Combat Stuff

[Purple Phantom 453]

Hey everybody! Just me here, with a new idea that's been done countless times!

 

Enemies. Aren't they great? No? Well, what about enemies with specific strategies? Enemies that are more than just "attack x amount of times". Here, I have some enemy designs that I want to be just that. Not boring.

 

They're all slime girls.

 

 

Normal - The most basic type of slime girl. No status ailments come from here, aside from "Bind". Easily defeated by water, but becomes more powerful with fire. (Same concept as a flaming zombie, more or less.)

 

Jiggly - A type of slime girl that can take a lot of damage. Do what you want, but she just absorbs it and gets stronger the more you hit her as she prepares her reflect attacks. Luckily, she's more easily defeated with water attacks than anything else. She can target specific people to attack, which can make things a bit easier, if you attack her with water while healing whoever she's targetting, she's easy to defeat.

 

Magnetic - A type of slime girl that's more easily defeated by metal than water. Nothing too special, other than her Binding attacks also cause the victim to become magnetic as well.

 

Crunchy - A type of slime girl that can hit harder. All attacks are binding. Unlike other types, her weakness is fire, not water.

 

Holo - A type of slime girl that reflects attacks. Unlike other slime types, she has no Binding attacks. Totally destroyable using water.

 

Bubble - A type of slime girl that bubbles all over, giving her a high probability to dodge attacks. However, this has a different effect on her Binding attacks, as slowed is applied right after, due to the odd nature of her bubbles. Weak to water.

 

Iceberg - A type of slime girl that resists damage until her hardened armour layer has been broken. While she cannot be hurt at first, as long as her hardened layer remains, she cannot use Binding attacks. Susceptible to water damage.

 

Bubblegum - A type of slime girl that's super sticky. Every single one of her attacks either Binds or Slows the victim. Still weak to water, but good luck actually getting her off of you. On that note, some of her attacks also strip the victim of armour and weapons.

 

Clear - A type of slime girl that’s nearly invisible, but not very sticky. She’s the only slime girl type with no Binding abilities. Water soluble.

 

Avalanche - A type of slime girl whose multicoloured body can heal itself in a matter of seconds. She’s extremely sticky, so all of her attacks either Bind or Slow the victim, but she cannot remove equipment from them. Water is the easiest way to take her down.

 

Fishbowl - A type of slime girl whose body is made up not only of slime, but of little plastic pellets that greatly add to her density. While she has few Binding attacks, she hits hard. The slime part of her is easily washed away with water and the pellets are useless without the slime.

 

Fluffy - A type of slime girl that isn’t very strong, but very binding. However, it’s easy to break free, due to her low strength. Has no real weakness to make up for her poor strength.

 

Fusion - A type of slime girl that is a fusion of two or more different types, adopting the attacks, strengths and weaknesses of all types that combined.
 

 

 

How could I make them better and more interesting? How could I improve them? Further, how do I actually do this?

 

Here's the complete list of scripts I'm using.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2017 by Purple Phantom
Added the Victor Engine scripts I recently plugged in.

[lonequeso 1,921]

Someone like slime girls. You're using Yanfly's battle engine. Good choice! That being said, I;m assuming it's traditional turn-based combat. I'm also assuming there are other enem that balance out the elemental resistances and states. I do have a few questions:

 

• What exactly does binding do?/How long does it last?/What stats/skills does it effect?
• Are other enemies going to be in the troops?
• Do elemental strengths/weakness vary enemy type to enemy type or is it just a flat bonus like "super effective" moves in Pokemon?

[Purple Phantom 453]

1 minute ago, lonequeso said:

• What exactly does binding do?/How long does it last?/What stats/skills does it effect?
• Are other enemies going to be in the troops?
• Do elemental strengths/weakness vary enemy type to enemy type or is it just a flat bonus like "super effective" moves in Pokemon?

Binding is a state that causes the victim to not be able to move for 2-4 turns.

Occasionally. Sometimes, it's a group of various slime girls, sometimes there will be robots or some other type of enemy (zombehs, people, etc.).

They vary from type to type. For instance, a Basic slime girl is far more water soluble than a Bubblegum slime girl. There are also the Magnetic and Crunchy slime girls who have weaknesses that aren't water (metal and water, respectively). Then, there are the Iceberg and Avalanche slime girls, who deal with damage completely differently, either with a hardened outer layer or being able to heal (respectively).

[PhoenixSoul 1,404]

Hmmm...

 

Sounds like a Victor Engine solution to me...

[Purple Phantom 453]

1 hour ago, PhoenixSoul said:

Sounds like a Victor Engine solution to me...

Victor Engine? Didn't that disappear a while back?

[PhoenixSoul 1,404]

Nope, still making scripts.

[Purple Phantom 453]

Ohhhh! Thanks! I accidentally got it mixed up with one of those other engines. ^-^"

 

@PhoenixSoul

[lonequeso 1,921]

Stun states.. bleh.. I hope there's way to resist/prevent Bind. Having several party members unable to move at the same time can get annoying pretty quick. It also depends on how long your battles are. If the player can usually off a single slime girl in a turn or two, it's not so bad. Kill them with extreme prejudice before they can Bind or reflect or heal. That's pretty much my strategy in most RPGs. Smash things until they're dead  Most games I've played  have encounters that are easy enough to do just that. I hope yours will prove to be a bit more challenging. 

 

You have a pretty good mix of strategies there. Not really a whole lot I'd add to the slime girls. For enemies in general, don't forget about Ex and Sp params. There's a lot interesting things you can do in there (like magic reflect!). Whenever I want a skill or passive enemy ability to be a bit more unique, I peek in those again and see if something inspires me.

One of my favorite things is an attack that deals more damage if the enemy has a certain state. Those make for some fun little one-two combos. 

[PhoenixSoul 1,404]

An interesting enemy design is having MP == 0 meaning their demise, but outside of the Final Fantasy series, it is rarer than good underground music (and trust me when I say that good underground music is increasing in rarity).

 

Of course, achieving this in any RM is next to impossible without additional scripting, or create an enemy skill that forces the enemy to commit suicide at 0 MP or have a Troop Battle event look for that condition and act accordingly, both of which are clunky and not foolproof.

[lonequeso 1,921]

I can't believe I forgot! If your using Yanfly's Battle Engine check out his Lunatic Scripts. That link is for just one of many he has. I'm sure just browsing all the stuff you can do will give you some fun ideas.

[AnarelHaeran 15]

Some random ideas:

 

-You could make a boss slime girl that can "devour" an actor, disabling him/her for the rest of the battle, kind of like the "Sneeze" skill that certain boss in FFVI had.

 

-You can make a corrosive slime girl that destroys armor and weapons. You could also add an equipment degrading plugin if you want more immersion.

 

-Slime girls can have an additional "Seduce" skill, which makes an actor attack himself or his allies for X turns. It's up to you if you want to also target females.

 

-When several slime girls of the same type are fought together, maybe they will fuse together to produce a stronger version.

 

-Alternatively, you could make a slime girl that, when her HP reaches 0, divides herself into two copies. Then, each copy into two more copies until there is a lot of smaller and smaller (and less powerful) slime girls. The key to win would be a massive attack to all slime girls at the same time or something like that.

 

-Finally, a slime girl that eats elements and gains element-related strenghts. Regular versions for each element and a boss version that eats one element at random per turn OR when attacked with an element. There was a "Sphere" boss in FFX that did something very similar.

 

Those are some ideas, hope you like them ;-)

[Purple Phantom 453]

On 12/09/2017 at 8:10 PM, lonequeso said:

I can't believe I forgot! If your using Yanfly's Battle Engine check out his Lunatic Scripts. That link is for just one of many he has. I'm sure just browsing all the stuff you can do will give you some fun ideas.

I'd be willing to use the Lunatic scripts, but I wouldn't know the first thing about setting that stuff up. I use the auto formulas because I'm not sure how to really set it up right. If somebody would be willing to help me out, I'd be all over that, though!

 

10 hours ago, AnarelHaeran said:

Some random ideas:

 

-You could make a boss slime girl that can "devour" an actor, disabling him/her for the rest of the battle, kind of like the "Sneeze" skill that certain boss in FFVI had.

 

-You can make a corrosive slime girl that destroys armor and weapons. You could also add an equipment degrading plugin if you want more immersion.

 

-Slime girls can have an additional "Seduce" skill, which makes an actor attack himself or his allies for X turns. It's up to you if you want to also target females.

 

-When several slime girls of the same type are fought together, maybe they will fuse together to produce a stronger version.

 

-Alternatively, you could make a slime girl that, when her HP reaches 0, divides herself into two copies. Then, each copy into two more copies until there is a lot of smaller and smaller (and less powerful) slime girls. The key to win would be a massive attack to all slime girls at the same time or something like that.

 

-Finally, a slime girl that eats elements and gains element-related strenghts. Regular versions for each element and a boss version that eats one element at random per turn OR when attacked with an element. There was a "Sphere" boss in FFX that did something very similar.

 

Those are some ideas, hope you like them ;-)

I like those ideas and I'll likely use most of them! 1 and 2 wouldn't really fit, as the worst I'm willing to do to the player is use some stun states and put equipment back in their inventory during some attacks. I don't quite understand 6, so I'll go watch the Sphere battle when I have more time. That being said, I adore 3~5 (and will probably adore 6, as well). They add some nice changes to the battles! Thank you! :3

 

On 12/09/2017 at 9:56 AM, lonequeso said:

For enemies in general, don't forget about Ex and Sp params. There's a lot interesting things you can do in there (like magic reflect!). Whenever I want a skill or passive enemy ability to be a bit more unique, I peek in those again and see if something inspires me.

One of my favorite things is an attack that deals more damage if the enemy has a certain state. Those make for some fun little one-two combos. 

I'll remember those when I get all of this set up outside of a document! :3

[lonequeso 1,921]

Some of Yanfly's Lunatic scripts are pretty easy. A lot  of them just use note tags in the skill, and he has notes on how to write them properly. 

[Purple Phantom 453]

I'll be sure to get them fully looked at. :3 Thanks!

[Rezanta 373]

Well, that sure beats me using Dragonic Wolves XD

 

Anyway, I'm with lone on this for the majority, but I do need to question, why are all weak to water? Couldn't some be weak to something like electricity, ice, etc? (Just my curiosity, not judgementalness.)

 

The strategy behind bind is something I used a lot, more than I like to be honest. While most binds don't allow movement, I've seen some prevent most actions, but allow a chance to escape the grasp. (Thank you Interwebs!)

Constricts, Binding, Paralysis all seem to work in and of their respective nature, so maybe spicing bind with a bit of possibilities would make the slime girls a more varied encounter. An example can be the bubblegum girl's bind can't be healed, but weakens over time if hit with water/fire based attacks.

[Knighterius 502]

This is nice, it feels very final fantasy-esque with more detail added to status ailments which are annoying but help plan a better strategy. Reminds me of the Malboros in the Omega Ruins in Final Fantasy 10. The Malboro would ambush the party no matter what and cause a huge amount of ailments that essentially just made the player watch as their characters killed themselves. Harsh, but fair, if a player prepared for the ambush with "first strike" weapons, they would have been able to strike before the ailments were in place, much like your character would have to plan for non-physical based attacks to such sticky slime girls. 

 

I will not endorse or advise to use Victor's engine, it's such a headache and the scripter himself isn't...user friendly if you catch my meaning. Theo's battle engine, however, is beautiful but Yanfly's can do the job. But ew to the huge amount of comment writing. 

 

I feel like battles with these slimey ladies will become a little monotonous if they are all taken down by water (or most). As others have said, it'd be nice to see what we as players can do to punish these sexy broads. ^~^ I love, however, that you are taking simple concepts and making something refreshing out of them. Very nice.

[PhoenixSoul 1,404]

@Knighterius I'll take a disagreeing stance on using Victory Engine. Actually, there are some functions that are ONLY available with said engine, that aren't broken.

 

I actually somewhat disagree on slimes/amoebas being vulnerable to water; I would think that water should actually be the last thing that would harm anything that absorbs whatever it touches (though an overflow of water could cause one to burst, that would be more of an inconvenience than harmful).

 

Then again, maybe I'm overthinking this?

Maybe not, I dunno, but in my main project, Project: False, Slimes are part of the Amoeba family (also given an 'Amoeba' attribute).

[lonequeso 1,921]

Well you see Slime Girls are accustomed to being pampered and living in comfort. They need just the right amount of water at just the right temperature or they throw a tantrum. The don't handle stress well either so dousing them with lots of water actually causes them mental trauma which manifests as physical pain.

 

Now we're both overthinking it 

[Kayzee 4,032]

Yay for slimegirls! And yeah, if you give a slime too much water they could get all drippy which can make them slow and weak. Slimegirls are most healthy if they are at least mostly solidish like jello I think. Though water probobly wouldn't hurt them much, and instead ideally it should cause a status effect/debuff, sort of like how some enemies Chrono Trigger react to particular attacks.

[Knighterius 502]

@PhoenixSoul hmm, what would you suggest for reasons as to why the Victor Engine is useful? What aspects of it are you referring to? As other's have said in defense, and I love you referring to amoeba's because this supports the idea more of the effectiveness of some slimes being weak to water, as well just using game physics. If these are enemy types, then their types should be coherent with other types, so despite them being "Slime" a fire slime should be weak to water, yeah? Anyway with the whole amoeba and referring to biology, we could look at osmosis and see that when too much water goes in, the amoeba will burst because of the imbalance. So there's always that to consider as to why water could have impact. 

 

However, in contrast, your game has put them in their own sort of biological family, which is different once again to what Phanta has with her ideas. Both really nice concepts. (I dislike fighting slimes in general :P)

[PhoenixSoul 1,404]

@Knighterius Well, there is one functionality, that I've not seen at all elsewhere, and that is the Materia system. Then, there's the MP Levels (like how the system works in the first Final Fantasy), and though I could go on, I will not.

 

As far as Amoeba classification goes, it seems to make the most sense. I'm not going to go in-depth about what they are in my project, because there's a lot of info I don't want to divulge as of the current moment, thanks much.

 

 

[Kayzee 4,032]

I always thought of slimes in general as less like a single giant amoeba and more like slime molds or magical colonies of self-replicating 'grey goo'-like stuff. I guess it depends if your slimegirls have a single nucleus or not, some do and some don't. Now I know you would think a slimegirl would need some sort of central brain to think, but you would be surprised how smart a decentralized slime mold can be. Plus, you know, magic.

 

Anyway, personally I rather play as a slimegirl then fight them. It would be kinda neat to have an RPG where you started as a simple slime and could absorb stuff to grow and evolve in different ways and become one of many types of slimegirl. :3

[lonequeso 1,921]

One thing I've learned form years of playing RPG's is type weakness don't really have to make sense. Balancing the elements is far more important than coming up with logical reasons for an enemy or an actor to be effected by it. You just kind of roll with it, and if anyone questions you, just make up something random like I did. 

 

(or just say a wizard did it)

[Purple Phantom 453]

I was going to answer everybody's comments individually, but after reading all of this, I'll give an explanation on the origins of the slime girls in the game.

 

To put it in simple terms, the slime girls are each based off different types of slime (just go on YouTube, too much to explain in a comment). Each slime has different properties and such that make it different from other slimes and, as such, those properties carried over to the slime girls (and exaggerated, to a certain degree) - including a weakness to water (water is how you get slime off stuff and a good way to dissolve it, if you run it under a warm tap). Since the game runs on cartoon physics, we'll go with an explanation of "SCIENCE!" for how large batches of slime became sentient beings without going into much detail (but hey, evil geniuses have that kinda power in the cartoon world, so...).

 

As for the binding, I would not know how to go about that kind of dynamic thing (unless the scripts I put in there can do that and I need to just look at them already).

 

Also! @Kayzee you can build your own slime girls to help you in battle! (Same with robots. :3)

[lonequeso 1,921]

Yay for the SCIENCE! explanation!  That's what I love about cartoony stuff. Things are the way they are just because they are. No need for some Tolkien level of elaboration on the how and why. It's liberating, isn't it?

 

I wanna build a robot!