BTB

The Dirty Undies is all me. Can't blame Abyss for that one >.> Similarly, Banon's Codpiece is... not really a good relic. It prevents sap, which I do elsewhere in the game with Auto-Regen because sap immunity also equals regen immunity (this is why Slow immunity doesn't even exist in the code). I'm assuming that if Abyss isn't touching the users of dummy equipment, then he's not touching the effects, either The Economizer is the only item on this list that actually is attainable in BNW proper. It was @Emmy's idea. The Unlixir is an Elixir that kills you. OR, at least it's supposed to. It doesn't actually work, which is partly why it's dummied. There's a fun story there >.> See... The Bouncy Ball code is a fucking mess and it points somewhere completely un-intuitive for the animation. I'd previously cleared this out, believing it to be unused, and then noticed that when Magic Pots try to use bouncy balls, they had no animation. Believing this to be the fault of enemies trying to use an item not meant for them, the Unlixir was my experiment to try and re-create their general behavior without altering their AI.

So, I didn't get in and reply to this thread when it first landed and now it's such a wall of text that Trump wants to put it on the border, so I'm just gonna throw out some general points rather than responding to everything. First and foremost, I consider Locke to be easily the weakest character in the early game. I keep a chart detailing the "utility" use of each character (including both buffs and debuffs) and Locke is the only character with a ranking of zero on it. His multi-target damage is limited to his magic (which is generally weak) and his single target damage doesn't ignore defense until the end of the game. Healing and hitting things are all that he really brings to the table, and neither of those are fully developed until later on. So, I am glad to see anyone getting genuine good use out of him in the midgame. On a similar note, I consider Kirin on Locke to be one of the few real "dud" options available, since in my mind you'd only give him Kirin levels for early-game bulk and then respec him later. The limited use he gets from stamina doesn't feel like it'd be worth the MP boost he gets from Phoenix along with the same amount of HP, so again I'm happy that cover/counter strats - the shiny new feature of the current version of Brave New World - is having the intended effect of making it a desirable option for him. It's been pointed out that Locke is overleveled, and yes, this is the sort of thing that can occur without trying. The level curve is fairly linear excepting some "Humps" at levels 10, 20, and 30, and the mod was designed so that you'll often have large discrepancies between levels in your active party. The most common characters to see this happen are Celes and Sabin in the World of Ruin; it happens less often with Locke because, even though players are forced to use him a lot in the WoB, they will generally dump him when they're finally given the chance rather than keep him in the active party and give him a fair shake. And for the record, I define "midgame" as post-IMTRF through getting your team reassembled in the World of Ruin.

Yes.

Hey, glad you enjoyed things. The Slots softlock is new to me. I wonder if it's something that was present in vanilla, or if it's related to de-rigging. I'd wager the former. Nowea already answered the question about Interceptor. One alternative is to let Shadow die and then Relm inherits him. Her evasion is much lower, so Interceptor is a big more aggressive in defending her. I thought I'd removed all instances of potential softlocks... or it might have just been in the FT. In any case, I'll look into it. Hey, @Mishrak someone else got the "1-step battle" thing, too. I wonder if it has anything to do with @Think0028's RNG patch? Would be really curious to see if Seibaby's encounter patch prevents it, if we could find a reliable way to replicate the setup. I agree that magic comes quickly, and that in a way having to learn them through spell points is a token pittance that the player must pay. The problem is that, when you multiply it by 12 characters, even a small bit of grinding can take awhile. I'd rather err on the side of not making players take too long to get their attacks. There's still the issue of spell points waning in usefulness later on except to act as a multiplier for EP... I remember thinking once of a system that would allow you to spend banked spell points on MP restoration, but I never chased up on it. Myria is a cunt, but a lot of her shit is avoidable. Yeti is a one-trick pony, but he does that one trick very well. Go in with physical defense/evasion and ice/wind defense and he's a cakewalk. Heh. Relm calling Ultros a douche is basically this scene right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buxj7-4YLXw

Regarding Merton...

We learned our lesson a long time ago about giving out ETAs. There's a lot being done and no expectation for when it'll be done at this point.

Has anyone had a chance to give this a whirl? @Deschain I know you're doing a run through currently.

Regarding the encounter rate patch... it seems that the last activity has been testing on Mishrak's end indicating that it was not functioning as intended. After having played through the mod myself for the first time in awhile, I spoke to @seibaby and indicated that I would be all right with the patch slightly reducing overall encounter rates in addition to preventing "two-step" encounters.

Nah, you didn't come off as offensive. I have been quietly working on a new update these last few weeks and it's looking to be a major one. I'm hoping to have a tentative changelog to post in the near future, but no clue how long it will take given that I wish to include a number of patches that are currently in testing.

Nobody who shows up to badmouth BNW sticks around. All you're seeing here is the sort of feedback that has kept it under ongoing development and has continued to help improve it for the last five years.

Try patching a fresh ROM, if that doesn't work, post a savestate.

BNW is not picky about what version of the game you patch - it'll force-convert the game to the right one. Only thing you need to be sure of is whether you're patching a headered or unheadered ROM.

Yeah, no reason you can't.

Best I can tell, it's related to large enemy sprites.