Feature Mechanic: Altered Artes

The next feature I'm going to talk about is (currently) intended for Aki, which is a commonly seen feature in other games. Altered Artes, as I'm going with, like in Vesperia will allow her to use different artes based on certain passive skills she has equipped.

How It Works

Like many passive skills, it starts by equipping the appropriate skill.

While the skill is equipped, the skill applies a state that will persist so long as it is currently active. Although technically this means the character now has a state active, it doesn't allow me to use this to call for a condition (as shown later). What I have to do instead is add a separate skill that you cannot see in the menu, but will be present in Aki's skill data.

Now, so long as she has this 'dummy' skill, the following conditions can be met:

Using the same common event, I've placed an "If" command to see if Aki has the dummy skill on her, and if she does, and if the above variable matches for the other If command, it will play out the action accordingly. Like with Copy, this will force her to use the altered arte (Lightning Tiger Blade in this case), thus replaying the common event so that it checks for and plays the right action. Naturally, not having any of the dummy skills (which I'll add in later as more artes are made) will skip the above section and go down to the normal set of artes.

Now...the image above exists to remove both the state and the associated dummy skill once the Passive Skill they come from is turned off. I found that even if you turn off the skill from the menu, the state/skill wouldn't go away; the latter because it's through a "Add Skill" trait and I would need to manually remove the skill to get around it. So, at the start of battle, a Common Event is called to remove all of these. If the Passive Skill is still active, then it wouldn't affect anything. All in all, this is meant to ensure that if you don't have it on, you still do the regular move like normal. Otherwise, it does this:

Learning the Artes

Like in Vesperia, you can eventually learn the altered arte by using the base skill enough times that you gain the new arte without ever needing the skill. While you can still use the above method, it won't be as good as if you're using the Altered Arte in full. It'll be part of whatever it is I have to balance out, but let's just say that like with copied artes, it might be better doing it one way depending on the circumstance.

Wrap-Up

Now, I may end up just spreading this to other characters, though for now I'm letting Aki be the one to use these artes. There will be a story reason, of course, and she'll end up with plenty more the longer I work on the game. Otherwise, I need to see if I can work out what Piper's specialty will be and if I can implement it before the update. I already have an idea on what I might do, so we'll wait and see.