How do you guys handle elements?

[Manofdusk]

I'm in the middle of brainstorming the beginning stages of a new game (the same one I mentioned a few weeks ago involving a non-party mercenary) and I've been thinking a lot here lately about the elements and what they do (in this particular instance, it's very important because the element represents not only a damage type, but a general theme)

Spoiler

I've always dove in head first with the mechanics and then ended up with a full list of mechanics without any real world to put them into... so I'm going to try the world-building part first since the mechanics are the part I enjoy most

There are 7 "Elements", each represented by a gem type and 5 crests, which represent party roles. Combining the crest and the gem imbues a character with the potential to learn related skills (so you literally craft your classes). This does lead to the interesting side effect of having 35 individual classes to create x.x

They arose by virtue of the soldiers imbuing their knowledge into the gemstones over generations. The crests just unlock which knowledge is learned. There were originally 7 kingdoms, 1 for each element, each with different fighting styles (so the "element" of the gemstone also represents the fighting styles of the region). Of course, now there's just 1 empire, having absorbed all 7 kingdoms.

Spoiler: My Current Element overlay

Earth: Involves manipulation of the terrain, generally dealing % of max health damage. Non-elemental representations of Emerald crests are generally manifest high defensive power. Healing using earth magic tends to be done on an over-time basis.

Air: Air is a damage type but not a gem type. It is rolled into the Amethyst, or Void, crystal type. It can use gusts of wind but also involve the creation of localized vacuums and high pressure areas. Air serves as a sort of "catalyst" for fire and earth magic.

Lightning: Lightning involves the manipulation of not only electricity, but also magnetism. Topaz (the gemstone for lightning) tends to focus on the creation and destruction of barriers (using Yanfly's Barrier plugin). Lightning is particularly devastating against spirits and, to a lesser extent, mechanical creatures. Physical representations of Topaz tend to involve ranged combat (such as item throwing and sniping).

Fire: This one is pretty obvious. Fire is the single most damaging element as far as raw damage goes. While most elements are scalpels, Fire is a hammer. However, in almost every situation, there is also an element that can out-perform fire in terms of usefulness. Physical representations of Ruby tend to hit hard and fast but have little in the way of protection outside of that.

Water: Like air, water is a damage type but not a gem type and is rolled into Amethyst. Of all the damage types, it has the lowest damage output. In fact, most creatures don't even consider it to be a damage type at all... but water is devastating against mechanical opponents and bypasses barriers entirely. However, the main purpose of water is the state it grants (drenched), which dramatically amplifies Ice and Lightning magic.

Ice: Ice damage tends to be a bit on the low side (not as low as water, but still pretty low). It's primary purpose is to deal damage to liquid, plant, insect, and reptilian foes. Ice damage also tends to have a higher chance of not destroying rare item drops. Physical representations of Sapphire tend to run contrary to what one would expect out of a traditional role (warriors using primarily magic damage and tank type characters relying heavily on evasion, for example).

Light: Considered to be essentially "Holy" damage... though the attacks seem to indicate something more along the lines of "radiation", though the people of this world don't have that kind of knowledge. Deals more damage based on how full the target's health is and highly destructive vs undead. Almost all of the classes revolving around Pearl involve the concept of "Judgement".

Dark: Seen as a corrupting force, it is viewed as "Unclean". Dark damage tends to involve states... much more numerous in variety than any other gem type. The damage it deals increases as the target loses hp and undead tend to resist it.

Void: While not a damage type, Amethyst represents the invisible strings that bind all things. As such, users of Amethyst follow a much more "esoteric" theme, involving illusions and states that may change how to battle plays out in unpredictable ways.

What I'm interested in is what you guys do with your elements. Do you use any non-traditional elements? What do you do to make them stand apart from one another? I once used Blood and Poison as their own elements, for example.

How heavily do you guys integrate your elements into gameplay? I've seen a lot of different games do things a lot of different ways and I'm interested in what uses really stuck with you guys (as the things we experience tend to shape the way we think about things).

 

[Fernyfer775]

By avoiding them altogether.

 

[RogdagoR]

I have 9 elements like you, plus the No-Element type that is intended for non animated stuff, mostly becaus it has a different reaction with each elements.

Here is my actual scheme

Spoiler: Elements

BIO is mostly "life" stuff, focussed on supportive spell and status, that, like no-elem, interact differently with other elements

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

In my current project I am using twelve "elements", & I use them as means of mitigating & increasing damage primarily.

They are:
Fire, magical damage element,
Water, magical damage element,
Earth, magical damage element,
Air, magical damage element,
Ice, magical damage element,
Lightening, magical damage element,
Holy, magical damage element,
Chaos, magical damage element,
Arcane, non elemental magical damage,
Piercing, non elemental physical damage,
Slashing, non elemental physical damage,
Crushing, non elemental physical damage,

Different weapon types use Arcane, Piercing, Slashing, or Crushing damage; with various monsters being more or less resistant to those damage types based on their physiology.

Meanwhile characters have various elemental damages inflicted upon them, resisted by them, absorbed by them, or are made more vulnerable to them based on various skills & states that are acquired through equipment & perks. With certain characters/monsters being inherently more or less vulnerable to certain elemental type damages based upon their own respective physiologies.

 

[Milennin]

I use them more for thematic purposes, and keep elemental rock/paper/scissors to a minimum, because I don't find such a system to be engaging. I don't think it's really necessary to be original with how elements function, as long as it enhances your combat system. This is how I see the elements best used:

-Earth: specialises in defending against physical damage, setting up defensive walls. Offensive spells often strike multiple targets with a chance to inflict bleed. Combos well with Fire element (meteor, volcano).
-Water: specialises in supporting the player party, restoring HP and washing away negative conditions. Offensive spells often strike multiple targets.
-Air: specialises in supporting the player party, increasing character speed for quicker attacks or increased critical hit rate. Offensive spells often strike single targets. Combos well with most elements to create field-wide spells to enhance a certain element (sandstorm boosting Earth, thunderclouds boosting Lightning, Blizzard boosting Ice).
-Fire: specialises in dealing high damage that can be either single or multi-target with a chance to inflict burn. Supportive skills often revolve around boosting allies' Attack.
-Lightning: specialises in swiftly dealing high damage to single targets with a chance to inflict stun. Combos well with Water element (hits harder against enemies recently struck by Water).
-Ice: specialises in keeping enemies from attacking by slowing them down and freezing them. Combos well with Water element (higher chance to freeze against enemies recently struck by Water).
-Light: specialises in restoration magic and high damage spells with a chance to inflict blind.
-Dark: specialises spreading a multitude of negative conditions amongst enemies, dealing lots of damage over time.

 

[bgillisp]

I have 8 elements, plus the physical attack element. They are as follows, with each element having level 1 - 8 spells:

Fire: Focuses on high damage attack spells, but with high variance. Unpredictable.

Water: A hybrid element. Mages of this element are kind of like Red Mages from the old FF games, in that they get low level damage and low level healing spells. However, they do not get level 7 or 8 spells in return.

Earth: High damage single target spells. Also gets light healing spells, and can create barriers which block all damage until the barrier falls.

Air: Focuses on spells which distort space and time, or at least how you perceive it. Their spells can either make you harder to hit, grant an extra attack, or even an extra action! Also can throw lightning bolts and create clouds which do damage over time. However, they gain no level 8 spells though.

Energy: Energy mages throw raw magic at the target. These spells cannot be resisted (as in, no MDF is considered in the damage formula). Starts weak but gets powerful in the end due to the ability to pierce the MDF of the target.

Mind: Focuses on single target spells and spells which inflict status aliments.

Life: Focuses on healing allies, or buffing them so they take less damage. Can also cast spells to increase Max HP short term! And finally, casts holy spells for when a little offensive punch is needed.

Death: Focuses on spells which weaken enemies by debuffing them. Also has spells which can drain HP from the target. And, they gain the link spells, where the mage links up with another person and gains healing via them.

 

[KeroTani]

I'm using a normal Fire/Ice/Lightning/Earth/Wind/Light/Shadow system but i'm also adding Tech to the mix. In my world there is Magitech weapons and armor so i'm still playing around with how I want to handle that.

 

[Failivrin]

The creators of The Last Airbender matched each type of elemental "bending" to a different school of kung fu. I like that idea, giving elements more of a flesh-and-blood feel. In my game, elemental damage modifiers are extremely muted, but characters aligned to certain elements share uniques skills and tactical style. Kind of like using elements as a secondary Class.
I will also add that I'm tired of seeing elemental schemes thrown in for the sake of tradition. If your heart isn't in it--if balance of elements is not an important theme in your story--better to leave off the subject of elements altogether.

 

[Aoi Ninami]

In both my projects (one on hold, and my current one) there are six elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Wood and Metal (like a hybrid of the Greek and Chinese systems). Similarly to what Failivrin just said, all mages are aligned to a specific element and can only cast magic of that element. (In my current project, there are six characters, one for each element. A couple of the characters have stronger physical than magical stats, and are expected to be used mainly as physical fighters, but the player has the option to develop them as mages if they wish.)

Each element includes a mixture of offensive, defensive and utility spells, but the balance of those is different for each. For instance, Fire is mostly offensive and attack-boosting magic, but it also includes Haste and Regen.

Also, instead of the same old opposite-pairs where fire-aligned monsters are weak to ice and vice versa, my elements are in 3-cycles: Fire-aligned monsters are weak to water, water to wood, and wood to fire. Earth-aligned monsters are weak to metal, metal to air, and air to earth.

 

[Rinobi]

I don't focus too heavily on 'elements' in most projects which include a battle system of some description. They usually act as damage/healing modifiers if I decide to include them at all. I do take a more logical approach to which elements I use though.

Spoiler: Elements

Blow - External impact, usually blunt force trauma. Earth, water, ice, and wind, and blunt objects can inflict this verity of damage.

Rend - Tearing through stretching or friction. Earth, ice, wind, bladed, and pointed objects can inflict this verity of damage.

Mach - Rupturing via sound and/or pressure. Wind, impacts, and explosions inflict this verity of damage.

Heat - Burning, melting, boiling via increased temperature. Fire, electricity, and light can inflict this verity of damage.

Cold - Frostbite, hypothermia, freezing via reduced temperature. Water, wind, and ice can inflict this verity of damage.

Volt - Electric shock and magnetism. Electricity can inflict this verity of damage.

Acid - Erosion of material and mental health. Nature, water, and darkness can inflict this verity of damage.

Glow - Radiation of material and purification of mind and body. Fire, electricity, and light can inflict this verity of damage.

 

[Darkanine]

In my game of Amenia, theirs effectively four types of "Elements".

The "natural" variety that make up the fundamental objects of magic and the universe. Gameplay wise, these are your basics, with a few twist. These are your typical "fire balls" and "magic missiles", but can do just about anything as long as the user knows what they're doing.

The "unnatural" variety, these are Elements that primarily effect weapons and melee skills instead of magic. Stuff like swordplay and martial arts, not magician stuff, you know?

The primal. These are elements used by primal warbeast. In many ways they're just as natural as the "natural" kind, but not as whimsical or majestic. They're powerful, both in damage done and powerful as a religious symbol to the world.

Lastly, there is the Abstract magic. This is the stuff that makes up the sum of creation, in its most basic and complex forms. We're talking full on string theory here, folks. This magic can do just about anything, even break the laws of cause and effect, life and death, destiny on such a scale, it appear as if nothing change at all. As you can probably tell, wizards can't really harness this stuff, it's exclusive to the gods above.

Lore wise, the elements are split into the schools of "Elemental, Fundamental and Experimental". Elemental is the manipulation of basic elements such as Fire, Water, Ice and Earth. Fundamental is the manipulation of slightly more abstract elements such as Gravity, Matter and yes, even Anti-Matter. Experimental on the other hand is the ability to manipulate these aforementioned spells, but in odd, mysterious and unique manners. It is also the ability to "blend" multiple spells together. There is also "Aethereal" and "Ethereal" schools, which is the manipulation of imagination, memories, images of the stars and manipulation of raw, unformed magic respectively.

Back on topic of gameplay, the list of elements are:

Spoiler: List

Natural

• Fire: Fire in of itself doesn't do to much damage. It, however, "burns" the target, which damages them each time and lowers their mobility (Evasion, Accuracy, Speed). Most of all it spreads. Nastier Fire spells can even spread to the environment, which can then spread to you.
• Water: Water deals heavy damage to the entire enemy party, making it sort of like a "nuke" spell. However, they cannot score critical hits and cost an arm and a leg.
• Ice: Ice deals heavy damage to a single target with a high critical hit chance. Moreover, they can "freeze" and "frost" targets, making them harder to move.
• Thunder: Similar to Ice, Thunder is strong and single hit. In addition, it deals variable damage against certain enemy types (harder against "mammals" like humans and most animals, less against reptilian creatures), and can stun.
• Earth: Not really applicable in most combat scenarios, but can mess with the battlefield.
• Whimsy: The power of pure imagination, unpredictable, but very powerful. It's most pronounced in the minds of children. It's been theorized that it's somewhat of a natural protective defense mechanism for children to survive in the dangerous world of Amenia.
• Love: Magic of the Gods above, Love soothes and heals those close to you, keeping them fighting another day.
• Darkness: Darkness isn't inherently a bad form of magic, it can be quite useful in day to day lives, especially for cleaning. For more imaginative people, darkness can be used for art, such as enlarging shadows or burning in shadow-like reflections into papers or other such things. Gameplay wise, it's just as varied, but offers more artistic skills.
• Miraculous: "Miraculous" is the power of optimism and hope. It's a basic, untamed form of magic that's tied to ones willpower and compassion. The magic was a gift from Nier, the Goddess of Love to her beloved student, Aveal Maroona Turniga, in order to spread warmth and hope to a world that desperately needs it.

Unnatural

• Slash: Simply put, Slash is an element for most swords. It cuts, which pierces an enemies defenses to an extent and is typically pretty fast.
• Slam: Slam is a blunt-force type attack. It deals large amouts of damage, but also calculates an enemies full defense. Stuff like hammers, mallots and bats use this.
• Crash: Crash is for shockwave and explosion type attacks, high damage that hits all enemies and allies alike. Damage is lessened away from the epicenter, however.

Primal

• Beastial: Gifts of the dvine beasts such as Bear God, Monkey God and Jaguar of Time. Beastial is a powerful holy symbol to many. To men, the Beastial magic represents the ones who were first, the divine animals. To beast, Beastial magic is to them what we could consider faith.
• Draconic: Similar to Beastial from above, Draconic is a deeply spiritual form of magic practiced by dragons of eons ago. Very little is known of how Draconic magic functions and operates, or the true extent of its impact on others

Abstract

• Abstract: Abstract is, well, abstract. Mortal beings who exist in the 3-Dimensions can't truly comprehend the abstract, they can only describe it. Some 'messy' forms of abstract magic however can be felt and seen by mortals.
• Blackness
• Time: The ability to not just manipulate time, but all that comes along with it. If one alters a timeline in such a way, no one will know they did anything, as people would gain new memories, new experiences or in some cases, new lives. This is what makes Time magic so scary to many, it perpetuates the unknown.
• Aether: The fundamental manipulation of magic in general. This is the most basic form of Abstract magic, and the only ones controllable by mortal wizards. Wizards with mastery over this are known as "Grandmasters"; they can create entire realms with stars and worlds and even control aspects of the universe.

So, I guess I would say I handle my elements by writing them into my worlds lore first, then try to write gameplay around that. Arbitrary elements/status effects with no effect on the worlds history in any way always irked me.

 

[Tai_MT]

I have 17 elements. They each have their own thing going on, so this may take a minute to explain.

The major overarching three are:
Strength
Speed
Magic

These are essentially the type of attack you're nailing down. Most of these are used with skills of weapon types. Every enemy is weak to one. It's rare that they're weak to two. There's no "rock paper scissors" with them, either. They're meant to be used as a "fallback" when you don't have anything more specific to hit with. So, if you don't have say a Bashing weapon for heavily armored foes, you can fall on back to a Speed attack type to still do damage. If that armor is metal instead of natural, you might be falling back to a Magic element instead (lore in my game states that all magic, regardless of element, conducts well through various metals as if it were electricity).

The next set that applies to Physical Damage:
Slashing
Bashing
Piercing

Most enemies are weak to one, sometimes two. Most enemies can also inflict two of these minimum as attacks to the party. Armor types protect against these three elements of varying effectiveness. Bashing is good against things like Chainmail and Hard Leather armor (sometimes even Scale Mail). Slashing is good against Cloth and Leather armor. Piercing is generally good against Plate Mail or armor of that nature. Chainmail grants immunity to Piercing damage (but allows for devastating magical damage). This set is more "rock paper scissors".

The next set is my Magical Elements:
Fire
Ice
Lightning
Earth
Water
Wind

This set plays a LITTLE bit of rock paper scissors, but it's most notable because many of the main status ailments are associated with a specific element. Fire = Burn, Ice = Frozen, Lightning = Paralyze/Stun, Earth = Blind (levels 1 through 4), Water = Charm/Confuse, Wind = Silence. Beyond that, they're basically the same as any other standard RPG.

Then I have the "Secret Magical Elements":
Life
Nature
Death

This set behaves wildly. Life and Death are weak to each other... Very little is strong or weak to Nature. Nature is essentially the "Neutral" element. It's fond of inflicting poisons and stuns and sleeps. Death is massively destructive to pretty much anything... and it usually comes with downsides. Or maybe high costs to cast. Things like high willpower targets and "holy" type beings are weak to it. It sometimes inflicts a "Zombie" status on enemies. Life is basically strong against anything that's relatively abhorrent or undead. It has no status affliction associated with it. It's typically "average" in terms of power as well.

Then I have the "Special Boost" elements:
Lead
Silver

Both of these elements are highly effective against armored enemies. Especially if they're on Bashing implements (they're dense metals... denser hammers, clubs, maces, etcetera, means a lot more damage when they come down). Neither inflicts a status ailment. However, Silver is considered "magical" to an extent and can hurt a mixture of both Life and Death themed enemies (anything from Angels to Demons). You'll sometimes find it on arrows or slashing implements as well. You can even enchant weapons during combat to be Silver element. Lead makes things really heavy, so you'll be really slow using them (unless you've casted the Lead enchantment... which doesn't slow you down at all), but they're really effective against almost anything with armor of any kind. Lead is also highly effective against "non corporeal" type beings. So... jellies, slimes, ghosts, living flames, and other such things.

That's it for my elements.

I generally have them to 1. Provide options in combat to players so that missing the key element they need can be supplemented with another. And 2. Provide options for player builds and alternative weaknesses monsters can exploit. You'll never be 100% immune to all elements. Maybe one or two at a time, sure, but not all of them.

I'm essentially using my elements to help tell the story of my game... to inform the player about the lore of the world... and to use it as a means to make combat flexible and interesting.

 

[Alarkus]

For my game I elected to go with a bunch of nonsensical elements with various weaknesses towards each other. I think it's fun to mess around with the concept of elements in unique and bizarre ways. A good example of this is an RPG Maker classic, OFF. In that game the four elements were Metal, Plastic, Meat, and Sugar. It's an interesting take on a classical RPG archetype.

 

[Aquachubolt]

In my project, there are eight (well, 9, but the ninth is a secret and only appears on select end game enemies, so I'm not counting it here) elements and a physical element used for non-elemental stuff. Every unit, be they PC or enemy, has their own affinity, and based on this they will either be weak to (take 30% increased damage), resistant towards (take 30% less damage), or neutral to attacks of the other elements. 2 of the 8 elements are independent, resisting only themselves and only effective against each other (light and dark). The other six elements (fire, wind, lightning, ice, life, and earth) exist in two separate triangles, where they resist themselves and one other element from their triangle, are effective against one other element from their triangle. They are also both effective against and weak to their corresponding element from the other triangle. Confused? Reading back through this, so am I, so here's a quick illustration I whipped up in paint to illustrate my point.

Spoiler

As you can see, a fire based attack would deal bonus damage to a wind or ice based enemy, but deal less damage to a lightning or fire based enemy. Likewise, a fire based enemy would take more damage from a lightning or ice attack, but less from wind or fire. That same fire based enemy would take standard damage from earth, life, light, and dark, assuming there are no other factors at play that would change that.

It's kinda large so it's in the spoiler tags.

 

[Henryetha]

I've been trying different approaches in the past.

#1:

Spoiler

In my very first project had as standard elements:
Fire > Earth > Wind > Water > Fire

+ Ghost (almost completely negates physical damage, receives double from element dmg)
+ Holy (reduced elemental dmg, incr. dark dmg)
+ Undead (incr. fire + holy dmg, immunity to certain status effects)

This element system was based on the system of Ragnarok Online.

#2:

Spoiler

The second one was rather an idea, not fully developed yet.
It basically added 3 elements only:
- Fire
- Ice
- Arkane
To be effective vs Fire you needed Ice and vice versa.
Physical dmg was almost nothing vs the 2 elements. However, their counter element dealt double damage.
Arcane always dealt 100%.
Melee weapons had to be charged with essences of the respective element and lost charges during actions.
I didn't fully test this system yet.

#3:

Spoiler

The classical approach which circles around the default elements (based on FF)
+ with Light vs Dark dealing incr. DMG to each other.
I thought, taking this system might have the advantage that a considerable amount of players know it already, as many ppl who play rpgm games already played through the FF series.

 

[gstv87]

if it will have a counter in game, it needs to be an element.
that's the base line.

antidotes cancel poison? -> poison needs to be it's own element.
being an element, you can add resistance buffs against it, and use it as an attack element for regular attacks, in addition to skills causing poison DOT themselves (and, skills being validated against that resistance buff to see if they land the poison effect at all)

 

[fireflyege]

Well, I have 12 elements with different groups of it. But I am thinking about not including them in gameplay. Still brainstorming on all the ideas I have.