I might have mis-spoke/mis-remembered then: it could be that you ARE allowed to remove the clips after 3, it just ceases to do anything, by design. I know it was my intent in the general narrative that after a certain point the clips aren't needed. The jacket is definitely a bug though, will take a look hopefully later today.
yes, that's what the issue was, I removed the clip after the second defeat, and the option to remove the jacket was not available yet, the boars were still able to use the mind control, I did notice mezz was doing a lot less damage in every attack, and the status were lowered in the menu, I can guess that's a different character in the script because of how RPGMaker works
and that made me think some flags were set incorrectly, maybe the masher boar is set to fight the second version of Mezz, or the second version of Mezz is set to always be zapped by a masher boar in the second area even without the clips
I can try to reproduce the issue tonight, but I know I was fighting the boars with the X on the baseball bats when this occurred
So, did some basic testing in the first area to refresh myself and make sure the basics were working right:
No defeats:
-Can unequip clips
-Can't unequip jacket
1 and 2 defeats: same
3 defeats:
-Can unequip jacket
-Can unequip clips, but it doesn't matter, they show up anyway when a fight starts. Canonically this is because Mezz is putting them on again without realizing it. Mezz is also much more vulnerable to hypno attacks at this point, and his own attacks are weaker.
So of all the stuff you described in your initial post, the only thing that isn't as it should be is the jacket: after 3 defeats, you should always be able to toggle that. What happens when you try to remove the jacket? Does he give the normal quip about not being that confident, or do you just get nothing after you drop out of the menu? I've tried a few different combos in terms of equip/unequip order without any luck, let me know if there's a particular one you're doing that's causing the jacket issue reliably.
Also, doesn't really matter for the bug, but since you were curious: I'm not swapping out characters, just modding stats via states. Things are a lot easier to keep track of that way. All the changed graphics are state-dependent.
yeah, I don't know what I did to cause this bug, but I tried to unequip the clips after the second, and Mezz said that about not being that confident, but the roars still were still able to mind control him
also, I only remembered now, when this bug happened, a 4th skill was in the menu, sometimes was struggle, sometimes was submit, and sometimes was persuade, I'm pretty sure it was the last skill used during a sex scene
sorry, I was not able to try to reproduce the issue yet, I'm starting a new playthrough to try to reach it
Hmm. Yeah if there are extra skills that means a battle didn't clean up after itself like it was supposed to. I have cleanup scripts after fights end specifically to make sure that doesn't happen, but it looks like something wasn't working there. Good to know the normal situation seems to be working as intended, but let me know if you can track down that battle glitch, that may be the real issue. Unfortunately they can be hard to get as it's a very specific set of circumstances that lead to them, which is why I haven't managed to catch them all in the first place.