Having the option to use Vigor in some spells

I'm still a novice to assembly and haven't done a lot of debugging (except for my own code) so I'm not particularly familiar with common bug-causing scenarios.

I don't code enough to be called an expert. At best I'm pre-intermediate level (so you should consider yourself I think). I still forget a lot of flag setting / clearing by a lot of opcodes, there's still opcode I have no idea what they do and when debugging I still have bugs such as a 8-bit LDA instruction expected but the accumulator is 16-bit.

I don't code enough to be called an expert. At best I'm pre-intermediate level (so you should consider yourself I think). I still forget a lot of flag setting / clearing by a lot of opcodes, there's still opcode I have no idea what they do and when debugging I still have bugs such as a 8-bit LDA instruction expected but the accumulator is 16-bit.

I don't code at all except in 65x assembly.
I've been meaning to learn something like python or C but it feels pretty overwhelming. With 65x it was just kind of a natural progression of my desire to mod FFVI. 

I look up instructions and flags all the time. I always keep a 65816 reference open in a tab when I code. Before I learnt to use xkas I would write code and then look up opcodes and enter them into Windhex by hand!  Many of the source files for my patches are still in the same format as the disassemblies because of this.

I just finished a project where mismatching m and x flags inbetween calls, along with stack mismatches, were the bane of my existence. It was frustrating but a good learning experience.

I look up instructions and flags all the time. I always keep a 65816 reference open in a tab when I code. Before I learnt to use xkas I would write code and then look up opcodes and enter them into Windhex by hand!  Many of the source files for my patches are still in the same format as the disassemblies because of this.

This is still how I code.

This is still how I code.

Time to join the 20th century, friend! But I understand, I still like doing small things by hand in Windhex and had some resistance towards moving to using an assembler. But xkas is so much more convenient and there's less room for mistakes. I don't miss updating branches by hand at all.

I know, I really should just learn it. I will get around to it, I'm sure..... maybe soon-ish.

I've been testing more and more the tweak, and while I am certainly satisfied, I would like to request something.

Battle power of the weapons have to be adjusted really low to not pulverize the early game. For example, I have the Mytrhil Sword have 6 battle power (instead of the original 38) to deal around 40 damage with a character with average vigor.

While no big deal, this makes the battle power seem really low compared to most stats, specially the neighboring defense stat (that at early levels goes to 100). I also feel that, by lowering the damage a weapon gives, it would make vigor even stand out more...I think.

Would having the damage formula something like
Battle Power * 2 + (Level * Vigor * Battle Power) / 32 do something resemble what I'm describing, or am I pipe dreaming?

If you can't do anything, no big deal. I'll just stick with my current formula, as it is working quite great, if I say so myself.

Thanks

I've been testing more and more the tweak, and while I am certainly satisfied, I would like to request something.

Battle power of the weapons have to be adjusted really low to not pulverize the early game. For example, I have the Mytrhil Sword have 6 battle power (instead of the original 38) to deal around 40 damage with a character with average vigor.

While no big deal, this makes the battle power seem really low compared to most stats, specially the neighboring defense stat (that at early levels goes to 100). I also feel that, by lowering the damage a weapon gives, it would make vigor even stand out more...I think.

Would having the damage formula something like
Battle Power * 2 + (Level * Vigor * Battle Power) / 32 do something resemble what I'm describing, or am I pipe dreaming?

If you can't do anything, no big deal. I'll just stick with my current formula, as it is working quite great, if I say so myself.

Thanks

Well, I would start by lowering starting Vigor for characters along with increasing physical defense on enemies; this would allow you to increase Battle Power on weapons a bit. 

Enemies in vanilla generally have more magical defense than physical, probably because magic is quite powerful. It's something like 100Def/150Mdef. With the physical side matching the magic side, it makes sense to adjust enemies' Def to match their Mdef.

Your request would have a very small effect on damage, but it is very easy to fulfill. Note that it affects magic, too.

Add in these lines to the .asm file and reapply it. 

Code:

org $C22B78
NOP

With your Mythril Knife example, this would reduce damage by a grand total of 12.

Glad to hear you're making good use of this tweak. I'll be interested to see how things develop and how you balance this thing. I tried a quick and dirty method of scaling Battle Power down to max out at 99, and applied it to everything except enemies. I'm still dealing insane damage with, for example, Suplex. I really think increasing enemy defense (and removing Ignore Defense from most things) would help balance things out.

Gee, how did I not think of increasing enemy defense? Lel. I guess I was afraid I might not get my stone wall enemies not be that impressive, but yeah.

Also, though I wasn't being clear, I actually wanted confirmation wether my formula would make battle power slighty less powerful and allow higher numbers/variety. I've been trying to make calcs and I can never seem to have a formula where Double Vigor equals at least more than double Battle Power.

But...I guess it makes sense? ...no, you can rather easily get a new weapon with double your battle power you had before while it would take like 16 levels to do the same with 36 stamina and a x2 boost...

Oh this is so confusing...I think I should just give up and actually continue with the hack instead of fighthing with this thing...

confirmation wether my formula would make battle power slighty less powerful and allow higher numbers/variety. I've been trying to make calcs and I can never seem to have a formula where Double Vigor equals at least more than double Battle Power.

Battle Power and Vigor factor equally in damage.  Doubling either would double damage. Earlier on, damage should be doubling at pretty even intervals, so you can upgrade weapons more generously. But that kind of  damage inflation obviously can't go on for long, so you need to taper off the increases in Battle Power you get from weapons. Being able to boost Vigor should make up for it late game.

With that said, regarding your concern about displayed numbers, I'll agree that it looks pretty unimpressive in the beginning. All the more rewarding when you get weapons that finally let you break the triple digits.

It's pretty simple to make the formula Battle Power * 2 + (Level * Vigor * [Battle Power / 2]) or even Battle Power + (Level * Vigor * [Battle Power / 4]) if you want. Though the latter would have real Battle Power cap out at 63, and you might not want that.


The first option is pretty good though. It'll let you have some bigger variety of numbers on your weapons. 
EDIT: although it's a reduction in power to any spell with Spell Power > 127 (Ultima, a few others), since you would have to double the spell power of all spells to compensate, and you can't double Ultima's 150 power because it only goes as high as 255.
EDIT2: Disregard that, the halving would apply to Battle Power only (not spell power).