Let's Talk Magic

[Darthnut]

Though magic has made previous appearances in some form or another throughout the series, Breath of the Wild was the first installment to implement it to the levels we saw. Rather than being a deus-ex machina where magic was implemented as was convenient to the gameplay, the latest installment saw magic in the form of three elements- Ice, Fire, and Thunder. These elements were more thematic and widespread than magic in previous installments, defining entire biomes, enemies, dungeons (though this one is expected), items, and even armor.


Say what you will, but in my opinion magic as a general system (or at least the beginnings of it) is much preferred to one item that is only capable of one specific magic again only for the gameplay of it.


Though, my main gripe with magic in Breath of the Wild is that fire and ice are weak towards each other but thunder has no weakness and thus is inherently stronger than the other two elements. While I can see why they did this, it makes magic overall a little unbalanced as you will naturally want to get the thunder items instead of the fire or ice.


My proposed solution is to establish a rock-paper-scissors system of magic where all three elements have a strong opponent and a weak opponent. My proposal: Fire beats ice, ice beats thunder, and thunder beats fire. There is no rock-paper-scissors of the elements that would exactly make sense, but this one at least somewhat does.


If Light and Dark magic are to be implemented, though unlikely, I propose a meta rock-paper-scissors. Namely, Light beats Dark, Dark beats the elements (fire, thunder, and ice) and the elements beat Light.


Everything is balanced, and no magic is inherently the strongest.


What are your thoughts, everyone?

 

[Dizzi]

so basically like Pokemon then??

 

[Fraxinus]

--BotW also had a wind enchantment, though it only was usable in the form of the Korok Leaf and Windcleaver as far as equippable weapons went.

I'd like to see more traditional styled and/or structured magic use in a new Zelda title, though I would not be opposed to elemental affinity/matchups being incorporated into the mix. Most magic spells in past Zelda games could be easily attributed to an element, which might make them more relevant in certain environments over others if they were applied to the open world setting that BotW went towards. BotW's enchanted weapons already sort of had its own abridged form of the magic meter in that the elemental charge had a cooldown after a certain point, where the weapon would then become a normal weapon type until you gave it time to recharge the element. I know Skyrim (dunno about the other ES games, I'm a potato) has something similar with its enchanted weapons, except you have to manually recharge this.

 

[Darthnut]

--BotW also had a wind enchantment, though it only was usable in the form of the Korok Leaf and Windcleaver as far as equippable weapons went.

I'd like to see more traditional styled and/or structured magic use in a new Zelda title, though I would not be opposed to elemental affinity/matchups being incorporated into the mix. Most magic spells in past Zelda games could be easily attributed to an element, which might make them more relevant in certain environments over others if they were applied to the open world setting that BotW went towards. BotW's enchanted weapons already sort of had its own abridged form of the magic meter in that the elemental charge had a cooldown after a certain point, where the weapon would then become a normal weapon type until you gave it time to recharge the element. I know Skyrim (dunno about the other ES games, I'm a potato) has something similar with its enchanted weapons, except you have to manually recharge this.

* Magic Items. As of now, Link has yet to become a proper spellcaster.


But do explain what you mean by "structured magic".


Oh, and as a hardcore fan of TES, I can confirm that the enchantment system is the same across the board.

 

[Kerest]

Link learned a number of spells in Adventure of Link. Why not expand that system?

 

[DarkestLink]

Yeah, I noticed the whole three element magic...looks like they copied Skyrim for the sake of copying Skyrim again, and I don't know why, since Skyrim got a lot of crap for dumbing down the magic system from past TES games. It's magic, let it be whimsical and fun instead of so rigid.

 

[Kerest]

That three-element magic goes back to DnD, where the majority of spells are from those three elements, and was present in the Zelda series in various degrees since ALttP.

 

[Castle]

If we're going off of what the series has done so far with magic, "magic" is simply another item like any other. When you use it, its action triggers any one of several results based on context. Meaning, when you shoot a fire arrow at a torch, it lights the torch. Using Din's Fire has the same effect. There is really no difference between "magic" items and any other item, except that magic items draw from Link's magic meter as a consumable resource and therefore tend to be more powerful or useful (area of effect, additional damage, stun locking, unique method of conveyance, teleportation, limited invulnerability, etc.).

Should a magic system be any more complicated than that? Link has never really been a magician. He's only ever used select magical relics to assist him on his journey. I suppose a robust magic system with status effects, elements and tiers like in Final Fantasy (fire, fira, firaga, etc.) or multiple schools and intricate mechanics like in Dungeons and Dragons could be a thing...? But does the series really need it? I guess if ninty wanted to build a whole game around the concept of a deep magic system then... okay? I cannot ever foresee that happening though, given ninty's aversion to mechanical complexity of any form.

 

[Darthnut]

If we're going off of what the series has done so far with magic, "magic" is simply another item like any other. When you use it, its action triggers any one of several results based on context. Meaning, when you shoot a fire arrow at a torch, it lights the torch. Using Din's Fire has the same effect. There is really no difference between "magic" items and any other item, except that magic items draw from Link's magic meter as a consumable resource and therefore tend to be more powerful or useful (area of effect, additional damage, stun locking, unique method of conveyance, teleportation, limited invulnerability, etc.).

Should a magic system be any more complicated than that? Link has never really been a magician. He's only ever used select magical relics to assist him on his journey. I suppose a robust magic system with status effects, elements and tiers like in Final Fantasy (fire, fira, firaga, etc.) or multiple schools and intricate mechanics like in Dungeons and Dragons could be a thing...? But does the series really need it? I guess if ninty wanted to build a whole game around the concept of a deep magic system then... okay? I cannot ever foresee that happening though, given ninty's aversion to mechanical complexity of any form.

Probably because Nintendo is a company that caters to kids, so any mechanical complexity (especially with something abstract like magic) in the gameplay would be too much for children's smol brains to wrap around.


However, a rock-paper-scissors system of elements isn't all that complex. Kids play it on the schoolground all the time when taking bets and whatnot.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Sounds like fun. We haven't had a proper spell-casting Link since Zelda 2. Even BotW and Hero of Time Link had to use magical objects.

 

[Azure Sage]

I liked what BotW and ALBW did with it. ALBW had magic items that consumed your stamina for using them, and BotW items consumed durability. If they drop durability next time, which I wouldn't mind one way or the other, I'd like them to go back to the stamina method. I prefer it to the magic meter because it recovers on its own so I don't need to go hunting for magic jars and stuff just to keep using spells. Stamina meters are easy to manage. I don't think we really need anything too complex, anyway. I would be fine with it if they implemented it as another combat option like in BotW, and this would work well if they were to expand Link's weapon types even more than they did in BotW, which I want them to do anyway. Stuff like medallions of ALttP as a weapon type would be kinda cool, and they consume stamina so you can't just spam them but you can still use them strategically and not just one time before you need to hunt for magic jars. One of the fun things about Zelda and about BotW in particular is Link having so many different tools at his disposal, and I'm all for expanding them to be better and more fun to use.