Decreased Abilities

The event of abilities decreasing their efficiency.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Many games have events that make players' future actions have less effect, or less chance of succeeding, than they originally had. These Decreased Abilities can be the consequences of running out of Resources or being affected by hostile actions but require players to use the abilities more efficiently to reach the same level of effect as previously.

Examples

Each point of damage received in RoboRally gives the player one card less at the beginning of each turn. As these cards are used to program a robot's movement, the reduction in number of cards effectively reduces the player's ability to control the robot.

Being hit by an ice cube or polygon ball weapon in the Monkey Race 2 party game in Super Monkey Ball 2 significantly reduces players' top speed and ability to steer.

Left 4 Dead series

GURPS Hârnmaster

Using the pattern

Instantiating Decreased Abilities can easily be done by changing the values in the game state that are part of the evaluation functions of an action. Typically, this is motivated by changes in Skills of Characters or Units. An indirect way of achieving Decreased Abilities is to require use of Limited Resources, and maybe Non-Renewable Resources, so that players have to make Risk/Reward choices of whether to use the action. This limits the Freedom of Choice when the players can use the actions. Reducing the amount of Resources a player can access or store is another way to combine Decreased Abilities with Limited Resources.

Decreased Abilities are often used as Penalties to affect Player Balance. When the effect of this needs to be modulated, Time Limits of the decrease or complementing Improved Abilities in other areas can be used to achieve a Balancing Effect.

A common place for Decreased Abilities to occur in gameplay is as the consequences of Player Killing, either represented through the loss of Tools or experience.

Balancing Effects, Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment,

Environmental Effects, Movement Limitations,

Diegetic Aspects

Interface Aspects

Narrative Aspects

Consequences

Decreased Abilities are often intended as Penalties related to Abilities, or if not perceived as such most of the time anyway. They may hinder players to feel a Exaggerated Perception of Influence and may result in total Ability Losses if the Abilities are decreased so much that the chances of success become zero. Unlike definite Ability Losses, Decreased Abilities can be used to modulate the how Challenging Gameplay a game should have without necessarily affecting how Complex Gameplay it has. While this possibility can be built into the rules of the same to support Balancing Effects or Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment, it can also instantiate Difficulty Levels by leaving up to the players to select how much Decreased Abilities they should have before actual gameplay begin. It can be used in the same way to create Handicap Systems but these may be regulated by Dedicated Game Facilitators just as well as players.

When sprung upon unaware players, Decreased Abilities can be Surprises and be the negative effects of Traps. Examples of other patterns with can be combined with Decreased Abilities for this purpose include Environmental Effects, Equipment, and Game Items when these look harmless.

If given a narrative framing, Decreased Abilities can be part of both Abstract Player Construct Development and Character Development.

Decreased Abilities can be used to negatively define Orthogonal Differentiation. This kind of differentiation typical is an emergent feature due to different levels of Damage or depletion of Resources between Units or players in a team.