Threat and Battlers (Patreon)

My goal since I finished up my experiments with new rendering and postwork techniques was to finish up the boss battle. I diligently got to work on it, figuring I'd start out with implementing the threat plugin I'd referred to a time or two. To recap, I want to give The Proteus Effect WoW-like combat, involving meaningful tanking and aggro management. This game isn't really combat-centric, but I want the combat that is there to be interesting, fun, and maybe a little challenging!

On trying to implement this threat plugin, I quickly realized it doesn't work. I think it probably did at some point in time, but changes to RMMV's engine probably broke it (it didn't even create the stuff it was supposed to under the hood to make the system work). It took me a while to realize that the problem was the plugin, not my implementation - though it was kinda interesting reading through the code to figure out exactly what it was supposed to do and how it was supposed to do it. I thought about fixing it, but that would be a rather involved project (at least for me), and it didn't do exactly what I wanted anyway, so that didn't seem wise. So I guess I will end up having to write my own threat plugin.

Fear not, though! Yanfly has a Taunt plugin that does work (naturally), and while it isn't ideal, I can do what I want to in 0.6 with it. I'm not sure when I'll end up writing the threat plugin, but I'll be able to get by with the taunt stuff for the time being.

0.6 is kinda shaping up to be 'The Combat Update', so there's something else I wanted to change as well. I've never been a fan of RPG Maker's default enemy battlers (the ones you see in combat), but I wasn't sure what to use to replace them. I think I've decided, though! Ækashics produces some really nifty stuff - and I think I'm going to start using it! His work is very colorful, cartoony, and stylized, and while I don't think it would work for a lot of games, I think it fits pretty well with mine! Some of his stuff is really beautifully animated, too, so expect to see more interesting fight scenes!

As an example, here's the old slimes I was using:

And here's the new ones from Ækashics!

I really like it, but I'm interested to know what you guys think. If I end up switching over, I'll probably end up changing all the enemies in CoC-world over to this new aesthetic (but I won't change the ones in the company's game world - they don't have the budget for better assets!).

Anyway, now that I know what I'll be using in lieu of the threat plugin, I'll get back to work on the dungeon. I also expect I'll get back to designing some of the Bunnies, particularly Val. I might, uh, need her model completed  in case I need to do something with it in 0.6. Y'know. Just in case. ಠ◡ಠ

Anyway, back to it. I hope your day's going well, and thank you very much for the support! :D