Min-Maxing should be a pretty familiar concept to anybody who has played their share of RPGs. Players optimize one trait and sacrifice others to be particularly strong in a single area. Often, this is enough to put the game and its mechanics off balance and let players run through the game without issues.
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It is a controversial subject because it arguably breaks the game and can especially ruin the fun ofany multiplayer mode. Others will argue that games should be played the way players want, so min-maxing is fine. Regardless of which side of the fence one falls on, the games detailed below all punish the idea in one way or another. It is often not on purpose, though, and more a result of how the game’s systems interact with each other.
5Pokemon
Almost everyone on planet Earth is familiar with this iconic franchise and how it works. Instead of working with a human party, players control aPokemon trainerwho catches a variety of the titular monsters and uses them in battle. There are ways to optimize a particular Pokemon’s stats. If one knows the meta, they can have extremely powerful allies during a fight.
However, they can also shoot themselves in the foot if theyonly train one Pokemonall the time. They will find themselves severely lacking if an enemy Pokemon attacks its weakness. Maybe one can make it through the game like this, but certain battles will end up being a lot harder than they need to be. Most ofPokemon’sfun is finding and leveling up these different monsters, so one is losing out on a lot if they only focus on min-maxing one of their captured beasts.
4Disco Elysium
Disco Elysiumis simultaneously a subversion of the RPG genre and extremely faithful to its core tenets.The dystopian RPGfollows a detective who wakes up with no memory of who he is or how he got into the hotel where he awoke. Players are free to attribute state points to any number of abilities.
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Even though the game has almost no combat, stats like strength are still important. In fact, every stat is important and might just come in handy at the most unexpected time. Min-Maxing might certainly be a valid way to play the game, but completely ignoring certain traits is the recipe for unexpected deaths. At the same time, this leads to a uniquely exciting playthrough.
3Dungeons And Dragons
No list about min-maxing would be complete without mentioning the game in which the concept originated. In fact, it is the originator of the genre and every other RPG owes it a small debt. The whole fun ofD&Dis immersing oneself in a new world and making decisions as if players were really living inside whatever fantasy world they created along with the kit they bought.
Min-maxing might be a sound strategy for dealing big damage, but it is also a surefire way to ruin the fun for everyone else in the party. There are also video games that adapt the ruleset of variousD&Deditions likeBaldur’s GateandKnights of the Old Republic. If it is a single-player campaign then min-maxing is not a question of ethics. Instead, one could end up with a ruined playthrough if they allocated their stats poorly.
2Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall
The second game in thisstoried Bethesda franchiseintroduced numerous mechanics that became trademarks to the series, including the bettering of abilities by repeated use. While min-maxing is not explicitly punished in this game, it is a part of the game’s core mechanics. Players are allowed to assign advantages and disadvantages to their character. While advantages make their character stronger, it will also cause them to level up slower.
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Adversely, disadvantages add a weakness of some sort while netting more experience during gameplay. Since it is a part of the game’s systems, it is not exactly like other RPGs that punish min-maxing. There are even ways to pair advantages and disadvantages so that they cancel each other out, giving the character the boost in leveling while having none of the drawbacks.
1Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivionwas a game changer in several ways. It streamlined a lot of the classicElder Scrollsmechanics to make the game more accessible and understandable while not sacrificing the series' depth and freedom.Being a launch title for the Xbox 360,it also introduced a whole new legion of gamers to the series and western RPGs as a whole, leading the way for future titles likeFallout 3, Mass Effect,andDragon Age.
Even though it was a lot easier to understand than prior entries, players could level themselves up into a corner if they min-maxed in the wrong direction. Enemies constantly scale to the player’s level and constantly grow stronger regardless of where one puts their stats. Because of this, it is easy for enemies to become too powerful if players focus on the incorrect stats. It is quite easy to do this completely by accident, potentially making the later hours ofOblivionextremely difficult.
