Weaknesses and the False Player-Enemy Equivalence.

Back for another round of my opinions in game making. I'll start with some theory before getting to the point , so please bear with me.

The word for today is equality.

More specifically in player character and monster design, and how they need not be designed the same.

Somewhere there is an underlying feeling that the game we are playing should be fair, and that they should be playing by the same rules as us.

But should they ? While nothing is as infuriating as a cheating AI, the player and the AI serve wildly different purposes.

While certainly some of the AI cheating is there due to limits in technology, because an AI will almost never be as good at adapting as a human player except in some discrete systems.

That doesn't really matter, because the player is there to win, but the AI is there to lose entertainingly.

So to answer the question "Why does the AI/Enemies sometimes get to follow different rules than the player ?", the answer should be because it leads to better gameplay, or because of technological limits,and not for any other reason , because no-one likes a cheating AI, and yet, sometimes letting the AI cheat just a little leads to way better gameplay.

The same can be said for how each sides game pieces are built or function. Every case of enemy-player inequality should have a solid reason.

Why can the boss spam the high MP spells almost turn after turn , while I can't? (Because then that's the only thing you would do, heavily reducing your variety in gameplay.)

Why are bosses immune to instant-kills ? (Preventing Anti-Climax and reducing RNG as a factor)

Why does the boss get 2-3 turns ? (There are 4 of you and only 1 of him, so he still only gets 2-3 actions vs your 4)

Why doesn't the enemy have to worry about building up TP ? (Because the game engine doesn't track enemy TP)



Now all of this was a small snippet of my thoughts to explain my reasoning in the next bit.

Let me make a bold and broad statement (that will probably be misinterpreted) :

I do not believe in player character weaknesses.

With weakness I mean a glaring defensive weakness , not an offensive one. I'm fine with the mage not doing physical damage, what I am not

ok with is the same mage folding over like a wet paper towel to an attack that barely scratches the armoured fighter, or the fire mage dying to even a light ice spell.

"But ..." I hear you think "why didn't you put the mage on the back row then ?" Because the back row is a hack, a cheap patch designed to hide an obvious design problem.

In theory it sounds nice, put your mage on the back row, trading physical attack for defence. My problem with this, is the no-brainer deciscion this is.

There is never any doubt the character should be in the last or front row, so why don't we just up the mages defence and get rid of this hack.

(Warning, some numbers up ahead are exageration for effect, used to prove a point, please do not take them as absolute law)

I'm fine with the mage taking 20 % more damage, given equal health pools, but usually the mage takes up to 40 % more damage, and has only 70 % of the fighters health pool, quickly making any hit that endangers the fighter an insta-kill for the mage.

On the other hand, no player character should have complete (passive) immunity to a certain element (I am ok with skill usage granting temporary immunity), because then each encounter with that element is just a roulette to see who gets hit ,

or in the case of Good or cheating AI totally useless as the character will never be attacked with that element.

Now, to be nicely controversial, I believe enemies should have glaring weaknesses and blanket immunities.

Why? Because from the beginning the enemy and player are not on equal footing and are not playing the same game anyway. The enemy is there to provide 2-3 rounds of resistance and then fall over. It's loss rate should be 95-99 % (excepting boss battles).

The other reason is choice and gameplay. Having your fire mage just die to Ice spells rarely creates interesting deciscions, outside of the binary "do I bring him or not?". Giving him an amulet of ice protection isn't a choice, but a must at that point.

But deciding wether to use your fire mage to finish off one enemy, or do a big chunck of damage but not killing a second fire - weak enemy, that is a deciscion point.

To use persona 3/4/5 as an example : Hitting the enemy in his weakness and chaining them up to eliminate a though encounter feels great, but getting surprise attacked and wiped before you even get a turn feels horrible and is one of the most controller smashing moments in an otherwise very good series of games.

This also nicely touches on another problem with for example mass insta-kill spells. Say there is a spell that has a chance of killing an enemy 50 % of the time, and it targets all enemies. Is this spell fair in the hands of the player ? I believe yes ( at an appropriately high MP cost).

Is it fair in the hands of an enemy ? Unless it is heavily telegraphed and able to be countered, no, I do not think so. Suppose you cast it against 4 monsters, there is a 1/8 chance of ending the encounter right here. If it works, fun , but nothing special. Now the same spell cast by an enemy you encounter regularly.

Giving the party a 1/8 chance to just game over without counter-play is just nasty. To add on top of this, if a surprise attack by your encounter can defeat a fully healed party without ever giving them one turn, even if rarely , then maybe tone down the encounter slightly (or eliminate surprise attacks).

In summary, what I am saing is : enemy weaknesses lead (or should do so anyway) to gameplay and choice, player weaknesses leads to random blowouts or nothing.

Because players get way more affected by randomness than monsters. A monster is there for the one battle, the player is there for at least a 100, so the 1 % chance to be randomly buttfucked will eventually happen.

Now how I'm doing it in my game:

Players:

Small weaknesses ( up to 20 % more damage)

Medium Resistances (up to 50 % less damage)

Many resistance granting spells and abilities, but no passive immunities.

Enemies:

Glaring weaknesses (up to 500 % more damage)

Above and beyond immunity (Reflect , absorb, immune , ...)

Reacting to certain elements with counterattacks, so the right choice isn't always the right choice. For example : Fire does 100% more damage, but gets you counterattacked.

Having a weakness not necessarily be more damage, but inflict a debuff, having lightning inflict stun on turrets, fire inflicting enrage on beasts,...

And on a final note : balance your (random) encounters not for the average , but the edge cases. What if the encounter turns into a total shitstorm (all enemies randomly select their strongest move and/or all enemies crit in a row), do the players have any chance? Even if it is only 5 % likely, because that 5 % will eventually come up.

