Designing for Tier Two, Part Three

Note: This post is part of a series - First Part Here

What happens if you don't introduce a fundamental weakness in a character's area of strength?

In a PvE game, the answer is typically boredom. In a PvP game, the answer is typically toxicity or simply unbalanced.

For example, how many single player games have you played, where the ranged option is so strong, that you might as well never actually melee attack? In Fable, for example, using a bow or magic combat could become so fast, powerful and ubiquitous - that comparatively, melee combat wasn't required and was actually suboptimal in a lot of cases.

In Mass Effect 1, the assault rifles particular balance of firepower, ammo count, accuracy and range meant that there typically was no point in using other weapons (outside of some extreme examples with the Pistol, which you could eventually make into an assault rifle.)

In League of Legends, Jax's main strength is to be an unstoppable one on one killing machine. When Jax is good, any kind of one on one fight is a terrible prospect and distinctly unsatisfying. Poppy's main strength is to assassinate one character without fear or reprisal, again, any kind of one on one fight is a terrible prospect and distinctly unsatisfying.

Why does this happen?

 If your primary strength has no weaknesses in that field, then one of two things typically happen:

1. You fight with your primary strength - ranged combat for instance - and you win and dominate, because you have no weakness. In a PvE game, this tends to lead to boredom. In a PvP game, this leads to unsatisfying gameplay or simply OP gameplay.
2. You fight in something that is not your primary strength - and then you find ways to just ignore those fights so you can fight #1.

For example, you have no incentive to become a better melee character if your character's ranged attacks has no weakness. You simply want to find as many opportunities to fight in ranged - eschewing any case where you might have to melee - You typically only do so if you are forced to.

However, since your ranged attacks have no weaknesses, you don't have to put in a lot of thought to use them in the first place - you simply dominate and so, you have a distinctly boring experience because the best way to play, is to first find a way to use your ranged attack and then grind away with that boring route.

Why can't I introduce weaknesses that aren't in their strength?

I believe that most people intuitively understand that things without weaknesses are inherently uninteresting - The perfect hero is not a character that holds your interest for very long. However, the dominant line of thought is that as long as they have some kind of weakness at all, then it is fine. Designing for Tier Two says this is not the case - It is much much better to have a weakness built into the inherent strength of the character.

For example, let's take Fable again - The crossbow was a very effective weapon - It had high damage, low reload speeds, the ability to combo and the ability to hit multiple targets with a spell and had a range high enough to be safe - It has no essential weakness. You could even spec a repositioning spell if you dabbled in magic so that you could blink away from foes.

The ranged character, frequently had low health or terrible melee ability - However, the key question is: Does this matter? If everyone dies before they enter melee range, does low health or terrible melee ability matter? If you died in one hit in melee but usually killed everyone at range 95% of the time, is this decent gameplay? Is this even interesting gameplay where you stand in a corner and snipe away?

You see, inherent weaknesses in fields other than the one you are using means you typically play so you never have to think about them. If you have an inherent weakness in the area of expertise that you are using, it means you constantly have to overcome them to leverage your core strength.

For example, a sniper rifle or a rail-gun is the perfect example of a ranged weapon with an absurd strength (one shot kills, insane range) with equally absurd weakness (terrible reloading, single target). When you are using a railgun or a sniper rifle, you always keep these two facts in mind, even as you abuse your core strength - adding a level of depth of thought to your play experience, even as you destroy people with your strengths.

It is when your weakness doesn't matter where games start to get boring. Let's say your character is super durable and super fast in melee, but has no ranged attacks as his "weakness." Does this matter? Do you even need to think when fighting? You simply run to the person and hit them until they are dead. Your primary strength overcomes anything that could fight in it, and fighting in your primary strength has no obstacle to overcome - the result is that you always fight in melee but you never really care about what you do.