WOTL: How many "extra" sprite slots sre there (and new characters to fill them)?

[Donkeyton]

It's well known that one of the easiest ways to create a new, custom-sprited character is to "collapse" the two versions of a given character, thus freeing up a slot for a new sprite/character. For instance, condensing both Gaffgarion (Enemy) and Gaffgarion (Guest) into the same slot throughout the ENTDs with FFTPatcher will allow you to use the now-extra Gaffgarion slot for a new sprite and new character. Same thing with Meliadoul (Enemy) and Meliadoul (Guest).

A second method is to make use of the Celia (Unused) and Lettie (Unused) slots by moving a non-battle character (say, Valmafra) into one of those slots, freeing his/her original slot for a new character.

Unfortunately, there are problems inherent to doing this for many of the characters who have multiple slots. For instance, trying to collapse Agrias (Guest) and Agrias (Join) will cause problems when Agrias joins, leaves, then permanently joins your party. It will also cause issues for whichever new character you place in her leftover slot (i.e., using Agrias (Guest) for a new character will cause that character to leave when Agrias (Guest) is supposed to leave).

So my question is: which characters are safely collapsible or movable in order to free up slots? Is it just the characters who have an "Enemy" and "Guest" version?

[Oroborobo]

I'm fairly certain that all you need to do is rewrite all the pointers so that every situation that has the character used in an event scene or battle or guest slot or join after battle flag points to the correct version and not the unit you changed, then you can reinsert your modified character however you like.

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, all these things are possible through FFTPatcher and the other various event editing tools.


You DO need to change the instructions directly however, you cannot just have people swapping places and not end up fudging things right up with the leftover instructions that are now for the wrong character.

I'm pretty sure there's a version of Celia and Lede that aren't used at all though, you should be able to find out which by experimenting yourself or looking around in the sprite editing tutorials, and then you could cleanly insert those wherever without fear of overlap glitches

[Glain]

You can straight-up use the unused slots 0x35 - 0x3A for new characters; you just need to replace the formation screen and pre-battle graphics.  FFTEVGRP can edit the image slots themselves and UWEntries can point the jobs to the image slots.

[Donkeyton]

I'm fairly certain that all you need to do is rewrite all the pointers so that every situation that has the character used in an event scene or battle or guest slot or join after battle flag points to the correct version and not the unit you changed, then you can reinsert your modified character however you like.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be that simple. There appears to be at least something hardcoded about the flagging of "Guest" versus "Join" versions of certain characters (Agrias, Mustadio, Rapha, and so on). For instance, I tried condensing all of Agrias's appearances into the "Join" version, thus freeing up the "Guest" version for a new character. I went through each ENTD instance line by line to double check that I had everything pointed at her. I checked and double-checked the "Join" and "Guest" boxes on the ENTDs in which she appeared.

Even still, I encountered a fair amount of wonkiness in test play-throughs in Chapter 2. For instance, the new character using Agrias's "Guest" slot would speak as Agrias during battle scenes in which Agrias (as the "Join" version) was customarily a guest. When I reached the first Lionel Castle cutscene, where Agrias normally leaves the party, the new character occupying "Agrias (Guest)" left instead of Agrias. And I was stuck with a guest version of Agrias in the party, who could not be dismissed and could not be used in battle. I didn't bother play-testing through to the point where Agrias becomes fully joinable (Balias Swale) -- but I figured that the dummy Agrias in my lineup would cause even more issues, and at any rate, my custom character had bailed.

I suppose I could retry this entire exercise by using "Agrias (Guest)" as the real Agrias, and using "Agrias (Join)" as the custom character. But that may cause similar issues. Not sure.

You DO need to change the instructions directly however, you cannot just have people swapping places and not end up fudging things right up with the leftover instructions that are now for the wrong character.

Could you elaborate on "changing instructions" beyond the use of what I did in FFTPatcher as described above?

I'm pretty sure there's a version of Celia and Lede that aren't used at all though, you should be able to find out which by experimenting yourself or looking around in the sprite editing tutorials, and then you could cleanly insert those wherever without fear of overlap glitches

Yes, I'm aware of these versions of Celia and Lede. I'm wondering if there are any more like them, i.e., totally unused and open character slots.

You can straight-up use the unused slots 0x35 - 0x3A for new characters; you just need to replace the formation screen and pre-battle graphics.  FFTEVGRP can edit the image slots themselves and UWEntries can point the jobs to the image slots.

Awesome, thank you.

Wait...the UWEntries code seems to need FFTorgASM to implement. I thought FFTorgASM didn't work with the PSP version. Has that changed recently?

[3lric]

That's 3 posts in a row, all within the same hour... I'm editing these, next time, just use the edit button...

[Oroborobo]

to be clear,

You cannot have duplicates of special characters anywhere in the game during events, because they each have specific unit ID and if you have agrias in your formation and also have event instructions (walk this way, stop, raise your arm, have a textbox pop out of your head, etc.) it will just snatch her and she will do the things she's being programmed to animate doing, and it will fuck up all the slots or something, I can say I'm not very knowledgeable about programming, but I know what you have to do is rewrite every single story scene and battle dialogue blurb and etc so that it doesn't point to the exact character ID you're using and make them do wonky shit

if you learn to use the easyvent editor you should be able to see how the instructions are pushing the little actors around using specific addresses to identify them

since most patches eventually reach a phase where you have to run through and clean up all the events to insert characters, it's a problem that will eventually solve itself through your process, but it is definitely a headache if you're testing story battle difficulty balance with your added characters or trying to figure out how things work in the first place

[Donkeyton]

to be clear,

You cannot have duplicates of special characters anywhere in the game during events, because they each have specific unit ID and if you have agrias in your formation and also have event instructions (walk this way, stop, raise your arm, have a textbox pop out of your head, etc.) it will just snatch her and she will do the things she's being programmed to animate doing, and it will fuck up all the slots or something, I can say I'm not very knowledgeable about programming, but I know what you have to do is rewrite every single story scene and battle dialogue blurb and etc so that it doesn't point to the exact character ID you're using and make them do wonky shit

if you learn to use the easyvent editor you should be able to see how the instructions are pushing the little actors around using specific addresses to identify them

since most patches eventually reach a phase where you have to run through and clean up all the events to insert characters, it's a problem that will eventually solve itself through your process, but it is definitely a headache if you're testing story battle difficulty balance with your added characters or trying to figure out how things work in the first place

This is helpful clarification. Thank you.

That's 3 posts in a row, all within the same hour... I'm editing these, next time, just use the edit button...

Apologies. I've been conditioned by other boards, in which condensing all of one's replies into a single post creates a tl;dr effect, and thus minimizes the chance of responses. I did not realize that multiple replies would be considered a nuisance here. I will certainly try to be more conscientious about this in the future.

[Glain]

Wait...the UWEntries code seems to need FFTorgASM to implement. I thought FFTorgASM didn't work with the PSP version. Has that changed recently?

Ack, you're right.  FFTorgASM isn't even coded to patch the PSP ISO, even if we got the patching locations right.  The same tables that the UWEntries hacks edit probably exists in the PSP version in some form, though...

[SilverRegret]

if u would be so kind to explain,
any other way to "point" the jobs to the image slots other than UWEntries that work for PSP one?
i got stuck at that step too..
thanks before..

[Myrmidon]

ok, just to confirm, are these excess classes available to the PSP version?

for if, say, I want custom classes for Rad/Lavian/Alicia, and don't want to recode the hell out of Gaffy/Simon/Balafuma?

[SilverRegret]

no, you cant. too bad, neither UW ENTRIES or directly edit hex on the world & boot.BIN have any effect on the character sprite on WOTL im afraid.
see my post on :
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=9776.0

on my experience, you can replace, at least dead malak (ID 12), simon (ID 13) or gyumu alma (ID 14) so you dont need to "sacrifice" other guest character sprite like gafgarion/ mustadio / agrias guest.
For dead malak (ID 12) you need move malak sprite to either unused ID 3A/3B on shishi (its the unused CELIA & LEDY sprite), and edit riovannes roof battle event and direct malak sprite there to either ID 3A/3B (the one you use) on FFTP ENTD and you got TYPE 1 unused slot on ID 12.
While gyumu alma (ID 14) you just need to change airship graveyard 2 event ont FFTP ENTD to direct alma sprite to  ID 30 true alma.. and you got TYPE 2 spare slot on ID 14 that's it.

oh yeah, fair warning, WOTL didnt support type1/2 change (i think) so best replace type 1/2 with the same type, otherwise you might see unnatural phenomenon on your game (such as bend body, disconnected hand etc..)

[Myrmidon]

ok, this is what I get for posting quickly at work...

I meant PSX version - I've seen a decent amount of blank, dud classes kicking around, including 3 actually labelled "Rad, Lavian and Alicia", are these usable?