I was recently playing around with the idea of making a mod and considered my own way of making a stage mode character lock
i actually havent bothered to take a detailed look into MH's version.
but heres what ive achieved/thought of far:
-only allowing specific characters to play stage mode
-limiting number of players in a stage thus allowing a bit of multiplayer
-[Optional] allowing increased difficulty/increased enemies at the expense of seeing an ally corpse for the entire duration of your stage
problem: you will actually see the stage lock working. but that doesnt fuss me. it works anyway
so in my situation, i had 4 newly modded characters on top of the original lf2 characters (unmodded) and what nots.
the stage lock works like this:
i.e. you have 2 modded characters and 1 original character
1. beginning of stage, two objects are spawned that will wait until the players are not blinking/invulnerable anymore. (note: i used a third type 0 object as a timer so enemies wouldnt spawn and get affected)
2. then, precisely timed, the first ball with an itr with a high y value and -500 injury hits all modded characters (which have a body of equal y value)
3. then the second ball with a normal y value at the ground and 500 injury hits all players.
4. as a result, the allowed characters remain the same while the banned characters die...on the spot
so im just basically playing with the characters hp to get what i want. this of course means that i am able to copy and paste this idea into a fresh new lf2 without too many modded files. but of course also means that due to the lack of moddifying of unwanted characters, i am unable to stop the stage going on when there is a mix of modded/unmodded characters.
for limiting the number of characters youre allowed in stage mode, thats easy. you go into your stage.dat file with a bit of maths, you set the ratio per character you want. so if you want to have 3 characters, you have to work out when theres more than 3 characters, simply 4, what multiplies with to equal one. so 4x0.25=1. so you have a ball that will kill all characters spawned with that decimal ratio.
also, in the instance where you wish to create an entire black screen with dialogues and text, it helps to mask the undesired visual effects. but if youre very picky, the go to mainsite and use MH's method
now anyone with a bright mind may proceed to burn me to shreds if you think there is a problem
i actually havent bothered to take a detailed look into MH's version.
but heres what ive achieved/thought of far:
-only allowing specific characters to play stage mode
-limiting number of players in a stage thus allowing a bit of multiplayer
-[Optional] allowing increased difficulty/increased enemies at the expense of seeing an ally corpse for the entire duration of your stage
problem: you will actually see the stage lock working. but that doesnt fuss me. it works anyway

so in my situation, i had 4 newly modded characters on top of the original lf2 characters (unmodded) and what nots.
the stage lock works like this:
i.e. you have 2 modded characters and 1 original character
1. beginning of stage, two objects are spawned that will wait until the players are not blinking/invulnerable anymore. (note: i used a third type 0 object as a timer so enemies wouldnt spawn and get affected)
2. then, precisely timed, the first ball with an itr with a high y value and -500 injury hits all modded characters (which have a body of equal y value)
3. then the second ball with a normal y value at the ground and 500 injury hits all players.
4. as a result, the allowed characters remain the same while the banned characters die...on the spot
so im just basically playing with the characters hp to get what i want. this of course means that i am able to copy and paste this idea into a fresh new lf2 without too many modded files. but of course also means that due to the lack of moddifying of unwanted characters, i am unable to stop the stage going on when there is a mix of modded/unmodded characters.
for limiting the number of characters youre allowed in stage mode, thats easy. you go into your stage.dat file with a bit of maths, you set the ratio per character you want. so if you want to have 3 characters, you have to work out when theres more than 3 characters, simply 4, what multiplies with to equal one. so 4x0.25=1. so you have a ball that will kill all characters spawned with that decimal ratio.
also, in the instance where you wish to create an entire black screen with dialogues and text, it helps to mask the undesired visual effects. but if youre very picky, the go to mainsite and use MH's method
now anyone with a bright mind may proceed to burn me to shreds if you think there is a problem
~its been a long time coming~