Monsters, Skills, and Battle Animations in rm2k

[Swicord]

I'm making a game in rm2k and would like some of my monsters to use various Skills. I'm having a frustrating problem with this, though, as my monsters refuse to play battle animations for attack skills. However, they do play the battle animations for any self-affecting skills, such as heal spells, etc.

I'll use the Enhanced Shadow Lord from Episode 4 as an example. In the Monsters tab, there is an action box that looks like this:

http://www.geocities.com/purpguy/checkskill.gif

As you can see, all it takes for Lun's Enhanced Shadow Lord to use Spin Blade is to check the box. No Switches or anything required. When the Enhanced Shadow Lord uses Spin Blade, the animation plays, the sound effect plays, and then the hits are registered.

When I do this with my monsters, the battle animation WILL NOT PLAY on an attack skill, even though it will still play the sound effect, and register the appropriate hits on my characters. When I tell my monster to use a heal spell, though, the battle animation plays with no problem.

I've tried numerous workarounds, in varied failed attempts to get my monsters to display an attack animation along with the skills they use. I've tried making alternate versions of the skills, various combinations of switches, variables, and Monster Party pages, all to no avail. Either the attack animation doesn't play, or it plays AFTER the hits are registered. And yet somehow the Shadow Lord does it without the use of any of these things anyway.

What am I missing? This is extremely frustrating.

[Telephalsion]

Maybe i'm just stupid, but doesn't the shawod lord hit your party? And isn't your party, err., "not there" As in you can't see them. So any battle animations would then, hit your party which isn't on the map. Understand?

[Jabbo]

Um, you're mistaken. When the Enhanced Shadow Lords use Spin Blade, the animation DOESN'T play, the sound effect plays, and the hits are registered. Tele's right, your party is not visible, so battle animations that hit your party are also not visible. The only thing you can get from a monster hitting you is a sound effect. And when they use skills on themselves, they are the targets, and so you can see the skills they use, etc.

If you really want a workaround, the best you'll be able to come up with is to make your skills turn on a switch, and then in every monster party set up a tab that runs once the switch is on, have it play a battle animation, have it calculate damage, have it play a message that says how much damage is lost, have it subtract the health from the enemy, and then have it turn the switch off. This disrupts the flow of the battle though (and is a lot of work), so it's not recommended.

[Swicord]

Hmm, you're right. After opening up a test area in Ep 4 and fighting the Shadow Lords again, there isn't a battle animation. After playing through the series twice though, I was sure I'd seen it.

Don't mind me. I'm hallucinating again.