Quest Feature akin to FF Tactics, Dragon Age: Inquisition

[billocity]

Hi, I want to introduce a feature in my game that will allow reserve characters to be sent on quests a la Final Fantasy Tactics and somewhat akin to Dragon Age: Inquisition, although it would involve playable characters rather than NPCs.


My idea is that there would be a large cast of characters, and anyone not selected for the fighting party would be back in a headquarters of some sort, where they can be sent on quests and return after a time with EXP and items (I'm using an invisible timers plugin, so that part of it I think I can handle). It's more how to handle the aspect of certain characters being chosen and then given the EXP when they return, even though they're not in the main party.


Let me know if you can think of a good way to handle this or if there's already a plugin I don't know about that helps!

 

[Euphony]

You could pull this off with events, at least partially. Place an event on your "headquarters" map that checks who's not in the battle party, then have it place their sprites somewhere on the map for you to talk to. Then you can walk around headquarters, talk to them, send them off, and so forth. When the quest timer starts, remove the character from the party and make their sprite in headquarters invisible; when it ends, return them to the party and the map. And of course have a window pop up notifying you of the rewards. Quite a bit to keep track of, but certainly doable with some patience and dedication.


The more complicated part comes with the variety of quests and their rewards. If you stick to a few generic, repeatable missions (go pick some herbs, go pan for gold, stuff like that) you could easily keep using events, since the conditional branches would remain fairly short and sweet. But if you wanted to get really specific with the quests...well, you'd probably want to request a plugin for the sake of your own sanity. The more variables you add, like different possible rewards or quests only being available during certain parts of the game, the more daunting a task it becomes.


Whatever you decide to do, I recommend keeping it as simple as possible so you don't overwhelm yourself, especially if this is your first game.