Why are so many things hard-coded in RMMV Editor?

[Aerosys]

Hi all,

not sure if my thread will lead to great improvements, but I'm just curious what others think and maybe we get a nice discussion.

I wonder, why are so many options in the Maker hard-coded? For example

• I can live with that items could be ordinary item, weapon or armor. But why are there no further options to chose from? Before MV we didn't even have the possibility to change the slots; fortunately we can do this now without use of plugins or scripts.
• For the skills, we can define Skill Types. But not for the items. We can chose from "ordinary, Key Items A and Key Items B". "A" and "B", that sounds strange for me. It would be awesome to easily add types eg. "Crafting", "Recipes", "Runes"... this list could be endless.
• Again for the skills. Why chose from "Physical" and "Magical" ? Again, hard-coded.
• We have Self-Switches for events. A, B, C and D. Nothing more. Why? It fits for simple loot chests or encounters, okay. But why only 4 letters? Then, we don't even have self variables.
• Or mapping editor has pre-defined layers. Why are there no options to add layers?

I think there are many more things that the RMMV limits for us. These were the things that just came into my mind. And yes, we have plugins to extend and customize our game, but then we always must frickle with Notetags.

I think the RMMV couuld provide much more freedom and flexibility to us.

 

[Kuro DCupu]

First, it's called RPG Maker. Tool that designed specifically for making RPG, with "classic dragon quest" esque as its base.

Second, RPG Maker has to stay true from its slogan : "Easy to use, hard to master" (or something along that line). Thus it should also appeal to new user. If I'm a new user, MV database already looks complicated enough.

Third, it's already gained freedom and flexibility through script / plugin. It doesn't limit us. That's why it says "hard to master" on its slogan.

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

In the end the reason is actually pretty simple, RM aims to allow new people to create an old school style JRPG with no coding. So to do that they hard coded everything necessary so that they could. Clearly that sucks for those of us who know so much now. But I'm not going to lie when I started I knew next to nothing about programming, and MV's hand holding really helped open a whole new world for me.

 

[TheoAllen]

For the skills, we can define Skill Types. But not for the items. We can chose from "ordinary, Key Items A and Key Items B". "A" and "B", that sounds strange for me. It would be awesome to easily add types eg. "Crafting", "Recipes", "Runes"... this list could be endless.

A and B just label. So does "Crafting", "Recipes", and "Runes". Key item and ordinary item is mechanically changed how the game treat the item. it is separated into a different menu. And your proposal is just adding more labels without actually change it mechanically.

Again for the skills. Why chose from "Physical" and "Magical"? Again, hard-coded.

You're obsessed over label once again. it means the physical skill is affected by a certain stat, so does, the magical. If you want to "label" more, what would you want to offer mechanically?

We have Self-Switches for events. A, B, C and D. Nothing more. Why? It fits for simple loot chests or encounters, okay. But why only 4 letters? Then, we don't even have self variables.

I can agree on this point, especially about the self variables. But if we don't stop, we could have self variable A, up to Z or even each event will have 100 self variables or even more, and it is going to be endless, might as well as just code it. It might cost the user-friendliness, and simplicity to use the software. So it needs to stop.

Or mapping editor has pre-defined layers. Why are there no options to add layers?

It has to do with how the tilemap is structured, how the editor works, and generally how programming works.

On programming, when you reserve a slot in memory, it is always fixed. You book 100 slots of memory, it will be reserved for your data. This is why when you want to increase the number of the maximum database, you tell them to reserve more slots. And even with that, it is maxed at 999 or 9999 because the editor already has that much reserved.

I think there are many more things that the RMMV limits for us. These were the things that just came into my mind. And yes, we have plugins to extend and customize our game, but then we always must frickle with Notetags.

And if you haven't learned how to code, go learn. You can even go away with the notetags and editor, just go 100% using scripts, and "ironically" hardcoded the value yourself in your game code.

The only true limit in RMMV is when you can not do something that javascript/pixi.js/nwjs couldn't do. And you bound to use the editor because EULA said so.

 

[MushroomCake28]

I've moved this thread to RPG Maker MV. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.

There's a limit to what the developers can do. An engine that can do anything by default doesn't exist. The truth is that the more freedom we have with an engine the less data there is. Other bigger engines that are more modular and allow to make anything don't come with much, except the code to run the engine. The more features you add the more you restrict the user.

RPG Maker market itself as a powerful engine that is easy to use. For that reason are a lot of features are pre-coded, with the possibility to remove/modify them with coding. Think of it like a half-through project.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

That's the price to make it simple to use to make a full game (that is similar to the classical JRPG style, which is what the engine is made for). More options will make it more complex to use, which will then go away from what the engine is supposed to be offering. Remember that the engine is marketed to be easy to use for beginners, yet still expandable for more experienced users (via plugins/scripts).

Hardcoding the stuff also makes the list of possible problems smaller which in turn helps beginners have less worries.

If you want full freedom go get a blank slate engine that doesnt give you any default stuff so you can do whatever you like.

As a developer you should develop your skills too, dont just rely on the engine itself. If something doesnt exist, make it or find someone who can.

Basically, RM's GUI was meant to be used to learn how to use the engine and make simple, old school JRPGs. Then once you gain enough experience, you're supposed to go into the coding side and modify the underlying code or make your own codes (or use someone elses), just like how other engines do it.

Plus its super cheap compared to other engines out there. You cant really expect it to have a more complex approach for that price tag.

 

[Aerosys]

A and B just label. So does "Crafting", "Recipes", and "Runes". Key item and ordinary item is mechanically changed how the game treat the item. it is separated into a different menu. And your proposal is just adding more labels without actually change it mechanically.

There can be many possibilities to integrate multiple item labels. The Item menu could be expanded to seperate / filter by item label. Also the shops could be expanded to enable filtering.

You're obsessed over label once again. it means the physical skill is affected by a certain stat, so does, the magical. If you want to "label" more, what would you want to offer mechanically?

This idea came up when I decided to move my game a little bit away from a magical settings. I don't need magical attacks at all. True, adding more labels will require methods to get usage from them. In this case, this leads to much higher complexity. Probably this was a bad example, I just wanted to point out that many settings are hard-coded.
At all
Thanks for the feedback, I'm positively surprised that most of you appreciate how the Maker works: easy to learn and hard to master! Personally, I don't like that I always must work-around with Notetags, but in the end the JS gives us everything we need

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

. I don't need magical attacks at all. True, adding more labels will require methods to get usage from them. In this case, this leads to much higher complexity

If you need more varation to skills for some reason and or simply labels other than physical/magical, you can actually utilize the Elements for that, coupled with the damage formula if needed.. You can even customize the "hit rate" via the damage formula if you need custom ones for your custom labels. This was something Im actually been thinking about since long ago, but so far my games didnt made me need to do it.

There are quite some ways to utilize and repurpose the limited stuff of the engine, but it does need us to think outside the box.

 

[Milennin]

Because RPG Maker is a tool for people who don't know programming. If you know how to program, and if your ambitions reach beyond the scope of what RPG Maker can offer, surely there are better options for making your game the way you want it?

 

[kovak]

Only way to solve this is to wait for a "Pro" edition of RM.
Idk if people would agree with me but it's a waste of opportunity that they haven't prepared a Rpg Maker MV Pro version yet cuz many users intend to use RM to make comercial games.

 

[Aerosys]

Only way to solve this is to wait for a "Pro" edition of RM.
Idk if people would agree with me but it's a waste of opportunity that they haven't prepared a Rpg Maker MV Pro version yet cuz many users intend to use RM to make comercial games.

I actually thought the same. But on the other hand, after reading all the replies here, integration of the JS is what we would refer to "Pro". As we can assign tags to everything, maps, event, items.. we can do almost anything, even it is not comfortable.
The only thing that annoys me is that we don't have self-variables.

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

You know the self variables thing used to bother me, I mean Yanfly's plugin is great and all... but it hates everything. However then I just started pushing more and more calculations into plugins. First returning one variable, then an array, then an object, then deciding I'd just send it to another function instead. Pretty soon I noticed I had reprogrammed half of my game into plugins, eventually I started using very few self variables. Honestly since it's possible to store data in Javascript.... Maybe I don't even need self variables at all in actual MV. Now I want to test that.

 

[TheoAllen]

When people say about self variable, they mean it as a variable that can be accessed conveniently in the editor (use, manipulate, etc, tied in that event). Because technically all kind of variables are self variables. You have hp in an actor, that's "self variable". You add a new property to the actor through scripting, that's a self variable. However, it does not have a convenient editor. So what you do is to use a script call or notetag.

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

Interesting! I guess it just didn't occur to me that events and the actor were simply an object that I could stack properties onto. That is so much easier than using Local Storage. Thanks!

edit: Wow! That was so insanely easy, I can't believe I was using a plugin for it. Now I just feel dumb.

 

[TheoAllen]

Do note that events are not saved. So if you change maps, all your custom properties are gone. In fact, even the self switches technically aren't self switch at all. They are like global switches and variables. It just, they have a sort of "key" to determine which does this value belongs to. For example, the key tells you that it belongs to map id X, event id Y, and letter A. It is a global variable that has directions.

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

This makes me wonder how Yanfly and Hime made theirs persist. I'll have to study their plugins... thought probably not right now since it's after 3am here. Ideally I'd like to just stuff properties onto them from a plugin and never need to call that info directly from MV.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

If you mean persistent variables/switches, one way is to have a global variable array that stores the ids and values of the ones that should persist, then alias the variable/switch call/set method to use that global variable array instead when calling a persistent variable. Then just make sure that the array is saved when you modify a value

 

[TheoAllen]

This makes me wonder how Yanfly and Hime made theirs persist.

To make it persist across many scenes (and by scene, I mean different screens. Can be different scenes like battle and map or different map). Make it global that is accessible everywhere.
To make it persist across the save file, simply include it in the save content.

But anyway, if you are really curious about this. We could move the topic to a dedicated sub-forum instead of hijacking it here.

 

[Aesica]

Or mapping editor has pre-defined layers. Why are there no options to add layers?

Because each layer you add is going to slow things down. This is something I learned when I made a tile-based engine in flash. I had no upper limit on layers and by the time I had 13 or 14 heaped on top of each other, my framerate started to suffer pretty noticeably.

As for everything else, it's fine. They're mostly things you can get around with some plugins and/or custom scripting. The only thing I really don't like is that items, weapons, and armor are all different types of the same item class. Oh well, still not a huge deal overall.

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

@TheoAllen @Engr. Adiktuzmiko Thanks! Honestly it was enough to suggest that. I already did the research and having been playing with it.