The current Element Table in TOS - too simple and unimportant?

[Charon]

I love me some element tables!
Always like figuring out what element beats other elements and what it’s beaten by etc.

Ever since I’ve first seen the element table for TOS:

It felt underwhelming… actually, merely the fact that Poison does not even have a weakness at all, made me convinced that this was just a prototype, a work in progress…

But as far as I’m aware, we’re through several betas and in korean OBT right now, with the same element table.
Of course I’d be happy if the devs simply took another look at it and adjusted it a bit as they see fit (maybe they intended to and simply forgot about it? xDD),
but me being me… I couldn’t resist making my own version of it, just for fun, throwing a bit more modifiers into the table than one would expect, all the while trying to keep it absolutely perfectly balanced (with every Element having the same amount of strengths and weaknesses across the table, offense and defense), and here is the result:

While it might look complex in comparison to the first one…it’s far from that IMO (think of pokemon types, where it’s a table of 18x18 and pokemon can be dual typed…), as you always find out on a 1 by 1 basis what’s effective or ineffective anyway and as you rely on a single element for whole ranks most of the time too (unless you’re like an Elementalist, in which case…isn’t elemental chaos what you’ve signed up for anyway? XDD)

I’ve also thought of making some of those 1,5x mods be 2x mods (since there is cases like that in the actual element table too), but it’s impossible without breaking perfect balance xD

Anyhow, what do you guys think of the topic? of the current table? of my table? yours?

[rofldat]

Opinion: Terrible?

Minor nitpick: Decimals uses . not ,

An some of these seem to make no sense.
Like why is Earth doing more damage to fire type.

Or you seem to ignore the classes player have/monsters type in the game
Ice doing 50% to Dark, one of the most common type of enemies in the game? Are you aware you just gave a massive middle finger to Cryo?

The more complex table works in Pokemon because switching pokemon exist.
ToS you don’t instantly switch character on a whim so having a complex table is just terrible.

There’s a pre-existing example too in vanilla WoW where in PvE Fire mage was non-existent because the main raid, Molten Core, is all fire resist mobs, and arcane was horribly weak back then so it’s all ice mage or nothing.

[Charon]

Minor nitpick: Decimals uses . not ,

I guess I’ve been doing it wrong all my life, oh boy…

Nevermind.

Like why is Earth doing more damage to fire type.

the idea was that actual physical earth, as in soil, sand, rocks and stuff, can put out fires. How does ice put out fire? Does anything if not even earth does? ;O

Ice doing 50% to Dark, one of the most common type of enemies in the game? Are you aware you just gave a massive middle finger to Cryo?

Wasn’t poison the most common element at the moment? It’s also the one with no weakness and 2 50% mods right now… Would that render something like an Earth-mage a silly an inherently flawed concept then just because of that?

The more complex table works in Pokemon because switching pokemon exist.

Yes, and the pokemon table is as I said, still far more complex than my own overcomplicated suggestion… which again, I’m not proposing as a final version of what I’d actually want in the game.
And the analogy to switching out Pokemon would be…switching the map you want to grind at, to one that doesn’t resist your whole class-tree.

[tomredwait]

not sure alot of yours make sense, or it’s overall more sensible than the original; just, more balanced. it’s still boring and unoriginal…

[Charon]

Yeh… Would some weaknesses ebing more serious than others spice it up? (at least that’s what I’m playing around with atm lol)

(AGAIN, work in progress, for fun and discussion etc.)

Some main thoughts behind it:

Dark and Holy being weak to each other is like the basic premise, same with Fire VS Ice (and both taken from the original), however I felt that in the latter case Fire should be more threatening to ice than the other way around (and them not being as much perfect opposites would be more natural for them and useful for when lightning and earth interact with them in the bigger picture.)

The basic elements are the typical “awful against themselves” cases (Fire, Ice, Lightning).

As mentioned, Lightning and Earth enter, functoning as “another weakness” to Ice and Fire respectively, while Earth dominates Lightning (as in the original table)

As every element should have some weakness, I figured Holy would be the one for beating Poison, what with healing being associated with pure sacred powers. Then I thought it would be an interesting twist if Holy and Dark kept their weaknesses with other types to be both-ways. If Poison was the “other match-up” for Holy, Lightning could play that role with Dark, since it is the element that has light in the concept in the most elemental way (whereas Fire is more importantly about heat rather than just producing light).

And that’s the gist of my input to the table. I’ve also added some resisting between ice&fire and dark&holy (dark being more cold and holy being more warm) and a few other resistances just to keep the number of weaknesses/resistances equal.

Another thought I had was, perhaps making Holy and Dark a bit superior to the other types (but in a more interesting way than just not having weaknesses, as Poison in the original table…)

[dmhamilt]

One of the reasons the element table is so simple is because everyone is a specialist.
If you are an Archer, you are either a Wugashi, or you don’t care about the table at all.
If you are a Swordman, you don’t care about the table.
If you are a Cleric you deal either Holy, Dark, Lightning or Physical.
If you are a Wizard, you deal, Ice, Fire, or Ice Fire and ‘Lightning’. More recently, Dark. Or plain Magic.

In Pokemon, element tables are a game mechanic that incentivizes a balanced party. You can swap to a better match.
But in ToS, each character is more or less a single 'mon. All adding a more varied table does is restrict what monsters you’re capable of fighting. Pyromancers should just not go to an area with a ton of fire types.

[Goldie]

I also did find it boring… Too simple, too basic. I almost thought “Why bother adding elements if it’s not to play around with them ?” and I do agree with you that they need to go deeper in that.
I agree with you maybe because I’m also a big Pokémon player
It’s boring to have them basically only works in pairs, and not have fun with them. For example 1 element = weak to another one, but beats two. Or a whole circle of A > B > C > A (which would actually be too common too though). A double circle is more fun~
Also it’d be more interesting to have one have 50% increase against a second element, but 25% decrease against another one. Not just a simple -50%/+50% or -100%/+100%.

But honestly, I’d also be against a total balance. Of course having one element totally dominated (or dominating) would be terrible, but could be fun to, for example, have one element that deals decent extra damages to 3 others, while another element has several 25% weaknesses but is amazingly “super effective” (for example +150%) to another element. That’s just my own liking though.

[II_JoJo_II]

Yes, it’s too simple =/
and they should give us elemental itens

[Charon]

It certainly is like that. A lot of classes don’t even care what element their opponent is currently, because they simply don’t have anything elemental to play with.
-There is some earth skill in the swordman branch I think, and I can imagine some dark-element themed knight to show up, and holy perhaps, but that’s about it, it seems.
-Cleric is thematically pretty much the holy-element class and I was actually completely surprised and confused when I found out Zaibas was a Cleric-branch skill LOL.
-Archers also haven’t gone anywhere exotic besides the completely Poison-focused Wugushi

And the buffs like Sacrament and Enchant Fire don’t even modify their attacks, but add an extra elemental damage on top.

So it’s basically for Wizards to play with.

I feel like a more spicy element table is what should be THE advantage of wizards in concept though. As in, generally they’d be weaker than swordmen and archers (Im not saying those are equal in the game right now of course, just contemplating the concepts in general), but if they figured out what elemental place to go to with the right element, then they’re the guys that would clearly stand out in that situation.
Most imagine wizards as being simply the magic counterpart of dps classes, but I prefer a wizard-concept that is at the surface inferior but superior in situations planned with element-knowledge etc. (their main stat is usually something like “intelligence” for a reason)

But I have no clue what IMCs philosophy or aim was with the wizard branch specifically.

This also reminds me… how come there aren’t any gems that change equipment element yet? First time I saw the whole socket/gem-mechanic, it seemed like the most obvious thing they will use that for: modifying elements of your attacks and defensive stats… I just realized now after a year or so that this isn’t a thing, and feel mindblown XD

[rofldat]

I stand corrected on the , vs ., never know of that (all the countries I’ve been to are in the blue region)

the idea was that actual physical earth, as in soil, sand, rocks and stuff, can put out fires. How does ice put out fire? Does anything if not even earth does? ;O

Earth snuffing out fire isn’t really a direct result of the earth, but rather that the earth take up the spaces around and block oxygen from feeding the fire.
Ice work by dropping temperature or in case of physical ice the water from it melting will help douse the flame.

Wasn’t poison the most common element at the moment? It’s also the one with no weakness and 2 50% mods right now… Would that render something like an Earth-mage a silly an inherently flawed concept then just because of that?

r/treeofsavior - Elements usefulness

According to that,
Dark is the most common (190), Poison is 160.
(admittedly that count isn’t completely accurate since some monsters doesn’t show up in database when searched for and some monsters used in there doesn’t normally shows up on maps)

Yes, and the pokemon table is as I said, still far more complex than my own overcomplicated suggestion… which again, I’m not proposing as a final version of what I’d actually want in the game.And the analogy to switching out Pokemon would be…switching the map you want to grind at, to one that doesn’t resist your whole class-tree.

It’s not about complexity, it’s about balance.
ToS doesn’t work like that.

For example, using the thread above and your latest table
Ice suffers 70% to dark is a huge blow with how common dark enemies are.
Fire suffers 70% to holy? It laugh at that. There’s only 6, SIX, enemies with holy type
Actually, to make it worse, here’s said ‘6’

Monster Database - Tree of Savior Fan Base

None of them have a map listed, meaning you’ll likely never run into any of them while grinding (if ever at all)

So Ice suffers on a very common type of enemy while Fire actually get buffed even more, since it now hit harder on poison type enemies, THE OTHER COMMON TYPE.

More complex table doesn’t mean better.

[Charon]

Maybe the plan is to keep the game simple at first, and then start to delve into specific mechanics like this? Hmm…

Like, if after you start exploring level 350 maps… monsters would start dropping Elemental gems sometimes instead of the existing 4 color ones.

[Charon]

damn… 6 nonexisting holy monsters and a world dominated by dark ones. I didn’t think it was THAT extreme x.x

But then again, these two things are related. I mean, maybe they’re just making every other monster Dark because there is barely any use for the element table in the first place.
And if there was, they’d start picking elements for monsters more carefully, so I still wish they’d spice the element table up a bit and make elements more relevant themselves (introducing options to modifying equipment element (with specific classes of course tos-style), giving all branches more elemental stuff to play with, even if only seriously after rank 7 or something).

As Goldie said, why make the element table in the first place if it’s not employed to any degree besides very very basic wizard relevance…
I mean, why even make something as specific as Poison an element?
And especially why Dark and Holy, who do nothing but being weak to each other, when only Dark is ever used for monsters?

I just love this kind of mechanic, and it’s such a waste to be made use of so barely.

[Mirielle]

well if there where some gems that change the weapows to add a elements its would use the table…

[Charon]

Yup… but I take back the idea for such gems dropping from late-game monsters xD

There needs to be crafting classes for them! 8D

[Mirielle]

maybe a rank3 Alchimist with lots of rare drops ^^"

[Indeed]

I thought I am the minority for believing this game is too simple, particularly coming from a RO background, and I was criticized when I explained the game only have INT/STR being the primary stats is not enough:

You sound like a minority, a very unimportant one which at release or open beta will make less than 3% of the overall population of the game as people enjoy and discover how many things they can do with this so ‘‘average’’ system while they keep playing while calling the game unremarkable on their eyes due to it not being exactly what they want it to be.

Regardless, the elemental relationship is simply a triangle without being 3D in relationship, regardless of refining the value. I believe making more use with 75% or 125% reduction/induction would make some difference already.

One of the reasons the element table is so simple is because everyone is a specialist.

So are the monsters, and other class cannot counter it because they are fixed on their own elemental? I disagree with this, and something in Sacrament gives bonus to holy damages, which helps other classes as well.

But I have no clue what IMCs philosophy or aim was with the wizard branch specifically.

Wizard branch seems to have more classes than others. When look at the dimension of Wizard, they are the old RO Wizard in combine with Priest utilities/buffs. I think they really messed up with the game mechanism by marketing classes, but ignored the Stats and Elemental mechanism in place.

Maybe the plan is to keep the game simple at first, and then start to delve into specific mechanics like this?

I doubted, and referring to Stats, they cannot make balance after release, unless they provide reset scroll.

well if there where some gems that change the weapows to add a elements its would use the table…

This would be a good idea, but there are many things I find the game is in-complete. I would call this game at Alpha stage, it is no where near Beta.

[rofldat]

But then again, these two things are related. I mean, maybe they’re just making every other monster Dark because there is barely any use for the element table in the first place.

I’d put it as lore thing.
Dark - demons
Poison - many quest line have you deal with poisons or some type of corruption to the area

And especially why Dark and Holy, who do nothing but being weak to each other, when only Dark is ever used for monsters?

The holy actually matters with PvP.
With holy damage type, it let them give Clerics good scaling in PvE on those dark type enemies but lose that strength when in PvP (well, those kinda applies to all the other elements too)

ALL elements are used by at least one skill from player, by the way.
Dark is used by Sorceror, Warlock and Bokor.