Inherent Combo Flags

I already pitched this to DN and he seems to like it and sees the potential of being able to use the inherent flags.
You know how you open up Zquest and you see the combo selection list on the right-hand side? Well I simply suggested to DN to have a section pull-down box whenever you open up the tile editing window that you can set an inherent trigger flag to that combo. This, of course, would naturally knock out using push-block flags manually. But think of the possibilities of the rest of the flag triggers?? Let's take a simple arrow mini-game for example:
I have four combo cycles that cycle in a loop. One cycle is a totem pole deep in the ground. Next cycle is the pole rising up from the ground. The third cycle is the totem pole in its full upright position for a few seconds (this combo cycle will have the arrow flag inherently attached). The fourth cycle is the pole going back down into the ground. So basically, only on the third cycle and the third combo cycle alone would the arrow flag be present on the screen. And only because it was inherent to that specific part of the combo cycle. Now obviously once you hit it, you may move the player insta-warp to another screen (or however you want to do it) where the poles move even faster, etc.
That's just a simple example. Now take into account custom bosses. Let's say a boss has four rounds of attacks. Only changing once he gets hit in each round. With inherent flags + manually placed flags + tiered combo flags, you can possibly make each round of the boss take place on ONE SCREEN ONLY! So a custom boss of about 16-20 screens can be condensed into 3-4 screens with combo cycling and inherent flags. Would make your bosses feel more alive and fluid and less clunky. Furthermore, you can truly dictate how quick of a timeframe you want a bosses' weakpoint to appear. Like a bosses mouth cycles open briefly to reveal a green jewel to shoot an arrow at. Only the combo cycle with the green jewel showing would have that inherent arrow combo flag.
There are all sorts of possiblities you can do with this simple idea. Of course, any manually placed flags you put overlapping any tiles with inherent flags take priority. Because if you put a flag over a combo with an inherent flag attached to it, there is a 90% chance you know what you are doing. So manually placed flags still take priority.
DN seems to like the idea and is contemplating on how to incorporate it for the next beta. So here is hoping he'll get it to work! So what do the rest of you think?

You already know what I think! ;)

If this suggestion gets added someday, it will be one of the best new features for ZC ever! I mean, like she explained, all you'd have to do is to ctrl-click a combo in the combo list on the right side of the editor and set a secret flag to it. Jesus f*** christ! For people like me who like to make complex custom bosses and other difficult tricks this would be a real dream come true. I was almost planning to forget about questmaking because my ideas got too ambitious, but questmaking would become a helluva lot easier with inherent combo flags.


Sorry about me acting like a little child again, but I'm just so excited about even the possibilty of this suggestion going through.... ;)

GOOD, I HOPE THIS GETS IMPLEMENTED SOON.
This one and the "remember the last secret combo" ideas are the best!, this can be a huge timesaver with the under combos!!! :D

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Originally Posted by Petoe

Sorry about me acting like a little child again, but I'm just so excited about even the possibilty of this suggestion going through....

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I'm acting like one too. :)

yes yes yes yes yes. this is a fantastic idea. it would make seperating undercombos so easy (bushes, grass, ect), and could possibly make for some awesome puzzles, like, you have to timb a bomb's explosion just right to hit four switches when they appear, or something

If this is ever implemented, it will allow for so much, just imagine combining it with tired secrets. Similarly, it would also be useful to be able to Ctrl-click the "next" combo in the combo dialog, and flag it in a similar way to secret combos.

Well,, if you set up a combo in the 'NEXT' section that has a inherent flag already attached to it, there is really no point in CTRL-Clicking it, because the flag is already attached.

That would create such unique puzzles and tricks. It would be awesome! And if they could work on all layers, that would be even more wonderful. Great suggestion, and maybe one of these days, it will come true.

*I am just thinking of how great my custom bosses would be. :P

If this were to come true, like everything else yet, I'd definitly go overboard with it, and everywhere you go there will be a secret of some sort. I guess this is why I don't make games, I always go overboard with the newest features. Great idea though, It would proccupy me for months

http://darknation.armageddongames.net/zc/comboflags.gif
(nam)

Yeah!, now I can make some amazing things I had in mind with this.
Thanks DN.

That is so utterly sweet. Not only that, all treasure chest combos can be selected to have flag 10 on them making it so much faster to place, not to mention flag stacking. Imagine water combos that have raft flag set to inherient, but a secret combo flag placed on top so a toggle switch could allow for triggered raft combo branches. You could finally create a proper mine cart area, except of course for the raft sprite being outdated.

DN! You are a GOD! Thank you man! This is too good to be true! :)
This allows us zquesters to do all kinds of puzzles/minigames that require good timing, and custom bosses became a helluva lot easier to build.

wow, not sure if I get any recognition for this, but this is actually cool that he actually took an idea I had and went with it! :king:

I just noticed something, probably trivial. in DN's (nam) shot, the flag is set to Burn 1. when that combo is placed all over the screen, and the player decides to burn one of those bushes, they'll all burn up, right? besides making secret combos trigger seperatley, is there any way to fix that?

good point, hadn't really thought of that, when suggesting the idea. But just because of this undersight, it shouldn't give cause to throw this idea out totally. I believe there is some work-around to this problem you pointed out B. But seriously, to truly avoid things like that. Maybe make two separate bush combos and have one be normal and the other have the inherent burn flag? That could circumvent this.

*Jaw drops.

DN, you just made my week when I saw that picture. I am just dreaming of the puzzles I can come up with. JOY!

Also, *b* mentioned that if you burn one, it would trigger all of the other flags all around. <-- Which is good because it would create puzzles, like making a direct warp under you. However, I see what *b* is saying about the whole all of them burning up, because a trigger is activated. It would look a little funny if you stepped on a switch and then the bushes go up in flames. But all you would have to do it not use the bush with that flag.

However, since this is the suggestion area, maybe there should be a checkbox where you decide if you want it to trigger or to be triggered by other flags. Or to just act on its own.


*edit: DFW, made a comment right when I was typing this up. So she covered soon of the things I said.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: Never underestimate DN's l33tness. I'm nothing without his work :)

I know we have tiered flags, but this would make things so much fun and easier to do. This would also mean that some combos, like the trap combos would be obsolete. I think that really the most beneficial thing is that it saves time. You could have a trigger-perm with flag 16 affixed to it, so all you need to do is place that combo and set the secret flag. Same with chests, it makes it faster. Also the very important thing is the sheer ability to stack flags(which it would be interesting to see what bugs or features come of this). Before, we could not make raft flags disappear, but now we can. Burnable grass and bushes similar to Minish Cap style(they all burn at once), or maybe burnable bushes with items underneith.

Could inherent flags also mean perhaps that we could now have inherent undercombos? When in the combo editor, next to the 'Next' combo, there'd be the 'undercombo', which starts as a blank square but can be clicked on & changed to any other combo.

To take the idea even further, maybe each combo can have its own inherent 'secret combo' to be used with the flag.

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Originally Posted by idontknow

Could inherent flags also mean perhaps that we could now have inherent undercombos? When in the combo editor, next to the 'Next' combo, there'd be the 'undercombo', which starts as a blank square but can be clicked on & changed to any other combo.

To take the idea even further, maybe each combo can have its own inherent 'secret combo' to be used with the flag.

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That's great, we could save all the time of selecting the under combo or the Secret flag 16-31!!!.

You know what, we need to get rid of undercombos period. It's an archaic function way back before all this cool stuff was added. Either it gets it's own property, or maybe it can just use the next combo feature, although it might be limiting. Or, maybe we should just have it so slash tiles just go to the next combo. Same for movable blocks.

The only problem is that now there is the duplication of all sorts of tiles and combos. If this was a platform game, it would be a problem and I would suggest scrapping combos alltogether and instead opt to have graphics and combos seperate. For that, it would make it so one tile would only need to be addressed once, but the downside is that every screen would have to be custom comboed per tile, which would take forever.

The thing with undercombos is that it allows combos placed under other combos to be room-specific. You won't have to use a different push block combo if the two floors are different, for example.

Nevertheless, the undercombo is being undermined, but we aren't going to just plain get rid of it :P