changing roles mid game

[Crimson Dragon Inc.]

hi everyone and i would like the discuss something that when ever i bring it up to the rest of the crew or to fellow RPG players/makers for the most part becomes a touchy subject


and that is when a character completely changes their role in the party due to a major story event that unlocks latent potential or removes a character from your party


as an exsample in my game one of the characters changes from a critical damage dealing machine to a spell heavy character after chapter 2 (due to power being unleashed end of chapter 2 and a 2 year time skip) 


now what i'm asking is the communities thoughts on this type of change in a game. is it good, or bad? will it cuase problems with getting people to play the game?

 

[AwesomeCool]

It depends.


But, very, very easy to do bad imo.  If a player heavily relies on a character in a party and the character leaves, the player would be at an instant disadvantage as he/she didn't learn the other characters abilities well and the following fights will be more difficult then to other people.


Changing a character can be even worse depending on how much a character changes.  A warrior to a mage would be very annoying to me if it was an instant change, although if the warrior leaves for a time then comes back as a mage it would be better for me to deal with (or a slow transition, which would also make more sense realistically).  Personally, a knight to a magic knight would be much easier for me to deal with (basically, abilities are mostly just added and not taken away).

 

[Victor Sant]

I'm really not a fan of radical changes on my characters gameplay, no matter how "backstory" there is to justify it.


Some aditions outside of the original scope of the character aren't bad,


But, simply losing everything the character developed nutil that point and replacing it to something totally different don't suit my tastes.


tl;dr:


- Warrior to Magical Warrior - OK.


- Warrior to Wizard with no fighting prowess - Not OK.

 

[Wavelength]

The "rest of the crew" was right - this is bad design.

 

[jwideman]

I don't think that can do anything beyond frustrating players.

 

[Crimson Dragon Inc.]

It depends.


But, very, very easy to do bad imo.  If a player heavily relies on a character in a party and the character leaves, the player would be at an instant disadvantage as he/she didn't learn the other characters abilities well and the following fights will be more difficult then to other people.


Changing a character can be even worse depending on how much a character changes.  A warrior to a mage would be very annoying to me if it was an instant change, although if the warrior leaves for a time then comes back as a mage it would be better for me to deal with (or a slow transition, which would also make more sense realistically).  Personally, a knight to a magic knight would be much easier for me to deal with (basically, abilities are mostly just added and not taken away).

reason i said changing roles and not character type, for instance lets say you have a heavy armored warrior character and you put his role as party tank, then you have another warrior who is a basic warrior with no specializations, now when the heavy armored warrior leaves the party say through suddenly having to go serve his kingdom or being killed saving the other warrior..... the party is left using the other warrior as party tank thats what i mean by a role change


or like in the exsample i gave she is still a critical master but after chapter 2 and a 2 year time skip she becomes more magic orentated then regular attacks thus a role shift from critical heavy to spell heavy not a type change from warrior to mage........


i would like to touch upon that player relying heavily on one character in a party......thats being a bad player and they put themselves in that sitchuation........and it can be called very bad game design if you can rely completely on one character in a party to win the game.............a good game has a very diverse cast of characters that have to work togeather and combine their abilities to win......and no one character can be relied on, sure you can say that well this guy is heavy hitter and is my go to boss killer.......but with out the rest of the team that heavy hitter would get sluaghtered by the boss...... but to come to a point in any rpg where you relied on a characeter so much that you dont know the abilities of the rest of the characters, and you are put at a disadvantage when that character leaves the party........thats being a bad player and has nothing to do with game design

 

[AwesomeCool]

i would like to touch upon that player relying heavily on one character in a party......thats being a bad player and they put themselves in that sitchuation........and it can be called very bad game design if you can rely completely on one character in a party to win the game.............a good game has a very diverse cast of characters that have to work togeather and combine their abilities to win......and no one character can be relied on, sure you can say that well this guy is heavy hitter and is my go to boss killer.......but with out the rest of the team that heavy hitter would get sluaghtered by the boss...... but to come to a point in any rpg where you relied on a characeter so much that you dont know the abilities of the rest of the characters, and you are put at a disadvantage when that character leaves the party........thats being a bad player and has nothing to do with game design

No that is bad game design (as the game has been designed to make that effective and you took that option away, intentional or not).  The fact that an effective strategy is removed from the player, that they personally enjoyed using, will upset them and calling them bad will not make them reconsider.


 Also, playing sub-optimally does not mean the player is bad, just means they are not playing optimally (they might like to play this way more or info on what is optimal is unclear).  By taking that option away, you are taking away what the player found fun and saying your fun is better (that is why I think this is a bad idea, as it has lots of potential to tick people off and not much to gain).

 

[bgillisp]

I'm going to second Crimsondragon here, that if they overly rely on one player that is bad playing. To use an analogy. If you are playing a sport and you call the same play all the time because you can't bother to learn any other play, then the minute someone calls the counter to your play we would tell you to learn how to use something else. That is not the fault of the sport that your one play no longer works, but your fault for not bothering to learn anything else. Same thing is true in jobs, the minute your one move or skill is eliminated or no longer works, we tell you to learn something else. So, honestly, that's just life. We have to adapt to get through life too. Games are the same way.


Now with that said, I will say this. If you take away a player you should give the player a substitute at least. Most games I've seen that do this well have another player come in to replace the player that left, with similar skills. If that is not possible, then you do need to give the player a good chance to get the new party up to the old strength. So taking away a player right before a boss battle with no warning that it will happen, and the rest of the party might be underleveled = bad. However, taking away a player but the rest of the party is in a zone where they can easily level up and heal for a while = good, as now they can grind the other players up if needed.  


Now, if you need to take a player away in a dangerous zone, you might need to look at games like ff8 and ff9 to see how they did it. Most of those games when you are forced to play as one party member, the battles are a complete joke, as they geared them to the lowest possible level you could be going into that battle (or as far as I could tell they did).


Whatever you decide though, just know that you will not please everyone.

 

[Crimson Dragon Inc.]

I'm going to second Crimsondragon here, that if they overly rely on one player that is bad playing. To use an analogy. If you are playing a sport and you call the same play all the time because you can't bother to learn any other play, then the minute someone calls the counter to your play we would tell you to learn how to use something else. That is not the fault of the sport that your one play no longer works, but your fault for not bothering to learn anything else. Same thing is true in jobs, the minute your one move or skill is eliminated or no longer works, we tell you to learn something else. So, honestly, that's just life. We have to adapt to get through life too. Games are the same way.


Now with that said, I will say this. If you take away a player you should give the player a substitute at least. Most games I've seen that do this well have another player come in to replace the player that left, with similar skills. If that is not possible, then you do need to give the player a good chance to get the new party up to the old strength. So taking away a player right before a boss battle with no warning that it will happen, and the rest of the party might be underleveled = bad. However, taking away a player but the rest of the party is in a zone where they can easily level up and heal for a while = good, as now they can grind the other players up if needed.  


Now, if you need to take a player away in a dangerous zone, you might need to look at games like ff8 and ff9 to see how they did it. Most of those games when you are forced to play as one party member, the battles are a complete joke, as they geared them to the lowest possible level you could be going into that battle (or as far as I could tell they did).


Whatever you decide though, just know that you will not please everyone.

thats why the topic is about a character having to change roles when a character leaves the party or they unlocked some new power they didnt have before that completely changes the character's dynamic in the party, like a character who was only able to deal damage with lucky strikes and had no magic abilities suddenly gaining extremely powerful magic abilities, or a warrior that was a damage dealer having to take over tanking for the party becuase suddenly the tank left the group

 

[bgillisp]

thats why the topic is about a character having to change roles when a character leaves the party or they unlocked some new power they didnt have before that completely changes the character's dynamic in the party, like a character who was only able to deal damage with lucky strikes and had no magic abilities suddenly gaining extremely powerful magic abilities, or a warrior that was a damage dealer having to take over tanking for the party becuase suddenly the tank left the group

That might work. The lucky strikes turning to magic I think sounds good, as long as they keep the lucky strikes for those who liked that ability (or maybe you can make it a class choice....upgrade the lucky strikes or get the magic?)


The second one though...that does sound iffy, and I think that is what awesomecool is worried about, and I agree too, as now you lose your damage dealer and make them have to tank instead (this assumes the two are not mutually exclusive). Now, you can still make it work if you


1: Give them a new tank, or


2: Design all battles in the next area so they don't need the tank at all.


You'll probably find option 2 easier, as it is easier to design the game around it. I seem to recall ff4 did this with all their constant party member swappings, you sometimes hated losing the party member that you just lost, but you learned quickly that the next area was designed in such a way that you didn't need the person you lost, and you even liked the new person you gained as their abilities were what the new enemies (or bosses) were weak to! If you do it that way, I doubt anyone is going to complain, except for those who just want to hit attack to win every battle.

 

[Crimson Dragon Inc.]

yea those who just want to hit attack to win every battle will never play a game i make..... my games require actual strategy to win....


also a warrior who is a damage dealer can still deal damage, while tanking, the player just as to make a couple slight adjustments to the character or they can if they choose go with out a proper tank (most RPGs generally dont have a proper tank character anyways but ways to buff a character's defenses to high levels and have them be the go to when the healer goes down), in fact most games that have draw fire abilities have ones that deal more damage the more the character gets hit which the damage dealing warrior gaining this could change the dynamic of the party and he could take over tanking duties so as to maximize his damage results


and by lucky strikes i meant critical hits...... the character would have a high critical hit rate and damage multiplier and then gain powerful magic capabilities at a later point (odviously have the attack alot lower to balance out the character)


this reminds me of a game i played called TTH or time travel heroes, you build a party of 5 with 1 backup from a list of over 423 playable characters


each class had its specialty


swordsmen were tanks and AOE specialists, due to haveing high evasion scores and their special attacks either hit a whole row or column or all enemies


archers were damage dealing machines, having high hit, crit, atk and crit damage numbers, but their attacks were generally single target


the spearmen were tanks...... high hp and parry, parry worked in a way that you took half damage and then struck the character you parried for half your normal damage


strategists were magic users and second best damage dealers cuase there was no way to improve magic resistance in the game


and then the mighty hercules class they had every thing all the other classes had save magic...... they had tanks with who utilized parry or evasion, they had high crit damage dealers, and highest hp score........they also had an aura ability that when active increased their specialty by 30% and damage by min x10 and max x100 so the game became pretty much who had best hercules set up....


but then the game released a new machanic called rebirth which changed the roles of all the characters so that new strategies had to be reformed......


adding a new dynamic to characters is something i always liked o having that power house character removed so that i can have a challanged i personally love that kind fo thing......but i do believe it has to be done right....

 

[Nirwanda]

I think it really depends on how much the arty hinged on that one party member. Not all chracters are made equal, but I'll be a hypocrite if I didn't support this, after all, I have a similar situation in my game. Though after reading this thread I'm a little scared on how it'll work. I'd like to add to the character without making them feel overpowered. Would it really be that bad to take some points off of some stats in order for the new class not to overshadow the others?

 

[AwesomeCool]

@Nirwanda - You could make the status change happen via levels (aka when the character changes class the stats they had stay the same, which makes logical sense as gaining magic doesn't make you lose all your strength nor is your skill with magic immediately gained).  ex: Make a sudden spike in magic gained for 5 levels and decrease physical damage growth over the levels.


Would help ease the players into it, instead of all at once (I do not think anything in life is instant anyway and I don't think people like instant changes in things).

 

[Accendor]

But, very, very easy to do bad imo.  If a player heavily relies on a character in a party and the character leaves, the player would be at an instant disadvantage as he/she didn't learn the other characters abilities well and the following fights will be more difficult then to other people.

But this is good thing, is it not? Now you have a challenge in the game and you have to experiment with other characters and abilities instead of riding the one trick pony.

 

[LightningLord2]

But this is good thing, is it not? Now you have a challenge in the game and you have to experiment with other characters and abilities instead of riding the one trick pony.

In my opinion, there should be indication that overly relying on the strong-right-now character puts you in a bad spot later on. For instance, in Fire Emblem 6, Marcus starts out with much higher stats than everyone else. However, he barely gains any exp from kills and his stat growths are poor, which conveys that the player should give kills to other characters with better growths (not to mention that Marcus' stats are terrible for an advanced class).


On the other hand, you can make characters like Magikarp. It starts out with the move Splash, which literally does nothing, also sporting good speed, mediocre defense and terrible stats elsewhere. Upon hitting Level 20, however, it evolves into Gyarados, which is way more powerful than (almost) anything else you can get at that level. I know that I often grind up abysmal characters in anticipation of this trope. Basically, a better long-term option compared to a better short-term option mentioned above.


Lastly, there's characters whose functionality changes rather than becoming stronger/weaker over time. The only example for this I know is the class changing from Final Fantasy 3 onwards. Allowing you to change a character's purpose on the fly can be interesting because you can make boss battles that require more specific party compositions. But if you make a character take a different role without the player's choice (like a tank becoming a single target dps), you need to make sure they have an alternative character filling that void.

 

[Titanhex]

Since the narrative supports it, it's fine. Breath of Fire 3 had you gaining a tiger kid, who later becomes a were-tiger after finding him again. His role adapts, and the narrative supports it.


You should encourage the player to explore new aspects of this character by introducing challenges that require you to use that character. That's what good game design is. When you get a new character, that character's use should be immediate, and should be an introduction to this character.

If you can't tell, everyone here has expressed the same concern. It's not about the change of the character's role, but the loss of that character's relevance. By keeping the character relevant, you avoid bad design.


I would suggest keeping progress on the character, but introducing new facets of the character's new role. It's not a loss of their role, but a change in it's progression. That is fine design.

 

[Victor Sant]

Breath of Fire 3 had you gaining a tiger kid, who later becomes a were-tiger after finding him again. His role adapts, and the narrative supports it.

His role don't change. Since the start of the game, he is mainly a physical damage dealer, and continue being one, while the Weretiger gives another approach for his role, his main role continues unchanged.

But this is good thing, is it not? Now you have a challenge in the game and you have to experiment with other characters and abilities instead of riding the one trick pony.

Forcing unexpected challenges is not always good. Some people tends to think that 'new challenges = good' but this is not enterely true. New challenges are good as long they are well built and don't put the player into a very bad position. Imagine that you did everything 'right' (according to what was expected in the game) and out of nowhere you are in a bad position that you couldn't actually do nothing to prevent (unless you knew about it beforehand: with spoilers), a lot of people will not like it.

 

[Niten Ichi Ryu]

To understand correctly, are you really changing the character role, or are you changing his/her focus-mechanic?


If he was Melee DPS and becomes Magic DPS, well it's still a DPS, you simply change the flavor.

 

[LightningLord2]

To understand correctly, are you really changing the character role, or are you changing his/her focus-mechanic?


If he was Melee DPS and becomes Magic DPS, well it's still a DPS, you simply change the flavor.

It can screw over a character build if they need a different stat to deal damage now.

 

[Niten Ichi Ryu]

It can screw over a character build if they need a different stat to deal damage now.

Absolutely, but it seems OP was trending towards having the high damage coming from high critical rate, so not really sure it was stat dependent. I was more discussing on the fact that as per OP, it was changing "role", but for me it does not change role, just flavor.


If you have a tank that attracts threat, soak damage and use counters and a swashbuckler that attract threats, but as High evasion and use counters, the characters have different flavors but in the end the same role.


But as you said changing focus/mechanic is doable, but need to be carefuly handled to avoid gimping a character. Also, is it actually making sense and will actually be enjoyed by the player is also to take in consideration.


It's super cool to have a hero disappear a while and comes back with super enhanced magical powers, but rule of cool does not always mean rule of good gameplay. what works in anime, or books doesn't always click in game.


If done early in the character's life, it can make sense gameplay and character growth wise. If done late in game, well it would feel for me a bit like a super sayajin transformation of sort.