Oh, while I've looked over the code that initializes the memory that stores the character names (it initializes them as all 0xFF bytes, which was an empty space in Japanese, but is the double-letter "go" in English), and it wouldn't be too hard to hijack said code and initialize them as whatever. However, changing the character naming screen to not start empty is an unknown; as in, I haven't looked at that so don't know how convoluted that'd be. I'm not a purist on official character names in games though, so... honestly not very interested in pursuing this myself. That said, of the two approaches: ignoring the initialization and just having the character naming screen start populated with the defaults, or having initialization set the default and having an empty name entry at character naming be valid and skip overwriting the initialized name memory; the latter is likely the easier route.
I cleaned up the weapon switch hotkey code a bit, but the bad news is most NGI hotkeys work under the assumption that the other NGI features with hotkeys are either there or not; so, for example, weapon switching can't work well with R+X if R is controlling manual block, because manual block puts the character into a looped animation, and looped animations prevent a weapon switch. R+X can be made to interfere with blocking (again, assuming R is block), but then you'd have to hold R+X for a non-zero amount of time to wait for the block animation to end (and possibly other related conditions to end). I gave this a shot, and it didn't feel great, but it also somewhat hinges on if you consider a delay to change weapons a positive or negative. A side benefit of rewriting this a little is now the weapon swap button can be held until it succeeds, so if you're mid-combat it's not quite so finicky.
An issue with the spell hotkeys is that code is pretty monstrously complicated; just changing that system so it didn't require holding multiple simultaneous buttons, and to let you back out of a selection, and to trigger the cast on B press instead of B release, took multiple days of analysis, careful changes and plenty of testing. On top of this, it can only show (sanely) one icon at a time, and even that capability was especially clever work on zhaDe's part, getting all code in place to load and show a given spell icon (and its palette by hijacking the character's weapon palette). If I were to change the spell hotkeys to let you cycle and select among all spells (which I can't say I'm jumping at the task, because it'd likely be a week's effort), it'd still only let you see the icon for one at a time, and if I went that route I'd be dropping specific hotkey binding entirely because it'd be absurdly complicated (for the player); as is, I ignore the diagonal hotkeys personally and only bind cardinal directions, as the diagonals generally require you to hold them as you select, unlike the cardinals, and 4 (or heck, 2) per caster covers my needs in combat. Generally I just use cure water, analyzer, magic absorb and earth slide. -_-
I am modestly interested in also cramming real-time item use (via the boy) onto the quick spell hotkeys, but that's lots of work for less reward than what the system does for spells.
Version 2019-05-30:
https://ufile.io/ts20orudChanges:
- Added Kethinov's "Alternate Karon" (v1.0, mysterious) patch
- Fixed lack of music when loading a save in the Mana Fortress
- Fixed a volume issue when music switched from an SPC to an MSU track
- Audio\Async_Music_Crossfade promoted out of (Experimental) status
- Added Bug_Fixes\Missable_Spear_Fix; defeating Tropicallo before getting the Spear is now safe
- Code reorganizing related to weapon switch hotkey
- Improvements for New Game Plus:
-- character naming events are bypassed (avoids lots of issues)
-- weapon levels survive the end game to new game transition
-- re-obtaining weapons no longer bugs them (you will have to burn money reforging though)
-- early game enemies can hurt you
Topic: Secret of Mana, Turbo - Beta 191210 (Read 138354 times)