Walking Dead (Followers KO'd or DEAD that keep walking)

[Lynvia]

Probably a basic question answered elsewhere, so my apologies if it was, because this seems quite basic.

I've searched the whole forums and only found a couple VX Ace questions about this.

When I have a party member (or the leader) KO'd or dead state, when returning to the map, their follow sprite keeps walking.
The walking dead.

Logically, their sprite would be taken out of the group, but I don't want to take them out of the party, just out of the follow.
Also, if the leader is KO it would make sense to switch the leader to next in line.

Is there a simple way to do this? Or should I consider crafting a common event running in parallel to handle followers and leader assignment?

I thought maybe Yanfly's plugins might assist with this, but I didn't see anything in them to handle this.
I could drop the idea of followers, but it doesn't answer the KO leader issue.

 

[Trihan]

I was doing something similar to this the other day where I was trying to make a single follower invisible but still in the party. I've gotten as far as removing them from the party line but their graphic stays on the map until it's next refreshed. Once I get that part ironed out I'll have a solution for you.

 

[Lynvia]

It might be possible to give them an alternate graphic, like a 'ghosted' or semitransparent sprite set, the graphics are easy to handle with Paint.Net, but the global substitution is something that would need either a plugin or a common event.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

[mlogan]

Random thought - but you could make a "blank" graphic and change it to that. Technically they would still be there, but you wouldn't see it. Probably not an ideal solution but one that could work if nothing better is found.

 

[Trihan]

The problem with that is that there will appear to be gaps in the party lineup if you make a "middle" follower blank.

Though now that you mention it, what you could do is make them blank AND remove them from the party then readd them. That'll put them at the back.

Of course, you would have to also make it so they were "unblanked" when revived.

 

[Piyan Glupak]

Clearing up casulties could be done by a common event triggered by autorun that runs after every battle. My suggestion on implementing this would be:

1) Turn a switch ON at the start of the game, which stays on throughout the game. It is just to allow battle events to always work. You could call the switch "EnableBattleProcessing", or whatever else is convenient.

2) For each troop, as a Battle Event, set another switch ON. (You could call this "FoughtBattle", or whatever else you wish.) The Battle event would run once per battle, and be triggered by the "EnableBattleProcessing" switch, and would that run once per battle, on turn 0.

3) Create an autorun common event triggered by the "FoughtBattle". For each actor that could be in the party, check whether they have the state "Knockout" (see the second tab of the conditional branch conditions). If so, as has been suggested, change their actor image to something transparent, remove them from the party, and add them again without initialising. You *MUST* turn "FoughtBattle" OFF at the end of the common event, otherwise the game will freeze.

4) When (or if) the player brings the dead actor back to life and you are giving them back their non-transparent image, you might find it convenient to call another common event if there are several different methods (for example stimulant potion, healing skills by other party members or a visit to the Temple of Resurrection).

EDIT:
Regarding 2), I understand that Yanfly does a plugin that lets you just do the battle event for the first troop, then applies it to all the others. Not necessary, but likely to be worth the additional effort of getting, installing and testing the plugin in a reasonable sized game.

Regarding 3), there are other ways it might be done. For instance, you could remove the dead actor and give the party a hidden item (they do exist in MV, which surprised me when I found out). Obviously, this would affect what you would do in 4). My feeling is that there should be a different hidden item for each party member that might be killed and then returned to the living. It would act as a token to show who was eligible for resurrection, and be removed as part of the resurrection process.

 

[Lynvia]

That sounds like a decent answer. I will give that a try.