What elements are needed on a RPG?

[Targaryen]

Well, I'm a "old" RPG player (and MOBA and MMORPG) and I see one of the most important elements are "Attack elements", I mean, Fire, Ice... But, most of them just coincide only two or three (Fire and Ice are the most usual). My question is, if you have to choose the elements for a rpg and you have to choose in the following cases, what elements would you choose?

a) 3 elements (medium duration game).

4 elements (medium duration game).

c) 6 elements (medium duration game).

d) small duration game.

e) large duration game.

I'll give you some games which I take as a reference on rpg and mmorpg gaming nowadays:

- Dragon Age. (Fire, Cold, Electric, Nature, and Spirit.)

- World of Warcraft. (Fire, Frost, Holy, Shadow, Nature, Arcane.)

- Final Fantasy saga. (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Earth, Water, Holy, and Dark.)

- Diablo II & (maybe, I didn't play) III. (Fire, Frost, Holy, Lightning, Poison, Arcane.)

- Chrono cross. (THE FAMOUS COLORS XDDDD) (Red = fire, Blue = ice and water, green = air, nature, yellow = earth and bolts, black = darkness, white = light.)

- Pokemon (you know...).

- Skyrim (just Fire, Ice and Bolt).

So, whats your answer? 

/and sorry for my bad english ^_^/

EDIT: I placed this on support because I need help with this, my game will have around 4 elements and I would like to choose well ^_^

 

[Ramiro]

Diablo could considerer Elemental as another element. Because it's not any of the others, and some skills count as this element.

Also, physical is another element.

Final fantasy does have a lot more of elements even when they don't tell you, bows and guns have a hidden projectile element (same with shurikens).

Chronno trigger only has lightning/heaven (they are the same), fire, water and void. You may be talking about chronno cross...

The Shin megami tensei series does have plenty, but they are not always the same, this includes than sometimes water is separated from ice, or wind is an element, of force is an element, or physical is divided in slash, blow and pierce.

You should use elements according to your game, and not the inverse.

There is no amount of elements required for any type of game. A short game could have over 500 elements, and a long game could handle it with 2. If they make sense in the context...

 

[Targaryen]

Diablo could considerer Elemental as another element. Because it's not any of the others, and some skills count as this element.

Also, physical is another element.

Final fantasy does have a lot more of elements even when they don't tell you, bows and guns have a hidden projectile element (same with shurikens).

Chronno trigger only has lightning/heaven (they are the same), fire, water and void. You may be talking about chronno cross...

The Shin megami tensei series does have plenty, but they are not always the same, this includes than sometimes water is separated from ice, or wind is an element, of force is an element, or physical is divided in slash, blow and pierce.

You should use elements according to your game, and not the inverse.

There is no amount of elements required for any type of game. A short game could have over 500 elements, and a long game could handle it with 2. If they make sense in the context...

Yes, thanks, Chrono cross x''D

 

[Andar]

You're making one assumption that is not neccessary.

Your idea is based on the principle of using elements for scaling and enemy separation. There are a lot of games that did that, especially in the early decades of computer RPGs - after a while newer enemies would have higher resistances to the elements of older weapons, requiring the player to upgrade those weapons in order to be able to continue - which would provide a number of story-hooks and quest options.

Games that use this principle need to have more elements the longer they are, simply to keep the balancing going.

However, that is not the only way to use elements.

Another way with a lot of games is to make all (or most) of the elemental weapons available early, and give enemies on the same map different elemental resistances. In these cases, the choice of element becomes a tactical choice on finding the best way to proceed.

Or other games that mostly ignore elemental resistances and use elements for flavor only.

The first thing you need to do is to decide which way to use elements - as explained if you use the first principle then the deciding factor would be how long your game becomes, and I wouldn't set myself up to any number at the beginning, but just write on and add a new element whenever it is needed for the sequence and the balancing.

If you use the tactical option, you'll need more planning on how to handle that. For the beginning to mid-game, three or four elements should give enough tactical options, and for the late game you might add one or two more elements to showcase special bosses. More than five or six elements for tactical options would be bad however, because that is difficult to handle for the player.

And you don't need that sequences to use "real" element names - especially in the tactical option, you could work with tactical damage types like blunt, piercing and cutting instead of fire, ice and lightning...

 

[Espon]

I always go with 6 elements: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Light, and Dark.  It's nothing special, and most players would be familiar with it.  Enemies have resistances and weaknesses usually based on what they are and where they are.

 

[Apples]

Elements are basically a rock-paper-scissor system and it comes down to personal preference as to how many elements your game should have. Personally for me, it gets really hard to deal with when a game has a lot of elements and just makes battles a little bit confusing in the long run.