Seeking clarification on some ASMhacks (Mostly AFAE)

[Kiresaur]

Heyo.

(If someone could point me to an article that already explains all ASM hacks available at the fftorgasm or something like that, maybe that's easier, and sorry for bothering)

I'm finally starting to get into modding, starting a project of my own, and I haven't toyed around much yet, so there are a few things I don't understand the use of yet.

To keep things short, I'd appreciate anyone who could explain to me why these ASM exist and precisely what they do:

-"Formula 8 inflicts 100% Status": From what I see, Formula 08 is the basic formula for spells. If I do understand this, it is removing the most basic formula for spell damage in the game and replacing it with a formula that does nothing but a 100% rate of success on inflicting statues, even tho, if I'm not mistaken, the regular formula that applies effects (0A Hit_F(MA+X)%) Can easily be manipulated to already have a 100% hit rate. Why is this formula overwrite, apparently, commonly used?

-"Formula 44: Use HP instead of MP": This changes the formula of the Difference/Manaburn ability from Byblos (dmg_(TarCurMP)). Would this make this attack simply deal damage equal to the taget HP, thus making it virtually a OneHitKO?

-Actually, in regards to these formula altering ASMs: Aren't there a LOT of blank formulas? Why overwrite existing ones instead of placing the new one at one of these blank formulas? I intend to get into ASMhacking eventually, so I'd like to know if there is a reason not to use these blank formulas.

-"Target's Faith in Spell Damage Calculations become XX%": Does this, essentially, for purposes of calculations, force every unit to have XX faith?

-"Death Sentence - Ignore Cancel:Dead": Doesn't it already?

-"Inherent RSM Limitation Hack": Lacks any real description, but sounds promising.

-"Sprite Hack" and the two below: What. I have no idea what this does, but it sounds useful.

-"X% Chance of Procs": Which procs?

-There are a few hacks that deal with "Strengthen". What is the difference between "Strengthen" and "Weak"? I always figured that if someone received extra damage from an element, they were "Weak" to that, and it still feels like it (Since at the Elemental Fix ASM, weak receives 190+% damage.) But strengthen does actually increase the damage you suffer from something, but just slightly, is that it?? I had never noticed that units were "slightly weaker" and "a lot weaker" to elements.

-And finally, what is up with all these different hacks regarding Element? "Swordskill Element strengthen and dark sword elemental", the Damage/Healing formulas apply decimal requiring <snip> To my understanding, "applying elemental" would make it so that units with weaknesses/resistances receive different damage from elemental attacks, but... that is already built in the game, is it not? Isn't every attack ALREADY elemental? What does this precisely do?


I think these are the ones that confuse me. I'm sorry if this is too troublesome. I have learned through experience that these are the kinds of question that the sooner I get an answer to, the better for my own pace of learning.
Thanks for any help <3

[RavenCurow]

Formula 8 inflicts 100% status: I don't believe this gets rid of the formula but lets any status change you add to it always hit. So basically it goes from Dmg_F(MA *Y) ME to Dmg_F(MA*Y) add status 100%.

Formula 44 change is pretty much as you say. Likely someone used it for their own hack. Not all of these hacks will have practical use for you.

Regarding the blank slots it is much more time consuming and difficult to add a completely new formula to a slot than to slightly alter an existing one to fit what you need.

Faith XX% - This makes the faith calculation into a percentage instead of  [ your faith/100 x enemy's faith/100 ] so the magic formula for instance becomes DMG_XX%(MA*Y) instead of DMG_ [ your faith/100 x enemy's faith/100 ](MA*Y).

Death sentence ignores cancel dead- I'm not sure on this one.

RSM limitation hack and sprite hack - I don't know what these do either. Again a bunch of hacks were thrown together here that people originally made specifically fod their own work so no description was needed.

Strengthen vs Weak - Strengthen means that if an item or ability strengthens an element then that element will do more dmg when used regardless of the enemy being weak or not. It will always do more smg than normal.

An enemy that is weak to an element takes more dmg from that element. Now now if an enemy is weakbto an element and an opponent has strengthen for that element then those modifiers will stack doing extreme dmg.

Sword skill hacks - These are here because sword skills have the weapon strike flag ticked. That flag is inherently bugged and overrides the element on the ability. Holy sword skills are supposed to do holy dmg, but if you are using flametongue they will be fire instead. These fixes change it to take both elements into account. The reason there are so many is because a lot of people have made this hack.

Hope I cleared some things up for you.

[3lric]

Sprite hack is for event related stuff, allowing non generics to have multiple displayable palettes.

[Kiresaur]

Oh, yeah, a LOT more makes sense now. Specially the information about being easier to alter a formula than to start from blank.
Yeah, i was hoping formula 08 would change like that.
It makes sense that a lot of these ASM were project-specific and where just thrown in there. Might prove useful even so.
And, yeah, now that you mention it, I actually remember the items that strengthen elements. I think... I actually never used them, aside from the rods at the beginning, so I never quiiiite registred that mechanic in my mind.

And, the thing about swordskills makes a lot of sense. So, the AFAE works in such a way that it forces the system to take elements into consideration with every attack, thus overwriting the mentioned bug that would ignore one of the elements?

But yeah, these help a lot, guys. Thanks for the help!

[3lric]

This can help too. I helped Xif reorganize this thread (or rather the OP of it) a few years ago to make it much easier to understand what her hacks do.

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=953.0

[Kiresaur]

Oh, very helpful! I'm saving that thread. Thanks a lot!

[Glain]

Some of the confusion might be caused by having old versions of some hacks.  The newer versions should be included in the latest version of the FFTPatcher suite here.

For some more detail about some of my hacks, there is also the thread here.

On the All Formulas Apply Elemental hack: By default, there a lot of ability formulas that either don't check element or only look at the weapon element when they should take the ability's element into account, with the Holy Sword and Dark Sword skill sets being obvious examples, but there are many others (it's not the Weapon Strike flag, it's the formula code itself). This hack disables the normal element checks and then forces element to be taken into account by every ability after the ability's formula code has already run.

The way I originally designed the damage and healing multiplier hacks, they were dependent on the All Formulas Apply Elemental hack (using the same strategy of applying after the formula code was already run), but I didn't like having that kind of dependency, so I just absorbed these as an optional component into the All Formulas Apply Elemental hack.

Regarding the hack to make formula 44 use HP instead of MP, it was just a simple example of an ASM hack I used in this thread.

For X% chance of procs, a lot of abilities that can proc statuses (like Geomancy or Holy Sword abilities, for example) by default use the same chance to proc: 19%.

[Kiresaur]

Thanks for the reminder, I figured I had the newest one downloaded but I think the last time I downloaded it was... Idk, two years ago. Yeah, the one I had was outdated, and the new one is a lot better. Thank you!

I'm saving that thread as well for reading as I learn more.

Yeah, I'm getting the elemental stuff, and that is very useful. I intend on using a lot of it.

I'm guessing a good portion of these might be just examples or project-specific ones, but I might still find use for them.

The procs % is very useful, i plan to make my project very centered around status effects.

Thank you for the help!