I actually a math exams today about math in computing.
It's basic stuff like arythmetic operations between bases, but from someone who had to copy paste way too much time hexa value in a calculator, learning how to do them WITHOUT a calculator helps.
FYI, if you want to glitch hunt TTYD, you'll know what I mean because you have to use cheat engine with an emulator to modify values. Problem: cheat engine recognise the system hax addresses, not the emulated system.
Fun fact: the GC memory of a game starts at 0x80000000
This actual emulated address is not the same in your system because it's emulated somewhere. There's a pointer on the system address used by the emulator so, you can know what address it is every time you boot the emulator.
Now, If I want the GC address of a value being 0x8000005E, you would have to think it is the pointer to the system address of the GC game start + the difference between the system address of the desired value and the system address pointed by the pointer where the former was known.
For this case, it's simple it's the value of the pointer + 5E.
But usually, I found for TTYD address that was like a bunch of mess that are not easy to compute without having basis notions.
So, in this case since i recently resumed my test (more that I will because I still need to setup my stuff), it is very usefull to know how to make a substraction in hexa.
I even some time need to convert to decimal. For hacking an item, you need to manually edit in the memory the 2 bytes telling the ID of the item. I already documented the list and it's known on internet, but cheat engine only wants a decimal number for changing 1 byte at a time and it's the best way to edit it. so, you enter from 0 to 255 while I have the ID in hexa.
it turns out that I said 2 bytes, but the first is 0 or 1. Simple. The second one though can go to 255 of FF. So, it's simple to convert them, but it's way better to practice the way of doing it so that it''s going to make my life easier.
Btw, those were not exagerations. They are true and real cases I lived and I will live for glitch hunting. You have to go by a ram watch/editor or your testing possibilities are very limited. It's almost mandatory for a TAS to have such a tool.
I think the best way to know how to glitch is to know how to NOT glitch and that is way harder than it sounds.