Party members from other saves

[ladubois]

This is rather a bit more complicated than simply "learning" JS (though, technically, it is that), but nowhere else seemed like a better place to ask this, so here I am.


Now, first off, to be honest, this isn't actually for a project I'm working on right now. It's something that I want to do, probably long after I've moved on from using RPG Maker. However, since A.) I'm currently learning JavaScript, and B.) allegedly, the hardest part of writing code is solving the problem, and once that's done, it makes it that much easier to write the code in any language, I was curious to see how this might be achieved in RPG Maker MV. Note, of course, that I am still a beginner when it comes to programming, and I'm fully aware that this is so far beyond the scope of my skill it's not even funny, but... consider it a thought experiment, I suppose.


The idea comes from, to be honest, private, offline WoW servers <obligatory legal note that I do not use or condone such things>. Certain repacks allow you to essentially "summon" your alts as computer-controlled bots that you can add to your party and use to run group content while playing solo. Obviously, they're not going to do as well as an actual human player 99 times out of 100, but it's better than nothing, and I thought "What if there was an actual/legitimate game that used something like this?" A solo-focused game with some group content like dungeons that you could bring some friends along for, but if there aren't enough available at the time, and you're one or two guys short, you could summon one of your alts to fill out the party. Or even an entirely single-player game with harder areas/bosses/etc. in which, rather than having a typical party of NPCs, having one composed of characters from your other saves. For simplicity's sake let's just focus on that last variation of the idea.


Now, of course, there's a lot of peripheral systems and scripts that would need to be set up for this to work right. The way I'd want to do this, your alts can get experience, gold, and perhaps even equipment that carry over to their own saves, but in order to encourage players to play solo and only summon their alts when they need to, there would be systems in place much like those for groups in other MMOs - when in a group, experience and gold get divided, and your experience rewards are based on the highest-level character in the group (so summoning your level 50 raid-gear toon to help squash goblins on your fresh, new level 1 will keep you stuck at level 1 - and to keep players from doing the opposite and summoning their level 1 toon into their level 50 character's party to take on higher-level opponents will probably also have similar diminishing returns), and so on. But there are already tons of scripts out there that can be used to handle experience rewards and the like, so setting this bit aside. Secondly, a save system that doesn't allow players to make multiple saves for the same character would be necessary to prevent all sorts of exploits from being able to summon clones to simply figuring out which save to send that bonus exp/gold to. But again, setting that problem aside for now.


Would it even be possible to do something like this in RPGMV, and if so, how (rough outline version, no need for specifics yet unless you just really want to get into them)?

 

[Kino]

Given that the player would be playing the same game, extracting save information would be straightforward.


All save information is in a specific folder. Each save has things like current character / actor data in it. So, you could get actor data directly from the save. 


After, things like items,  skills, etc are in the database,  so no possibility of errors with high level characters.


The issue of modifying the save file that you took characters from will be a bit difficult. You'll have to track save file ID and properly map rewards to the save file information. 


The key here is very much managing where you modify a save file and checking for clones.

 

[ladubois]

When you put it like that, it sounds a lot simpler than I was expecting.


As for the clones thing, I'm thinking I'll probably set up saves as being more like character slots. I'd probably set things up so that when you hit "New Game" you first pick a save slot before starting the actual game, rather than waiting for the player to save after starting. Then from that point on, that file is automatically chosen whenever the player saves the game. Much like a Legend of Zelda game.

 

[Kino]

I understand your thought. That's a good idea to keep the player from overstepping the bounds. @ladubois


I was considering doing some manipulation. That way, I can check the actors in the save file and compare them to the current actors in-game.

 

[ladubois]

That would probably be a good idea to implement anyway, just to help counteract potential exploits. I'm sure someone would be able to figure out a way to use this system to artificially edit a save file, and something like that could work as a check on that.