302 réponses à ce sujet

[Fast Jimmy]

Realmzmaster wrote...

I understand what you are trying to achieve, but as Filament said it would be better to give each enemy a challenge rating. The higher the level of the party or main PC is above the challenge rating the less experience you receive. The converse should also be true if the party kills a creature whose challenge rating is greater than the party level or main PC level then more experience is rewarded. 
The experience of the creature would remain static and would be modified by the difference in the ratings. 

With the Persuade example are you saying that at the present skill level the character has a 35% chance of making the check? If so how would experience be rewarded? Would the party get 65% of the experience? If the Persuade is 90% with a 10% chance of failure will the party only get 10% of the experience? 

With the locked chest example does it depend on the relative difference between the stregth of the character verus the strength of the box? What does Hard translate to in strength terms?

Let's say Hard translates to a strength of 50 and the character breaking the box has a strength of 70, do you substract the difference from the percentage of experience awarded? The difference here is 20, so the party receives 80% of the experience. If the character strength is 50 the party receives all the experience?

Would there be a percentage chance of breaking the box at lower strength levels? Thereby the party recieves more experience?

Edited for spelling

I would suggest possibly taking a look at the comments I made directly in response to Filament's commnets (I apologize for responding three times in  a row with differente statements, just was replying as things came to me).

My problem with the NWN/enemy challenge rating is that it works in the exact opposite manner of what I was trying to accomplish. By having a character's level as the determiner, you immediately assume a level of skill and the degree of power a player should have at a given level.

So if I am level 10 and am struggling against level 10 enemies, giving me the same amount of experience (because they have an equal Challenge Rating) would be no help in catching my character up to the enemies I am fighting.

Conversely, if I am level 5 and can beat level 10 characters, who would have a much higher challenge rating, I am rewarding the player who is already much too strong for their respective level. While that is nice for the player, the idea is to have those who are struggling catch up and those who are getting through with ease slow down. 

This still does not penalize the player who is level 5 beating level 10 enemies, since they will likely be a challenge, meaning the party will probably be sustaining damage and, given the level 10 enemies base experience will be higher than any level 5 enemies, this will result in big XP returns for the level 5 player. On the same wavelength, a level 10 player who is getting their butts handed to them by level 10 enemies will get a slight edge every fight they win, so that they can soon be level 11 or level 12, and stand a better chance against their level 10 enemies.


In regards to the non-combat skills, it wouldn't be a simple substraction model, because that assumes if a player only has a 1% chance of succeeding, they should only get 99% of the XP, and if a participant has a 99% chance of succeeding, they would only get 1% of the XP, which is hardly fair. And which may, unintendedly, result in less than 1 XP for completing a task.

In the Persuasion option, I would say a 75% chance of success is a pretty good ground to be shooting for when doing a Persuade check. It is better than a coin toss (50%), indicating that your character has enough Persuasion skill to pull off the attempt (after all, how often is it that you walk into a fight with a 50% chance of dying every time?) but it isn't vastly overpowered to succeed every time (given a 1 out of 4 chance for failure). 

Given that, a 75% chance of Persuasion would net you base XP (100%). 100% chance would net you 50% and a  25% chance and lower would net you 200% XP with, again, a sliding scale that allows permutation between each sitatuion.

For example, say you are in a conversation and there are two Persuade options - one, a threat to let your party through without any questions (50% success rate) and another is a bribe attempt (which would cost you 500 Gold, 85% success rate). The base XP of both is 100 XP, just for simplicity's sake.

The 50% success rate would net you 150% of your base XP (150 XP total). While the bribe attempt would net you 80% of your base XP (80 XP). My math for determining that is again based on a 75% skill starting point. There are 25 percentage points between 75 and 100, and the XP penalty rate goes from 100% to 50%, so every percentage point of success rate above 75% nets you 2% less XP. Similarly, 75% to 25% is 50 percentage points, and the XP bonus rate goes from 100% to 200%, so every percentage point of success rate below 75% nets you 1/2% point more XP.



A chest would have a similar XP scale based on either strength for bashing it open or lockpick skill, but again, with limits so that the strongest character in the game will not be getting 1/3 XP point for doing something.

Let me know of your thoughts.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 27 avril 2012 - 11:06 .

[AkiKishi]

Kind of reminds me of how higher difficulties would give more XP and the curve would break after a couple of battles.
I'm more interested in a balanced combat than I am in being "rewarded". Having said that, if skills are level linked then it makes the game more tediouis because it takes longer to increase in level.

Actually one of the things I dislike about JRPGs is the "reserve" party not leveling and unlitimately ending up useless,or requiring a lot of grinding.

FFX/Atelier <whichever> where you can rotate the battle party is better. But I often find myself rotating without need ,which drags things out.

It's different in games like Fire Emblem where that calculation becomes part of the gameplay. But in your basic RPG being able to pull everyone out at the same level is almost required unless you have a place to grind up their levels (which I HATE doing). I generally rely on my skillz to carry me through underleveled.

[AkiKishi]

Realmzmaster wrote...

@Fast Jimmy,

An interesting concept, but are you not basically punishing the party for being good and getting better at combat and non-combat skills? Why should the experience you get change? You are still battling the same creature. The creature has not changed the party has gotten stronger (which is the point). Your method would punish the party for now being able to beat it.

I can see the companions who get knocked out not receiving any points and the points divided among the ones left standing .

With non-combat skills you have no way of knowing if a person requires a level 2 check or level 10 check so you would punish the party for achieving the higher level to pass the check.

It's a variation on "learn by doing". Where the best thing to do is to be as weak as possible while still being able to win.

[Tigerman123]

I hope they don't bring back the pokemon style 100% resists in nightmare next time, that was just bizarre

[MichaelStuart]

Tigerman123 wrote...

I hope they don't bring back the pokemon style 100% resists in nightmare next time, that was just bizarre

I never had a problem with the 100% resists other than not being told about it.
When a enemies health bar only goes down a sliver with you strongest attack , it's hard to notice when your attack does nothing.

Also: is it possable to turn off enemy health bars?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Again, I thought it might be an interesting and possible novel way of handling combat difficulty. Instead of making the enemies harder/faster/smarter/more resistant, why not instead increase or decrease the rate at which the player becomes more powerful? This allows enemies to be the same, but only the sliding scale of how good the player has previously done be the determiner of the combat difficulty.

Player skill is a metagame feature, though.  I'm not thrilled with the idea of the in-game reality being affected by metagame events without giving the player some way to avoid that.

Moreover, you're still punishing success.  if the player plays well, you're making he game harder for him.  You're taking away some of the reward.  That's akin to your boss saying, "Great job, Jimmy.  As a reward, I'm going to cut your pay to make your life that much more of a struggle."

How is that a positive outcome?

[AkiKishi]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Player skill is a metagame feature, though.  I'm not thrilled with the idea of the in-game reality being affected by metagame events without giving the player some way to avoid that.

Moreover, you're still punishing success.  if the player plays well, you're making he game harder for him.  You're taking away some of the reward.  That's akin to your boss saying, "Great job, Jimmy.  As a reward, I'm going to cut your pay to make your life that much more of a struggle."

How is that a positive outcome?

Player skill has always been the determining factor. You can't avoid it without removing the player.

It depends what you see as the reward. Better balance in combat could be a better reward than extra levels which make the game boring to play.

[Sylvius the Mad]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Player skill is a metagame feature, though.  I'm not thrilled with the idea of the in-game reality being affected by metagame events without giving the player some way to avoid that.

Moreover, you're still punishing success.  if the player plays well, you're making he game harder for him.  You're taking away some of the reward.  That's akin to your boss saying, "Great job, Jimmy.  As a reward, I'm going to cut your pay to make your life that much more of a struggle."

How is that a positive outcome?

Player skill has always been the determining factor. You can't avoid it without removing the player.

It depends what you see as the reward. Better balance in combat could be a better reward than extra levels which make the game boring to play.

How is success boring?

My character growing more powerful is the reward.  My character surviving is the reward.  A more powerful character will have less difficulty with enemies, yes, but that's a necessary consequence of being more powerful: you're more powerful.

If the game gets easier because my success made it easier, that's not boring.  That's awesome.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 27 avril 2012 - 07:01 .

[Realmzmaster]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
snip

I see you will set a base for the different checks and combat that is fine.  Are you saying that an Easy persuasion check will be set at 75%, Hard at 85% and Dificult at 95% and Impossible at 100%. Does the encounter then change difficulty level depending on the character's level in that skill. 

For example the PC is level 5 with low (level 1) persuasion, the persuasion encounter would rate Difficult. The same Level 5 character with high persuasion (level 3) the encounter would rate Easy. Therefore the first character would get more experience than the second character. 
That would punish the second character for being good at the skill.
Or would you just rate the encounter as difficult and determine the experience granted based on the character's level in that skill. You divide the experience by the character level. 
If the check succeeds at the low level all the experience is granted at the high level only 1/3 is granted. 

Or do you set the base at 65% of the experience total. You get that regardless of your level if the check succeeds. So at the highest level of persuasion the character gets 65%. The character gets more experience over the 65% if the check succeeds at a lower level of persuasion skill.

[Realmzmaster]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Player skill is a metagame feature, though.  I'm not thrilled with the idea of the in-game reality being affected by metagame events without giving the player some way to avoid that.

Moreover, you're still punishing success.  if the player plays well, you're making he game harder for him.  You're taking away some of the reward.  That's akin to your boss saying, "Great job, Jimmy.  As a reward, I'm going to cut your pay to make your life that much more of a struggle."

How is that a positive outcome?

Player skill has always been the determining factor. You can't avoid it without removing the player.

It depends what you see as the reward. Better balance in combat could be a better reward than extra levels which make the game boring to play.

I always thought becoming more powerful was the purpose. The achievement is being able to beat an opponent handily that you use to struggle against. It is the task of the developers to have more dangerous opponents in the game for the party to struggle against as the party becomes more powerful.

At low levels a lone wolf may be dangerous and a wolf pack nigh impossible, but as the party progresses the lone wolf should no longer be a problem. The wolf pack would still be a problem but not to the degree it was at the lower level. 

[the_one_54321]

You can easily remove the player by making the character a construct of numbers.

You can't reference the players skill at numerical construction as a factor of player skill when any player has the option to numerically construct any type of character if he so chooses.

[AkiKishi]

Realmzmaster wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Player skill is a metagame feature, though.  I'm not thrilled with the idea of the in-game reality being affected by metagame events without giving the player some way to avoid that.

Moreover, you're still punishing success.  if the player plays well, you're making he game harder for him.  You're taking away some of the reward.  That's akin to your boss saying, "Great job, Jimmy.  As a reward, I'm going to cut your pay to make your life that much more of a struggle."

How is that a positive outcome?

Player skill has always been the determining factor. You can't avoid it without removing the player.

It depends what you see as the reward. Better balance in combat could be a better reward than extra levels which make the game boring to play.

I always thought becoming more powerful was the purpose. The achievement is being able to beat an opponent handily that you use to struggle against. It is the task of the developers to have more dangerous opponents in the game for the party to struggle against as the party becomes more powerful.

At low levels a lone wolf may be dangerous and a wolf pack nigh impossible, but as the party progresses the lone wolf should no longer be a problem. The wolf pack would still be a problem but not to the degree it was at the lower level. 

If you become so powerful that the game becomes tedious it's not exactly a reward. It's worse in something like DA , compared to something like KOA because combat still takes a lot of time.

The novelty of being all powerful wears off quite quickly.

[Sylvius the Mad]

BobSmith101 wrote...

If you become so powerful that the game becomes tedious it's not exactly a reward.

If I have to work hard through combat again and again, that becomes tedious as well.  i'd rather combat beocme easier.  That's a reward I want.

It's worse in something like DA , compared to something like KOA because combat still takes a lot of time.

The novelty of being all powerful wears off quite quickly.

In a combat-heavy game, the player is basically solving the same problem over and over again.  At some point I want to stop having to work at that.

Having to fight and claw my way through combat all of the time is what would get boring.

Moreover, a roleplayer is only going to want to engage in a ton of combat if that combat is interesting from a roleplaying perspective.  Asking the player to work hard at combat sometimes run contrary to his desire to work hard at roleplaying.  His character might not be a good tactician.  Then what?  Then, in Jmmy's system, the game would give him more experience to make the rest of the world comparitively easier.

Shouldn't a bad tactician find encounters harder rather than easier?

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 27 avril 2012 - 08:30 .

[Wozearly]

BobSmith101 wrote...

If you become so powerful that the game becomes tedious it's not exactly a reward. It's worse in something like DA , compared to something like KOA because combat still takes a lot of time.

The novelty of being all powerful wears off quite quickly.

I think you've exaggerated what was being proposed. The argument wasn't for an "all powerful" character, but that enemy scaling shouldn't be perfectly linked to player level.

If enemies were to scale equally with player level, then a random genlock who gave your level 1 character a tough time would also give your epic max level hero the same tough time, all else being equal. Or its only your gear / ability choice that sets you apart. This was, IMO, something that DA2 suffered with more than DA:O.

To me, this model seems inherantly daft. That enemy scaling for a given level of enemy lags behind player scaling makes sense, which is what Realmzmaster was getting at. The genlock who was a close fight to a level 1 is a cakewalk to a level 20. The genlock has actually become more powerful (usually in the background, through HP and other stats you can't see), so you can't necessarily one shot them if you're a level or two up on them, but when you do face a genlock later on you just hack them down without thinking. Your character has demonstrably become far more powerful because you can see how much more effective you are against the same type of opponent.

The trick from the developers to maintain challenge is that when you are level 20, you rarely square off against single genlock - because yes, that would get dull fast. But now you're running into far more powerful opponents, or much larger groups of less powerful opponents...but even though 'boss' fights and intentionally challenging encounters are just as hard, an average 'trash' fight has become noticeably faster, easier, less prone to suddenly falling apart, etc.

This model demonstrates to the player that their character has become more powerful, and makes the game slightly easier for people who have gone through a lot of the non-critical content with a view to boosting their character. Both of these are valuable outcomes from a roleplaying and player satisfaction perspective.

Nowhere does this require, or assume, that you will become "all powerful" at any point (unless you're using the very weakest enemies that you ever encountered as your yardstick for judging power).

Modifié par Wozearly, 27 avril 2012 - 09:14 .

[the_one_54321]

In most games, even when farming XP, you can't become all powerful unless you're deliberately trying to be.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Wozearly wrote...

The genlock who was a close fight to a level 1 is a cakewalk to a level 20. The genlock has actually become more powerful (usually in the background, through HP and other stats you can't see), so you can't necessarily one shot them if you're a level or two up on them, but when you do face a genlock later on you just hack them down without thinking

In DAO, you can actually see this with the Survival skill.

At low levels, Genlocks are of a level comparable to that of the PC.  But they appear to be capped at level 13, so late in the game a level 20 Warden is easily dispatching level 13 Genlocks with no effort at all.

But those level 13 Genlocks would obliterate a level 7 party fresh out of Ostagar.

[Fast Jimmy]

I like the feedback, but I think it may be a circumstance where the big picture might be getting muddled in the details.

For instance, my model would be based on static enemy levels. Meaning, if you can beat a lone wolf, you will always be able to beat a lone wolf. Or a wolf pack, for that matter. Throttling down the rate at which you become even MORE powerful would never put you back at the mercy of the wolf pack again. My whole point is that the system would not make anyone weaker against the enemies that they are fighting. It would only slow down the rate at which they would gain even more of an advantage.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
In a combat-heavy game, the player is basically solving the same problem over and over again.  At some point I want to stop having to work at that.

Having to fight and claw my way through combat all of the time is what would get boring. 

And again, this is a sliding scale. Being a good tactician would still win you many fights. It would only be if you are beating enemies so one-sidedly that it is ridiculous that the penalty would be strong and have a profound effect on your experience gained. And even then - you would still be able to defeat those enemies and any enemies you have encountered previously just as handily. This would only slow your level progression so that the next level enemy you fight (for instance, sticking with the wolf analogy, a Blight wolf) would be able to inflict some damage to you... at which point you would also beginning earning more towards the base XP amount, returning you back to the normal XP gain rate. 

Moreover, a roleplayer is only going to want to engage in a ton of combat if that combat is interesting from a roleplaying perspective.  Asking the player to work hard at combat sometimes run contrary to his desire to work hard at roleplaying.  His character might not be a good tactician.  Then what?  Then, in Jmmy's system, the game would give him more experience to make the rest of the world comparitively easier. 

  

I find this method better than strictly gating alone, which can result in the main quest difficulty being lowered to accomodate those players who don't do any side quests, and also much better than level scaling, which views a level as the ultimate indicator of how well a player should be doing. A level 5 player can have varying degrees of player skill, build style and equipment. But a level 5 enemy, using level scaling, will always provide the same level of difficulty. This puts some players at an extreme advantage, others at an extreme disadvantage. And it can often result in the overall difficulty of the game being turned down by the developers to result in a button mashing fest with no tactics.

Shouldn't a bad tactician find encounters harder rather than easier? 

A truly bad tactician will have companions fall in combat, which is penalized pretty heavily in my model. If you are just flat horrible, you would need to turn it down to Casual, just like any other combat system. I'm not seeking to "reward" poor combat, but just trying to observe how life often works - the most painful lessons are the ones where we can learn the most. A game like Skyrim does this indirectly. If you get hit a ton of times while wearing Heavy Armor, your Heavy Armor skill goes up. If you are weak with a one handed weapon and hit a rat 3,000 times with a sword, it will level up your One Handed skill faster than killing it with one blow.

While Skyrim is not the epitome of leveling design, it demonstrates an intuitve concept - the person who can do something with total ease is not learning much when they perform that skill. Granted, they may be the best at that skill, but they don't learn much from actually performing it. That's why a blacksmith who can create works of art is called a Master - there is nothing left to gain from doing the task. So why should a player whose party is a master at fighting wolf packs get the same amount of XP (a numerical construct for the concept of learning) as a party who struggles, but succeeds? It indicates that the party who can handle the wolf pack without breaking a sweat has much less left to learn about combat, at least as it pertains to fighting wolves.

Realmzmaster wrote...

I see you will set a base for the different checks and combat that is fine.  Are you saying that an Easy persuasion check will be set at 75%, Hard at 85% and Dificult at 95% and Impossible at 100%. Does the encounter then change difficulty level depending on the character's level in that skill. 

For example the PC is level 5 with low (level 1) persuasion, the persuasion encounter would rate Difficult. The same Level 5 character with high persuasion (level 3) the encounter would rate Easy. Therefore the first character would get more experience than the second character. 
That would punish the second character for being good at the skill.
Or would you just rate the encounter as difficult and determine the experience granted based on the character's level in that skill. You divide the experience by the character level. 
If the check succeeds at the low level all the experience is granted at the high level only 1/3 is granted. 

Or do you set the base at 65% of the experience total. You get that regardless of your level if the check succeeds. So at the highest level of persuasion the character gets 65%. The character gets more experience over the 65% if the check succeeds at a lower level of persuasion skill.

 

The percentage numbers I gave represent the likelihood of passing the Persuasion check based on a set difficulty level of the option and the character's skill. I apologize, I did not really explain that with full clarity. My mindset is defaulting to the of what is seen in the Fallout 3/NV persuasion system, where each Persuade option difficulty is preset and the dialogue option shows how likely you are to succeed against this check based on your current Speech skill. A 75% could mean you are a Level 1 Persuade skill and the requirement for a 100% guarantee is a Level 2, or it could mean you are a Level 20 and the requirement for a "sure fire" is a Level 25. 

So, regardless of the diffuclty of the check or your skill, if the system calculates your likelihood as 75%, you would get exactly the base XP amount. If it calculated your likelihood as more or less, it would pro-rate the XP gained as appropriate.

Again, I apologize for being obtuse and not explaining the mechanics that were working in my brain when I gave the example.

EDITTED FOR CLARITY AND GRAMMAR

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 27 avril 2012 - 09:57 .

[AkiKishi]

Wozearly wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

If you become so powerful that the game becomes tedious it's not exactly a reward. It's worse in something like DA , compared to something like KOA because combat still takes a lot of time.

The novelty of being all powerful wears off quite quickly.

I think you've exaggerated what was being proposed. The argument wasn't for an "all powerful" character, but that enemy scaling shouldn't be perfectly linked to player level.

If enemies were to scale equally with player level, then a random genlock who gave your level 1 character a tough time would also give your epic max level hero the same tough time, all else being equal. Or its only your gear / ability choice that sets you apart. This was, IMO, something that DA2 suffered with more than DA:O.

To me, this model seems inherantly daft. That enemy scaling for a given level of enemy lags behind player scaling makes sense, which is what Realmzmaster was getting at. The genlock who was a close fight to a level 1 is a cakewalk to a level 20. The genlock has actually become more powerful (usually in the background, through HP and other stats you can't see), so you can't necessarily one shot them if you're a level or two up on them, but when you do face a genlock later on you just hack them down without thinking. Your character has demonstrably become far more powerful because you can see how much more effective you are against the same type of opponent.

The trick from the developers to maintain challenge is that when you are level 20, you rarely square off against single genlock - because yes, that would get dull fast. But now you're running into far more powerful opponents, or much larger groups of less powerful opponents...but even though 'boss' fights and intentionally challenging encounters are just as hard, an average 'trash' fight has become noticeably faster, easier, less prone to suddenly falling apart, etc.

This model demonstrates to the player that their character has become more powerful, and makes the game slightly easier for people who have gone through a lot of the non-critical content with a view to boosting their character. Both of these are valuable outcomes from a roleplaying and player satisfaction perspective.

Nowhere does this require, or assume, that you will become "all powerful" at any point (unless you're using the very weakest enemies that you ever encountered as your yardstick for judging power).

In the endgame of KOA I could one shot anything yellow or below in groups. I could do it without even breaking stride.
Reaver in DA2 , a party was something of an option, there was so much red of the screen you lost sight of them anyway.
KOA was tolarable because it's fast ,pretty much instant. DA2 was still a pain in the rear because it took a lot of time doing something I could not fail at.
Ditto for ME2, ME3 was even worse, that never had a difficulty curve, just a flat line of cake walk. My experience of RPGs is they get easier the more skills you aquire, regardless of scaling.

Anything that keeps the difficulty tighter gets my vote because it's primarily a game I want to be challenged.

[TEWR]

Filament wrote...

Pokemon resistances actually make sense. All those raiders and mabari and what-have-you would be normal pokemon and have no special resistances.

This. I'd actually prefer it if on all difficulties, certain enemies were immune to a certain type of attack.

You'd think a Rage Demon wouldn't be able to be damaged by Fire at all, on any difficulty. Seeing as how they're literally burning rage. So why fire can hurt them, even minimized, kinda confuzles me. For Fire Pokemon, it makes sense when you consider that they have bodies that can be hurt.

But a creature that is quite literally fire? Not so much.

They're weak against Cold attacks, which is good. But they also need to be impervious to fire based attacks IMO.

Rock Wraiths should be unaffected by Earth based attacks IMO, seeing as they're rock.

Sylvans should be unaffected by Nature-based attacks, but we only have the Nature-based stave attacks as far as I know.

Not sure what other enemies there are that could be justifiably immune to a type of attack.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

<snip>

I will say this:

If a game were designed with the combat and XP system you describe, I would buy it immediately, because it has the potential to be brilliant.

[DA-Odium]

I would say that a solution would be to scale the opponents only at the beginning of an act. You can make it so that without doing any side quests you will have a tough time reaching the next act, while finishing all side quests will ease up the challenge without making it boring. This means that at the end of the current act there is 1 level or at most 2 levels difference between a player that does only the main quests or one that also does the secondaries.

[Joy Divison]

BobSmith101 wrote...

If you become so powerful that the game becomes tedious it's not exactly a reward. It's worse in something like DA , compared to something like KOA because combat still takes a lot of time.

The novelty of being all powerful wears off quite quickly.

That's a problem with the game, not the reward.

[Allan Schumacher]

Just to make sure I'm clear on Jimmy's points:

Essentially, if you survive the combat with minimal damage, then the combat isn't all that challenging and you won't get much experience because you weren't really challenged. Take a lot of damage and still survive, though, and you'll gain more experience.

Is this correct? (I've been half following the thread and some of the posts have been longer so getting a chance to keep up has been tricksy these past few days).

[Tigerman123]

Filament wrote...

Pokemon resistances actually make sense. All those raiders and mabari and what-have-you would be normal pokemon and have no special resistances.

Well checking back on in1's list, mabari were immune to fire, along with manifold other oddities, like mercenaries being immune to cold, or Qunari lighting. I think the devs said that they wanted to force you to vary your strategy, rather than holding to one party throughout the game, but I don't see why that couldn't be emerge naturally, eg from different enemy behaviours or abilities, rather than from arbitrary rules. Immunities seem much more suited to fantastical creatures like Dragons imo, rather than more mundane enemies