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Element Properties in Enemy Attack Skill Names?

So lately I've been thinking about some random battle stuff, and recently I was wondering if it would be a good idea.

So you know how in RPGs the game displays the name of the enemy attack in some fashion, like so;



I've noticed that a lot of games, not all of them, but a lot of them neglect to tell you the properties of enemy attacks in battle. I think this is not very intuitive, for a number of reasons;

1. Almost all RPGs have preparation in the form of protection against some property as part of the strategy. If you don't know the properties you're dealing with, how can you effectively strategize?

2. Not all enemies have obvious properties that the player can guess such as Ice Dragons or Fire Djinns and whatnot; a lot of enemies seem ambigious in terms of properties, like a magic knight or some kind of oddball looking enemy. Ditto this sentiment for unusual looking or named attacks

In many games, they supply a Bestiary helps out immensely if that resource lists out an enemies attacks, with the elemental properties attached. But the problem with that is that it doesn't help in the midst of battle when you're deciding what elemental shield to through up, whether to beef up your magical or physical defense.

So I'm thinking of putting up icons on the enemy attack names to signify enemy attacks as physical or magical, and the element, if applicable. I'll have to mess around with making it hang around longer on the screen, amongst other fixes, but you guys think it's a good idea?

Posts

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Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
A good idea in general? Absolutely. A good idea for your game, specifically? That's your call, since you know your game more than any of us. I think a number of factors go into deciding if this is worth adding to Chronology:

- How much control over elemental resistances do you have? Do you have skills, items, etc. that raise and/or lower specific elemental resistances?

- How obvious is the element in the attack animation?

- How badly are you punished for poor preparation? Will you be completely unable to win without knowing every enemy you fight? Or does it just mean an extra trip back to the inn on your way to the end of the level?

- Is there any kind of mechanic that revolves around elemental weaknesses/resistances, like the Press Turn system in SMT games, that requires you to know exactly what element each attack has?


And others. If it's absolutely necessary for players to know in order to beat the game, then it's worth taking the time to add it in. If it's just a nice thing to have for the min/max type, then I wouldn't put it as high on the priority list.
I mean, the way I look at it, why not?

In most RPGs, knowing an attack's element and whether it's physical or magical is information that's vitally important at the most, and good to have at the very least. If I have properties and elements in my gamae and they're not that important enough to warrant at least displaying in the name, then why have then at all?

In my game, knowing elemental/magic/physical properties isn't life or death like it might be in say, SMT, but it's not worthless information, either. And I thought of the preparation aspect, but in many RPGs unless it is painfully obvious (the next dungeon is a Volcano to fight a Fire God!) where you're going next or what you're fighting (and in most narratives, it isn't), battles can be very unpredictable.

The way I see it, this would display valuable information for next to no work required. I mean, why not?
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
Then I say do it
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
karsu and i have been working on a complex game, so we're just utilizing text for this stuff (only player characters get actual skill names because of this, anyway)

>Minerva's shield begins to glow.
>She'll counter magic attacks this turn!

>Kobold B yelps out a command!
>The enemies' Attack is raised!

i know that's not really something you/everybody might want, but we just figured it was a simple way to communicate effects without translation/identification issues.

i think a lot of games get away with not doing this because of just being sipmle. ff6 doesn't need fancy skill names because it's vanilla as shit. even SMT really doesn't, as it's also just "Maragidyne is high fire damage". (maragidyne and such are arcane skill names anyway)

so yeah... icons and such are nice. i'm down with it
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
There's no reason why it shouldn't be there, but I got the impression you were asking if it should be. In which case, that's all up to how necessary this information is and if there aren't other methods of conveying it, like in the animations.

In my experience, adding a feature because "why not?" leads to overdesigned, overcomplicated menus that drown a player in information. If "why not?" and "it's nice for players to have" are enough reasons to add a feature, then you'd naturally progress to other questions like, "why not show damage formulas for each attack in the description?" or, "why not call up a list of all the skills the enemies have?"

Again, I'm not saying don't add icons to skill names, but it's important to think beyond "it's nice for the player to have" when adding something in. If an enemy casts a fire spell, and you see flames spout up around the party, do you really need a flame icon next to the name?
I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, but think of what you mentioned;

author=Red
If an enemy casts a fire spell, and you see flames spout up around the party, do you really need a flame icon next to the name?


Sure. But close your eyes and think of all of the oddball, nonspecific, 'either or' vague energy ray or magic sword or whatnot attacks you've seen in RPGs that look pretty ambiguous. Rather than streamlining down and limiting the expression on that front, I think it would be very valuable for any game to have this feature, and I'm wondering what the holdup is at this point.
I say the game would most certainly benefit from it.
I was very frustrated on Radiant Historia specifically because of that as well, for some reason they thought wasting a turn to cast scan on a game where every turn counts was intelligent, and boy it was absolutely not.
granted, i'm talking about monster resistances / weaknesses and not about skill elements but its a very similar thing. like hiding enemy hp, which is another thing I don't see much point to at this rate. (knowing how much hp the enemies have just opens up for so much strategizing its not even funny)
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Feldschlacht IV
I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, but think of what you mentioned;

author=Red
If an enemy casts a fire spell, and you see flames spout up around the party, do you really need a flame icon next to the name?


Sure. But close your eyes and think of all of the oddball, nonspecific, 'either or' vague energy ray or magic sword or whatnot attacks you've seen in RPGs that look pretty ambiguous. Rather than streamlining down and limiting the expression on that front, I think it would be very valuable for any game to have this feature, and I'm wondering what the holdup is at this point.


I agree that it's important to convey this information to players. What I don't agree with is that there is one universal method of conveying this information that any game should have.

What if you had a few skills with two, three, or even four elements at once? The sudden appearance of four or more icons could confuse players who haven't seen it before, and could seriously mess up your layout if you don't account for it. Changing the color of the damage numbers may be a better solution in that case. Action RPGs also need to keep from throwing too much at the player at once since they need to be able to process a bunch of information in a short amount of time.

WIP
I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry
11363
I typically prefer a visual telegraph with primary colors. The latest Zelda does a good job at this: they never mix colors for the different elemental attacks, so you're always very aware of what you were hit by.

If you're limited by visuals, an icon doesn't hurt. Adding multiple elements to an attack can complicate things a lot and I'd recommend just avoiding it.

author=Feldschlacht IV
Sure. But close your eyes and think of all of the oddball, nonspecific, 'either or' vague energy ray or magic sword or whatnot attacks you've seen in RPGs that look pretty ambiguous. Rather than streamlining down and limiting the expression on that front, I think it would be very valuable for any game to have this feature, and I'm wondering what the holdup is at this point.
If you put oddball stuff in the game and blame the player for "not getting it", that is not good design. It's up to you to convey digestably (is that a word???) what is going on in the game.

If you do have energy rays in the game, make all of them the same element and visually similar. Consistency matters.
author=WIP
If you put oddball stuff in the game and blame the player for "not getting it", that is not good design. It's up to you to convey digestably (is that a word???) what is going on in the game.

If you do have energy rays in the game, make all of them the same element and visually similar. Consistency matters.

I agree with the sentiment, but I can just as easily put icons (which for my game, would be two at most) in the attack names so I can make my energy rays look however I want them, right? Like, what if I want a bunch of funny ass energy rays? Creative direction shouldn't suffer if I can properly convey information at the same time.

Granted, I'm not saying I MUST do this and I insist on having weird confusing looking energy rays, but I don't want to get too complex into solving a simple "problem" that may not even be much of a problem.

The idea of giving enemy attacks different colors in their font was a good one, for example, and very clean to integrate.

Like, attacks in Yellow Font are for physical attacks (with elemental icon(s) attached)
Also, Purple Font are for magical attacks (with elemental icon (s) attached)

Something like that. Don't get me wrong though, all of this is great feedback that I'll use going forward.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
i mean you can go a few steps further than colors, too. in Visions & Voices we made unique casting animations for each element (pls ignore that the actual stats behind those elements were bullshit... i was young and stupid).

tales of berseria even puts the icons IN THE DAMAGE when enemies hit you, which i thought was pretty nice, especially since status effects are sorted by damage types so it's more useful than just "fire resist would be helpful".

kind of a stupid screenshot since it's 1 dmg but



(the "WEAK" hits are somebody hitting a weak point... probably laphicet in the background since you can see that playing card flying through velvet's ass.... okay this was a terrible screenshot)
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Yeah, sounds like a good idea to me ^_^ More info for the player is generally better, and it would be the sort of addition I'd appreciate.

author=Craze
karsu and i have been working on a complex game, so we're just utilizing text for this stuff (only player characters get actual skill names because of this, anyway)

>Minerva's shield begins to glow.
>She'll counter magic attacks this turn!

>Kobold B yelps out a command!
>The enemies' Attack is raised!

i know that's not really something you/everybody might want, but we just figured it was a simple way to communicate effects without translation/identification issues.


I've been tempted to use the second line in the attack messages to do something similar (I feel like Chrono Trigger did something like that when it felt the need).

Like:
>Badguy casts Split!
>(Reduces HP by 1/4!)

>Badguy casts Burst!
>(Medium Fire Damage!)

I feel like its a cool idea when the enemy has access to moves the party doesn't have. But if you go that route, do you do that for everything (like every cast magic spell) or just the obscure ones?
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Anyone remember that flash RPG DragonFable? They did something neat with their damage output that may be worth looking into:



So there you go. The damage number, an icon showing the element of the attack, and text showing if it was a melee, ranged, or magic attack.

You think something that would work for Chronology?
WIP
I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry
11363
author=Feldschlacht IV
I agree with the sentiment, but I can just as easily put icons (which for my game, would be two at most) in the attack names so I can make my energy rays look however I want them, right? Like, what if I want a bunch of funny ass energy rays? Creative direction shouldn't suffer if I can properly convey information at the same time.

Granted, I'm not saying I MUST do this and I insist on having weird confusing looking energy rays, but I don't want to get too complex into solving a simple "problem" that may not even be much of a problem.

If you want a bunch of funny ass energy rays that are inconsistent with all the others, it'll be noticed. Don't sacrifice game fluidity to suit creative direction; you're still making a game that needs to be played. Embrace consistent game design and don't swim against it. Just as you are designing rules for the player, you need rules to follow while making it.

Sure, you COULD make a spell that trips a player up. But breaking your own visual design rules only hurts the player and experience.

Again, icons are okay. They are easier to understand than long text, but not as good as a full visual. The visual is what sticks in the player's mind.
I'm in a FFVI mindset where there were all kinds of cool enemy animations, but they were unclear on what element or property they had. In my game (and a ton of RPGs in general) enemies also use a ton of skills that the player can't. Something like I'm suggesting would still allow me to do something like that while making information clear to the player.


author=Red_Nova
Anyone remember that flash RPG DragonFable? They did something neat with their damage output that may be worth looking into:



So there you go. The damage number, an icon showing the element of the attack, and text showing if it was a melee, ranged, or magic attack.

You think something that would work for Chronology?

Bam, something kind of like that. Easy, peasy.
This is an interesting question to be sure, and those before me have raised many worthwhile points. However, can we go back to basics a bit? I feel like this discussion would have a more defined frame of reference if we could know the following:

1) How many enemy types are there in the first place? (as of now, and planned for the future?)

2) How many skills do they have, on average?

I think that this is especially important for WIP's point, about the need for consistent visual design. Obviously, the more skills show up, the harder it is to keep them looking consistent, and seeing a dozen of skills with a barely changed animation might also bore the player. And vice versa: when there's a relatively small number of them, a particular inconsistency stands out more.
Enemy types? I know what you mean, but that doesn't have very much to do with what I mean. I'm thinking just regular elements (that enemies use. Like a boss might have a fire spell, or a falcon might have a beak attack that has Wind as a secondary element.

This isn't super complex here, and I don't want to make it more complex than it has to be, my game doesn't feature any sort of elemental rigarole that's much different from...most RPGs. All I'm proposing is letting the player know the element(s) in play in skill names when enemies use them.

Really, if you want the best picture of what I'm going for, think FFVI but if the skills that enemies used had the element they used attached as an icon. FFVI has a ton of cool looking abilities but the element isn't always apparent. This isn't relevant when you have the ability (and thus the game usually tells you the element) but can be confusing when an enemy uses it.

This video demonstrates that point a bit, especially with Gau's Rages, which double as abilities that enemies usually use against you, and abilities that when used, you have no idea what element it is. Mog's Dances also fall into this to a degree.


Now just imagine the element that these skills used were displayed with a color or an icon. That's it.
WIP
I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry
11363
author=Feldschlacht IV
I'm in a FFVI mindset where there were all kinds of cool enemy animations, but they were unclear on what element or property they had. In my game (and a ton of RPGs in general) enemies also use a ton of skills that the player can't. Something like I'm suggesting would still allow me to do something like that while making information clear to the player.
What spell in FFVI doesn't clearly have its element telegraphed by its colors and design?

A lot of them were totally crazy looking, but pretty consistent. Even Kefka's big spells were telegraphed pretty well. AKA, none of them really shared their looks with anything else, and didn't have elemental properties. The big crazy spells in FFVI were non-elemental and this was intentional.

I think you are too worried about this; if a spell has an element like ice, it would be a bad visual if it didn't have ice in it. The opposite is also true: if the spell isn't ice elemental, it would be a bad visual if it had ice in it.
author=WIP
What spell in FFVI doesn't clearly have its element telegraphed by its colors and design?

I'll take this challenge. Off the top of my head...

-Quasar
-Starlight
-Shock Wave
-Acid Rain (Water obviously, yes. But it's also a Poison attack)
-Atomic Ray
-Diffuser
-Mirror Orb
-Flash Rain (Water and Ice, not just Water)
-Raid
-TekLaser

Not to mention that some of those attacks are physical but look magical (like a machine using electrical/shockwave weapon attacks, but lacking magic power, because obviously), and vice versa.

My idea (not my idea, rather, this implementation) would solve all of that and cost nothing to the player or myself in terms of inconvenience or mess. I mean, why not? A lot of games already do this.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I'm all for clarity in games. And yeah, adding clarity when it doesn't cost anything but a little work sounds great to me!
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