Switching between Parties (ala FFVI style)

Alright, I know I asked this a long time ago, but I lost the link to the example that I had...anywho....


I'm curious as to how to set up a switching system that's similar to FFVI (ala Kefka's Tower), since I'm going to be using that system here for the next segment of my game. I'm also wondering if it's possible to make the game remember who's in what party while switching as well, and how to disable the switching afterwards (I'm sure that the switch can be set to a button, but not sure on how to go about doing this at all x_x).


ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated, as this would help with progressing the game a lot faster. ^^;;

I did a little sample of how to set this up. I put in comments in all events except for Hero 2 and onward in the selection part (since it's just the same thing like Hero 1)

http://www.mediafire.com/?aionuvnzkzg

If you look at all the events, hopefully it'll be understandable. Also, for the little mission of the sample, it's to get both parties on the center of the magic circle.

Just a little screenshot of what the events look like for the selection screen. Though you'll need to open up the game and look at all the events

Spoiler for:

Also on the battle field you'll want to look at this event:

Spoiler for:

As that event, both page 1 and 2 are important to the party switching.

Holy moly that's a lot of coding x_x


So let's see if I get this right about one part. You need to switches, one for each party and each party member, and you need a variable for the total number of party members, correct?? I think I'm reading that right ^^;

yup, the variable is used for checking to see if the party is at 4 (full), the switches have 2 uses. 1 is when you switch between parties, it keeps track who was assigned to which party, and it's also for checking to see if the character is already in a party. You wouldn't want it try to put the same person in both slot 2 and 3. It might look like a lot but if you take it section by section it's pretty easy:


Branch if Switch [0001:Select Party 1] is ON
^ This checks which party you are selecting members for. Make sure you have at least either Select Party 1 on or Select Party 2 on. Never both, and never none. If you had none on, the events wouldn't respond. If you had both on, after you finished selecting a member it would go right down and do the 2nd branch. If you had one on and another off, it would skip that part and do the selection for only 1 party. Hope that makes sense.

Branch if Switch [0011:Hero 1 Party 2 is ON
 Message: This member is already in a party!
Else
 Branch if Switch [0003:Hero 1 Party 1] Is ON
  Message: This member is already in a party!
 Else

^ This part above is checking to see if the character is already in one of the parties. If so, then it gives the player that message. If not, then it continues to the next part.

Message: Add Hero 1 to Party 1?
Show Choices: Yes/No
[Yes] Handler
 Switch Operation [0003: Hero 1 Party 1] ON
 Variable Oper: [0001: Party 1 Total] + 1

^ This part  is adding the person into party 1 and then raising that variable, this next part checks to see if the party is full (at 4) v

Branch if Var [0001:Party 1 Total] is 4
 Message: Is this the group you want for party 1?
 Show Choices: Yes/No
 [Yes] Handler
  Switch Operation [0001: Select Party 1] OFF
  Switch Operation [0002: Select Party 2] ON
  Jump to Label: 1

^ Now this is the part where it the player agrees and party 1 is full, then it switches the selection mode to party 2.  The label jump skips to the end, where I placed the label. Since now you turned off Select Party 1 and turned on Select Party 2 it would go down and hit the 2nd main branch which would cause a "This member is already in a party!" message which would leave players confused.
 
[No] Handler
 Variable Oper: [0001: Party 1 Total] Set, 0
 Switch Oper: [0003: Hero 1 Party 1] OFF
  *Repeat all this for all the party members party 1 switches*
 Switch Oper: [0010: Priest 2 Party 1] OFF
End

^ This last part is if the party is full, but the player wants to reselect, it will reset all the switches and return the variable back to 0 so the player can restart selecting.

Branch if Switch [0002: Select Party 2] is ON

^ From this point down it's pretty much the same as before, except it's all for building party 2. Only difference is when the party is full, it moves the player to the battle field.


Hope this helps and makes it less overwhelming.  

I think I get it now. I'll give it a try tomorrow when I get time to do so (working on a FFIX vid walkthrough, but I'll probably work on this while converting vids), and test it in my debug room. Seems simple enough now that I see what does what. Now I just need to do this, then make it so that I can switch out my main character as the party leader with other characters (basically making it more like FFVI to where you can have any character in your party at any time), and I'm really good to go ^^:b

Alright, running into a slight snag here. Everything works fine until I get to where I've got everything set up.....video to show the problem....

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UakF3rcbMC0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UakF3rcbMC0</a>

If that makes any sense to you guys, please please PLEASE do give me a helping hand! Until that's done, I can't move on D:



EDIT: I think I got the Reimu/Momiji bit working. I just had to turn on the switches for them in the Start Event page. Now the issue for me is.....how do I make it so that after Reimu chooses her party, you automatically add the last 3 characters to the other party without having to go through all that coding (I'll be using this coding later on anyways, but this would be a shorter and simplier way of doing it, since initially you only have to choose 3 party members with Reimu before beginning this event anyways....if you know what I mean).


Another issue is getting the party for party 1 (Reimu's party) there after finishing up both parties. It doesn't show up until AFTER switching to party 2 then back to party 1......


And final issue, is that placeholder event.....I'd like to use only one if possible (Momiji for when Reimu's being controlled, and Reimu for when Momiji's being controlled.....). I just don't know how to go about setting that up right x_x

Alright....got a few things fixed up. New problems for me though....


1) Is it possible to make it so that this event expands over an entire scenario? Like.....if I were to enter a new area that's not on the same map with Party A, then use the switch option to Party B to go to where they're at if they're not on the same map? I tried a variation of this, but it just screws up everything x_x


2) This is the big issue right now, and is a variation of this entire coding. Right now, I have 8 party members alright? I want to have one character choose 3 to add to her party, and add the remaining 3 to the other party. Now, the issue is, after I choose the 3 party members for the first party, what would I need to do to dump the remaining 3 party members into party 2? Once I get this done, I can move on with the game x_x



Hopefully I asked those clearly x_x

Well then! Seems I fixed issue #2 easily....just made it so that you can only switch on THAT screen. Issue #1 still stands though....


To show how it is now.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTPEN4D96FI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTPEN4D96FI</a>

I think everything's in order now at least.....I just have to set the map to the right area and there we go! Though would still be nice to know the coding for dumping remaining party members into the other party so that I wouldn't have to do this with both party leaders x_x

Can't give you the code you want without a copy of your game code to play with, however I can point in a seemingly random direction and hope you can work it out from there.

Let’s say you have 8 party members divided between two teams

First it will need to know who is where, so

If chara1 is on team1
Yes: set variable "#chara1 location" to 1
No: If chara1 is on team2
    Yes: set variable "#chara1 location" to 2
    No: set variable "#chara1 location" to 0

Do this for each chara
It will also need to know how many on each team, so with a slight mod

Set variable "#team1" to 0    < these are only at the beginning, don’t replicate for each chara
Set variable "#team2" to 0    < these are only at the beginning, don’t replicate for each chara
If chara1 is on team1
Yes: set variable "#chara1 location" to 1
        set variable “#team1” +1
No: If chara1 is on team2
    Yes: set variable "#chara1 location" to 2
            set variable “#team2” +1
    No: set variable "#chara1 location" to 0

Now it knows whose where and how many on each team.

If “#chara1 location” is equal to 0
Yes: If “#team1” is less then 4
    Yes: Add Chara1 to team1
            Set “#team1” +1
            Set “#chara1 location” to 1

Repeat this for each chara, then

If “#chara1 location” is equal to 0
Yes: If “#team2” is less then 4
    Yes: Add Chara1 to team2
            Set “#team2” +1
            Set “#chara1 location” to 2

Repeat that for each chara

And that’s it.  Enjoy!

Hmm... Just looking back over the pseudo code I wrote, and I think I could write a rather simple team switching system, and with a little modification the teams could be in separate places at once. Sweet I might just use it too, in one form or another.