Some of the things you’re listing were issues before, and it seemed like they were gone. Guess I’ll have to check those again (for the billionth time ;_;), among the other things listed. That said, here is what I can manage to answer now.
BUG? Opening a chest as the Encounter Timer hits 0 stops encounter?
Opening a chest should, in fact, perform an encounter cancel. The same is true for swapping maps, or triggering story events. Or, at least, this is the theory! I don’t know about performing an encounter cancel when the timer is at exactly 0, regardless of how the cancel is triggered. My gut tells me that it might be possible to still be able to cancel when it displays “0”, but, the window of opportunity to do so is slim?
And everyone leveling up on its only text box is taking a while.
You can fast-forwarding any in-game text message text by holding CTRL and/or ALT. This method is true across any MZ game I’ve made, more or less. Knowing this should alleviate this issue somewhat for future plays. An alternate solution would be to remove level-up messages entirely, but, I don’t exactly feel good about that alternative?
Question: Why is Optimize favoring Sue to have the Vile Rune over the more comprehensive Devil Rune?
Basically, the “Optimize” function only compares statistical differences, and doesn’t look at other traits. With weapons, the stat is attack/strength. For any other equipment, it’s defense/endurance. It would not consider skills, skill categories, or other similar traits that a piece of equipment could have. For an in-game example, it would probably favor the Warrior Rune as a Passive Rune every single time, simply because it grants a bonus to defense. If there is no difference found, then the optimization method might choose the equipment with lesser ID, as that would technically have been the initial point of comparison? Something along those lines!
I think this was an issue I addressed in Nakaishi Wars in regards to the “Programs” equipment slot. I don’t quite recall exactly how I addressed this issue in Nakaishi Wars as of this writing, but, I seem to recall something about using the equipment’s ID in the database to be the most relevant factor in deciding what program to equip? This tactic might be something to look into for this game, as Runes that have upgraded versions increase with their ID as more/better skills are available. However, it might also behoove me to remove the Rune slots from the optimize method entirely. Either of these options would mean making exceptions in the code, and I’ve doubts one method would be strictly “easier” to do than the other.