Elemental systems

[Yamato-san]

Something that's kinda bugged me about Digimon games over the years is that they never seem to have a very clear idea on how elements (as in the fire, water, etc. variety) should work between each game, which is quite a contrast from Pokemon where elemental types seem to make up a large part of each monster's identity. Like I remember in Digimon World 2, the elements were fire, water, nature, machine, darkness, as well as neutral. And in Digimon World 3, rather than associating each Digimon with an element, there were individualized resistance stats for various element types. Meanwhile, a lot of other media seems to just tie elemental attributes to whatever that Digimon's field type is (Nature Spirits, Deep Savers, etc., even though most Digimon can have numerous field types), and while I never played the DS Story games, I hear that they had different elemental stats which also included animalistic attributes like "bird" and "beast" and such. And so I got to wondering: does anyone else think they should just stick to one standardized system?

One thing I noticed is that, unlike Pokemon, dual elements aren't much of a thing. While several Digimon show mastery over multiple elements, games that feature elements tend to assign such Digimon just their most dominant one (like Wizarmon being dark despite having lightning spells), or in some cases, have them cancel each other out to become a neutral type (ex. Lucemon Falldown Mode, Mastemon). This makes a bit of sense considering Digimon already has the Vaccine, Data, Virus system, so there's no need to make things even more complicated. Personally, I really like how the Cyber Sleuth games do things. Both the Vaccine, Data, Virus triangle and elements stack together for damage calculations. Fire, water, and plant, and then wind, earth, and electric both form their own triangles, plus light and darkness opposing each other as well as a neutral type. A part of me does wish they could've feature the elements of the Warrior Ten (plus a non-elemental neutral type), but when you consider that there are extremely few ice-based Digimon, as well as electric-based Digimon that aren't mechanical, I think it makes sense that most of the franchise treats water/ice and electric/metal as interchangeable (incidentally, the elements in Cyber Sleuth are also the same ones in the Xros Loader, albeit the latter uses machine in place of electric). As for the other type system, I like how Free in Cyber Sleuth also covers Variable, Unknown, and Digimon that have no type (such as Baby forms) to all simply be neutral to the triangle. Gotta say, though, it does kinda suck how freakishly common the Vaccine/Light and Virus/Dark combinations are (but I suppose that's mostly due to how much the Vaccine and Virus attributes were tied to typical good vs. evil themes over the years).

I'd love it if Cyber Sleuth's system is what they stick with moving forward, while maybe adding species types as a third attribute for certain situations (ex. WarGreymon's Dramon Killer can work better on dragon-based Digimon). But what does everyone else think? Are you fans of this system, would you work things differently, or do you think they should just continue to change things up between every game as they've been doing?

[TMS]

I think it's a little late (actually way too late) to try and stick to a single system. Cyber Sleuth's system was okay, but was rather simple. Yukidarumon wasn't weak to fire attacks, though it should be according to its profile. In fact, because it had the water attribute, it had the advantage over fiery Digimon. I don't mind that they use different systems that fit the specific game.

[Muur]

It can certainly be annoying when you don't know what something is weak to game to game. Dawn/Dusk has no consistency for example, a Beast Digimon could be weak to Fire, but then the next Beast Digimon you could fight might not be weak to fire. it was random and annoying. Like you, I'm glad Cyber Sleuth has "streamlined" things more or less, and think they should use that as a base and expand upon it. youre right that ice/machine (whilst counting "wood" as "plant") are missing, but I guess water and ice tend not to be too much different, Next Order for example uses Ice, whilst CS uses Water. So Dianamon was water in CS, but ice in DWNO, for example. they probably considered putting in, but found there isn't enough difference.

if they can use all ten, then cool, as sometimes it can be silly when Tentomon is the same type as all the robots lol, whilst TMS has a good point with Frigimon lol

all in all, as long as they actually tell us what things are weak to and are consistent with it, then cool. the way daw/dusk did it make it impossible to know whats weak to what without learning every digimon one by one, and it should be where its "aqua is weak to plant", and what not, not "gatomon is weak to ___ whilst other holy is weak to ____" because that makes it annoying to know... and the game doenst even tell you once its "learned" this. so you'd hit a gatomon with dark(?) and cool its super effective! doesnt mean youll remember next time you fight one

so my main complaint is consistent. if its a "fire" type, they should be weak to water, etc.

next order uses the same elements but switches water for ice, so I think the CS tree is pretty much here to stay. ...hopefully lol, it'll be annoying to learn new ones

they could have people be two types, so have tentomon as both electric and plant, for example, though it might not be needed due to us having the vaccine etc

as for wargreymon, the easiest would be to code it so that his ability is "does 50% more damage against dramon digimon", like how alphamon and armadeggedmon have "50% more damage against royal knights". WGmon has a generic "fire type attacks do more damage", so it's an easy change to make. I don't really like species exp, it makes digivolving a pain in the ass

[Yamato-san]

Yes, it is a rather unfortunate consequence that a Digimon like Yukidarumon becomes strong to fire but weak to plant (though one could probably apply Mega Man 1 logic, the idea supposedly being that fire is susceptible to melting ice). However, this is another thing I rather like about Cyber Sleuth's system: keeping it to just two triangles, a pair, and neutral keeps it all nicely simple. If they were to separate ice and metal as their own elements, where would they fit then? If we took Digimon World 3's system of individualized resistances, then as you mentioned with your Tailmon example, that wouldn't streamline things at all. Would Digimon have to make a whole type chart like Pokemon?

[Muur]

True, DW3 and Dawn/Dusk are basically the same for typing. It ends up where you just use your most powerful moves, no matter the type, because there's no wy to know what's better to use. DW3 doesn't even tell you when its super effective, so that's even worse than D/D, cuz at least that tells you when something is weak to something... you just aren't going to remember.

CS does it right, because if youre righting a Plant Digimon, you know to kill it with fire. if it used DW3/DD, that Plant Digimon could be randomly weak to electric instead, and the only way to know is to randomly use moves on it. that'd be fine if the game kept track of this for you and would tell you in battle. so like, you could check, I guess by pressing a screen that shows the weaknesses of the wild mons out in battle.

all they need to do really is add the missing types. I Dont think they need to go as far as pokemon, though. personally I do think they need to make them do half damage though. so fire would be 1/2 to water, for example.

They might also want to split Plant again. In Ds/dawn/dusk, insect/plant was merged, and then was split for lost evolution. cyber sleuth merged them again, but only called it "plant". so in that instance, insect/plant is merged in CS, and ice/water is also merged. electric/steel as well. for the most part, it's prob better for some of these to be merged.

for electric and ice, there's not many they'd be used for tbh. say we add steel, most of electric would change to it, and not many electric types would be left meaning electirc would be considered a slightly pointless typing, whilst if you add ice, its similar to water, not much would end up being used for ice/water.

I'd say im fine with what theyre doing, but if they wanna add to it, then allow two types. the tentomon as both electric/plant, as I said. but I think the vaccine is acceptable for their second typing.

Tentomon being Plant/Electric/Vaccine might be a bit much lol

water = ice does make things kinda funny though, blucomons profile says it gets rekd by fire, but he'd for sure be water in the next story game lol. I never really thought about it till TMS brought it up.

oh well, I guess CS frigimons just dont die to fire

they could bring in Next Orders Hand-to-Hand and Filth... though Filth is weak to everything IIRC, so there'd be no reason to use Filth mons, lol

for the most part, the elements of Digimon are already known, they just dont use all of them in every game and tbh, some of them are too similar to each other.

It would be slightly funny if they use the other 8 spirits though, and then the spirits and ice and water use the same element lol.

[Yamato-san]

Unlike in Pokemon, I don't really see Bug as being an element so much as a species trait (like the aforementioned Beast and Bird). Plus, they've always been associated with the Nature Spirits field, so it makes sense that they'd have the Plant element in most games. Besides, we seem to have very few plant-based Digimon as is, so it makes sense to try and supplement it a bit with insects. But speaking of which, if they do manage to standardize elements, I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more type diversity. I mean, did you notice that in the Cyber Sleuth games, HeraclesKabuterimon and its line were literally the only Vaccine/Plant types? Other than that, the only other Ultimate Vaccine Digimon I think could possibly pass for a Plant element is Xuanwumon (for Perfect and lower, I could see Jyagamon, Snimon, and maybe Jewelbeemon, though it could pass as a Light-type given its association with radiance). And if they made Ice and Electric separate from Water and Metal, they'd better introduce a LOT of new Digimon to go with them, because literally the only Ultimate Digimon I think could be considered Ice are AncientMegatheriumon and Dianamon (though keep in mind that Dianamon, like the moon's symbolism she's heavily modeled after, is associated with water as well), and presumably Blucomon's Ultimate once it's released. Meanwhile the only Ultimate-level Electric I could think of is AncientBeatmon.... maybe Boltmon. The levels below Ultimate aren't that much better.

water = ice does make things kinda funny though, blucomons profile says it gets rekd by fire, but he'd for sure be water in the next story game lol. I never really thought about it till TMS brought it up.

oh well, I guess CS frigimons just dont die to fire

Eh, Digimon profiles are worth taking with a grain of salt anyway. Besides, as I mentioned, fire could be taken out by ice melt (though if they did separate Ice, I wonder what they'd do for a standard physical Water attack since Ice Archery would obviously switch elements).

It would be slightly funny if they use the other 8 spirits though, and then the spirits and ice and water use the same element lol.

Incidentally, if there isn't a separate metal type, then I could see Mercuremon and Sephirothmon as having a neutral type instead of an electric one. I mean, Mercuremon isn't really mechanical so much as just being a mirror man, and Sephirothmon apparently has reign over all the elements (which goes back to my earlier point about canceling out). AncientWisemon, however, I could see being a Dark type, both due to regular Wisemon being Dark and because it fits very well with the description of its attacks.

[Muur]

Huh youre right about the Tentomon line, seems most plant are data types. Tentomon doesn't even seem like a "plant" type to me either, but I guess that's due to Insect being part of it. I personally would've made him Electric typing lol. His attacks are anyway...

I completely forgot about the Neutral type. Now where are those spirits of neutral at? I'd say that the Filth and Hand to Hand of DWNO are combined into Earth type.

so basically it seems what CS is using is actually fine in the end, because it uses what is considered the main elements from the Spirits, and combines some so that there aren't slightly pointless ones, such as Ice since that wont have many Digimon. All they need to do is make sure they stick to these elements. The more digimon we get, the more streamlined itll be, basically. if we want frigimon weak to fire, perhaps he can gain an ability that says something like "water attacks will do more damage, at the expense of taking more damage to fire".

the species was a little too limiting IMO, so Dragon/Beast/Aquan, etc. and its better for all Water to be weak to Grass, than to make Frigimon a one off weak to fire. that would just make things too confusing. plus it means that Kyubimon can be a fire type, which would prob wouldn't be the case if they stuck to the species types. Renamon is plant, so that would make her other forms plant too (which they all are in next order. plant doesnt fit sakuyamon IMO).

[citramon]

As a MegaTen fan, I like the individual weaknesses and resistances even if the Digimon games that had it were not really optimized for this and you ended up just using your stronger move like Muur said instead of having to study the enemy to plan a strategy. Ideally, when you see the enemy digimon, you'd have to study its design and what you know about its lore and try an attack that you think could work and see if that pays or not, making it way more intuitive than "this plump ice dude is weak to grass because ????". I would really love an even more SMT-like Digimon game with individual weaknesses and resistences and focus on exploiting weaknesses, using buffs and debuffs and heavy resource management.

Another cool idea for a battle system is something like [C]'s flation attacks that devaluated the enemy assets by injecting them with more money, making them more vulnerable to direct attacks - this combined with an elemental system in a Digimon game would function very well as exploiting the enemy's weaknesses would also count as a debuff and getting the weaknesses wrong would punish you buffing the enemy.

About the elements themselves, I really think poop should be an element on its own. In a system with individual weaknesses and resistances, you could remember that an enemy did not like poop attacks in the anime or see that the enemy looks very clean and try attacking it with your great Renzoku Unchi Nage!!!!!!!!. Gross, but really fun.

Besides individual elemental resistances and weaknesses, individual digimon could have individual resistances, weaknesses and advantages in relation to other attributes, fields and even species. Wargreymon's attacks using the Dramon Killers could do .33x more damage on DR digimon and .5x more damage on Dramon-species digimon, adding .833x to your attack. Supposing that the enemy also has a weaknesses to you attack's element, your attack X with a base value n plus 0.833xn should be doubled making it 2xX - or alternatively (but not exclusively, you could have both) debuffing your enemy's defenses or something. That sounds very rewarding.

Edit: the individual attribute/field/species resistances, weaknesses and advantages could be defined by something like Pokémon's abilities so you don't have to discover what your mon can do only by yourself. You get the WarGreymon and the game tells you it can do what it does as its ability or something like that.

[Muur]

As a MegaTen fan, I like the individual weaknesses and resistances even if the Digimon games that had it were not really optimized for this and you ended up just using your stronger move like Muur said instead of having to study the enemy to plan a strategy. Ideally, when you see the enemy digimon, you'd have to study its design and what you know about its lore and try an attack that you think could work and see if that pays or not, making it way more intuitive than "this plump ice dude is weak to grass because ????". I would really love an even more SMT-like Digimon game with individual weaknesses and resistences and focus on exploiting weaknesses, using buffs and debuffs and heavy resource management.

Another cool idea for a battle system is something like [C]'s flation attacks that devaluated the enemy assets by injecting them with more money, making them more vulnerable to direct attacks - this combined with an elemental system in a Digimon game would function very well as exploiting the enemy's weaknesses would also count as a debuff and getting the weaknesses wrong would punish you buffing the enemy.

About the elements themselves, I really think poop should be an element on its own. In a system with individual weaknesses and resistances, you could remember that an enemy did not like poop attacks in the anime or see that the enemy looks very clean and try attacking it with your great Renzoku Unchi Nage!!!!!!!!. Gross, but really fun.

Besides individual elemental resistances and weaknesses, individual digimon could have individual resistances, weaknesses and advantages in relation to other attributes, fields and even species. Wargreymon's attacks using the Dramon Killers could do .33x more damage on DR digimon and .5x more damage on Dramon-species digimon, adding .833x to your attack. Supposing that the enemy also has a weaknesses to you attack's element, your attack X with a base value n plus 0.833xn should be doubled making it 2xX - or alternatively (but not exclusively, you could have both) debuffing your enemy's defenses or something. That sounds very rewarding.

Edit: the individual attribute/field/species resistances, weaknesses and advantages could be defined by something like Pokémon's abilities so you don't have to discover what your mon can do only by yourself. You get the WarGreymon and the game tells you it can do what it does as its ability or something like that.

The poop Digimon do have poop attacks, they just tend to the Earth element in Cyber Sleuth. Sukamon's attack is straight up just called "poop".



In Next Order, Filth (poop) is an element, which is weak to all other elements I believe. They would of course not be copied over to Cyber Sleuth (probably), but overall, I don't think there's much point of it, as there aren't really that many poop Digimon for it to be its own type.

and it seems Frigimon is the only outliner of the current system, so I think that's fine.

If they did just copy Persona, where you can check what theyre weak to and such it's fine - but maybe that's ripping off Persona/SMT a little too much lol.

and like I said, just change WarGreymon's ability from boosting fire attacks to causing more damage to Dramon Digimon+other WarGreymons/BWG.

[McGann]

I'm fine with Digimon being flexible to fit the needs of the game.
The only thing I'd say, is the multipliers should have been swapped in Cyber Sleuth: Attributes x1.5 and Elements x2.0.
Elements are the more complex, varied system, so they should yield a higher bonus.