Let's Design #3: Elements

[Mogri]

I have a love/hate relationship with elements. On the one hand, I love them from an aesthetic standpoint. They're evocative and exciting! On the other hand, I hate them from a gameplay standpoint. Should I cast Fire or Ice? Well, you cast whichever spell the enemy is weak to -- and that's where the gameplay considerations end.

That's right, I said it: elements are boring. How can we make them less boring?

One possible example is Pokemon, where there are many elements, but you're only able to use four attacks at any time. A slightly more common method is to associate different status effects with each elemental spell (e.g. fire reduces attack, lightning paralyzes, ice slows).

I've most often taken the approach of removing elements altogether. Of course, this is a valid design choice and it streamlines things, but it's irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion. Let's think of ways to make elements better.

[Mystic]

Should you cast fire or ice?

Why you have access to both is my question.

This is basically how Etrian Odyssey approaches it. Different damage types are more or less effective on different enemies, but having access to all damage types is difficult. And even if you do have that, you don't have access to the best versions of each damage type.

That's one way to deal with it. Do I want powerful fire attacks, and have to find some other way to deal with fire-immunes, or do I want an adaptable force that might have troubles with the most difficult enemies?

Another thing is mixing up enemy types. Sure it's easy to find the weaknesses in FFX enemies, but battles usually have a variety of enemies so you have to coordinate your party's attacks to make sure to get the max damage out of everyone. With the OHR we have 4 party members (but no switching) and many more enemies that can be in a formation (especially considering spawning and transmogrifying) so we can use this same idea.

The only time I find elements boring is when you can ignore it. If you ignore elements in Motrya, you do not win. Almost every other game, especially FF? Who cares. But even elementary usage where you have to pay some attention to it is fun.

[Bob the Hamster]

Periodic Mage cases Carbon-14!

[Nathan Karr]

Spawning/counterattacks are a logical reaction to elemental attacks. Hit that tree with a fireball? Sure, it took a lot of damage, but now it's on fire and can fire attack you back! Cast freeze on the water elemetnal? Now it's an ice elemental!

[JSH357]

Hate to dismiss the subject, but I've never found elements particularly boring. Then again, I think most complicated RPG systems are pretty dull to play, and judging by how many people go gaga over Fire Emblem and stuff I don't think I'm alone here. Pokemon does it interestingly, but I can't really look at that series objectively since I basically play the games out of habit. It all depends how much you want this stuff to matter as a designer. Personally I have more important thing in mind than whether or not firey enemies hating water is too simple.

I used to think that elements were kind of limited and needed to be reevaluated, but I guess now that I'm older or something I appreciate the simplicity of it. Ice is weak to fire, end of story. Of course, it varies from game to game but that goes without saying.

[RMSephy]

Something I did in one of my earliest [s]games[/s]demos was to give elemental attacks properties other than simply weaknesses and resistances. For example, fire attacks are always spread attacks, lightning attacks deal more damage than fire but can only target a single enemy, ice attacks are weak and target a single enemy but also causes status effects.

[Mogri]

I'll challenge that, JSH: why have elements at all? What does it add to the game if there are no actual decision points? If it's just flavor, then why give it any gameplay significance?

Fire Emblem actually does some interesting things with its element system. For one, it limits the elements you have access to (both by class and by item slots). For another, the element you attack with is also the one you have to defend with. This means that it's not as simple as "which one does the most damage."

Another common approach to elements is to give each character an elemental attenuation. Usually, this just means the character is mostly restricted to that one element, but occasionally it also gives that characer weaknesses to opposing elements. (Pokemon does this after a fashion, but attack types in Pokemon don't necessarily have a strong correlation with the user's type.)

[NeoSpade]

I'm currently having all/most spells chain to an after effect depending on type and element; like Wind attacks of Gust Sphere will chain to the wind picking up Wind -> Gale, Gale -> Tornado, and then in the same Sphere Lightning will lead to Delay and Sonic leads to Mute occasionally.

Splitting each element into its own spell list allows the elements to be more tactically used, especially if each character can only use 1 or 2 base elements at a time, in addition limiting output of magic via Level MP makes the player think tactically about casting.

[JSH357]

I'll challenge that, JSH: why have elements at all? What does it add to the game if there are no actual decision points? If it's just flavor, then why give it any gameplay significance?

Elemental weaknesses are decision points, they're just often very simple decisions to make. I don't think Final Fantasy X is worse for having the most basic element system ever; it still makes the battle system fit better in the game's world despite not having to think very hard about it.

The thing is, yes, elements are often just there for flavor, but singling out "gameplay significance" as something separate from the whole seems like a mistake to me. Looking back at elements in FFX, they're important to the setting in the first place. You have the various temples designed around elements. Rikku's afraid of lightning. Much of the game takes place near water. These are qualities that exist regardless of 'gameplay,' so players would be disappointed if they weren't a part of the battles too. You could take them out, but they make the game feel more like a living world by being there.

If you look at a game completely from the perspective of a designer there are lots of things (like walking!) that seem useless or arbitrary, but players respond to them all the same. This can be frustrating to accept when you start analyzing them. On the other hand, as a game designer, you have the option of not utilizing such things.

Also I don't know where this "Characters should only have 1 element" blanket statement BS comes from; that's entirely dependent on the game in question. It often helps balance to handle it that way, but you can certainly have a character who uses every element and still make an interesting system. Elements are just typically something on the side, like status effects and different kinds of damage formulas. It's more important to realize how these things apply to your own game than in the genre as a whole.

[msw188]

I like the idea of having characters with specific elemental 'attenuations'. I did that to some extent in Tales 1, and I liked the choices it created. The character who had Fire and Ltng spells was physically weak, and was weak to Water and Earth. The character who had Water spells did not have access to the stronger attacking spells as early as the Fire/Ltng character, but was more focused on healing and effect spells. As opposed to the Healer, who didn't really have any attack magic but got all the best healing spells. None of these things are necessarily better all the time, but in my game they made for interesting decisions.

One thing I will say in general about elements though is that ...

EDIT:MAY I BURN IN A COLUMN OF PURPLE FIRE for failing to realize that elemental damage is now entirely customizable and also entirely awesome. I just downloaded a Nightly to start helping to test, and I'm in awe of the new system. And my previous paragraph that was right here was a waste of pixels, so I got rid of it.

[Shizuma]

Mogri, you're talking about FE, but mind that game also has a element system beyond just "elements"

I think about this sort of thing. FE has a system where soldiers <- cavalry <-archers, etc. This is essentially a system of elements. Elements aren't all "fire and winds!!" they can mean a whole lot.

[Baconlabs]

... Should I bring up the "damage type" elements used in Battle for Wesnoth?
I think this was critical in separating the six multiplayer factions.

In a nutshell, physical and magical damage are split into three types: Pierce, Blade, and Impact for physical, and Arcane, Fire, and Cold for magical. Simple, yeah? Then you get into the fact that almost every single unit in the game has some sort of weakness/resistance complex to these damage types, and in turn only have access to one or two different types of damage. It's a constant clash of rock paper scissors.

One of the first lessons I learned about this system is how an otherwise good unit can crumble completely if you ignore damage types. A Horseman, for example, is a very expensive, fast, and powerful unit who deals pierce damage and is also weak to it. Against a Thief, Fencer, or Mage (who are unarmored and are very weak to pierce damage), the Horseman has a decent change of killing them in one hit while taking very little damage in return. Against a Skeleton Archer or Dwarf Guardsman (who almost totally resist pierce damage), it's suicide to try and fight them. The Archer will strike back on his turn and will likely kill the Horseman, and the Guardsman might even kill the Horseman simply by defending.
Elements, or damage types in this game, form a ton of strategy simply by existing.

How could this apply to an OHR game? I'm still thinking about that one.

[Bob the Hamster]

The OHR's Normal/Blunt/Sharp damage calculations would be so much better implemented as elementals than as they are now.

[DukeofDellot]

How could this apply to an OHR game? I'm still thinking about that one.

Rather than having "units" that utilize the elemental, have the separate attacks do so.

Give each attack a reason to be used, then attach elementals to them. The player will develop strategies based on the side effects attacks (at least let's hope he would), then they would have to come up with new strategies when he finds that a key attack he was using now only deals half damage or doesn't get it's side effect.

Say a Freeze spell that does "Cold Damage" and ticks the stun register. An Ignite spell that deals "Burn Damage" and ticks the poison register. A Drain attack spell deals "Evil Damage" and heals you...

They're solid attacks and good options in many situations... but if your opponent's not taking the damage, why bother?

[NinjaOverdrive]

I agree with JSH that elements aren't always boring and that some of the new fangled RPG systems just don't have the same feel.

One of my favorite systems is is the Suikoden runestone system. For those not familiar, you basically can find/buy elemental runestones and then pay to have them embedded in whichever character you desire. The runestones are still pretty much your standard fire/ice/water elements but the possibility of defining which character will use what element is what makes it interesting. And there is usually one unique runestone that the main character can only possess that plays an important role in the game like in Suikoden IV it was the Soul Eater. Personally, and I'll probably get shunned for this, I always thought the Suikoden series was better than the Final Fantasy series. Even in the more recent titles they have that old-school traditional feel to them down to the elemental magic systems. It's classic, not boring.