What's The Point of Elements in Games?

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Elements! They're everywhere in games. Suspiciously everywhere, come to think of it. Elemental motifs bleed into character design, locations, battle mechanics, story, and more. But what makes it so appealing to use elements in so many different ways? Let's take a tour of the elements and see how their extreme flexibility can help build a game.
Featuring:
Kingdom Hearts
Golden Sun
Borderlands 2
Persona 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Pokemon Sword and Shield
Final Fantasy XIII
Ring Fit Adventure
Final Fantasy X
Breath of the Wild
Lost Odyssey
Luigi's Mansion
Pikmin
Skies of Arcadia
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[@DesignDoc]

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[@qwertystop]

Mega Man Battle Network 6 took the series' usual set of elements (heat-aqua-elec-wood, not sure why they insist on those slightly odd words) and added a second cycle, sword-break-cursor-wind (cursor is lock-on, targeting reticle, etc). It's a bit less intuitive, but that game goes heavier on tying common secondary effects to elements instead of making them one-off things on specific attacks. Break and Sword get short shrift, though. Shield removal is a Wind effect instead of a Break one. The most common invulnerability are invisibility and traps, both beaten by Cursor. Break gets to destroy obstacles, but nobody uses those competitively anyway, because Wind can throw them at you if you hide behind them and is already a must-have for shield removal, and Sword gets nothing at all. This also ensures that every form change now has a weakness (games 1-3 only had forms for four elements, 4 and 5 half the forms had no elemental weakness, just a general categorization that was only meaningful in which attacks allowed you to enter specific forms and were buffed by them). So in practice, Sword is useful primarily because both its form and the one it beats are quite good, and Break is useful only as a way to force an opponent out of Sword (but the Break-associated form is not very good, and there's a powerful Cursor attack as an every-deck staple anyway to keep it locked down).

[@chimpzchimpington420]

You forgot to mention ice at the beginning. As someone with a profile picture of an ice user, I am enraged.

[@TheRealEvab]

One more thing about elements is that they're almost universally recognizable, at least within games themselves. You will often already intuitively know what fire is going to do to wood vs stone, or what electricity will do to water and metal. It's an entire system that is mostly intuitive, or can at least be learned very quickly, in the cases of more unique elements. Ring Fit Adventure's use of elements to balance workouts is genius, by the way.

[@Silas_MN]

makes me actually want to get the game, lol

[@Laf631]

@@Silas_MN I highly recommend it. It really helped kick start an exercise routine, and it's set up in such a way that you can push yourself harder on days you're really feeling it. They did a good job with making it fun and still able to kick your ass, lol.

[@juanrodriguez9971]

Interactions is what makes elements interesting, if you can create a chain reaction it will be more, I can kill an enemy with a sword but if the ice makes it explode them welcome the explosion.

[@xxJing]

Some games do tend to conflate them though which makes things odd. Like making wind and lightning the same element when often lightning trumps wind in most games. Other games do pairs of opposing elements rather than a Rock Paper Scissors system which has Fire and Water effective against each other when normally Fire would be ineffective against water.

[@onijester56]

@@xxJing The conflation of wind and lightning is part of the Classical elemental system integral to Aristotelian metaphysics and "alchemy". See, within the cycle of Earth-Water-Air-Fire, "Air" equates to the Sky. Which contains within it the matter of WEATHER, most directly gusts and wind but also storms and thus lightning.

[@KanaevM]

To stun Thor with lighting in the first SMT and laugh at irony.

[@sommeone]

TRUE

[@Otierela]

FACT

[@Ban-zx9se]

To flarepunch a pyro in tf2 and laugh at the irony

[@TangoMango20XX]

Zio go brrr

[@Uhshawdude]

That always pissed me off in Ragnarok too. How does a shock collar debilitate the damn god of thunder?

[@TheKarishi]

The bit about elemental locations reminds me of a one-off joke in Stargate's TV series, where the team thinks at first they've arrived on an "ice planet" only to find that they're on Earth in Antarctica. It turns out worlds are BIG.

[@AnotherDuck]

Single-biome planets are for when you don't delve too deeply into said planets and just keep some surface level idea about them.

[@benjaminclay8332]

@@AnotherDuck Planet 4546B from Subnautica would like to have a word with you (I kid; I know the game separates biomes by ocean climates and depths, with different threats, resources, and hazards in each)

[@AnotherDuck]

@@benjaminclay8332 Exactly. Even if it seems like it on the surface, once you go below that it's an entirely different world.

[@ordo3297]

Recently played OMORI and having emotions as the elemental basis definitely was novel to me. The player can play with different strategies in mind to take advantage of whatever emotion. You can have your team's skills play off of one emotion or vary it so you can deal with any. I liked beating my enemies when they were angry so I get more experience after the match, but there is incentive to have them defeated in other emotional states: happy gives more clam (which is money) and likely chance of dropped items, and sad gives you less of everything (but is far easier to deal with since the enemy is weakened).

[@GmodPlusWoW]

What's more, if someone is Sad, they basically get a partial "mana shield" since some of the damage they take is diverted to their Juice instead of their Heart.

[@matchanavi]

It also has extra tiers to each emotion which makes the advantages and disadvantages more extreme. Bosses also tend to change your emotion and their own (some even lock themselves into one) so you have to keep adapting your status. In a way it's like mixing Status Ailments, Elemental affinities, and Stat Buffs/Debuffs into one mechanic. It's honestly quite genius.

[@johnbarrett6835]

Your pfp means that I will automatically believe you no matter what you say.

[@EurekxMisora]

And there is also one emotion that is forced upon you without your consent. That emotion is fear, and it works really well as it is only available in the story beats and there’s no way of changing it like the others. You can only work around it which fascinates me as that’s how fear is usually felt in real life. You can’t really force yourself to be scared. It’s always felt by a factor outside of your control.

[@freuner-merris]

OMORI's emotion system was fantastic. I just wish there were more fights that required you to to switch up your emotion setup partway through, since for most bosses you only need to counter their one emotion. (I do know I missed some optional fights though, so maybe there's some more variety there.)

[@Sephiel263]

The other thing about elemental systems that makes them so universal is that they're instantly understandable across all cultures. Everyone will understand that water is good against fire so you don't have to spend a lot of time explaining things dragging the start of the game down.

[@pn2294]

In Megaman Battle Network, while the elements are still used for weaknesses, they’re mostly used for their secondary attributes like status effects and Wood having good combo value

[@ItaloHD5527]

And fact that you can "force" an elemental weakness into your opponent adds a whole new layer of strategy to the game. Megaman Battle Network 6 has a much deeper gameplay than it looks like, and that's why this GBA game still hasn't died, almost 20 years after its release (see: Tango and N1GP Discord, for instance) I'm talking about how you can make your opponent take 2x damage from fire attacks with grass panels (MBoomer+FireHit combo), or how you can trap them in a bubble to make them weak to elec attacks (BblStar+DollThunder combo)

[@harrietr.5073]

@@ItaloHD5527 Oh, like Persona 5's technical dmg! I love that kind of system! I need to pick that game up then!

[@d3v1lsummoner]

@@harrietr.5073 BN series is recommended so long as you aren't going in thinking it's slow and methodical like Persona or SMT. For an RPG it's incredibly heavy on technique and execution and fast paced.

[@Vyz3r]

@@ItaloHD5527 Pokemon has similar but a much deeper mechanic with its moves (Magic Powder changes the target's type to psychic, Burn Up forces a fire-type pokemon to lose its fire typing, Forest's Curse adds the grass type to the target in addition to the Pokémon's original type, Camouflage changes the pokemon's type to a type corresponding to the battlefield terrain, Conversion changes the user's type to match the type of the move in the first slot even if that move cannot be selected in battle, Reflect Type changes the user's type to match the type or types of the target, Rain Dance casts a rain storm on the field), abilities (Forecast will change certain pokemon's typing depending on the weather, Mimicry changes a pokemon's type depending on the current terrain, Protean change the type of the pokemon into the type of the move it is using just before it uses it, Multi-type changes a pokemon's type based upon its hold item), weather environments (like rain that enhances water moves/boosts electric moves' accuracy, lowers fire-type pokemon and moves strength, decreases effectiveness of moves that rely on sun and moon, changes a move typing, activates certain abilities, and force change other pokemon's types), terrain fields (Electric terrain increases electric-type moves and prevents pokemon on the ground from falling asleep), and items ( Iron Ball makes Flying-type and levitating pokemon susceptible to ground-type moves, Black Sludge gradually restores the HP of poison-types but inflicts damage on all other types, Bug Memory changes a pokemon with a move Multi-Attack to bug type, Zap Plate changes certain pokemon type to Electric, Burn Drive changes certain pokemon with the move Techno Blast to a Fire-type). Now, imagine all these mechanics and using a move, ability or item to force you or your opponent to switch elements around.

[@qwertystop]

@@Vyz3r perhaps there's more of it but almost all of it is extremely limited in availability and almost never used in practice. The stage effects in MMBN are almost omnipresent competitively.

[@stevethepocket]

_Magicka_ had an interesting system where you have eight elements (fire, water, cold, life, arcane, earth/rock, lightning, and shield) that could be combined in chains of up to four and cast either directionally or on/around the player. Most elements had opposites that could be used to "delete" them from your combo bar but also serve as hard counters to each other as well as cause problems when used in conjunction between co-op partners (don't cross the beams!) Some combos automatically turn into sub-elements that only take up one of the four slots once formed: cold+water for ice, fire+water for steam, and water+arcane for poison (that last one might have been exclusive to the sequel? I don't remember using it). Arcane made for some fun unconventional combos; with most elements it would make a beam of deadly energy, but combined with shield it would plant a bunch of proxy mines.

[@steelforge8577]

Yeah best wizard element spell making game imo. Although that list isn't that long.

[@General12th]

One reason why elements are so ubiquitous is because they actually exist in the real world. Fire, electricity, sound; all of these are real phenomena that work in different ways. They're distinct from each other and from more "physical" attacks like shooting with a bullet or hacking with an axe. Elemental gameplay is as natural as a day/night cycle.

[@EskChan19]

Right, and that does not only make them recognizable but also intuitive. Obviously water puts out fire. Obviously fire burns plants. You don't really need to explain that to the player. Of course if you start using more obscure elements like sound that might become less intuitive, but usually you follow some kind of logic with these systems, and if you manage to explain this logic to the player, they'll likely understand the idea behind them quickly, while if you just do stuff randomly, that might not be the case. To this day I don't know the elements in Dragonball Legends. Been plaiyng for 4 years but they're simply colors. Why is yellow good against purple? Who knows!

[@Nourpy]

Then we have Oxygen, Carbon and Hydrogen!

[@kirbyofthestarsfan]

6:56 Funnily enough, of all games that address this, is... Kirby Star Allies In that game, elements are split in Sizzle, Blizzard, Zap, Splash and Bluster; or fire ice electric water and wind Electric moves are effective against water opponents just fine, but using water moves on electric bosses will also damage them more, as they'll be hurt by their own electricity

[@ThundagaT2]

I like how interactive the elements are in that game, like being able to freeze Francisca's water gun attack so that it stops covering most of the screen, or being able to use water attacks on the corrupted fruit Dedede throws at you to make them edible

[@cevatkokbudak6414]

I that is very cool

[@cevatkokbudak6414]

Very cool

[@ikagura]

My favourite element is the one of surprise.

[@dreamingahopefuldream4439]

-Defeats very difficult boss -Another even more difficult boss appears right after "Allow me to introduce myself"

[@AnotherDuck]

@@dreamingahopefuldream4439 There's also the classic fake-out where you find the big and powerful boss, only for it to get destroyed by the actual boss you're supposed to fight.

[@LegendEaterPSR]

Ah!

[@jamesbrice3267]

A fellow Terry Pratchett fan, I see.

[@BingQilin]

AH

[@juanrodriguez9971]

We need a kitchen RPG where the characters are food and they attack with sugar, salt, oil, smoke, meat, sauce, etc, and use kitchen tools such as spoons and spatulas as the weapons.

[@avereynakama9854]

That could be interesting.

[@nidohime6233]

Why not? There is no rules about how to make your own elemental system. Maybe based on flavours or tastes instead?

[@juanrodriguez9971]

@@nidohime6233 @Nido Hime I want the ingredients instead of flavors to cook everything rather than change the flavor, imagine finding a chicken boss and you defeat it by using sauce, ketchup, and a meat knife to turn it into well done nuggets which if aren't finished in time with heat attacks will all take theirs turns to defeat you.

[@marcodipietro813]

maybe a Soap attack kills Oil characters, but damages everything else as well because soap in food = bad. Or a triangle of water > soap > oil. Sugar types are wiped out by water, but especially if the water is heated first. Maybe there would be levels to it, too- a jalapeño or horseradish would be less impactful than a ghost pepper.

[@darienb1127]

Dude I had a really similar idea, but all of the damage types are flavors. I imagine the game takes place in a world made of food, and your damage types are stuff like vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, mint, cinnamon, etc. The reason why certain flavors work better on certain enemies is becuase you would be hitting them with a flavor that makes them taste like crap. Also, I think it would be funny to say "she takes 23 points of Strawberry damage."

[@Densoro]

I particularly love the historical Chinese element structure (Wu Xing), because the interactions aren't limited to 'tearing down an opposing element,' but also 'building it up.' This creates a setting where 'killing badly or killing well' are not the only interactions that characters may have. Not that I'm an expert, mind you :P Just an overexcited American. Rather than having a designated healing magic, you may have to work out on a case-by-case basis what will heal each party member. If your Wood party member is hurting, use Hydro Pump as a healing spell! Much like elemental personality motifs, these elemental interactions can happen _symbolically_ in conversation, medicine, or even _plot structure:_ You might have a character whose Hot-Blooded attitude is causing problems, so Cold words might knock them down a peg -- or you may have a more Flowery character egg them on, throwing fuel on their proverbial fire. A character may contract an illness that steals their fire, requiring a hot, bitter medicine to restore their inner flame. This sense of the elements affecting everyday life would be enhanced with BotW-style elemental reactions in the environment. On top of this, light and dark are used as _modifiers_ for the five elements. A gleaming light metal like silver has different connotations than cold, dark wrought iron. This builds variations of each element _directly into_ the system. Because Wu Xing comes from _an actual real-world belief system,_ it concerns itself with every facet of life. We can still have standard magic brawls, but Wu Xing's structure allows you to believe that the elements embody _more than that._

[@dm_ex_machina3395]

It's also important to note that these same principles were at the core of the story Journey to the West, with each of the characters representing specific elements and the whole thing being elevated to a spiritual journey as a result. This built the foundation of the Five Man Band ensemble structure that's been highly influential in the east ever since (and even beyond). There is a cultural legacy that's been built upon because of that intuitive nature you described and that legacy makes it even more intuitive.

[@MolecularMachine]

Iron Widow (which is a book, not a game, but a fighting game based on the chrysalises would be very cool) goes a little into this! It doesn't mention healing with elements, but traditional herbal medicine and chi flow are important for combat.

[@Densoro]

@@dm_ex_machina3395 Ooh I didn't catch this for the little bit of JttW that I've checked out, thank you for the added context :D I wonder if the concept is so abstracted at this point, that FMB writers _intuitively_ understand that the teammates should both _amp up and constrain_ each other in some way -- or at least, if that's what sets a good FMB apart from a lackluster one.

[@Densoro]

@@MolecularMachine It does my heart good to see people hyping up Xiran Jay Zhao :D If I read books, like...ever, I'd totally dive on that.

[@nategwright]

That structure is the one of Fire, Water, Wood, Earth, & Metal, right?

[@fionagibson7529]

My favorite elemental interaction is in SMT games with one specific element. Almighty attacks can’t be blocked. Most of the time they can’t be resisted. Magic reflection doesn’t reflect them. The only counterbalance is that most demons can’t learn them and they can’t ever hit a weakness. It’s an interesting elemental tier system, Almighty above the rest.

[@koheikyouji]

Almighty cant hit weaknesses, you say? *Laughs in SMT4 Masakado* God I hated that fight xD

[@quack-_-nuke]

almightys also good for level checking because theres no way to counter it it forces you to wait a bit before attempting a certain fight instead of building a team that counters the boss so you can beat it underlevelled

[@ArshadZahid_nohandleideas]

@@koheikyouji yeah, it's called an exception, they can also put twist on an established formula by deterring from the rules

[@phillemon7664]

I love almighty so much, while it doubles as a good “oh shit” moment creator when your enemy uses it but when you get to use almighty it makes you feel powerful with how integral weaknesses and strengths against elements are emphasized in Megaten.

[@koheikyouji]

@@ArshadZahid_nohandleideas someone cant take a joke

[@kitzve1444]

I love how in Magic the Gathering/Duel Masters elements have no built-in advantage over each other, but the dynamics are still there. There's no rule saying that red monsters deals more damage to green monsters, but the playstyle of nonstop violence will beat out a bunch of tanky creatures a lot of the time. Not to mention that you can essentially make whatever elemental build you want, but will usually be confined to ~2 in order to build a deck that isn't too spread out and difficult to use. neato

[@jasonreed7522]

I made a "meme" deck in magic once using 3 colors, it doesn't work because the odds of getting lands and normal cards that match is very low so you will have 3 red lands and only blue and white cards so you can't do anything. I was just using loaner cards and didn't actually care about the game so i wasn't being very serious. It didn't help he was a try-hard making decks that printed 1/1 death touch tokens. The insanity that is capable from that game is very interesting but definitely not for everyone, especially casuals.

[@blazerchocobo]

Some decks even use all 5 colors (tribal humans and tribal dinosaurs come to mind) granting them a variety of effects and flexibility but are, as a trade-off, more difficult to run and costly to build.

[@77blaidddrwg]

@@blazerchocobo a rainbow deck basically. They're easier to build in commander than they are in a regular build. Like the only way you could run something like progenitus would be with dual lands and multicolor mana artifacts which you have better chances of pulling in edh

[@matthewkuscienko4616]

Yugioh I would say is very much in the same boat, as there are loads of elements in that game, divided up between 6 attributes and about 25 or so types at last count, none of which typically have any impact on how a battle between 2 monsters will play out. Instead, they tend to be used more as a way to make them compatible with the effects of particular cards in the game primarily, but there are also certain cards that can be used against monsters with a specific type or attribute

[@pmnt_]

I like MtG because neighboring elements have something in common and opposite elements are completely different. red&black: destruction. red&green: raw power, both of them are opposite of blue, etc.

[@appelofdoom8211]

I like any game that just goes ''you know what screw it let's do something'' with the elements. Like kingdom of loathing throwing spooky, stench and sleaze in alongside hot and cold or infamous second son using it's more urban setting well by having the elements you get access to be smoke, neon, digital and concrete.

[@jasonreed7522]

This is the reaction i had when I first watched MHA, it was refreshing to see superpowers that weren't basically just the avengers or justice league reskined. Admittedly that show does have plenty of cliché powers but it generally has more intent to using them vs something more original. I like the classics and one of my favorite games has an element system of fire --> earth --> air --> water --> fire and neutral. Its simple but it works, especially with the full battle system. (The game is Fossil Fighters 1 & 2)

[@Ranzord95]

lisa the painful's element/status system

[@syweb2]

OFF's system of Smoke, Metal, Plastic, and Meat is really fun for the aesthetic and worldbuilding.

[@ZarHakkar]

@@syweb2 Can't forget the forbidden artificial fifth element, Sugar.

[@LowinBayrod]

There's even more obscure elements in KoL: Bad spelling, Shadow, Slime, Supercold, and Cute.

[@mads_in_zero]

14:28 - Worth noting that Nomura is so good at individualizing them that their coats are all different. Even when they're in their hoods up, haven't met this person yet, you can tell them apart. For instance, Luxord has the widest sleeves to allow him to pull his cards from them. Axel conversely has the narrowest sleeves and overall fit.

[@cl0k3]

as much as people meme on the game I like the element system of Genshin's being based around reactions, inflicting one element after another to produce a reaction. It adds a level of consciousness to using elements and trying to build a team around producing reactions that maximize damage contextually. So a eula comp totally winds up different from a hu Tao comp, or ayaka comp because all three characters have different methods of dealing damage and therefore, different comps, eula wanting superconduct, Hu Tao wanting vape, and Ayaka wanting freeze.

[@Iinneus]

A bunch of people have mentioned similar things, but I really like when elements have these bonus passive effects that change the way you play, leading to more _styled_ play rather than _optimal_ play. For example, in Pokémon, they made Electric-types immune to paralysis. Now, even if Electric isn't the best type for a situation based purely on "are electric-type moves super-effective", you may still get a lot of use out of that passive effect! Though there's also the more... maybe 'obvious' way to do this? Something like Kingdom Hearts 2's Fire/Ice/Lightning magic! Fire spins around you and activates quickly, great for stunlocking enemies and hitting things up close. Ice is straightforward, shooting ahead of you and knocking enemies back. Lightning instantly strikes down, and tends to draw enemies upwards, helping you launch enemies and juggle them, or just fight already airborne things. If anything, in systems like that, elemental weaknesses are moreso just a good way to trick the player into learning about bonus effects! In an early stage, you hit an enemy with electricity because they're robotic or made of water, but then you learn "oh this stuns people" and when you're fighting lategame enemies with no weaknesses, you're still using that effect!

[@rushalias8511]

One thing to note electric types aren't immune to paralysis they are immune to paralysis induced by electric moves. There are still moves outside of electric that can paralysis them if I recall. I know for a fact that ground types can be paralyzed with moves like lick and body slam. And as of Gen 7 even poison and steel types are capable of being poisoned via Salazzle's corrosion

[@Adowrath]

@@rushalias8511 Yeah, Bodyslam is the first move that comes to mind: A normal type move with 30% to paralyse, even electric types (except in Gen 1 where it couldn't para Normal type Pokémon because that's just how Gen 1 is).

[@notoriuscaitsithvii9608]

On the topic of KH2's magic: in port royale, it gets even more fun against the pirates: Different Magic affects them differently. From what I know - Fire sets them aflame and makes them run around, Thunder makes them walk robotically straight forward, and Ice locks them in place.

[@rushalias8511]

@@notoriuscaitsithvii9608 I remember there was also a hollow bastion in kh 1 where it had the bubbles and apparently you could use blizzard on the bubbles to freeze them into platforms and jump. A neat detail that I thought was cool for platforming.

[@Rainstorm_100]

@@rushalias8511 I’m pretty sure lick was changed to not do that in later generations

[@flarecoils1573]

Pokemons elemental system is amazing to me, not just because of how uniquely every type interacts with one another, but also with how every type interacts with different moves, items and abilities. Having trouble with moves like spore and poison powder? use a grass type. dont want a pokemon with prankster to bother you? can't prank an evil dark type. wanna really boost your electric types power? electric terrain does that and prevents you from falling asleep. theres so much variety and nuance to how every pokemon reacts to a given situation that you can find a use for so many different pokemon.

[@drflannelxd904]

It does help that Pokemon keeps the difficulty in their games relatively low, as taking those same tools and turning the problem into another players makes like 90% of the toolbox suddenly uninteresting/not viable against the 10% picked

[@lord6992]

Buff bug, poison, ice and rock

[@smokedcaramel3818]

@@drflannelxd904 The last time we've seen difficulty was in black & white 2, I wish they would bring difficulties back

[@drflannelxd904]

@@smokedcaramel3818 I wish less that Pokemon was harder, and that another series like SMT could provide just as much depth to their systems while also staying difficult.

[@smokedcaramel3818]

@@drflannelxd904 But black & white 2 have easy, normal, and hard?

[@darienb1127]

I've had this idea for an RPG where everything is based around food and sweets. The damage types would be different flavors instead of elements. For example: Vanilla, Stawberry and Chocolate would be 3 major elemental damage. There could be other stuff like Cinnamon, Mint, etc. I just think it would really fun to say "He takes 23 points of Strawberry damage."

[@Shrek_es_mi_pastor]

I think it'd make more sense to use stuff like 'salty', 'sweet', 'bitter' and so one as elemental types

[@Game_Hero]

what are you waiting for? Go get doing that before someone else does it!

[@darienb1127]

@@Shrek_es_mi_pastor Maybe, but this is funnier.

[@darienb1127]

@@Game_Hero You think I have any game design skills or experience? Or money?

[@Game_Hero]

@@darienb1127 you might be surprised.

[@thebigchungus4515]

I like how NEO TWEWY handles its element system beyond just hitting an enemy’s weakness, with a pin’s base Psych archetype being affected due to its elemental affinity. For example, Stuck in the Middle is a Psychic Shotgun pin and those tend to typically inflict knockback but since it’s a Gravity variant, Stuck in the Middle draws in enemies instead, making it great for positioning and pulling in enemies into traps and Mashups that require more precision. And this same philosophy also applies to a lot of the pins, with each element having unique effects/passive buffs applied to them >Darkness pins get Killing Blow (ability that increases damage based off of how low an enemy’s’ HP is) and confusion >Sound pins get Groove Boost (increases the amount of Groove earned landing combos with the pin's psych) and increased charge speed >Ice pins get freezing (duh) >Fire pins get burning, Electric pins get shock, and Poison pins get poison for different variants of DoT >Time pins get slowdown, making them great for hitting the Beatdrop sweetspot >Water pins get Take Five (recharges pins at a much faster rate when not using Psychs for a prolonged period) >Stone pins get entombment >Kinesis pins can summon debris that hangs around for a short period of time for additional damage if an enemy comes into contact with it, like say a train rolling into a penguin and just deleting it from existence >Light pins get HP Vampire (which gives you health back) >Gravity pins gets knockdown, launchers, and pulls >Burst and Wind pins gets knockback with differing properties The Mashups also add a lot to this system and it’s really damn neat. >Gravity Mashup is basically a more powered up version of KH2’s Magnet and is also great for interrupts >You can not only freeze enemies with the Ice Mashup but also bounce them around on ice spikes for additional damage with moves such as Poltergeist and Massive Hit >Water Mashup can not only be used for juggling but also for defense since you can bait enemies into running into the water geysers >Fire Mashup can absolutely BTFO large enemies/rhinos since their constantly moving hitboxes stack up additional damage overtime from the lingering flames, and you can combine this with the Black Hole or knockdown psychs/pins to make sure the enemies stay there to feel the effects >Time Mashup can also stop almost any enemy/boss in place >It’s one of the harder Mashups to position but if you utilize it just right, you can bounce around enemies into the cages of an Electric Mashup for knockback, use it for area denial for enemies such as bears, wolves, and birds, stack up damage on large enemies such as mammoths and dinos since their large sizes means more hitboxes spread across the cage, or hold them in place at the edge with status effects or Black Hole/Snare Trap to increase its overall damage on trapped enemies >Wind Mashup breaks out into 6 tornadoes that knocks away enemies, making it great for crowd control, and can absolutely tear through enemy defenses such as Leo Cantus Armo’s armor

[@FelisImpurrator]

NTWEWY sounds like such a fun game. I need to play it.

[@thebigchungus4515]

@@FelisImpurrator Highly recommend it. There’s a lot of depth to it’s various systems and the game gets more complex the further you go into it.

[@T-man2240]

Man this game is so much more complex than I realized when I played it. Thanks so much much for this insightful list! And I'm always glad to see a fellow TWEWY fan!

[@dave9515]

Man after beating the game through i thought i had a pretty decent grasp on its combat but now its clear to me i know very little. Neo is way deeper than i thought. Thanks for the insight. Now i can take even longer in menus setting up my pins and characters which for me is a plus cause there are even more options that i thought were already possible that add even more possibilities with the combat when i go back to it that is.

[@DiegoG2004]

One thing I find curious is that you almost never have all the elements with a decent pin for any specific point in the game. Like, for week 1, you can absolutely keep a wind sword and a poison bomb and woosh every enemy into erasure. But then in week 2, wind is pretty much gone and you're left with mostly Fire, Water, Darkness and Kinesis, making you try out different combinations to see what works best. And then in week 3, Light is suddenly the element you want the most thanks to that HP Vamprire effect and really good damage.

[@f0rm0r]

I never really thought about this, but a lot of these things are what make the Type-based Gym Leaders in Pokémon so appealing. Their Types can inform their design and personality as characters, as well as the puzzles they build for their Gyms, and having a lot of different Type-based enemies to defeat throughout the game encourages Type diversity on your team of six monsters so you can better take on harder fights at the end of the game.

[@MegafanX123]

Pokémon is almost 30 and we didn't have an angry spike haired teen fire gym Leander.

[@techmark3665]

@@MegafanX123 Flannery

[@MegafanX123]

Sorry i forgot to say its a boy, like an anime protagonist

[@Jw87563]

It also helps teach players about how types work. I mean, it is meant to be beaten by kids, so having the main bosses be type specialists is an easy way to teach game mechanics.

[@Derpinator01]

Undertale has some interesting examples of how single elements can come with their own thematic dualities. Toriel's fire is often warm and comforting, but it can become intimidating and destructive when she fights. Undyne's water starts out dangerous and menacing, but it becomes playful and nurturing once you get to know her. The electricity of Alphys and Mettaton is shown off as exciting and brilliant, but it can also be unexpected or faltering. Even the boney attacks of Papyrus and Sans are cartoonish and vibrant to distract from the hidden despair and fatalism that their death-related attacks hint at.

[@keystone5750]

To build on the bit about the Organization from KH, I love how the game uses the different members to represent magic types that couldn't fit on to Sora's moveset. This is most obvious with Xaldin having defensive wind spells, Xigbar being able to mess with gravity, or Luxord being able to drive a taxi and also manipulate time. All of these were spells in KH1, and it was cool seeing them represented in new ways in KH2. Even some elements that were only in final fantasy (at the time) could be represented by Demyx or Lexaeus. It's pretty cool.

[@thattruegamernerd]

Driving is my favourite magic type, what magicians drivers must be indeed

[@keystone5750]

@@thattruegamernerd I love how Luxord is literally Just A Guy who likes cards games and chauffeurs around important(?) people

[@thattruegamernerd]

@@keystone5750 He could definitely be a one-episode throwaway opponent in a Yugioh series, Zexal probably. He’d have used speedroids I could see.

[@temporalwolf7054]

One of my favorite implementations of elements comes in the form of what I kind of call "parallel" elements. At first glance, it's along the same idea as elemental tiers, but not necessarily better or worse than other elements. Like, take Star magic in the Disgaea games (though star has been changed in how it works in later games). I remember playing the first Disgaea game and unlocking Star Mages that ended up being the backbone of my party. Enemies all have resistance percentages to fire, wind, and ice magic, but nothing for star. Star by default then became a more consistent way to deal damage, and given the relative scarcity of funds to equip 3 mages at once in the early game, it became far better strategically to keep a single mage outfitted in the best gear while slowly working the others up as the money and item flow starts to pick up. My favorite aspect of this though comes in how that interacts with the difficulty curve because as I've described it, you'd be forgiven for thinking "well star is just better then" when it really isn't. Star doesn't do significantly more or less damage than other elements, but because all enemies had no resistance to it, star was the most adaptable. However once you get later into the game, resources start to be more plentiful, and HP totals start getting higher and higher, it becomes a better idea to start hitting those elemental weaknesses as fire, wind, and ice applied to the right enemy will do significantly more damage than star would, increasing the viability of those three elements, but at the same time star never really stops being consistent.

[@Diamon_Boots]

I like that idea too, like the "almighty" attacks in SMT (& related) games, or to a lesser extent normal type in Pokémon, a type that is always (or at least almost always) good, but never the best, it can lead to really fun interactions and strategies.

[@daniellemurnett2534]

This reminds me of the Almighty element in the MegaTen franchise. The concept is the same. Nothing* resists it but nothing* is weak to it either, both of which are actually much more of a concern in a system that has more dictated by weak and strong hits than damage numbers. It also ignores anti-magic barriers and other such conditions. I'll be using Digital Devil Saga as an example because that's the one I've played. It runs on the so-called Press Turn system where you have one action to take per party member, which in that game is a max of 3. This means you have to optimize each character's turn to absolute perfection because the moment all your press turns are used up, the enemy takes their own turn under the same/similar rules. However, hitting an enemy with an element that it's weak to (or a critical hit with a physical attack) will only use up "half" of a press turn, so by making every one of your attacks in a party turn hit super effective you're practically doubling your turn's length. It's more complicated than that but this is what we'll go with. Hitting an enemy that resists an attack is just generally a bad choice, but if an enemy is immune to, reflects, or heals from an attack, *all of your press turns are immediately used up.* So hitting weak is insanely important but avoiding hitting a resist is even more so. Almighty spells cut out both the advantages and the risks. This is, historically in the series, a fairly late-game option without grinding, but might be worth it. * In some of the games, a small handful of bosses might be resistant or in extreme cases immune to Almighty. In one spin-off series specifically Almighty is treated more or less the same as a regular spell element, which would devalue it greatly in any other context but instead comes off as bold and fresh.

[@Pika250]

@@Diamon_Boots Dragon in much the same vein as normal, at least offensively. There is a type that partially resists (steel for both and rock for normal) and a type that is completely immune (fairy to dragon and ghost to normal) with everything else being hit for neutral (except dragon vs dragon). Dragon is far different from normal as a defense, with three weaknesses (ice, fairy, and dragon itself) and four resistances (electric, fire, water, and grass) vs normal with one weakness (fighting) and one immunity (ghost).

[@thelightningking8772]

Something I like about how the Trails series handles its elements is by tying them to character stats. Fire is tied to strength, water to hp and magic defense, earth to phys defense, wind to evasion and movement, time to speed, space to accuracy and crit chance, and mirage to elemental attack and ep (mp). It makes it so that different character builds have different elemental leanings and with different support spells. It’s fun to play around with

[@ThundagaT2]

Grandia does this too in the first game, its an interesting game that I wish more people talked about.

[@RYNOROSSFILMS]

Another cool thing about Trails that ties into the world building is the Higher Three. For those unaware, as TheLightingKing mentioned, there are seven elements in Trails. Normally enemies have weaknesses and resistances to the traditional earth, fire, wind and water elements, while time, space, and mirage deal neutral damage. Some locations in the games, however, are noted as having higher concentrations of the later three, known as the higher elements, present in the area. Story wise, these places feature bizarre monsters and environments, and tend to tie into the more mystical parts of the franchise. Gameplay wise, monsters in these areas can be weak to or resist the higher three like any other elements, and give unique turn bonuses such as giving a character a chance to 100% ko most enemies with an attack, or granting them a second turn. There are other cool ways the series uses elements, such as combining the elements into new elements or their associations with a part of the games backstory, but it further goes to prove the creativity a game can have with elements like this video mentioned.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

Why is no one talking about combat system and mechanic in Trails series? All people keep saying is that the game is only worth for world building and story. Story is the only thing that the fans talk about, why can't they just tell me on what kind of gameplay does the series have???

[@ralphcaluag2403]

@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 They forget that each Septerion (Seven Blessing of the Goddess Aidios) are based on those Elements. One is the Sentient Wish Granting Artifact of Space - Shining Ring (from Liberl Ark). It can bend Space and Alter Reality to grant wishes of those with the Gospel Orbment.

[@RYNOROSSFILMS]

@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 Because we're obsessed with the plot? Okay, so this'll be a quick and dirty, but gameplay is centered around sidequests: with the exception of one or two games, you're givien a list of side quests to do in-between the main story. They can involve monster hunts, finding an npc, delivering an item, ect. Some quests can be handled multiple ways, but only one gives you the most points for completing it. These points grant you certain useful items, in addition to any rewards you get for finishing the quest, so it's in your interest to complete any side quest to the best of your ability. Combat is done on a movable grid. Each character, in addition to the standard attack/item/run actions present in all rpgs, have access to two types of skills: Arts, and Crafts. Arts is the magic system, and is determined by items called quartz. You equip the quartz to a character, which grants them passive effects, and the type of quartz you equip determines the spells you can cast. Crafts are skills unique to each character, and can include attacks, healing skills, and the games limit break system, the S-Craft. Characters take turns in battle based on their speed, and during fights their are turn bonuses - passive boosts like str. up and HP restore that go to whoevers turn it is when they line up, so friend and foe can snag them with an equal chance. There's a bit more to it, but if you want me to clarify anything, ask away.

[@caliburnabsolute8517]

One obscure example of a game with a good element system is Seraphic Blue. It's got an elemental field system based on Chrono Cross, where using spells of a certain element add it to the field (or remove its opposite element), which can allow you to fire off more powerful spells. An early example is the spell Healing Rain, which you need Water on the field to use, but it heals the whole party pretty substantially. The bosses get in on this too, with lategame bosses even having spells that nuke your party if no elements are on the field. It's really intricate for an RPG Maker game from 2005 and I love it.

[@RTDArtist]

You must mean the spell Void Infinity. considering it's a non-elemental attack spell Also not to mention that those lategame bosses you do need to leave an element on the field. but depending on the boss attacks usually it's better to leave an element that is the least threatening attack.

[@quack-_-nuke]

smt does it best: gaining extra turns for hitting weaknesses meaning you can essentially double your turns and on the extra turns you can just use a normal move cause even if you use another weakness it will still take up an extra turn allowing for a variety of moves to be used in just a single turn. It also keeps a bigger skill gap so you can fight enemies more powerful and still win instead of having to grind so much

[@phillemon7664]

Agreed, it really lends itself to a lot of gameplay depth.

[@sonicbhoc]

My favorite SMT moment: SMT IV, just outside of the park. Level 70 Yggdrasil boss. I beat him at level 40. I got 8 turns per phase by hammering his weaknesses and keeping myself buffed while debuffing the boss to hell. His damage was pitiful unless he used magic, and his magic lost him turns. I felt like a genius. Unfortunately, SMT V includes level scaling, making such a thing impossible now. They should have left that mechanic in Persona.

[@draghettis6524]

Crosscode's Wave really stands out among the 3 other elements, which are the more usual Cold, Fire, and Shock. Even in-game, the lore nerd npc is puzzled by what it represents. It's themed around green and waves, is the complementary to Shock, and revolves around HP ( it has the most passive health bonus and health regen, and has life-stealing moves, as well as moves fueled by your HP, or the HP damage dealt to ennemies by them ) and ranged combat ( its status effect, Marked, has the sole effect of increasing ranged damage by 50% ) Enemies associated to it often teleport and have ranged attacks.

[@TheMinecraftMan757]

I like it. It's creative and feels kind of abstract, while still having some logical consistency. Wave themed enemies reside in the water temple with enemies relating to fluid and sea creatures, but the teleportation aspect feels like it is reminiscent of funky radio waves used to magically transport objects through the air.

[@PeterDanielBerg]

@@TheMinecraftMan757 yeah, guess it's waves of all types, not just water

[@lancelindlelee7256]

@@TheMinecraftMan757 cue argument over which temple is the fire temple.

[@lobster1014]

Was looking for a comment about crosscode :)

[@ED-gw9rg]

While I find Shock to be my favorite combat Element (being aggressive is SO MUCH FUN), Wave is the most interesting Element to me. No other game that I know of really has a form of Wave, because it's...Not sound based. Or a remix of water. I like how awkward and out-there Wave Spheromancer is to use in battle, too. (Not so much their associated enemies being long-range campers, but that's what Shock is for!) Whenever I think of CrossCode, it's amazing handling of the relationship between Shock and Wave always comes to mind first!

[@Laf631]

I didn't expect Ring Fit Adventure here, but I had the same reaction when I first played the game! It adds a level of complexity to a relatively straightforward RPG.

[@robert2german]

The Destiny series had an interesting yet underutilized element system based around fundamental forces, consisting of Solar (strong nuclear forces), Arc (electromagnetism), Void (gravity) and recently Stasis (entropy). Initially, these elements were only really used for defining character abilities and matching elemental shields, but recently, with the subclass overhaul, each element now has a more defined identity, with associated gameplay “verbs”: • Stasis is focused on slowing and freezing enemies and creating destructible cover; • Void can weaken enemies, prime them into explosives, and suppress enemy abilities, while also providing overshields, invisibility, and healing and grenades upon killing enemies; • Solar is now heavily associated with healing and damage buffing, along with damage over time and explosions; • Arc has yet to be overhauled, but there are associations with chain lightning, melee synergy, and mobility.

[@XepherTim]

I'm so glad they're finally leaning more into the "elemental" side of things, excited to see where they go after Arc 3.0.

[@stevem.9340]

@@XepherTim I'm hoping in the future that the subclasses complement each other to see how different elements react to each other.

[@diegoestmar559]

@@XepherTim Arc 3.0 ended up being awesome (imo)

[@AnotherDuck]

I find it interesting that I watched this video right after Adam Millard's newest video about unsolvable problems, and I think the topic is pretty much the same. It's all about creating variation and stop the player from always using the same, optimal strategy. Or at least add an incentive to be more creative. His video is more about the overall structure and goal of the game, while this is more about a specific mechanic, but they're both about the same idea. I recommend watching both videos in relation to each other.

[@zzuxon]

With elements being such a ubiquitous concept, doing something very esoteric with an element system immediately gives your game a sense of feeling shocking and avant-guarde. When I watched a playthrough of OFF and saw that the world's elements were Smoke, Metal, Plastic, Meat, and Sugar, it floored me.

[@adhdweirdo4314]

I’m personally a big fan of genshins element system, there aren’t really super effective types, minus a few resistances, but those are usually enemy specific. Instead it has reactions which take the place of effective moves, like for example dendro + pyro = burning. Instead of just grass is weak to fire, you can apply both and deal a lot of damage- or in theory at least. Still waiting for dendro characters lmao, tho enemies can apply it to you while also applying fire for the same effect.

[@adhdweirdo4314]

A great example of it being used in a team comp is sukokomon. Even if your not interested, search for it on KZbin, very satisfying to watch lol.

[@Runegrem]

@@adhdweirdo4314 It's really good if you like your screen filled with lots of colourful numbers. Sadly, I lack the koko for the team.

[@adhdweirdo4314]

@@Runegrem same (‘: I want her but her timing is always so inconvenient….

[@amandaslough125]

2 more full banners, then we can get plant magic. I'm so excited for Sumeru coming in like 2 months.

[@victorvirgili4447]

when my sis forced me to play genshin the only thing I wanted was to mix wind and fire to make nukes. if I ever return I’ll keep trying to achieve that dream

[@TheSpeep]

I really like the way Deep Rock Galactic implemented its elemental damage systems. DRG's weapons can come with a variety of different types of elemental damage, either inherent to the weapon or unlockable through an upgrade. Certain enemies are weak or resistant to certain elements, or have regional variants that are, all the standard stuff so far, but practically all elements have some additional effects and interactions with eachother. Fire can be used to light enemies, which inflicts a dot effect but also causes them to heat up other nearby enemies, which helps light them on fire too, some weapons can also set the ground on fire to hurt or ignite enemies passing through, and robot enemies die immediately from being overheated. Ice can be used to cool down enemies, which slows them and can even freeze them in place for a short while, which increases the damage they take, especially from melee attacks, but also instantly kills most flying and small enemies. Hitting a burning enemy with ice or a frozen one with fire also douses/thaws them and causes them to take a bunch of extra damage from temperature shock. Electricity and toxic gas or sludge slow enemies and apply a dot, but the latter can also be ignited using fire, while electricity boosts the damage enemies take from certain weapons, and theres a few more. All of these elements not only have their own effects, they also interact with eachother in different ways that arent just "X is stronger against Y" and can be combined to greater effect. For example, I really like bringing toxic gas grenades on missions where I'll be dealing with a lot of robot enemies, because although robots are immune to the toxic gas, I can kill a whole swarm of them at once by luring them into the gas cloud and igniting it.

[@davidmelon9409]

The wheel of colors in Magic the Gathering is less about counteracting each other, and more about providing radically different playstyles and strategies. Use White to trap enemy creatures and bolster your own, Green to summon big monsters, Red to set things on fire, Black to revive creatures and cause nasty status effects and Blue to trap your opponents.

[@Heriarka]

"to set things on fire" is the least specific yet probably the most accurate description of Red

[@Sorain1]

Which all spring from their psychological elements and associations. Black can bring things back or do nearly anything it wants... but it will always cost you, and rarely in just mana. (But nothing says YOU have to pay, or with your own resources.) White can make rules and force them on everyone... but only everyone. (Doesn't mean the rules are fair.) Red can do anything wicked fast, but that doesn't mean it has staying power or might not turn out to be a bad idea. (Everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face.) Blue knows everything, but how you turn that into winning isn't always clear. (And of course if I've taken away your winning plan...) Green grows, fast, but unless it's artificial, can't take away things aside from smashing it with a big beasty. (Violence does solve a remarkable amount of problems.)

[@bllmd1]

Funny that you used BotW as an example of an immersive sim. Me and my friends were arguing about to what extent it could be considered an immersive sim just the other day.

[@Monica_bondevik]

"separate one anime boy from the next" XD that cracked me up

[@kevingriffith6011]

I've been referring to elemental systems as "Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry" for years now. In my mind at least the concept of damage type systems by themselves is kind of outdated: Most of the time it boils down to a different visual effect on the attack and more or less damage and nothing else... and the price is spending more time in a menu every turn finding the highest level version of X element damage in your spell list. It's pretty much all the same, just a different color number. There are ways to design around it, but it involves making each element more complex than just bonus vs X, penalty vs Y Edit: Just to throw my hat in the ring for solutions, because presenting a problem without a solution isn't super useful: Make each element have unique behaviors that specifically beat certain kinds of enemies without just doing more damage. Earth does massive damage but is prone to missing (And some enemies will always get hit regardless of what you do), while lightning can not miss (which is good vs enemies that dodge often). Fire stacks a damage over time on your target and prevents them from healing, while Ice reduces defense. Such like that.

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

That kind of system could even lead to interesting combos. For example, using Light to blind a foe (lowering their accuracy and evasion) then nailing them with a powerful Earth spell, or using Fire to nullify/reverse healing then throw down an AOE heal without having to worry about healing your enemies.

[@darekun46]

City Of Heroes/City Of Villains had a nice solution to this: Elements mostly conferred secondary effects. Electricity attacks would include some extra Endurance("MP") damage; used properly, you can shut down enemies by draining their Endurance. Fire attacks would include a DOT effect, so fire wasn't optimal if you were going to kill the target quickly, but given enough time it was the best damage output. Ice attacks would hit delayed, which you might think would be a drawback, but "launch attack, get behind cover, attack hits" was so good ice was the OP element. Sonic attacks gave the target a vulnerability debuff, so like fire it was better for longer fights, but unlike fire you had to keep hitting them. Etc. The game also had elemental resistances, but targets had a separate set of types; for example, undead-type enemies took less damage of energy types, but had no type resistance to ballistic damage. But there was no "undead damage" or "ballistic-type enemies". This was used to good effect with the Clockwork King - your first clue is his clockwork machines hurt more, not less, from psi damage - but yeah it's not as interesting as the secondaries.

[@kevingriffith6011]

@@gregoryford2532 It should probably be much more pronounced than pokemon (which most of the unique type effects are "you have a *chance* for X to happen"), but yeah something like that. I admit I haven't played a kingdom hearts since 2, and apart from the spells having different shot patterns I don't know what the difference is, but you're probably right here too.

[@Superflaming85]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a second, and say that such a system is very hard to balance. Since if an element has an additional bonus that's too good, or it has an additional bonus that's too bad, it can result in said element being overused or underused respectively. And even then, you can still run into the same "Chocolate/Vanilla/Strawberry" issue, except this time with the bonus effects. For an example for what I mean, using your example bonus effects: Use fire attacks on enemies that heal. Use lightning on enemies with high evade. Either never use earth if it misses too much because you'll be able to put out more damage by using other spells, or always use it if it's too accurate because a single hit does more damage than 4 or 5 turns of other elements. And, of course, you'd always use ice, either spamming it if the defense debuffs stacked, or just using it once at the start of every fight because defense debuffs are never bad. It'd just boil down to the same strategies for the same situations, making it no different than elemental weaknesses. The system isn't even remotely close to bad in theory, but it's entirely up to the execution to make it good, and executing such a system well is very hard.

[@kevingriffith6011]

@@Superflaming85 I prefer it because it's much less cut-and-dry than bog-standard elemental weaknesses because there are more facets to the question. For example: You're dealing with a group of enemies, one of these enemies heals his allies every turn. You could use fire magic to disable the healing effect, or you could focus your fire on a single target and kill them before they can get healed at all. Or... you can make it impossible for the enemy to dodge your earth attacks, but is it worth two character's turns to enable this combo against every opponent? By making the differences between the elements tied to more than just "do more damage" you create a more nuanced question than selecting the move that does more damage. Is it possible to mess this up? Sure! A lot of people complain about Final Fantasy 10's specialized strengths/weaknesses on enemies (Use wakka to hit flying enemies, use Lulu to deal with elementals, etc), but I personally think that is a far more interesting way to handle it than "just do whatever as long as your numbers are the right color".

[@thedapperdolphin1590]

I just don’t like when elemental damage types are basically functionally the same, and are always the only reasonable option to use. One example in with The Outer Worlds where you have electric ammunition for the sole purpose of fighting machines. Don’t even bother with elements if they just boil down to optimal damage modifiers. Elemental types should function differently or at least have some sort of trade off. This actually annoyed me a lot with Ghosts of Tsushima. You had different move sets with each stance, and that should have allowed players to gravitate towards the style they like best or adapt to their enemies on the fly. However, each style is meant for a specific enemy type to the point where the game will remind you to swap styles if you’re using the wrong style against a specific enemy type.

[@harrietr.5073]

DOOM Eternal has something like that for enemies and weakpoints, something that crossed my mind when I read the last stanza of the second paragraph.

[@TheMetalOverlord]

But you can use whatever style you like in GoT, there is no downside in using non effective styles against specific enemies. Yes, you get advantages with the correct one, but you don't get any malus using the others that you like more.

[@harrietr.5073]

@@TheMetalOverlord Kinds sucks then.

[@Laezar1]

Yeah I actually like that with destruction magic in skyrim. Wel... in theory. But shock magic attacks magicka and has instant travel time, making it very strong at sniping ranged opponents. Fire magic adds extra dot damage making it theoretically the most raw damage. And ice magic attacks stamina making it ideal to deal with melee opponents. In practice it doesn't really work because ennemies never run out of magic or stamina and the burning effect is barely noticeable. But in theory the concept is really good since it makes resistance and utility two different decision points.

[@michaelasmitty]

Shadow Pokémon from Colosseum and XD Gale of Darkness provided a unique twist on Pokemon’s element system. It was powerful against every other option, including itself. However, this also lead to the mechanic and thematic effects of a closed off heart. As your Pokémon grew closer to you, you lost the powerful shadow moves but gained friendship, flexibility, and the ability to grow stronger.

[@nathaniel7165]

Although it received a lot of mixed opinions, a fight that stands out to me regarding elements is the Alatreon fight in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. It required you to play around elements on your weapon to deal enough elemental damage to stagger said monster, and weaken its “supernova” (basically a move that will always* kill you unless you hit that elemental threshold). It received flack because it forced people to build around elemental weapons instead of just raw damage, but once you learned how to do it, it became a lot of fun imo. (Asterisk is because people have found a way to survive it, but you need all 4 people with frame perfect timing standing in 4 healing ‘pools’)

[@FelisImpurrator]

Or you could just go beat the crap out of it with nothing but a kinsect. I did and it was funny.

[@BabbeHaxFax]

Cmon man people werent shitting on alatreon cus it " forced people to build around element" People shat on him cus you had 5 fuckin min to reach the threshold before certain death. Which for anyone not into monester hunter is an extremely tight window. Ala was great but the 5 min dps check is what people hated, not the elemental gimmick.

[@PositiveBlackSoul]

@@BabbeHaxFax Also the Arena was very awkward and boring, trying to smack Ala into the pillars was unreliable and in regards to Elemental Weapons, how much that affected you really depended on your weapon. As a Greatsword Main, Alatreon was too frustrating and it's what made me quit play Iceborne.

[@nathaniel7165]

@@BabbeHaxFax Although there were people who complained about the 5 minutes, the more common complaint I’ve seen was the elemental weapon requirement, and not allowing people to spam Blast.

[@jaydeejay4166]

@@PositiveBlackSoul I kinda wish they just didn't have walls to knock him into also, as someone who has beaten ala with great sword, its not unreasonable, I was able to do it consistently in a few runs

[@ieatatsonic]

Shoutouts to Rivals of Aether. The game is fantastic and the lead designer, Dan Fornace, has a great twitter thread about game design lessons. My absolute favorite element system isn't necessarily from a videogame - It's the color pie from Magic: The Gathering. Every color not only has associated elemental and natural powers, but philosophical motifs as well. Not only is red about fire and mountains, but about Freedom and Impulsivity. This leads to color combinations gaining their own unique identities. What do you get when you combine the recklessness of red and the knowledge-hungry side of blue? You get the Izzet, mad scientists whose inventions tend to explode more than they succeed.

[@DanLizotte]

I think Eternal Darkness did this well, by tying the elemental system right into the world and directly to aspects of your character, not giving it away too soon, and having a strong-against-everything element as a secret additional plot line.

[@arbe4326]

I think one problem that exist when designing and balancing systems of advantages and weaknesses between elements is that sometimes the relations aren't very intuitive. For example, in most systems water is strong against fire, which is very intuitive and easy to understand for any player, but in a classic four element system, how you balance fire? Ground and wind can also be used to extinguish fire, which leaves fire in bad spot. You can justify fire having an advantaje against earth by making it also represent plants, or against wind since fire fills air with smoke, but that would be less intuitive for a new player. You can add more elements like ice, but that would also make it more difficult to balance. For example Pokemon has psychic type having an advantaje against poison and bug against dark, which is hard to understand and justify, and a new player would not know it unless they said it to them. I used to think that the electric type had an advantaje against steel, since metals conduct electricity, but they instead had a weakness to ground. I think a good alternative is to balance the types outside the whole paper-rock-scisor system by having the elements having aditional effects, like in pokemon with the pokemon of each type being inmune to the status ailments assigned to their element.

[@Eyewarp]

Yeah, making those sorts of rock-paper-scissors systems can be tricky when you're not working with more common, easily understood elements. Pokemon always has it so the starter Pokemon form a perfect sort of roshambo triangle, but they stick to grass, water, and fire because the relations between those three are much more intuitive than, say, fighting, dark, and psychic or ground, steel, and ice. There's also some visual shorthand I've noticed can help with this sort of thing, especially with color coding. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem has a rock-paper-scissors sort of elemental system with spells and enemies based around health, magic, and sanity. That might be tough to keep straight in your mind, but the game color codes them as red, blue, and green respectively, and other media like Pokemon have conditioned a lot of players to think of those three in terms of "red beats green, green beats blue, blue beats red."

[@mattwatkins1800]

While Skies of Arcadia is one of my favorite games and the elements made for great worldbuilding, their application in battle was absolutely the most confusing elemental system ever. There were a few combos that were intuitive, but it was not a double/halve damage system, and each element would have varying rates of damage against the others, including cases where some elements had more weaknesses than others. Game guides to this day still conflict in their info on elemental damage rates in SoA

[@smokedcaramel3818]

My main problem is how limited your playstyle has to be, you have to have your characters all unique types.

[@firewoodloki]

Wind usually boosts fire tho.

[@jasonreed7522]

The lack of intuitive matchups in more elaborate rock, paper, scissors systems could be considered a feature. It does provide a learning curve and overcoming challenges is part of the fun. (I'm not saying its necessary a good feature for achieving this goal) I think a key to making it work is having about half of all matchups be neutral so that you aren't punished too much for not knowing the unintuitive matchups that may exist for balance more than actual logic. (For instance dragon in pokemon is strong against the 4 starter types [Pikachu in yellow] and is weak to ice, and dragon which are rare, this is because dragon is meant to wall players who don't branch out and catch a diverse team. Eventually they added fairy to balance the competitive scene the way they added dark and steel in gen 2.)

[@linkmasterman1]

One cool element system that I enjoy is Etrian Odyssey's handling of multi typed attacks. If you use a fire/strike or a volt/pierce attack or whatever, the game will "pick" the element that will do more damage, but still count as both elements.

[@bijnahonderdeuro]

I think the big one is affordances. Like, see an unlit torch or a plant enemy? Fire is probably the solution. You can create puzzles and strategies that players can use their real world understanding of the element to figure it out. Making that same plant enemy weak to a blargh element makes it more abstract, making it more a trial and error effort than an intuitive one.

[@belfrii]

One of my favorite uses of elements in gaming comes from OFF. The first level of the game slowly introduces you to the four elements of metal, smoke, plastic, and meat, as well as the bizarre ways they are harvested (metal comes from cows, meat doesn't.) It really helps set up the surreal and offputting tone of the game, and also serves a mechanical purpose in battle. And the cherry on top is the secret fifth element of sugar.

[@spark9656]

Elements that are "above others" in terms of an elemental hierarchy are really interesting in terms of game balance because they can be allowed to play by their own rules, which can make them unique and powerful, while still not making them an instant win button. The Almighty element in SMT and Persona is one of my favorite examples of this because of how it fits into games built around exploiting enemy weakness and avoiding enemy strengths as a core combat mechanic. Almighty is the only element that cannot be resisted, blocked, reflected, or absorbed in any way on top of having generally above average base power, which makes it incredibly useful if an enemy either doesn't have a weakness or their weakness is difficult to abuse for some reason. The reason it isn't broken, though, is that ignoring the weakness and resistance system goes both ways, and there is no enemy that is weak to almighty attacks. This means that while they are powerful abilities, they can't get extra damage from targeting a weakness like the other elements can and can't take advantage of the press turn and one more systems that make fights so easy to snowball if you know what you're doing. Almighty attacks trade off the utility of targeting weaknesses for the consistency of never being useless the way other elements can due to enemy strengths and immunities, and I think that's a cool dynamic

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

It's also worth noting that Almighty attacks generally have much higher SP costs than the other elements (even after accounting for their high power) and can't be single target (making them even more expensive against lone foes). In a series that often requires SP conservation, this prevents Almighty from being the "solve everything" button.

[@parkerlee4775]

Glad you brought up the Borderlands element system. The way that the element options interact with the weapon options makes for a very fun game where you’re constantly switching weapons to find the most effective for every scenario. Far away robot? Switch to a corrosive sniper. Swarms of insects up close? Switch to a fire shotgun. Shielded human? Get a shock weapon to drop the shield then switch to fire to finish them off. Great stuff

[@darienb1127]

My only major issue with Borderlands is Shock. I feel like Shock dosen't really have a use outside of it's desiganted purpose. Usually the other elemental types will either do okay damage to everything else, or havinf some kind of extra effect (Like Slag or Cryo) Shock is really only good for shields and that's it. The Damage over time effect it has isn't even that great. I kinda wish it had something else like some kind of stun or some kind of accuracy drop.

[@axewlotl2677]

I agree. As much as I love the elemental weapon system in Borderlands, Shock always felt underwhelming to me. Outside of destroying shields, they don’t have any sort of advantage or reason to be used. And in most cases, an enemy’s shield is gonna go down quick anyway to the point where you might as well just shoot them with whatever their base health is weak to. Only use I found with shock weapons is against bosses with strong shields, or the Guardians in BL3. Otherwise, it just gets outshined in general combat from all the other elements, which is a shame.

[@darienb1127]

@@axewlotl2677 One game that did shock pretty well is Gunfire Reborn. If you haven't heard of it, it's pretty much a rougelite borderlands. Shock in that game drops enemy defense by 10%, which gives it a lot more utility.

[@northstarjakobs]

@@darienb1127 Ok you've absolutely sold me on this game. Gonna have to check it out for myself

[@northstarjakobs]

I also like the way that tps, bl3, and wonderlands have all added to the elemental system. In particular, I find the evolution of the cryo element to be really fun, in particular how the introduction of the bone health type in Wonderlands gave cryo a whole new area of utility. The dark magic "element" in wonderlands is also really fun

[@jablue4329]

I love the type of element that can amplify others. Like, if there's a "water beats fire" interaction, I love when you can amp fire with, say, wind and it can beat water. Or when wind can turn any element into a super-powered version, like earth+wind becoming a sandstorm or lightning+wind becoming a storm. Basically, I love wind characters.

[@Saylor28]

Breath of Fire IV actually implemented this in their game. I too equally enjoyed it

[@Jahito_EBT]

*sounds a bit like in genshin impact and "swirl" reactions*

[@sanicishere7295]

-is the storm perhaps approaching?-

[@Youhadabadday2021]

The status effect system actually does this in Persona 5, because some skills naturally have a chance of inflicting status effects, which by proxy can be taken advantage of with "Technical Hits" from other elements. For example, if an enemy is burning thanks to a Fire skill like Agi, you can follow it up with a Wind skill like Garu to land a technical hit that is effectively the same thing as hitting a weakness normally.

[@kenalf123]

elemental magic in spellbreak is pretty fun tbh, i love how each element interacts with the others in ways that make sense. shoot a toxic cloud with fire it goes boom. shoot a fire wall with ice it goes out. shoot and ice trail with electricity and it shocks you.

[@gnicegnorc]

If you were to make a Paper Mario style game you could mix it up with a literal Rock, Paper, Scissors element system.

[@Eyewarp]

Not strictly video game-related, but one example where some of the elemental theming always bugged me was in Bionicle. As weird as it is for Pokemon to split up ground and rock into separate types, it kinda works for game balance. It never made sense to me how Lego did the same thing in the Bionicle franchise. It was never clear what Stone could do that Earth couldn't, and the decision ended up biting Lego because the Stone-themed sets - the ones that were colored brown - ended up selling poorly, leading them to eventually swap them out for yellow sets - a color that would work perfectly for something entirely different like lightning. Lightning even ended up being introduced as one of the _many_ rarer elements later in the franchise, alongside stuff like metal, magnetism, plant life, sound, psionics, gravity, plasma, and more. Hell, the series' very first Stone-themed character, Pohatu, had superspeed as one of his powers, which would be a lot more fitting if he were lightning themed.

[@nevisysbryd7450]

Technically it was his mask, not Pohatu himself, that had speed powers, which some of the other Toa also got got access to, though that is a minor point.

[@Aethozoid]

I've had all those exact thoughts too. Though, at a certain point, while the actual elemental manipulation affected rock just like stone, I realized that it seemed the world designers were trying to frame earth more thematically as not just rock but also life, in a kind of more geological, "mother earth"-type sense (ex. Onu-Metru's Archives being a place where species rahi are held in stasis and studied, and the focus in onu-matoran culture of recording history). But then later, that aspect of earth was made redundant by the inclusion of "the green" element, which is especially annoying considering air had already covered the plantlife motif, as well. I also thought that exact thing about Pohatu, too. Even changing his name to fit with the in-world elemental prefix would work well, POhatu -> VOhatu.

[@GerardoLeonVE]

I enjoy how elements define the options as well, if you do them flat, then each element is just a colored beam that hurts more or less depending of the color of the target, that gets stale fast, things like lightning being stronger but less accurate and single target, while fire is not as strong but can apply damage over time if not taken care of, fitting the options to the personality of the element. Like how do you heal with electricity magic? It would need to fit a defibrilator theme or a mechanical target, while fire could cauterize, dealing some damage to stop damage over time, while water and wind do the regular healing.

[@The-toast]

I always find the COLOR choices for elements to be the most interesting. Red and blue are the easiest, being fire and water respectively, but you can realistically assign any other element any other color! And before you ask, no wind isnt fart green

[@Runegrem]

Though wind is associatied with green in parts of Asia, like Japan, which famously makes a lot if videogames. Also, blue can be either water, ice or wind, depending on your preferences. That is, of course, if you don't count rarer instances of space, metal, poison, gravity or other weirder elements. There's also Azula's blue fire from the AtLA series.

[@ThundagaT2]

I've also seen orange represent fire instead of red in some games. Wind I usually see represented by green or white. And yeah i've also seen blue represent water, ice, lightning, and even light before (pale blue). As for lightning i only really see blue, yellow, or purple. Earth usually green, yellow, or brown. Light usually white, pale blue, or cream color, and dark usually purple or black. I wouldnt necessarily agree that you can use any color to represent any of the other elements besides fire and water.

[@syro33]

@@ThundagaT2 I think i've seen lightning be red in castle crashers? Its been a while, but I remember fire was orange, and I think red had lightning for their magic.

[@darienb1127]

I do like wind being light green though. Nice aesthetic.

[@nategwright]

I love messing with elemental color assignments. Fire can be red, orange, or even yellow; wind can be the typical green, or it can be yellow like in ATLA; water or ice can be blue; and lightning doesn't have to be yellow, it can be blue, white, purple, or even red (looking at you, Castle Crashers).

[@kidkouga92]

So glad you mentioned Golden Sun. It's elemental system drives nearly every aspect of the game

[@Falgor62]

Having to switch two Djinn to get Growth. :)

[@fatyoshi696]

rivals of aether's elemental theming is actually used for even more than making the characters stand out, they also suggest the character's playstyle. The 16 original characters in the game are split between the 4 basic elements, each of which defines the character's basic archetype: fire characters have explosive attack power and movement, earth characters are mainly ground-based, air characters are mainly air-based, and water characters have lots of setplay. But despite this, even within one element, the characters are all themed differently and play differently: the 4 earth characters are kragg, a heavyweight earth beetle with huge attack power and the ability to create a rock, maypul, a crazy fast raccoon with plant powers who excels at ground combos, sylvanos, a wolf forest god with massive space control, and olympia, a mouse with crystal gauntlets who's slow and stubby but hits really hard.

[@daniellemurnett2534]

I love the MegaTen series' elements, and how the games work to make the effects of a super/non-effective attack do more than a higher damage number. First off, the various spin-offs work with a great variety of elements from their own list. There has yet to be one that has all of them in it. Sure, you're always gonna find the classic Agi (fire), Bufu (ice) and Zio (lighning), not to mention the aptly named Almighty spell family, but sometimes you might be dealing with water, earth, gravity, force, wind, or _nuclear_ gamage types. Element pairings are also inconsistent in the best way possible, as an example in Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner lightning doesn't really have a counterpart while in Persona 5 it's wind. Sometimes status effects and insta-kill play into the system too, which gives it more depth. And I love the different ways elemental resistances affect combat more than even Pokémon's super effective mechanic. In the Shin Megami Tensei trademark press turn system you can extend your turn by smart element usage, or shorten it by brash decisions. In modern Persona games, you can extend the turn of a single character, and get a big reward if you manage to down all your enemies. And in Persona 5 specifically you can go on a party-wide rampage of attacks with smart use of Baton Pass and damaging items. And for the main character in modern Persona games, you can specifically keep personas in your stock that protect from elements you believe your opponent will throw at you. I also love how spells and physical attacks play into the game's systems in slightly different ways, like how historically few things are weak to physical damage but criticals can down anything, and only physical moves can hit critical. Or how physical hitting moves cost an HP percentage instead of MP or even a set HP amount. Or how in certain games in the series, physical is further subdivided into more damage types only one of which may be effective against something. Or physical hits being good against frozen enemies in almost all games.

[@Youhadabadday2021]

Even then, I've seen SMT fangames futz around with these differences across games and incorporate them into one game. For example, in the hybrid modding hell that is Sonic Robo Blast 2 Persona, one mod actually introduces Zan skills along-side Garu skills. Since Garu and Zan are the same skills series, but with different names for the different entries in the series, there has to be some new difference to set them apart. Well, this mod actually makes it so that the Zan skills are actually PHYSICAL, unlike Garu, which is MAGICAL. And this came from a mod which adds a bunch of random characters, with the character introducing this difference straight up being a character from a FNAF Fangame. This shit is crazy, tell ya what.

[@ArshadZahid_nohandleideas]

@@Youhadabadday2021 Now THAT’S how you justify Force and Wind being different but not really I still don't get what “Force” means, especially when Wind straight up exists

[@ArshadZahid_nohandleideas]

@@Youhadabadday2021 Persona 1 also had both Force (renamed to Blast) and Wind (which is where the name Wind and Garu skills first came to be, in fact), but back then, Zan skills weren't as discretely wind-like (being moreso energy projectiles according to the Megami Tensei Wiki), so when Wind was introduced, having both was much more justifiable And then SMT Nocturne came along and decided to not only keep the vague name “Force”, but also turn it into what is essentially the Wind element that refuses to call itself Wind (outside specially named skills) And the Persona series set Wind as its equivalent to Force (which I agree with more solely because Agi Bufu Zio Garu sounds better than Agi Bufu Zio Zan) TL;DR I have too much to say about this

[@Skyztamer]

I like how the newer SMT and Persona games incorporate elements as part of their battle system. Unlike FFX as described in the video being one-sided against our enemies, the same rules of elemental weaknesses apply to the player team. For anyone who doesn't know in the newer SMT and Persona games exploiting elemental weaknesses (and landing critical hits) grants extra turns for that team (missing an attack an attack also deducts an extra turn. Attacks being nullified/absorbed also too iirc). It makes planning feel all the more rewarding knowing that your enemies can sweep you just as easily as you can to them.

[@d3v1lsummoner]

You say 'newer' smt and persona, but let's remember that Nocturne and DDS/Avatar Tuner are nearly 20 years old. By comparison, the original SMT was only 10 years old when Nocturne released. We've had press turn/half turns longer than we haven't.

[@agent3689]

Ya know what they say. You never know when you suddenly get hit with the SMT bullshit.

[@michaelqijieling2627]

One game, or in this case, spin-off I haven't seen discussed here yet, is one of my favourites: Monster Hunter Stories. It's a creature-collecting RPG take off the Monster Hunter formula where you hatch miniature versions of monsters, aka Monsties, to battle alongside you, a Rider. It features the same elements as the mainline games (Fire, Water, Thunder, Ice, Dragon, and Non-Elemental in the sequel), and each monster and monstie encountered have various strengths and weaknesses that correspond with their elemental statistics. These stats range between -10 to +10 and influence how much damage they take and dish out when using elemental attacks. Some creatures have high and low stats in one type, while some have up to two or three different statistics giving them multiple strengths and weaknesses. The really kicker, however, is that you the Rider/Player can actively change a monsties' element by altering their genetics! By adding genes that contribute passive and active skills that buff a certain element, you can alter how your monstie functions and even change their physical appearance to match their new dominant element. You can get crazy results like a Fire-Lagombi, Water-Velocidrome, Ice-Rathian, Thunder-Deviljho, and even Dragon-Aptonoth. Despite some notable issues with gene farming, this gene and element system was amazing for freedom of expression for the player and provided crazy build potential for PvP and PvE. Unfortunately, the sequel, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin did away with this mechanic due to several system changes and how monsties stats work in the game. Despite some amazing quality of life improvements to gene farming and the ease of making builds, the once variable elemental stats were replaced by static numerical values for each element which pigeonhole monsties into their original elements. This is a problem considering how lacking the total gene pool is for certain elements like Water and Dragon, which also contributed to other major issues I had with the game, but that's a different story for later.

[@user-hs1xb9tv6e]

I think that a major contributor to those element systems was D&D. Many video games were inspired by it and in its first edition its main spells that could have been conciderd "elemental" were Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Cone of Cold. Fire, lightning and ice, the main elemental magics in like 90% of known magic based combat video games.

[@FTChomp9980]

DnD is considered the Godfather of RPGs it's what started the RPG genre for both board games and videogame RPGs.

[@nidohime6233]

It is, but as you see the idea of elements is very old, it wasn't until a couple of centuries ago when we realise the world wasn't made by a combination of fire, water, earth and wind.

[@appelofdoom8211]

@@nidohime6233 yeah but fire, ice and lightning is still suspiciously common as an elemental trio despite two of the three not being standard elements (unless you combine water and ice but for some reason people don't wanna do that)

[@william_sun]

​@@appelofdoom8211 One of the likely reasons for that is because fire, ice, and lightning represent unique damage types (heat, cold, and electrocution, respectively) that aren't just the result of one macroscopic physical object colliding with another macroscopic physical object (cutting, piercing, blunt impact, crushing, etc.).

[@sylviadailey9126]

Oh I didn't know that was a thing. I have noticed the pattern in Pokemon. There is ice, lightning and fire. This is in the Kanto Legendary birds, the Johto Legendary beasts, the Kanto Eeveelutions and the Unova Legendary dragons. It is also in the trio of Jynx, Electabuzz and Magmar. I don't know if there is a name for them. All are powerful humanoid Pokemon of Kanto. The eeveelutions and Legendary beasts replace ice with water, but it is still close enough. There is a true ice eeveelution introduced later in Sinnoh. The trio of elements also affect attacks. There is a trio of status conditions. This is freezing, paralysis and burn. There is a trio of punch attacks and fang attacks. There is a trio of basic attacks. This is powder snow, thundershock and ember. There is a trio of strong and reliable attacks. This is ice beam, thunderbolt and flamethrower. There is a trio of ultimate powerful attacks with lower accuracy and PP. Lower PP means one can't use the attack as much before taking a rest to recover. This ultimate trio has blizzard, thunder and fire blast. So this trio is in Pokemon a lot. I have also noticed it in the weapon types in Legend of Zeld Breath of the Wild. I didn't know that was a major thing from D&D. Interesting.

[@OneGamer2EnvyThemAll]

Shoutouts again to the Kingdom Hearts series where elements, while they are relevant to enemies immune or who absorb them, are secondary to the magic itself being a "tool" in Sora's or other characters' toolkit. As an ''Action'' RPG, a character gaining new magic isn't just a new element, it's a new type of attack that can be used in combos or other scenario within the realtime combat system. So much so that elemental weaknesses can fall to the wayside in many scenarios in favor of just having the tool. Are a bunch of enemies lined up horizontally? KH2's Blizzard is a fast projectile with low start-up and infinite penetration. Too many enemies breathing down your neck? Thunder in Birth By Sleep is a close-ranged AoE spell that jumps between enemies to deal extra damage to dense groups.

[@suomynonAyletamitlU]

Tales of the Abyss had an interesting use of elements in the real-time battle system. Using an elemental skill on the battlefield would leave behind a "field of fonons" (their magic system was all centered on sound, so... yes, that's pronounced phone-ons), and certain skills would evolve if you used them inside of the correct elemental field (with a dramatic camera zoom and flare to make you feel good about what you just did). My college roommate and I once had a co-op marathon boss fight we were vastly under-level for, and we used so many of these FOF changes that there was just no keeping track of them all. He didn't find it nearly as much fun as I did.

[@Vyz3r]

Pokemon has similar but a much deeper mechanic with its terrain and weather mechanics. Rain, for example, not only enhances water moves/boosts electric moves' accuracy, it also lowers fire-type pokemon and moves strength, decreases effectiveness of moves that rely on the sun and moon, changes certain moves' typing to water, activates certain abilities, and force change other pokemon's typing. Moreover, some moves, abilities, or items even changes the terrain in interesting ways like losing or gaining immunity to certain elements, forces element switch, or changing their weight/speed/priority/ability/move/item/etc.

[@SpydrXIII]

Warframe has a lot of neat weapon elements in it. and you have to combine certain ones to make new ones. like corrosive the element is made by mixing toxin and electricity. and the way you add elements is through cards or "mods" you put in your weapons.

[@AegixDrakan]

Yo, Mixing and Matching elements in Warframe to experiment with different types was hella fun...Until you get to lategame content, where there's only really 2 or 3 valid options. XD Like, why use Cold to slow enemies, or Magnetic to whupp shields, when you can just go Viral+Slash to apply the mother of all DoT's on enemies, or Corrosive+Fire to strip their armor...Or Radiation because the boss can't have their armor stripped and the toughest armor type is weak to Rad. It's a lovely system, but due to the insane customization there's always guaranteed to be a "meta" strategy that's used no matter what content you're doing.

[@kazekageno7711]

I have been looking forward to this one since it was announced. I am working on a game that uses elements but have been looking for a way to implement them without feeling like a stale trope. I am definitely going to watch this one again once I get closer to the systems development of the game. Thanks a ton!

[@taymack9725]

Tbh the video is great but the comments are adding way more detail and giving more ideas so always check the comments for information like this 😃

[@d.geodraxarehal20goldenbir35]

0:30 a few more i like: -Star (Disgaea) -Bomb (Epic Battle Fantasy) -Filth (Digimon)

[@AnotherDuck]

Star kind of feels like the non-elemental element that's just better than the others. I've only played the first game, though. At least in EBF5, Bomb is the most universally applicable element. In my experience, anyway.

[@marcodipietro813]

and of course who can forget the ???-type (pokemon gens 2-4)

[@d.geodraxarehal20goldenbir35]

@@marcodipietro813 I discovered a few days ago there's also a "Glitch" type in Gen 1.

[@scragar]

@@d.geodraxarehal20goldenbir35 And don't forget Missingno.'s type, bird/normal, not to be confused with flying/normal which is used by most bird pokemon.

[@redmage9730]

It's probably not too unique, but the Denpa Men Rpg series' 8 elements could inflict status ailments; Burn, Soak, Shock, Muddy, Sniffles, Freeze, Curse, and Blind. Most ailments did the same thing (increasing damage taken from that element, and dealing damage over time), but freeze and blind were unique amongst them (Freeze preventing action and increasing Ice Damage taken, while blind reduces accuracy), and I found it really cool when I was younger.

[@JadeAislin]

I once created something like an elemental system for I story I tried to write. It was made of five colors (with a mythological sixth): red, green, white, blue, black. Each color had a different type of magic: offense, growth/life, defense, illusion, and unraveling/death. I didn't make one color weak to another, but had it so a person that was good with one color may have colors that they're less likely to have as well. For instance, a black user would be less likely to have any ability in white or green. I also gave each color a duality. Each could be used for good/light or bad/dark. For example, green could heal and help things grow, but it could poison others . That's most of what I remember. Your video made me think of it, so I thought I would share.

[@JadeAislin]

@Gareth Topping Huh. It's been a while since I had any Magic cards. I didn't realize that's where the idea came from. I never really learned to play, but I did like to look at the cards. Does Magic the Gathering have a sixth color of magic, gray, that is able to use all other colors' magic equally?

[@KairuAndrews]

Tales of Legendia's Sea element was intriguing to me. In that story, the sea is a divine entity, so it's basically just water and light slapped together, but it was different enough to be interesting.

[@skullruss]

Yet another fantastic Design Doc! Thank you! I was wondering if you could/would ever do a Design Doc on sanctuaries. Like would you ever analyze the important aspects of the hub spot you return to in between the chaos of the game world, places like Firelink Shrine, the Roundtable Hold, or the aptly named Sanctuary of Borderlands? Either way, love and appreciate the videos!

[@Silversky1113]

I love elements in games. It's a great way to make characters feel distinct. Also love how golden sun heavily relies on the elements not just for combat but for the extensive dungeon puzzles. Hades has an awesome one too with more unusual ones like love, drunkenness, blades, speed, reflect, and hunting. It makes the game feel fresh. We really need a hades 2.

[@rosewarrior706]

cant forget games whos whole point is to combine elements to make new cool elements like alchemy games, or magic combining games to solve puzzles

[@JSATheWorldMedia]

Although not elements (per se), Fire Emblem has a unique triangle effect mechanic that goes like: Sword > Axe > Lance > Sword. Bow users are completely neutral. Anima magic > Light magic > Dark magic > Anima magic. Staves are completely neutral

[@JSATheWorldMedia]

@@gregoryford2532 I was talking about the fact of them using weapons instead of nature elements 😝

[@alexpage4355]

Yeah, when he got to to the section on rotational relationships, the very first example that popped into my head was the sword/axe/lance interactions in the Fire Emblem games, which also works as an example of a non-traditional element system. The weapon triangle is probably the single-most defining feature of the games' combat, especially as the magic tends to vary a bit from game to game.

[@hunterstjean119]

I think my favorite use of elements is in xenoblade chronicles 2 with the combo system, using specials to put an element on an enemy, adding other elements or the same element to level them up, and at the 3rd stage you do a powerful attack, while also being used for fusion combos when you use a element combo and a driver combo at the same time, then the 3rd element stage also allows you to power up chain attacks by putting orbs in which you break and add more rounds to your attack

[@gaiance]

Thank you for the captions. I definitely appreciate the effort. Elements are such a fascinating mechanic to me. I feel like it instantly makes a game (or anything for that matter) immediately more interesting. Also, I'm surprised you didn't mention Magicka, that game is elements on steroids.

[@callmejobson]

The Elemental Cycle in Xenosaga episode 1 was pretty in depth. They had these moves called tech attacks that hit stronger than normal attacks. But in-order to use them you had to not a attack for one turn. Later in the game they added the ability to use tech attack like normal one but you need Either pointers which was only given/ found once in a blue moon. Each monster also was weakness to different elements (fire, robot, Gnosis, A.G.W.S.). It got kind of crazy!! 🤪😂 I know it lost a lot of people with the long cut scenes ( hours without any game play) but it was a hidden gem of the PS2.

[@avibi]

Best combat system in Xenosaga. Individual Boost meters were so fun and dynamic, it's a shame they did without them in later episodes.

[@d3v1lsummoner]

@@avibi I think it's debatable that mechanically Xeno 1's combat is better than Xeno 2, but I'll allow that most of Xeno 2's encounter design does not make good (fun) use of the break system.

[@avibi]

@@d3v1lsummoner I think there's no debate to be had (of course, there always is until mutual understanding is reached to a degree demmed acceptable). Yeah, the Break system is a much appreciated addition (even if its implementation could use quite a bit of work, just like with other mechanics in Episode I, namely positioning and A.G.W.S. combat) which would make its way all the way to Xenoblade, but everything else related to combat is just plain worse. First and foremost, they obliterated the Boost mechanic, the one which allowed for the most strategic play in the previous episode, by making it global. That's already a big hit it's taken. Then, they made encounters twice as long by forcing you to stock up for what felt like an eternity while doing nothing (instead of playing the long game by attacking but not completing the combo or turning to utility options, which you would probably want to use anyway for many of the toughest challengest designed for them) in order to make use of the zone system (which is dumb artificial challenge) and the Break system (allotted unevenly and arbitrarily throughout the playable characters). This feels like padding, the way to optimise the combat is the route of least fun and consists of waiting and knowing the enemy's non-telegraphed weaknesses (which, funnily enough for the purpose of this video, include elemental ones you are incentivised not to check on a turn-to-turn basis, as that would mean no stocks for you) beforehand, there is no finesse to it. Lastly, personal spells and the such were homogenised and stripped of the definition they bestowed upon the play styles of the different characters. It's a combat system which wastes your time and bears very little depth since it rewards prior knowledge and prior knowledge only, it never demands any deliberation of the player past that. Also, please, refer to them as Xenosaga Episode 1/2, Xenosaga 1/2, XS1/2 or whatever but calling them Xeno 1 and Xeno 2 is a hotbed for misunderstandings.

[@d3v1lsummoner]

@@avibi Personally I'd argue some of the parts you find detrimental are things I found interesting but ultimately poorly used. Meanwhile I never found Xeno 1's (yes, I will continue to use that here, the readers of the comment thread know which game series we're talking about) combat to be terribly difficult or even that nuanced (in addition to being incredibly slow in a way that was less interactive than the second game's). You don't like the zone system, fair, it did force a different kind of play and it's implementation basically forced breaks to the exclusion of other tactics, but as far as I recall you still could exploit weaknesses during break to deal more efficient damage. You test out the enemy's break combo early in a boss fight once it's discovered you play defensively building boost and then unleash it when you're ready. I found this somewhat refreshing at the time, though I also recognize that it led to some very unfun slogs. I also think that for the sytem implemented individual boost gauges would have only made it worse. Hey, I could be wrong though. I haven't played these games in a little over a decade. I'm also hesitant to do so because despite how much I love them, I am fully aware of how little they respect my time (a product of their millieu, not of developer malice).

[@avibi]

@@d3v1lsummoner Completely agree with your point about the global Boost gauge fitting the "dump your whole team combo" strategy better, but that's like concealing a small wound with a bigger one. The testing part is the one I have qualms with (Xenosaga 3 later provided you with ways of circumventing it). You don't make any progress towards your main goal of performing the long Break combo sequence by attacking. As for Xenosaga 1 (I said that because I thought you were talking about Xenoblade at first), the combat lets both you and the enemy exploit some mechanics and forces you to come to terms with them via some difficulty spikes in the form of boss fights. These mid-to-late game optimal strategies don't necessarily make as good a use of the combat systems as some of the earlier fights, but they're miles faster than those of Xenosaga 2, and the early games one are still more dynamic and force you to come to terms with the ways in which they interact.

[@malcolmdarke5299]

Chocobo Racing uses "magic stones" as part of the tracks, which come in a variety of types. Each of the types has a unique effect, but the "basic" attacking stones (Fire, Ice, Lightning) each have a different result - Fire makes a missile that shoots forward, Ice makes an icy patch on the track and Lightning effectively sits halfway between the two by attempting to zap an opposing racer with a lightning bolt. SaGa Frontier 2 has two (well, technically three, but one of them sits behind the scenes and is only relevant for determining how damage is applied) interacting "element" systems - Weapon Skills and Spell Skills. Each weapon in the game sits in one of five slots (Spear, Bow, Sword, Axe, Staff), with unarmed combat being in a sixth slot (Martial), that between them correspond to the six Weapon Skills. The Spell Skills each correspond to one of the six types of magic in the world - Fire, Tree, Stone, Beast, Water and Tone. Each Weapon Art (think of them as being attacks) is made up of a number of commands: Charge - Punch - Punch can, in a Duel Battle, turn into a Martial Art called Crush Beat, while Cross Break, a Sword Art, has the Duel Battle command string of Charge - Cleave - Cleave. Most importantly, these Weapon Arts, if they're first used in a Duel Battle, can then be "equipped" and used in Team Battles. Spell Arts work in a similar way, but where Weapon Arts use commands linked to the weapon, most Spell Arts more advanced than the base effects of the individual types require mixing types of magic, and the order spell commands are input can matter: Needle Shot, a Tree-"element" Spell Art, has the command string Tree - Stone, but Delta Petra, a Stone-"element" Spell Art, has the command strong Stone - Tree. Hybrid Arts blend Weapon Arts and Spell Arts, using both Spell commands and Weapon commands to effectively get an element-infused weapon attack that often has an effect stronger than an equivalent Spell or Weapon Art would be on its own. For instance, Snake Blaster, a Water/Spear Hybrid Art with the command string Water - Charge - Thrust, both costs less and has a higher base power than Call Thunder, which has the command string Water - Tone - Tone, has a higher base power than Squash, which has the command string Feint - Backslash - Thrust, and has a bonus effect neither of those arts gets. Elements can also be used to have different "shot patterns" in a fighting game, similarly to the way the Super Smash Brothers series deals with Ness' and Lucas' PK attacks. PK Fire is a projectile that creates a pillar of fire, PK Thunder is a controllable projectile that can be used to launch Ness and PK Freeze can be used to, well, freeze the opponent solid.

[@hyleea1227]

The first DnD campaign I've created revolves around elements! It's such an easy to create with and versatile concept, that you can start from scratch and get ideas for an entire world in no time, and can customize anything you need to fit your setting!

[@Dman25]

I find the blade combo system in Xenoblade 2 to be a very cool use of elements, as mixing base elements together to make something new is pretty cool.

[@arachineatzeer7478]

If I remember rightly Shadow Hearts has a relations between each of it's elements: Wind, earth, water/ice and fire with dark, light and non-elemental. wind and earth oppose each other, fire and water oppose and light and dark oppose each other. Non-elemental despite the name acts like Almighty from SMT or the Persona games where it's a step above and nothing resists it while having some of the most powerful attack in it's list. Each element is also commonly paired with a status or effect when used by the player, wind commonly buffs agility, earth buffs defense, water buffs evasion, fire buffs attack power, light is healing/special defense buffing and dark includes instant death

[@dansattah]

One of my favourite JRPGs of all time is the mobile game "Another Eden". The game has different side missions, which deviate from the "Main Story", and one of the most extensive ones are the "Mythos" Quests. The first Mythos placed a huge emphasis on the three new elements that were introduced (Shade, Thunder, and Crystal), introducing a whole new *continent* for this story.

[@syweb2]

OFF's elemental system was really cool because of just how weird and abstract it was. Its four elements were Smoke, Metal, Meat, and Plastic, and enemies would have a case-by-case weakness or resistance to them. They also were very important to the worldbuilding, but I won't explain that - you gotta see it yourself to get the full effect.

[@DaUrinalShidda]

kinda wish it had more importance in the battles tho

[@blancdreemurr55]

I think Genshin did elemental system very well, it uses a mostly well known elemental system, using the basic elements of water, fire, earth, air, lightning, ice, and nature, and giving them us a battle system that effectively revolves around using these interactions, and letting us fights enemies with nothing but these interactions, like using a team that's just spamming lightning to have it interact with 3 other elements at the same time

[@Daniel_Coffman]

What I love about Shin Megami Tensei and its spin-offs is that the monsters' elemental weaknesses and resistances tend to be based on what the historical figure was killed by in real life or what the mythical monster themselves could control or be killed by in, well, for lack of a better term "real life," since myths aren't generally exactly realistic. For example, Goemon Ishikawa in real life was executed by Hideyoshi Toyotomi by being boiled alive, thus as a Persona, he makes Yusuke Kitagawa weak to fire moves. Goemon controlling ice obviously doesn't really make that much sense outside of him being weak to fire in a predictable way, though, lol, but at the least, due to him having been an actual person who couldn't use magic, it is quite fitting that he's not really that much of a magic user in Persona. Like Chie in persona 4, Yusuke's ice skills are more simply to hit weaknesses and knock enemies down rather than outright kill. It is strange that weaknesses, strengths, and affinities tend to change between games in demons that are seen in multiple games, though. I'm not really sure why they change that much between games. Pokemon, with a lot of the Pokemon being based on either real animals or mythical animals, does do a great job with that, as well, albeit in a more simplified manner.

[@shadowsnake5133]

I know kingdom hearts was brought up, but only in the theming, I want to spotlight the actual magic system, specifically from the first game, which works differently from the rest. The main difference is the fact magic is used outside combat often, like using blizzard on candles in traverse town or Olympus coliseum, with the different tiers of magic having more uses than the previous one's, like blizara being only capable of partially putting out the flames in Olympus coliseum while blizaga can fully put them out. And even in combat, spells have wildly different applications on different enemies, like fire stunning the ice elemental magic users but healing the fire, healing, or grand magic users. Even wind, a defensive barrier, has this with the ice titan, who invalidates the barrier by making it impossible to hurt him if you are using wind actively at the time and hits for double damage. And even if the boss themselves don't have an interaction with the spell, sometimes the environment forces you to use it while fighting, like the phantom, who resides in Neverland, who himself does nothing to crazy, hit him with the right attack and he dies, but the clock is constantly ticking down, for the sole purpose of instantly killing a party member or you at midnight depending on how many allies you have left. The only way to save your ass from instant death is to stop it, quite literally by using stop or stopra on the clock, with both having a secret tie to your overall magic stat, which increases the time in which stop works for for each bar if magic you have. The fight requires a keen eye on your magic as the boss and environment both require a set amount of your magic at any given time, one fuck up and you better hope he doesn't want a spell that requires more magic than you have to be used, or that he wants to be hit physically, which gives you magic. It's a complexe system despite having only 6 elements with 3 tiers each, all via hidden stats, something you will learn trying to 100% the game.

[@Vyz3r]

One of the greatest aspects of Pokemon has to be its deep battle mechanics. In fact, there are even ways to force change elementals/typings with moves (Magic Powder changes the target's type to psychic, Burn Up forces a fire-type pokemon to lose its fire typing, Forest's Curse adds the grass type to the target in addition to the Pokémon's original type, Camouflage changes the pokemon's type to a type corresponding to the battlefield terrain, Conversion changes the user's type to match the type of the move in the first slot even if that move cannot be selected in battle, Reflect Type changes the user's type to match the type or types of the target, Rain Dance casts a rain storm on the field), abilities (Forecast will change certain pokemon's typing depending on the weather, Mimicry changes a pokemon's type depending on the current terrain, Protean change the type of the pokemon into the type of the move it is using just before it uses it, Multi-type changes a pokemon's type based upon its hold item), weather environments (like rain that enhances water moves/boosts electric moves' accuracy, lowers fire-type pokemon and moves strength, decreases effectiveness of moves that rely on sun and moon, changes a move typing, activates certain abilities, and force change other pokemon's types), terrain fields (Electric terrain increases electric-type moves and prevents pokemon on the ground from falling asleep), and items ( Iron Ball makes Flying-type and levitating pokemon susceptible to ground-type moves, Black Sludge gradually restores the HP of poison-types but inflicts damage on all other types, Bug Memory changes a pokemon with a move Multi-Attack to bug type, Zap Plate changes certain pokemon type to Electric, Burn Drive changes certain pokemon with the move Techno Blast to a Fire-type). Now, imagine all these mechanics and using a move, ability or item to force you or your opponent to switch elements around.

[@bondrewd5576]

One element system I really liked was from the Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth games, where you have to consider 2 different types of elements. First you get the standard one of fire, thunder, water etc. The other type on the other hand is the I would say the main attribute of the digimons (neutral, vaccine, data, virus). The element weakness gives you a 1.5x damage boost but could get diminished by the attribute of the opponent. You could deal from 0.5x up to 2x the damage depending of the element/attribute combination.

[@timarlow8007]

Would be great to see examples of poorly implemented elements systems or advice on implementing element systems successfully or gotchas to avoid in using element systems

[@dloveless3585]

Element systems in many forms of fiction always fascinated me. Be it the interactions of strengths and weaknesses being complex as Pokemon's 18 types, to being simple as Fossil Fighters 5 elements. I especially love interactions where Elements can be combo'd together (which needs to happen more): I honestly see elemental combination to be a good way to add flavor, without taking up a "slot" per-say. Steam, Magma, Plasma, those elements are too close to one of the PRIME recognizable elements, but can honestly be something that occurs when elements are combined (Combine Fire and Water to cause a steam eruption or Fire and Electricity to send out a burning and shocking wave of plasma, etc.) Freaking colours, I've always had love for colourations in Elements. Things like Water and Fire are coloured blue and red (perhaps orange) respectively, and with obvious reasons. But then Earth and Wind are portrayed with ALOT of colours in pop-culture... Actually its surprising to me that Earth and Wind have both been portrayed with the colours of green, yellow AND purple, funny how pop-culture works. And speaking of colours, character design and theming: I've got an eye for art and love seeing what simple or complex reason or inspiration behind why this is designed like this. Be it colouring a Pokemon, Vivosaur, Robot Master and etc in red, orange and yellows to indicate their prowess in Fire. Or heck, reasons behind elemental advantages: Why is it that Bug type can take on the Dark (Evil) Type? Go and thank the influence the Tokusatsu series Kamen Rider showing a Karate Bug-Man fighting for justice, and/or the simple fact that many insects can sometimes use "The real superpower of teamwork!"-Sonic Heroes. I honestly could go on and on and on! Also, shout out to DJtheSdotcom for reinforcing my admiration with his Disciple of the Element's music.

[@GmodPlusWoW]

Speaking of elements in immersive sims, the earlier Thief games had you making ample use of elements for problem-solving, though mostly in the form of arrows. For instance, you had Moss Arrows to make surfaces quieter to walk on (I guess that's Earth), there was the flame-quenching Water Arrow, Gas Arrows could knock people out, and the explosive Fire Arrow is kinda self-explanatory. There were many other arrows, ofc, and many of them could potentially be aligned with any of the four traditional classic Western elements. Also, apparently elements in Thief's world tend to coalesce in crystalline form, which I totally forgot about and is a really neat touch of worldbuilding.

[@martinezortizfranciscorube9182]

I loved this video This is why I love when elements are used in games, they can simply give a versatility that can be expanded beyond the classic 4 elements, which although they are good could also become somewhat scarce at the moment to use them

[@ReitheOffbeatOtaku]

One elemental magic system that's always stuck out to me was Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn, which had a rock-paper-scissors system within a rock-paper-scissors system. Fire > Wind > Thunder > Fire forms a nice little element cycle on its' own, but then all three are lumped together as Anima magic and become part of a bigger Light > Dark > Anima > Light cycle on top of that, which I always thought was a cool dynamic. I'd love to see it return in a new FE game with better balancing on the mages and tomes themselves, since that was the biggest problem with RD's system.

[@balsamon69]

Same here, the balancing is kind of off, when it comes to magic in general. Like how the only way for you to use Dark magic is to train a not very good new game plus character. It's also a shame there are no other dedicated light mages besides Micaiah. I know the priests exist, but their stats aren't exactly... built for combat.

[@cantonnierbethcepourlavhy6343]

Napple Tale had a wonderful crafting system based on deconstructing objects in various elements composing them. Like from a windmill, you could draw wind, electricity but also motion ! Gosh this game is underrated 😤😤😤

[@yomeiko]

tbh I loved a lot how Genhsin Impact did elements. Instead of "fire beats ice, water beats fire", they did elemental reactions. fire and electric? big boom! electric and water? constat electric damage! ice and water? frozen, of course!

[@wmonohon]

I appreciate your restraint in the opening gag, you could've gone on and on listing random elements in games but you kept it short and snappy

[@Sylvastier]

Suprised not to see Genshin Impact mentioned in this video considering how strongly elements are entwined with the gameplay. I remember back in middle/high school I'd always talk about how I wanted to make a game that had elements interact with one another instead of outright just exploiting weaknesses or giving elements specific roles (Water/Plants= Healing, Earth=Defence, Fire=Damage, Lightning=Speed, etc.) and having them interact with one another to form some sorta mixture or new effect. Those ideas I had are honestly the basis for what got me to start playing the game as soon as it came out until today and while I know it's one of those games that's kinda touchy because of the vocal fans and how limited its gameplay (being a gacha and all) can feel despite that, I still think it's a really strong step for Arpg's in particular to make such a strong focus on that type of system. Final Fantasy 15 was similar in the way you could basically craft spells from scratch and give them unique properties in how they interact with the enviorment or even the weather, but it had such a lack of focus in that area that it made it feel limited despite how novel the idea could have been. Then Divinity Original Sin allows you to basically control the environment with masterful use of your spells and items. The enemy out of reach? Cast a rain spell that does no damage, but drops water in a massive AoE, then use an Electricity spell to shock all of the water. Or just cast a fire spell on it so the air will vaporize and make clouds, or transmute the water into poison, burn that and you cause an explosion! Elements are just something you can toss into any gameplay loop and even the tiniest bit of added interaction between them creates a unique system that automatically becomes an entire layer of gameplay.

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

A good example of a system like this is "Wuxing" from Chinese mythology. Essentially, there are 5 elements in a cycle: Wood > Water > Fire > Earth > Metal (> Wood) How the elements interact depends on how many steps you make in the cycle. 1 step forwards is creation/healing 2 steps forwards is destruction 2 steps back is control 1 step back is draining/weakening

[@EldritchIdiot]

Dragon element in the MH series is very interesting. It has the ability to shut down other elements, and there are few monsters that use it, and most are elder dragons, the most powerful things in the series. It also has steroid-like properties in monsters, deviljho goes into a berserk state using it, with savage deviljho being a overdosing deviljho, always in a constant state of hunger. Alatreon has to discharge his dragon element to stay alive with eschaton judgement, an extremely powerful move that can be mitigated by overloading alatreon with element. Dragon element has a link to the 4 most powerful monsters of the series, being fatalis, alatreon, dire miralis and safi'jiiva, all their weapons have dragon element damage. Dragon element is a very important part of the monster hunter universe, being the closest thing to magic in it, and having some kind of unseen link to the first class dangerous monsters and bio energy

[@Sorain1]

One psudo-elemental system you didn't touch on that is common in strategy games is a classical cycle summarized as 'Armor' 'Mobility' 'Firepower'. You see it in everything from tanks and ships to classes in rpgs. You might note that it can easily accord to the RPG holy trinity of damage, tank and healer. Different 'armor types' and 'weapon types' come up a lot too. Warhammer 40k Inquisitor Martyr breaks all damage down into physical, heat and warp damage for example. What makes classical elements so effective as you mentioned, is their intuitive nature. We understand that not being hit means not taking damage, and not being able to hit a target means not dealing damage. We understand that you can't have everything, unless it's all in proportion. (2 parts armor, 3 mobility, 5 firepower for example.) It's really a solid quick examination of the topic of elemental motifs you posted here, and I appreciate it.