Yea, those are great achievements ideas :) Can't do the "Walk X steps" though since we aren't counting steps and movement isn't grid based.
We were thinking about allowing the use of the stardex mid-battle, we just have to see how exactly we're going to implement it.
I'm trying to keep the starmon types related to their looks, but almost all of them are dual type and the second may be harder to guess (It's easy to guess that Krabby is water, guessing the rock part is harder. We've actually got a krabby like starmon). In addition to that, starmon names are colored in the narration box/combat log/whatever its called with the color of their first type (Which again doesn't help with dual types) (Move names are colored as well btw)
We want to add a good amount of random events/repeatable quests, but map size limitations are going to limit the amount of things we can implement. We really want there to be a lot to do, but we're not sure yet just how much we can fit in.
And sorry, no safari zone for exactly that reason :( We can shove quests and stuff into regular terrain, but safari zones just require map space reserved only for them :/
How many starmon are you guys planning on having? I'd like to suggest about 100 as a good number. Maity has 80, it means less models to get to 150+, less starmon to learn, and......I wanna catch em all!
150 + The Special Mew-like ("Event") Starmon is the plan. I think I already have enough models, or am missing at most 10-15 and Im sure I'll find some (If I'm not grossly overestimating our numbers and will indeed be that close, there'll be nothing that can stop me from going for that number)
It would be cool getting rewards for building up our starmon collection and completing it. Maybe this could be a side quest through the professor.
I think more starmon related goals 'like catching them all' would help increase the fun. I think I mentioned some of this before so hopefully I'll have new ideas now :P.
Well, achievements mean more bank space used, but I guess we can try and fit a good amount of them in. Still, I'd stick to achievements that are actual achievements, and not just stuff that happens within 30 mins of playing (Will comment on all your suggestions in the quote below)
Starmon related achievements:
Win 5 battles in a row using the same starmon at least once in each battle - You're going to get this five battles after the start of the game :/
Hatch an egg - Sorry, no breeding planned
Get any starmon to level 50 - Eh... Acceptable I guess. Not that easy.
Defeat a milestone trainer - There'll likely be rewards linked to that already, don't think we need an actual achievement (You'll be getting a badge in your trainer card, actual money and item rewards and so on already)
Catch 20 different starmon types A bit too little, very easy. Evolutions count towards such things so this achievement is practically "catch and train 8 starmon"
Catch 40 different starmon types Better, but if we go with 150 total I think 50 is a nicer number
Heal a total of 1000 HP at starcenters (not in one go but can accumulate) That's actually fairly little health (Assume 40 health per starmon early on, all of them lose about half health, that's 120 per heal, so you have to go heal about 8 times... But I don't mind having such "trivial" achievements for high numbers (So let's start at 10k or 50k)
Defeat a starmon after using a stat modifier move - Very likely going to get this in your first battle or one of the first... Something harder perhaps, "Defeat a Starmon which had its stats reduced by 9 stages in total"?
Trade starmon with at least 1 NPC - This one's fine :)
Teach a starmon an entire moveset (so all 4 moves through TMs) - Not sure how I feel about this. Sort of a "noob trap" - People will ruin a starmon for the sake of the achievement. Rather have something like teach X moves via TMs
Rename at least 2 starmon I never really liked nicknaming my pokemon - Not sure whether we should force players into doing so through achievements...
Carry at least 3 different starmon types in the party Way too easy, hardly an achievement. How about 9-12 types (Make use of dual types, have no overlaps)
Build up a certain amount of money As I said above for healing, I don't mind such "trivial" progressive achievements. 100k->500k->1M, etc. Would like to have something like this.
Play the game for a certain amount of hours If we do achievements, this'll be in
It would be nice if the above goals (and possibly more) came with some reward(s) like exp or money. I like a better adventure game than just 'battle to the death with everything that moves' :P. Can easily be done. Maybe a secondary currency instead? Unlock outfits or some special slightly OP PvE-only items?
So yeah, in essence, I don't want achievements that will be "accidentally" gotten within 10 minutes of starting the map, but I don't mind achievements you'll get sort of naturally at some point in the game (amount of money earned, healed, damage dealt, etc.) as long as it doesn't happen insanely early.
Achievements will probably be pretty far down on our priority list though. There's just so much stuff we want to add simply for this thing to work properly and look polished... Achievements will likely be added in the final phases of development if we decide to go with them.
Yeah, we like the idea of having a reward for stardex completion. We haven't nailed down the details, but we want to give everybody a "Trainer Level" that's based on a few different factors, one of the major factors being your stardex completion. In other words, the more starmon you discover or catch, the higher your trainer level. It'd take a few more things into account, like how far you've progressed through the story and how high your starmon's levels are. We don't have a purpose for the trainer level yet (other than it being a nice bragging tool on your trainer card), but we'll implement something.
Also wanted to mention my plan here (Dunno if I discussed it with him, might have but he probably forgot as we never really discussed it in depth):
The genetics lab will not be fully unlocked immediately. It'll be tied to your stardex progression. Your help in the scientists research (by cataloging starmon with the stardex) will have an actual impact. For example, Reveal 30 species and you unlock "EV viewer", Capture 30 species and you unlock "EV Manipulator" (Not final name, not even the placeholder name, I just made that up right now), reveal 50 for IV viewer, capture 50 for IV rerolls, stuff like that. We could even tie certain stardex functions to it (Like being able to view move sets, EV rewards, base XP reward, XP table, etc.)
Are you using a trigger with "Repeat Forever" or what? In that case do something like "Skip Remaining Actions", or I think "Return" makes a trigger end, or just use a while loop instead.
In any case, posting the triggers helps. Dont worry about anyone stealing your work, most people don't care and anyone who can't make this without having to steal a broken trigger off a thread most likely won't be able to finish the map anyway.
The way Moz is currently setting up the terrain, there are no actual cliffs being used :/ But allowing players to jump cliffs/obstacles is not an issue. The issue with instanced pathing was where we couldn't predefine where and when the player could pass (i.e. you could only pass a specific area by using cut/rock smash). We've got ledges already in and making something similar isn't hard, as long as the player is able to jump all things of the same type at once (Instead of only being able to pass certain ones, like with Rock Smash/Cut).
We're also capable of phasing doodads and NPCs to each players quest progress, Zelda is improving the system at the moment as he is making the first big quest (Lots of phased NPCs) atm.
Status update on the videos: My laptop seems to be getting worse and worse, and I can't really record anything atm :(
On the other hand though I should be getting a new PC. Sorry for the delay :(
Blue energy crawled over the air vent around them, and ripped them down to the ground. The landing was somewhat painful, but not particularly bad.
“These Outsiders really don’t know how to build air vents, do they?” A man with white hair in a black ghost suit covered in pulsing blue lines said. “No offense.” he added as he turned to a man in a gray uniform.
Rakah slowly rose to her feet, a quick mental scan of the room revealed her intended target, and 10 other people in the room, most of which were busy pointing the wrong end of a gun at her.
{I would strongly recommend that you ask your men to lower their weapons, I am not here for a fight, but I can not guarantee their safety from my companions should they keep them at the ready}
As if on cue Rakah felt Marrhe claw at her for control so she could show them just how outmatched they were.
Nick Reyd looked at her and smiled.
“Have a coffee break, guys.”
“I’d rather not.” Arcus said, not lowering his rifle.
“I can handle her, Arcus. But I guess you can stay if you want to. But lower your gun.”
The ghost lowered his rifle. The others in the room were confused.
“You heard the boss.” Arcus said. “Lower your guns and piss off.”
The soldiers, some wearing Arcus’ dark blue and others the Outsider gray, did as they were told and left the room. Only Nick, Arcus and the man in the gray uniform remained.
“So... I’m Nick. This guy is Arcus, and that guy is Colonel Ian Smith. It’d be nice if you introduced yourself, and maybe explained why you were crawling around in my vents.”
Rakah nodded.
{I have a rather interesting dilemma, and due to this dilemma I cannot remain with my own kind, as I pose a direct threat to their mental health, I basically have developed a rather contagious case of multiple personalities, and any Protoss that gets to close tend to catch whatever I am infected with, the two other “Me” are rather violent, and after seeing your little display I figured that you wouldn’t mind have someone like me around, no offense, Mr Nick}
As she finished talking she let her mental self float back and after a brief struggle Khinu gained control.
Immediately Khinu’s mental energies changed the color of the psionic energy in her eyes from blue to a brilliant emerald green, and in less than the blink of an eye she was behind Arcus and patted him on the shoulder.
{Smart choice to lower your gun Mr. Blue, Ms. Grumpy was really wanting me to gut you if you didn’t, anyway I am Khinu, I am the fun one of the the three of us, Pleased to meet you Mr. Potential-Boss-Sir}
“Well, she’s definitely fast.” Arcus said, turning to face Nick, not Khinu.
“That she is.” Nick said and turned to Khinu. “And Miss Fun, I highly recommend you do not try to gut me, it wouldn’t end well for either of us. You seem like you could be a quite remarkable asset, and I’m sure neither of us would like it if you were... Well, not here anymore.”
Nick accompanied the mild threat with a glimpse of his mind. All she could sense was a being filled with fire, bloodlust and rage - And that being was definitely no the one looking at her with a smile right now.
Khinu seemed unphased by the spectacle and just made a mental whistling sound.
{And here I thought Ms. Grumpy was broody, whatever you're lugging along makes her seem rather cheerful, Mr. Potential-Boss-Sir, no wonder she likes you}
Not only did her mental voice seem unphased, but it “sounded” like she was commenting on a rather interesting portrait, and not a bloodthirsty otherworldly entity.
{She’s weird.} The devil commented.
That she is. Nick agreed.
{I like her.}
You’re weird.
“Well then, what are you girls good at? And why should I trust you?”
Khinu was just about to answer when Marrhe took a hold of her mental “Self” and gave a powerful yank, and then grasped the reins, immediately the psionic energy took on a crimson hue and started giving off a rather bloodthirsty vibe.
{Trusting us would be a very bad idea, as for what we are good at, the Weakling of an original can take quite the beating, attacks what would kill me or the Child outright would hardly phase her, the Child is, as you saw, extremely fast, i dare say nothing can keep up with her once she starts running, as for me, I specialises in long distance bombardment, I can take out missile turrets and other such defenses from extreme range, the “Malfunctions” in this base’ defense grid over the last half an hour has been my doing to secure an easy entry into the base}
Marrhe’s voice was stone cold, yet held barely masked murderous intent, clearly the statement that she was not to be trusted was an honest one.
{Oooh... I like her.}
Didn’t expect any different.
“Interesting... Still, what reason do I have to believe that you will not just turn around and kill all my men as soon as I walk away? If I have to babysit you three all of the time, you’re useless to me as I can pretty much all you can myself. Well, without any subtlety. I’d just wreck shit.”
“You’re seriously considering having this lunatic work for us?” Smith asked.
“We can use every advantage we can get.” Nick said. “And they seem quite skilled. They got this far, didn’t they? If they turn on us, we can just leave them on the planet and let them and our enemies kill each other.”
“And if she turns while on a ship?”
“We’ve got more than one. And I’m sure she’ll understand that I’m the stronger of the two of us, so she won’t cause us any trouble as that would get her killed. The only other option she has it to use the hypothetically hijacked ship to cause trouble for our enemies, so I wouldn’t really count it as a loss.”
“We’d lose a lot of men.”
“We will one way or another. Wars can’t be won without casualties.”
{Lots and lots of casualties.} The devil whispered to Marrhe with an image of a burning smile.
Marrhe responded in kind to the Devil, finally someone she could relate too, she was just about to give the answer when a rather insistent Rakah demanded the drivers seat again, and Khinu, who had gotten annoyed at her immediately stepped up to back Rakah in her demand.
{see you around, handsome}
She whispered to the devil as she let herself float to an observing position and rakah seized control.
The psionic energy changed again as Rakah took control, and it became calm, like a river flowing through a wide valley.
{While I can not give any guarantees where Marrhe is concerned, Khinu is simple, keep her entertained and your safe, cause her to become bored, and your life is in peril as she finds it amusing to think up ways to kill things, which is one of the reasons Marrhe even tolerates her childish antics, I myself prefer to discuss things peacefully rather than having to become violent, granted this does not mean I won’t kill if I have to, but I prefer a peaceful solution, or at least the solution with the least casualties}
She paused for a bit and seemed to be in an internal discussion with the two others, and suddenly the three voices could be heard at once.
{We have all our own reasons for joining, so going against you would be counter productive to our goals, and while we cannot guarantee no casualties should we get too bored or too stressed, we will at least try to keep the bloodshed to a... minimum.}
Rakah opened her eyes again and the dark blue pools of her eyes bored into Nicks, a steely resolve that would not bend for anything.
{I seek a cure for my condition Mr.Reyd, and I don’t care who I have to align myself with, nor what I have to do in order to achieve this, I would align myself with even the Zerg if that would help me, as for a ship, I wouldn’t worry about losing one of your own, I have one already, it’s a bit empty at the moment, but if I could get a crew in and some troops she’ll be fully operational}
With that she simply sat down and closed her eyes.
“Arcus, Smith, any comments?”
“As I said, I’m not comfortable with this.” Smith said. “But I guess we can use help, especially if you want to stay in the back lines as you’ve said.”
“She seems volatile.” Arcus said. “But I picked you up on Deiliri as well, didn’t I?”
The ghost just left the room.
“I guess you’re hired.” Nick said. “Welcome to the Black Hand. I’d name you my Right Black Hand, but I already promised that one to Arcus, and Smith here got leftie. If I know Arcus as well as I think I do, which isn’t actually that well, we only met a few weeks ago, then he’s probably putting together a crew for you right now.”
{I don’t like the main chick.}
Well, I do. And I don’t care what you think. Besides, without her we would have no way to ensure that the other two only kill people when its in our favor.
{I don’t care about whose favor it is.}
Nick just sighed and shut out the devil. He could keep him away as long as he had control. As long as no one angered him, or irritated him.
SoA
Rakah, Khinu and Marrhe have a chat with Nick Reyd.
The project seems to be progressing. Figured I'd ask you guys if anything important happened in the last 17 days. Any newly mapped areas, or screenshot worthy game-art? Maybe there's some update on how "soonish" alpha is coming? I know that spring is stressful and busy for many (as a Senior in school, I am very busy too) but I would welcome news!
Zelda's been busy, and apart from moving to a new house I've also been pretty lazy :( So yeah, for about two weeks absolutely nothing happened.
BUT a couple of days ago we finally made some concrete plans regarding the storyline (We had tons of ideas and vague outlines, what I mean is that I wrote up very specifically what should happen, no vagueness, a concrete plan). Its not much, but it's what we want to have in the alpha (We're gonna cut it off at a somewhat interesting point :) )
Would it be possible if (when Karma is dark enough) a player could become the leader of team evil? I would honestly LOVE to be Giovanni for one game. Everyone wants to be the Fire Emperor!
Hehe... Hehehe... HEHEHE... MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Something similar may or may not happen ;) But there will definitely be a lot of interaction with Cipher (the bad guys) if you want to play it that way.
(Weren't there attachments on these forums before?)
There still are. Under your markup selection (Dropdown beneath the bottom left of the reply box, by default says "WikiCreole" but I think many people change it to BBCode) there's a big orange "Add Attachment" (And a plus sign before it)
Not sure where it is in thread creation, but you can always use the "Attach" button/text/link/thingy in the top right corner of your post after posting, right beside "Edit".
We've got enough for now, and I might be able to find some more models suitable for either non-evolving or only once-evolving starmon, but starters are always supposed to be 3 stage ones, and that's when it becomes an issue, but that issue is pretty much present for all types :p Currently have 10 three-stage evolution chains (One of which splits at the last stage into 2 starmon), plan at least two more (don't think I have the models for more), but one of those 3-stage chains will have to be replace (It's using Sc2 models which really don't fit.)
Seeing as we won't have hundreds of starmon I think it's quite important I make the few we have count, so I think it'll be really rare that any starmon will be at a disadvantage base stat wise. I'm sticking to somewhat simple/boring first zones (The bug chains, a sort of rattata, meowth and doduo, and I need to replace the starmon that is currently the pidgey equivalent - I no longer want to use the models it currently has)
The rare starmon are gonna be better though. You've got Probichu in the forest as well as Skaropede (Evolves into badass fire+ground scorpion), Odoron (Poison tank) and I think Oculus (Somewhat beefy psychic) in the first zone. Rares have a 5% spawn chance and differ depending on day/night.
Oh, and the forest has the Aravon (Ancient protector/ent/tree that wants to murder you) encounter, but you'll probably want to wait a bit before fighting those (Minimum level is 25)
As for starters, we're sticking to the original three, they even have base stats and move sets similar to Bulbasaur/Squirtle/Charmander, mostly for nostalgia's sake. The first impression of the game is somewhat important, and reminding people of the good times they had in the pokemon games with a similar starting choice is I think more useful to us than having more varied starters. If we ever do a part/generation 2 though I wouldn't mind mixing up the starters a bit (That of course has nothing to do with the lack of models for grass starmon, nothing at all *whistles innocently*)
Hey :) Yea, I understand now what you mean now, but I don't think that will be viable - Stats get larger with levels, base power of moves doesn't (Well, it does a bit, low level starmon don't immediately get access to the most powerful moves, but somewhere between levels 20-40, in addition to TMs the decently powered moves start being learned and it doesn't get much higher (More powerful moves that get learned later on have drawbacks that make the previous moves better, like Hyper Beam and Solar Beam taking up two turns), which means multiplication would end up catastrophic. Early levels you could get powers of 20-80 or so, but then later on when stuff gets stats going past 100 you'll practically be firing hundreds of hyperbeams in one go :p
Also, the bottom number is always 1 or gotten how? Because if its constant, we can just skip the fractions part and straight up multiply defense by that number. Sorry if I'm being dumb again, been tired the entire day >.>
But back to the multiplication point: Division is what's needed if you want to compare stats in any way. There are already moves that compare for example the speed of both starmon, and depending on the % difference a set amount of power is chosen, something similar could easily be done for defense stats. Or altering the damage calculation formula to use different stats (There's already an attack that use Special Attack as the offensive stat, but regular Defense as the defensive stat for example.)
Another issue: How am I going to clearly explain it to the player? Having cool and interesting formulas is nice and all, but apart from Zelda and me no one is going to see them (Unless we post them publicly somewhere), and I don't have enough tooltip space to explain how math works to players.
Let's take the move where speeds are compared for example, its a super simple calculation, which makes it easy to explain in the tooltip: "The faster the user is than the target, the greater the damage." (That's the actual tooltip, or at least the part of it concerning power/damage)
For outfits:
I want people to be able to freely switch between many outfits. How I'm gonna do that I'm still figuring out, but I don't mean that I don't know how, but that I don't know what method I want to pick - It'll definitely work. Right now trainers are by default wearing a fancy tuxedo, but we also have some more traveller/hiker/ranger looking outfits as well as a thief. I'm gonna add more, I just have to get around to actually doing it. Creating an outfit unlocked by beating the game shouldn't be too hard I think.
For NPCs levelling as they beat your starmon:
As I said, it takes quite a good chunk of XP for a starmon to level. It seems fast for you because you can do multiple battles in a row. But if you're only going to see a trainer a single time, you're most likely going to have to sacrifice your entire party to get the trainer to have his starmon level up, which may be somewhat hard to do without actually knocking out the enemy starmon. And even if you manage it, you're most likely screwed already anyway and it won't matter. Yea, it's a cool addition, but it would take a good chunk of time to implement and would be used so damn rarely I just really don't think it's worth the trouble. If I could just flip a switch and it'd magically work immediately, I'd do it, but unfortunately that won't happen :( NPC Starmon are set up a different way, they use different variables to store their stats, etc. EXP isn't something that's stored for them because it wasn't necessary, therefore EXP calculation is not run when an AI starmon knocks out a player starmon, which means the EXP calculation/reward system itself doesn't currently have any way of handling AI starmon, and neither does the levelup system, which means the move learning system doesn't either, and the list goes on. Zelda would have to run through a lot of old functions just to add the EXP gain for AIs which will not be noticed about 99,99% of the time. It's just not worth the time.
If you meant NPCs keeping up with your team in levels, but not levelling directly in battle, that's already in. Trainer levels are calculated based on your parties average level and clamped between two values based on the zone and possibly some other things (So zone X won't go higher than level Y, but Y will always be pretty high (First zone is by default levels 3-6 for wilds. Trainers will be able to scale up to level 20 or so, if not higher, as your own party reaches those levels). Trainers are completely randomized: We've got some preset lists of starmon they can have, the chances for them and such things, and even three tiers of lists for them, which list the starmon are taken from is dependent on the trainer level. The trainers themselves also don't always spawn in the first place, and not always in the same amounts. The forest can have between 4 and 7 trainers I think atm and will have about 15-20 possible spawn locations.
TL;DR: You'll never have a problem finding a trainer whose levels match that of your party, and if your starmon are high enough levels that it actually does become a problem, the arena will still be able to give some fairly randomized trainers to fight for all levels, and who knows what else we'll add.
An issue with trainers advancing as you play through the game is that vast majority of trainers are 100% random.
Making recurring preset trainers is a good idea. Already planned this for the Rival, and you'll have a rematch with all the milestone trainers near the end of the arena ladder (Where they use their actual high level team instead of their low level teams - It never made sense that Gym trainers had such weak pokemon, so here there's an explanation: They're milestone trainers, they're a sort of checkpoint you have to pass to be able to advance further in the arena, some sort of "quality control". They maintain low level teams for milestone challenges, while still having a powerful team with which they keep their actual arena rank)
We can surely have additional trainers relevant to the story progress over time. We could make one or more of the practically irrelevant Cipher grunts an actual preset trainer that has a party that keeps progressing (And his lines would indicate that he remembers you. But being just one of the many random guys you have to fight your way through, chances are you won't remember him, so it'd be a sort of easter egg :p ) It shouldn't really be that hard to add, we just have to keep in mind our recurring trainers.
For trainers levelling in battle: I don't think it's necessary, and more importantly, not worth the time: You need to lose quite a few high level starmon to actually give the enemy enough XP to level up... This happening would be so rare, we might as well just roll a number from 1-100 every time your starmon faints and have the enemy level up if it rolls a 100 (And no, I don't think we're gonna do this either...)
As for the moves, I'm not so sure about them. first of all I already made pretty much all moves we need and am not actively working on them anymore (Recently added a Dark Special Lifesteal move cause I felt like it, that's pretty much it since baton pass). The calculations may be messy to add into triggers, would need Zelda's input into this, but it might not be easy to explain (Tbh, I think I missed something in your explanation, 20/1 is for all practical purposes just 20, changing it to a fraction doesn't really change much. Did you want to divide defense by defense or what? In that case it could be more easily explained as a move that uses the Defense stat instead of Attack. Srry, I might just have missed something entirely. Slept little the last two days cause I'm busy moving so I'm kinda tired...)
0
Yea, those are great achievements ideas :) Can't do the "Walk X steps" though since we aren't counting steps and movement isn't grid based.
We were thinking about allowing the use of the stardex mid-battle, we just have to see how exactly we're going to implement it.
I'm trying to keep the starmon types related to their looks, but almost all of them are dual type and the second may be harder to guess (It's easy to guess that Krabby is water, guessing the rock part is harder. We've actually got a krabby like starmon). In addition to that, starmon names are colored in the narration box/combat log/whatever its called with the color of their first type (Which again doesn't help with dual types) (Move names are colored as well btw)
We want to add a good amount of random events/repeatable quests, but map size limitations are going to limit the amount of things we can implement. We really want there to be a lot to do, but we're not sure yet just how much we can fit in.
And sorry, no safari zone for exactly that reason :( We can shove quests and stuff into regular terrain, but safari zones just require map space reserved only for them :/
0
150 + The Special Mew-like ("Event") Starmon is the plan. I think I already have enough models, or am missing at most 10-15 and Im sure I'll find some (If I'm not grossly overestimating our numbers and will indeed be that close, there'll be nothing that can stop me from going for that number)
Well, achievements mean more bank space used, but I guess we can try and fit a good amount of them in. Still, I'd stick to achievements that are actual achievements, and not just stuff that happens within 30 mins of playing (Will comment on all your suggestions in the quote below)
So yeah, in essence, I don't want achievements that will be "accidentally" gotten within 10 minutes of starting the map, but I don't mind achievements you'll get sort of naturally at some point in the game (amount of money earned, healed, damage dealt, etc.) as long as it doesn't happen insanely early.
Achievements will probably be pretty far down on our priority list though. There's just so much stuff we want to add simply for this thing to work properly and look polished... Achievements will likely be added in the final phases of development if we decide to go with them.
Also wanted to mention my plan here (Dunno if I discussed it with him, might have but he probably forgot as we never really discussed it in depth):
The genetics lab will not be fully unlocked immediately. It'll be tied to your stardex progression. Your help in the scientists research (by cataloging starmon with the stardex) will have an actual impact. For example, Reveal 30 species and you unlock "EV viewer", Capture 30 species and you unlock "EV Manipulator" (Not final name, not even the placeholder name, I just made that up right now), reveal 50 for IV viewer, capture 50 for IV rerolls, stuff like that. We could even tie certain stardex functions to it (Like being able to view move sets, EV rewards, base XP reward, XP table, etc.)
0
Are you using a trigger with "Repeat Forever" or what? In that case do something like "Skip Remaining Actions", or I think "Return" makes a trigger end, or just use a while loop instead.
In any case, posting the triggers helps. Dont worry about anyone stealing your work, most people don't care and anyone who can't make this without having to steal a broken trigger off a thread most likely won't be able to finish the map anyway.
0
Well, I guess you can say that that Starcenter has got a large pair of balls.
0
@Crainy: Go
It works locally for me, have to test it in multi though...
0
http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/19371-tutorial-trigger-data-show-hide-destroy-any-given-actor/
0
The way Moz is currently setting up the terrain, there are no actual cliffs being used :/ But allowing players to jump cliffs/obstacles is not an issue. The issue with instanced pathing was where we couldn't predefine where and when the player could pass (i.e. you could only pass a specific area by using cut/rock smash). We've got ledges already in and making something similar isn't hard, as long as the player is able to jump all things of the same type at once (Instead of only being able to pass certain ones, like with Rock Smash/Cut).
We're also capable of phasing doodads and NPCs to each players quest progress, Zelda is improving the system at the moment as he is making the first big quest (Lots of phased NPCs) atm.
Status update on the videos: My laptop seems to be getting worse and worse, and I can't really record anything atm :(
On the other hand though I should be getting a new PC. Sorry for the delay :(
0
Dones Surface, Bysdoch system
Blue energy crawled over the air vent around them, and ripped them down to the ground. The landing was somewhat painful, but not particularly bad.
“These Outsiders really don’t know how to build air vents, do they?” A man with white hair in a black ghost suit covered in pulsing blue lines said. “No offense.” he added as he turned to a man in a gray uniform.
Rakah slowly rose to her feet, a quick mental scan of the room revealed her intended target, and 10 other people in the room, most of which were busy pointing the wrong end of a gun at her.
{I would strongly recommend that you ask your men to lower their weapons, I am not here for a fight, but I can not guarantee their safety from my companions should they keep them at the ready}
As if on cue Rakah felt Marrhe claw at her for control so she could show them just how outmatched they were.
Nick Reyd looked at her and smiled.
“Have a coffee break, guys.”
“I’d rather not.” Arcus said, not lowering his rifle.
“I can handle her, Arcus. But I guess you can stay if you want to. But lower your gun.”
The ghost lowered his rifle. The others in the room were confused.
“You heard the boss.” Arcus said. “Lower your guns and piss off.”
The soldiers, some wearing Arcus’ dark blue and others the Outsider gray, did as they were told and left the room. Only Nick, Arcus and the man in the gray uniform remained.
“So... I’m Nick. This guy is Arcus, and that guy is Colonel Ian Smith. It’d be nice if you introduced yourself, and maybe explained why you were crawling around in my vents.”
Rakah nodded.
{I have a rather interesting dilemma, and due to this dilemma I cannot remain with my own kind, as I pose a direct threat to their mental health, I basically have developed a rather contagious case of multiple personalities, and any Protoss that gets to close tend to catch whatever I am infected with, the two other “Me” are rather violent, and after seeing your little display I figured that you wouldn’t mind have someone like me around, no offense, Mr Nick}
As she finished talking she let her mental self float back and after a brief struggle Khinu gained control.
Immediately Khinu’s mental energies changed the color of the psionic energy in her eyes from blue to a brilliant emerald green, and in less than the blink of an eye she was behind Arcus and patted him on the shoulder.
{Smart choice to lower your gun Mr. Blue, Ms. Grumpy was really wanting me to gut you if you didn’t, anyway I am Khinu, I am the fun one of the the three of us, Pleased to meet you Mr. Potential-Boss-Sir}
“Well, she’s definitely fast.” Arcus said, turning to face Nick, not Khinu.
“That she is.” Nick said and turned to Khinu. “And Miss Fun, I highly recommend you do not try to gut me, it wouldn’t end well for either of us. You seem like you could be a quite remarkable asset, and I’m sure neither of us would like it if you were... Well, not here anymore.”
Nick accompanied the mild threat with a glimpse of his mind. All she could sense was a being filled with fire, bloodlust and rage - And that being was definitely no the one looking at her with a smile right now.
Khinu seemed unphased by the spectacle and just made a mental whistling sound.
{And here I thought Ms. Grumpy was broody, whatever you're lugging along makes her seem rather cheerful, Mr. Potential-Boss-Sir, no wonder she likes you}
Not only did her mental voice seem unphased, but it “sounded” like she was commenting on a rather interesting portrait, and not a bloodthirsty otherworldly entity.
{She’s weird.} The devil commented.
That she is. Nick agreed.
{I like her.}
You’re weird.
“Well then, what are you girls good at? And why should I trust you?”
Khinu was just about to answer when Marrhe took a hold of her mental “Self” and gave a powerful yank, and then grasped the reins, immediately the psionic energy took on a crimson hue and started giving off a rather bloodthirsty vibe.
{Trusting us would be a very bad idea, as for what we are good at, the Weakling of an original can take quite the beating, attacks what would kill me or the Child outright would hardly phase her, the Child is, as you saw, extremely fast, i dare say nothing can keep up with her once she starts running, as for me, I specialises in long distance bombardment, I can take out missile turrets and other such defenses from extreme range, the “Malfunctions” in this base’ defense grid over the last half an hour has been my doing to secure an easy entry into the base}
Marrhe’s voice was stone cold, yet held barely masked murderous intent, clearly the statement that she was not to be trusted was an honest one.
{Oooh... I like her.}
Didn’t expect any different.
“Interesting... Still, what reason do I have to believe that you will not just turn around and kill all my men as soon as I walk away? If I have to babysit you three all of the time, you’re useless to me as I can pretty much all you can myself. Well, without any subtlety. I’d just wreck shit.”
“You’re seriously considering having this lunatic work for us?” Smith asked.
“We can use every advantage we can get.” Nick said. “And they seem quite skilled. They got this far, didn’t they? If they turn on us, we can just leave them on the planet and let them and our enemies kill each other.”
“And if she turns while on a ship?”
“We’ve got more than one. And I’m sure she’ll understand that I’m the stronger of the two of us, so she won’t cause us any trouble as that would get her killed. The only other option she has it to use the hypothetically hijacked ship to cause trouble for our enemies, so I wouldn’t really count it as a loss.”
“We’d lose a lot of men.”
“We will one way or another. Wars can’t be won without casualties.”
{Lots and lots of casualties.} The devil whispered to Marrhe with an image of a burning smile.
Marrhe responded in kind to the Devil, finally someone she could relate too, she was just about to give the answer when a rather insistent Rakah demanded the drivers seat again, and Khinu, who had gotten annoyed at her immediately stepped up to back Rakah in her demand.
{see you around, handsome}
She whispered to the devil as she let herself float to an observing position and rakah seized control.
The psionic energy changed again as Rakah took control, and it became calm, like a river flowing through a wide valley.
{While I can not give any guarantees where Marrhe is concerned, Khinu is simple, keep her entertained and your safe, cause her to become bored, and your life is in peril as she finds it amusing to think up ways to kill things, which is one of the reasons Marrhe even tolerates her childish antics, I myself prefer to discuss things peacefully rather than having to become violent, granted this does not mean I won’t kill if I have to, but I prefer a peaceful solution, or at least the solution with the least casualties}
She paused for a bit and seemed to be in an internal discussion with the two others, and suddenly the three voices could be heard at once.
{We have all our own reasons for joining, so going against you would be counter productive to our goals, and while we cannot guarantee no casualties should we get too bored or too stressed, we will at least try to keep the bloodshed to a... minimum.}
Rakah opened her eyes again and the dark blue pools of her eyes bored into Nicks, a steely resolve that would not bend for anything.
{I seek a cure for my condition Mr.Reyd, and I don’t care who I have to align myself with, nor what I have to do in order to achieve this, I would align myself with even the Zerg if that would help me, as for a ship, I wouldn’t worry about losing one of your own, I have one already, it’s a bit empty at the moment, but if I could get a crew in and some troops she’ll be fully operational}
With that she simply sat down and closed her eyes.
“Arcus, Smith, any comments?”
“As I said, I’m not comfortable with this.” Smith said. “But I guess we can use help, especially if you want to stay in the back lines as you’ve said.”
“She seems volatile.” Arcus said. “But I picked you up on Deiliri as well, didn’t I?”
The ghost just left the room.
“I guess you’re hired.” Nick said. “Welcome to the Black Hand. I’d name you my Right Black Hand, but I already promised that one to Arcus, and Smith here got leftie. If I know Arcus as well as I think I do, which isn’t actually that well, we only met a few weeks ago, then he’s probably putting together a crew for you right now.”
{I don’t like the main chick.}
Well, I do. And I don’t care what you think. Besides, without her we would have no way to ensure that the other two only kill people when its in our favor.
{I don’t care about whose favor it is.}
Nick just sighed and shut out the devil. He could keep him away as long as he had control. As long as no one angered him, or irritated him.
SoA
Rakah, Khinu and Marrhe have a chat with Nick Reyd.
0
Zelda's been busy, and apart from moving to a new house I've also been pretty lazy :( So yeah, for about two weeks absolutely nothing happened.
BUT a couple of days ago we finally made some concrete plans regarding the storyline (We had tons of ideas and vague outlines, what I mean is that I wrote up very specifically what should happen, no vagueness, a concrete plan). Its not much, but it's what we want to have in the alpha (We're gonna cut it off at a somewhat interesting point :) )
Hehe... Hehehe... HEHEHE... MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Something similar may or may not happen ;) But there will definitely be a lot of interaction with Cipher (the bad guys) if you want to play it that way.
0
There still are. Under your markup selection (Dropdown beneath the bottom left of the reply box, by default says "WikiCreole" but I think many people change it to BBCode) there's a big orange "Add Attachment" (And a plus sign before it)
Not sure where it is in thread creation, but you can always use the "Attach" button/text/link/thingy in the top right corner of your post after posting, right beside "Edit".
Also, it looks great :)
0
@SoulFilcher: Go
We've got enough for now, and I might be able to find some more models suitable for either non-evolving or only once-evolving starmon, but starters are always supposed to be 3 stage ones, and that's when it becomes an issue, but that issue is pretty much present for all types :p Currently have 10 three-stage evolution chains (One of which splits at the last stage into 2 starmon), plan at least two more (don't think I have the models for more), but one of those 3-stage chains will have to be replace (It's using Sc2 models which really don't fit.)
@Trieva: Go
We've got about 80 atm, I need to add more but I *think* I already have enough models (Might be short 10-20, will see).
I'll try and work on the map some more soon, but I moved yesterday and am still pretty busy >.>
0
Seeing as we won't have hundreds of starmon I think it's quite important I make the few we have count, so I think it'll be really rare that any starmon will be at a disadvantage base stat wise. I'm sticking to somewhat simple/boring first zones (The bug chains, a sort of rattata, meowth and doduo, and I need to replace the starmon that is currently the pidgey equivalent - I no longer want to use the models it currently has)
The rare starmon are gonna be better though. You've got Probichu in the forest as well as Skaropede (Evolves into badass fire+ground scorpion), Odoron (Poison tank) and I think Oculus (Somewhat beefy psychic) in the first zone. Rares have a 5% spawn chance and differ depending on day/night.
Oh, and the forest has the Aravon (Ancient protector/ent/tree that wants to murder you) encounter, but you'll probably want to wait a bit before fighting those (Minimum level is 25)
As for starters, we're sticking to the original three, they even have base stats and move sets similar to Bulbasaur/Squirtle/Charmander, mostly for nostalgia's sake. The first impression of the game is somewhat important, and reminding people of the good times they had in the pokemon games with a similar starting choice is I think more useful to us than having more varied starters. If we ever do a part/generation 2 though I wouldn't mind mixing up the starters a bit (That of course has nothing to do with the lack of models for grass starmon, nothing at all *whistles innocently*)
0
@BladeOfAiur: Go
Hey :) Yea, I understand now what you mean now, but I don't think that will be viable - Stats get larger with levels, base power of moves doesn't (Well, it does a bit, low level starmon don't immediately get access to the most powerful moves, but somewhere between levels 20-40, in addition to TMs the decently powered moves start being learned and it doesn't get much higher (More powerful moves that get learned later on have drawbacks that make the previous moves better, like Hyper Beam and Solar Beam taking up two turns), which means multiplication would end up catastrophic. Early levels you could get powers of 20-80 or so, but then later on when stuff gets stats going past 100 you'll practically be firing hundreds of hyperbeams in one go :p
Also, the bottom number is always 1 or gotten how? Because if its constant, we can just skip the fractions part and straight up multiply defense by that number. Sorry if I'm being dumb again, been tired the entire day >.>
But back to the multiplication point: Division is what's needed if you want to compare stats in any way. There are already moves that compare for example the speed of both starmon, and depending on the % difference a set amount of power is chosen, something similar could easily be done for defense stats. Or altering the damage calculation formula to use different stats (There's already an attack that use Special Attack as the offensive stat, but regular Defense as the defensive stat for example.)
Another issue: How am I going to clearly explain it to the player? Having cool and interesting formulas is nice and all, but apart from Zelda and me no one is going to see them (Unless we post them publicly somewhere), and I don't have enough tooltip space to explain how math works to players.
Let's take the move where speeds are compared for example, its a super simple calculation, which makes it easy to explain in the tooltip: "The faster the user is than the target, the greater the damage." (That's the actual tooltip, or at least the part of it concerning power/damage)
For outfits:
I want people to be able to freely switch between many outfits. How I'm gonna do that I'm still figuring out, but I don't mean that I don't know how, but that I don't know what method I want to pick - It'll definitely work. Right now trainers are by default wearing a fancy tuxedo, but we also have some more traveller/hiker/ranger looking outfits as well as a thief. I'm gonna add more, I just have to get around to actually doing it. Creating an outfit unlocked by beating the game shouldn't be too hard I think.
For NPCs levelling as they beat your starmon:
As I said, it takes quite a good chunk of XP for a starmon to level. It seems fast for you because you can do multiple battles in a row. But if you're only going to see a trainer a single time, you're most likely going to have to sacrifice your entire party to get the trainer to have his starmon level up, which may be somewhat hard to do without actually knocking out the enemy starmon. And even if you manage it, you're most likely screwed already anyway and it won't matter. Yea, it's a cool addition, but it would take a good chunk of time to implement and would be used so damn rarely I just really don't think it's worth the trouble. If I could just flip a switch and it'd magically work immediately, I'd do it, but unfortunately that won't happen :( NPC Starmon are set up a different way, they use different variables to store their stats, etc. EXP isn't something that's stored for them because it wasn't necessary, therefore EXP calculation is not run when an AI starmon knocks out a player starmon, which means the EXP calculation/reward system itself doesn't currently have any way of handling AI starmon, and neither does the levelup system, which means the move learning system doesn't either, and the list goes on. Zelda would have to run through a lot of old functions just to add the EXP gain for AIs which will not be noticed about 99,99% of the time. It's just not worth the time.
If you meant NPCs keeping up with your team in levels, but not levelling directly in battle, that's already in. Trainer levels are calculated based on your parties average level and clamped between two values based on the zone and possibly some other things (So zone X won't go higher than level Y, but Y will always be pretty high (First zone is by default levels 3-6 for wilds. Trainers will be able to scale up to level 20 or so, if not higher, as your own party reaches those levels). Trainers are completely randomized: We've got some preset lists of starmon they can have, the chances for them and such things, and even three tiers of lists for them, which list the starmon are taken from is dependent on the trainer level. The trainers themselves also don't always spawn in the first place, and not always in the same amounts. The forest can have between 4 and 7 trainers I think atm and will have about 15-20 possible spawn locations.
TL;DR: You'll never have a problem finding a trainer whose levels match that of your party, and if your starmon are high enough levels that it actually does become a problem, the arena will still be able to give some fairly randomized trainers to fight for all levels, and who knows what else we'll add.
0
An issue with trainers advancing as you play through the game is that vast majority of trainers are 100% random.
Making recurring preset trainers is a good idea. Already planned this for the Rival, and you'll have a rematch with all the milestone trainers near the end of the arena ladder (Where they use their actual high level team instead of their low level teams - It never made sense that Gym trainers had such weak pokemon, so here there's an explanation: They're milestone trainers, they're a sort of checkpoint you have to pass to be able to advance further in the arena, some sort of "quality control". They maintain low level teams for milestone challenges, while still having a powerful team with which they keep their actual arena rank)
We can surely have additional trainers relevant to the story progress over time. We could make one or more of the practically irrelevant Cipher grunts an actual preset trainer that has a party that keeps progressing (And his lines would indicate that he remembers you. But being just one of the many random guys you have to fight your way through, chances are you won't remember him, so it'd be a sort of easter egg :p ) It shouldn't really be that hard to add, we just have to keep in mind our recurring trainers.
For trainers levelling in battle: I don't think it's necessary, and more importantly, not worth the time: You need to lose quite a few high level starmon to actually give the enemy enough XP to level up... This happening would be so rare, we might as well just roll a number from 1-100 every time your starmon faints and have the enemy level up if it rolls a 100 (And no, I don't think we're gonna do this either...)
@BladeOfAiur: Go
Nice to hear from you again :)
As for the moves, I'm not so sure about them. first of all I already made pretty much all moves we need and am not actively working on them anymore (Recently added a Dark Special Lifesteal move cause I felt like it, that's pretty much it since baton pass). The calculations may be messy to add into triggers, would need Zelda's input into this, but it might not be easy to explain (Tbh, I think I missed something in your explanation, 20/1 is for all practical purposes just 20, changing it to a fraction doesn't really change much. Did you want to divide defense by defense or what? In that case it could be more easily explained as a move that uses the Defense stat instead of Attack. Srry, I might just have missed something entirely. Slept little the last two days cause I'm busy moving so I'm kinda tired...)
0
@TacoManStan: Go
Bring a camera as well. I wanna see the look on their faces.