To ASM hackers: How does FFT determine whether...

[Vanya]

...an ability is a physical or magical one?

[Xifanie]

No idea. It might be a table saying physical/magical/neutral or the formulas just directly to the corresponding routines and get affected (evasion, defense up/mdef up)

[formerdeathcorps]

The formula notes I revised from SA should answer this.  http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6538.0.

1) The first check on anything offensive is an evasion routine.  Sometimes it's P-EV.  Other times, it's M-EV.  Healing routines do not use this.
2) Right before final damage is calculated for attacks, or before faith is multiplied for (MA + X)*Faith% status effects, you have a routine which contains around 10 subroutines.  This calculates magical or physical XA and takes into account zodiacs, protect/shell, Attack/MAATK UP, Defense/MADEF UP, and elemental.  Usually, very few formulas need all of the above, so most formulas that use only a subset of the subroutines write out which subroutines they use in the formula space itself, or branch to alternate routines, which take up even more space.
3) For two hands, archery charge, and martial arts, which boosts WP, that's done in the final physical damage calculation before status effects are considered.

[Vanya]

So, if I understood those notes correctly, it's determined entirely by the formulas, right?
If so, then these disassemblies should definitively show which formulas count as what.

[pokeytax]

If so, then these disassemblies should definitively show which formulas count as what.

Well, yes... what he's getting at is that there's no such thing as "magical" or "physical", just formulas that happen to use all physical attributes or all magical. Theoretically, you could have an attack based on MA subject to P-EV that is affected by Shell and Magic Defend UP and Martial Arts.

[Vanya]

True, but what I'm getting at is the point at which a formula is effectively treated as one or the other. That point seems to be at the selection of a damage calculation subroutine.This method bypasses non-offensive skills that don't interact with physical/magical attack/defend up abilities. Some other games have a flag that marks a skill as a type regardless of being offensive or defensive, but obviously that is not the case here.