Ideas for new features

I'm not sure if there was already a thread like this at some point, but I looked through the first three or four pages and didn't see one, so... here's some things I thought up recently. I don't have an account on Bugzilla (and I didn't really want to clog it up with tons of feature requests that may or may not be possible when there's actual bugs to be worked on), so I figured I'd post them here instead.

Anyone else can post their ideas too if they want.

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1: "Do not trigger counterattacks" attack bitset. Kinda like "do not spawn on hit," but for counterattacks instead.

2: "Counterattack on death." The enemy uses this attack immediately when killed. Might be hard to do (I know the counterattack page on the wiki mentions the trickiness of keeping enemies alive long enough to counter when they're killed by an attack they would normally counter), but it'd be useful for enemies that do the "one last super-strong attack" kind of thing.

3: "Don't counterattack on death" enemy bitset. Makes it so the enemy will only counter attacks that don't kill it. "Counterattack on death" attacks would override this, making it so killing the enemy will always trigger the "on death" counterattack instead of elemental/stat ones; otherwise, it would be silly to give this bitset to an enemy with death-counterattacks.

4: Counterattacks for poison/stun/mute. You can already counter stat-lowering attacks, so why not the other status-effect type things? Countering stun attacks might be kinda complicated though, since the enemy would be unable to do anything after being stunned.

5: "Die if MP = 0" enemy bitset. Pretty self-explanatory; the enemy dies if their MP hits zero, just like if their HP hit zero.

6: Equippable items that affect poison/regen counters. Maybe mute too; probably not stun, because that would be kind of silly. But it'd be neat to have equippable items that give automatic poison/regen. I wouldn't want poison/regen/etc. counters to show up on the status screen, though... that would be weird.

7: "Do not show blank stats" general bitset. If a stat's name is blanked out in the global text strings, the game won't show it on the status screen. Would be nice to have for games that don't use counter/mp%/extra hits, so there's not a bunch of 0's hanging around at the bottom of the status screen.

8: "Fail if target is NOT poisoned/stunned/muted" attack bitsets. Like "Fail if target is poisoned/stunned/muted," but in reverse. For when you use antidotes on perfectly healthy people, or maybe for a weird attack that works by absorbing the poison from somebody's system. Could also be used to make something like the Pokémon attack Dream Eater, which does nothing unless the target is asleep.

9: "Do not display weapon" attack bitset. For those attacks that use Strike/Dash In graphics but shouldn't show a weapon, like stealing or punching or throwing things.

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FYS:AHS -- Swapping out some step-on NPCs for zones + each step script
Puckamon -- Not until the reserve party is expanded.[/size]

Once the global variables tag substitution becomes official in CUSTOM, if it hasn't done so already, I'd like someone to finally start adding globals to the various hit and attack possibilities in battles.

See Plan for Variables in Battles for reference.

I've mentioned this previously in e-mail or private messaging, but I think there are the things I'd recommend for the "More Ideas."

(And I'll update this post when I find them.)

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Place Obligatory Signature Here

Second'd.

I could have sworn that i did #1 already. Thank you for reminding me that i did not.

whoa whoa whoa,
You can't just go making bug/feature requests all willy nilly.
You have to wait for the next HotOHR, just like everyone else.

#9 was my HotOHR request.

Just noticed something that's been changed in recent nightly versions... the number pad keys can't be used as a second set of arrow keys anymore, regardless of whether the Num Lock is on or off.

I'm not sure when this change happened, because I don't update to new nightlies very often, but I was attempting to check out the new elemental system in the most recent nightly just now... and they're definitely not working in that version.

Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem, but... some keyboards don't have the regular arrow keys (like the one I'm using right now, at my dad's house--it has a built-in trackball-like thing in place of the arrow keys), and without numpad-2/4/6/8-as-arrows support it'd be pretty much impossible to do much of anything in the OHRRPGCE if you happen to have one of those keyboards.

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FYS:AHS -- Swapping out some step-on NPCs for zones + each step script
Puckamon -- Not until the reserve party is expanded.[/size]

Related to the above: I can't just press a number key (numpad or otherwise) to jump to a number in a list anymore.
This is most jarring on the Palette selection screen. I used to have my palettes arranged in groups of 100, so that I could press 1 for hero palettes and 3 for attack palettes and so on. I can't do this in recent versions.

That is definitely a bug. Can you bugzilla it for me?

Also, does it happen if you run with -gfx sdl on the command line?

Never knew this was possible before, but I just tested this out... and I can't get it to jump to palettes by pushing a number, either. Running it with -gfx sdl didn't seem to make any difference.

This is in the December 14th 2010 nightly, by the way; I don't have any more-recent ones on this computer, since I'm waiting for the new elemental stuff to be finished before I upgrade.

EDIT: Also, the numpad arrows don't work as arrow keys in the December 14th nightly either, so apparently it's not just the newer nightlies... it's been a little while since that change happened.

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FYS:AHS -- Swapping out some step-on NPCs for zones + each step script
Puckamon -- Not until the reserve party is expanded.[/size]

Sent it to bugzilla. While I was at it, I found that almost every listing in the graphics editor was unreceptive to number keys. I don't remember if they ever did, but it would be nice to jump to a specific number at will as opposed to screening with PgUp, PgDown, Home, and End.

The Item editor, surprisingly, still works with numbers. Enter a number and jump to an item. Handy.

I'd like to verify that they don't work in Revision 4093 (Jan 10 2011) either, regardless of whether or not Num Lock is on or off.

EDIT: Oh did I also mention that I'm using a European/UK keyboard.

This may not be the ideal place to post this but I know the developers will read it, so thanks for adding the "Do not show spell list if empty" bitset, it works really well and I have no idea when it was added.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

That's been around since at least 2008, if I'm remembering right. Definitely a great feature, though... it always annoyed me to see completely blank spell lists that won't get filled in for a while just hanging around, like when characters have some skill they don't learn until later in the game.

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Also, something I noticed: sometime recently, "Jump" animations changed, so that now if a hero jumps they go flying up and to the right. Previously, heroes went up and to the left, and enemies went up and to the right. Is this a bug or an intentional change?

Maybe there should be several different kinds of Jump animation. "Jump up-right", "Jump up-left," "Jump straight up", and "Jump toward target" (enemies targeting heroes go right, heroes targeting enemies go left, targeting someone on your own side goes straight up) seems like enough of a variety to me.

And while I'm on the subject of attack animations: a two-part version of the current Teleport animation ("Disappear" and "Reappear") would be nice to have, too. Maybe two different "Reappear" animations, one for the current Teleport's "reappear next to enemy and attack" type and another for just reappearing in the same spot you were in before.

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FYS:AHS -- Swapping out some step-on NPCs for zones + each step script
Puckamon -- Not until the reserve party is expanded.[/size]

i have an idea for CUSTOM.

maybe there could be a bitset for equipment to replace the "Equippable as:" section.

this way it might be possible to allow weapons to take up multiple slots in the characters equipment screen. then maybe we can finally have easy two-handed weapons without plotscripting. or even a weapon that's so heavy, the player can wield only the weapon, and cannot use any armor... maybe just an accesory.

i have another idea too, i don't know if it's possible though...

would there be a way to create a second wall layer so that you can make multiple floors on the same map? i think i might need a diagram to explain this, so i'll do my best.

___________________________
|.....1st flr.............|.......................|
|.........................|.......................|
|.........................|.......................|
|______________|___________| 2nd flr bridge
|______________|__________|
|..................................|_|........|
|..................................|_|.........|
|....................stairs->...|_|........|
__________________|_|______

the part in blue is an overhead tile if the player is on the first layer. on the second layer, it's passability is defined by the user. to trigger this, the player walks through the "red wall", which is placed at the top of the stairs, and "toggles" the player between layers. the green walls block the player on the first layer, but does not affect the second layer, allowing this "bridge" to be accessed only through the stairs, and prevents the player from walking through walls while underneath the bridge.

it's a very bad diagram, i know, i'm in a hurry. but does this make sense? and more importantly, is it possible? i know nothing about developing the maker and only have a limited ability to script.