[CGMZ] Actor Upgrade (Patreon)

Upgrade your actor database entries with new parameters such as busts, icons, stat weights, and more.

! SEE BOTTOM OF POST FOR UPDATES !

Hi all, today [CGMZ] Actor Upgrade is ready to be released into Alpha!

This plugin is a continuation of the [CGMZ] Database Upgrade series which started with [CGMZ] Enemy Upgrade. This time, for actors!

This plugin adds some new parameters to actors, such as an icon or a bust. It allows you to change the stat weights for actors. It also lets you change some other previously hard-coded aspects of an actor like base floor damage.

This plugin is meant to be more of a utility plugin that adds more parameters to actors. Some of these parameters are not used by this plugin, but will be used in the future by other [CGMZ] Plugins or could even be used by other third party plugins as an easy way to access such features. One such example could be showing the actor's bust in the [CGMZ] Encyclopedia, which will rely on this plugin.

A full list of properties added to actors is as follows:

Icon

Bust

Base Floor Damage

Allow Floor Death

Bench EXP Rate

Steps For Turn

Max Level

Max TP

Min / max initial TP

Guard Skill Id

Death State Id

Bare Hands Element

Bare Hands Animation

Stat Weights for each of the default stats (hp/mp/atk/def/mat/mdf/agi/luk)

While the above are customizable per actor, the plugin is coded in a way to work whether an actor has these custom features or not (it is not required to configure the above for each actor). Many features also have a way to fall back to the default code's value, in case you want to use another plugin that also modifies that part of an actor.

Do you have something else you'd like to see added to this plugin which isn't already listed above? Let me know in the comments below or in the #suggestions channel of the Casper Gaming Discord!

This update adds face images by hp percentage. Now, you can show your actor's face change as they take damage or when they are healed. This could be used to change their face to a damaged version as they lose hp. This is mostly a test for how this works out for face images, and if successful will allow me to expand the ability to change an actor's graphics by hp percentage to other actor images, including busts, walk sprites, and battler sprites. Below is a gif of how it could look:

 When using face images that change in this way, it is important to preload them or make sure they are on the same face image sheet as the actor's main face image.

Some plugin commands were also added with this update. You can change the actor's face image with a plugin command, and you can also change the actor's icon via plugin command. This should allow you to completely change an actor's look if needed, similar to how you can change an actor's default images using event commands.

This version adds stat values for levels after 99. Before, setting a higher max level than level 99 would cause your actor's stats to become undefined as there is no stat values for levels beyond level 99. Now, you can add stat values for each additional level beyond 99. This should allow you to break the level 99 limit RPG Maker has.

To use this feature, enter in the stat values you want for the stat in the parameter labeled "Level 100+ HP" or similar. The first number entered will be used for level 100, the second number will be for level 101, and so on. 

This version adds some more customization for typically hard-coded actor values. You can now set their maximum TP, which is normally set to 100 with no option to change this maximum. You can also set their initial TP range (if not set to preserve TP) which normally is between 0 and 25 with no option to change this number. These should allow you to make some more interesting TP mechanics in your game, for example an actor that starts battle with 200 TP but which doesn't regen TP during battle so they are at risk of running out.

This update also adds a customizable guard skill id, so you can make each actor have different skills that get used when they guard. A similar option was added for death state id, if you want different actors to be able to have different death states rather than the hard coded state id 1.

This version adds actor skill learnings. These function like the class skills do, but are specific to your actors. You can use this to cause a specific actor to learn a skill at a specific level, without tying it to the class. This way, you can have actors that share a class but get unique skills at different levels.

This version is aimed at making the plugin easier to use. The first issue is that face hp images were not always applied right away, which meant you could use the plugin command and it would set the face hp images up, but then you would still see the old face image. Now, whenever the game tries to access the actor face image, it will route it to check hp image first.

The second issue is that by default, stats do not exist for levels 100+, and although this plugin does provide parameters to set those stats up for those levels, sometimes it is not obvious that it was required to do that or your actor would get undefined stats. Now if you allow the actor to go past level 100 and that level does not have any stats set up, the plugin will instead fall back to showing level 99 stats.

This version focuses on actor levels, both pre- and post-99. Post 99, you can now have an easier time creating stat values instead of needing to hard-code them all which may be tedious if you have a lot of levels beyond level 99. You can use either a flat increase for each level, or you can type your own JS formula in.

You can also control the actor's max level now, including pre-99 levels. This is done via the Max Level Variable parameter, where if set it will use the value stored in that variable as the actor's max level. You can use this to control how high level an actor can get, in case you want to prevent the player from grinding to get too high level.

As part of this, I also added a simple boolean parameter to determine if actors can still gain experience if they are already at max level.