Trials of Mana
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rollcall31

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About this mod

********READ FIRST********:

Consider this in its alpha phase. I finished it a while back but didn't have time to test a full playthrough. As stated in my other mod descriptions I'm a bit busy currently so I may not be able to update it.

As with any mod really, BACK UP YOUR SAVE DATA BEFORE USING.

Permissions and credits
ToM NewGame++ Version 0.1

This mod was made with the intention of creating a more "true" new game+ experience.

My main issues with ToM's ng+ is that you don't retain a lot of the cool stuff
that you gain throughout your first playthrough and that it's too easy because
you are overleveled. I addressed the latter concern with Trials of Mania, which

I would recommend using together with this mod to get the experience that I'm going
for. Of course, this mod can be used together with any other mod that doesn't conflict
with it (that doesn't edit the same files).

Changes this mod introduces:
- Choose a fourth class of any character and play through the entire game from start to
    finish with it. Some neat results of this are:
    - Start the game with 4 costumes
    - All 4 class strikes are immediately available
    - All ability trees immediately available
    - etc.
- Magic/Arts are no longer locked behind acquiring Mana Spirits, so as soon as you unlock an
    Art with training points, you can use it.

***IMPORTANT NOTES/READ BEFORE USING***:
- What this mod essentially does it give each character's starting class all of the characteristics
    of one of their fourth classes. For this reason, I advise you to NOT switch classes at a Mana Statue.
    This will likely mess up the remainder of your playthrough.
- Use this mod ONLY when starting a new game(+) from the beginning. Uninstall this mod if you decide to
    play with a different save and reinstall as needed for your ng+ file. In my testing, the game will 
    hang/crash if you use this mod with an already existing save and try to travel to a new area. 
    I think this is because the save file will have conflicting information stored,
    so the game doesn't know what to do.
- I highly recommend choosing the exact same fourth classes that you ended your original new game
    playthrough with. The reason for this is that certain weapon and armor shops appear to alter their inventory
    based on what classes your party is. Also, lots of equipment is class specific, so if you
    start a ng+ run with a different fourth class you won't be able to equip your best stuff.
    Since with this mod, the game will technically still think you're at class one, you may not 
    be able to acquire good equipment later in the game. This leads to my next suggestion:
    * UPDATE: I think mods exist that populate the shop with all items/weapons, so this issue can maybe be
        overcome with that.
- Ensure you have all the equipment you want before starting your ng+ run. With this mod you may not
    have a way to gain your class's best equipment if you don't have it at the start.

USAGE:
    1. Open 'class-picker-EDITME.yaml' with a text editor and enter your desired fourth class for each
        character you'll be using. See 'Class_Choices.txt' for an example of what it should look like.
        * I RECOMMEND USING THE EXACT SAME CLASS AND ROUTE THAT YOU USED IN YOUR FIRST PLAYTHROUGH *
    2. Run 'ToM_NG++.exe', a new folder named '4th Class Starter_P' should be created.
    3. Drag and drop the '4th Class Starter_P' folder over 'UnrealPak-Without-Compression.bat' in whatever
        directory 'UnrealPak.exe' is in. This will create '4th Class Starter_P.pak'.
    4. Copy '4th Class Starter_P.pak' into your '~mod' folder in Trial of Mana's game directory.
    5. Enjoy.

* USAGE NOTE: You may optionally copy 'UnrealPak.exe' and 'UnrealPak-Without-Compression.bat' into the same folder
    as 'ToM_NG++.exe' (the folder you get after unzipping the download from Nexus). If you do this, the pak 
    file '4th Class Starter_P.pak' will be generated automatically after you run 'ToM_NG++.exe'.

CREDITS:
    - The bat scripts and exe used internally for certain conversions were provided by ithinkandicode: https://github.com/ithinkandicode/bloodstained-tools/tree/master/Serializer
    - The serializer used was gathered from Kein: https://github.com/Kein/UAssetParser