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Wooben

Let's discuss what a damage type is

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So, working through my backlog of arguments I got into in internet chat rooms, I spent a chunk of yesterday using elemental magic in (except one battle where I ran out of SP) Persona 4. (I also flanked a few aliens in XCOM, for comparison).


 


I actually really liked Persona 4: it's not a hard game, but it's not intended to be hard - the "use fire magic on enemy weak to fire" mechanic serves its purpose well in enforcing rudimentary strategy*, and also making you feel like you aren't just mindlessly grinding in between the good parts (anything outside of a dungeon). The narrative aspects are superlatively done, both in terms of writing, and in terms of presentation (the voice actresses, especially Naoto-kun's obviously, are really good; but also the design of the school, placement of social links and generally Rise-san is superlative). As little touches, I also liked how the menus for casting spells on monsters sometimes give you bleedthrough of the developers contextualization about a thing - the fancy transitions, the bright colours, and the two soft porn sta- (nevermind) are all used nicely to subtly evoke the appearance of depth to the "strategy" you're executing. And, to tie into some conversations lately about narrative impact in games - I definitely felt something when playing it, and was definitely somewhat drawn into the role I was given. It's a terribly happy game, bittersweet is not what it's going for, I guess.


 


[it probably also should be noted that I did a semester of physics in 2013 too, so differences between force and pressure I understand perfectly**, and I definitely knew at least one instance of me opening a walnut with a kitchen knife, so the whole "sharp edge cant break rigid body" assertion was perhaps more "laughable" to me than it might have been intended to be.  :) ]


 


(In contrast, I'm not really sure what I think of adding damage types to XCOM yet, although I'm pretty sure it's not a "good idea" - it feels to me like somewhat (deliberately?) overblown "feature creep".) 


 


* Edit: and is also annoyingly subverted at least twice by bosses who are strong against fucking everything jesus christ.


 


**Edit: oh, oh and the difference between abstraction and real life!


 


***<3 twig


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I've always considered damage types in fantasy games to be part of the lore to some extent. Water/ice spells do more damage to fire creatures etc. Where as games like X-com I think of as having different damage sources but it all counts as damage, whether explosive, acid, poison, bullets or lasers.  

I remember in Diablo 2 my barbarian character had two axes with four gem slots filled with all possible elemental damage types, because at some point in Nightmare or Hell mode creatures started having annoying levels of resistances, including to physical damage. So instead of having a ton of weapons each focused on one damage type, I would just hit everything with those axes and deal some amount of damage no matter what.

One thing I like about damage types, that only a few games have done well is the possibilities of spell combos. Freeze them then blast them with fire for extra damage. I think my favorite game for spell combos was Dragon Age Origins (my favorite spell casting game in general)  http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_combinations

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Warframe seems to have an interesting way of doing damage types/resistances (though I'm still learning, so maybe it will be bunk eventually).  There are 4 elemental types, and an additional 6 combos made from combining the 4 core types.  There are also 3 physical types of damage.  Enemies are generally weak to 2-3 types and strong against 2-3 types.  Each faction tends to favor certain defense types.  With a primary weapon, secondary weapon, melee weapon and powers, you can generally build to be strong against whatever faction you are playing, with one weapon being a backup to use against something unexpected you might encounter.  It feels overly complicated at times, but also because of multiple weaknesses/strengths, you rarely ever feel like "Oh fuck, this thing is strong against fire and that's all I have". 

 

 

One thing I like about damage types, that only a few games have done well is the possibilities of spell combos. Freeze them then blast them with fire for extra damage. I think my favorite game for spell combos was Dragon Age Origins (my favorite spell casting game in general)  http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_combinations

 

I really liked the idea of Runers, which is entirely built around spell combos and chaining effects like that.  Unfortunately I found the need to repeat the pretty boring first couple of levels each run to kill my enthusiasm for it. 

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Divinity: Original Sin is one of the neatest recent elemental combat games next to Magicka. Make poison clouds, explode them with fire, then throw an ice ball in the fire which melts, creating a puddle which you then hit with lightning etc.

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I think my real beef with damage types is when they're all just different means to the same end. Or rather, I prefer when they each do something other than damage depending on the type.

Bringing up magicka again (because I haven't played D:OS (yet!)), and I doubt I am alone in this, it is far more exciting playing around with the secondary effects of the elements, such as cold slowing/freezing guys, lighting comboing with water, earth knocking punks over, etc, than it is to concentrate on which does the most dps to which enemy. Persona 4 has, with the exception of the instakill mechanics of light and dark, no actual meaningful difference between elements. It is entirely arbitrary thematic wrapping... you could swap fire and ice and I wouldn't even blink, but swap the two in magicka and I would be seething over fire slowing my enemies. That's what cold does dummy!

 

less damage more type  :fart:

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Yeah, effects can be far more entertaining than just damage.  In Warframe, all 14 damage types (phsy + elem) have a status effect associated with them that have a chance to proc on each attach.  Multiple types of damage can be on one weapon at a time, so you can have a variety of effects that can potentially proc.  Though, based on what I've seen so far, an enemy will only have one effect at a time on them. 

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im imagining one of those dopey little corpus guys rapidly cycling through 14 different status effect associated animations in a shower of particles

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Pokemon is like the ultimate example of a giant rock-paper-scissors game but there are like 13 different types of damage and each pokemon can have up to 2 types complicating things further. I think the combat in that game is largely regarded as the simplest part and what the campaign focuses on. The hidden depth in those games is optimizing teams and move sets and breeding and egg moves and all the layers to that seemingly impenetrable Pokemon onion. I think those damage type things are rarely very interesting, but if there's a system underneath that superficial layer that adds depth I can get really into it.

 

I like the frost vs. fire vs. arcane vs. frostfire mage in WoW as well. The way those trees alter play (slowing with ice spells, DoTs with fire spells etc, procs & channeling on arcane) can dramatically change the experience of what playing as a Mage can mean.

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I've always considered damage types in fantasy games to be part of the lore to some extent. Water/ice spells do more damage to fire creatures etc. Where as games like X-com I think of as having different damage sources but it all counts as damage, whether explosive, acid, poison, bullets or lasers. 

 

It's funny you should say that, because XCOM (2012) has a variety of minor damage types (poison, strangulation, melee) that you can become resistant or immune to, and X-COM (1994) tags everything with damage types (stun, laser, plasma, explosive, etc) which enemies have varying resistances to.

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Damage types are useful in games where you have to make choices in what areas you are strong in vs. what you are vulnerable too. Dota 2 has more or less arbitrary starting positions for all of the different heroes based on their intended play styles and abilities, but since all heroes progress and change throughout the game, and they progress based on choices the players make proactively and re-actively, you can potentially have wildly different strengths and vulnerabilities on those same heroes at the end of the game. It allows you to let the player make decisions to double down in one area or keep a more even keel. 

 

It makes a game less aesthetically elegant, but opens up the possibility space. That said, there is a fine line between introducing complexity and designers introducing more and more obscured mechanics to balance the game on the cheap.  

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I think we can agree that the game that handles damage types the worst is StarCraft 2, whereby being "armoured" means you take more damage from some units. Herp derp.

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The different elemental types in a game like Persona (Why be more polite to Rise rather than Naoto? They're both your kohai!) is pretty much the solo thing that separates the characters in gameplay terms other than "Are they better at magic or physical attacks?". The names and fluff around the different elements don't reeeeeally matter and could just be Element A, B, C, and D as far as the gameplay is concerned. However, in the particular case of Persona they do fit in with the characterization. Ice Princess Amagi and fiery Chie-chan and whatnot. 
I'm not sure if I would want the different elements to have different status effects paired with them. I think I would see that certain status effects were 'useless' and then not use any element that was paired with them and thus not use those characters. I like the status effect spells being different than the elemental ones. It also makes me choose between dealing direct damage, or softening the target with status effects for later.

As for a game like X-Com I think tons of different types of damage can really lend itself to tactical turn-based gameplay. I enjoy seeing a robot show up and thinking "Ah yup, gonna need a heavy with special ammo for this guy." I think that enemies being resistant to certain types of damage can also increase immersion in a way. If a giant goop monster shows up, making it resistant to regular weapons makes it much more frightening and intimidating than if it was simply distinguished by being a bullet sponge. Its similar to the way a tank showing up in a mostly infantry based fight can instantly turn the encounter on its head.

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Well in a literal sense, the application of damage type is meant to be a strategic decision, either through afflictions it applies or just outright more damage.

 

One of my favorite applications of damage types was in Skyrim. It wasn't explicitly called "damage type," but in the melee skill trees there were different bonuses based on weapons being used. Swords got you a chance for critical damage, axes caused bleeding damage, and maces ignored armor. That was a bit more creative as far as "do more damage" goes, almost in the way of how the Mega Man X games work; using enemy weaknesses didn't necessarily mean doing a ton of damage, but rather you controlled the enemy's attack pattern.

 

World of Warcraft actually played around with damage type mechanics back in its original incarnation. The first two sets of raid content in the game contained enemies that were outright immune to fire damage, which screwed over any mage that wasn't frost spec. They also had mechanics going in the warrior "arms" talent tree where different weapons would provide different benefits, not unlike Skyrim's system I mentioned. I'm a little hazy as far as memory goes, but I think it was that swords granted a chance to do an extra swing's worth of damage, maces had a chance to do a short stun, and axes had increased critical damage rate.

 

I have a lot of respect for the Pokemon series when it comes to the most basic form of "damage type means more or less damage." Over the generations of those games they've been adding more types of pokemon and rebalancing a lot of existing types. What makes the game wonderfully complex though is that any given Pokemon's moveset, or possible moveset, isn't as strictly tied into their native types as you'd think. There's a lot of room for building up a Pokemon to be bait; a basic example is an ice Pokemon being put into play, so someone prepares some fire moves, but the ice Pokemon has water moves available to trounce on the fire type. They also play their math up perfectly right, since Pokemon have two types and it's possible for each to be susceptible to one type of attack, thus boosting the normal 2x multiplier to 4x. Ouch.

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I have a lot of respect for the Pokemon series when it comes to the most basic form of "damage type means more or less damage." Over the generations of those games they've been adding more types of pokemon and rebalancing a lot of existing types. What makes the game wonderfully complex though is that any given Pokemon's moveset, or possible moveset, isn't as strictly tied into their native types as you'd think. There's a lot of room for building up a Pokemon to be bait; a basic example is an ice Pokemon being put into play, so someone prepares some fire moves, but the ice Pokemon has water moves available to trounce on the fire type.

 

That system, combined with Pokemon's experience formula, ruins Pokemon for me. Fighting something way under your level doesn't reduce the experience gain, so you're incentivized to pour all your experience into one Pokemon, teach it four different elemental moves so that it's usually super effective (and almost always so against enemies with the move types it's weak to), and then roll through winning initiative and one or two-shotting everything. There may be a lot of mechanical depth, but the optimal strategy removes it all.

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That system, combined with Pokemon's experience formula, ruins Pokemon for me. Fighting something way under your level doesn't reduce the experience gain, so you're incentivized to pour all your experience into one Pokemon, teach it four different elemental moves so that it's usually super effective (and almost always so against enemies with the move types it's weak to), and then roll through winning initiative and one or two-shotting everything. There may be a lot of mechanical depth, but the optimal strategy removes it all.

 

The problem with pokémon is that the mechanical depth doesn't really matter unless you're playing against real people. The game itself is so simplified and easy that, as you said, the optimal strategy is have one super powerful pokémon that can be super effective against multiple things. When it's not SE, it's usually so powerful it can just batter through with brute force.

 

In PvP play (which I have very little experience) it all changes. You need a balanced team. You need specialists. You need defensive and offensive pokémon. It's so much more intricate and interesting, but it's also way too much work (fuck IVs.)

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Yeah, I tried to touch on the above when I brought up Pokemon. "I think the combat in that game is largely regarded as the simplest part and what the campaign focuses on. The hidden depth in those games is optimizing teams and move sets and breeding and egg moves and all the layers to that seemingly impenetrable Pokemon onion. I think those damage type things are rarely very interesting, but if there's a system underneath that superficial layer that adds depth I can get really into it."

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Sorry, I didn't see your post. I essentially repeated what you said already. It's just the Pokémon games don't require or even incentivise you to engage in those systems unless you're doing it competitively. Even then the games don't even explain the systems to you, aside from X&Y which surfaced EVs, to the game's overall benefit in my opinion. 

 

I don't really agree with the WoW comparison, because the damage is all the same "type" i.e. magic damage, just different flavours of that. A frost mage doesn't do a different type of damage to a fire mage. However, a frost mage is focussed on limiting enemy movement, while a fire mage is focussed on maintaining the mage's movement. Maybe I'm being pedantic though, but if a rogue can cloak it, it's magic. 

 

Man, I miss WoW.

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Well Pokemon definitely plays into "easy to learn, difficult to master." It just feels so extreme. The breeding stuff drives me nuts but if you're in the right community to pool players from though, they're usually really good about helping and guiding you through breeding. It still takes a lot of time.

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I don't really agree with the WoW comparison, because the damage is all the same "type" i.e. magic damage, just different flavours of that. A frost mage doesn't do a different type of damage to a fire mage. However, a frost mage is focussed on limiting enemy movement, while a fire mage is focussed on maintaining the mage's movement. Maybe I'm being pedantic though, but if a rogue can cloak it, it's magic.

It used to be though. I forget when it went away, but players and enemies had resistance levels to various damage types. On your character sheet, it was a set of icons where your character's model was displayed. And as noted, in Vanilla, fire enemies were immune to fire damage, but it stopped there because they decided to axe that system (and it was just this massive coincidence that the first two tiers of raiding were fire-based).

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Yeah I joined in around BC, so I never got to experience that stuff, and I spent most of my time playing PvP anyway. It was a good move on their part,  making builds that were useless for no good reason was silly.

 

In its essence, I like the idea of having things that are resistant to one type of attack, or susceptible to another. It's awkward in MMOs because then it causes exclusion as everyone is trying to optimise everything. 

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In regards to Pokémon, I've been discussing the ins and outs of that game with someone I consider a Poke-master for probably more than a year now and I STILL don't get it.  It amazes me that this is a "kids" game.

 

On the topic, I like games that implement strength/weakness without resorting to passive traits.  What I mean by that is instead of having an enemy weak to fire, you have an enemy with a strong guard and you need a strong weapon to break that guard.  Or a slow enemy who is vulnerable to fast weapons.  Or a ranged enemy weak against melee attacks.  You could maybe call those things types as well, but it's more about how the nature of the weapon (fast or slow, strong or weak, short or long range, etc) plays into it rather than "this weapon does fire damage but is otherwise the same as this other one".

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Resistances continued to be present into Wrath of the Lich King. There is? was? (it may be gone now) even an achievement for beating Sapphiron with below x amount of Frost Resist gear in your raid. Also Priests were extra valuable because they could cast Shadow Resist on your party during Naxxaramas in WotLK. 

 

As far as the mage thing goes, I understand that fire mages aren't more effective than frost mages against ice monsters (for example), but it does change the way you play. That's all I was saying. The different flavors of magic simply change your approach to problems, but all under one class.

 

There are random things that persist in WoW. I solo'd Sunwell a bunch in the past few months for pet farming and there are demons that will just be resistant to anything but fire damage, and as a priest I'll just have to wait forever for that to expire so i can do shadow damage.

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Yeah but I think it was that players could have bonus resistances, or apply bonus resistance to a party, but NPCs weren't affected by that sort of thing. 

Making class based MMOs or multiplayer games must be so hard. You've got to make classes feel different, but also equally effective so that no one will be choosing something inferior. I'd love to know how they work all that out. Although it's probably boring...

 

The "DPS only" classes in WoW were always really interesting to me. Rogues, Mages, Warlocks and to a lesser extent DKs. They had different specs that had different damage "types" or play styles that were all within a class. 

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Yeah, by the time I was playing the party resistances were still there, but it wasn't applying to enemies anymore.

 

One thing that made it very hard to solo all of AQ(40, I believe) for a long time was you had to do x amount of ice damage to one of the goo monsters, then do enough damage of any kind to shatter him repeatedly. It meant my undergeared & poorly played mage was necessary but also ineffective at pumping out enough damage to actually beat that boss.

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Yeah but I think it was that players could have bonus resistances, or apply bonus resistance to a party, but NPCs weren't affected by that sort of thing. 

Making class based MMOs or multiplayer games must be so hard. You've got to make classes feel different, but also equally effective so that no one will be choosing something inferior. I'd love to know how they work all that out. Although it's probably boring...

 

Speaking from experience with several MMOs, the approach isn't as perfect as you're imagining. Generally one class or spec is the best, and some specs are terrible. Once the data/community forms a consensus on that, the over-performing things are nerfed, and the under-performers buffed. Rinse and repeat, with each cycle lowering the variance in power-by-class.

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