Team Development

Changes over time to teams due to changes in the game state or player skills.

Many games make use of teams.

Using the pattern

Designing for Team Development mainly consists of how Teams should be able to improve and what aspects of them can be improved. A primary influence on these choices is what the Teams consists of. In the case of Characters, any type of Character Development also causes Team Development. In Teams of players, Further Player Improvement Potential or the possibility of Gameplay Mastery instead provide means for the Teams to develop. More specifically modifying Characteristics or providing New or Improved Abilities can be used to instantiate Team Development, either on individual Characters in the Teams or on Abstract Player Constructs if they are use to describe the Teams.

Player-Planned Development can be used to let players have influence over Team Development.

Consequences

Team Development lets Teams evolve over gameplay time. This quite clearly leads to Abstract Player Construct Development in the cases where these Teams are Abstract Player Constructs. In games where the team members are players, this may give a feeling of Togetherness.

Team Development affects both PvP and TvT gameplay regarding Team Balance. It can be used to both balance the powers of players within a team and balance teams against each other but this can be a fickle solution since Team Development can easily also emphasis existing imbalances.

Meta Games Competence Areas,

Relations

Extra-Game Consequences

Instantiated by: Investments Modulated by: Resource Management, Extra-Game Actions, Social Organizations, Asymmetric Abilities, Dynamic Alliances

Can Instantiate

Abstract Player Construct Development, Competence Areas, Meta Games, Togetherness

with PvP

Player Balance

with TvT

Team Balance

Can Modulate

PvP, Teams, TvT

Can Be Instantiated By

Character Development, Characteristics, Further Player Improvement Potential, Gameplay Mastery, Improved Abilities, or New Abilities in games with Teams

Can Be Modulated By

Player-Planned Development

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

Team Balance

History

An updated version of the pattern Team Development that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.

Acknowledgements

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