[MZ] JABS - J's Action Battle System

[SonaGate]

If the resolution of the project is changed the gamepad doesn't work anymore, I don't even understand why that happens.

 

[Jragyn]

If the resolution of the project is changed the gamepad doesn't work anymore, I don't even understand why that happens.

I have not updated anything since you last posted.
I do not know why you are experiencing technical difficulties.

 

[Dev_With_Coffee]

If the resolution of the project is changed the gamepad doesn't work anymore, I don't even understand why that happens.

But is the resolution change made with the game running?

 

[Jragyn]

If the resolution of the project is changed the gamepad doesn't work anymore, I don't even understand why that happens.

Regarding controllers:
Your mileage may vary depending on the controller you use, as they map different from controller to controller when it comes to what button represents what regarding input buttons. I built JABS while testing with a Steelseries Stratus Pro, and would encourage any who want to do gaming with a controller on the PC to use the same (its a damn solid controller for wired and wireless). I'm afraid I can't really support all the permutations of controllers, and don't have any current plans for making buttons mappable. You are free to dig into the code and create a small modification plugin for yourself that tweaks the input mapping as you see fit, though. That code is all within this block.

Regarding resolution:
I have experienced no issues regarding resolution changes. JABS doesn't really care about the resolution, whether its 800x600 or 1920x1080, it'll do JABS things the same. As @Dev_With_Coffee alluded to though, if you're trying to change the resolution mid-game, you may run into issues of all sorts, regardless of plugin.

Additionally, I updated the demo to include a fix for the error you pointed out in the demo (idk how I never came across that until you pointed it out). So, @SonaGate , if you redownload the demo, it should be working-as-intended.

 

[Mysticphoenix]

When you leave a menu from the main menu there is a big possibility that the game crashes, I have seen this in the demo, I have not tested it in a new project.
View attachment 183432
View attachment 183433

I have been through this error before.


Go to MOG_EventText.js

Go to line 83

Add this piece of codes


if (this == null || this.event() == null)
{
return;
}

I remembered that there are 2 or 3 of these errors. If you guys see anything like this happen again, try to track the line of error, and put in some code to handle null value in the same way that I did.

 

[Jragyn]

I have been through this error before.


Go to MOG_EventText.js

Go to line 83

Add this piece of codes


if (this == null || this.event() == null)
{
return;
}

I remembered that there are 2 or 3 of these errors. If you guys see anything like this happen again, try to track the line of error, and put in some code to handle null value in the same way that I did.

Yeah sorry about this. How RPG Maker MZ handles events when changing to and from scenes (namely, from Scene_Map to Scene_Menu and back) has been quite a challenge to understand. The root cause behind it is because I'm manually generating new events onto the map for both actions and loot. Though they persist in the Game_Map store, they seem to disappear from the $dataMap store. When the player brings up the menu, then returns, the first thing it does is try to re-parse all the events on the map, and when it gets to the ones that were generated by me (loot and actions), it chokes.

There are many resolutions I could probably take for this, but the one I chose was simply to ignore trying to parse events that were generated (loot and actions).

I am fairly certain I resolved the problem in all of my plugins, but it seems any new plugins that are introduced, such as the "Event Describe" one (or MOG_EventText), also need to be "taught" how to ignore them (loot and actions).

I think in the long term I'll be looking into rewriting a lot of the logic for generating new events, but that effort would be quite extensive, so... I'll postpone that for now.

Thank you @Mysticphoenix for chiming in to aid with your experience! (The beauty of a community stepping in to help one another!)

 

[kouta555]

sorry for offtop. But will you planning to make a follower be active in battle? Maybe they will just attack phisicly, no use magic. Or beign lile class using magic: for example one slot per active follower, attack magic for black mage and heal for white mage, knight only attack, ant thief...I dunno steal, or trow stones or something?

 

[Jragyn]

sorry for offtop. But will you planning to make a follower be active in battle? Maybe they will just attack phisicly, no use magic. Or beign lile class using magic: for example one slot per active follower, attack magic for black mage and heal for white mage, knight only attack, ant thief...I dunno steal, or trow stones or something?

This is not offtopic! A perfectly valid question considering the nature of this thread (being for an action battle system).

To answer your question, it is on my internal roadmap to add ally AI, so other members in your party (the visible followers on the map) will act accordingly with AI in a similar way that the enemy battlers decide their actions. To be clear, though much of the foundation is laid out (some degree of AI), I've found numerous little bugs in AI decision-making by using JABS to in one of my own projects that need to be fixed before I can progress to ally AI development.

I also plan on implementing a "teams" concept of sorts, of which you can create NPCs (like city guards) that won't attack you, but will attack wild monsters that approach the city (as an example). This functionality will likely come before ally AI.

Also, in the first post after the main post, I try to keep it up to date with "what is released", "what features are included in a release", and "what is coming" (in case you were curious).

 

[cabanas_ds]

I'm finally implementing this system into my game...

prepare for a bunch of stupid questions from me

 

[Jragyn]

I'm finally implementing this system into my game...

prepare for a bunch of stupid questions from me

My documentation is lacking, so the questions would not be entirely your fault

The demo itself goes over most the primary functionality, providing you copy-pasta templates for how to setup enemies, skills, the action map, etc. I also wrote it in hopes of being slightly entertaining while you learn, so hopefully that is a useful tool to ramp you up. The rest is just leveraging the system to build your dreams ~

 

[cabanas_ds]

My documentation is lacking, so the questions would not be entirely your fault

The demo itself goes over most the primary functionality, providing you copy-pasta templates for how to setup enemies, skills, the action map, etc. I also wrote it in hopes of being slightly entertaining while you learn, so hopefully that is a useful tool to ramp you up. The rest is just leveraging the system to build your dreams ~

using your demo I implemented the whole thing in under an hour & I can't see any problems with it, it's even not interfering with any of my other plugins, which is incredible.

I would how ever love to know how I could change the location of some of these huds tho. They are over lapping some of my other HUDS I have on my screen.
It would be amazing if the plugins had a few things you could adjust, things like that.

I'll be riding with this tho, it works fantastically & I'm sure once it's all up and running it should run flawlessly.

I'd be also cool to know how you assigned a some of these functions to buttons on the game pad. pressing start opens a menu. I'd love to be able to set up a few of my other buttons to do stuff.

absolutely loving this so far tho. great work.

 

[cabanas_ds]

BRO, OMG THIS ACTUALLY WORKS WITH MZ3D!!!!

I COULDN'T BE ANY MORE HAPPY!!!!!!

 

[Jragyn]

using your demo I implemented the whole thing in under an hour & I can't see any problems with it, it's even not interfering with any of my other plugins, which is incredible.

I am actually pretty impressed, too! Most things I've found this engine choke with is other systems that work with events (where I really rewrote stuff). I am glad this works in your favor

I would how ever love to know how I could change the location of some of these huds tho. They are over lapping some of my other HUDS I have on my screen.
It would be amazing if the plugins had a few things you could adjust, things like that.

At this time, the HUD remains largely static. They are all optional components for the most part, and can largely be replaced by other HUDs (see: moghunter's HUD). The only thing that would need to be woven in is the state display which I'll probably extract out of the HUD entirely for cross-compatibility (along with customization like X/Y coordinates for readjustment). If you're referring to the other components of the HUD (log, action keys), when I made them I was hoping that other RM devs would take and extend them with beautiful things, but no one has done such as far as I know, haha. I'll have to look into modularizing and customizing them. On the sidelines I've already heard that as a recommendation, and it makes sense but has just been a low priority for me.

I'd be also cool to know how you assigned a some of these functions to buttons on the game pad. pressing start opens a menu. I'd love to be able to set up a few of my other buttons to do stuff.

The gamepad stuff was actually pretty straight-forward. You can see the actual button mapping in-code here. The part where input mapping to actions happens in this section of code (the all-catch for input). As far as having a friendly means to remap stuff, I've been procrastinating that as well. If you can't tell from the "quick menu" I built, building menus is neither my forte nor something I enjoy a whole lot, so if a reason comes up to build a new menu (like for remapping buttons and keyboard inputs) I usually try to avoid it . Still, this also was brought up once before, so it is indeed on the roadmap/radar.

BRO, OMG THIS ACTUALLY WORKS WITH MZ3D!!!!

I COULDN'T BE ANY MORE HAPPY!!!!!!

I'm not actually familiar with MZ3D, I had to look it up just now when you mentioned it. At-a-glance I am only kind of surprised that it works without flaws. I can't view the source code (the author has it obfuscated/minified because money reasons I'm guessing), but I imagine it is only rewriting the way the maps are drawn and not how the events move or interact. Still, this is quite an amazing discovery!

I'll be riding with this tho, it works fantastically & I'm sure once it's all up and running it should run flawlessly.

Let me know if you have any further questions. I released it as a proper plugin because its usable in its current state, but it is still ever a work in progress as I discover things that are in need of improvement or features missing (such as ally AI etc).

 

[kouta555]

Strange thing happens. First i do a plugin command JABS Disabled, and then i do teleport to other map. And got an error Maximum call stack size exceeded. I dont need that the Jabs be active in save zones, but i can't disable it on one map an do teleport to another, cause this error allways appear.

A little update - even if i do teleport to the same map, error appear. So the problem diffinately with teleport thing.

And when i disable Jabs by plugin command, and try to open a menu, game freeze

 

[Jragyn]

Strange thing happens. First i do a plugin command JABS Disabled, and then i do teleport to other map. And got an error Maximum call stack size exceeded. I dont need that the Jabs be active in save zones, but i can't disable it on one map an do teleport to another, cause this error allways appear.

F little update - even if i do teleport to the same map, error appear. So the problem diffinately with teleport thing.

This was not extensively tested. I'll investigate it and get back to you.
It is likely just oblivious code-writing on my part (making it return when it isn't supposed to, etc).

I suspect it'll be a very tiny change, based on the helpful images you've provided.

EDIT @kouta555 :
I took a moment to look at it now, and it looks like it was borked because I copy-pasta'd the function right below it. If you scroll down in picture#3 to the next function (regarding scrolling the map) you'll see that it is also making reference to command201 when capturing a snapshot of the function for aliasing. The result is an infinite loop (max call stack error you got) when mapswapping. I fixed it locally, tested it, and it allows map swapping now. Sorry about that. The code is updated now, or you can peek at the changes yourself since they are easy enough to probably edit locally if you don't feel like pulling the whole thing down again.

 

[kouta555]

Did you find ot why game freezing? JABS disabled and try open a menu (item, status, ect) its just stuck. Game work, but controls dead.

 

[Jragyn]

Did you find ot why game freezing? JABS disabled and try open a menu (item, status, ect) its just stuck. Game work, but controls dead.

I didn't realize that was a problem, must've glossed over that detail. I assume its a similar issue, though I'll need to look into it (again). Thank you for your diligence in testing this, I've not really explored the idea of turning off JABS despite putting it in the plugin as a function. In my personal project I just leave it on 24/7 lol. I debated turning it off in-towns, but having to turn it on if I wanted to do something uncommon (like breaking out of jail by attacking the cell bars or something) was quite a hassle. So I just left it on all the time and haven't tested it much beyond what people report back to me here.

EDIT @kouta555
Actually, I've changed my mind.
This fix didn't overlap as bad as I thought, so I decided to push it. I did notice that if you turn off JABS and then travel to a new map and turn it back on, for some reason the enemies on that map won't have hp bars, but THAT is something I'm working on otherwise (debating on writing my own bars so there isn't any overlap with others who use bars), so you'll have to endure that for now until I release the next proper update (sorry).

 

[cabanas_ds]

So MZ3D works perfectly, but you cannot see the item dropped by the enemy you killed.

You can still get them by walking over the area but you can't see the item.

I am also using MOGs Hud instead but you can't actually delete the JABS hud out of the plugins library without getting an error msg when the game starts. So I guess you have to keep it in there but just have it disabled.

I'm also getting a weird '/' where your hud sits in the top left of the screen & it doesn't seem to disappear once you disable the hud.

I got tons of tweaking to do but this seems to be going really well still.

next up I'm going to try edit the .js files to change up the gamepad buttons (with no javascript knowledge), wish me luck!

 

[cabanas_ds]

[ISPOILER][/ISPOILER]

Which part do I need to edit to change around the A & B buttons?

I'm assuming that the number at the start Eg 0: being input A.

That the 0 is the number of that button when it's pressed. & that the 'A' is simply the name given to it. So should I swap the A & B around?

Or is this gonna mess everything else up in the game?

 

[Jragyn]

but you can't actually delete the JABS hud out of the plugins library without getting an error msg when the game starts

This actually is a bug! I haven't tried leveraging other HUDs with JABS, though I _thought_ I had it setup so that the HUD was detached from JABS... oops. Sorry about that pal. I'll go ahead and get that fixed right away. That is no bueno. If you want to use moghunter's HUD instead, you should be able to! (it is gorgeous and flexible after all)

I went ahead and fixed that. I didn't test it extensively, but I disabled everything and fixed the errors till they stopped erroring lol.

Which part do I need to edit to change around the A & B buttons?

As you suggested, lines 818 and 819 are the ones you'll want to swap.

// other code...
0: J.ABS.Input.A,
1: J.ABS.Input.B,
// other code...
   
// change to this:
   
// other code...
0: J.ABS.Input.B,
1: J.ABS.Input.A,
// other code...
// note the swapping of what is being assigned to 0 and 1.

That should do the trick. I do plan on making these adjustable at some point, but... until I figure out how I want to approach it, you'll have to do with hacky stuff like this. My apologies.

If you wanted to keep your changes isolated from JABS, I'd wager you could probably make a separate *.js file in the /plugins folder, add it in like an official plugin, and just overwrite the whole Input.gamepadMapper object with however you want it configured. Then when you go to update JABS with an update I push later down the road, you can overwrite the JABS file without having to redo your edits.