Making progressively tougher random encounters

For the game I'm currently working on, one thing I wanted to do was have a number of quest areas that could be completed in any order, but that also means that enemy encounter toughness would need to be altered based on game progress, e.g. if there are 4 quest areas then the first one you go through should have the weakest fights and the fourth one should have the toughest.

I think I'll certainly need to employ plotscripting for this, and make duplicate copies of enemies with increased stats and maybe add some nasty additional attacks for the hardest versions.

I'm not very familiar with the enemy formation type plotscript commands, does anyone know if this would be a feasible thing to do? I'm thinking that if there's a way to do an instead-of-battle plotscript where you can return the formation you were just supposed to have as a value, it could be used to find the appropriate 'hard' version of that same formation, based on your progress (using tags), and immediately give you the updated battle formation to fight. If that makes any sense at all.

Also if this whole thing doesn't pan out, I can just tweak my overworld map layout and use 'plot boulders' to ensure a more linear playthrough style.

An instead-of-battle script that basically goes "if you would run into this formation and Tag #250 is on, fight this other formation instead" should definitely be possible; I know I did something similar in Puckamon (depending on how you answered one of the questions in the intro, you'll run into either Jigglypuffs or Mr. Mushrooms in some areas... and that was done by checking a tag and then swapping out certain formations of the set for others, I think.)

So yeah, this should definitely be doable; I just can't remember the exact script commands you'd need off the top of my head.

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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'm a fan of the bridges leading to stronger foes. A tried and true method of dividing strength of foes clearly. You might even want scarier looking bridges signifying drastic leaps in difficulty. That's speakin' in alternative to plot boulders.

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dOn'T MiNd mE! i'M jUsT CoNtAgIoUs!!!
Play Orbs CCG: http://orbsccg.com/r/4r6x

Yep, instead-of-battle scripts can definitely do this. An instead-of-battle script automatically gets the formation number in the first argument



Suppose you neatly organized your battle formations so that the 4 different versions of each formation were grouped together, like:

0 Easy slimes
1 Medium slimes
2 Hard slimes
3 Hardest slimes
4 Easy wolves and skeletons
5 Medium wolves and skeletons
6 Hard wolves and skeletons
7 Hardest wolves and skeletons
8 Easy potato knights
9 Medium potato knights
10 Hard potato knights
11 Hardest potato knights

Then maybe you would track current difficulty in a global variable, and it would be 0 for the first stage, and would increase +1 each time you beat a stage, until it is 3 for the last stage.





You would make all your formation sets using the easy versions of the formations, and then use this script:

Oh wow! That's even easier than I thought it'd be, thanks a bunch James.

I definitely need to use potato knights as an enemy in a game now... XD

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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]

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dOn'T MiNd mE! i'M jUsT CoNtAgIoUs!!!
Play Orbs CCG: http://orbsccg.com/r/4r6x