https://www.mediafire.com/?15tutha1ctr0z9x

I have played through to finding the Falcon in the World of Ruin, and tested my new events for Apple Bloom and Maud. All seems to be in order, so all there is left to do is balance, which has always been my weak point and you guys are better at it than me, so here we are.

A few things of note with Apple Bloom and Maud
- Apple Bloom’s battle palette is currently glitched. I am aware of this but it will not impact gameplay, it’s just an error with the sprite. It will be fixed for the official 2.0 release.
- Apple Bloom can be recruited in Fillydelphia by talking to her with Applejack in the party upon recruiting her in the World of Ruin. She has standard Earth Pony equipment draw, can also use Katanas, has the Steal ability, and the CMC stuff like Rarity’s dresses and the Crusader Cape.
- Apple Bloom keeps Umaro/Maud’s throwing attacks. I’m of the mind to keep them since it gives her something a little extra, but I’m not committed to it if people want them gone.
- The Coin Toss Relic for Rainbow Dash is now for Apple Bloom, and changes Steal into Tools. It can be found in Applejack’s Nightmare.
- Maud now gives the Boulder relic that is exclusive to Earth Ponies and gives them X-Fight.

Happy playing, any balance concerns or glitches you find will ofc be fixed.

Joy for the third, fourth... wait, fifth? How many times? I can't remember. I've lost track of how many times I've played through this. Either way, joy once again! Or maybe not because I should keep an eye out on balance issues. And I know the very first thing I want to try out!

Too bad Breath of the Wild DLC Master Mode is currently keeping me busy, but I'll get to it shortly.

Yep, I knew it. I knew I'd be tempted to do it and now I'm literally certain. I'll be redoing my LP for 2.0 eventually (after most balance issues and what not of course plus at least one full playthrough with balance fixes set.) Won't be replacing the old one though. That stays. Plus I'll probably make it something of a side LP since I literally just did this game.

6018500
Do you want balance issues to be posted here, or in a separate thread? I've got one I'd like to discuss already. Kinda funny to me. Heheh...

6018569
Here is good.

Yeah, that's a pretty fitting way to start the game. Already give Flash some abuse!
All of the Pinkie Clones are stronger than Flash, (Probably because of their higher level) and they can all counterattack since they all have the same weapon. Of course, the later early areas, Flash is quite useful and reliable. I just find it funny that this very first instance, he kinda sucks compared to each individual clone thanks to their strength and counter-attacking abilities.

That is minor to me though.

6018500
Here's a real issue:

It got me so confused...

6018809
I KNOW I changed that! Bah, must have gotten lost in the Apple Bloom work. Sorry.

EDIT- Ah, that’s the problem, there’s two dialogues explaining Blitz, and I changed the one that game doesn’t use. Whoops.

6018962
Um... A Stray Cat can absorb a Giant Blast to the face from the all power Nightmare of the Night?! (Stray Cats can absorb Moonbolt.) Is that intentional, especially that early?

Edit: Crystal Armor are also immune to Moonbolt. Wow, there seems to be no point in using it at all. It does less damage than Pummel, and some early enemies take no damage to it...

My gosh, I suck with those new command inputs. I already failed them like 7 times.

Also, minor thing.

The warp that goes to this room is placed 'on' the warp that lets the player leave. (1 space below Cadance here.) I believe every other warp in the game has it 1 space above the warp that exits.

Looking at these levels, I just gotta ask. Is it possible to change the level average upon recruitment with these characters? Sometimes I feel they don't make sense.

What I know so far, Flash starts off 2 levels higher than Twilight. Celestia is 1 level above them. Luna is 1 level above the party average. Not too sure how Cadance works, but with Flash in level 9 and Luna in level 12, she starts at level 10, sounding like she starts 1 level lower than the party average. Fluttershy starts 1 level lower, and Applejack starts 1 level higher.

Maybe it's just me, but it certainly makes it seem like it's making certain characters unbalanced early on with how complicated all that is. But, oh well. Just wondering if it's possible to change that, whether you'd actually mess with it or not.

P.S. I may have spoken a bit too soon about Moonbolt since, in the phantom train, nearly everything seems to be weak to it.

6019446
It is possible to change, but I have pretty much no flexibility on how; the options are “party’s average level” with the ability to go -2, +2, or +5.

6019476
Wait... so you can't even do +0? Isn't that how it works for the World of Ruin recruitments, minus Pinkie and Trixie?

6019478
Yes, +0 is an option.

The game seems to crash when trying to enter Apple Bloom's house in Maranda during the World of Balance, in particular the first time you head to the Southern Continent before the Magitek Factory.

Maranda loads normally but entering the house will display a black screen, while the BGM will continue playing.

At first I thought it was because of a few text edits I made, (which caused the Sunset Shimmer scene not to work properly when the rocks fell on her) so I downloaded a fresh ROM from the link you gave and it still crashes in Maranda.

EDIT: I also tested using a different emulator (SNES9x and ZSNES), as well as using an old file to test the World of Ruin, all show black screens.

6019893
Yes, do not edit the rom. Some of the new event data uses spots in the data that editors will blank. The Sunset Shimmer scene is one of them.

Fortunately this was an easy fix (I’ve kept save states of the various times you meet Apple Bloom, just in case. ), rom download is updated with fixed version.

Just did some tests with the 2nd Gilda fight after beating it. First time, she never threw weapons. Second time, she did. She threw 2 Curved Knifes, dealing over 800 damage to 2 characters. If it wasn't for her constant use of Wind Slash, only Fluttershy's Vanish would be optimal for avoiding that. I can't figure out what causes her to throw weapons, but her minions seem to do it after their 4th attack, even if you've killed them and they respawn.

Found some minor odd cutscene movements:

Don't know why Celestia specifically faces the wrong direction in these cutscenes.

Twilight's fine! She's just reading her book like she always does!

6020083
Was the last one a freeze-frame? If so that’s to be expected, the game swaps to Esper Terra’s “angry” sprite for that short bit, and Twi’s includes her spell book. Still, would be easy to change to a sprite less odd-looking for the circumstance.

Check on Celestia, I think Edgar did that too but it’s an easy fix even so.

6020093
Yeah, that was a freeze frame. I just thought it was funny!

Speaking of funny, glad to know this is still in the game!

Best line in the game!

6020131
Fun story with that event from a dev angle. Locke blushing in the original game was caused by the colors for his face being tinted red. This would look weird with a pony sprite since their face color is their entire body, so I swapped it out for him blinking some more.

Also, Celes’s response to Locke’s story is only set to happen if you view the Rachel flashbacks in Kohlingen... except that the event bit that determines if the response happens has nothing to do with Celes being present for the flashbacks or not, just that you saw them period. So this leads to the oddity that Celes’s response to Locke changes if the player viewed the Rachel scenes even though Celes was not in the party for either of them at the time. Not that her response in either the SNES or GBA versions really has anything to do with knowledge she gained of Rachel through these scenes, her response is a logical thing to say regardless of if she found out about Rachel in Kohlingen or not.

6020134
That Celes scene, I remember seeing something like that in Pony Fantasy. Trixie would ask Apple Bloom if she's letting some past sins haunt her if you've viewed that flashback, but I didn't think about if it mattered if Trixie was in the party viewing those scenes or not. If I recall though, the trigger was actually viewing the fallen pony's body, not the flashback in the house.

I don't know how I managed to notice this error:

And I'm just gonna leave this up:

I just did the 2nd Mane-iac fight, and I do have some things to say about it. But I don't want to spoil anything, so not sure if I should say them here.

6020207
Go ahead, just tag them if you’re concerned.

6020237
Okay, I'll place all the details into a spoiler.

So it looks like the fight has been given quite the improvement, minus the fact that it still has the surround mechanic removed. She has some pretty entertaining dialogue and a few minor status effects that fit the scene.

The big problem is the way her movements work. Every time she moves around, every Debilitator effect is reset, essentially making that useless on her. When you're using a spell on her and then she moves, the spell will just flat out cancel out like there was no target. This even happens with Espers Summons, making it possible to waste that single use, as well as all that MP. I also saw her attempting to use an Apple Fritter,
but that canceled out as well. It also doesn't help that she counterattacks all Magic and Espers with Drain.

Sounded like this battle wanted to be a counter on Magic, which is pretty sneaky considering, if it's unchanged, the next area is heavily reliant on Magic. But I'm not sure if flat out evading Magic was intended.

6020248
Unfortunately it’s a problem inherent to that gimmick, because of how the fight does and always worked including in the original FF6 - Ultros doesn’t “move around,” he’s removed from the battle entirely and another Ultros in a different position is brought in. There’s actually four different enemies in that fight tagging in and out. There’s no way to make it a single enemy for the whole fight and retain the gimmick of the Mane-iac moving around the stage.

6020009
Fair enough with the edits. For reference, what I changed was the naming of three abilities. Fight -> Attack, SwordTech -> Bushido, Remedy -> Esuna it's the whole joining the franchise post FF8 kicking in again. :P

Though a bug I did spot, is that Zecora had an MP bar, at a time when normally, nobody except Terra and Celes do. In fact, Luna and Flash didn't have their MP bars show up yet as normal.

6020251
Huh... if that's how it works, how does the game keep track of all the enemy's separate HP so it doesn't feel like their HP keeps resetting? Or does it actually keep resetting?

Found out something interesting with the 2 Esper fights later on. Firefly had Debilitator on her, making her weak to Fire. She teleported close to the party, casted Firega, it got reflected back and healed her, teleported back, then Scootaloo casted Blaze, it dealt weakness damage. So I guess Debilitator isn't exactly reset. It only stays on the enemy it was originally used on... or something like that.

P.S. I just saw Celestia's RoyalShock.

6020940
Short answer - it doesn't. Each Ultros has an entirely separate HP total. The Esper fight works the same way. At the least though the HP totals do not reset when they change back; if you deal 2000 damage and then he swaps out, he'll still have that damage when he moves back to the same position.

Well, I'm currently stuck on the Prototroop boss inside the base. This is the only boss that I've lost to so far, and I've attempted it 3 times with no luck. All these powerful spells... Wave, Acid Rain, Magnitude 8, Level ??? Holy...

Maybe I'm just really unlucky, but that's my experience. I'll try again later.

6020964
Dang... That Prototroop boss is quite the spike in difficulty from what you had to go through prior. I'm gonna show what lengths I had to go through just to beat it. Not sure if it was meant to be this difficult, but I think this boss just earned a 'That One Boss' level of difficulty.

This sort of difficulty makes it feel like I'm doing a low-level challenge all over again, and I'm not.

6021474
Hm, not sure what to say to that, I didn’t have much difficulty. But I’ll watch a vid and see for myself.

6021495
Like I said, I was probably unlucky, but this attempt made me feel lucky towards the end compared to what I went through the past 3 attempt. Anyone who doesn't want spoilers, don't view.

Well, that’s a curious usage of Debilitator - since it changes his weakness, his AI script which is set to scan for his weakness to decide what attacks to use, changes those.

Yeah, seeing his damage output there, that’s a bit high. Maybe drop his Magic a point or two?

6021510
Wait, you mean the attacks it uses is purely based on what it's weak to, rather than which type it is? Wow. I never realized that. (Maybe that's why I was having such a hard time...) And yeah, I used this Debilitator strategy in my low-level run as well.

It does have quite a few powerful magic attacks for this point of the game, even ones almost nopony can protect or resist from. (Not even Runic or Reflect stops them.) Then again, I saw Firefly using Firega, a level 3 spell. But that was more rare, and I have no idea how much damage that would've done.

6021522
I’m not sure what you mean by “type,” but yes, the element it uses to attack is a hint to its weakness - Fire and Ice, Wind and Earth, Lightning and Water, and Holy and Poison, are the four opposing elemental pairs. When it uses Poison, hit it with Holy; when it uses Earth, hit it with Wind. This is actually how Number 024 always worked. I’m actually rather surprised that for all the times you played through this hack you only just picked up on this.

6021528
I think you misunderstood me. When I say type, I mean the type that represents what element it uses. For example, when it starts using Ice moves, I'd imagine it changed its type to Ice, which means it absorbs Ice and is weak to Fire while being immune to all other elements. I thought it's type would represent what attacks it uses. But now I learned it doesn't check for its type, just its weakness.

Speaking of weaknesses, you don't have easy ways to take advantage of its type weaknesses other than Fire, Ice, and Lightning. If Moonbolt is Holy element, Luna's the only one who can take advantage of that, Toxic Daggers are the only way to take advantage of Poison, and as far as I'm concerned, only Scootaloo can take advantage of Water, Wind, and Ground. (Technically Gust is available before that, but that would require a lot of grinding.)

6021536
Ah. Well, in that regard, type isn’t a thing. You can actually check the various AI Script checks and actions here; the game can check for a weakness, but not a resistance or immunity.

And now that you bring it up, that’s a very fair point there. Though as you demonstrate the Debilitator can forcibly change its weakness to manipulate its attack patterns, and since Flash is a mandatory character this will always be an option so long as you have a Debilitator. If there were some way to ensure access to it (allow you to steal one from ProtoTroop itself, put one in a chest in the facility), I could see this as working very well storywise, Flash’s weaponry disorienting and reprogramming the prototype cyborg and rendering it vulnerable to attack. Much as GW’s usage of Summon spam to kill the ProtoTroop, it seems a fitting way to overcome it.

6021546
Well, it certainly doesn't help that Prototroop counters Debilitator with Drain. Sure, Cadance's Runic is able to protect from that, (Plus being mandatory) but it can sure make healing and attacking very complicated. Otherwise, if that wasn't a thing, yeah, Debilitator and Summons would certainly make a viable story-wise key to victory. (I recall hearing Locke originally being very terrible for this point as he only had Steal.)

Although, as it stands now, it does seem like Luna and Applejack would be the easiest way to take on Prototroop since Pummel and the level 1 SwordTech ignore defense if I recall. If they don't, then nevermind.

6021558
They still do, but it will prompt a Drain counter still; compare a level 2 spell to its weakness for over 1000 damage and no counter.

6021567
Ahh, didn't think about that. Okay, nevermind about Drain then. But yeah, it's attacks are still quite powerful for this point in the game. So, alright.

6021567
How the heck does Chocobob work right now? On some enemies, I saw it doing as little as 35 damage. To a single Timberwolf, I saw it doing only 200. Her basic fight attack does around that much...

6021800 0_0 somehow it got tagged as physical. Whoops.

6021805
I'm doing some tests with the rest of her slots. Right now it's kinda difficult to tell how useful and balanced they are. Diamond seems to do double the damage than level 2 spells that other magic users can deal. (Though, slightly weaker than the basic elemental summons like Starswirl.) The Airship seems slightly less than double the power of Diamonds. So those seem okay since Diamond is the easiest to get with the Airship mainly being harder only because the game doesn't allow you to get it sometimes. (Then again, almost no one uses them, so I could be wrong.)

The Dragon, however, is looking unimpressive for how hard it is to get. The Airship did around 1,200 damage, with 2 Jewel Rings while the Dragon does 1,600, which is not much of a difference. From what I'm seeing though, it is defense piercing, so I'm not too sure how that would fair later on. Problem is, later on, would be too late considering other options you would have at the time.

(I also just realized, when I tested her power compared to other magic users, she's 2 levels lower than them. My gosh, that level average upon joining is really all over the place and doesn't make sense.)

6020009
Just a note that this is fixed, with exception to the time when you can finally recruit Apple Bloom, in the World of Ruin that one will still crash the game.

Did some tests with Pinkie's Party skills upon first recruitment. Going out of your way to get her Water Party skill is certainly worth it. At level 18, she's able to one shot a few enemies weak to Water, including the Ing's, with her basic Water Party ability, even without magic buffs. (Can't tell what Lifestream is supposed to do...)

Wave Cannon looks really powerful for bosses, especially when they're weak to it. Without split damage or weaknesses, but with 2 Jeweled Rings, I'm seeing it do 1,300 damage. That would probably be 2,600 damage with weakness.

Let me know when Chocobop is fixed. I wanna test out Slots some more before I advance.

Almost forgot to test out Lagamorph. Does slightly less healing than the basic Cure spell, but it's free healing and cures a few status effects. Plus, it's a consolation prize for missing the Slots, so, seems alright.

Aww :( RIP Maud. She's best minor pony, even if she kinda isn't at this point.
She was also almost OP levels of tank, but meh :P
That's a lot of stuff for Apple Bloom.
And does the coin toss still work for RD then, or is it just for Bloom now?

6022284
The Coin Toss is gone.

6021818
I’ll see about the Apple Bloom event and hopefully have a fix tomorrow. I’ve posted about it on FF6hacking, the event isn’t behaving properly.

6021931
Lifestream is a group Life spell. I wanted it to be a generic party heal that also revives, but that seems impossible to do; if the spell is set to hit living party members it will miss the dead ones, and otherwise can be set to only affect the dead ones.

As for the slots, here’s the rundown taking into account Chocobop’s fix.

Orbital FC: 54 power, ignores defense and split damage
Chocobop: 160 power, ignores split damage, misses Floating enemies
Dive Bomb: 100 power, ignores split damage
Prism Rain: 120 power

6022322
Chocobop's still not fixed?

6022418
Not yet, in the next update it will be.

6022424
Okay. I wanna pause on the tests until that update.

6022425
6021818

Rom updated with fixes to AB and Slots. OFC also got a power boost from 54 to 74.