Game without a Player?

supportreport1

Hello,

I am currently making good progress on my game which is inspired by the Pokemon games. I however am not planning on having a player that runs around, I simply want a camera for cut scene movements and then a menu that will allow transition to the next battle.

Is this going to be possible without having a dedicated player combatant as far as inventory and such goes? And will I be able to setup events that "capture" these wild combatants and can add to your active party?

Thank you for your help.

One other question I wanted to throw on to this as well, is it possible to define only a set number of active ability slots? I have the abilities set on level up for my combatant but was wondering if I had any way of limiting these or having the combatant needing to replace one ability for a new one. Again thanks for the help.

gamingislove

You can make a game without having to run around with a player - simply don't spawn it (and on scene changes use spawn ID -1).

To be able to start interactions without the player (i.e. by clicking on them), set the Max Click Distance to -1 (Base/Controls > Game Controls > Interaction Settings).

A combatant isn't limited in the number of abilities they can learn. You could add a limit for this e.g. by using the event system and check/change that via selected data. Another way would be using shortcut slots for the 'active' abilities.

supportreport1

Thank you, but without a player will I still be able to setup and have the user manage an inventory full of items bought from shops, equipment, etc?

That limit should be a good way of accomplishing what I need thanks. Where would I be placing this event though? On each individual combatant or?

Not sure if you didn't see my other question but is it going to be possible to setup an event that will essentially capture the wild combatant and add it to your active party? And if you have a set amount of party members for example 3, could you replace one of those with the captured?

Appreciate the help. Once I get these systems up and running I should be out of your hair!

gamingislove

You'll still need a combatant in your group for that - so either have a starting captured combatant, or use a non-battle dummy combatant.

For a non-battle combatant, first join it to the group as usual (Join Active Group node), followed by a Leave Battle Group node and a Hide Member node. Now you'll have the player as a hidden combatant that will not show in any lists or fight in battles.

Yes, you can use the event system for the capture and replacement. For replacing, use a Select Combatant node to select all the battle members of the player and e.g. use a Selected Data Choice node to show a dialogue to select which one to remove. The selected combatant (stored in a different selected data) can be removed (or whatever else you want to do with it) via the usual group nodes. Selected data is a somewhat advanced feature (but works similar to variables), you can learn more about it here.

supportreport1

Wow that seems like a really simple workaround thank you. :)

And again thanks for showing giving me the details on Selected Data, I'm starting to learn a lot of what I want to accomplish can be done through that system.

One last thing, where would I be placing that limiting ability event at? I can't figure out I guess how to only limit it to 4 abilities, and then have the next learnt move be able to replace one of those by using the Shortcuts, it looked as though I would have to define each individual move for every shortcut rather than having an ability replace another if that makes sense.

Again thank you.

gamingislove

Well, that depends on how you learn the abilities?

supportreport1

The abilities would be learned via level up, so each level that I have an ability to learn and I'd like to replace one of the abilities I had set already on my monster if that makes sense.

gamingislove

In that case, you can use game events for that. A level up can automatically start a game event - the default setting for all combatants is in Battle System > Battle Settings > Level Up Settings, each combatant can overrule this with their own event setup.

The event is used after all level up bonuses (including learning abilities) have been applied, so you can simply get all the abilities, check the number and e.g. have the player select which to remove. Can be done using selected data:

Select Ability node to select all abilities of the combatant
Selected Data Count node to check the number of abilities
Selected Data Choice node to let the player select which ability to remove
Forget Ability node to remove the selected ability (stored in a different selected data key)

Level up events provide the combatant as a Starting Object type actor.

supportreport1

Perfect!! Thank you seriously so much. I can't wait to show off what I've been working on! Had to drop a review also, keep up the great work.

gamingislove

Thanks :)