Author Topic: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active  (Read 5189 times)

hay

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I'd like to allow change of characters while battle is active. To disable character from fight there's the removal effect from materia and enemy attacks, is there a known way to trigger this effect? Also, is there a way of inserting a character during combat, something along the FFX lines?

DLPB_

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #1 on: 2018-01-18 10:29:15 »
It's possibly as easy as updating a var or two.  But it could also be really troublesome.  If NFITC1 doesn't beat me to it, when I get time, I'll check.

hay

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #2 on: 2018-01-18 10:38:58 »
No pressure, I'm just trying to assess if it's been already done or requires discovering. If it's undiscovered it can be ultimately unpredictable. I might look into it too, but I've got ten years of progress to catch up first.
« Last Edit: 2018-01-18 10:45:30 by hay »

Tsuna

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #3 on: 2018-01-18 14:08:16 »
Maybe the system where you turn into a frog can work? Thats essentially a hotswap. or maybe Vincents limits?

nfitc1

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #4 on: 2018-01-18 14:12:58 »
Vincent's limits SEEMS logical, but that doesn't really update any character stats. Using the Remove feature makes sense (ala Midgardsormr's Blown Away), but adding back a character was never anticipated by the engine. You might have to reload the entire battle scene to introduce a new character.

Tsuna

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #5 on: 2018-01-18 14:33:27 »
What about the final fight where you swap parties?

nfitc1

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #6 on: 2018-01-18 14:45:24 »
What about the final fight where you swap parties?
That's actually three separate battles/formations that the game swaps between. If you switch to another party the battle script copies the current status of all of current Bizarro's parts and loads them into the Bizarro of the formation swapped to.

This is not an easy thing to find a video of because so few people actually do this. I did find one YT video of it in action. You can see that one battle technically ends and a new one begins. This is of the PSX version and the loading of a new battle takes a long time.

Tsuna

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #7 on: 2018-01-18 15:27:36 »
Oh okay. Hmm well in my head that only leaves the frog jab. And possibly Hojo being able to spawn new enemies mid fight.
thats me outta ideas

Kaldarasha

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #8 on: 2018-01-18 17:27:01 »
The question is if more than three characters can be loaded into a battle. I think they only used a party of three because of the limitations of the psx hardware.

DLPB_

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #9 on: 2018-01-18 18:14:35 »
im pretty sure stats, name etc can be loaded whenever with a little asm.  But the models themselves may require battle to be restarted.  I dunno. 

As for more than 3 being on screen at one time.  Not likely.

nfitc1

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #10 on: 2018-01-18 18:45:34 »
im pretty sure stats, name etc can be loaded whenever with a little asm.  But the models themselves may require battle to be restarted.  I dunno. 

As for more than 3 being on screen at one time.  Not likely.

Hardware-wise, it's probably not difficult to have an additional character. Engine/mechanics wise it would be exceptionally difficult to add a party member to the battle line-up. There are too many places where it's assumed that there are only three ally characters.

I do think all the methods are in place to do a hot-swap, but there are some things to consider.

1. Remove the old character. Not hard as I mentioned earlier. Several actions do this so it's possible to remove the old character.
2. Load new character's model. Vincent's limits have routines that can do this.
3. Build the new character's menu. Battle Arena uses routines for this purpose.
4. Set new character's stats. Again, Battle Arena has these methods.
5. Create a new menu in-battle that can swap out-of-party characters. I don't do new menus, but I'm sure someone can.
6. End-battle rewards would not work for the character(s) that were swapped out. Only the ones at the end of the battle would get EXP/AP/killing credit/etc. Kill credit/limit use would have to be reset for the new character or they would get credit for the old character's actions. Like if Tifa killed 2 enemies and used a limit once before being swapped out for Aerith, Aerith should NOT get credit for Tifa's actions, but Tifa wouldn't get credit either as these things are awarded during battle rewards (a bug that does need to be addressed).
7. Cloud must never be swappable, Tifa and Cid shouldn't during their stints as leader either. That would be a little more difficult, but probably only by disabling the swap menu when the Game Moment is in a particular range.

hay

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #11 on: 2018-01-18 21:07:50 »
The question is if more than three characters can be loaded into a battle. I think they only used a party of three because of the limitations of the psx hardware.
This seems pretty reasonable to be true.

6. End-battle rewards would not work for the character(s) that were swapped out. Only the ones at the end of the battle would get EXP/AP/killing credit/etc. Kill credit/limit use would have to be reset for the new character or they would get credit for the old character's actions. Like if Tifa killed 2 enemies and used a limit once before being swapped out for Aerith, Aerith should NOT get credit for Tifa's actions, but Tifa wouldn't get credit either as these things are awarded during battle rewards (a bug that does need to be addressed).
First of all thanks for lengthy analysis. That being said, it can be detected which characters were originally in the battle and which were swapped, therefore we can use "Ochu powers" to fill in the exp for missing characters. It all depends on how precisely we want the exp shared. For example only a swap could entitle characters to receive their own share, FFX style. But this is minor, as long as the swap is feasible it's good for me.

7. Cloud must never be swappable, Tifa and Cid shouldn't during their stints as leader either. That would be a little more difficult, but probably only by disabling the swap menu when the Game Moment is in a particular range.
Will it crash or is it continuity concern?

samourai23

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #12 on: 2018-01-28 20:53:13 »
This looks a lot like what I’m asking in the topic just below this one :p

hay

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #13 on: 2018-01-29 12:57:19 »
Yeah, but I never considered Sephiroth to be a part of this hot-swap, just the characters who are at hand to swap like in PHS feature.

samourai23

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Re: [FF7PC]Hot-swap characters while battle module is active
« Reply #14 on: 2018-01-31 08:54:58 »
Yeah but as long as you don’t unlock Vincent, Sephiroth’s the same. You can get him in PHS too