Combat against monsters is a great way to gain experience
and treasure for the player. For the developer, however, this can get tedious
to plot and place monsters and treasure on the map. RPG Maker VX Ace has
included a simple solution for generic encounters that aren’t specific to the
main story. This allows the developer to
limit the area where specific types of monsters or unique collections (troops)
of monsters can attack unsuspecting players. These areas are called “Regions”
and there is a special mode where the map can be overlaid with the region map.
As an example: First, select the map where you would like to
add regions. With the map on the screen,
select the Region Mode icon in the menu bar:
Notice that the scenery images in the upper left hand corner
of the work area have been replaced by a colorful grid of numbered squares and
one “clear” block. Each of these numbered blocks can be used to paint areas on
the map which includes that map square into that numbered region. Once you have
a region painted, groups of monsters can be “linked” to the region number which
allows those specific to randomly attack in those linked regions. Simple huh?
As an example: While you are in Region Mode, select one of
the numbered squares on the grid. Which
one you choose isn’t important, simply note the number so you know what region
number to use to link to your monster gallery.
On the map below, the #1 region has been painted in the
graveyard. If you like, you can paint
the #1 region on others areas of the map, but be advised the monsters that you
assign to the #1 region affect ALL of the #1 regions on that map.
Next, on the project file tree on the left side of the
screen, right-click on the filename for the current map you are painting with
regions. Select Map Properties…
When the Map Properties dialog appears, double-click on the first
empty line under “troop” on the Encounters control. This allows you to add an
encounter to the map.
The Encounters dialog box will appear. This dialog is used to create random monster
encounters in the game – The kind where your players’ characters are walking
across the map towards a destination and a group of monster stumble upon them
and combat occurs. Let’s create an encounter for region #1 in the graveyard.
Since we painted a graveyard, and we want to be consistent,
let’s select a monster we would expect to find in a graveyard. We are going to
assign a troop of three ghosts to be the random monsters to confront the
player’s character.
In the Encounters dialog, Ghosts have been selected from the
Troop drop down control. Note the “*3”, which means there are 3 ghosts in the
group. Weight is used as the percentage chance that this group will be the ones
to attack when more than one group is assigned to region #1. This allows you
to, for example, assign a weak group of monsters to attack 90% or the time and
have a strong group attack 10% of the time, to keep your players on their toes
and not get bored by always being attacked by weak characters.
The Range area is where you assign WHERE the encounters with
the Ghosts will occur. We have selected
region #1 and have left the other two possible regions essentially turned
off. If we painted another area with the
#35 region block, we could have put #35 in the second control and Ghosts would
be available to attack in regions 1 and 35.
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Troops can be changed (number of monsters, their mixture and type) in the
Database dialog.
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Using regions, the monster encounters occur randomly. If you would like to make a predictable
monster attack, you can use an Event (Battle Processing) on a specific square
on the map grid.
After clicking on the OK button, you can see the encounter
you added. At the bottom of the list is a control to select the average number
of steps that the player will take before the next random encounter will be
triggered.
If you want constant battle for your players, make this a low number
(1 would be every step will trigger combat in the region). This can get
monotonous for your players, and they’ll move on to another adventure.
And that’s all there is to regions. With a little bit of painting using a handful
of regions, your map can be interesting and will hold the layer’s attention.
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Make sure you mix things up as it gets boring fighting the same two slimes all
the time.
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