Entry 7 - Chronic Debuffs

One thing that makes hobby game development such an absurd proposition to me on most days is that I spend all day at my computer for work. The idea of sitting in front of it for X amount of hours, even for something I'm enjoying doing, is oftentimes too much to handle. And I mean this literally and figuratively, as this session I had such a flare up of pain in my thigh that I ended up doing about half as much as I would have liked.

Not to say I didn't get anything done. I managed to pull something off that I didn't think I'd be able to at my skill level, which was neat.

Debuffs

I wrapped up the skill set of the last two characters. Morag was simple enough - she's a Mage with every elemental spell and some healing stuff.

Sipho was the challenge. This is because I wanted him to be a debuffer, but because this game is a little silly, and so is the character, I wanted him to randomly apply a debuff to a monster with his kit, with increasing MP cost for a debuff on multiple monsters at a time.

This is trickier than you'd think in RPG Maker MV. My first instinct was to use a common event that had a random variable which would apply to the monster, but that doesn't really work when it comes to the debuff mechanic. So I had to write out some code using Yanfly's Skill Core to help:

<After Eval>
if (result.isHit()) {
  var Params = [];
  // Insert Parameter IDs you want to debuff (ATK to LUK)
  Params.push(2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7);
  // Randomly select the debuff
  var id = Params[Math.floor(Math.random() * Params.length)];
  // Input the debuff's duration
  var turns = 5;
  // Add the debuff to the target
  target.addDebuff(id, turns);
}
</After Eval>

To my surprise, this worked. Surprise in the sense that I thought I'd fuck it up, but I nailed it on the first go. You love to see it. It even manages to work when attached to a skill that hits one, two random, or all enemies.

I wanted to do the same thing for states. This technically worked, but the problem with that is that one of the states that can get activated is Knockout. This means that there was a 20% chance that Sipho could instantly kill an enemy using the ability. I could probably figure out how to exclude Knockout from the list of State variables, but also I am tired, and constantly in pain. So moving on.

Items

I decided to make any and all items max out their respective properties. I.e. the healing item heals 100% of a character's health, the MP item heals 100% of a character's magic points, etc. I settled on this because I think there could be a fun game on the player's side to decide when to use a healing item to get the most benefit out of it. Could Fatima tank this next hit before getting full health, or is it better to play it safe and use it now? Stuff like that.

Morag is a healer, and her healing is formula based, but she won't get outclassed by the items in the game because her Cure and Esuna spells heal the entire party by default. So there'll still be a reason to use those spells, while balancing her ability to cast elemental spells on enemies.

Next session I'd like to build out the monsters, which will be fun. I also need to request the sprite for the final boss from Kiak.

What's Left