February Goals and Progress Thread

[Zelgadis85]

Progress update on February 16th:

I have been hit by a common cold here, taking away much of my development time. Therefore my mapping hasn't been progressing at the rate I had hoped. Counting the maps I still need to finish shows me that I'm about 70% done with the rough draft (77 maps out of 256 left). Hopefully I am getting over this illness (I feel much better already, but from experience these can come and go at a moment's notice). I originally thought of entering the Valentine's mapping contest, but as I have honestly no ideas for that I think I'll pass and concentrate on getting my own game done.

 

[Kes]

@Arcmagik I feel your pain, but red text should only be used by mods. Please edit your post to remove it.

Thanks

 

[Lantiz]

Did reach my goal which was actually touching my project, now I'm on to it again.

Done:
Fixed the town generation plugin extension;
Defined a pixel text font;
Fixed some tiles and improved others;
Maped the main town;
Working on basic events for main town;

New goals:
Finish basic events;
Create NPC dialogs;
Implement a good questing method, needs to be repeatable and always changing. The more variations, the better.

Maybe:
Think about time system;
Think about overlay leaves;

Addon:
Found out that I can make autotiles;
Planning to make my own assets in the next game I make;

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

Progress Report #9
Immortal Sins:
-Translated the readme file to Greek.
-Made the launcher to auto pick the right language of the readme file.
-Replacing the quest script with a different one which works better.
-Made new clothes for one of the party member. The second outfit didn't match with the title screen so I had to do edits:

-Also got a prototype of the new title screen for testing.

 

[Archeia]

I did a thing with Live2D. Very interesting experience with tons of headaches. I learned a lot though. It made me realize how much I miss bones and love Spine so much more.

 

[Andronius]

Feb/Done:
Finish my first sketch project
Have someone to test it
Try myself other ppl games
Make nice friends in the RPGMMV community
Learn that not everybody is nice to us noobs in the forums
Update my old project
Totally screw-up and destroy all my hard work whith that same update
Learn how to ask for help (post a thread/topic) on the forums
Learn (the hard way) what "necroposting" was and be nagged for it

Feb/Maybe goals:
Organize my database ？
Organize all over again my Plugin Manager ？
Update again all my Plugins？
Continue my first project ？
Start from scratch ？

 

[Kes]

What with a heavy cold and a couple of unmovable deadlines in RL I've not been able to do much, including posting here. I've fallen so far behind that it's not possible to respond to individual updates except by a post that would rival War and Peace for length. If I get back into daily posting, I can respond to people. Until then...

My Update
I had a very pleasant surprise. I had thought that Shinma, who tested my last 2 games as I went along, had moved on from RM as he hadn't been on the site since May 2016. However, he's returned!! And has begun testing. As straight playing would take 5 hours to complete what I've done so far, testing will take a huge amount of time. So I've been dealing with anything he finds (mostly arising from the differences between UK English and US English, plus some passability issues). Other than that, mostly database stuff and editing, but not a lot of it.

 

[TriceratopsX]

Progress Update #1
-Gotten some work done on the map, I think I have all the paths I'm gonna need (Might add more), and most of the transfer events

(Credit for the vertical roof tiles goes to @Candacis! I love these things! )
Also finished first Knights & Knaves puzzle (yay. ) You can't see it very well in this pic but it's in the bottom left of the map.

 

[Arithmetician]

Finished planning out the command skills for a few more classes, including the Astromancer.

Revised the core physical damage formula to: (4 * atk - 3 * def) (1 + (level-1)/10).

Created a core magic damage formula, (8 * mat + 4 * spellpower - 3*mdf) (1 + (level-1)/10). The coefficient is twice as high on mat than atk because it doesn't benefit as much from equipment. Spellpower is a number that I will plug in for each attack spell (~ 15 for low-tier spells, ~ 75 for high-tier ones).

Thought more about buffs. Even +10% to a stat can make for a pretty significant damage boost with the damage formulas as stated. Perhaps I need to revise some of my equipped skills (e.g. ATK + 20%, etc.) to account for this.

Also started thinking about healing formulae.

 

[Sharm]

After weeks of feeling blah and not wanting to do anything at all, I was actually able to do something productive today! Not towards my goals, but I don't care. I did some work on some bases today. My Pixel Myth base was never actually completed, I just went ahead and released what I had. Since then I've been fiddling and tweaking and trying to get it just right, to my really ridiculously perfectionistic standards. Once I got a set of frames just right I've been making variations, like older, younger, thinner, heavier, more muscled and so on. This version I won't be releasing for free. The original will still be there and able to be used so hopefully no one will throw a fit about that.

@Archeia Gah, you do such beautiful work! Is Spine the animation program with meshes and bones? I've been meaning to experiment with those sorts of programs. You know, when I'm not swamped with projects and have time and creative energy to spend on it. Haha. Is this for the VN project?

 

[Hudell]

For some reason I stopped receiving notifications from this thread. I thought it weird that nobody had posted anything over the past week, only to now see several pages of updates I missed.
Meanwhile, I haven't done much myself. Fixed a few stuff and added roosters to Orange Season, while working on one of my goals for the month (the first festival).

 

[Reapergurl]

Real Life progress:

I have a date Saturday night; it's been...wow. Seven years since I last had a date. Better yet, she's the secretary I've crushed over for nearly a year.

RM Progress:

Been working on damage/healing/reversed formulas, and came up with a crazy one.

a.mhp - a.hp * 7 + a.luk / v[320] (a Dodge vs. Agility variable) - b.def - b.mhp / 4

If a.mhp = 9999
a.hp = 9998
a.luk = 88
v[320] = 15
b.def = 65
b.mhp = 500

-184 (which would result in no damage)

but make a.hp = 1 and

1026 (which is considerable damage).

Other than that, not much has been going on, that is relevant to the topic. But Real Life has kept me very busy. VERY.

 

[Lihinel]

Yay, mission accomplished!

@Reapergurl: Does it like... work as intended? As in, have you tested it with various levels and various characters/enemies?

 

[Reapergurl]

@Lihinel Not had the opportunity for that one in particular, no.

 

[bgillisp]

Short update here. RL has kept me really busy too. Short version, I'm teaching an overload schedule this term (overload means more credit hours than full time), so the prep and grading has kept me going. What few off days I've had so far I've just stared at the screen blankly, or tweaked a map for an hour or two before deciding I'm too tired to do anything else.

I have a fishy feeling I'll be doing little in progress for the rest of the month, just so I don't go insane or collapse in a heap. So I'm going to officially say bye to this thread and see what I can do in another month. Best of luck to all of you!

 

[Kes]

Ha, managed to get back here in just one day. The age of miracles has not passed.

@TriceratopsX Knights & Knaves puzzles - sometimes I get them straight off, other times I just sit and stare blankly at them. Are you starting off simple and building up?
@Arithmetician Given that you have a reasonable number of skills, the balancing of this with a variable spell power could end up really quite complicated. You mention the importance of gear for your stats - how dependent is this damage formula structure on the player having the 'right' gear?
@Sharm Good to know that your sprite is being worked on. I liked it. As for people possibly throwing a hissy fit because it's not going to be free, I think most people are fairly realistic about the need for artists to have more than just a crust of dry bread every other day. Those who aren't are probably so full of a sense of self-entitlement that you could never do enough to satisfy them anyway.
@Hudell Notifications are still being worked on. There are a number of glitches over them that will have to be ironed out.
@Reapergurl Again I think there could be a lot of difficulty balancing that formula out and working out what the average player is going to do. If I have understood it correctly (and I may not have done) you seem to be asking the player to change the habits of a lifetime if they are to win. i.e. most players tend to keep their characters reasonably well healed so that they don't go down with only a moderate hit from the enemy. But if they do that, then they won't be able to deal much damage. Will you be providing plentiful and cheap reviving items/spells? If I have to let the HP of all/many actors drop below 30% in order to get in a decent hit, I'm going to want a strong and flexible safety net.
@Lihinel That looks interesting - and congrats on getting it finished.
@bgillisp Yep, choose your priorities to keep your sanity.

My update
I've received my character art work, so have started to implement it. Here is what the menu will look like once the first 5 characters have joined (I have 5 characters in the active party, so need to show that many). You get to choose some of the classes, so this is just one possible combination. In a spoiler because a bit big

Spoiler: Main Menu mockup

Next up will be the title screens - screens plural because they update dynamically. When a character joins the party they are added to the title screen, each iteration involving a different layout because I don't want them just to line up like a row of skittles.

 

[Arithmetician]

@Kes I did revise the formula a bit more to simplify it. But more to your point, spells are substantially less dependent on equipment - which is why they have an 8 coefficient instead of the 4 for physical attack, which is highly dependent on the equipped weapon - which could contribute up to twice one's base attack stat. The flip side of a strong dependence on equipment means levels are somewhat less important... the trick is to make sure that there's a reasonable number of upgrades, and regular opportunities to obtain them. Of course, spells could also be said to function as weapons for spells, and at Lvl. 41, there's about a 1,000 point damage difference between the third and second tiers of elemental spells, so that's significant too.

But I tested things extensively, and the numbers seem roughly how I want them over a range of levels.

Maybe a concrete example (and demonstration of my progress) will help.

Spoiler: Magus Spells

Mage's Bolt: MAG * 1.3
Ignite: MAG +8 (single/all)
Flare: MAG +25 (single/all)
Blaze: MAG +50 (single/all)
Tornado: MAG +70 (single/all)
Nuke: MAG +60 (all)

I'm pleased that I managed to avoid the Fire, Fira, Firaga naming convention of Final Fantasy, and I've also thought up names for the Magus' other spell series not yet implemented.

Well, that's enough rambling on my part. Back to progress.

Besides that, fixed some errors in the Magus' stat curves, and removed a tag that accidentally made Stop Immunity a custom death state.

@Andronius Well, that stinks, but at least you took it in stride and with humor. Good to see another Lunar fan too... one of my other online identities at a different forum (unrelated to RPG Maker) uses Ghaleon as its avatar.

 

[Archeia]

@Archeia Gah, you do such beautiful work! Is Spine the animation program with meshes and bones? I've been meaning to experiment with those sorts of programs. You know, when I'm not swamped with projects and have time and creative energy to spend on it. Haha. Is this for the VN project?

Yes. Spine allows for bones and meshes. I've seen some pixel art work on it that animates smoothly without pixels fudging up, surprisingly! And yeah it's for VNMaker. I always wanted to make a live2d model and I have ....majorly hate relationship with it.

 

[mlogan]

@bgillisp Yes, likely we do have different working styles - I gather yours is much more focused than my scattered approach. However, at this point I'm good with any effort on my part, lol.

@Kes Glad you were able to get back it so quickly! And that art looks great! I like the menu layout too.

@Hudell I think maybe I have stopped receiving them as well. I'll have to look into that.

@Archeia For some reason playing it as an embed doesn't work for me. It says playback on other websites has been disabled. However, watching on youtube, that looks so adorable!

As for my own progress, I've officially got 3 maps mostly done - they are playable, I just want to add some bits and pieces, some of which I will need to make, to them. I started filling out the items in the database, which will play a large part in the game due to item based puzzles and such. I feel like there was another bit of progress, but I can't think of what at the moment.

And then I started having computer issues. It went from fine to giving the good ol' blue screen of death way too frequently. It took me more than a day to be able to get it restored, by doing a clean install of Windows, and then reinstalling the graphics driver. It was working great for over 24 hours, with the kids helping me test it by playing games on it for a long while. I felt things were safe, so I installed Steam, no games or anything, just Steam. The next time I had to log in, Steam started updating automatically and my computer instantly blue screened again. Since, I've uninstalled Steam, redone the drivers and had no problems.

So, that's where I'm at. Until I can get Steam sorted, I will have to install my desktop version of MV so I can make some progress. I also need to reinstall and Gimp and Inkscape and who knows what else. Add on top of that illness, and I've made NO progress the last several days, sadly.

 

[Andronius]

@Andronius Well, that stinks, but at least you took it in stride and with humor. Good to see another Lunar fan too... one of my other online identities at a different forum (unrelated to RPG Maker) uses Ghaleon as its avatar.

Thank you, @Arithmetician . I HAD TO take it in good humor (it was that, or jumping off a cliff). Great to see another FFT fan! I truly admire your powers (specially when it comes to balancing skills, battle-system and enemy levels), for an Arithmetician... "also known as Calculator, is a high-level magic class that uses Math Skills, which can cast most magick for Free and without a Charge Time, assuming they know the spells (i.e. RPGMMV tricks) and can do the right calculations". Actually, I'll PM you some questions I have about formulae!