History CripplingOverspecialization / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/The7thSaga'' gives you seven characters to choose from. All of them learn magic, but Wilme's low magic stats means he'll cast few spell. Meanwhile, Esuna and Valsu (the SquishyMage and the WhiteMage, respectively) will almost exclusively use spells. But the game leans more and more towards physical attacks as you level up (especially since Esuna and Valsu learn powerful buffing spells), so by the end Esuna and Valsu will be decent both at attacking and casting spells, while everyone else will be sticking with physical attacks.

** The Grizzco [[BFS Splatana]] deals nightmarish damage up close and its charged slash is a OneHitKill on anything that's not a Mothership, Gusher Goldie, or a King Salmonid (none of which show up in normal waves). The downside: you don't have the SwordBeam projectiles that are your main option for painting surfaces and attacking anything not within spitting distance.

* Common in the ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' franchise due to it spawning from the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' game. Several 'Mechs are dedicated long or short-range specialists, or focus on one tactic in particular, and suffer significantly when not fighting in their preferred range bracket. The [[GlassCannon lack of foot speed or defensive armor]] on these models tends to compound their difficulties. Notable examples include the ''Hollander'' sniper 'Mech and the ''Hunchback'' close-combat 'Mech, both of which are powerful at their respective range brackets, but quickly and readily countered by one another's ranges. Overspecialization can be exacerbated by the [[DesignItYourselfEquipment MechLab]], such as a player stripping ''all'' their long-range weapons in favor of more shotguns. ''[=MechWarrior=] Living Legends'' showed the pitfalls of overspecialization with the introduction of alternate asset types such as [[PoweredArmor battlearmor]] and [[SpacePlane aerospace fighters]]; a weapon good at killing mechs at range will be pretty awful at killing a battlearmor [[SnipingTheCockpit pounding through your cockpit canopy]].

* The ''TabletopGame/HeavyGear'' video games occasionally do this, with one of the worst offenders being the Mammoth strider, an enormous, heavily armored machine with the ability to carry frankly absurd amounts of firepower... which [[MightyGlacier was slow as dirt]] and steered like a cow. It had no ability to dodge enemy shots and relied solely on thick armor to survive extended fights.

* In the ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' series the Lancer is the most extreme example of this. They wear blast proof suits that let them shrug off explosives and fire anti-tank Lances, and that's it, really. They're sitting ducks against infantry and their lances are too inaccurate to be effective against anything but a big, metallic target (and curiously inflict no splash damage either, unlike grenades). Bring one if you need a Tank or heavy emplacement destroyed, otherwise there's little point to using them.

* In the ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' series the Lancer is the most extreme example of this. They wear blast proof suits that let them shrug off explosives and fire anti-tank Lances, and that's it, really. They're sitting ducks against infantry and their lances are too inaccurate to be effective against anything but a big, metallic target (and curiously inflict no splash damage either, unlike grenades). Bring one if you need a Tank destroyed, otherwise there's little point to using them.

* In the ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' series the Lancer is the most extreme example of this. They wear blastproof suits that let them shrug off explosives and fire anti-tank Lances, and that's it, really. They're sitting ducks against infantry and their lances are too innacurate to be effective against anything but a big, metallic target (and curiously they inflict no splash damage either, unlike grenades). Bring one if you need a Tank destroyed, otherwise there's little point to using them.

** In the ''Trial of the Ancestors'' league some players made characters with Chaos Inoculation and [[OneHitPointWonder no energy shield at all]]. At high ranks in the trials enemy damage and toughness scaled so much it was considered essentially pointless to try to survive being hit or kill them, resulting in builds that invested solely in defenses that avoided damage entirely, with no investment in life or energy shield, and got skills that would hinder their opponents with knockback and slow instead of dealing much damage. These characters were extremely good at the trial's team battle game mode, but pretty much helpless anywhere else. As the only limit on attempting the trials was a tradeable in-game currency, nothing stopped them from using another character to acquire the silver coins or buying them with the income from winning trials.

** In the ''Trial of the Ancestors'' league some players made characters with Chaos Inoculation and [[OneHitPointWonder no energy shield at all]]. At high ranks in the trials enemy damage and toughness scaled so much it was considered essentially pointless to try to survive being hit or kill them, resulting in builds that invested solely in defenses that avoided damage entirely, with no investment in life or energy shield, and got skills that would hinder their opponents with knockback and slow instead of dealing much damage. These characters were extremely good at the trial's team battle game mode, but would be essentially helpless anywhere else. As the only limit on attempting the trials was a tradeable in-game currency, nothing stopped them from using another character to acquire the silver coins or buying them with the income from winning trials.

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' features energy shields, in addition to the usual armour and dodge commonly seen in this kind of game. This provides a barrier that takes damage before health is harmed, except for chaos damage which penetrates straight through and always hits health. One available skill makes the character immune to chaos damage but at the cost of reducing health to exactly 1. Characters that stack energy shield tend to have low health, and so this skill can prevent them from suffering in areas that have lots of chaos damage. However, any character not planned and built entirely around this skill will likely become unplayable, since once their shield is gone they are guaranteed to die in a single hit. Indeed it's possible, although not really advised, to take this skill with a character that ''doesn't have any shield''.

** [[Film/BackToTheFuture Marty McFly]] only has one ability: Sonar Smash, an ability the [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Batmobile]] in the starter pack can be upgraded to have, and one most other characters have in addition to other abilities.

** It's possible to build Snipers this way in ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown''. Making them ''extremely'' good at sniping means that they won't be good at anything else like moving, close-range combat, and so on. This type of build is also punished in ''Enemy Within'', which introduces Stalkers, stealthy robots that, once they start strangling a soldier like an isolated sniper, won't stop unless another soldier shoots it off; even if you take steps to counter their grabs, they'll still go for flanking shots.

* ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'':

** Regieleki is the single fastest Pokemon of them all, and it's ability Transistor powers up it's electric stab by ''50%!'' The caveat is that it's coverage is abysmal, it's attacking stats are only at 100, and it's defences are a joke. Basically it is meant to hit fast with electric attacks, and that is it. Any ground type pretty much invalidates whatever threat it has, and most priority moves slaugher it easily.

** Ghost Rider is a LongRangeFighter, through use of his [[WhipItGood chain whip]] and [[PlayingWithFire hellfire]]. In theory, he should be able to prevent his enemies from ever approaching him. It turns out, however, that Ghost Rider's one-dimensional strategy is rather predictable, which renders him easily approachable. And once that's done, he's nearly completely unable to cope with enemies in close proximity to him, especially just above and behind him. It doesn't help that many teleports put characters in ''exactly'' this location.

** It's possible to build Snipers this way in ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown''. Making them ''extremely'' good at sniping means that they won't be good at anything else like moving, close-range combat, and so on. This type of build is also punished in ''XCOM Enemy Within'', which introduces Stalkers, stealthy melee combatant aliens that, once they start strangling a soldier like an isolated sniper, won't stop unless another soldier shoots it off; even if you take steps to counter their grabs, they'll still go for flanking shots.

** In ''Diablo II'', this is often done intentionally: your character may be completely unable to kill cold immune enemies, but that's okay if there are no cold immunes in your [[LevelGrinding favourite hunting grounds]] and you got rushed to said top-level area without killing more than a handful of enemies on your way. There was a time when javazons were popular: they were only viable in ''one level'' but that just happened to be the farming hotspot.

* Qunari in the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' franchise are divided into a FantasticCasteSystem where each qunari is expected to fulfill their assigned task and no other. When the Arishok's military force was stranded in Kirkwall in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', they had no priests or diplomats and therefore nobody capable or even willing to explain why they were there, [[spoiler:allowing radical elements of the Chantry to provoke them to go to war with the moderate Viscount]].

* In ''VideoGame/ActOfWar'', and its CreatorDrivenSuccessor ''VideoGame/ActOfAggression'', the US army suffers from this. Tough and experienced, their units outclass any other in a particular role, but are almost useless outside of that. For example, the F-15 (F-22 Raptor in [[VideoGame/ActOfAggression AoA]]) is the strongest fighter plane in the game, but only carries Anti-Air Missiles.

** Snipers in all games can one hit kill most infantry, but are useless against anything else. However, in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars C&C 3]]'', they get a passive ability to spot for Juggernauts.
** Commandos in ''Tiberium Wars''. They are devastatingly effective against buildings and infantry, and exactly ''one'' type of vehicles: Walkers. There are, prior to the expansion, exactly 3 units of this classification, and at least one was considered AwesomeButImpractical and another was an artillery unit. In the expansion they were made a bit more useful, with a few new variants of the walkers appearing and being genuine threats, while an entire faction focused on infantry.

** Lampshaded in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3 Red Alert 3]]'' with the background information on the Allied Hydrofoil unit, which has a weapon jammer device. The background states that Allied tank crewmen and fighter pilots asked why their units could not also be equipped with jammers, but engineers the world over have encountered unspecified technical difficulties designing vehicles with multiple weapons. ''Red Alert 3'' actually changed the whole model on this one, given that all units in that game have a special ability of some type, and for about half those units that ability ''is'' a [[DualModeUnit second weapon]]. The hydrofoil's primary is an anti-aircraft gun.
*** The Apocalypse Tank (a Mammoth Tank {{Expy}}) has lost its anti-aircraft missiles in favor of a big magnet that pulls enemy vehicles towards its circular saw. Basically, the tank has been redesigned to be more effective against vehicles, something it was already good at, while leaving it vulnerable against airstrikes (lampshaded in the "Double-Barreled" Challenge mission, where the mission texts scoffs at the idea of improving the tank by adding missiles).

* ''VideoGame/{{Battletanx}}: Global Assault'':

** ''Battlefield 2'' has seven classes with very specific roles. Anti-Tank and Engineer in particular are fantastic at killing and supporting vehicles, but only have the world's least accurate [=SMGs=] and ShortRangeShotgun[=s=] for enemy infantry, which makes them very non-competitive on the game's huge maps. Ironically, the game's MasterOfNone class, the Assault, is hit hardest by this -- he's ''only'' good at general combat against other infantry, which several other classes are at least decent at while also packing useful, specialized abilities. This is particularly apparent with the Medic class, which is basically Assault with medical supplies instead of a GrenadeLauncher -- and which, through unlocks, gets the one of the most damaging and accurate weapons in the game, meaning a Medic can do everything an Assault does ''better, '''and''''' heal people on top of it.
** In ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany 2'' you have a choice of 4 specializations. It is possible to be crippled by the Medic's lack of explosives, or by the Recon's lack of ammo. Just as much as it is to be crippled by the Assault's [[MasterOfNone lack of specialization]].

*** During the WAR! update, the Demoman was given the Chargin' Targe, a shield that replaces his StickyBomb launcher with a charging rush that turns his melee attacks into guaranteed [[CriticalHit criticals]]. This has given rise to a new way to play the class, the "Demoknight". It involves using the Targe (or another shield, like the Splendid Screen) alongside one of the many sword and axe-like melee weapons he's received since then, giving him the ability to overspecialize in melee (especially if you equip the boots that increase health by replacing the grenade launcher). This all sounds great until you remember that almost every other class will still have guns (unless you're playing Medieval Mode), and these loadouts compromise the Demoman's ability to shoot back.
** The Pyro's flamethrower is, [[VideogameFlamethrowersSuck as one might imagine, a short-ranged weapon]]. [[AmbiguousGender Their]] long-range alternatives are a shotgun that [[ShortRangeShotgun isn't all that much better beyond a few feet]], or a flare gun which has significant travel time, a firing arc, and can only load one shot at a time. This makes Pyros absurdly good at ambushing, but not that useful at other forms of combat [[DifficultButAwesome unless you have the skill for it.]] Worse is that one of Pyro's primary methods of dealing damage, doing so over time by setting enemies alight, is almost entirely useless nowadays -- in the early stages of the game, fire was effective because even if a target got away before you killed him, the only ways for him to extinguish himself were either immersing themselves in water (which not every map had) or finding a friendly Medic, [[PowerCreep but then several updates happened over several years]] and now every class has ''multiple'' ways to extinguish themselves and/or teammates.

*** The Sniper's inability to push an offensive or handle most of their counters, coupled with their association with players who care more about kills than objectives, has led to them being declared the class least needed in large numbers. It's often said that a team with more than two or three Snipers is doomed to failure. "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cm2iFmASBc It's like Christmas morning. It's like Christmas morning. It's like Christmas morning.]]" They can take care of problems when their team hits a log jam by targeting the Medic or other important targets, but that's it.