Bug fixes, Shop Screen, etc.

Today I fixed a bunch of bugs and gameplay issues, the ones Johnathan pointed out yesterday. Most of them were small and uninteresting; monks dialogue suggesting they have never met you when you lost to them minutes prior, people using plurals instead of singulars in encounters where you used to fight multiple enemies and now only fight one, etc. Some more interesting stuff are the additions of signs in front of shops that you can read, more hints given by Ghostie if you lose the tutorial battles, and the inability to purchase items if you don't have the ability to equip items yet.

If you beat the third tutorial segment, you gain the ability to learn and use skills. I might make a training battle that you can only win by using a skill sometime next week. Until then, the Blue Knight just tells you how to use them real fast. Still betting it won't stick in player's heads. Also, while players can open up the "Learn skill" screen, there is nothing that forces them (or asks them) to do so. It will probably also languish in obscurity until I use an NPC to specifically highlight it.

I also made the shop screen better. One major mechanic in this game is the difference between flat bonuses and percent bonuses. Flat bonuses are excellent for low level adventurers, because a +5 to attack is always a +5 to attack. Percent bonuses are better for high level adventurers, because a +10% attack is worth +1 if you have 10 attack, but +20 if you have 200 attack! The problem is, the % bonuses were not being displayed in shops.

Before:

Why is this knife so expensive again?

Now the percent increase bonuses are. It took way less time than it did when Yanfly was writing in Ruby.

After:

Oh, I see. Now THAT's a knife!

I'm still not happy with it. I wish there was a way to show more information about the weapon, such as its range, the damage type it does, etc. There was an addon that did that for me back in the old version, but no such add-on exists in MV, I'll have to either port it over to Javascript or write a new one from scratch. Either way, it won't be today.

I' going to work on "save file recruitment" next. I might put up another blog post today depending on how far I get in my two remaining hours of work today.