Ability to change lifebar order manually

[XxXWhiplashXxX]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Due to the nature of tag games, keeping track of your team mates is very important. A flaw with current Ikemen is that I can't control this, I can set the first bar, but the others are determined by playerID, as stated in the teamleader state controller documentation.

"Manually swapping leader changes lifebar elements assignment - leader always uses P1 (or P2, depending on team side) lifebar elements, remaining players positions are moved accordingly, in ascending players order."

this means if I switch character in tag mod with 3+ character i can be impossible to determine which button calls which character through visual cues and requires unnecessary bookkeeping by the player.

Example of issue: I have partner 1 assigned to be tagged in with button "w" and partner 2 gets called in with button "d".

Current lifebar order:
Lifebar 1: member 1 (Leader)
Lifebar 2: member 2 (partner 1)
Lifebar 3: Member 3 (partner 2)

I push d to swap members 3 and 1.

Current lifebar order:
Lifebar 1: member 3 (Leader)
Lifebar 2: member 1 (partner 2)
Lifebar 3: Member 2 (partner 1)

I push "d" to call in member 2, because that is how my lifebars are displayed, however to my surprise, member 1 comes out because d calls in partner 2. This shouldn't be a thing.

Describe the solution you'd like

This could be solves with a state controller called barno. Ideally it would would just swap places between 2 lifebars on your teamside, this only really works for simul and tag.

for example, in cns:

[State Swap p1 and p3 when tagging with p3]
type = barno
trigger1 = !time && teamsize = 4
Lifebarorder = 3, 2, 1, 4

or alternatively:

[State Swap p1 and p3 when tagging with p3]
type = barno
trigger1 = !time && teamsize = 4
Lifebar1 = 3
Lifebar3 = 1

Could have an optional paramater of powerbar order/powerbar 1-4, which only works if characters do not share power, but functions the same, possibly also an optional "bars" paramater that does both power and life simultaniously.

valid values are 1-4, since that's the maximum amount of characters.

I am not sure if ikemen should crash if you do not account for proper amount of characters. The second option might be better at it since it means you only need to define the bars you are swapping the positions of.

Additional context

This is to replicate the lifebar swapping functionality seen in commercial tag-based fighting game.

Search terms

Lifebars, Powerbars, Simul, Tag

[potsmugen]

I had this idea for a streamlined implementation where you'd simply choose which position the player goes to when you use TagIn/TagOut. It's similar to what already happens internally if I recall correctly.

[XxXWhiplashXxX]

This was my original idea years ago, simply an "order" parameter for the tagin/tagout state controller.

However, I thought this could have uses beyond tag, such as in simul making the last player standing get the big lifebar at the top, for example. so it might have uses outside of just the case I need it for.

[potsmugen]

Just brainstorming. The problem outside of Tag mode is that the lifebar order also represents who is controlling the character. You can't just change it outside of AI matches. But like you said it could have uses.

One way or the other though, since the engine already changes lifebar order we should definitely expose that feature somehow.