For other players, just replace 0 above with 1 for player 2, 2 for player 3 and 3 for player 4.

 Acquiring NPC is another story. The simplest way is to have each NPC store each of them in seperate global variable. The global variable will be read by player before healing.

[NickyP]

I'll try that bglayer trick and will report my results. 

In the meantime, an idea occured to me... Should I make NPCs a bunch of characters that aren't playable (like currently)? Or, should I instead make NPC versions of the playable characters and use those? Spawning them with the random entity spawner script you gave me?

[Bloodbane]

 I prefer the NPC to non playable ones (hence the name). It makes single player mode unique.

 Speaking of NPC, I just remembered that they are equal to beserkers (FF5) or to Gau and Umaro (FF6). Can I request these 2 in this mod?

Spawning them with the random entity spawner script you gave me?

 Don't you think that would change difficulty?

 Oh yes, the script above is designed for 5 possible entities. If you need less or more, it must be modified. Moreover, each of them have equal chance so if you want to change the chance, just tell me and I'll modify it .

[NickyP]

Speaking of NPC, I just remembered that they are equal to beserkers (FF5) or to Gau and Umaro (FF6). Can I request these 2 in this mod?

As NPC's or players? To be honest I'm not quite sure how to make them as players..  I have no idea how to make a random attack, or a player that's on autopilot.

Oh yes, the script above is designed for 5 possible entities. If you need less or more, it must be modified.

Equal chance is perfectly fine, I just want to know how I can add more possible entities. I tried to follow the logic, and I think it has to do with the number 10 and even numbers, but beyond that I have no idea.  If it's a long explanation then no worries; 5 is just fine.

With that, would you prefer random NPC's in the standard (enemies aren't random) mode? Or set ones?

[msmalik681]

I tried your demo it was a very good effort would like to see how you progress with this idea. Will the final mod also have maps, towns, story and some kind of level system or at least the option for new techniques ?

[NickyP]

I tried your demo it was a very good effort would like to see how you progress with this idea. Will the final mod also have maps, towns, story and some kind of level system or at least the option for new techniques ?

I've been trying up and down to find a way to make a random encounter system. The maps would have been made kind of like how I made this mod, but again, I don't know how to make random encounters. Same goes for level ups and new moves.

For now, this is more of an arcade version of the FF battle system. Glad you like it so far, though.