Shadow Partner

[Kaliya]

Anima - Shadow Partner REWRITE v1.08
by Liquidize


Introduction
This is a complete rewrite of the plugin by the same name to bring better features, better rendering, nicer code, and other things. Anima Shadow Partner is a plugin that enables you to create states that when applied to a target grant them a "Shadow" or "Clone". This "Shadow" will take a hit for them, resulting in 0 damage. However the Shadow will lose a "Life" when the shadow loses all its lives, than the shadow disappears and the battler with the state, loses the state. Unless the shadow is set to be persistent. Shadows are also able to block only specific elements, or attack types. You may not want all attacks to go to the shadow though, if its like a boss attack, well no problem. You are also able to apply shadow bypasses to pretty much any type of database item, be it a skill or weapon, or another state. Another great thing about shadows is, they are literally shadows. They will follow your battlers, and do whatever they do, if they move, so does the shadow. If you want a state to just give this nice shadow effect, that is okay to! You can do that by applying the "Just Mimic" attribute to the shadow. Don't want the shadow to mimic the original though? No problem! Just apply the "Dont Mimic" attribute. Shadows can also be persistent, and when they're persistent you can set it so that the shadows can regain one of their "lives" back at the end of X amount of turns, or at the beginning of another battle. Shadows can also be tinted, have their opacity changed, or even "blink".


 

Features
- Define a state in the parameters that when given to a target grants them the "Shadow Partner" affect as stated above.
- Allows you to define how many lives shadows have.
- Shows a "shadow" of the battler affected behind them.


- Allow shadows to 'mimic' or not mimic the original.


- Allow shadows to not take any damage, and just act as an actual shadow, that can mimic the original.


- Specify the type of damage shadows can take


- Specify the elemental type of damage shadows can take


- Tint shadows, or even change their opacity.


- Specify that shadows can be persistent, allowing passive shadow effects that can regen their lives at the end/start of battles, or over turns.


- Specify skills,items,or actor shadow bypasses, allowing those with a bypass to ignore shadows!

Video










How to Use


See help for detailed instructions and how-to


Script v1.08


http://anima.mintkit.lol/shadow-partner/



FAQ


Q: what are the requirements?


A: It is built upon Yanflys battle system, so it requires that for the time being.


Q: Does this work with Yanflys plugins?
A: Yes.


Q: Can i request features?
A: I suppose so.

Credit and Thanks
- Liquidize


Terms of Use:


This script is free for commercial and non-commercial use, just credit Liquidize or "Anima Framework" in your credits .

 

[Sol Rising]

great plugins man, I also use your enmity plugin.

One thing i noticed is the game will crash if you use this skill outside of battle. Anyway to allow usage of this skill before going into fights?

 

[Kaliya]

great plugins man, I also use your enmity plugin.

One thing i noticed is the game will crash if you use this skill outside of battle. Anyway to allow usage of this skill before going into fights?

I will fix this in the next update.

 

[Guardcraft Games]

This is awesome, great job!

 

[Riff]

That is one cool plug-in. Well done!

EDIT:

One more thing, i noticed this can be overpowered. Like an unavoidable move from a boss can be nullified. Any chance we can get a <Bypass Shadow> in Skills notetag? Or option to let Certain Hit skills bypass these shadows.

 

[Aidensmercy]

Wow, i love this one, and no problems just throwing it in my game!

great job!

 

[Kaliya]

That is one cool plug-in. Well done!

EDIT:

One more thing, i noticed this can be overpowered. Like an unavoidable move from a boss can be nullified. Any chance we can get a <Bypass Shadow> in Skills notetag? Or option to let Certain Hit skills bypass these shadows.

Sure this can be added no problem.

 

[tsunetakaryu]

A new way to let the vampire or zombie allies evading damages from enemies troop. They can create some shadows. Great plugin. 

 

[omen613]

Nice script!

keep up the good work

 

[Kaliya]

I would like to know everyone's opinion on something. I plan to add the ability to have it so shadows can persist after battle - in that if an actor has shadows left after a battle ends, so long as they still have that state (e.g: it doesn't get removed at the end of battle, run out of turns, or they walk x amount of steps, or its removed any other way) when a new battle starts, if shadows remain from the last battle they're automatically added again. I am curious if you guys prefer it so that states can stack, or if the actor has shadows from another state, they can not get anymore.

e.g: They use shadow partner, get 3 shadows. They then use another state that /should/ grant them 2 shadows, but because they have 3 shadows via shadow partner it does not. 

Do you guys want shadows to stack, or not?

Just a little update as well.

I've added the ability to have any number of states grant shadows, via using a note tag. As well as have the shadows from said state be given the ability to have a chance they will absorb the hit via note tag. (e.g: If you set 25% for the note tag, then the actor has a 75% chance to still take the damage, but not lose a shadow). As well as have added the ability to have skills and items bypass the shadows using a note tag, by default if the attack is certain hit they auto bypass, but you can turn this off via parameter. 

I'll have the updated script uploaded soon for use. So keep a look out!

 

[Riff]

I would like to know everyone's opinion on something. I plan to add the ability to have it so shadows can persist after battle - in that if an actor has shadows left after a battle ends, so long as they still have that state (e.g: it doesn't get removed at the end of battle, run out of turns, or they walk x amount of steps, or its removed any other way) when a new battle starts, if shadows remain from the last battle they're automatically added again. I am curious if you guys prefer it so that states can stack, or if the actor has shadows from another state, they can not get anymore.

e.g: They use shadow partner, get 3 shadows. They then use another state that /should/ grant them 2 shadows, but because they have 3 shadows via shadow partner it does not.

Do you guys want shadows to stack, or not?

For shadows to persist after battle, I wouldnt find it useful personally, but someone else might.

As for stacking states, that sounds good. Maybe you can enable the use of a <Max Shadows: x> notetag on actors/classes/etc.

 

[Suzio Uwabami]

Uhh, can someone please post the setup of the state/skill? I have no idea how to set it up, because I don't understand the "How to use."

 

[Luminous]

Yeah great! Nice plugin ^^

Kagebunshin no Juutsu is coming! lol

 

[Kaliya]

I've updated the plugin to include all the above mentioned things.

Here is a video preview showing some of the new features, notably the persistence of shadows.

Some known bugs still exists but please feel free to suggest more features, in the mean time I will be working on changing how some stuff works (mostly how the shadows work).

The updated plugin can be found at the opening post. You now use note tags too make a state give shadows, see the plugins help section for more info.

 

[Sol Rising]

Uhh, can someone please post the setup of the state/skill? I have no idea how to set it up, because I don't understand the "How to use."

now it's a lot more more functions.

note tag in any state you'd like to have "shadows"

<Shadow Count: #>

# amount of shadows you'd like to give.

 

[Sol Rising]

double posted sorry.

 

[Roguedeus]

This plugin is absolutely great!

Would it be at all possible to add support for passive states... So that if the state that grants them is a permanent passive, the state doesn't vanish when the shadows are spent, instead they come back at the start of the next battle? Possibly even with the added option of assigning how quickly the shadows return? Such as 1 per 4 turns or something.

<Shadow Restore Turns: 4> //Would restore 1 every 4 turns<Shadow On Battle Start: 2>  //Would have minimum 2 on battle startThis would probably require that max shadows be assignable by the state itself as well... Possibly still capped by any actor limit.

Thus the state with:

<Shadow Count: 1><Max Shadows: 3><Shadow Restore Turns: 4><Shadow On Battle Start: 1>Would have 1 shadow on application, and gain new/lost shadows at a rate of 1 every 4 turns and an minimum 1 shadow each time battle starts. But never maintain more than 3 shadows.

 

[Roguedeus]

The above suggestion would probably need to consider which passive applies which shadows if more than one exists... Or would they all add shadows until actor capped?

 

[Kaliya]

The above suggestion would probably need to consider which passive applies which shadows if more than one exists... Or would they all add shadows until actor capped?

This was the original plan in regards to shadows in general. However I came across a logical dilemma that I am/wasn't quite sure how to go about doing it.

You see, since you would've been able too have more than 1 state give you shadows, if you had two states on an actor/battler and both gave shadows, which shadows are removed first? How do we know which shadows belong to which state? How do we know when a shadow should be removed, since you can use note tags to set the percentage rate at which shadows are used and are ignored. 

I now do have some clues as to how to go about solving this dilemma but I want to stabilize/fix the issues with the actual sprites first since everything else seems to be working fine.

I do like your idea however and it will probably be added eventually.

/another/ thing people could do, using Yanflys action sequence and Lunatic Mode, is make it so if you have the state damage or actions are doubled, sort of like a real shadow partner. Just a little concept for those interested, its already possible and wouldn't be an addition to this plugin.

 

[Kaliya]

I've updated the script to v1.11. Included in this updated are the following changes:

 - Shadows are now drawn differently. Instead of offsetting endlessly off screen and showing every shadow as its own sprite, shadows are now drawn on top of each other (this will later be changed to just 1 shadow sprite however). This may seem confusing, but what happens is depending on the amount of shadows the user has or is given rather, the shadows opacity is set to a fraction of 255 (fully shown), so when all shadows are active it will show as a normal sprite (unless tinted). However as you damage, and remove shadows the opacity is dropped, eventually getting to where it is no longer there or semi-transparent. Fully transparent (or in reality no actual sprite) if no more shadows exists. I felt this was a nice way of showing how many shadows the enemy or actor has left, because depending on the amount left is what the opacity of the shadows sprite will end up being. An example is if there are 2 shadows, the shadows opacity is 127.5 each, added up its 255 and since the shadows are at the same position it just looks like 1 solid sprite. Now lets say you take out a shadow, that shadow is removed and so now it just looks like the sprite is half the opacity, or half transparent. Once that final shadow is gone, then its fully transparent, though in reality its just removed.

- Shadows can now be tinted using a note tag. It takes an HTML HEX color code as the value (e.g: #FFFFFF). This will change the tint/color of the shadows, so different states can have different color shadows helping your users determine which state the enemy or actor has. By default all shadows are tinted as black (like a real shadow!). However this can be changed to be not tinted by setting the tint of a state to #FFFFFF (white) or set the default tint to that.

- Shadows can now be offset based off their sprite width, this however requires you to be using Yanflys battle engine for the time being, and therefore requires this plugin to be added under it. This is turned on by default but it is a parameter that can be turned off to use the old offsetting variable you set.

- An issue where if you used Yanflys battle engine, the shadows would be the ones doing the attacking actions has been fixed.

For the time being I believe this to be at a good point where I can work on a different plugin, however if you do still have feature request please do feel free to share I will still be updating this. If you find any bugs please let me know!

Finally, for a little limitation recap.

You are unable to have more than 1 state on an actor/battler at a given time that gives shadows, it will not allow you to have more than 1 type of shadow active. This is by design, it isn't a bug so don't think it is if you do try to do it. There are plans in the work to make it so you are able too, but that'd basically require a near complete rewrite of the plugin to which I will do eventually. 

Thank you for the support, and I hope you enjoy your shadows!