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EXP Formula Issues


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Chatlog dump. The EXP formulas can be found here.

Basically, we started looking into what causes the game to be wonky with EXP gain, which forces hacks to have things like....level 1 enemies in Ch10 (I'm looking at you, Dream of Five).

[9:21:43 AM]Jakers: This is....strange

[9:22:07 AM] Jakers: I'll try making the enemy something not of the same class

[9:22:32 AM] Yetiman: try wizard too

[9:23:05 AM] Jakers: 30

[9:23:06 AM] Yetiman: http://puu.sh/1A8Ap

> IS FE

[9:23:21 AM] Jakers: 10 for damaging, 30 for a kill

[9:23:26 AM] Jakers: This could be >Lyn Mode

[9:23:39 AM] Yetiman: I"m in ELiwood normal I think

[9:24:02 AM] Jakers: EN is in Eli Norm too

[9:24:08 AM] Jakers: As is Do5

[9:25:56 AM] Jakers: THEEEERE WE GOOOOOO

[9:26:16 AM] Jakers: Level 7 Hero Eliwood kills a Level 7 Druid

[9:26:18 AM] Jakers: 71 EXP

[9:26:31 AM] Jakers: Would the mode coefficient be what's fucking everything up?

[9:27:08 AM] Jakers: 71 EXP for killing a Hero of the same level too

[9:27:50 AM] Jakers: For Eliwood Normal mode, Hector Normal mode and the Link Arena, if Experience from defeating (base) is calculated as 0 or negative, this value becomes 2 instead. For all other cases it remains 1.

[9:27:51 AM] Yetiman: 65 for pent killing lvl 3 general, 10 for attacking, 72 for a lvl 8 sage, 10 for attack

[9:28:14 AM] Jakers: BUt this is just a divisor, it shouldn't be mucking up shit

[9:28:34 AM] Yetiman: no it's dividing the number that should be subtracted by 2 instead of 1

[9:28:42 AM] Yetiman: I see why it's causing a problem now

[9:28:47 AM] Jakers: >math

[9:28:50 AM] Jakers: >my brain

[9:29:24 AM] Yetiman: for a t2 unit that's dividing the (60 + level) of the promoted unit by 2, so you get ~30 more exp

[9:29:26 AM] Yetiman: wait

[9:29:52 AM] Yetiman: ARE YOU

[9:29:52 AM] Yetiman: THAT

[9:29:56 AM] Yetiman: sagfafsafg

[9:30:04 AM] Yetiman: lvl 8 pent kills lvl 8 sage, 72 exp

[9:30:16 AM] Yetiman: lvl 9 pent kills lvl 8 sage, 71 exp

[9:30:26 AM] Yetiman: lvl 7 pent kills lvl 8 sage, /33 exp/

[9:30:38 AM] Jakers: There's obviously some difference between Eliwood mode that's ruining the EXP formula

[9:30:51 AM] Jakers: We just need to get the game to do what Lyn's mode was just doing

[9:30:59 AM] Tiamo: haha

[9:31:00 AM] Yetiman: FE7 normal mode /explicitly makes it easier to play using units that are higher level than the enemy/

[9:31:12 AM] Tiamo: |D

[9:31:14 AM] Jakers: XDDDDDD

[9:31:25 AM] Tiamo: wait a sec

[9:31:27 AM] Tiamo: that

[9:31:30 AM] Tiamo: doesn't work for dof?

[9:31:35 AM] Yetiman: /explains everything/

[9:31:37 AM] Tiamo: because we are really

[9:31:39 AM] Yetiman: no it happens in do5 too

[9:31:42 AM] Tiamo: fucking over their level?

[9:31:44 AM | Edited 9:31:46 AM] Tiamo: oh?

[9:31:52 AM] Yetiman: eliwood normal node

[9:31:52 AM] Jakers: That's why you have to have Level 1 enemies, Dan

[9:31:58 AM] Jakers: Because Eliwood Normal mode is fucking everything up

[9:32:04 AM] Yetiman: if you made them higher level than the players

[9:32:10 AM] Yetiman: THey would probably get less exp than if they're lvl1

[9:32:15 AM] Tiamo: ...

[9:32:18 AM] Tiamo: that's

[9:32:20 AM] Tiamo: i can't

[9:32:24 AM] Yetiman: yeah

[9:32:27 AM] Jakers: INtelligent Systems

[9:32:29 AM] Jakers: You win again

[9:32:31 AM] Yetiman: no it makes sense

[9:32:39 AM] Yetiman: because FE7 is the intro to the series

[9:32:42 AM] Yetiman: THey made it easy to jagen rush

[9:32:48 AM] Yetiman: BUt no one ever noticed

[9:32:52 AM] Jakers: lol

[9:33:04 AM] Yetiman: or no one making hacks ever noticed and no one who knew told the hackers

[9:33:20 AM] Jakers: I'm just going with nobody ever noticed

[9:33:25 AM] Jakers: Except maybe Vincent

[9:33:36 AM] Yetiman: so yes actually your exp formula is broken someone ASM it

[9:33:43 AM] Yetiman: or just make the mode coefficient always 1

[9:33:53 AM] Jakers: That'll fix this?

[9:34:02 AM] Yetiman: yes

[9:34:28 AM] Yetiman: also notably, FE6 does not have this and FE8 does

[9:34:44 AM] Yetiman: so it's something they added in 7 to make it easier to get started for the first time in normal mode

[9:35:31 AM] Yetiman: someone feel free to make a post about this I guess for people who didn't know (everyone)

[9:35:47 AM] Yetiman: inb4 people come in with WELL I ALWAYS KNEW THAT WHY DIDN'T YOU

[9:35:51 AM] Tiamo: inb4 blazer says he knew it

Conclusions?

  • I'm terrible at understanding algebra.
  • FE7's EXP formula makes it so that having higher leveled units killing lower leveled enemies yields more experience than having lower leveled units kill higher leveled enemies. Easy mode for Americans. Rewards grinding and promotes insane EXP growth for players. Also destroys sensible level progression.
  • Lyn's Mode handles EXP normally, where killing an enemy of the same level yields 30 EXP.
  • According to Yetiman, we need to change that coefficient in the "experience from defeating" formula to a constant of 1.
  • This whacky EXP gain only happens in Eliwood/Hector normal modes. Hard mode, as well as Lyn's mode, handles EXP gain normally. The mode coefficient is only variable in Eli/Hector normal.

Someone should do an ASM hack/fix this formula so we can all have sensible level progression.

Edited by Arch
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But if we fixed this, your bloat would be fixed anyways since if you had enemies at the level of your party (which you likely won't), max EXP gain would be 30EXP instead of this bullshit 72EXP per kill.

Edited by Arch
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http://serenesforest.net/fe7/calc.html

stuff is already documented on the calculations page; not sure why it hasn't been investigated earlier.

I linked to that exact same page in the opening post...

I dunno, just never personally got around to caring until today.

Edited by Arch
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I didn't know that either though certain peculiar things did bother me most of the enemies in my primary hack tend to be higher leveled than the player and I try to balance the game's experience etc. such that your guys don't get too strong nor do the enemies get promoted etc. really quickly... though doing said balance was a pain and this would've been nice to know

and like Arch I never really cared/noticed enough/thought about it enough to ever look it up lol

tl;dr this

I dunno, just never personally got around to caring until today.

and about this XD

inb4 blazer says he knew it

nice try but I'd have put it in the obscure hacking tips thread if I knew it... XP

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BTW is there doc on like where the ASM routines are for this? Or do we have to keep re-finding these things every time :/

We should probably create something like that, yeah. A collaborative hacking doc would be an incredible resource, if we were able to get people to actually contribute to it. Hextator wanted a "hacking wiki" of sorts, but it never really took off.

Though I was also kind of told not to look into it lol

Huh? Go look into it, bruh. There's nothing stopping you :P:.

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I'm starting to envision a way to document this stuff in an organized way... a tree view of a ROM map, with links to discussion of individual parts. PM/Skype to discuss? I was thinking of setting up a mini web server locally to test it... is it possible to run a functioning web site (like, static page content from the server, but with Javascript), like, out of Dropbox or something? Because that would be all kinds of awesomesauce for this. Otherwise, maybe we can talk to Norodo or something?

Actually doing a real web server thing might be better since then we could, like, wiki-fy stuff :/

Edited by zahlman
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  • 8 months later...

ALMOST A WHOLE YEAR LATER

i haven't tested it (yet) because i'm ultra-lazy but i think i may have the solution

[5:28:15 PM] Cam: 29e98

[5:28:24 PM] Cam: should see 0c d0

[5:28:32 PM] Cam: change that to 00 00

[5:28:34 PM] Cam: and that should fix it

assuming i'm good at following algorithms in my head (which i'm probably not), this should remove the "mode coefficient" from the calcs page

the doc, for those curious

EDIT

ok definitely fixed it

Edited by CT075
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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not entirely sure this fix works. I just had a level 4 unpromoted unit kill a level 4 unpromoted enemy and he got 20 EXP for it. Shouldn't he be getting 30 EXP?

edit: maybe my EXP formula is just glitched, since I undid the change and he got 26 EXP...

edit 2: yeah, it looks like I derped my EXP formula somewhere. It seems that my ROM is adding 10 instead of 20 for defeating enemy calculations, and, well, I have no idea why.

edit 3: turns out it was only one class that was buggy, and that was pirate. anyway, I fixed it by changing its class relative power to 0x04, but god, I cannot figure out why I was ever getting the issue in the first place. #romhacking

Edited by Agro
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