'Physical' vs 'Ranged & Melee'

[Azaarious]

I have been playing final fantasy record keeper, and some of the bosses can not be hi with melee weapons, forcing you to use magic or ranged attacks. At first I found this quite annoying, but grew to enjoy the concept of it as it was much more realistic. Thus I pose these questions to you all.

Q 1: Do you prefer Melee and Ranged separate or just physical?

Q 2: Why?

Q 3: What other mechanics that fall within this theme make games feel more realistic to you?

 

 

My answers to this.

 

Q 1: Do you prefer Melee and Ranged separate or just physical?

Spoiler

A 1: I now find myself enjoying Melee and Ranged as separate damage types.

Q 2: Why?

Spoiler

A 2: I feel it gives you more reason within specific games to use more then a set party. On the flip side not everyone likes to be forced to use everyone.

 

Q 3: What other mechanics that fall within this theme make games feel more realistic to you?

Spoiler

A 3: I play a lot of D&D (v3.5 with a lot of Home-Brew rules) but I like the idea of Slashing/Piercing/Bludgeoning as different types of damage that different Armour can protect against as well as the differences between Magic and Psyonics. Making so many variations lets you customize more, but too many may make a game more difficult.

If anyone raises any very good points or concepts I can add them to this post.

 

[Drackomordain]

Ranged & Melee can both be physical damage or magical damage depending on the skill used and the equipment worn.  

But in terms of realism I'd suggest designing them with different mechanic's and play styles as well as different dependencies on Attributes/Stats.

 

[Nirwanda]

Q 1: Do you prefer Melee and Ranged separate or just physical?

I like the separation usually.

 

Q 2: Why?

Like with everything, this comes down to execution, wheter you divide up damage in different types or not depends mostly of what identity you want your game to have, what audience are you trying to draw and how well do you implement it. Or basically, everytime you want to do a separation like that ask yourself: Is this fun? Does it enhance the gameplay in some way? Record keeper, as most Final Fantasy games that follow the ranged/melee division (like X), are good examples of complexity working in favour of gameplay. But, on the other hand I once read a thread here about a person wanting to have multiple types of poisons each healable with a different item, that honestly sounds more like busywork for the player rather than fun.

 

 

Q 3: What other mechanics that fall within this theme make games feel more realistic to you?

Weapon type divisions, as you mentioned can be used cleverly to make battles fun (like the weapon triangle in fire emblem), the different schools in D&D and the interactions with their opposite school are another example. Frankly, any division can be fun when used the right way. What's the right way? That's what beta testers are for.

 

[Esados]

Q 1: Do you prefer Melee and Ranged separate or just physical?
I like having them separated, but i don't mind if it is just physical.

Q 2: Why?

If you have two types of dealing physical damage, you can have (not so silly) combos like "Melee Fire" or "Ranged Ice", and of course, different bosses with different weaknesses. It obviously depends a lot on the type of game, some times is better to just have physical, some times you can gain from separating them and, in other type of games, you don't need types of damage because that would make it too complex to be enjoyable.
 

Q 3: What other mechanics that fall within this theme make games feel more realistic to you?
I like having different types of physical damage, like "Blade", "Pierce" and "Blunt". I've seen this before in lots of games, and it really works and does not add lots of complexity to the game, but deep. Remember that a deep game does not need extreme complexity to work, just the right choices to make the player be able to choose how they wanna play. As Nirwanda said, every division of damage types can work if used properly.

 

[Kes]

@Evades
That small italic font is hard to read. Please use a more legible one in future.
Thanks

EDIT

Now that I can see it on my laptop instead of my phone, it is not super small - unless, of course, you have amended the font size between my original reply and now.

If that is the original size, then disregard my comment.  If that is an edited size, thank you.

 

[Azaarious]

@Nirwanda - found the triangle, never played the fire emblem games. I don't fully get how that works in terms of why, other then considering parrying and blocking etc. But cool none the less.

@Esados - I have been playing with exactly what you are talking about by piling types on top of each other like a melee slashing physical. Though still deciding how far I want to go on that. All D&D esque. Also jumping into old games to find more references. Though the 'Melee Fire' and 'Ranged Ice' is something I had fully thought of, that is a great idea.

I was talking to one of my friends about this topic and they also brought up amours and how different types of chain mail were for different things. Such as some preventing a piercing shot of an arrow, where as others were for absorbing impact of a hammer, sword, or axe. So also looking into that as it gathered my interest on the topic.