Topic: Aim Command

[Deathlike2]

This command sets the hit rate to 99%. Since hit rate correlates to damage output, this effectively increases damage UNLESS your hit rate is at or above 99%.

Please note that this command doesn't guarentee a hit early game since there is some correlation with level that increases the chance to hit and do enough damage to not be embarassing.

The attack itself is not considered physical nor magical, although enemies will still counter to HP loss.

In FF4A, Aim increases the damage output by 2x, with normal damage variance.

[Deathlike2]

I could be wrong on Aim doing 2x damage.

My alternative guess is that the "crippling" part of the Bow attack power algo (Bow's Attack Power/2) goes away in FF4A.. which actually makes a lot more sense. I mean, why would you not equip a Bow+Arrow on Rosa?

Edit: Now that I think about it more... I believe Aim is bugged in all of the SNES versions of FF4. Aim is fixed in FF4A, although the back row bug hurts the bow+arrow way too much in the US and Jap 1.0 versions.

A patch is warrented to fix the Aim command.

Second Edit: This command most likely doesn't ignore row...

Normally, the attack power for most characters is like this:

Bow Attack Power/2 + Str/4

Aim is supposed to do this (only correctly in FF4A)

Bow Attack Power + Str/4
Hit Rate = 99%

The attack power change isn't done for the SNES versions of this game (this entire edit is for clarification).

[Deathlike2]

Ok, I did some better, structured testing to test this command.

Apparently, in FF4A, Rosa's Fight command is intentionally crippled when she uses a Bow+Arrow.
You would treat her as if she was blind when she uses the Fight command instead of Aim while equipped with a Bow+Arrow.
Other characters do not have this penalty, just Rosa.

The SNES version of the game does not exhibit this behavior. Natural 99% hit rate implies that Aim will behave the same way.

There is no bonus, and there is no back row penalties involved for using this command.

There are no bugs involved, but perhaps a hack to remove the attack power loss from the Bow when using Aim would be a good idea IMO.

[Phoenix]

The Aim subroutine decreases the target’s physical defense % to 0, increases the user’s physical attack % to 255, then calls the normal Fight subroutine. (A physical attack % value over 99 is probably reduced to 99 within the Fight subroutine.) This means that it always hits, and has the damage bonus that Deathlike2 mentioned. After Aim hits it restores the original physical defense and physical attack percentages.

That's all Aim does (at least within FF2us and FF4j), so any other variations are the result of something else, not Aim.

[Deathlike2]

Well, since enemy evade isn't even a factor normally (since it is totally ignored by a bug or design)... it almost seems irrelevent that enemy evade = 0 under Aim.

The only statuses that Aim would never beat out is Blink (Image), Barrier, and natural enemy invicibility (255 defense).

[Deathlike2]

Important 

I got around to testing my suspicisions about the hit rate thing, and Phoenix's info confirms what I wrote about this earlier..

I said that in FF4A that Bows+Arrows ignore the back row bit.. well, I thought about testing Aim with Blind status.. and I saw Rosa dealing under the expected damage... it seems that the back row penalty and Blind penalty is stacked, so it becomes 255 / 4 = 63%

This doesn't occur in the SNES version.. where the back row bit is adhered to.. so Blind has no impact when Aim is in use.

[Deathlike2]

Aim does allow for status inflictions... if that wasn't obvious already.

[Deathlike2]

Ok, it seems that it can induce critical hits (at least according to FF4A), but there's no visual hint for it... hmmm.

However, I still wonder how critical hits are calculated by Bows+Arrows.. hmmm

[Deathlike2]

On further analysis, I think I know what's happening.

Aim does allow for critical hits... so that's not a big deal.

I found a lot more about bows and arrows though.

It seems that when a critical hit is dealt, the 50% bonus from the weapon's attack power is factored into the equation.
In the case of Edge, it's probably more like the average of his katanas * 50% as the bonus.
In the case of Yang, it's just his natural attack power that's in use * 50% as the bonus.
For a bow and arrow, it seems that this 50% bonus is derived differently.

A regular bow+arrow attack power is defined as this:

Bow's Attack Power/2 + Arrow's Attack Power + Str/4

A critical hit based on this looks more like...

(Bow's Attack Power + Arrow's Attack Power + Str/4) * 3/2 is the attack...

I'm still fuzzy on the math, but it makes a ton of sense to me, since the Angel Arrows + Perseus Bow does more damage than a Perseus Arrow + Elven/Samurai Bow.

 

It's actually starting to look like this for critical hits..

Bow's Attack Power/2 + Arrow's Attack Power + Str/4 + Bow's Attack Power

The critical hit bonus for bows is effectively tripling the impact of the Bow.

Also, critical hits aren't shown for arrows for some reason in FF4A.

[Deathlike2]

Time to shoort corpses!


Apparently the retargeting code forgot about your own dead.

[Deathlike2]

 
Aim doesn't trigger the physical counter in the WSC version (which is exactly like the SNES versions). This was fixed in FF4A.

[Deathlike2]

The "fix" used for FF4A sucks.

When a targeted monster has Blink or Barrier status and has a counter to physical attacks, Aiming at that target will cause the monster to react, despite the fact that it shouldn't because physical attacks vs Blink/Barrier doesn't cause the monster to react in FF4A.

If this were the SNES version, the monster would actually react to physical attacks while under Blink/Barrier status... though, just not Aim.

It's nice how everything is upside down in these ports....

[Deathlike2]

The WSC port confirmed my worst fears about the back row bugs.

Considering that the Bow+Arrow do not work correctly with the back row bit... and the fact that there are still rows in the WSC port,
Aim is crippled to a low 63% accuracy (255 * 1/2 * 1/2 [remember to truncate after each operation]), making it literally possible to miss a back row target with Aim.

[Grimoire LD]

In order to use the Aim command you must have a Bow equipped on one hand and any other item in the other hand. Contrary to what I had thought Aim cannot be used by simply having two items equipped, but requires at least a Bow.