A few questions from a beginner.

[MentalOne]

A friend and I are trying our hands at making a simple RPG to get more aquanted with programming using RUBY and, more importantly, creating a fun personalized gaming experience for our friends to share. We decided on RPG Maker VX Ace because it seemed pretty simple for a first project. However I'm noticing a lot of restrictions imposed in using the program and some in the existing scripts that we lack the programming knowledge to re-write. If anyone has some tips, or better yet links to existing examples of the scripts we need for any of the following issues it would be much appretiated.

1. How do I display monster HP in battle scenes?

Currently I have it set up so that in troops text appears when enemies reach certain amounts of health, which works well enough for what I have planned, but leads me to my second issue.

2. How do I make text in battle scenes require the enter button to proceed?

The game I'm working on has a lot of complicated abilites being used very quickly in battle sequences that currently display and scroll too fast to be read and understood. A simple fix would be forcing the player to press enter to display the next line rather than it auto displaying after a set time, but I don't know how to do this.

3. How do I make calculated damage over time spells?

The only ways I've found of doing this involve subtracting specific HP amounts from specific actors which is a pretty poor fix, and doesnt allow for actors to use these spells.

4. Better UI

There is a lot I'd like to do to make the standard UI in the game cleaner and better suited for the game I'm making, but I can't find the options to do so outside of specic scripts such as those for the menus and even then I'm too scared to dive in and change stuff without proper knowledge.

That's pretty much it for now, any general tips would be appretiated as well. We've spend a total of maybe 20-30 hours in the program combined so we still have a lot to learn. Thanks for your help!

EDIT: Also how do you make movies?

 

[Andar]

Hi,

based on your questions I assume that you are a really new beginner - I advice you to follow the link in my signature and work through the tips and tutorials listed there.

To your questions:

1) you need a script for that, but there are already several available on the master script list (which is also linked in my topic)

2) the event command show text waits for a button by default - if your text scrolls through too fast, you'll use some other method for displaying text. Most probably the skill messages - but those were never intended to give explanations, only as short indicators for what was done during combat.

3) That's what states are for. Your skill will apply the state to the target, and in the states you can choose what effect and how long it should apply. Look at the default states to learn what they do before replacing them with your own.

4) You'll have to use scripts for anything other than replacing the colors (replace windowskin picture in resource manager) or the names (terms tab in the database). But again, there are already a lot of finished HUD/GUI-scripts in the master script list.

And if you don't want to mess with scripts for yourself, there is a script request forum here where you can ask for help or have those scripts made - simple to medium general scripts are often given for free, only for complex or very specific variants you might have to trade against other work or offer payment (classified request)

 

[MentalOne]

3) The only default state that deals acutal damage is Poison which does so by making the regen on the character negative, as far as I can tell it's the only way the damage is formed, which isn't what I had in mind. I was hoping to allow damage to be calculated using MAT or ATK, If possible.

Thanks for the link, I'll be reading through that for sure today. Also I'll be sure to ask around for those scrips to learn how to do them myself.

 

[Andar]

3) The only default state that deals acutal damage is Poison which does so by making the regen on the character negative, as far as I can tell it's the only way the damage is formed, which isn't what I had in mind. I was hoping to allow damage to be calculated using MAT or ATK, If possible.

OK, I hadn't checked that for some time - but there are effect manager scripts that cann add more options to the states than the default ones, and those are usually easy to install and then you place the effect you want as a notetag in the state where it should happen.

On one side, VX Ace is geared toward making classic JRPGs in default, so those options can be limiting - on the other side, the engine is completely open and everything can be changed or added. If you take the time to look through the master script list with it's several hundred scripts, you will not only find simple scripts to add a few basic functions to the game, but also more complex scripts that replace most of the engine and convert VXA into an action-platformer, or give completely different battle systems and so on.

It takes a while to learn all options given by Ace (that's why I recommend to make a test/tutorial project first), but if you do you can do a lot with it.

 

[Shaz]

2) He probably means the battle log, which just zooms by and doesn't wait for a keypress. To change that would require script modifications as well.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

3) You can use this script if you want more control over the over-time damages (slip damages): http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/13607-slip-damage-ex-v105/