Games that have unique elements and status effects

[DecadeRiptide]

Most games use the same elements for magic, like fire, water, wind, ice, etc. They also use the same status effects like poison, bleed, etc.

Are there any games that have come up something new or has something you don't see very often?

[J1M]

Knight's Tale has Shock, which saps a third of the target's action points. Basically a lesser version of paralysis seen in other games.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

/title.

I can only think of a small handful of games that created unique elements.

WoW famously has Fel, the green and black fire that corrupts your soul and is the element of WoW's weird alien looking demons. Wielded by the playable Warlock and Demon Hunter classes. The Dragonflight patches introduced Shadowflame, which is orange and purple and is basically fire but infused with dark magic, and the player could inflict some Shadowflame damage by equipping weapons or trinkets from the 10.1 and 10.2 patches. The Void (formerly just generic dark shadow magic associated with cthulu tentacles) recently got rebranded as pretty star and comet themed magicks that the player can wield via trinkets.

Guild Wars 2: The element of the third Elder Dragon, Kralkatorik, is Brand, which manifests as purple lightning crystals that spread across and corrupt the regions and creatures it touches. However, this cannot be wielded by the player mechanically.

Trails has the three higher elements of Mirage, Space (ie golden glowing orbs), and Time. Time overlaps with generic shadowy death magicks like scythes and instant KO status, but is rethemed as being about hastening or lengthening the conceptual existence of the target.

Honkai Star Rail has Quantum and Imaginary as elements.

[Yankee Zulu]

Theses are mostly the same in every video game because theres not so many things that enemies can do to a player character. These effects may have a different name and colour but the point is always the same - some damage over time or some movement restriction or loss of character control.

[Tangerine]

If it's a status ailment, it's usually some psychological condition. Darkest Dungeon had Horror and stress-related Heart Attacks. If it's new elements, it comes off as a tryhard way of avoiding traditional elements at the cost of intuitiveness. What's fire strong against? Ice and plants. What's bafflegarble strong against? Who knows!

[rusty_shackleford]

Borderlands 2 has slag and it ******* sucks because you're required to use it on higher difficulties

I guess it could be considered something like toxic

[rusty_shackleford]

Warframe has corrosion which I've seen in a couple other games as an acid type, a damage type specifically meant to reduce enemy armor.
Radiation damage type, which causes confusion. iirc it also does higher damage against some type of enemy too? Maybe robots?

---

Not sure I like rock-paper-scissors-etc., style design. It feels too surface level. e.g., compare something like Fallout where DT creates an implicit damage type(low damage/frequent hit) — perhaps the designers did not realize this which is why where is not an inverse that is more effective against high hitting but slow. And since Fallout has actual typed damage this would actually be an orthogonal damage type system.

Examples of it being more than "my attack is strong vs this guy because of its type" would be welcome

[Oyster Sauce]

Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden has diabetes, glaucoma, Asperger's, fouled, and handicapped.

[rusty_shackleford]

Not sure I like rock-paper-scissors-etc., style design. It feels too surface level. e.g., compare something like Fallout where DT creates an implicit damage type(low damage/frequent hit) — perhaps the designers did not realize this which is why where is not an inverse that is more effective against high hitting but slow. And since Fallout has actual typed damage this would actually be an orthogonal damage type system.

What other games have orthogonal damage type dimensions?

[ArcaneLurker]

Darkest Dungeon has a variety of different debuffs and conditions.

[rusty_shackleford]

What other games have orthogonal damage type dimensions?

Ranger "Favored foe"(often called 'X slaying' etc.,) is another example of a typed damage, just not what one considers to be a typical damage type.

[rusty_shackleford]

What other games have orthogonal damage type dimensions?

Ranger "Favored foe"(often called 'X slaying' etc.,) is another example of a typed damage, just not what one considers to be a typical damage type.

We could probably group all these under some kind of name(can't think of one) — race, sex, size, etc., These are definitely distinctive typed attacks.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

One thing I wish other games would borrow is Genshin's Elemental Reaction system. You use one character and have them deal their elemental damage to apply that element to the target, and then another character of a different element applies their elemental damage to the target, and the combination causes way more damage to happen (you are not supposed to just play one character, but instead have a team working together. Most of your damage output comes from reactions) and a certain effect. For example, electro + pyro = knockbacks an enemy.

[rusty_shackleford]

One thing I wish other games would borrow is Genshin's Elemental Reaction system. You use one character and have them deal their elemental damage to apply that element to the target, and then another character of a different element applies their elemental damage to the target, and the combination causes way more damage to happen (you are not supposed to just play one character, but instead have a team working together. Most of your damage output comes from reactions) and a certain effect. For example, electro + pyro = knockbacks an enemy.

FFXI

[aimlesshealer]

Earthbound/MOTHER is full of weird status ailments. Crying uncontrollably makes you miss attacks like a typical blindness status, but the ambiguity means it can be caused by all sorts of things. Nausea means you can't eat food to restore HP/PP. You can get the common cold by talking to NPC's, which constantly drains a tiny amount of HP. And getting "mushroomized" scrambles your controls in the overworld, which sounds silly but can be a liablity if you accidentally turn your back to a charging enemy (robs you of your first turn in combat)

[Val the Moofia Boss]

One thing I wish other games would borrow is Genshin's Elemental Reaction system. You use one character and have them deal their elemental damage to apply that element to the target, and then another character of a different element applies their elemental damage to the target, and the combination causes way more damage to happen (you are not supposed to just play one character, but instead have a team working together. Most of your damage output comes from reactions) and a certain effect. For example, electro + pyro = knockbacks an enemy.

FFXI

I was thinking of mentioning that and GBF, but Skillchain damage was negligible and only worthwhile in a few situations. Not for regular gameplay. And during regular gameplay, it was very finnicky to pull off, and you have to build up TP which means you are only skillchaining some of the time. Most of the time you are autoattacking or using your own individual abilities. GBF's Chain Burst system removed the finickiness and it is pretty straightforward to execute, but the chain bursts only happen when you use your ultimates which take a while to charge up, aka you are chain bursting only some of the time. Whereas in Genshin, you want to be dealing reaction damage as often as possible/most of your playtime. So Genshin is unique in how most of your DPS is coming from multiple characters working together to combo for reaction damage rather than their own individual DPS.

[Demonic Fate]

One thing I wish other games would borrow is Genshin's Elemental Reaction system. You use one character and have them deal their elemental damage to apply that element to the target, and then another character of a different element applies their elemental damage to the target, and the combination causes way more damage to happen (you are not supposed to just play one character, but instead have a team working together. Most of your damage output comes from reactions) and a certain effect. For example, electro + pyro = knockbacks an enemy.

The Magicka series is all about this, the first game came it 14 years ago.

Wizard Wars is sadly dead (some of the most fun PvP I've ever had) but the original single player / coop games are still worth playing.

[Tweed]

Shin Megami Tensei has the fly effect. Turns party members into flies. Hard to hit, but very easy to kill. Megaten is also one of the few games I've played that has a "dying" status effect versus killing off the character when they hit zero, sort of like Wastelands' flavors of unconsciousness.

Speaking of Wasteland, you can get a lot of different diseases, including herpes.

Digimon Cybersleuths has the dot effect, which turns your guys into 2D sprites. They can still attack, but they can't use abilities.

Superhero League of Hoboken has itchy, paranoid, and hiccupping.

[Vaako]

light, dark, explosion, blood magic is underused sadly, Dark Age of Camelot had spirit, matter, body, energy, heat/cold as resists for spells dmg. But mostly you just see spells giving debuffs like less heals receives, increased miss chance, dots, crowd control spells like root, snare/mezz/stun.

But I do like games which allow you to shrink or enlarge your enemies if that are spells or guns doesnt matter for me.

[rusty_shackleford]

Shroud of the avatar let me be a sun mage which was cool, focused on dealing lots of damage to undead, blinds, and a strong phoenix pet.

[ArcaneLurker]

Earthbound/MOTHER is full of weird status ailments. Crying uncontrollably makes you miss attacks like a typical blindness status, but the ambiguity means it can be caused by all sorts of things. Nausea means you can't eat food to restore HP/PP. You can get the common cold by talking to NPC's, which constantly drains a tiny amount of HP. And getting "mushroomized" scrambles your controls in the overworld, which sounds silly but can be a liablity if you accidentally turn your back to a charging enemy (robs you of your first turn in combat)

Reminds me of Omori

[Stack of Turtles]

Earthbound/MOTHER is full of weird status ailments. Crying uncontrollably makes you miss attacks like a typical blindness status, but the ambiguity means it can be caused by all sorts of things. Nausea means you can't eat food to restore HP/PP. You can get the common cold by talking to NPC's, which constantly drains a tiny amount of HP. And getting "mushroomized" scrambles your controls in the overworld, which sounds silly but can be a liablity if you accidentally turn your back to a charging enemy (robs you of your first turn in combat)

Reminds me of Omori

That's one of the Infinite Earthbound Clones About Depression, yes
if I remember right, this one was actually made by a woman (fujoshi) and not a man (transsexual) though.

[Tweed]

Earthbound/MOTHER is full of weird status ailments. Crying uncontrollably makes you miss attacks like a typical blindness status, but the ambiguity means it can be caused by all sorts of things. Nausea means you can't eat food to restore HP/PP. You can get the common cold by talking to NPC's, which constantly drains a tiny amount of HP. And getting "mushroomized" scrambles your controls in the overworld, which sounds silly but can be a liablity if you accidentally turn your back to a charging enemy (robs you of your first turn in combat)

Reminds me of Omori

That's one of the Infinite Earthbound Clones About Depression, yes
if I remember right, this one was actually made by a woman (fujoshi) and not a man (transsexual) though.

Goodness, I am shocked at this revelation! And it's even in horrific, pastel colors.

[Kalarion]

We could probably group all these under some kind of name(can't think of one) — race, sex, size, etc., These are definitely distinctive typed attacks.

Bane.

FFXI

I was thinking of mentioning that and GBF, but Skillchain damage was negligible and only worthwhile in a few situations. Not for regular gameplay. And during regular gameplay, it was very finnicky to pull off, and you have to build up TP which means you are only skillchaining some of the time. Most of the time you are autoattacking or using your own individual abilities. GBF's Chain Burst system removed the finickiness and it is pretty straightforward to execute, but the chain bursts only happen when you use your ultimates which take a while to charge up, aka you are chain bursting only some of the time. Whereas in Genshin, you want to be dealing reaction damage as often as possible/most of your playtime. So Genshin is unique in how most of your DPS is coming from multiple characters working together to combo for reaction damage rather than their own individual DPS.

Finnicky, yes, at least unmodded (there are plenty of mods that makes skillchaining ****-easy, with both timers and direct prompts on the correct weaponskill to use for skillchain). The rest of the bolded is wrong. SC damage starts small but significant (T1) and ramps up to ludicrously strong (T3). I can't recall a single party session I played in during our last stint where every melee wasn't planning an SC, even if it was a simple one that only added a little damage. It was definitely helpful in regular gameplay.



Also they look very pretty!