It's been years since I've worked on an RPG Maker project.... this was before I got Steam. I "acquired" RPG Maker VX (without the Ace) and started working on what I thought would be the game of my dreams. It went... rather well, really. My day (well, night) job is a programmer, so scripting the events and such is easy for me, but man was RPG Maker VX lacking in a lot of things. And I mean A LOT.

To the rescue came the online shared scripts... I especially liked yanfly's. I used ton of yanfly scripts, whether for battle, after battle, menu, etc. It makes the game look much much cooler. Alas, as things were progressing, I found there's one thing I cannot solve at all... and that is RPG Maker's simple battle mechanics.

There's like 4 stats... I'll name it off the top of my head so it might be wrong, but you can get the gist... ATK, DEF, MAG, SPD. It's exactly what it says on the tin, except... SPD suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. The only thing it affects is... whoever has the higher SPD has a higher chance to attack first that turn. Yes, that's it. No dodging, nothing. You can't make a Speed based character at all, he'll be beaten to a pulp if he has low DEF. Attacks and Magic ALWAYS hit.

So what I decided to do was... do a minor overhaul of the battle mechanics. I tinkered around with the coding, make it SPD does more things... basically, I made it so there's some SPD-related chances to dodge stuff... only I did not realize the implications of the things I did until I did a test battle. I put up a char with maxed speed and has like, with my tinkering of the battle mechanics, 75% chance to dodge things and, well... dodge everything she did... even items... and healing magic. It kinda reminds me of Disgaea 1's Ninjas but...

Whoops.

Fun times... real fun. Other challenges include a near impossible means to balance stuff. Battles are either too hard, or too easy. It's really hard to maintain a proper balance to make battles a decent challenge. I was in the midst of doing that (and more tinkering with the SPD stuff) but then my laptop died. RIP game. I managed to put the HDD into a external casing and recover stuff, but I never did get back into things till now. I still have my project with me... maybe I will restart it one day.

Rant over, here are the GAs. Level 4, but no SGTools because I'm lazy like that. I'll probably edit more RANTS in later but I'm done for now.

https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/2PXcL/rpg-maker-vx-ace

https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/wEDc1/rpg-maker-xp

8 years ago

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What did you find were the most challenging?

View Results
I've never worked on an RPG Maker game project before
Finding just the right potato images to fit the game
The scripting of events, etc
The battle mechanics and stat balancing (my personal URGH)
Writing (or winging) a good story
Need... cuter... pics...
Not enough cats

You seem to misunderstood SPD attribute. In most "traditional" RPG games, SPD doesn't determine dodging rate, it determines character delay time. Character with higher SPD will have shorter delay, which makes him/her "act" earlier in a turn, and if the SPD is high enough, let's say double the enemies, then that character can act twice during 1 enemies' turn. Dodging rate in some games is determined by AGI or LUC. RPGMaker seems to follow this scheme.

And since RPGMaker have quite some limitation (for example, the number of layers you can use), together with me being busy and lazy, I dropped a project I had been working on for about 6 months without any fruitful result.

8 years ago
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Problem with RPGMaker's mechanics is it's so simple it only has 4 stats, ATK, DEF, MAG, SPD, no Agi or Luc, etc, thus the limitations. Well, one of the many limitations. It's a pain sometimes. :/

8 years ago
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Ace has a total of 8 stats: MHP (Max HP), MMP (Max MP), ATK, DEF, MAT (Magic ATK), MDF (Magic DEF), AGI and LUK.

8 years ago
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I used VX (non Ace) in the past and I did name the stats off my head so I might've either missed some, name some wrong or it just wasn't around in VX. Seems it won't help much anyway...

HP and MP is by itself, obvious in all games (which is why I usually don't list em)
ATK vs DEF
MAT vs MDF
AGI, which is if like VX, is who has higher chances to act first in the turn
LUK, is this the one that affects crit? I do remember there's such thing as crits.

Yeah, I still need to tinker about with the battle mechanics and coding if I wanna make any Spd/Agi based chars, but I'm lazy. I have yet to touch VX Ace despite buying it like a year plus ago, lol. I fear if I return to RPG Making I'll spend too much time on it I'll never get anything else done, lol.

Heck, in VX I spent more time in the tinkering of the battle codes than making a game... waaaaaaay too much time.

8 years ago
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There's a pre-written script that lets you edit the formulas of battle parameters. Have you tried that one? It's called Yanfly Engine - Extra Param Formulas. I believe there are one version for VX and one version for Ace.

8 years ago
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Deleted

This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

8 years ago
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Pokemons? That'll be lots and lots of assets and a headache to maintain and use XD

I have a hard enough time trying to maintain 6 or so party chars and the random NPCs.

8 years ago
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I worked on a trash game for the lulz, it was a good laugh for my friends and I. I convinced a good friend of mine to get vx ace and taught him how to use everything provided by the software. Up until now, neither of us have finished making a game. My friend's files continuously get corrupted; my laptop imploded and have yet to be recovered from the hard drive. Maybe I'll finish my joke game one of these days, maybe I'll get around to creating my own assets and a serious game. I'm currently waiting for mv to go on sale, which probably won't for a few more years considering it's new.

8 years ago
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God just doesn't want you to make games, it seems...

8 years ago
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Or at the very least... a "trash game for the lulz".

8 years ago
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Bump

8 years ago
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As that saying goes, "if you love it, you should put a ring on it" (or something like that).
But, given that it's technically impossible to give a ring to the RPG game genre, I'd like to make one such game myself.
My previous experience being working on Pokémon ROMs 12 or so years ago, but all I achieved was messing around with maps.
Last September I impulsively bought this https://www.bundlestars.com/en/bundle/game-makers-mega-bundle, but even after 87 hours on RPG Maker VX Ace, I couldn't even draw a good map, let alone something resembling a game...
And I deliberately left out of the talk my inability with programming, and total lack of creativity...
Sigh... I'm definitely better at playing RPGs, than making them... Maybe the future will be brighter?

8 years ago*
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~5 hours left, bump

8 years ago
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Bumping the thread for reasons... (:

I finally finished the game I was talking about 2 weeks ago. You can play it here: http://gamejolt.com/games/final-test/144138

If you do, please rate & comment. Thanks in advance! (:

8 years ago
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