[CGMZ] Skill Levels (Patreon)

Allow your actors to level up their skills by using them in battle. Higher level skills will be more effective in combat.

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Hi all, introducing [CGMZ] Skill Levels, a plugin that adds levels to skills.

This plugin adds both actor and enemy skills. Enemy skills do not level up, and are set up via plugin parameters where you choose the enemy and choose what level its skills will be. Actor skills do level up, and gain exp each time they are cast. For leveling up skills, there are 3 different types of exp formulas that can be used (see documentation in plugin). The idea is that as your actors use their skills, they will level them up and this can increase the effectiveness of the skill.

This plugin uses a game variable to store the current level of the skill being used, which can then be used elsewhere in your game. You can use this game variable in the skill damage formula to change the damage the skill does as it levels up, for example. You can also use this variable via text codes to show the current level of the skill being used. Please note that depending on where you are displaying the skill level, you may need additional plugins to enable Text Codes in those locations, such as [CGMZ] Text Codes Everywhere. Here is how it can look in battle:

This plugin also comes with a skill level scene, which can be called either via plugin command or via JavaScript with instructions to do so in the documentation. When using it with [CGMZ] Menu Command Window, you can allow the player to select an actor first to show only their skills in the skill level scene. The scene also supports swapping between actors without needing to leave the scene, similar to equip and skill scenes. Please note that currently, skill levels are party wide, not actor-specific. Here is an image of how the skill scene looks:

By default, it will show the skill icon and name on the left, and then the current level and the percentage the skill is to the next level on the right, separated by a colon. Both pieces of text are editable via the plugin parameters. You can also give skills custom descriptions that only show up in the skill level scene, but they can also fall back to the skill description from the database. 

Finally, a reminder that this plugin is still in Alpha and has quite a few planned features that will be added in future updates that were not quite ready for the initial Alpha launch. These include:

1) Integration with [CGMZ] Professions2) Skill Types that level up instead of individual skills3) Animation changes by skill level4) Option to learn a new skill at sufficient skill level

Want to see something else added that is not already present / listed above? Leave a comment down below or in the #suggestions channel of the Casper Gaming Discord!

Happy RPG Making!

This update focuses on expanding the control you have over enemy skill levels. Previously, enemies that were set up to use skill levels used the same level for all of their skills. Now, you can set up different skill levels per skill, with a fallback skill level in case a skill is used that has no per-skill levels set up for that enemy.

Enemy skill levels can also now have a range. Rather than always using the same level of the skill, they will randomly select a skill level between the relevant minimum and maximum assigned to that skill.

This update also fixes a bug that could cause the skill level variable to change before the skill finished, which would be briefly seen in the battle log window.

This version add some integrations to help make the skill level scene much more customizable. You can now have complete control over the background image of the scene with [CGMZ] Scene Backgrounds. You can also show a controls window. You can change the window background for each window via [CGMZ] Window Backgrounds, and change the window style, tone, and more using [CGMZ] Window Settings.

This update also simplifies the process of discovering skill levels. The Initial Skill Levels parameter has been removed, with a new Start Discovered property added to the Skill Level Settings which does the same thing.

A bug was fixed when calling the scene via plugin command with an actor id set up, which would previously freeze when pressing the page up/down buttons.

This version adds the [CGMZ] Toast Manager integration. This allows you to show a toast window when the player levels up a skill. There is a global toast preset parameter for all skills, as well as a more specific toast parameter for your skills if you want to have different presets for different skills. When both are provided, the more specific toast preset will be preferred by the plugin.

This update also fixes a bug with skill level experience resetting after saving and reloading.

This version adds actor-specific skill levels. You can now require your actors to level their skills up separately. For example, just because Eliot is skilled at casting Heal does not mean Kasey is also going to be skilled at casting Heal.

This update also removed the option for skills to start discovered, and added a new parameter to automatically discover skills when learned. The main use case for starting a skill level discovered seemed to be for the initial skills, which should be covered under this more automatic approach.

Note that changing between party wide and actor-specific skill levels is not supported in saved games. Changing this setting will cause your actors to restart back at the initial skill level. You will also need to set up your Plugin Commands for changing skill exp and manually discovering skills again, for the new Actor argument that was added to them.