[Bug] Boost status explained

If you are stuck in the Dunan Unification Wars; or wish for more details on the gameplay systems, this is the place.
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KFCrispy
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Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:29 pm

[Bug] Boost status explained

Post by KFCrispy »

Buried in the Formulas thread, the coding-running community (namely psychedelist) created a document explaining several things, include the Boost status and how it is clearly bugged. I tested the Boost status a very long time ago with Viktor, and he was doing miniscule damage as a result. Others said it works with certain characters to do more damage, and one person mentioned Luc was doing 800+ damage with it, far more than his usual ATK. The explanation demonstrates there was a serious mistake when coding Boost:
psychedelist wrote:Boost was clearly supposed to double strength, but like some pointed out, it’s glitched. Studying game’s code revealed what’s really going on - it doubles both ATK and MAG, however the doubled values are both written into ATK. MAG update happens to go second, and so the character ends up with ATK that is equal to their MAGx2. Physical fighters’ performance doesn’t improve or becomes worse, whereas “well-rounded” characters can give the impression of the effect working as intended, and Luc can become an absolute physical monster with it. After Boost wears off, character sustains damage equal to (X / 2 - 15) where X is damage they’ve inflicted during Boost. In Unite, only the one character that has the lowest ID counts as inflicting damage. Damage done through countering doesn’t count too. Sacrificial Jizo won’t revive if the damage is fatal.
So it seems the original intention was to double the character's STR and MAG stats, but the mistake leads to changing the character's STR into MAG*2 instead. But what's interesting is that it was supposed to double MAG, resulting in stronger magic spells as well. It's would not have been a game-breaking mechanic by any means, as it does not double total magic damage but just the MAG stat that adds a flat amount of damage to a spell. So let's say the caster's MAG is 150, then you get 300 and just do an extra 150 points of damage for each spell. For a low-level spell, this could be really significant, and for a high level spell doing over 1000 dmg, it won't even be noticeable.

I am wondering if the Boost status doubles MAG in Suikoden III and V, though. I seem to recall trying to test if Boost's did increase magic damage in Suikoden V, but I wrote it off as not having an effect, but we should take a look again to see if there's that small difference in spell damage coming from Boost in both III and V...
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