Guest Adder Patch and Events

General view

The Guest Adder patch uses the data of the guests characters. For its last version, It is executed only in the party selection screen and it won't be executed in other events.

The algorithm is straightforward. When the party selection screen is initialized, the algorithm checks the existence of the items associated with the new guests. If the item doesn't exists, nothing happens and everything is executed normally.

If the referenced item exists, the algorithm checks the actual data of the guests. Specifically, it checks for the character ID in the guests data. The guests added by the Guest adder patch use specific characters ID which aren't used by the original game. The character ID has no relationship with its actual sprite ID.

If the character ID in the guest data isn't one of the character ID used by the Guest Adder patch, the guest data is recalculated and rewritten. Otherwise, the data isn't changed. In summary, the character ID of the guest determinates if the guest data will be recalculated or not.

The initial data of the guests in the World Of Ruin is Kefka and Leo. They are the leftover guests of the Thamasha event. They were created for cinematic purposes. Kefka uses a special move to transform a esper in magicite and Leo fights against Kefka and dies. Both of them are guest characters.

As example, if you have the item associated with the guests, when the party screen select is executed in the first time after you get the items, it will check that the guests aren't guests added by the Guest Adder patch. In this example, they are Kefka and Leo. Because of it, their data will be recalculated and replaced with the new guests characters. In the successive calls of the party selection screen, it won't reset or rewrite the guests data as long as the guests are the guests added by the Guest Adder patch. Otherwise, they always will be recalculated and rewritten.

how does it work during an event?

For its last version, it only works in the initialization of the party selection screen. It won't change the guests data in another event. However, if you add/edit a guest character by another event, the guest will be recalculated and rewritten in the next party selection screen, if the correspondent item is in the inventory.

If the linked item is in the inventory, does the character that is setup to be added actually directly take the place of character slot 14/15? Or does it just add the character to the selection screen in place of that slot?

The characters slots 14 and 15 are replaced with the new guests. All their data are redone. The old guests are destroyed.

Does the exp and level of this added character save if the item is removed from the inventory for a period of time or is the character created and level balanced every time the linked item is put in the inventory?

If the item is removed from inventory the guest isn't available in the roster selection. You can't select him and he won't receive exp because it can't join the party. If the guest data isn't rewritten by an event, his data should have been preserved and he should be usable when the item is put back in the inventory. All his data should have been preserved, and it includes his exp.

I would assume equipment would be treated the same as stats if changed? Reset to default every time added?

Guests can't change their equipment. In normal conditions, they always will have the same equipment, independently of the number of times they were recreated.

World of Balance/Ruin issues

The issue is always that only two character slots are available for guests characters and they are used in the World Of Balance. The game always rewrites them based on the plot history. You will never have more than two guest characters at any point in the game. The Guest Adder patch already uses the two guests slots. It will be necessary to expand the number of total available characters slots by two to accommodate the guests of the Guest Adder patch (two slots) and the traditional slots used by the normal guest events in the game (more two, total of four guests). In my opinion, I don't consider it implementable.

For now, for the World of Balance, the only way is to edit all events related with guests and never use guests events for the entire game, except for the Guest Adder patch. Personally, I don't believe it pays off in the end because of the required effort. It surely involves an absurd amount of work...

In the World of Ruin, fortunately the original programmers don't use guests characters and the two guests slots can be used by the Guest Adder patch. Unfortunately, the original programmers never expected that guests characters should be available and it generates small bugs with specific event codes. They blindly don't consider the possibility of the presence of guests.

The most noticeable bugs with guests in the World of Ruin is the Colosseum and the Fanatic's Tower. Fortunately, the Guest Adder patch added a check in the Colosseum to avoid guests to participate and another hack indirectly fixes the issue with guests in the Fanatic's Tower.