Suggestion: Multiple Suggestion to improve the Randomizer

[UTNerd24]

Welcome!
So I recently stumbled across this randomizer and I absolutley ADORE it. It's gotten me back into Earthbound and allowed me to relive this game in ways that I never knew I wanted! If you have a moment, I'd like to suggest a few features and ideas for future builds of it. Do not however that this may be a rather lengthy and untidy post, as I wanted to get these Ideas out before I forgot them, and also on account of me not using Github in quite some time.
Anyway, Here goes!

• While setting up the ROM, give the option for certain story flags to be active/checked from the beginning. e.g: Roadblocks in Onett.

• A custom Corridor marking a checkpoint between floors. Kinda like the gates from Pokemon Black and White.

• The Option to shuffle monsters, keeping their stats INTACT rather than adapting to the floors, making for a true randomization. So you could get Ghost of Starman on floor two, but then Criminal Caterpillars on floor three. I know this is technically a bad idea, but enduring these encounters would be just as rewarding.

• Give Homesickness it's own icon, such as Ness' Mom's face/Allow other characters to get homesick, albeit rarely. Earthbound is about inconveniencing the player, but not to the point where it becomes annoying.

• Fix/Cull/Remove the sound for doors when opening one in Saturn Valley/Monkey Caves/Caves Approaching Saturn Valley. Due to the music using an instrument similar to a Bird Chirping, opening a door emits a high pitch tone that may startle players.

-Some replacement reward for collecting all melodies/sanctuaries. Since it is impossible to get Ness' stat boost, may I recommend an item/event in its place? Not all runs will contain all locations, so for those who do find it should get a little something.

• Support for (slightly) oversize sprites as playable characters. Examples: Guardian Digger, Store Spook, Mad Taxi.

• "Custom" Items, Attacks, Flavor Text. (I'll give more information depending on the response to this master post)

• A reuse for Teleport. It seems that Teleporting has no use in this hack. So I propose a re-purposing of it such as using it to guarantee an escape attempt, or by going to the entrance of a floor that has been cleared. I mean... You sorta can use teleport, but it had some glitchy results for me; dropping me on a half-loaded map.

• Magic Cake lady is an optional path, Similar to using the key on Dungeon Man.

Well... That's about everything. My apologies if this is improper use of this board, but I just can't stress enough how much I adore this randomizer and Earthbound as a whole! I thank you so much for creating it and eagerly await your response to this post!
Thanks again, and have a great day! BOING!

[stochaztic]

Hey there,

Sorry for the delay in replying to this, and thanks for both your interest in the randomizer and the time you spent putting together these suggestions. To give some context, my general philosophy for randomizer development, especially Ancient Cave mode, is to focus first on a playable, enjoyable experience, and second on bringing out the largest number of features from the original game, randomized of course, into the new game experience.

To use an example, the Exit Mouse new AC functionality is basically as far as I am willing to stretch to bring 'new' features to the game. Considerations were: 1) Exit Mouse as exists in AC is 100% unusable, 2) The functionality provides significant gameplay improvements, and 3) The feature has associations with the Mother series, being the same as breadcrumbs from Mother 1. Implementing other 'new' features like an icon for homesickness falls outside of what I consider the scope of the randomizer project. While I am not opposed to very out-there randomizations, like wildly shuffling sprite sizes that causes game breaking effects, I have limited time available and try not to focus on randomizations like that that will never be 'default' and thus will not be seen my the vast majority of users.

To mention a couple of items in particular that have issues: Adding new locations or custom corridors to the map is not feasible given my current hacking technology. Collecting all sanctuaries is not possible since Lumine Hall is not in the cave due to various technical issues with it as well. Also, oversized playable characters would need modification of hitbox data and has a high likelihood of causing softlocks. It'd certainly be neat to have the option, but the time cost of investigating this would be high.

(By the way, of course people's mileage may vary, but most people in the community enjoy the strange sound effects that come from the door sounds being played with unexpected background music. Certainly I've enjoyed hearing some of the more out-there variations you can get with music randomization on.)

Of these ideas, I think the most likely that I would work on next would be a replacement for PSI Teleport in AC mode. As you mention, it is currently very glitchy and essentially unusable. Since EB runners frequently use the feature of Teleporting intentionally into a crash to avoid enemies, I would like to find a way to bring this option back. It will take some thinking to decide what the best option is.

Thanks again for your interest, and I hope I haven't been too much of a damper on your enthusiasm. I really appreciate it.