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If you want to buff your characters early on, just use a save editor like Lion Editor.
If playing with PPSSPP, disable save encryption in the settings (go to memstick/PSP/SYSTEM and edit the .ini), load your game, save, rename FFTA.SYS to lioneditor.bin, edit stuff, rename to FFTA.SYS, and copy the save back.

IIRC the largest obstacle to increasing enemy variety in battles is the sprite cap. You can sort of get around this by editing their abilities. For example, you could have 3 knights in a battle, but one is equipping a bow with aim/charge as their secondary skill set, another is wielding a knight sword with two hands and has throw, and the third is using the good and old sword and shield with white magic. That's usually as good as it gets for variety. And try to avoid using two jobs of different genders as those count as two sprites.

The sprite cap is a PSX thing. There is no sprite cap in WotL.

Please check the thread for the job and race customization hack, as that's a question that is best suited for that thread:
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=12169.msg225244#msg225244

I haven't finished making the battle sprite template yet, explaining all of the data that goes into an animation is well beyond what can be taught in one post.

As for portraits, there isn't really much special about them (as long as you are using my uncompressed graphics loader, which should be included) but you'll have to know how sprites work in GBA (and again check the other topic).
I attached the first portrait I made as an example (please note that I did not draw it, I only made it insertable), but all there is to it are the tiles, the palette and the OAM data for the sprites, that and including pointers to those in the table.

The limitations are 64 tiles max, 8bpp graphics, 48 colors (starting with the 6th palette, or 96th color), and I would recommend staying below 10 objects.
You'll want to use a tool that can work with those limitations, I recommend usenti.

Information on OAM data:
https://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/regobj.htm

There's a readme included with the job and race customization download in the other thread that includes some links, one of those is a tutorial on EA.

You can also use this macro and definitions for making OAM data in EA, once you have read the tutorials:
#ifndef dataOAMinstalled
#define dataOAMinstalled 0
#define square 0x0000
#define rectangleH 0x4000
#define rectangleV 0x8000
#define flipH 0x1000
#define flipV 0x2000
#define flipVH 0x3000
#define 4bppMode 0x0000
#define 8bppMode 0x2000
#define dataOAM(Y,X,Shape,Size,Tile) "SHORT 0|(Y&0xFF)|(Shape) 0|(X&0x1FF)|((Size&3)<<14) 0|(Tile&0x3FF)"
#define dataOAM(Y,X,Shape,Size,Tile,Flip) "SHORT 0|(Y&0xFF)|(Shape) 0|(X&0x1FF)|((Size&3)<<14)|(Flip) 0|(Tile&0x3FF)"
#define dataOAM(Y,X,Shape,Size,Tile,Flip,Priority) "SHORT 0|(Y&0xFF)|(Shape) 0|(X&0x1FF)|((Size&3)<<14)|(Flip) 0|(Tile&0x3FF)|((Priority&3)<<10)"
#define dataOAM(Y,X,Shape,Size,Tile,Flip,Priority,ColorMode) "SHORT 0|(Y&0xFF)|(Shape)|(ColorMode) 0|(X&0x1FF)|((Size&3)<<14)|(Flip) 0|(Tile&0x3FF)|((Priority&3)<<10)"
#endif

hi! im newbie in EA. How do you change the battle sprites and the portrait? Can you make tutorial for this?

There's two bytes in the unit data for formations that go completely unused as far as I can tell, never read, it would just be a matter of having the game read one of them and store it into the combo ability slot.

Personally I think that's the better way to go, the groundwork you're setting up already enables modders to make really drastic changes that would've not been possible before; I think that has a way higher impact than being able to fine-tune abilities that may need balance one way or another.
I think the current experience formula is decent, so long as the enemies are made to follow the scaling system in the game and that scaling is done according to the highest player unit- If this is not the case then the system encourages interacting with your own units in order to grind levels which I don't believe is a desirable outcome.

I had a question before I forgot to bring up if you don't mind. With your way of repurposing the combo slot as another passive ability, did you find out if the formation structure actually handles combo abilities at all? It's less important in mods that use it as an actual combo ability, but your approach is interesting and I was wondering how you'd go about actually giving units those movement abilities, since to the best of my knowledge they can't be set from that structure at least.


@rss_kai: For the record, debuff length has already been modified in FFTAGG iirc, albeit I don't know if the means to do so are public or not or since I never looked into it more.
Also, the % stat increases and decreases are not very consistent in their effect: Atk UP/DOWN give a 10% increase and decrease, while for example Def UP gives 40% increase and DOWN gives a 30% reduction.
Bear in mind defensive stats are half as effective as offensive ones are, so the differences aren't as big as they may seem and increasing attack values can get out of hand pretty quick.

Special characters can already go on dispatch missions, the only ones that can't are Montblanc and Marche because of story reasons, All others, even Cid, can go on dispatch missions and even have text specific to this (I think Marche has that text too), I don't know about letting Marche go on dispatch but I'll think about Montblanc being able to do so after the first Jagd has been cleared (he would be treated as dead for story events, so the alternate scenes would play).

As for the Exp request, do you guys know details about the Exp formula?
I'll probably be touching Exp stuff after I'm done with the animation template I'm working on, I'll be trying to split the JP gained message into it's own thing and have earning JP through actions be optional, as well as probably a new formula for it (right now it's just the same as Exp), if you guys have ideas about formulas that would work (or think that the current one is fine) please let me know.

After that I would be interested in working with status effects, I still don't know where the counter for most of them is kept.

I had never heard of this unrecoverable drops thing, my guess is that what is actually happening is this:
When you use Dragon Force, the ATK up flag is set.
When you get hit by Power Break, the ATK up flag is unset, the ATK down flag is set.
And this is where the issue would happen: When you use Dragon Force while having the ATK down flag set, the ATK up flag is set but the ATK down flag is never unset. In my opinion it should work the same as Power Break, it should set the ATK up AND unset the ATK down flag, it not doing so sounds like an oversight to me.
I haven't checked how it actually works though, this is just my guess.

I'll keep in mind the ability requests but right now I have no plans on working with abilities in the near future, at least not until I get the steps taken counter working, with a proper way to check if a unit teleported/flew.

Remember, if you have any features you would like to see in (or changed), let me know, there's several things I want to touch up, like how JP is earned in combat, any suggestion you drop here will be considered when I add new stuff.

Now that you mention it, what about setting special characters (such as Montblanc and Ritz) go on dispatch missions? And even Marche (it could skip the required days just as if he had been arrested).

Remember, if you have any features you would like to see in (or changed), let me know, there's several things I want to touch up, like how JP is earned in combat, any suggestion you drop here will be considered when I add new stuff.

I would like to see these:

• Higher Exp difference:
  When a lv3 unit hits a lv 3 unit it gains 10 exp.When a lv3 unit hits a lv4 unit it gains 8 exp.
  The difference here is 2 exp per level. Can this be changed to 5?
  I have seen high exp difference in Tactics Ogre Knight of Lodis.
• 3 turn Petrify & Toad recovery
  These two status effects are powerful and permanant. Sleep/Charm/Blind/Confuse lasts 3 turns, can toad and petrify be set to have the same behavior?
  I have seen 3 turn petrify recovery in Tactics Ogre Let us Cling Together.
• Recoverable temporary stat drops
  This is for Power/Magic/Speed Break. If your unit got hit by DEF minus and used Mighty Guard for DEF plus you would now be at zero. Problem is, another Mighty Guard will not increase your defense, you will be unable to get buffed but can still suffer a debuff.
  This works properly in FFTA2
  
  • Can their % bonus be increased to 20%. (I think they are 10% default, not sure)
  • Dragon force increases ATK, MAG, DEF & RES, can it be changed to only ATK & MAG?
    From FFTA2.
  • There is no SPEED plus, can it be created?
• Auto Regen - Reaction ability
  Reaction ability that casts cure on self when hit, spends required mp.
  Auto-potion from FFT
• Doublehand - Support ability
  Increase damage from 20% to 100%.
  From FFT.
• Mag Res + Support ability
  Support ability that increases resistance by 40% (like shell).
  From FFTA2.
• Turbo MP - Support ability
  Increase damage from 30% to 40%.
• Unscarred - Support ability
  Increases ATK, DEF, MAG, RES by 20% if HP is full. Its a combination of all plus support skills.
  From FFTA2.

Making a patch that works with others is not just a matter of choice, some things just need to go into freespace and there's no way to know what went where with patches, the AIO editor has a few options you can apply to your ROM, other than that unless you want to learn how tu use Event Assembler (which isn't really too hard and can make several modifications work together) your options are my shoe stealing patch and my permadeath patches (which does go into freespace but I tried to put it somwhere that wouldn't conflict with other patches, it might work, it might now).

There might be other stuff that I don't know of.