Attack Element not working right

Not sure if this is a bug or not.


when i change the attack element on the skill, "attack". It works fine against immune to the element monsters. (i see a zero).


however, whenever attack element is changed via plug-in, state, weapon, actor, or class traits; the actor normal element attack does damage. In short, only by changing the skill's element am i seeing the desired result.


but as you can guess , i don't want the default attack changed. what are my options? i prefer state in this case.  

You need to give us more information, and probable read up on how the damage elements work.


The target may have an elemental damage rate - that value will be multiplied with the damage of that element to determine final damage.


Elemental damage 50% means the actor/enemy will take half damage, elemental damage 200% means the actor/enemy takes double damage


The skill setting "damage element" determines which element will be assigned to the damage (thereby selecting which elemental rate on the target will be used.


However, that has some special values - "none" and "normal attack" besides a direct element assignment.


"none" disables the elemental rates on the target - the damage will always happen with 100%, no matter which target


"normal attack" means "choose the attack element from the actor data.


The actor data is usually intended as the attack element of the weapon, but all assigned attack elements of the actor are taken into consideration - and the selected attack element will be the one who does the most damage.


So most likely you have more than one attack element assigned to the actor, and because the one you checked does zero damage one of the other attack elements will be used.


You need to find the traits that give the other attack elements and remove them to prevent this.

Believe me I am grateful for help. I see this phrase often applied to myself and others which I  have read. Which is exactly why my original post did not include any coding, just pure drop down lists of traits and what-not one can do with a brand new game as well as it is every scrap of info I was able to give without giving so much info it could confuse a reader. As the person who went the lengths to ensure clarity on the issue with the questions, I find it frustrating when "give us more information" is contained in the reply. Fortunately in your case, you actually went the distance and tried to answer as well. I didn't get the feeling of "they didn't bother to read it and made assumptions", which is often the case. Thank you.


Yep, I've read up on it. As this is the only source I know of, if info on exactly how prioritizing elements or formulas exist.. where are they?


Here is an update to the problem replicated:


test 1:


In a brand new game, I created a skill that applies a status element rate (darkness) of 0% to an enemy (Immunity). Gave the skill to harold. 


on the default attack skill I used the drop down damage element list and selected darkness.


created a battle event.


in the battle, harold casted Immunity onto a bat.


then when any member normally attacked, Zero damage was given.


test 1 result: proved both immunity and skill element effective.


test 2: one by one, cycled the default attack damage element through all but darkness.


test 2 results: normal damages, proving no other elements are immune.


test 3: with the default attack damage element set to "none" and on Harold, attack element Darkness


test 3 result: normal damage


test 4: with the default attack damage element set to "normal attack" and on Harold, attack element Darkness


test 4 result: normal damage


test 5: with harold on attack element darkness, I cycled the default attack damage elements through the rest of the elements.


test 5 result: darkness zero, the rest were normal damages. Proving that only by changing only default attack damage element was the only way to attack using the immune against element. I do not want to change the default attack damage element as both monsters and actors use it.


test 6: with the default attack damage element set to "normal attack", on Harold, attack element Darkness, and changed the  element rate (darkness) from 0% to element rate (darkness) 1000%.


test 6 result: 10x the amount of normal damage


So if i read this quote right:


You are saying that in my "normal attack" test (test 4), because darkness does zero damage (as intended). It does less damage than any other element and thus removed from being an element option and as a result, damage occurs?


Conversely test 6 is the element chosen by rmmv to deal damage as it is the highest damaging value.


If this is the case, that means its pointless to give enemies immunities vs attack elemental damage.


Example2: using a fire attack sword equipped against a fire god. it will still do damage using default attack?


Example2: actor is wearing fire immune or fire absorb armor against a fire entity. Entity can still hurt actor with an unarmed basic attack?


IMO these sound broken. The Entity should have to resort to another skill such as..smoke inhalation or something. the actors should have to use skills that use different elements


How do we fix that?

How exactly did you apply this "attack element Darkness" to Harold? Did you change his default attack element, gave him a weapon that changed it, or just changed the attack skill to Darkness element? Because the third is different from the other two. I don't think the skill's element itself affects the damage, since by changing the battler's attack element with either actor, class or weapon trait it changes and the basic one is physical.

Actor Tab >(harold) traits > attack tab > attack element drop down list. For testing, i found this the shortest way to test element changing when not done on a skill.


I just noticed i said "Example2:" twice. oops Example 1 and example 2.


but ya, on tabs actor, class, states, weapons, and armors; its the same style of trait element changing.


As you can see with my tests, I ensured to try with and without harold having the element change. But only skill element changing made a difference.


Since I posted all those tests, I've done a few more based on what Andar said:


such as increasing the bat's resistances to all but dark. in theory, dark should do the most damage. Success....damage dealt. But the goal was immunity. Meaning if possible, all other elements may need to be absorbed as zero damage from dark would then be the most damage. I Don't know how to get it to absorb yet nor do i want to go that route every time I want to use an immunity.

Hmm... But did you remove it from the weapon? Or was he attacking without one? Because weapons are Physical by default.


Did you try a negative rate for absorbing?


I remember Yanfly's Elemental Core plugin mentioning that RMMV is weird when dealing with multi-elemental attacks without any plugin... So would this count as one?

please give a screenshot of the actor, the skill and the class in case of test 4.


We need to see if you did everything as intended and made no mistake when placing the traits.


A screenshot of the enemy would also be helpfull.

Waterguy, you were spot on. Yes the weapon had a physical element. Once removed i was able to have the darkness element used. I was even able to replicate by using a state to provide the attack element. All resulting in the sought after zero damage.


Now the next step, absorbing element. As no damage is done for an absorb, I'm thinking its like looking at negative damage, where zero is higher than -1 damage. This, as proven in this thread, means that a non-element or physical attack would do more damage than the intended absorbed element. So the absorbed element isn't chosen by rmmv as the element to be used.


sample application:


undead 


<Custom React Effect>
if (this.isHpRecover()) {
value = Math.abs(value);
}


var dark = 9;
var darkheal = Math.abs(value) * -1;
if(this.item().damage.elementId === dark) {
value = darkheal;
}
</Custom React Effect>


if the undead creature that has this as a passive state is struck by recovery magic, it takes equal damage as if were to be healed instead.


if the same creature is hit with a dark element magic, it would regain lost health points.


The above code works beautifully as described.


BUT, because the damage value must be settled first to determine which element actually is used, if a weapon with dark element strikes it, it doesn't do dark effect.


Thus resulting in a dark weapon still causing damage because even basic physical element does more damage.

Did you try using a negative element rate?


There is a plugin by Yanfly that makes it if that doesn't work. And since you are using a Custom React Effect, there is also a Tips and Tricks about a zombie state.