[RM2K3] STAT DEBUFF FORMULAS

So I'm playing around with skills, trying to figure out why a stat debuff isn't working as well as I'd want it to. Basically each of the stat debuffs are using the basic checkbox of "Attack," "Defense," and such on the Skill tab instead of using conditions (because I'd want more than half, plus I wouldn't want the condition to show up when the player targets the enemy). To check to see how much the skill was debuffing, I tied a variable to an enemy's defense, checked the variable at the start of the battle, and then after debuffing.

No matter what "Effect Rating" I put towards the skill, no matter what the Variance, Attack Influence, or Magic Influence was, the stat would ALWAYS be half (from 32 to 16 in this case). I'm just immensely curious whether the reason it's doing that is because the game won't LET it go beyond half or there's something else at play here, like if there's some specific formula towards the effectiveness of the skill, or if Effect Rating has a different function when you're not damaging HP or MP. The only other thing I could think it would be is that the skill is using the Magic damage formula so even if the Magic Influence is 0, the Intelligence of the user and the Intelligence of the target are still in play and are making it so the numbers don't change.

I just want to make it so debuffs are actually WORTH something, 'cause right now it's just giving maybe 5-6 more points of damage at this early stage of the game, and to me, that's not a substantial debuff.

(also when'd we get TWO captchas sheesh)

EDIT: Just did some quick mathing. I'm even more confused now because if it's using the magic damage formula, the end result is either 1 or 2 (I forget if 2k3 rounds up or down). Maybe it being an end result of 2 is what's doing it? Though I doubt it's dividing by 2 to get the debuff amount. I'd put the target's Intelligence at 1, but it's also a spellcaster, so that would make that null and void... This is twisting my noodle so bad.

EDIT2: So just for kicks, I bumped levels up to max to see if it was any better. Even at Level 99, it only drops an enemy's defense by half at max, which translated into 30 more points of damage between having the debuff and not having the debuff, which is again completely not worth it. Gotta be some way to make stat debuffs at least decent...