News:

The forum has been updated to SMF (2.1.3)!
Please be patient as we work to polish up the place and update features as we can.

Main Menu

4 Member Enemy Party!

Started by Rolina, 15, October, 2009, 03:06:00 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Rolina

Oh wait... after a little testing, I've got some pretty bad news...

I tried making an enemy party of Saturos, Menardi, Agatio, and Karst...

Just one problem.  Only the first three fit before glitching the game up. T-T

So yeah, Don't think we can have a 4 on 4 battle unless we can figure out a way to get the game to display all four characters properly...  I could suggest trying to make the sprites somewhat smaller, as there's quite a bit of space between them... that means there's plenty of unused space.  If we can slim them down be removing that unused space, we could maybe find a way to fit 4...

Edit:  in other news, I actually won. :D

Edit2:

After looking at the enemy sprite data, here's what I've seen...

Small enemies have 32x32
Med. Enemies have 64x64
Large Enemies have 64x64x2

So, since up to 6 small enemies can appear at once (iirc), and 3 med enemies, that makes it seem like the limit is 192

Meaning, you'd need to shrink the enemy down to 48x48... I don't see that happening.  Is there a way to modify the game in a way to allow for 4 Med. enemies on the screen at once?

Zach

If I remember correctly, there was a member (inactive atm) that used the 4 unidentified numbers at the bottom of the enemy's psynergy to either A: change the size, or B: change the order (or something like that <.<)

EDIT: Here's the quote,
Quote from: RulerI know for a fact that one of the numbers below it's attacks affects
the size of the monsters in comparison to the players, but i forgot
wich one, so ill run some tests later.

Atrius (He/Him)

It doesn't affect the size in the way you would want to though, if anything it just scales the images.  You would need to change the size of the sprites themselves.
[sprite=220,4,0]I'm shaking my head in general disapproval of everything[/sprite]

Rolina

Is there any way to free up more room for the sprites?

For example, rather than having the Character + Weapon sprite present, could we just fuse the two and effectively half the number of sprites present?  After all, I'm guessing that since they take up the same amount of space as a Medium sized monster, so if the problem is how much memory is available to display the sprites, that may be one solution.

If it's not, then do you think you can make a patch to allow for a team of 4 medium sized enemies?

weckar

Are you sure the problem is in sprite sizes? After all, the game needs to load some impressive psynergy lists in such a battle...

Atrius (He/Him)

When the game loads a Character and their weapon it combines them as a single sprite in video memory already.  Between the font & graphics for the HUD, graphical effects for attacks, and the battle background there just isn't any room left in video memory to squeeze more sprites into, it's a hardware limitation that just can't be solved by tweaking the games code.
[sprite=220,4,0]I'm shaking my head in general disapproval of everything[/sprite]

Salanewt

Hm... I know that this might be really hard to near impossible, but are there any game systems with better capability that we might be able to port Golden Sun to if we want more sprites?

Have a nice day.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Salanewt

As I said "really hard to near impossible". However, I understand...

I know that they can not be programmed away yet. I was just suggesting that we might be able to either move it to, say, the Nintendo DS, but since that can not be done than oh well.

Anyway, I think you will say that it can't be done, but what if we were to drastically alter the hardware of a GBA so it would be different? I am sure that this is impossible to do any time soon, but you never know what the future brings.

Have a nice day.

Edit: Oh, oops, you deleted your post.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Rolina

Quote from: AtriusWhen the game loads a Character and their weapon it combines them as a single sprite in video memory already.  Between the font & graphics for the HUD, graphical effects for attacks, and the battle background there just isn't any room left in video memory to squeeze more sprites into, it's a hardware limitation that just can't be solved by tweaking the games code.

Damn.  If that's the case... anyone got any ideas on how to get around this?  We COULD just use smaller sprites, but I'm not too big a fan of that...  Tch... I REALLY want to have a 4 vs 4 battle, in fact, in the hack I want, that's the climactic battle, right before the final boss is summoned.  Is there anything we can do to manipulate the stuff in a way to maybe condense it a bit to allow for more room in the last enemy adept?

weckar

couldn't it be a split battle or something? I mean: you have 4 characters, so have they. From collosso we know it's possible to split the party up. Make it 4 1v1 battles?

Rolina

Quote from: weckarcouldn't it be a split battle or something? I mean: you have 4 characters, so have they. From collosso we know it's possible to split the party up. Make it 4 1v1 battles?
That defeats the purpose of party vs party.

Edit: Here's an idea...  Would it be possible to have an enemy (or group of enemies) summon a different enemy after being taken out?  I COULD have a 3 vs 4 battle where when one gets taken out, they summon the last member in their place.  That's the only way I can think of that you can have it with the current way of doing it..

Atrius (He/Him)

Sorry, Salanewt, I realized I had answered a question you didn't ask in a less than polite manner.  I'd hoped you hadn't read that reply yet.  I've discussed this subject with different people multiple times before, it usually always ends in frustration for me.  "No" is a word people simply don't like to hear.

The only feasible solution that I can see at this time is to work within the limitations in a way that allows you to do what you want, specifically: using smaller sprites.  It wouldn't be difficult at all to make the game scale those sprites up so that they appear larger, they would just be less detailed.
[sprite=220,4,0]I'm shaking my head in general disapproval of everything[/sprite]

Rolina

How about my suggestion?  Starts off as a 3 on 4 battle, when the first enemy falls, a script for that battle happens and they're replaced by the 4th member?

Atrius (He/Him)

I suppose since there's that one scene where your party members join 1 by 1 as you fight Agatio & Karst something like that may be possible.  I'd have to look more into it to say for absolute sure though.
[sprite=220,4,0]I'm shaking my head in general disapproval of everything[/sprite]

Rolina

Well, not so much like that, as basically an @death: Enemy xyz joins the battle.

It'd be like how signal whistle works, only it only happens once in the battle, and is triggered not by an item, but by an enemy (any enemy) dying.  The battle doesn't actually end or anything, it just happens automatically.

Atrius (He/Him)

There are some factors that could seriously complicate that, especially the compression format used for some enemy sprites.  Some are formatted in such a way that the game won't load them except at the beginning of battle.
[sprite=220,4,0]I'm shaking my head in general disapproval of everything[/sprite]

Salanewt

Don't worry Atrius, I understand. It can get frustrating to have to explain the same thing multiple times. Thanks for apologising by the way.

I like that idea for a script. However, I would alter it a bit. At first, you start with a 2 vs. 4 battle... Perhaps you have Saturos and Menardi getting their revenge for losing (if you are making a hack that takes place after the first two Golden Sun games, and there were brought back to life), and then when they die, Karst and Agatio come up and want to re-avenge Saturos and Menardi (basically, fighting two pairs in a row).

The reason why I suggest this is because it might be odd to fight three of them, and then have one come in when one of them dies. It might also be an easier script, since basically when the battle ends, another battle can be started shortly after instead of one person being called in when another dies.

Anyway, it is just an idea, before we get off topic.

Have a nice day.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Rolina

Quote from: AtriusThere are some factors that could seriously complicate that, especially the compression format used for some enemy sprites.  Some are formatted in such a way that the game won't load them except at the beginning of battle.
What about the ones that show up after battle, like from the signal whistle?  Doing testing, when I use the signal whistle, the Sea Fighter appears, even when fighting lowly wolves and what not.  So, I figure all we have to do is to have the required enemy sprites be done like that.

Charon

I don't know if this helps, but I've inserted 64x64 that use call attacks, and it has an interesting effect - the 4th sprite doesn't glitch the game, it just doesn't appear all the way :p

Also, there's a small graphical glitch that occurs with the same attack in an unhacked version of the game: When there are 6 of any 32x32 sprite, part of the far right party member's sprite is cut off sometimes.

Rolina

Ah, that's interesting to know.  But what I need isn't a call attack, but it's basically a script that says that when any of the enemies fall, something else takes its place.  But in a way so that it only occurs once, and that it doesn't matter which one you take out, it'll replace them.

If we can do something like that, then it'd also be possible to have common enemies behave like that... A group of worker ants appears, you take one out, and now a Soldier and joins the fray...