History Main / CripplingOverspecialization

This is particularly jarring when they should have the means to defend themselves, either because they are based on an historical unit that had such capability or because they are depicted as carrying more than one type of weapon. A common example is tanks, which usually have one or more machine guns mounted to protect themselves from enemy infantry in real life (and even many fictional ones), but rarely get to use them in the game, so any well-equipped army realistically make this a decisive not TruthInTelevision.

* In the ''CommandAndConquer'' games, units usually have only one weapon, and are on their own extremely vulnerable to units impervious to their single weapon. A rifleman never has rockets or other explosives to use against vehicles, a grenadier has only grenades and no firearm for self-defense, a rocket soldier only carries rockets effective against vehicles and aircraft, tanks never have machine guns for close defense against infantry, and so on. This is sometimes in spite of the fact that the unit's sprite/model, or promotional images, will show it with additional anti-personnel weapons. The series also harbors one constant aversion, however - the Mammoth Tank and its successors have always had a big cannon for taking out buildings and vehicles, and ground-to-air missiles for dealing with airborne enemies. They can also run infantry over. Artillery units could also be surprisingly effective against infantry. Slow projectiles and slow rates of fire made them lousy for taking out individuals or small groups, but a rocket or artillery shell that landed in the middle of an infantry rush could give pretty impressive results.

** Worst in Tiberium Wars, where ''every single vehicle'' can crush infantry in an instant. This means that infantry (and an entire side in Kane's Wrath, [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul the Marked of Kane]]) are completely useless.
*** Except the Marked's most powerful (read: only worthwhile) infantry, the Enlightened, were immune to being run over. And they could freeze vehicles in their tracks with an EMP. Plus the Marked had various other advantages.
** One of the worst units in the series is the Tank Destroyer in Red Alert 2, the unit it self can only do maximum damage to enemy vehicles, but it can barely hit infantry(but can still runover them), but can only do minor damage to buildings which can be easily repaired while its still firing.
** Interestingly, the Allied Destroyer in the original ''Red Alert'' completely averted this; it had depth charge launchers to take out enemy subs, and a missile battery that was useful against enemy air or surface combatants (I found it useful for clearing landing zones of enemy defenses when cruisers weren't available), but later games overspecialized it more and more. In ''Red Alert 2'', they removed it's AA potential (giving it to the Aegis Cruiser, which could only attack air), making it useful only against enemy ships or subs. Then, in ''Red Alert 3'', they decided to remove it's anti-sub capability, turning it into more or less an amphibious mammoth tank.
** Speaking of the Mammoth Tank, the Apocalypse Tank is it's successor in the Red Alert Timeline. However, in Red Alert 3, it lost all but it's main cannons, which are only effective against vehicles and structures. It still retained tracks for running over infantry, but no longer had anti-air capabilities.
** Three interesting aversions exist in Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath: The Firehawk fighters, Epic Units, and the Purifier.
*** FireHawks are able to load two different missile payloads, allowing them to engage all sorts of targets. It could be considered a subversion, as the FireHawks are still crippling overspecialized, and must be manually changed.
*** Epic units are customizable, allowing for several weapon systems being intergrated into them. Only the Redeemer is totally specialized, as it only has two points and it's weapon does not do splash damage.
*** Finally, the Purifier has two weapons, a automatically firing Flamethrower, and an anti-armor laser beam. Aside from aerial units, Purifiers have total superiority against anything land based. This is made even more obvious by the fact that the Purifier's flamethrowers could be given an upgrade, allowing them to burn EVERYTHING to a crisp in under 5 seconds, even the dreaded Mammoth tanks. Did I mention it fires AUTOMATICALLY?
**** Changed with a later patch that nerfed flamethrower weapons to nearly useless versus anything but infantry.
** A very special aversion existed at the very end of Tiberian Sun: FireStorm; the Core Defender. It had the highest armor rating out of any units in-game, being able to survive a superweapon blast to the face with literally just a scratch. It also had EMP shielding, something no other unit in the game had. It's lasers had the power to destroy anything in one hit, even construction yards (widely regarded as the most heavily armored object in the game) and fired at a rate that would put even machine guns to shame. The only flaw it had was that it didn't have anti-air capabilities, and, despite all that armor and EMP shielding, wasn't water proof.
** Played straight with the Fire Storm defense system: the wall was strong enough to deter any form of attack: even lasers could not shoot through the walls. However, it was managed by a central hub, that could be destroyed with a single Ion Cannon Blast, which is the only thing able to penetrate the barrier (or rather, completely avoid it, as the Ion Cannon was the only Space-based weapon at the time), and cripple the entire defense. The Specialization? Only GDI had access to both. Guess they never thought that they'd face their own weapons.

* Archer units in fantasy-world strategy games seem not to have any capacity for melee combat whatsoever, leaving them helpless if their position is overrun. This despite how everyone else on the map is carrying a sword, and how historical archers carried swords as well as bows, usually to finish off the wounded after battle.
** ''DwarfFortress'' averts this. When a marksdwarf runs out of arrows, they'll switch to using the bow as a hammer. Granted, whether or not that helps is debatable.
** ''HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' averts the trope. Any ranged unit adjacent to an enemy (or just plain out of ammo) has to use their close range attack, which does half the damage of their ranged attack and usually doesn't let them benefit from special abilities like Double Shot. Keeping archers from firing is actually essential to the strategy of the games. Also, any unit with the ability ''Normal Melee'' is a complete aversion, as they do full damage with both melee and ranged attacks. (These types of units tend to be unusual in some way - monsters like beholders, massive units like titans, or creatures that use their ranged weapons for melee attack.) It is also possible to ''force'' one of your archer units to use their mêlée attack, if they're within walking distance, instead of shooting.
*** Some creatures also have special abilities to help with this. V has Centaur archers who get to move when attacked and afterwards retaliate with their ranged attack, Shadow Matriarchs wielding enchanted whips that slap enemies with curses when they are attacked in melee, and Titans who can still attack at a distance by casting a Lightning Bolt that can be more effective that their normal ranged attack depending on the target.
** Also averted in the ''TotalWar'' series. Because of their light armour, however, using archers in melee is generally a bad idea unless you're all out of arrows or have some mitigating factors on your side (fighting downhill, enemy wounded, shaken, or otherwise occupied).
*** Handlers of catapults and other siege equipment can be made to drop their siege weapon and fight with daggers in emergencies.
** Archers have melee attacks also in Myth: The Fallen Lords and its sequels. However, grenadier dwarves and javelin-throwing soulless are still helpless in close combat.
** Also averted in ''BattleForWesnoth'': All archers have at least a shortsword or dagger, though it doesn't do much damage. Even most mages will clout the enemy with their staff if attacked in melee.
*** Dark Adepts, however, will not, making them a straight example.
**** Justified, according to their flavor text Dark Adepts undergo training which leaves them slightly weaker physically than a newborn kitten.
** ''Lords of the Realm II'' provides an aversion, where archers and crossbowmen, if given the order or attacked by melee units, will trade their bows and crossbows for a dagger and buckler. Their melee ability is absolutely pathetic, though, and they will get slaughtered by any other armed unit.
** ''MountAndBlade'' provides another aversion with both heroic RPG-type characters, and 'common' infantry. All of the archers carry melee sidearms, and indeed even many of the horsemen and foot soldiers carry ranged weapons. Indeed (due to the RPG nature of the main character, who is also limited to four weapons in-battle), the most likely person on the battlefield to suffer from this trope is ''yourself''.
*** Also averted in that the top-tier archers have high strength (for using the bows) and better than average armor, so they can actually outfight basic infantry in close combat.
** In ''BattleRealms'' all ranged units have a melee attack. It's too weak to fight off anything other than peasants, though, and dedicated melee units will make mincemeat of them in seconds. A few melee units (the Dragon Warrior, Kabuki Warrior, Samurai and Bandit) also have a secondary ranged attack for attacking enemies they're currently unable to attack in melee.

** Radiant Dawn, the latest game in the series, averts this somewhat, though. Archers armed with crossbows or the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Bow]] can counterattack at melee range, and clerics can even retaliate with their staff, albeit generally for 0 damage.
* In ''GroundControl II'', helicopter-type units will just own armoured vehicles, such as tanks, with impunity, despite the fact real tanks have cupola-mounted machine-guns explicitly designed to provide some defensive fire against air targets.
** Tanks really are helpless against tank-killing air vehicles. No tank commander in his right mind is going to sit exposed at a .50 caliber machine gun (that won't even do much damage) when the enemy helicopter can shoot explosive 20mm rounds at him with an automatic cannon. Additionally, Hellfire missiles fired from Apache attack helicopters have a range greater than the tank CANNON's effective range. See ''The Bear and the Dragon'' by Tom Clancy for a (fictional) example. He does his research.
** In the GroundControl 1 anti air Terradynes cannot target anything on the ground and rocket Terradynes cannot target infantry.
* Units in the ''AdvanceWars'' series can usually only (effectively) attack a few types of other units. For example, infantry can attack vehicles, copters and other infantry to varying degrees of effectiveness with their firearms, but cannot even engage ships or planes. Some units have a primary and secondary weapon however, which they use against different opponents.
** The most notorious example is the Missile unit, a devastating anti-air unit that is incapable of firing on anything that doesn't fly. It's also rather weak in the armor department. Woe to the player that accidentally deploys this one on a map without air units.

*** It also features the Anti-Tank, an expensive form of artillery with the ability to counterattack. Unlike other ranged units, it cannot attack sea units and is less effective than the basic artillery against anything but tanks, especially considering the price. It also has the Flare unit, which shoots Flares to light areas in FogOfWar and doesn't suffer from as many stiff penalties the recon does in forest terrain.

** Of course, Advance Wars is fairly reasonable about doing this, as almost every unit still HAS means to defend itself against things it's weak against, with also fairly reasonable exceptions. The Missile unit is a SAM, which in RealLife can't attack anything ground based anyway, and no tank can realistically shoot down a bomber...
** ''Game Boy Wars 3'' is somewhat half-and-half about this. The cars are specialized - though they're somewhat based on the Buggies in ''Nectaris'', which are far less so. However, the ironically named Tank Destroyer has insane Initiative that results in it being able to fend off Humvees but has it dropping like a lead weight.
** Averted hard in Battalion Wars. Assault Vets, for instance, are somewhere between Rifle Grunts and Bazooka Vets; they can attack light vehicles and infantry, though with less range than Grunts. Missile Vets are ''supposed'' to only be able to attack aircraft, but even their unguided missiles can still do serious damage against ground units if they hit. This takes some creative and personal use of the unit however, as their missiles don't lock onto units at ground level.
*** Also most vehicles, though usually optimized for battle against other vehicles/aircraft, will have at least one auto-aiming machinegun to protect it against enemy infantry.
* Averted fairly well in the BattleIsle series, particularly in the third game - vehicles often had two or three different weapons (some could even have four or five!), and would attempt to use the best fit for each scenario. Some naval units featured cannons, SAMs and ASMs, almost all tanks featured machineguns alongside their main cannons (though they'd still get pretty beat up by anti-tank infantry) and so on and so forth.
* Used cleverly in the ''Dune 2000'' strategy game. Tanks have little chance to shoot infantryman, however they can very effectively squash them, especially in tight groups, but that requires player to take control.
** Also averted with the Fremen and Sardaukar units. The Fremen do the same damage to infantry and vehicles, and the Sardaukar switch between bullets and rockets depending on whether they're attacking infantry/light vehicles or armored tanks/buildings.
* Multiple in the ''{{Age of Empires}}'' series. Most units can do damage to most other units (although in the earlier games this led to the destruction of castles when hit repeatedly by swords) but there are no secondary weapons, which would lead to archers shooting arrows at swordsmen stabbing away at them. In ''Age of Empires 3'', however, all ranged units carry swords or bayonets, with the exception of artillery and their crews, and soldiers carry burning torches for more realistic building damage (to an extent; they'll still hurl said torches at something that is by all appearances mostly or entirely made of stone). In fact, the ranged Musketeer units do extra damage to cavalry...but ''only'' if they fight with their bayonets.
** This has some basis in reality: pikes were common and effective against cavalry, and a musketeer who has fired his shot might not have time to reload, but with a bayonet becomes a pikeman. Admittedly a bargain basement one, but still.
* Sniper units in any RTS are a prime example. They usually kill enemy infantry with one shot over great distances, but they are completely helpless against anything else.
** Partially averted in ''CommandAndConquer: Generals'' with Jarmen Kell's ability to snipe the crew of a vehicle, allowing infantry to commandeer it. The USA Pathfinders are still helpless against vehicles, though.
*** However, Jarmen Kell's ability took quite a while to cooldown after each use, so if you had multiple vehicles coming at you simultaneously and you couldn't get to the vehicle you had just hit, you were screwed.
** The commando units share this vulnerability, with the exception of Tanya and Boris in ''Red Alert 2'''s expansion: Tanya can place C4 on enemy vehicles, and Boris' rifle damages vehicles much more than Tanya's pistols could.
* A particularly painful cutscene in ''WarcraftII'' involves the humans capturing a horde catapult and using it to shoot down a zeppelin. In the next map you do indeed capture a catapult - but they're ground-to-ground only.
** ''{{Warcraft}} III'''s human faction has a unit called the Steam Tank, which does fantastic damage to buildings... but can't attack ''any'' units. Its sole use is to damage enemy structures. ''The Frozen Throne'' expansion pack remedied this a bit by giving the player the option of buying an improvement that added a rapid-fire (though weak) attack that can only be used against flying units.
* As {{Player Character}}s level up in ''WorldOfWarcraft'' they gain talent points to spend in three separate talent trees to specialize their normal abilities for certain roles. This has the effect that by endgame, players are utterly incapable of adequately performing any role they are not completely specialized for.
** The best example would be the Druid. Usually each class has three specializations (one per talent tree), though for some classes they all pretty do the same thing (deal damage). Druids get ''four'', thanks to their animal forms.
** YourMileageMayVary, druids ''need'' to specialize or else they won't be as good as priests, warriors, rogues, or mages. While their other skills won't be very good without skill points, they're still decent in a pinch. A druid specializing in casting spells can shift into cat form, go into stealth mode, rendering them effectively invisible, make some distance between them and their foe and then shift into travel mode to finalize the escape. Healing druids can shift into bear mode when low on health, shift to cat mode and stealth to get away, heal themselves, etc. Experienced druids can use the "jack of all trades" ''and'' still be masters of ''one'' area. A healing or spellcasting druid will still suck if they try to melee, though.
*** This is the case with every class that's capable of performing more than one role, particularly due to stat consolidation and gear homogenization. Also, the addition of Dual Specialization, by which characters can switch between two talent specs on the fly, has radically changed the game to the point that this trope is heavily discouraged now. Pretty much any guild will expect hybrid characters to be spec'd and geared for more than one role, shifting the raid makeup depending on the boss encounter. This applies even for players of the "damager" (aka DPS) classes, since particular fights may call for certain or ways of causing/sustaining that damage.
** The Raid Boss encounters are designed so as to ''require'' each player to be pretty much min-maxed for one specific role. A tank that isn't tank specced will not be able to take the big boss hits, or put out sufficient Threat to hold the boss's attention. A healer that isn't healing specced will run out of mana mid-battle just keeping the tank alive. If your damage-dealers aren't DPS specced, the boss won't die fast enough and will hit his Enrage timer, wiping the raid. Thus, ''not'' overspecializing is crippling.

** Is it so goddamn hard for a Valkyrie to tilt its nose down a bit, and pummel the ground with its masses of rockets? The same going for the Corsair and Devourer? Considering some life-or-death situations where an ONLY AIR ATTACK unit is in danger, it's total retardation that they should run away in horror and die at the hands of ONE MARINE rather than tilt their noses down, and blow them apart. Perhaps excused for the Guardian, as its acid gobs would be like artillery--too difficult to aim properly in anti-air.
*** Actually, the Guardian was itself rather silly, in that it's believable that it would have trouble hitting small, fast aircraft, but it still seemed very silly they couldn't hit large, slow flying objects like Carriers, Battlecruisers, and other Guardians ForMassiveDamage. I mean, just as it was silly that the Valkyrie couldn't point the nose down a little, is is any less silly that the Guardian couldn't point its mouth UP a little, especially in space missions where there was supposedly no gravity?
** ''[=StarCraft=]'' also featured an aversion--the Goliath unit was an [[PoweredArmor armored exoskeleton]] that used chainguns to fight ground units and seeking missiles to fight air units. (In early concepts, it had a ''third'' weapon.) It will apparently have a spiritual successor in the Terrans' Viking unit in ''[=StarCraft=] II'', which is a TransformingMecha that can either be an air-to-air fighter or a walking unit that makes attacks against ground.

*** Let's face it, the Battlecruiser already had three weapons in the first game; anti-ground lasers, anti-air lasers, and the aforementioned Yamato Cannon. Not like it was short on weapons...
*** The Battlecruiser is back to those three weapons, it now has separate ground and air laser batteries, and it's been stripped of the Plasma Rockets.
*** Objection. Starcraft II has plenty of overspecialized units. How about all the firearm-equipped ones (Reapers, Vikings in walker mode, Immortals...) that are apparently completely unaware that all they need to do to kill Mutalisks is to angle their guns upward?
** Apart from the already mentioned units, pretty much all the original Starcraft units were limited to one weapon each (except the Siege Tank, and that was immobile in one form), but that didn't mean they were limited, for example, the Marine, Hydralisk and Dragoon can all hit both air and ground units, regardless of their single weapon.

* Combat in the second ''Battle for Middle-Earth'' game tends to consist of a desperate attempt to get the right type of unit fighting the right enemy, because if they're fighting the wrong type they get slaughtered. Well, unless they're fully upgraded elven archers, who can usually mow down an entire cavalry unit while they're charging.
** Or fully upgraded Rohirrim, which can trample right over pikes.
* Completely averted in Total Annihilation. All units with weapons can attack any other unit. Even workers can reclaim a living enemy (well as living as you can call a robot).
* Partially averted in ''WorldInConflict'': basic infantry have Anti-tank missiles and anti-air missiles complementing their basic rifles, and the tanks have machine guns, though they rarely get/bother to use them. Even the specialized Anti-Tank infantry still has some regular infantry units. Played straight with the Heavy Anti-Air Unit though: it only carries SAM's, and can't attack ground units.

** Then there's stuff like the UEF Anti-Tactical-Missile Defense, which is basically a Phalanx CIWS. It can only shoot down tactical missiles. Would it kill them to have flexible targeting software so that it could attack gunships, at least? Not much of a height difference!
*** This is actually a fairly logical way of handling things. TMDs do very little damage; one or two points against units with hundreds of HP, and have rather long reload cycles. They would be utterly useless against gunships. If they were programmed to attack gunships, it would be trivial to have a single gunship attract the attention of all TMDs in the area (taking a tiny amount of damage in the process), meaning when the actual missiles came, all the TMDs would be reloading and the missiles would pass through unmolested.
** Experimentals in both games are also fairly overspecialized. The Galactic Colossus, which has more HP than you can shake another Galactic Colossus at and can make mincemeat out of entire ground armies, is helpless against air attacks. The Fatboy in the first game features a miserable flak gun or two, but is otherwise helpless against air assaults (save that it can quite happily pump out AA units, and hold some air units on it's roof pads for an emergency). The old beta/early loadout for the Atlantis averted it pretty hard too, and gave it a ''killer'' AA loadout (nevermind the hundreds of planes and the powerful anti-ship torpedoes) with two T2 AA guns, and ''four'' T3 AA missile launchers to provide friendlies with cover fire, and protect itself whilst it launches it's craft. The Atlantis II, on the other hand, does naught but transport aircraft. Boo!

* Refreshingly averted in ''Civilization IV'' (well, at least the combat animations), where your SAM infantry will happily whip out machine pistols to deal with ground troops and archers spend a disturbing amount doing melee combat. That doesn't mean they're any good at it, though.
* Averted, subverted, and played straight in AdventureQuest. Many of the classes are just fine in any situation, but magic is only really effective against enemies that are vulnerable to it. The subversion comes in flavors of the Dragon Slayer(whose abilities only work well against Dragons) and the Witch Hunter(whose abilities only work well against Undead). This being AdventureQuest, however, it seems as if this is LampshadeHanging and GenreDeconstruction rather than incompetent designers.

** Averted, in theory, by the Uchiha clan. Their Sharingan allows them to [[MegaManning copy other jutsu and taijutsu.]] In practice, they rely almost entirely on their eye techniques. [[Spoiler: This overspecialization actually gets Danzou killed.]]

** Averted, in theory, by the Uchiha clan. Their Sharingan allows them to ((MegaManning copy other jutsu and taijutsu.)) In practice, they rely almost entirely on their eye techniques. ((Spoiler: This overspecialization actually gets Danzou killed.))

** Averted by Uchiha clan which uses its signature ability to copy other abilities that they do not know.

** the other thing is if you focused entirely on one combat style, the ranger for example would normally go either Legolas-like with a bow or Drizzt-like with two weapons but rarely both, you could land yourself in a situation where you're nearly entirely ineffective. a 2-sworder VS a flying enemy would have to pray that either his allies ground the bugger or that the enemy doesn't have damage reduction VS his probably normal bow. same with a rogue or paladin. the fighter does get the feats to focus on several combat styles, but YMMV as he's forced to start each style from scratch and some of these require several feats to really start living up to their potential.
** most casters either don't worry about this or entirely avert the trope, since divine casters like the druid or cleric can respec their spell lists entirely at the start of a new day, while wizards need only purchase a scroll and copy it in their spellbooks. a fire-blasty wizard going against fire-elementals would buy a few ice-spell scrolls, copy them, then sleep to respec. linear fighters, quadratic wizards and all that though.

** The Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov avoids this to a certain degree, though not really in a good way. It carries a large compliment of anti-ship missiles and anti-air weapons. However, this is to make up for the fact that it has a small number of aircraft compared to American carriers, and for the lack of support ships in the Russian Navy. While it is less specialized than other carriers, it is MORE vulnerable.

* This probably would have been a factor for {{Gundam00}} had the Gundams not been finished products. The Exia is almost entirely melee oriented but its rifle is perfectly capable of harming gundams, Setsuna just happens to have really bad aim... The Dynames is shown to be able to use its handguns as a proto-melee weapon due to its rapid rate of fire and it has beam sabers as per normal. The Kyrios is good in both ranges and is only bad at taking hits (which it should not since it is a hit and run unit). The only problem is the Virtue's bulk which had no real supplement... until you find out it can purge the armor.

* This probably would have been a factor for {{Gundam00 had the}} Gundams not been finished products. The Exia is almost entirely melee oriented but its rifle is perfectly capable of harming gundams, Setsuna just happens to have really bad aim... The Dynames is shown to be able to use its handguns as a proto-melee weapon due to its rapid rate of fire and it has beam sabers as per normal. The Kyrios is good in both ranges and is only bad at taking hits (which it should not since it is a hit and run unit). The only problem is the Virtue's bulk which had no real supplement... until you find out it can purge the armor.

* This probably would have been a factor for Gundam00 had the Gundams not been finished products. The Exia is almost entirely melee oriented but its rifle is perfectly capable of harming gundams, Setsuna just happens to have really bad aim... The Dynames is shown to be able to use its handguns as a proto-melee weapon due to its rapid rate of fire and it has beam sabers as per normal. The Kyrios is good in both ranges and is only bad at taking hits (which it should not since it is a hit and run unit). The only problem is the Virtue's bulk which had no real supplement... until you find out it can purge the armor.

*** Because of this, it has been speculated that before the development of tools, the typical human method of hunting large game was simply to chase the prey over large distances until it died of exhaustion. Yes, that's right, humanities original evolutionary niche is not actually intelligence. We're [[TheDeterminator Determinators]]. We were so awesome that we didn't have to even touch our prey, we simply ran at it to death.

** Played straight with most other characters, but especially one shot practicioners of MartialArtsAndCrafts. There's really not THAT much call for the use of Martial Arts Chess, is there?

*** Because of this, it has been speculated that before the development of tools, the typical human method of hunting large game was simply to chase the prey over large distances until it died of exhaustion.

** The Tau get this in the blue, slightly-less-evil-than-thou shorts. They have the best infantry weaponry in the game, terrible aim, and couldn't fist-fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

** Averted fairly well in the BattleIsle series (which is basically the predecessor to Advance Wars), particularly in the third game - vehicles often had two or three different weapons (some could even have four or five!), and would attempt to use the best fit for each scenario. Some naval units featured cannons, SAMs and ASMs, almost all tanks featured machineguns alongside their main cannons (though they'd still get pretty beat up by anti-tank infantry) and so on and so forth.