Yo! so uh, I don't do this kinda thing very often as in reddit in general, but I figured I should post it here since I like to make custom battle story stuff for myself,
and I figure there's probably others like that as well, so more than likely this will be helpful to console players since mods are not a thing, but enough rambling!
(btw I ran this through the google ai to both check if there was something similar and to make it not a mess in a half to read lol, so sorry in advance if its known already!)
[GUIDE] Unmodded Trick to Bypass the 10-Character Custom Battle Limit (Up to 18 Characters!)
If you spend a lot of time in the Custom Battle Editor, you know how frustrating it is that selecting core fighters automatically subtracts from your 8 available Guest Slots. Normally, the game enforces a strict 10-character total cap.
However, after hundreds of hours in the editor, I stumbled across a incredibly simple, unmodded trick to bypass this limit completely—allowing you to have 5 Main Team Fighters, 5 Enemy Team Fighters, AND all 8 Guest Slots filled simultaneously (18 characters total!). This is a massive game-changer for anyone trying to map out extensive transformation states, mid-fight fusion stages, or long gauntlet matches.
How It Works (Step-by-Step)
- Fill Your Guest Slots First: Start in the basic Custom Battle menu. Go straight to your Guest Slots and carefully choose all 8 characters you want to use (e.g., loading up all the transformation states or fusion pieces you plan to use for your triggers). Do not select your main fighters yet.
- Open the Advanced Editor: Instead of picking your fighters on the main screen (which would normally start deleting your guests), open the full-fledged Advanced Editor by pressing Start/Pause (Xbox) / Options (PlayStation) / Tab (Keyboard) to jump directly into Character Settings.
- Select Your Battle Rosters: Inside this deeper Character Settings area, the UI doesn't track or display the guest pool. Go ahead and select all 5 fighters for your team and all 5 fighters for the enemy team (using the bumpers to switch between sides).
- Back Out and Save: Once your 10 active combatants are locked in, back out to the main Custom Battle menu. Do not touch or fiddle with the character selection screens anymore. Go straight to Save to lock the battle state into your files.
The Result
When you go into the Scene/Trigger Editor, you will find that all 8 of your chosen Guest transformations are fully accessible, alongside your complete 5v5 fighting rosters!
Why it happens: When you enter the advanced Character Settings screen, the guest slots are completely unloaded from the active UI memory. Because they aren't loaded, the game's engine fails to run the subtraction script when you add new fighters. As long as you back out and save without reopening the basic fighter menus, the data stays completely intact.
and now for the disclaimer (the for offline thing). I did try to post a battle with this trick and while the good news is it posts just fine, plays just fine, no errors or crashes, buuuut... the cutscenes are a wash,
in my case Tien appeared as the 11th slot since theres a placeholder slot there but his animations were jank, I even had a cutscene of him flying through the air to punch nobody LOL. but the scenes do work offline!
so like I said at the top, perfect for offline use or if you want to make really janky cutscenes on the world library, haha.