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Jamie's Guide to Cool Ability Effects

Started by Aile~♥, 24, February, 2012, 10:21:32 PM

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Aile~♥

This is a topic that someone requested. They wanted to know about the kinds of things you can do in the editor by putting ability effects to unintended uses.

Effect Damage: Let's start with the basics. To do this, just give an Effect Only ability a "Power" value higher than 0. This will cause the ability to deal damage whenever its effect triggers. Damage caused in this way is not affected by random damage variation, and counts as Base Damage as far as Elemental Power and Resistance are concerned.

Double Delusion: Double Delusion is when the game checks for the Delusion status effect twice against each target. This is achieved by giving an Effect Only ability the effect "May inflict Delusion on all enemies". Enemies directly targeted by the ability will be subject to two checks for delusion, the first of which has a very high rate of success. All other enemies will receive only the second check, which has a lower success rate. If you use Effect Damage, only succeeding with the first check will inflict damage.

Set Damage: A neat way to use Effect Damage with the effects "May do double the damage", "May do triple the damage", and "May multiply damage by 1, 2, or 3". Interestingly enough, these effects always count as having activated regardless of whether or not the multiplier triggers. This allows for abilities that always do the same amount of damage, barring the multiplier. Just give an Effect Only ability one of these effects and a Power value equal to the amount of damage you want it to do. Incidentally, I've just discovered that, when used by enemies, the "User Dies" effect is also always active in this fashion, allowing for exact-damage abilities.

Proportional PP Cost Healing: This is a method to make a healing spell always cost PP equal to 10% of the amount healed. Just give a Healing ability the effect "User may recover 10% of damage to PP". This will cause the user to restore negative PP amounts when they heal someone with the ability.

HP Cost Healing: This is a method to make a healing ability that costs HP when cast. Give a Healing ability the effect "User recovers 50% of damage to HP" to make the user lose HP equal to 50% of the HP recovered by the target. Actually, as far as the game is concerned, the user is recovering negative HP.

Healing Overflow: It turns out that Healing abilities actually use a signed 16-bit value for their base power. But the editor doesn't know this. So what you do is you set the ability's power to something just over 32767 (I used 33000), so that it will overflow to the most negative value possible, or at least close to it. This has an odd effect. At such extreme levels of negative healing, the game will not actually damage the target. Instead, the target's HP will be fully restored (though it still says "[character] recovered -31500 (or whatever) HP!") and, for whatever reason, so will their PP. If you were hoping to fully restore HP and PP as well as some other effect, this will free up the secondary effect slot for you!
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Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Rolina

I imagine that by utilizing this you can have HP to PP conversion moves, as well as PP transference moves.  That could be quite helpful in some situations, especially since MP transference is common in RPGs for mages to have.

Salanewt

I might have one, but I haven't tested it yet. You know how Regenerate's effect damages the caster, right? There is probably a way to make it so it doesn't damage you if you use it - my current guess is that using the healing formula should do that, since Coatlique uses the regeneration effect too.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Aile~♥

Quote from: Role on 25, February, 2012, 08:08:22 AM
I imagine that by utilizing this you can have HP to PP conversion moves, as well as PP transference moves.  That could be quite helpful in some situations, especially since MP transference is common in RPGs for mages to have.

These are actually quite difficult to do, because you're still stuck with only 10% PP cost and 50% HP cost. Basically, any move like that you try to make will end up hopelessly overpowered if you use those effects for it. So the best you're going to get right now in regards to PP transference is still pretty much flat value.

@Sala: It's very easy to make Regenerate not damage the target. Currently, it's an Effect Only ability with a Power value of 60. Either removing the Power value or changing it Healing type will remove the damage.
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Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Rolina

By the way, how strong is Regen compared to Coatlique's effect?  Or is it the same?

Aile~♥

Regenerate uses the same ability effect as Coatlicue, and it appears to be the same power.

Also, I dunno if any of you guys thought of this, but you can make counter-attacks do something other than Added Damage +20. For example, you could make the counter-attack a PP damaging move, or make it also paralyse the target for one turn. It always targets only one enemy, however. Even setting it to target an ally, it still hits the enemy.
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Rolina

Darn, was hoping it was a lower powered version of it.  That'd give much more things we could do with it...  But at that power, you kind of have to make it be a summon to balance it. :/

Aile~♥

Yeah, it is rather quite annoying.

Or you could, you know, take the game in a completely different direction from GS. There are some games out there where their style of combat makes effects like that not broken, while still being turn-based and using roughly the same stat set.
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Rolina


Aile~♥

Pretty much. I was also thinking of making a Paper Golden Sun, though. Or a version where characters fight with guns, and so PP is replaced by ammo. I was also considering a mecha-combat based version, too. All of those require completely restructuring the Djinn system, and a lot of monotonous class editing, and a lot of item and ability replacement, as well.
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Salanewt

True, but does changing either of their power levels alter the effect at all? It makes me wonder what the point of having a power level for that effect is if changing it doesn't do anything.



You two are very fast when it comes to sending replies.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Rolina

Quote from: JamietheFlameUser on 25, February, 2012, 01:40:32 PM
Pretty much. I was also thinking of making a Paper Golden Sun, though. Or a version where characters fight with guns, and so PP is replaced by ammo. I was also considering a mecha-combat based version, too. All of those require completely restructuring the Djinn system, and a lot of monotonous class editing, and a lot of item and ability replacement, as well.
A scifi RPG!  I'd totally play the hell out of that!  Where PP is actually AMMO, Battery Energy, and fuel for chemical weapons like flamethrowers!

FUND IT!

Aile~♥

@Sala: Unfortunately, I don't think it does, so I really have no idea why they put a Power value there at all.

@Role: by "FUND IT!", I assume you mean get a game company to do it? Especially since nothing I can come up with would be anywhere near as good in quality. They already did one of those, too. A TBS, even, actually. You haven't played it? I don't remember the name, though.
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Rolina

I take it you don't understand the meaning of "Fund it".  Basically, I was saying the idea is great - make it.  You'll have my support.

You said you made a TBS hack like that?  Is it just TBS but with different attack names or something?

Salanewt

Aw, then I might just have to take a look at it later to see if changing that is feasible.

Oh, and do you know if any of the "?" effects do anything neat or interesting? I remember one of these effects making text show up in battle, but I was wondering if you might have found something.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Aile~♥

@Role: No, not TBS as in "The Broken Seal", TBS as in "Turn-Based Strategy". This is an actual game I'm talking about. Not a ROM hack.

@Sala: no, I haven't found anything relating to those effects, though I actually haven't tested them. I probably should, shouldn't I?
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Rolina

Honestly, I can't wait until one of you guys figures out how to customize effects.  There'll be so much more we'll be able to do...

@Jamie:  Ah, so it's like Alpha Centauri.  I mean in an RPG, though.  I've not seen an RPG that actually does it... Wild Arms may have done it, granted, but I've played it, so I can't say for certain.

Aile~♥

It wouldn't really work yet, though, because we can't do sprite editing.

The mecha combat idea works pretty much fine without sprite editing, though, because we can sprite-swap. Which makes that, my current hack thing, and Paper Golden Sun my next projects.
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Rolina

The only problem I see with using the GS engine for such a game is that the GS engine is designed around 4 elements/damage types, while I can only think up three for a scifi game...

Ballistics
Energy
Chemical

That leaves a fourth slot and character... I suppose we could make it so it's a 3-person game and just axe the fourth element entirely, but... eh...  seems like a waste, you know?  Still, if it doesn't fit, don't use it I suppose...  The trick then is that we'll have to totally change the menu interface to get rid of that fourth slot...

Aile~♥

Ballistic
Explosive
Fire
Energy

There. That's four. And that's if you don't go into such nonsense as freeze rays or dark matter bombs or what-have-you.
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]