/rpgmg/ - RPG Maker General 171

awe, that sucks, I know your probably not a fan of the youtubers, but I just wanted to get the word out there. I know It's not much but, there is one character you can have in your party that's not a youtuber. I hope it's something. Also, I know it's not much but, since you like jojo, Here is one of the enemies you could fight in the game, " JoJo Balloon boy" But i call him, Enragement child, You could take your frustration out on this Enemy if you want, (sorry if this drawing isn't the best)

Thanks alot for your honesty user, your feedback is greatly Appreciated, glad you gave the trailer a watch!

That's fine, my goal is to have fun making the game that I want since it's never going to be finished anyway

Why don't you guys just use Game Maker?

You an 100x the freedom with just a bit of coding.

You can even literally just rip the sprite from RPG Maker.

Posting the full DEMO here! Thanks for everyone who helped point out some typos!

mediafire.com/file/uz5am43hctt4j1x/SteelZeroes Demo 1,0.7z

>just a bit of coding
I've worked with gamemaker a bit, recreating everything RPGM does, especially with scripts/plugins, would not be a small feat. You gain very little from that freedom if your goal is to make a jRPG style game.

Lewd Patch when?

I'm in the same boat as I never really watched any Let's Players outside of Vinesauce, and not even them so much these days. As much as I like JoJo, I don't think I'd get much out of the game.

Congratulations to your friend for finishing it, though. I've never completed something even half that length.

This art isn't bad at all by my standards, though.

Has anyone gotten the quasi Arpg plugin to work? I can't even get the demo running. Or does anyone know if another MV arpg plugin?

Oh if you missed it last thread, I've finished the first prologue of my game "I Did a Bad a Thing"

tothdeck.itch.io/i-did-a-bad-thing

But you don't need to recreate everything RPGm does.

You don't need to add scripts/plugins, you can hard code it into your game after you get the basic engine going, which is no feat.

>RPGm
>the autism of wasting your life for something that no one will ever play or care at all

it's like learning how to play an instrument only you can hear while wishing that others will like it and waiting for their appraisal

Neat, I'll definitely give this a try tonight.
Are you still on the hunt for bugs and typos?

It's still an instrument, user
youtube.com/watch?v=X2WH8mHJnhM

>It's another agdg episode
Oh boy

Well to distract ourselves from the agdg nonsense, what do people think of Ancient Dungeons?
It looks amazing to me but the fact that currently there are no snow or desert motifs blows. I realize the artist is going to work on them but it may take a while.

>Game Maker
>for RPGs
It's like you want people to never finish anything. Game Maker is nodev central. At least here guys like actually get shit done.

Was this the one with the nice looking statues and such? If so I liked it but I think it was too expensive.

Not much better than the default stuff imo. You are still stuck with the same shit chibi characters and the same stupid battlers. You are just paying to make anything not from that pack look out of place.

Better to scribble some pixel stuff and have something that looks different from everyone else.

No progress to post.
Haven't had much time to work on my game for personal reasons, apart from advancing on potential party members.
There's a good 10 of them now, which will likely be the final number, and all of them have a preferred weapon and motivation now, but that's about it.

Baby steps.
youtube.com/watch?v=p3JPa2mvSQ4

Baaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttt

I've been playing around with the idea of narration in my game. Like a story is being told to the player as they play it. It might turn off people who don't really like to read, but I think it could add something fun to the game. I really liked the DM voice over in D&D online as you crept through the dungeons, or the narrator in darkest dungeons.

>Ancient Dungeon
I hope you're using VXA and are going to pay for the second Ancient Dungeon tile set. Otherwise, don't bother. I'm using Ancient Dungeons on MV (Upscaled) and it's a pain. Still looking for the Jungle tile set.

The narrator in Darkest Dungeon was really great and added to the experience. The one in Bastion was also great.
If you go that route then get someone with a good voice.

Well, it would be written, not vocal. Which is why I worry that more modern audiences wouldn't like all those dirty words on the screen so much. I am going for a very early PC RPG aesthetic, pic related, so having voice overs wouldn't really fit.

Ah, I see.
In that case I think it can work but make sure that it doesn't distract the player and more importantly choose a font that is easy to read.
Such old games were kinda hard to read sometimes.

I got one skill working!
Too bad the ATB is still incompatible and causes the game to freeze.

I'm almost done with my demo. Just need to add some more monsters and polish it up.
Though it's the Undertale recreation so no one cares.

Don't say that user.
I will tell you that it is a nice Undertale clone.

I will forgo the fancy pixel fonts in favor of legibility. Tho I do love bitmgothic, I will be practical and go with something like fixedsys regular.

Dwarf Fortress is incredibly hard to read as well, and people are still willing - to this day - to dig into it.

Not that I'm disputing what you say, but I guess one should never underestimate what players are willing to dedicate to a game if everything else clicks
It can be an enormous threshold though.

I have no idea where to go with my plot and I think I just want to rip it out and start from scratch, because it's built on a pretty weak premise.

This happens quite often I think and sometimes it really is better to start anew.

It may be tough, but don't grow too attached to your ideas.
Allow yourself to admit that the thing you came up with didn't work out. It doesn't make you suck or a no-good, it just means you came up with something that didn't work.

If you feel you want to rip it out and start from scratch, do it.
Salvage anything you think you can use, but even if you don't or can't: that's fine. Your next idea is better.

This also has the bonus effect of allowing you to be more creative. If you only have that one idea that has to work out, you often don't dare touching it.

Keep it up, user!

>You can even literally just rip the sprite from RPG Maker.
Not if you're going commercial. Most RPG Maker resources are for RPG Makers only.

This is the one that's currently in active development:
forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/66713-alpha-abs-11-beta/

It's best to ignore Quasi. He's made it clear(in his Patreon at least) that he's moving away from RPG Maker. Consider all of his plugins to be dead.

Got a couple new tracks done did in the spirit of the month, should help to fill out some atmospheres a little.

Closer to traditional horror, like resident evil sorta.

soundcloud.com/mondo-nugget/clown-flavored-bologna

Dark edgy synthwave, probably some kind of Bio-Dungeon.

soundcloud.com/mondo-nugget/biohazard-busters

Mostly just doing more gruntwork, items, npcs, maps and such for the game side of the spectrum.

I am THIS close to finishing the Demo for Tomb of Friends 2. Expect to see it soon!

neat

How do I make a game using RPG Maker that will sell very well on Steam? How much did Lisa sell?

Thanks! Ill be sure to let my friend know, your feedback much appreciated!

>How do I make a game using RPG Maker that will sell very well on Steam?
By making it as unlike an RPG Maker game as possible. By looking too similar, you lump yourself in with all those wannabes

>How much did Lisa sell?
Well enough

By actually working on your game without being lazy and copying from other games.

Those seem to be the largest pitfalls here.

noprogress, RTP, efforts to clone something in some way. All those things will hold you back.
Let go and embrace your own vision.

First one is very spooky and gives me chills. The piano is soothing but as soon as it's gone it's even more spooky.

Second one is really cool, I love the transition at ~2 minutes in.
I must say you really improved and I enjoy listening to your stuff.

Will there ever be an RPG Maker game as innovative as Yume Nikki?

Thanks man! I can only keep getting better, and I plan to.

Yes! As soon as you make it

bump

Wrote lore in notepad.
Played with character generator.

I feel so lame.

Pick a character from your party.
Got it?
Now give us a description of their legendary weapon and why your character is worthy of using it

Good night bump

No legendary weapons really. Just weapon modification. Makes sense really when the weapons they use are either family heirlooms, the only thing they have any training with, or because the character doesn't want to just trade it in.

Whoa bump.

I'm back! It's a cute game so far. I'm really hoping for some outlandish enemy designs further down in the story. It would be a cool contrast to see small threats from the beginning to see huge ones towards the end.
The combat system isn't the bad, and I like the humor.
My only real complaint is probably how you engage a random battle. I didn't notice that the radar gives you a prompt to start a fight. I was wandering around waiting for a battle to start until the 4th(?) puzzle. That was when I figured out that you were supposed to press a key to engage an enemy.
Otherwise, I find some typos and a bug here.
1. asure should be assure
2. double spacing
3. double spacing
4. graphic bug?

It would help if I posted my image

How to write a good main story?
I can imagine a good sidequest because I can follow witcher 3 example: it must have a mini story you can relate yourself irl.

Let's talk damage formulas.

After long exposure to JRPGs and the like, I think we all default a little too quickly to the traditional damage formulas - You have a huge chance of hitting (90%+), a small chance of crit'ing (1%-20%), armor mitigates damage, and people have lots of numeric life that allows multiple hits. This formula is so common I don't think any of us really look at it and consider how silly it is from a "realistic" perspective. Not that that's bad. It's video gamey, and video gamey is good. It's just strange, and no one seems to really challenge it. Since I'm making my combat from scratch for an sRPG, I get a lot more creative freedom than the RTP combat.

So my goal this time was simple: incorporate realistic elements while maintain video gamey aspects and keeping it relatively simple. I may have failed the last, but it was a design goal.

I started with dice rolls. My main influence here was 40k: Rogue Trader 1E (as mentioned last thread). Their system is remarkably simple: 3 is 50% of a D6, so the average humans gets 3 across the board on stats. Two humans fighting each other have a 50% chance to hit (Weapon Skill 3 vs WS 3), 50% chance to wound (Strength 3 vs Toughness 3), and then a Saving Throw. Unlike Morrowind, which resulted in a miss-fest, this low chance (only 25% before Saves) is supplemented with one Unsaved Wound killing the model. Clean, efficient - if you get disembowled and your armor doesn't deflect it, you're not getting back up.

But I'm making a video game, not tabletop, so I want more influential stats and control. D6 became 60, and the average 3 became 30 (which is much easier to increase with level-ups). Instead of 1 Wound instant death, I defaulted to 100 life fixed so its easier to see coming. I also included direction of attack - it's easier to hit someone from the side or the back than the front, where he's ready, and some more.

Cont.

Too many dice rolls can lead to frustration from the RNG Gods, so I wanted more stability as well.

So, my system.

I knew from the start I wanted to include dodging, glancing armor saves (blade slides off armor), a flat damage reduction on hits (armor still works on a good, solid hit), faith saves (gods play a heavy role in my game, and intervention is common in combat), and a standard luck save - as well as a way of circumventing all of the above. Maces ignore glancing saves, chopping weapons can go over shields, a holy weapon will ignore faith saves, etc.. Lastly, I wanted a distinction between how much your armor covers and how protected you are.

But simplicity was a goal. Fun, with lots of choices that do impactful things (weapons do more than +damage), but you shouldn't need a spreadsheet to PLAY (only design).

I played around with this a lot. You can see my efforts in the previous picture. Here's what I've finally settled with:

>Attributes: Combat Skill, Defence, Faith, Luck
>Stats: Weapon Skill (one for each weapon type), Damage, Dodge, Damage Reduction, Armor Cover %, Armor Save, Encumbrance

>Formula (in order):

>To Hit: (30+(pWS x BONUS*)-(eDDG - eENC))/60
*BONUS: x1.5 if attacking from the side, x2 if behind
>Parry/At Bay: (eWS/2)/60
>Block: BLK%
>Armor Save: eARM% x (eARSV/6)
>Faith Save: eFTH/60
>Faith Counter Save: pFTH/60**
**If both pass, a Faith War begins. Deus Vult.
>Luck Save: (eLUK - pLUK)/60
>Damage: pDAM - eDEF

I know it looks like a lot, but for two peasants fighting with fists, it's a 50% chance from the front, 75% from side, 100% from behind to deal damage. For a man in full iron armor and a shield, the peasant can't do squat. That's another thing - armor acquisition is semi-realistic. It's extremely rare and expensive as fuck to acquire, especially a full suit. Most everyone will have hybrid gear and non-generic stats.

Final thoughts:

I wanted something that seemed fun at every level of playstyle. I have a friend whose real fond of "Faith is my Shield" characters in no armor, trusting divine protection. I personally liked Bleach's Iron Skin/"Zero fucking damage!" high def thing, so that's possible. Weapon type is more important than weird tier systems like copper sword, iron sword, mithril sword, mushu-wushu god sword, etc.. Damage is pretty inherent already: a punch is 5 (20 hits to kill someone without armor), a sword is 20 damage (though I may bump it to 60, depending on how defence pans out), etc.. Full armor makes you a walking tank even against swords. The "special" weapons or armor are going to do tricks rather than stats - because in my game, "There is no magic but prayer." And on that front, a god answering a prayer can have some magic-like effects that twist up this whole system proper good.

The last thing is unarmed combat. A punch is near useless against someone with armor, obviously, but getting your Unarmed Weapon Skil up will start teaching you grappling techniques. Full armor means little when you're flat on your back from a wild savage and someone shoves a knife through your visor. My "faith" friend loves unarmed characters, so I figure he'll appreciate the viability. He can go full Monk now.

Well, that's it for my dev talk. I know no one actually read this, and I'm sure I'll tweak a bunch I get to testing (the combat is already done), but it sure is theraputic putting it all down and sorting out my thoughts.

>tl;dr Bump.

Real final thoughts (and bump):

UI. The User Interface. The damage formula is long and cumbersome, but not for the player. If you successfully damage someone, you just click attack and it says
>Dealt X damage.
All the other stuff comes into play when something fails. It just spits back a message saying what failed:
>X dodged.
>X parried/blocked.
>X's armor deflected the blow.
etc.

Quick and clean. Personally, I hate having to click through messages, dice rolls, confirmations, clunky animations, etc. You can have complexity, but keep that out of the interface.

One issue you may run into is that players hate missed attacks. It feels arbitrary and like the game cheated you, because there was nothing you could have done to avoid that miss. It was out of your control. 50% or even 75% chance to hit will very quickly frustrate players and have them shutting your game off.
In a table top setting weather you hit of not is part of the excitement, but that is a social setting and having other players around to pick up the slack or commiserate with does a lot to mitigate the random nature of the games. You are making a single player experience where the mechanics are hidden, so players don't give the same miss function that mental leeway.

Start with full party or meet members along the way?

Meet members along the way almost definitely.

This was already asked in the last topic, but got no replies:

Will there be a crack for MV version 1.3.3, or does it not need one?

Same here, there should be a small message teling you that you need to execute battles yourself.

Depends on story.

Meet. I hate having to take the time to control all these fags I don't give a shit about when I just started the game.

1-3 Will fix it!
4 - I actually have zero freakin' clue how to fix that... if anything, I may have to replace the victory script since I can't for the life of me, find a way to take out that square.

Yeah, I've heard that complain before too, will add a small tutorial window telling you about it!
Also, I got to work on some new assets today! Drawing tilesets is by far the most fun part of making this!

...

Depends on game length. If its short, full party. If long, meet along the way.

There's been a lot of D&D-licensed (or inspired) video games, though. I think as long as you establish missing well enough as a main mechanic, it can work even in single player.

Push it to the limit

Can you guys give me some tips on character design?
Like, say I have a NPC who is meant to be an Insect and a Farmer. How do I incorporate both concepts visually so the guy doesn't end up as "Beetle with a Straw Hat"?

Make him farm.
Make him tend to animals.
Make him stand near a farm and heaps of hay.

Animations and placements counts as visual elements just as much as the sprite itself does, I'd say.

When it comes to the sprite, farming tools may help.
Straw hat and overall is overused, quite true, but they aren't even necessary.

omg Beetle with a Straw Hat sounds so cute

Is there anywhere I can get a region tileset? I use an external program (Tiled) to make maps in and there are plugins that let you set up regions with it, but I can't find an actual image of a tileset to use with it.

The VX Ace crack in the OP is broken, can anyone provide a new link?

>How to write a good main story?

Here's my method how to do it and I think it works(note: I still haven't released my game and, obviously, haven't got any feedback about it's story quality, so take my advices with a grain of salt).

Basically - do something simple, even cliche. Like, destroying some ancient evil, saving a princess, that kind of stuff. It may seem like a bad idea at first, because of how much people seem to hate simple stories, but the truth is - at the end of the day they probably won't mind, if you do it right. Keep in mind, that if you decide to make your story from a simple archetype, you have more time to develop stuff like characters, plot-twists and backstory/lore. All of those things seem to matter more to players than some deep,expansive storyline, considering how much series like MGS, Dark Souls or even Undertale are popular. You can't really call stories of those games particularly deep, even more - they're actually quite simple - but they excel at some of those smaller things I described before.

Anyway - if you're going for a simple story, most of the work is already done, but you still must try to make your story somewhat different. Try to do some crazy and unexpected plot twists, maybe some mindfucks, go for some kind of atmosphere that may feel fresh in your kind of setting or just make a cast of memorable characters, confront them together and try to make a story out of them and their chemistry.

There was also a good advice I've read some time ago. Basically, you should base your story around basic human emotions and needs, like love, friendship,hate etc. so that everybody would understand and relate to it. Dingaling(LISA's creator) wrote a good article about it some time ago, but I can't find it now. If I remember correctly, in this post he said something that a good story is this one that even a caveman can understand.

Anyway, sorry for my chaotic writing. I hope it will help at least a bit!

Seeing as how it's entirely too easy to get banned on makerweb. are there any other rpg maker sites with classifieds? I wanna hire a coder and I'm not going to make it to 30 posts any time soon.

I'll keep that in mind, especially during testing.

Two notes in my defence though. The 50% is the chance from the average starting stat ((30+[30]-[30])/60 = .5 or 50%), and Weapon Skill increases by use. As a system, your chance to hit is based on how much better than your opponent you are, where equal skill is 50%. Notice if you're worse: (30+[30]-[45])/60 = 25%, or better: (30+[50]-[35])/60 = 75%, although that discrepancy is rather huge. Even if WS and the other stats start at 1: (30+[1]-[1])/60 = 50%. It's meant to encourage ganging up so you have someone hitting the sides/back and more consistently wounding - and again, wounds rack up extremely fast here. Only a few means death.

Also, people get more than 1 attack. For every 25 CBT (which maxes at 100), you get 1 extra attack. So by the time people start getting solid gear and (I imagine) frustrating saves, you also start getting multiple attempts to hit through it. Assuming you have a mace for that sweet, sweet "ignore glancing armor saves," you get x2 chance to hit even from the front, leading to more consistent hits all around.

As for "hidden," I'll definitely keep that mind in testing and in feedback when I post a demo. Right now, the plan is to show a quick little stat/chance screen before confirming "Attack" on someone (Fire Emblem comes to mind here), in case you didn't realize before this guy is a walking high priest with 40 Faith and your attacker isn't holy. It's just the physical rolls I want out of sight. However, in my current debug testing, I have all the rolls laid out clearly to make sure it's all operating smoothly. I don't know how it feels to be hidden yet, so I'll pay especial attention to it once I remove the screens.

Still need this. Also.

How easy is it to change how many party members there are in play at once? If I wanted to have, say, 8 characters at once, is that doable?

I am fairly sure there are Scripts for teams of up to 10. I've never tried one, though. And I can't imagine it looking pretty.

>"Beetle with a Straw Hat"
Just go with that. Sounds fun.

Thanks.

Can anyone reupload the crack? The only other one I can find comes with all the VX system files and I'm not sure that's the one I need.

Live

The only one I have is in the Pirate Bay.

Fixed a few things!

>Fixed a few portraits, some were missing a few details, such as Luke not having those bolts attached to his hips.
>There was a rare glitch where you’d get stuck in the battle transition, hopefully it’s fixed now.
>Corrected a few minor typos.
>Nerfed some power and defense upgrade Parts for the sake of balancing.

mediafire.com/file/i9oaabb8i8r8u88/SteelZeroes - Demo 1,1.7z

I found a bug in the game, I can't seem to access the porn.

Too bad, eh?

such a tease.
what would it take to access the pron?