Patch: Informative Miss

Huh... I encountered the same bug but thought it was an oops with my monster scripting.
I ended up deleting all the 'when attacked' counters and replacing them with 'when attacked by Fight or Fight'. Doesn't work quite as well, but it's a good stop-gap compromise for the benefits Informative Miss provides.

I somehow missed this patch before. It looks really awesome! It always bothered me that you aren't sure whether or not your spell simply missed or if the monster is immune to it. I would use it with my hack, but I have concerns about the incompatibility with the Vanish/Doom bugfix and the loss of the "when attacked" monster script command. I use this command dozens of times in my hack, especially when the characters are at high levels - so the loss of this command is a deal breaker for me. Maybe one day we will get an update in which the monster counter attacks aren't crippled?

The MissType routine overwrites the X register, which causes counter attack scripts to fail. You can fix it by adding PHX and PLX like so:

Code:

MissType:
 PHX
 CLC               ; default to no "miss" text
 LDX #$04          ; point to "fail" bytes first
.loop
 BIT !msgs,X       ; is this miss message flagged
 BNE .done         ; exit with X offset if so
 DEX #2            ; point to next lowest message
 BNE .loop
.done
 TRB !miss         ; test and reset miss flag
 BNE .set_msg      ; if set, convert X to message value
 DEX               ; else check if "null" or "fail" was set
 BMI .exit         ; if not, exit
 TSB !miss         ; else, show fail/null on next loop
.exit
 PLX
 RTS
.set_msg
 TRB !fail         ; clear "fail" bit
 TRB !null         ; clear "null" bit
 SEC               ; indicate "miss" text
 TXA               ; get message flag in A
 XBA               ; move to hi byte
 PLX
 RTS

Did anyone ever get the ASM patch included with this to work? I tried xkas and asar - but to no avail. I get an "invalid opcode or command" on lines 331 and 364 when trying to compile with xkas on a non-headered FF3 v1.1 ROM. The ips patch works just fine, but I need to get the asm version working with the fix by abyssonym.

Edit: I think I got it working using Xkas 0.06.1 that I found here:
https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=section&a=details&id=4615

I'm testing now, although I'm worried this is not compatible with the vanish/doom patch based on kjinn22's comment.

Edit #2: Confirmed this does indeed conflict with the vanish/doom patch. That's a big deal breaker for me. Any chance someone knows how to fix this conflict? The conflicting addresses are at 22452-22456 (Headered ROM). I've been wanting to use this patch with ASC for over a year now, so it's a real shame!

Try changing this:

Code:

org $C22252 : JSR DeathNull  : NOP #2 ; Hit determination

To this:

Code:

org $C2221C : JSR DeathNull  : NOP #2 ; Hit determination

Try changing this:

Code:

org $C22252 : JSR DeathNull  : NOP #2 ; Hit determination

To this:

Code:

org $C2221C : JSR DeathNull  : NOP #2 ; Hit determination

That does in fact revert the code back to the way it was with the Vanish/Doom patch. I'm guessing the Informative Miss hack merely reverts changes made by the Vanish/Doom patch? In that case, I also take it the Vanish/Doom patch could have been applied after the Informative Miss patch with no side effects. Either way, it's good to have a fixed ASM so it will work both ways!

Edit: Actually, nevermind. It looks like the new position for the code also shares code changes made by Vanish/Doom at 22419-22420. I'm guessing this was intentional? So far Vanish/Doom appears to be fixed still, and I've seen no issues in-game.

Been using this patch with my hack for a little while now. It's definitely VERY handy! There is one thing that bugs me, though. Every time you attack with a weapon that can cause instant death such as Scimitar, the game will show "Null" if the monster is immune to fatal. The problem with this is the "Null" also covers up the damage dealt by the weapon. I think the informative status should only apply to spell casting and not to weapon special effects, but I'm not sure if this is possible.