Adding new elemental types other than typical 'fire beats grass beats water'?

[Scoosh 10]

In nearly every rpg I've played they have fire,water, lightning etc. I know the reason It's in so many games is that it's so well understood. To me it feels too constraining. If you look at Poke'mon though it does something quite different. Some advantages and disadvantages are based on common sense (e.g. Fire-type Pokémon being weak to Water-type attacks), while others are not as obvious (e.g. Bug-type attacks being strong against Psychic-type).

 

So does it matter if you don't know straight away what is weak to what? If you learn by playing?

 

I believe Poke'mon has gone too far with this idea. I can never remember 18 type advantages, not to mention double typed Poke'mon. No matter how much I play there's always one or two that get me. But maybe there is a magic number where you can remember them all. What if you had much less types, for example lets say you start with 3. But they wern't 'obvious'. You learn them from the game as you play.

 

E.g. Triangle, Circle Square. The game would tell you Circle beats Triangle. Triangle beats Square, Square beats Circle.

 

Where as here's a different 3 and it's more obvious what is weak to what:

 

E.g Rock, Paper, Scissors. Duh Scissors cut paper, making the other two obvious.

 

Even so I think the 3 with Triangle, Circle and Square is manageable.

 

Now Let's say we have 5. Say for example, Triangle, Circle, Square, Star and Rectangle.

The game would tell you Circle beats Triangle. Triangle beats Square, Square beats Circle. Star beats Star. Rectangle beats Star.

 

At what point do you think this starts to get hard to remember?

 

Do you think an obvious system is essential?, E.g Fire Water Grass

 

Or that a non obvious system can work? e.g Circle, Triangle, Square. (If so what number would you stop at?)

 

Or a 'hybrid' system like Poke'mon is best?

 

E.g It starts you off with the obvious water fire grass. But branches off into the obscure, Bugs beating Psychic. (I wonder how well Poke'mon would do without the obvious ones of fire water grass.)

 

Or maybe someone has a different idea altogether?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wren 179]

Maybe make it more intangible but recognizable?

 

Instead of fire, make heat, and cold, and metallic and energetic, so they are recognizable concepts but not completely cliché like fire, ice, rock.

 

I wouldn't go past 5 elements though, then it gets hard to remember the relationships, unless you added a picture to the game so that you could use a book/item/skill to pull up the picture and see all of the elemental relationships at any time...?

[+ TBWCS 953]

try Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock

[+ Sughayyer 163]

I second wren. You can use heat, cold, electricity, and so forth.

Hmmm in fact Phantasy Star had such a thing, like heat, cold, electricity, laser, holy, dark. Only heat/cold and holy/dark related to each other tough. And mechanical things suffered a lot of damage from electricity.

[Pathos Prime 9]

You could try something similar to the Five Elements of Feng Shui.

 

 

To break it down:

 

Fire super-damages Metal, damages Wood, is weak against Water, and heals Earth.

Metal super-damages Wood, damages Earth, is weak against Fire, and heals Water. 

Wood super-damages Earth, damages Water, is weak against Metal, and heals Fire.

Earth super-damages Water, damages Fire, is weak against Wood, and heals Metal.

Water super-damages Fire, damages Metal, is weak against Earth, and heals Wood. 

[Big Fat Mantis 40]

I don't even use a system for what element is weak to what.  I base it entirely on the characters and enemies.  So one enemy might be weak to both Ice and Fire, while another one Is weak to Fire but strong against Ice, while another is weak against Ice and Earth, and so forth.  Same goes for the characters.  I keep it very personalized on the individual, which is what a lot of RPGs these days actually do.  Pokémon isn't really a hybrid system, it just has lots of elements with various weaknesses/resistances, and they weren't that difficult for me to remember until they added stuff like Fairy.  You can still automatically tell what a pokemon is weak to by looking at its element.  A more personalized system makes you completely unaware except for trial and error or scanning.

[+ Sughayyer 163]

The feng shui/shinto system is more adequated for a thematic game. I liked big fat mantis' idea

[Laura Yeah Right 25]

About Psychic types being weak to Bug, Psychic is supposed to be the element involving your brain, then the weaknesses make more sense. People are afraid of the dark, bugs and ghosts. What is Psychic weak to: Dark, Bug and Ghost types. It's all in your head!

 

 

I really like the five elements of Feng Shui, or any other relationships that make sense.

 

 

I read somewhere that the Fire, Ice, Lightning trio is based around energy. Fire, is a surplus of energy, Ice is the absence of energy, and Lightning is the transfer between the two.

[Scoosh 10]

I don't even use a system for what element is weak to what.  I base it entirely on the characters and enemies.  So one enemy might be weak to both Ice and Fire, while another one Is weak to Fire but strong against Ice, while another is weak against Ice and Earth, and so forth.  Same goes for the characters.  I keep it very personalized on the individual, which is what a lot of RPGs these days actually do.  Pokémon isn't really a hybrid system, it just has lots of elements with various weaknesses/resistances, and they weren't that difficult for me to remember until they added stuff like Fairy.  You can still automatically tell what a pokemon is weak to by looking at its element.  A more personalized system makes you completely unaware except for trial and error or scanning.

True most of the time you can tell but some Poke'mon are odd colours etc and you don't know at first, e.g Sudowoodo. Some also have dual types, again they aren't obvious, you learn them.  So there is some trial and error there.

 

What I meant by hybrid, was 'mix' Poke'mon is a mix of obvious elements and it's own made up learned ones. Initially you already know water is good against fire, or probably assume it is.

 

whereas you have to be told bug is good against psychic. Alot of Poke'mon types are not immediately intuitive.

 

so does it matter if all your elements were like bug and psychic? Do we need fire water ice etc at all?

 

Maybe if this were the case you would have to have much fewer elements?

 

But maybe not, maybe it's as you say, in Poke'mon you can see it's element, usually, so maybe as long as this is clear you can make up any elements. Plus you do come to remember them over time, but as I say not obvious to begin with.

 

Maybe ground vs poison is a better example. there's not much reasoning to it. Possibly just made to make poison weak to something. Balance etc.

[pYmba 3]

Good to come back after some time and find something essential to discuss.
First of all I want to point out this link:

 

AboutElementalTypes

It has a ton of usefull stuff about elemental types, so you could do a little thinking on your own.

 

I have to say, elemental types tend to be weakest link in my oppinion. Having too many or too less disbalances whole game. I have never liked pokemon system. I was never really able to understand why some pokemons where grass type when it was obvoius that they should be bug type. Ect.

This is where the dissadvantage of your own created elemental types comes in. You see, everyone has their own associations with what is an „elemental typeâ€, based on many factors, even country one can call home. When European game developer makse clasical four elemental type based game, in Asia it might not be understood. The same goes the other way. If you ask me, I don’t get why there is Metal or Wood, they both seems to come from Earth and sould be classified as damage type not elemental type. But as I said, I don’t know much about Chinese culture. Also what I know from advertising is that stereotypes works better, and if you go all crazy by creating new elements and leaving out the old ones, people will get confused.

 

When you create your elemental types, you should focus more on those that you feel comfortable with. Elemental types that belongs to your game, your idea, your world, because that is a well known fact, elemental types are the essence from what is created everything you see around. Of course no one is going to hit you in face if you don’t use classical four, five or whatever used types. But using them can never hurt. Because no matter where is your world located, in ethernal planes or in hell, it will still have some of classical elements in it.

I belive than giving player some idea about what is weak/strong against what is where your can start, later, well, who belives you don’t learn while play game? I think no one can say that, because with exploring world, player always faces new things.

 

Let me give you some idea about how I create elemental types. When I think about them I always keep in mind, that not only monsters, but also skills, spells, items and damage types depends on elemental types I choose. That means, I can’t make elemental type if I can’t classify anything as part of it. Lets say, I choose light and dark. Light has obviously light spell in it, lets say, heal, lets say, banish evil ect. Dark has opposite. But what happens when you combine dark and light? Shadow? Ok, so shadow, cool, whole new elemental type, but…wait a minute, what kind of spells could be under shadow type? Blind? No it goes for dark… Amm... So I do a little thinking and come to conclusion, if I can’t classify anything as part of this elemental type, then I have to get rid of it.

 

About what can hit what, can defend from what and so on.
 

Well that depends on what kind of elemental types you choose, you can use classical scheme, fire suffers double damage from water, takes normal damage from earth and air. Does double damage to earth and normal to water and air.

But you can also choose to do something like this.

You see, if water damages fire, (x2 damage), why is water so lethal to fire? Wouldn’t that be obvious that fire can do the same damage against water? Because it only depends on who’s attacking first. You see, sometimes fire is stronger that water and can’t be put out so easily. Pour a bucket of water on a fire pit. Any changes? No. Water had no effect on fire.

 

But I go a bit further than this. You see.

 

So fire does double damage to earth? Hell no. Try to burn piece of dirt. Fire will damage grass and trees, but not dirt. So its (x1 damage) But how about air? Isn’t that obvious air is the reason fire can burn? So its (x3 damage). But how about dark? Can fire hurt dark? Well it lights light in dark, but that’s all. So its (x0.5 damage). And so on.

 

So, its generally about your imagination and asociations, or goal you want to reach. That can help you to create your own unique system.

If you ask me, I don’t think heat or cold is something more than damage type, because, heat comes from fire, cold comes from water. Laser come from light and so on. But as always, use your own head. I’m just giving you some material to think about.

What about amount of elemental types? I don't know. I have six elemental types planned in my game. Everything else, like piercing damage, heat or light is just a damage types which I classify as part of my elemental types. Try to group all types that comes in your mind under few main types. And then make thease main types as your elemental types. As long as you don't force player to learn rocket science, its all good.

Stay creative, set goals, evolve.

[Spectre 829]

It's really up to your imagination.

But if you ask me, the most interesting things about elements are a combination of the following factors:

1. Diversity. Sure, it helps to have quite a few elements, but too many will confuse the player, and too little makes the gameplay rather drab.
2. Potency. Fire counters ice and wood and earth etc, but how potent are these effects? 1.25x ? 1.5x ? This is ultimately reflected on your own logic and decisions. If the equipment involves magical ice, maybe you can argue that they enchanted it to be resistant to fire? It's your call.
3. Inter-connectivity. It's great to have all of your 15 elements counter each other, but there comes a point where it'll be too confusing. You can have two elements counter each other, and three in a circle of counteraction, but at the end of the day, don't make it too simple or too interconnected.
4. Frequency. It's always awe-inspiring to see your Dragon typed Pokemon blast away at your foes and obliterate pretty much everything. But really, how easy do you think it is to get a Dragon? Chances are you'll usually wind up with them end game. Consider that more powerful elements have fewer spells, or are harder to use, and that weaker ones that are easily countered are usually more prolific.

 

Also take into account elemental defences. Consider the following:

 

• Light Armor usually consists of cloth and/or leather, and is particularly vulnerable to sharper weapons. Slashing weapons are effective, whereas Crushing weapons are not. It is also highly flammable, and is prone to Fire magic.
• Medium Armor offers a certain degree of protection against Slashing weapons using sparsely located metal or similar hard materials on the armor. However, the metal acts as a force amplifier to Piercing weapons, which turn the damaged metal into a projectile against the wearer's body.
• Heavy Armor is thick enough to nullify Slashing or Piercing weapons. However, as the whole armor is essentially metal, it amplifies concussive force, making Crushing weapons lethal. Moreover, the metal acts as a good conductor for Electrical magic.
• Magic Armor is specially enchanted to ward off Magic attacks, but offers little, if any protection to any form of physical attack.

[paralistalon 2]

I find that the most overused elemental scheme is water-fire, earth-wind, dark-light.  So for me, I'd want to make sure I didn't copy this exact formula without adding at least something new and interesting. 

 

I figure that a good elemental weakness scheme should 1) make logical, intuitive sense, and 2) enhance the gameplay in some meaningful way. 

 

For the first point, the player should have a chance of guessing what an effective attack would be against a particular enemy.  You don't want it to be like some of the later MegaMan games where, even after you discover that Plant beats Tomahawk which beats Yamato, you're still left saying, "How was anyone supposed to guess that?!"  When done right, elemental weaknesses add an entire layer of flavor and realism.  Of course a water attack beats the fire monster!  But then you have to be careful... does a water attack beat a fire attack wielding mage?  It seems like it makes sense, but if you think about it more, the mage isn't made of fire, he just summons it.  If anything, I would suspect it might reduce the mage's attack effectiveness or render him unable to cast fire spells.  Anyway, however you handle it, you don't want the player to be distracted with their disbelief. 

 

Which leads to the next point, how does your elemental weakness add to the player's experience?  If your weaknesses are guessable, then the player feels rewarded with a bonus when he or she correctly guesses which attack works best.  The player won't get that satisfaction if they have to try out every attack in their arsenal in order to eventually stumble upon the correct one.  Furthermore, if the damage multiplier is too high for the correct attack, then there's no real variety or player choice; they just spam that one attack every time they meet that enemy, making it boring.  I am a firm believer that it's a game design theory sin to give the player multiple choices if some of those choices are completely wrong and will never be used. 

[+ Sughayyer 163]

I agree with you, but I have something to add: elemental affinities must be a feature of the game, not it's sole basis.

And in an eventual puzzle where the player MUST use the correct element for each enemy, it must be logically "guessable", or/and there must be a scan-like ability.

[amerk 1,122]

I don't mind changes as long as there is some way to acknowledge the changes. Most of the time, I don't care for tutorials. But if the gimmicks go outside of the traditional scope (ie., changing Fire to Kri and Water to Wry, or something weird like that), you need a way for the player to figure this out without forcing them to just go into battle and winging it.

 

The problem (with RM games at least) is the player doesn't want to be stuck testing each skill in battle to find the right one, without there being some clue, thus wasting precious MP for the attack to do next to 0. Repeat this step for every new enemy you come across, and you wind up drastically bloating the game's play time just on battles alone, which is enough to drive some people away.

 

This becomes even more frustrating if battles are tedious or difficult.

[Shi-an 39]

I remember a PS1 Yu-Gi-Oh game (Forbidden Memories?) Where they gave you the option of summoning a monster with one of two "star signs", which worked in a "Mercury" strong vs. "Mars" strong vs. "Pluto" etc. system, giving a slight power boost if you utilised it well. Even by the end of the game I didn't remember most of the strengths and weaknesses, but it was an interesting new take on the "water" beats "fire" beats "wood" system.

 

Then there's the Age of Empires III system that I think is "Siege" strong vs. "Infantry" strong vs. "Cavalry" strong vs. "Siege", or Age of Mythology "Heroes" strong vs. "Myth" strong vs "Humans" strong vs. "Heroes".

 

Bioshock's normal ammo, piercing ammo and anti-personnel ammo also comes to mind.

 

Then there's fighting games where you have low, mid and high attacks and you have to time them so the enemy isn't blocking the area you're attacking.

 

 

Basically, to make a good fighting system having a choice of different attacks with various amounts of effectiveness is important. According to my examples three seems to be the magic number, but personally in regards to RPGs, where you don't have to think about other things like actually hitting the enemy, using your resources well etc. I feel like 4-5, MAYBE 6 would be best.

 

Of the examples I gave Yu-Gi-Oh was also the least effective (in my opinion), because it was not very intuitive, there were too many and it was hard to remember (even though there was a graph in the instruction booklet), but to counter that the bonus wasn't all that strong--I won plenty of battles even when I used a monster against its weakness. HOWEVER it was split into two systems, which I think was Sun-Moon-Earth-Mercury and then others, and I'm pretty sure I remembered the Sun-Moon system and utilised it a lot more.

[Oasiris 12]

Disgaea has the best system I've known so far:

 

Fire beats Ice

Ice beats Wind

Wind beats Fire

 

It makes a LOT of sense.

Fire beats ice is probably the most simple to immediately realize.

Ice is immovable by the wind. (All those anime where you see samurai swords cutting through ice - nope nope nope. Packed ice can be nearly hard as a gem, depending how thick it is.)

The wind can snuff the flames.

(They don't really embrace the "light-dark" thing too much since everyone's a demon anyway)

 

Also, Fire is represented with red, Ice is represented with blue, and Wind is represented with green - so all the nice little colors are there

```````````````````

You additionally make a point with Pokemon and question why it is so complicated with things like hybrid types and "Bug beats Psychic how on earth." I believe it went like this:

 

One of the 1st generation of Pokemon's major themes is to provide bridges of similarity between the Pokemon world and ours - how much they represent our animals, our plants, our creations - and say "imagine a world where they fought each other." The abundance of types are there to reflect that - as well as hybrid types.

However, the devs quickly realized that balance gameplay-wise would be hard to maintain. I mean, we're putting bugs and rhinos in fights against each other. What do we do?

In order to balance the game, they made many changes, such as Bug-types being powerful only in early portions of the game because of their evolution rate, and obscure pairings like "Flying beats Fighting" or "Bug beats Psychic."

In the "Fly > Fight" scenario, this pairing became important to remember because how crucial of an upper/lower hand it was for both types, so it could easily be remembered. But what about my bug beating the stuffing out of the spoon-bending wizard with 300 Special???

 

And the explanation for Fairy-type: It was to balance the gameplay, as Dragon-type was becoming too overpowered. But it didn't really help with immersion of the Pokemon world, nor did it make the elements easier to memorize; gameplay was its ONLY positive influence on the game. I guess the "parallel fantasy" theme isn't too much of a thing anymore, huh, Game Freak...

 

I could be wrong, but that's my take on that.

Edited February 20, 2014 by Oasiris

[Anderson88 26]

Although this isn't exactly about weaknesses, I'd like to bring up how awesome Arc Rise Fantasia's element/magic system was.

 

There were four main elements: fire, water, wind, and earth, and combining elements created other elements--as long as you don't combine with the opposite element (fire to water, or wind to earth).

 

Water + Wind = Lightning

Water + Earth = Ice

Fire + Wind = Light

Fire + Earth = Dark

 

...I thought it was pretty cool.

[Tussin 1]

Although this isn't exactly about weaknesses, I'd like to bring up how awesome Arc Rise Fantasia's element/magic system was.

 

There were four main elements: fire, water, wind, and earth, and combining elements created other elements--as long as you don't combine with the opposite element (fire to water, or wind to earth).

 

Water + Wind = Lightning

Water + Earth = Ice

Fire + Wind = Light

Fire + Earth = Dark

 

...I thought it was pretty cool.

 

that is very intersting indeed. i have been working on a wheel for my game, involves something complex... trying to figure out fine details, i have a few variations ill post them up tomorrow

[Pathos Prime 9]

I'm going the complicated route for my game. >_>

 

There are six elements - Fire, Water, Thunder, Earth, Light, and Dark.

 

There are ten creature types - Animal, Humanoid, Bug, Mecha, Construct, Plant, Bird, Undead, Lizard, and Dragon.

 

Any monster can have up to one Elemental type and one Creature type, and strengths and weaknesses stack.

 

For elements, they go in a circle - Fire beats Earth beats Thunder beats Water beats Fire.  Light and Dark beat each other and resist themselves.

 

Creatures have various weaknesses, for example Bugs are weak to Fire and resist Water.  Mecha are weak to Thunder and resist Fire.  

 

If it's a Fire/Mecha, then it's weak to Thunder AND Water and resists Fire AND Earth.

 

I've always thought that Earth and Water don't get enough love in video games.  Oh, and that thing about "Ice" and "Water" being two different elements?  Not in my game.  Ice IS water, after all.  

[Tussin 1]

for my creature types it will have typical weaknesses and differences for bosses. for physical i would include slashing/piercing/crushing types as well for armor, weapons, monsters.

 

i made my elements into a wheel and sequenced it best as i can working together to create my setup.

 

for my game i am wanting to create more than a black and white magic, i wanted to split up each type into its own color and element. i am also going to be tying each school of magic to a chakra. (for white/black i will create my own psuedo chakra since the typical known are just 7 and 6 more if you know how to activate them)

 

for example... i would want there to be Yellow Magic (relating to your Solar Plexus chakra) and its theme would be Thunder related damage and support spells, my Red Magic would be Fire, my Indigo Magic would be Wind, my Black Magic would be Dark, my White Magic would be Holy, my Blue Magic would be Ice/Water, my Green Magic would be Earth, my Orange Magic would be Acid, my Neutral based Magic would be Violet. (again not perfect but im happy i could do a minor tweak or two with a color and element to better matchup what i want) etc.

 

each i will set a direct strength and weakness, also each school of magic will have a vulnerability built into it that debuffs for another element.

 

4 Dark Based Elements, 4 Light Based Elements and 1 Neutral Element to round it off.

 

still trying to tweak what i want as opposites and dark/light elements. open to interpretation... and to make it worth i want no duplicates so something will have to appear off in realism. Fire can be either viewed as holy fire, or demonic flame, Earth can be relating to divine nature or dark caverns, Thunder is often used by villains but can also represent a holy god, Water can be like Darkness since it's everywhere and comprises of the majority of the universe, Wind can also be relating to a dark nature. so one has choices to make and to reconfigure what is going to happen.

 

but for right now i think i would want Dark/Acid/Thunder/Fire to be my Dark Elements, Earth, Water, Holy, Water to be my Light elements. still trying to get the best parallels and opposites to work how i want them.

 

Fire/Water

Dark/Holy

Acid/Wind

Thunder/Earth

 

Holy debuffs Wind

Wind debuffs Water

Water debuffs Thunder

Acid debuffs Fire

Thunder debuffs Dark

Fire debuffs Earth

Earth debuffs Holy

Dark debuffs Acid

 

Fire weak against Water

Fire strong against Earth

Water weak against Thunder

Water strong against Fire

Thunder weak against Earth

Thunder strong against Water

Earth weak against Fire

Earth strong against Thunder

Acid weak against Dark

Acid strong against Wind

Dark weak against Holy

Dark strong against Acid

Holy weak against Wind

Holy strong against Dark

Wind weak against Acid

Wind strong against Holy

 

from where each element sits on the wheel it would start absorb, next closest 50%, then 75%, then 100%, then 150% against highly vulnerable type.

 

still trying to tweak so nothing overlaps or overwrites while keeping my wheel working, it gets more difficult to perfect when you add the elements in play

 

i also thought of doing 2 wheels separate from eachother too. have Black/White/Neutral for a trinity by itself, and have the other 6 Red/Indigo/Blue/Green/Yellow/Orange going head to head for a better balance? or even get crazy and create 3 trinities and have them as a bigger trinity woven together?

 

Dark/Holy/Neutral    Trinity 1

Water/Fire/Earth      Trinity 2

Acid/Thunder/Wind  Trinity 3

 

T1 --> T2 --> T3 --> T1

 

and have them like the typical trinity where 1 bests the other?

 

Black/White/Violet (W --> B --> V --> W)

Blue/Red/Green (G --> B --> R --> G)

Orange/Yellow/Indigo (O --> I --> Y --> O)

 

could rework debuffs as well in this way.

Edited March 1, 2014 by Tussin

[+ Retired 274]

Just my 2 cents on elemental mechanics - make it easy to understand for the player so the player can use it without actively thinking - it should be intuitive and major a noticeable impact on combat or other mechanics gameplay wise

[Spectre 829]

Rather than focusing on making too many interesting types of elements, e.g. Ice beats Dragon beats Bug beats Stone Golem or God only knows what, focus on making the few elements you have interesting.

An idea I've been tinkering around in my game right now is the concept of Residual Effects.

 

Consider the following example:

Cally casts Aqua Torrent on a Practice Golem.

The Golem takes water damage and is drenched, making it resistant to fire attacks and more vulnerable to lightning.

 

Faust casts Fireball on the Practice Golem.

Bad move. The Golem is no longer drenched, as the fire-type attack dries it off, and the Drenched state negates the single hit from the fire magic.

 

Notice I'm only using three elements; Water, Fire, and Lightning. But within these three elements are multiple interactions that allow versatility and a higher level of strategy in combat rather than just spamming spells with brute force.

 

Alternatively, consider using non-elemental items to invoke elemental strategies: covering an enemy in black oil, for example, makes any fire attack on them set them ablaze; or having enemies affected by the Blizzard weather effect instantly freeze when hit by a water spell.

[Scoosh 10]

Wow, some great ideas here, keep it up. I can't reply to them all but hopefully I can add more ideas when I have time.

 

I have to say I'm mainly thinking of creating elements for a sci-fi type rpg, hence the big appeal to have something different but I can't think of much that is intuitive, of course I asked does that really matter? Probably.. so If you've got any ideas that you think work in Sci-fi let me know I could always go the route of ff7/8 where it's sci fi with magic like fire, but as I say I'm a bit sick of fire and such, I know it's intuitive though!

 

Also ff7/8 is more like fantasy in space setting like star wars, unless you say materia is technology? Too realistic science can be too boring and constraining in some cases, where in many sci fi shows they instead create techno babble, like warp cores, dilithium etc ( just watch star trek )

 

Another idea I've been thinking of is do we even need elements at all? What purpose do they serve? Once you know them it's easy etc. I would like to make sure not to add something for the sake of it, but that's for another topic. Maybe there's a way to change up how elements operate...

[Maliki 33]

Elements are basically contextually quantifiable methods of dealing damage within your game world.

Any kind of variation can be considered an element.

And different objects, people and creatures can react to those variations.

 

For example, I can hit a wall with a glove, sword, bat, ax, or missile.

All of these things will do some degree of damage, but clearly, some will do more than others.

That's elements in a nutshell.

 

We, as RPG players have come to think of elements as Earth, Wind, Water and Fire or some variation of these.

But an element can be whatever you want within your game.

 

So, we don't NEED elements per se, but elements will help make sense of your world if applied in a conscious and consistent manner.

[Tussin 1]

and to add more realism to armor if you want to get a better guage of elemental effects or weaknesses of physical properties you can look here as well.

 

http://daoc.gamescape.com/Gameplay/WeaponEffectiveness.aspx

 

and/or http://camelot.allakhazam.com/weapon_effect.html

 

http://daoc.eaderbreca.com/dark-age-of-camelot-armor-resist-tables/

 

if i remember correctly vulnerable armor to a weapon type was 10% damage bonus, neutral was 0% bonus, resistant was 10% damage reduction. can tweak according to your tastes, but a rough guide to start with.

 

and for example if you have a frozen hammer and use it against plate you would get double the vulnerability bonus since the stacking at 20%

 

things to think about, whatever you decide for the % bonus, i would keep it the same for bonus and reduction. or the inverse if you attack a plate wearer with a fiery piercing weapon like a dagger it would stack to be a 20% resistance. (if using the 10% bonus)