The importance of elements or: Why Pokémon is fun and ESO isn't

Faulgor

Elemental damage and weaknesses are nearly an RPG staple. Yet I find this aspect extremely lacking in ESO. I'd like to show two games which I think have done it better, and which ESO could draw some inspiration from.

Pokémon

While I haven't been seriously engaged in the series since Crystal, I assume it still holds true that the elemental weaknesses and resistances are one of the core aspects of the combat strategy. Every Pokémon has one or two elements, which have certain weaknesses and resistances to attacks of the specific element. This would lead to rock-paper-scissors scenarios such as the three starter Pokémon of the Fire, Water and Grass elements, as well as strategies to teach your Pokémon attacks that cover their weaknesses in one way or another.
For example, an Electro type Pokémon would have a weakness against Ground attacks, which would naturally often be used by Ground type Pokémon. To counter this, you might be able to teach your Electro Pokémon the attack Ice Punch of the Ice Element - which Ground types are weak against. Combined with the other aspects of combat, this resulted in elaborate setups, deceiving switches and an overall focus on strategy instead of raw power.
This was especially achieved by having rather large magnitudes of resistances and weaknesses. Having a weakness usually meant taking double damage from an attack, a resistance reducing the damage by half. Combining two fortunate or unfortunate elements, this could result in 4 times the damage, or a -75% damage reduction - in some cases even immunitites. This not only meant you were careful to avoid attacks of your weakness' type, but also resulted in a very satisfying feeling when landing a SUPER EFFECTIVE hit.

Ragnarok Online

A little closer to ESO as it is an MMO as well, and one I remember the best because it was my first. Very much like Pokémon, every enemy had an element type (graded in 4 levels), and every attack had an element - usually "normal", but obvious magic like fireballs had an element, and you could give your weapon attacks an element as well, either by forging a special weapon or endowing it with an active spell.
Very much like Pokémon, magnitude of resistances and weaknesses could get very high (although only starting at +/- 25% on the first element level). In the space of an MMO, this meant some monsters would have a very high resistance against your attacks, and you would have to use different strategies to kill them. On the other hand, you could optimize your build to kill monsters of certain elements, giving you an edge in killing specific enemies for experience or loot. This not only meant there was a huge incentive to acquire specific equipment for different situations, but also that there was a variety of viable and effective grind spots (there's not much questing in RO) - either for loot or exp, depending on your build. And again, just like in Pokémon, it was really satisfying to exploit an enemy's weakness!
This also played a huge role for bosses. Besides the obvious necessity to have the right equipment and skill setup for the right boss, this also meant that otherwise underutilized builds were viable if not superior against certain bosses. For example, a Wizard build that focused on Ghost type damage with the Soul Strike spell would be rather weak against most enemies, except a few bosses that were weak against Ghost damage.
For PvP, this didn't play a huge role until the introduction of elemental armors. Until then, every player was merely "neutral", which didn't yield any resists or weaknesses. With an elemental armor, you became that elemental type, with it's resistances and weaknesses. This resulted in rock-paper-scissor scenarios, where many people would equip Lightning type armor to resist a common and strong Frost type Wizard spell, and in turn people used Earth type weapons to exploit the weakness of people with Lightning armor.
Overall, this allowed for more interesting and specialized builds, enforced better strategies and gave incentives to acquire more gear than just one set for everything.

... and in ESO

Now, talking about ESO, almost none of this is the case. Most enemies do not have a specific weakness or resistance, and until 1.6 even spell resist and armor were somewhat even. Elemental weapon enchantments are close to useless, elemental resistance is only acquired through jewelry enchants which are equally lackluster in magnitude. In fact, resistance is hardcapped at 50%, which I think is impossible to achieve for individual elements. Further, the only source of elemental damage is magic, which makes spell resistance the clearly superior choice over elemental resistances. In terms of specific builds for specific enemies, the only thing we have is the fighters guild skill line against undead and daedra, which is a must-have and thus doesn't offer a lot of variety in choice. Usually, there is no other weakness to exploit, which makes every encounter feel pretty much the same in terms of effectiveness.

However, this doesn't have to be the case. The magnitude of resistances and weaknesses is usually quite high in TES games, often up to immunity. Even in ESO, not all resistances and weaknesses operate with the spell resistance and armor ratings, such as the Werewolf penalty that increases weakness to Poison by 40%. Of course, nobody wants to see players with 100% spell resistance - but elements are different. First, because you can still cause damage with other elements, magical or not, and second, because they usually come hand in hand with a weakness to another element.
However, this is usually not how TES worked in the past. Unlike Pokémon and Ragnarok Online, a resistance to one element does not automatically make you weaker to another element - there is no rock-paper-scissors mechanic. It's perfectly fine in say, Morrowind, to have fire immunity without any real drawbacks - except the lack of other enchants in their place.
So, if more interesting and engaging element mechanics were to be added to ESO, either it would have to be kept this way - offering high magnitude resistances as an attractive option to current equipment bonuses - or rock-paper-scissors relations of elements would have to be introduced.

In summary, I'd like to suggest some of these changes:

• All elemental damage weapon enchantments (Fire, Frost, Shock, Poison, Disease) now change the element of all weapon attacks to that element
• Increase chance of secondary elemental effects (Burning, Chilled, etc) significantly, or introduce new champion passive to this effect
• Add elemental resistance glyphs for armor pieces (Fire, Frost, Shock, Poison, Disease)
• Possibly add spells that temporarily buff elemental resistances, or apply such buffs to existing spells
• Most PvE enemies should have weaknesses and resistances of a higher magnitude

This addresses several points. First, it makes enchanting more interesting and valuable as it is currently the most useless profession in the game. It adds elemental damage that is not magical in nature. It will create more build variety in PvE and possibly allow for more viable grinding spots to spread the population out a bit. Depending on the magnitude of the new armor glyphs, build variety could also improve in PvP, but this would require some balancing. I'd suggest the magnitude should be such that with a full legendary infused enchanted equipment set (3x jewelry, 7x armor + 1x shield) you should be able to hit elemental immunity. As a drawback, you lose out on the attribute bonuses from the current armor glyphs.

While I would also like to see elemental weaknesses for players, there is no real sensible way to do so with the TES elements. Fire should beat Frost, but that's about it. Another option to make elemental weapons more attractive for PvP would be to introduce enchantments that add a small resistance to "normal" weapon damage, but that would not really result in weaknesses, just a higher baseline defense.

Why this will never happen and I just wasted my time

B2P. Consoles.

TL;DR

ESO has no meaningful elemental damage mechanics compared to other RPGs, which makes every encounter feel the same in terms of effectiveness. This should be changed to promote different combat strategies, as well as more viable equipment choices, character builds and grinding spots.

rynth

you played pokemon

P3ZZL3

Meanwhile, in another completely questionable comparative...

The reasons why ESO will never compare to Snake and the buffs achieved in the classic Nokia game...

Kronosphere

i think the weapon enchanting system needs a total revamp. enchanting a awesome weapon on other tes games really gave it that extra kick! here the effects are negligable. u bearly notice you even have an enchant. i wish they were a bit more potent, even idea like it converting some of your light attack damage into elemental damage would be great!

pitkanencomplexeb17_ESO

Zergball used impulse! It's super effective!

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

Nightblade used Cloak! But it failed.

SorataArisugawa

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

Nightblade used Cloak! But it failed.

pitkanencomplexeb17_ESO wrote: »

Zergball used impulse! It's super effective!

That would be awesome

(... or total rubbish)

Valymer

A great idea. I think it's telling though that we can't even see our individual resistances from the default UI, it requires an addon.

Merlin13KAGL

Problem is, weakness to elements isn't weakness to elements...

It's "reduced resistance-to-elements."

It should cause additional elemental damage (which is then mitigated by your spell/elemental resist). It does not.

Instead, it lowers your resistance (mitigation) first, and then applies the same damage.

In short - it should work like fire does on vamp - you take more damage.

In its present state, if you have zero spell/elemental resist, and someone casts Weakness to Elements on you, you will take no additional damage, since your resistance will never go below zero.

EDIT: This is further aggravated by the overemphasis of fire as the element of choice due to buffs, etc. All elements should have equal representation, effects, and effectiveness.

oddavi

I guess ESO also need to add bubble damage, or kiss damage, or singing damage ...

Gyudan

I would love to see a meaningful resistance-weakness système, in both PVE, so that players adapt their attacks and defend against specific playstyles. A troll, a fire atronach and a dwemer spider should not be fought the exact same way.

We already have fire, frost, shock, aedric, daedric, poison, disease, bleed and regular weapon damage. Rebalancing attack type resistance and allowing it to drop under 0% would be a good first step.
Weapon damage could even be divided into slashing, crushing and piercing for blades, blunt weapons and arrows/spears.
Think of the potential for item sets @ZOS_GinaBruno. That would be quite an improvement instead of always using the same stale properties.

Maybe then everyone wouldn't use the same weapons and we could finally see frost staves, shock staves, axes, battle axes, hammers and maces, instead of sword/bow/fire.

Grayphilosophy

As far as I understand, you really can't compare The Elder Scrolls to universes like Pokémon and Ragnarok. Elements and magic just don't work similarly.

I do agree with the point you're trying to make though. It would be nice to see some more variation in damage types and resistances. Something I think would make more sense for an Elder Scrolls universe could be something along the lines of physical damage types like in D&D, with Slashing, Piercing and Bludgeoning (Blades, Pikes and Clubs respectively, etc.). Along with enemies that have increased weaknesses or resistances to said damage types.

Better elemental damage types and resistances could certainly also be implemented, where it makes sense. Something I'd like to see are more in-depth status effects kind of like you mentioned, like enough fire damage actually igniting your target for a while, cold damage adding a weakening hypothermia effect or poison damage adding a prolonged but minor poison dot etc.

Faulgor

Kronosphere wrote: »

i think the weapon enchanting system needs a total revamp. enchanting a awesome weapon on other tes games really gave it that extra kick! here the effects are negligable. u bearly notice you even have an enchant. i wish they were a bit more potent, even idea like it converting some of your light attack damage into elemental damage would be great!

Frankly, that's one of the main reasons I think something has to change. Weapon enchantments are so bad that even a dedciated build (Torug's Pact set, infused, etc) won't have it contribute much more than 1% dps. However, simply increasing enchantment magnitude would lead to much higher damage all around, and would require some serious rebalancing I don't expect ZOS willing or able to do anytime soon. Thus the suggestion to change all weapon attacks to elemental damage with enchantments - it wouldn't increase damage overall, but give opportunities for exploits.

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Problem is, weakness to elements isn't weakness to elements...

It's "reduced resistance-to-elements."

It should cause additional elemental damage (which is then mitigated by your spell/elemental resist). It does not.

Instead, it lowers your resistance (mitigation) first, and then applies the same damage.

In short - it should work like fire does on vamp - you take more damage.

In its present state, if you have zero spell/elemental resist, and someone casts Weakness to Elements on you, you will take no additional damage, since your resistance will never go below zero.

EDIT: This is further aggravated by the overemphasis of fire as the element of choice due to buffs, etc. All elements should have equal representation, effects, and effectiveness.

Insightful, and agree 100%. Without real weaknesses, the system will remain onedimensional.

Gyudan wrote: »

I would love to see a meaningful resistance-weakness système, in both PVE, so that players adapt their attacks and defend against specific playstyles. A troll, a fire atronach and a dwemer spider should not be fought the exact same way.

We already have fire, frost, shock, aedric, daedric, poison, disease, bleed and regular weapon damage. Rebalancing attack type resistance and allowing it to drop under 0% would be a good first step.
Weapon damage could even be divided into slashing, crushing and piercing for blades, blunt weapons and arrows/spears.
Think of the potential for item sets @ZOS_GinaBruno. That would be quite an improvement instead of always using the same stale properties.

Maybe then everyone wouldn't use the same weapons and we could finally see frost staves, shock staves, axes, battle axes, hammers and maces, instead of sword/bow/fire.

Well said. I didn't even touch on the potential of set items in my post, but you already make great suggestions! I always thought swords, maces and axes feel much too similar, and different attack types with special resistances would certainly make things more interesting.

Grayphilosophy wrote: »

As far as I understand, you really can't compare The Elder Scrolls to universes like Pokémon and Ragnarok. Elements and magic just don't work similarly.

I do agree with the point you're trying to make though. It would be nice to see some more variation in damage types and resistances. Something I think would make more sense for an Elder Scrolls universe could be something along the lines of physical damage types like in D&D, with Slashing, Piercing and Bludgeoning (Blades, Pikes and Clubs respectively, etc.). Along with enemies that have increased weaknesses or resistances to said damage types.

Better elemental damage types and resistances could certainly also be implemented, where it makes sense. Something I'd like to see are more in-depth status effects kind of like you mentioned, like enough fire damage actually igniting your target for a while, cold damage adding a weakening hypothermia effect or poison damage adding a prolonged but minor poison dot etc.

I didn't really want to make a clear comparison with those other games, but used them as an example for the advantages their mechanics had, and how those could potentially be introduced to an Elder Scrolls setting while recognizing the differences.

Your D&D example was one I was not familiar with, but has already been suggested and I quite like. Increasing the reliance on secondary elemental effects like burning and freezing is also a great alternative, and a route TES V: Skyrim tried to go as well, so it has precedence in the TES universe.

Glantir

Yes give Mobs super resistence.....
High fire resi mobs... bye bye DK dmg
High lightning resi.. bye bye Sorc dmg

dislike! ^^

Grayphilosophy

Glantir wrote: »

Yes give Mobs super resistence.....
High fire resi mobs... bye bye DK dmg
High lightning resi.. bye bye Sorc dmg

dislike! ^^

Dragonknights can do more than just fire damage. Sorcerers can also do more than just lightning damage.

Auricle

Grayphilosophy wrote: »

As far as I understand, you really can't compare The Elder Scrolls to universes like Pokémon and Ragnarok. Elements and magic just don't work similarly.

Statements like this, said so earnestly, is why I come to the forums.

But, really, it would be amazing to have a more complex resistance system. But I would settle for smoothing out the bugs and getting some DLC in the pipes. I'm not going to dream so big when I can't even seem to log into my guild bank...

You have to Abra before you can Alakazam, y'know what I mean?

jkemmery

"Why Pokémon is fun and ESO isn't"

Seriously? Weakness and strengths to "Elements" is the reason you chose to make that broad statement? I was looking for some kind of enlightenment.

To each their own I guess.

I think we need to have a whole new forum section for all of the posts like this titled "How I would like ZOS to make ESO so that it fits more in line with what I think it should be." for all of the posts like this making generalized broad based complaints about the game. News flash: there are other games out there that you can play that are probably already more in line with how you would like ESO to be.

What does ESO offer that the other's don't? Hmmm, awesome graphics, awesome voice acting, pretty fun quests, interesting (if not flawed and still buggy) Pvp play, a large player base where you are bound to run in to others that you enjoy playing with, a huge world to explore, and a complex gameplay that is not too difficult to master yet is challenging enough to keep most of us coming back for more. Also all kinds of varied skills and crafts to master as well as quirky side games like fishing and treasure hunting.

Why does so much of this forum revolve around people wanting to change ESO so much? It's kind of bizarre, really.

driosketch

Grayphilosophy wrote: »

show previous quotes

Glantir wrote: »

Yes give Mobs super resistence.....
High fire resi mobs... bye bye DK dmg
High lightning resi.. bye bye Sorc dmg

dislike! ^^

Dragonknights can do more than just fire damage. Sorcerers can also do more than just lightning damage.

But it is a major part of their class skill sets. Add to that the ability to swap only two weapons in combat, and it sort of limits the ability to adapt if you say go from fighting undead to fighting daedra as some quests do. (Assuming we keep to previously established TES weakness, resistance, and immunities.) Though personally, if they could make it work, I would be interested in seeing them bring back things like skeleton resistance to blade weapons.

Sylvyr

This system is so wacked.

/summary

evenfallacy

ESO does have some level (not very good) of elemental play. I know there used to be tips on death about certain enemies resisting/being weak to certain elements and for a little while I tried to follow those match-ups. Unfortunately, the impact it has doesn't seem to be all that great in general, the difference usually being like... one extra attack.

Fire atronachs can take a little more fire damage, whereas troll health regen takes a hit and zombies ignite quickly.
Daedra tend to be weaker to shock with the exception of storm atronachs, but it isn't usually substantial enough to notice with a few exceptions (ie zombies and fire, or hitting storm atronachs with shock).

AlnilamE

Have you actually tested this? Does a fire staff do the same damage against a flame atronach and a frost atronach, for example?

idk

Pokeman? Seriously in the day of Magic the Gathering?

Tapio75

What ESO truly lacks in my opinion is content that draws players away from their everyday business in ESO.. Like hobbies, interactive pets, housing, special worldwide events (Holidays and such, similar to WOW and LOTRO events) and so forth... I find it extremely frustrating to replay ESO as i have to follow the beaten path all the bitter way to the end.

At first, open the whole world and remove levels as restrictions on where to go and where to do stuff, then add minigames that are not related at all to everyday questing/raiding/dungeoning business.

evenfallacy

AlnilamE wrote: »

Have you actually tested this? Does a fire staff do the same damage against a flame atronach and a frost atronach, for example?

Not with a dps addon to get solid numbers, but during a lot of grinds and fights I could see a difference with that being the only thing to change. The computer I run ESO on is down right now, or I'd try to get some actual numbers.

Moonshadow66

oddavi wrote: »

I guess ESO also need to add bubble damage, or kiss damage, or singing damage ...

The singing damage you can get already by entering taverns where a male bard is doing his job.

Attorneyatlawl

Hi @Faulgor! You will probably find it surprising to learn that these types of mechanics are in fact already in game.... but they are . You lay out a very thoroughly thought out and constructive case with this thread, and to be frank, there's no reasonable way to know with how the game currently shows gameplay information. If you want to learn more and maybe even chip in some thoughts, I have detailed this all over in my newest post here: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/160517/user-interface-and-quality-of-life-problems-eso-2-0-is-good-lets-make-it-better

@evenfallacy isn't far off the mark with his intuition.

Dragnelus

Damn I wanna play Pokemon again!

Gimme Pokemon online!

TheShadowScout

Faulgor wrote: »

All elemental damage weapon enchantments (Fire, Frost, Shock, Poison, Disease) now change the element of all weapon attacks to that element

Soo... if I enchant a dagger with a fire glyph, the flames around the dagger blade should somehow turn the stab wound into a burn as well?
Or if I enchant an ice staff with a fire glyph, it suddenly turns into a fire staff?
Doesn't sound very logical OR useful.

(I did however always wonder about "opposed" effects... fire staves with ice glyphs or ice staves with fire glyphs, shouldn't those actually work at cross-purposes and -weaken- the initial attack instead of adding to it?)

Faulgor wrote: »

Increase chance of secondary elemental effects (Burning, Chilled, etc) significantly, or introduce new champion passive to this effect

Some increase in secondary effects through elemental damage might be feasible...

Faulgor wrote: »

Add elemental resistance glyphs for armor pieces (Fire, Frost, Shock, Poison, Disease)

Definitely! That's one of the things I really miss with armor... although, I guess we have those glyphs for jewlery... still, it might be possible to just let people enchant armors with those as well. Or not and let them go for the rings and such - though that would be a vote for finally adding a jeweler crafting skill line...

Faulgor wrote: »

Possibly add spells that temporarily buff elemental resistances, or apply such buffs to existing spells

Could feasibly be added. Another idea would be more passives that give select resistances... right now we kinda have the racials "nords are used to cold" or "dunmer can deal with fire", but everyhting else is grouped into "all elemental" (frost, fire, lightning) and "all other" (magic, disease, poison); there could be individual resistance effects added to some spells I guess... or some spells added...

Faulgor wrote: »

Most PvE enemies should have weaknesses and resistances of a higher magnitude

That I can agree with.
I always found it a bit silly that fire atronarchs have no high resistance to fire attacks, nor weakness to frost attacks. As has been mentioned, it exists, but... is neglectible.

Heck, I always liked the different resistances to normal weapon types, but I guess that only shows my D&D roots (skeletons there being hard to damage with bow attacks, easy to break with blunt trauma... etc.)


Generally I think it would be good if more mobs had a bit of difference, and might be easier or harder to deal with depending on elemental magic... just as long as its not an automatic loss when a character happens to show up with the "wrong" elemental type in hands. But with the generally wide selection of skills... yeah, a full lightning sorceror might have it tough against a lightnin-resistant enemy, but there is still dark magic and daedric curses, right? A Dragonknight may feel a little less powerful then usual if facing an fire-resistant mob, but fire isn't -all- they have, after all... et cetera.

Although, that said... I wouldn't count on it ever happening. The current system works, and they will have a lot of other things to work on before they would want to tinker much with it I'd expect...

Anilahation

Dragonite is an ESO class.

eventide03b14a_ESO

Why didn't you just contrast it to the other games in the series instead of going on a rant about Pokemon? The other TES games handled damage types way better.

Mettaricana

Mettaricana used play eso!.... extremely ineffective.... kept on going and crashed... and fainted