Transparent Magic Evade "Bug"

[dw6561]

Guys, I figured out what was wrong with the transparent status. Or rather what was already there in vanilla. The developers must not have taken into account that innate transparent would be a thing, and it ISN'T in vanilla. All the magic evadable skills have charge times so the status wears off before the spell is cast, and other spells that are magic based like Draw Out are unevadable anyway. They probably figured that it didn't matter since it would effectively only apply to physical attacks.

I pulled out my WoTL iOS (I know, groan all you want to, but it was easiest since I have my master file on there) and had Ramza (with Vanish Mantle) target Agrias (Aegis Shield + Abandon) with a fire spell, and it said 100% to hit. When the spell was cast, she guarded.

I then pulled out my chemist SSCC files on the PSX version and tried using Fire on an archer with an elf mantle. It also said 100%:

spoiler: Screenshots

Also, there is this little gem I pulled from the wiki:

spoiler

Transparent Calculation
001854b8: 3c028019 lui r2,0x8019
001854bc: 8c422d94 lw r2,0x2d94(r2)      Load Attacker's Data Pointer
001854c0: 27bdffe8 addiu r29,r29,0xffe8
001854c4: afbf0010 sw r31,0x0010(r29)
001854c8: 9042005a lbu r2,0x005a(r2)      Load Attacker's 3rd set of statuses
001854cc: 00000000 nop
001854d0: 30420010 andi r2,r2,0x0010
001854d4: 10400005 beq r2,r0,0x001854ec      Branch if Attacker isn't Transparent
001854d8: 00000000 nop
001854dc: 3c048019 lui r4,0x8019
001854e0: 248438de addiu r4,r4,0x38de      Prep Evade Pointer
001854e4: 0c017991 jal 0x0005e644      Data Nulling (evade)
001854e8: 34050004 ori r5,r0,0x0004      r5 = 4 (all 4 evades)
001854ec: 8fbf0010 lw r31,0x0010(r29)
001854f0: 27bd0018 addiu r29,r29,0x0018
001854f4: 03e00008 jr r31
001854f8: 00000000 nop

So it's not a problem with any ASM that was done, it was just remnants from vanilla's coding. Now the remaining issue is: how are we going to balance FFT Arena around this? Or should we just remove innate transparent from the patch all together? Just another thing we can discuss in the 1.4 thread.

[Reks]

Guys, I figured out what was wrong with the transparent status. Or rather what was already there in vanilla. The developers must not have taken into account that innate transparent would be a thing, and it ISN'T in vanilla. All the magic evadable skills have charge times so the status wears off before the spell is cast, and other spells that are magic based like Draw Out are unevadable anyway. They probably figured that it didn't matter since it would effectively only apply to physical attacks.

I pulled out my WoTL iOS (I know, groan all you want to, but it was easiest since I have my master file on there) and had Ramza (with Vanish Mantle) target Agrias (Aegis Shield + Abandon) with a fire spell, and it said 100% to hit. When the spell was cast, she guarded.

I then pulled out my chemist SSCC files on the PSX version and tried using Fire on an archer with an elf mantle. It also said 100%:

spoiler: Screenshots

Also, there is this little gem I pulled from the wiki:

spoiler

Transparent Calculation
001854b8: 3c028019 lui r2,0x8019
001854bc: 8c422d94 lw r2,0x2d94(r2)      Load Attacker's Data Pointer
001854c0: 27bdffe8 addiu r29,r29,0xffe8
001854c4: afbf0010 sw r31,0x0010(r29)
001854c8: 9042005a lbu r2,0x005a(r2)      Load Attacker's 3rd set of statuses
001854cc: 00000000 nop
001854d0: 30420010 andi r2,r2,0x0010
001854d4: 10400005 beq r2,r0,0x001854ec      Branch if Attacker isn't Transparent
001854d8: 00000000 nop
001854dc: 3c048019 lui r4,0x8019
001854e0: 248438de addiu r4,r4,0x38de      Prep Evade Pointer
001854e4: 0c017991 jal 0x0005e644      Data Nulling (evade)
001854e8: 34050004 ori r5,r0,0x0004      r5 = 4 (all 4 evades)
001854ec: 8fbf0010 lw r31,0x0010(r29)
001854f0: 27bd0018 addiu r29,r29,0x0018
001854f4: 03e00008 jr r31
001854f8: 00000000 nop

So it's not a problem with any ASM that was done, it was just remnants from vanilla's coding. Now the remaining issue is: how are we going to balance FFT Arena around this? Or should we just remove innate transparent from the patch all together? Just another thing we can discuss in the 1.4 thread.

Well, if pure effectiveness is all that's needed, it wouldn't be hard to just stick Concentrate on Hidden Knife instead since it serves relatively the same purpose.