History Main / ChangingGameplayPriorities

* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo II}}'' is all about this trope. Early in the game, it may seem useful to put your stat points into Energy, but by the time you reach end game you realize that those points have essentially been wasted, as all you care about by then is having just enough Strength to equip the best gear and then nothing but Vitality. Likewise, in later difficulties enemies have excessive resistance to various kinds of attack, and some of your spells scale better than others; it would be a real shame if you [[{{Unwinnable}} put all of your ability points into something useless.]] Surprise!
* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo III}}'' has a milder version of this, mitigated by the fact that your skills and gear can be changed at any time. On earlier difficulties it is not only feasible but optimal to focus entirely on your character's offensive capabilities. By the time you get into higher difficulties, doing so will get you killed. A ''lot.''

See also OneStatToRuleThemAll, when either in defiance of or as a result of this trope only one of your many statistical scores matters, and CrutchCharacter, where a certain party member is a priority at low levels, but becomes less desirable as the game goes on. Also compare MagikarpPower, where a character or tactic starts out intentionally weak, but if you persist in its use it becomes a powerhouse. A very common subtrope is LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards, where the game changes drastically because one type of character or strategy grows in power at a much faster rate than others.

* In the MMORTS ''VideoGame/{{Utopia}}'', while your province is under 1000 acres, you concentrate on defense, train mainly basic units, and must divert a lot of land to sustaining your economy. However, once you pass that size, it becomes more viable to direct all resources into military strength and train only elite units.

** In ''VideoGame/TetrisTheGrandMaster 2: The Absolute PLUS'', the T.A. Death mode starts off with a race to level 500[[note]]Levels are counted differently in ''TGM''; rather than by line clears, level is effectively (pieces dropped) + (lines cleared), though every 100 levels the level counter will stall until you clear a lone.[[/note]]. Reach 500 in 3 minutes and 25 seconds or less and you get the M rank and continue playing. From there, reaching level 999 will award the Grand Master rank. Since the second half of the game has no time restrictions, the focus shifts from speeding through the game to pure survival.

* ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'' modes where the game speed gradually increases dramatically shift over time, especially when the fall speed of blocks comes to a point where blocks will spawn on the stack, otherwise known as "20G"[[note]]20 grid cells per frame, where one frame = 1/60th of a second. Most ''Tetris'' playfields are 20-22 cells tall.[[/note]] In the early game, you have more freedom with how to stack since pieces fall so slowly, but at higher speeds, especially 20G, the "terrain" of your stack becomes a very important factor; while a poor stack in the early game simply means awkward piece placement for certain kinds of pieces, badly-done stacking at 20G will hamper your pieces' movements very badly.

* ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'' modes where the game speed gradually increases, dramatically shift over time, especially when the fall speed of blocks comes to a point where blocks will spawn on the stack, otherwise known as "20G"[[note]]20 grid cells per frame, where one frame = 1/60th of a second. Most ''Tetris'' playfields are 20-22 cells tall.[[/note]] In the early game, you have more freedom with how to stack since pieces fall so slowly, but at higher speeds, especially 20G, the "terrain" of your stack becomes a very important factor; while a poor stack in the early game simply means awkward piece placement for certain kinds of pieces, badly-done stacking at 20G will hamper your pieces' movements very badly.

* {{Civilization}} 5 starts out with a single city, where you have to survive against barbarians and explore your surroundings in the bronze age, by the Renaissance you'll be forming trade deals with other countries and spreading your religion, by the modern era you'll be pushing Toursim and trying to win the Space Race.

* Most ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy'' games gradually introduce game mechanics. Often, this includes something like a system of magic or various [[LimitBreak limit breaks]] which can drastically change your priorities.

** In 3.x ''Dungeons and Dragons'', AC (Armor Class) is important at low-to-mid levels because it allows you to avoid taking damage from enemy attacks. At higher levels, everybody has such high attack bonuses that AC becomes meaningless. Even if you have +5 Full Plate Armor most enemy attacks are going to hit you.

* This is used as a deliberate gameplay mechanic in ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'': at specific points of the story, your Party Level increases, unlocking new battle mechanics but increasing overall difficulty by removing things that assist you. For example, initially you have an infinite amount of time to plan out your turn, and the actual turn timer only counts down when you're moving or attacking. On higher Party Levels, the amount of time before the turn timer starts counting down is first reduced to 3 seconds, then 1 and at last none, the total turn time doesn't stop counting down if you stop attacking or moving and it goes down from 5 to 4 seconds. On the other hand, you also gain the ability to greatly power up your special attacks and combo them together. What this means is that gameplay shifts from spamming special attacks whenever you have a chance to use them since they do more hits than your normal attack combo and you can use 2 during your turn, to using them at the end of your turn to make them stronger via the combo you've built up, to possibly forego using them entirely until you've built up a sufficiently lenghty combo so that you can chain multiple ones together. Finally, once you enter the BonusDungeon, the number of special attacks you can chain together is doubled, but whenever you start chaining them together, the [[InterfaceScrew placement of the buttons changes around randomly]], meaning you're likely to try to screw up the chain by pressing the wrong button.

* In ''VideoGame/XComEnemyUnknown'', your first upgrade can be either weapons or armor. At this stage in the game, your weapons are still killing enemies in one shot, so upgrading armor is more important. By the late game, RocketTagGameplay begins to emerge and you need to upgrade your weapons to keep from being outgunned.

** In 3.x ''Dungeons and Dragons'', AC (Armor Class) is important and low-to-mid levels because it allows you to avoid taking damage from enemy attacks. At higher levels, everybody has such high attack bonuses that AC becomes meaningless. Even if you have +5 Full Plate Armor most enemy attacks are going to hit you.

* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo II}}'' is all about this trope. Early in the game, it may seem useful to put your stat points into Energy, but by the time you reach end game you realize that those points have essentially been wasted, as all you care about by then is having just enough Strength to equip the best gear and then nothing but Vitality. Likewise, in later difficulties enemies have excessive resistance to various kinds of attack, and some of your spells scale better than others; I sure hope you didn't [[{{Unwinnable}} put all of your ability points into something useless.]] Surprise!

* In ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'' games:
** In the early game you have to more or less take what you can get in terms of mons and attacks. You start out with just a few monsters with low coverage on the ElementalRockPaperScissors table, and healing items are rare and expensive, if available at all. Having one of your monsters faint can absolutely cripple you, especially if that monster was your only answer to a specific problem. As the game progresses and you build your collection of monsters, this problem fixes itself. It also helps that you gain the ability to heal and revive your monsters more easily. The later games, especially in generations after the first, give you a huge amount of variety in what you can put in your team and new ways to learn attacks of different types.
** This applies even more to PvP battling, after you've finished playing the game itself. To generalize, it seems like the best pokemon for an in-game team are those with high immediate power, average speed, and reasonable bulk, and Pokemon that are be easy to obtain and require little to no strategy outside of type matchups. Stuff that requires trade evolution like Scizor and Conkeldurr are not liable to be used for in-game runs for logistical reasons. Finally, Stealth Rock weakness means nothing in-game (no trainers ever use the move), so you're free to use a whole team of mons weak to Rock if you want (unless you're challenging a Rock-type Gym leader, of course). For a PvP team, as long as the pokemon is obtainable, it almost doesn't matter how hard it is to get. Early pokemon are typically (but not always) to be discarded in favor of later, more powerful pokemon that allow for more strategy and competitive team building. And the move Stealth Rock, which will severely cripple all of your Rock-weak mons just by switching in, is pretty much everywhere, what means a Rock-weak mon must be ''very'' good to be competitively worthy.
*** Powerhouses like the pseudo-legendaries (with the exception of the Garchomp line) and Volcarona are useless in-game because they tend to have a small movepool and be disappointingly weak, slow and all-around annoying to train until they reach their final evolution, which requires heavy LevelGrinding. In PvP, they're pretty much everywhere, for the reasons already mentioned.
*** Pretty much any defensive/supportive mon usually sucks in-game. Smeargle may be able to spam Dark Void in VGC and use literally any support moves but that doesn't help one bit on a playthrough (don't bother making it an HM slave either, you may think it'll be fun to have a flying, surfing, cutting and strengthing(?) Smeargle, but it's not). Even if you managed to get Prankster on a Sableye in a normal run, it's not going to hurt much, as priority status moves aren't going to get you to the next town any time soon (check the entry a few points below). Just hope you get Keen Eye instead of Stall! Chansey/Blissey are slow as balls and can't really do much damage either. Leveling them is frustratingly slow: not only are caves and wild grass loaded with Pokemon that are immune to Toxic, but the trainers tend to be overloaded with physical sweepers that can blast Chansey to bits. Gen 5 was particularly nasty about this, where everyone and their uncle seemed to be sporting a fighting-type coverage move.
*** Any defensive, stally Pokemon is either frustrating to use or awful for in-game runs. Ferrothorn, Slowpoke family, and (again) Chansey family are some of them, despite being very good in competitive play. Although having a big wall on your team like Forretress and Rhyperior can really be helpful in some situations: if your team is almost entirely down, for example, you can just switch in that Skarmory you have and wall everything, while being able to use Potions and Full Restores on your own team, which at times can save you some losses.
*** Wobbuffet. Competitively, it was so good it was deemed broken for two generations. In-game, however, it's hard to find a worse Pokémon. It needs to be hit to hit back (so it needs constant healing) and you need to guess right, otherwise you've wasted a turn, not to mention the AI just chooses moves randomly so you couldn't make an educated guess anyway. Even Magikarp can at least deal damage consistently, and it actually improves as it levels up.
*** Scolipede. It's the backbone of Baton Pass teams in the metagame right now, but in-game, Speed Boost is a fairly negligible ability. Sure, it might be able to help you in big battles, but when training with wild Pokés and when fighting regular trainers, there isn't going to be a lot outspeeding Scolipede. Disregarding Speed Boost, its other abilities are even worse, and unfortunately, those are the ones you'll be most likely using on him anyway. Combine that with an overdone typing and an average attacking stat, and you have a less-than optimal member in a well balanced story team.
*** Gligar has been underwhelming in-game in every appearance it has ever made. In Gold/Heartgold, you cannot catch one until you reach Blackthorn City, and by that time, 85 Base Attack simply doesn't cut it - especially as you cannot evolve it in those games. Even in the games you can catch and evolve it (Platinum, [=BW2=], XY) it is quite unimpressive, as it is recieved far too late in those games, and gets virtually no moves of use in those games, as you won't be getting [=TM26=] in time to make it useful. Also, even though it is a Flying type it can't learn Fly, which is bad because you will either need another Flying type or one of the few non-Flying type Pokemon with access to Fly. And evolving Gligar into Gliscor is also a pain in the butt: you will need to caugh up a Razor Fang which is an extremely rare item that is sometimes only available in post game, ''then'' you have to level it up during the night, meaning that if you are using an emulator without day and night mechanics you are pretty much screwed. Competitively, Gliscor has stalled nearly every single competitive battler into frustration at one point or another. Its hidden ability (something you will never use in-game) lets it stall for years. Gligar also has some competitive success. It is one of only eight LC Uber Pokemon, and it has some use in lower tiers with a great support move pool and bulk with Eviolite.
*** Also, its counterpart Weavile. The main problem is it's movepool and availibility. While Weavile does not have many problems finding Dark type STAB with Night Slash and Faint Attack, he does however have trouble getting a good Ice type STAB. Unless you are playing gen 4 and have an Avalanche TM he either has to rely on weak special attacks or Ice Shard (although [=BW2=] and Platinum tutors gave it Ice Punch). Even with base 120 attack Ice Shard won't be that strong. As for availibilty, it usually comes late game (like most Ice types), which is pretty bad.
*** While not a Pokémon, per say, but moves with major downsides, while powerful in competitive battles, are terrible in-game. This includes most recoil moves, unless you have something with Rock Head or Magic Guard. Close Combat is excluded since you aren't planning that the opponent will hit you at all with that move.
*** While not a bad Pokémon in-game by any means, Arcanine suffers from this. To utilize his stronger offensive stat, you're left with no choice but to run 2 coverage moves that damage you in return (Flare Blitz and Wild Charge). Without Flare Blitz, Arcanine has to deal with Fire Fang as its best physical STAB move. That being said, Arcanine does have other coverage options to replace Wild Charge, like Thunder Fang, Crunch and Close Combat, but another one of its selling points, Extremespeed, only has 5 PP which can make Return a better alternative in-game. Alternatively, you -could- run a specially-based Arcanine, with the more reliable Flamethrower, but apart from that, its options for special coverage are virtually non-existent.
*** Non-damaging moves are also relatively [[UselessUsefulSpell useless]], with the exception of healing moves (even then, there's potions), although the likes of Quiver Dance and Swords Dance can be pretty useful for certain Gym Leaders and E4, and for the aftergame Red, and Stealth Rock is pretty useful for trainers with full parties like the evil boss leader of every generation, the champion, and various Gym and E4 members.
*** Braviary can be found after the third gym on Route 4 in White 2 on Mondays at Level 25 with Defiant as its ability. Getting something with base 125 Attack that early in a game is earth-shattering. It can use two [=HMs=] without diminishing its power (Strength and Fly, STAB on both), and the amount of Intimidate users you'll encounter in-game makes Defiant very worthwhile. Competitively, it is for the most part outshined by every Flying type bar the crappy ones. It was useful in NU last gen, but it wasn't anything special.
*** Unfezant for 5th gen games: it has a good movepool, and spamming Air Cutter plus Super Luck is overpowered early in the game. Another bird that works better than you might think for similar reasons is Farfetch'd, especially with Gen VI critical hit mechanics.
*** Sawk in Pokemon Black and White. It is available right before Lenora and it will bring you a helpful type advantage since Lenora can be pretty difficult to defeat. It comes at a generally decent level to the point where you sometimes don't even need to grind it one bit because it will be around the same level as the rest of your team. It learns useful moves upon level up like Brick Break and Close Combat while also being able to learn some nice TM moves like Earthquake and Rock Slide. Sawk is extremely strong in the beginning of the game and stays strong until the very end making it a useful Pokemon. However, Sawk in competetive play is kind of meh.
*** Other Pokemon that are good in game but not so competitively include most starter Pokemon, most regional birds and bugs, Luxray, Golem, Dugtrio, Victreebell, Rampardos, Scyther, Florges...

* In the first ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts'' game, the big change comes when you learn Cure magic. The game can be easily divided into "pre-Cure" and "post-Cure" sections. Healing magic is so overpoweringly useful that it single-handedly makes Magic Points the most important stat in the game.

* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}} II'' is all about this trope. Early in the game, it may seem useful to put your stat points into Energy, but by the time you reach end game you realize that those points have essentially been wasted, as all you care about by then is having just enough Strength to equip the best gear and then nothing but Vitality. Likewise, in later difficulties enemies have excessive resistance to various kinds of attack, and some of your spells scale better than others; I sure hope you didn't [[{{Unwinnable}} put all of your ability points into something useless.]] Surprise!

* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' editions before 4th edition, spellcasting was a liability in early levels and grew to [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards engulf the entire game]] by the time you reached higher levels. Early on, your hit points are very low and even the fighter can go down to a single lucky critical hit from a tough opponent, making heavy armor and good hit dice a real boon. By the time you reach mid-game, however, your spellcasters will have obtained a stockpile of very useful spells that let them pull their weight, and by endgame a caster's buffing capabilities combined with their hundreds of spell slots filled with powerful, reality-altering spells have completely changed the game.
* In 3.x ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', AC (Armor Class) is important and low-to-mid levels because it allows you to avoid taking damage from enemy attacks. At higher levels, everybody has such high attack bonuses that AC becomes meaningless. Even if you have +5 Full Plate Armor most enemy attacks are going to hit you.
* The changing gameplay priorities are actually built right in to 4th edition ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' in the form of tiers. Every 10 levels, your characters get a pretty significant growth in power plus new capabilities, such as flight, {{teleportation}} or, in the final tier, the ability to cheat death and resurrect themselves at least once per day. There are some pretty dramatic differences between the capabilities and priorities of a heroic-tier party, where resources are scarce and powers need to be carefully rationed, and an epic-tier party, who won't flinch for anything short of a mad god and who can fight regular enemies for days straight without resting.

This is often achieved by introducing new game mechanics or systems, such as a system of magical spells or limit breaks that alter gameplay. It can also be achieved by removing limitations on the characters, such as providing more plentiful ammunition for more powerful guns as the game progresses. Or, instead of altering the player's capabilities, the game might have the opponents step up their own tactics and capabilities as the game progresses, forcing the player to adapt to new situations and use tools they would otherwise ignore.

** You start out with just a few monsters with low coverage on the ElementalRockPaperScissors table, and healing items are rare and expensive, if available at all. Having one of your monsters faint can absolutely cripple you, especially if that monster was your only answer to a specific problem. As the game progresses and you build your collection of monsters, this problem fixes itself. It also helps that you gain the ability to heal and revive your monsters more easily.

*** Gligar has been underwhelming in-game in every appearance it has ever made. In Gold/Heartgold, you cannot catch one until you reach Blackthorn City, and by that time, 85 Base Attack simply doesn't cut it - especially as you cannot evolve it in those games. Even in the games you can catch and evolve it (Platinum, BW2, XY) it is quite unimpressive, as it is recieved far too late in those games, and gets virtually no moves of use in those games, as you won't be getting TM26 in time to make it useful. Also, even though it is a Flying type it can't learn Fly, which is bad because you will either need another Flying type or one of the few non-Flying type Pokemon with access to Fly. And evolving Gligar into Gliscor is also a pain in the butt: you will need to caugh up a Razor Fang which is an extremely rare item that is sometimes only available in post game, ''then'' you have to level it up during the night, meaning that if you are using an emulator without day and night mechanics you are pretty much screwed. Competitively, Gliscor has stalled nearly every single competitive battler into frustration at one point or another. Its hidden ability (something you will never use in-game) lets it stall for years. Gligar also has some competitive success. It is one of only eight LC Uber Pokemon, and it has some use in lower tiers with a great support move pool and bulk with Eviolite.
*** Also, its counterpart Weavile. The main problem is it's movepool and availibility. While Weavile does not have many problems finding Dark type STAB with Night Slash and Faint Attack, he does however have trouble getting a good Ice type STAB. Unless you are playing gen 4 and have an Avalanche TM he either has to rely on weak special attacks or Ice Shard (although BW2 and Platinum tutors gave it Ice Punch). Even with base 120 attack Ice Shard won't be that strong. As for availibilty, it usually comes late game (like most Ice types), which is pretty bad.

*** Braviary can be found after the third gym on Route 4 in White 2 on Mondays at Level 25 with Defiant as its ability. Getting something with base 125 Attack that early in a game is earth-shattering. It can use two HMs without diminishing its power (Strength and Fly, STAB on both), and the amount of Intimidate users you'll encounter in-game makes Defiant very worthwhile. Competitively, it is for the most part outshined by every Flying type bar the crappy ones. It was useful in NU last gen, but it wasn't anything special.

** This also applies to competitive battling, after you've finished playing the game itself. To generalize, it seems like the best pokemon for an in-game team are those with high immediate power, average speed, and reasonable bulk, and Pokemon that are be easy to obtain and require little to no strategy outside of type matchups. Non-damaging moves are relatively [[UselessUsefulSpell useless]], with the exception of healing moves (even then, there's potions), although the likes of Quiver Dance and Swords Dance can be pretty useful for certain Gym Leaders and E4, and for the aftergame Red, and Stealth Rock is pretty useful for trainers with full parties like the evil boss leader of every generation, the champion, and various Gym and E4 members. For a competitive team, as long as the pokemon is obtainable, it almost doesn't matter how hard it is to get. Early pokemon are typically (but not always) to be discarded in favor of later, more powerful pokemon that allow for more strategy and competitive team building.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'' games, you start out with just a few monsters with low coverage on the ElementalRockPaperScissors table, and healing items are rare and expensive, if available at all. Having one of your monsters faint can absolutely cripple you, especially if that monster was your only answer to a specific problem. As the game progresses and you build your collection of monsters, this problem fixes itself. It also helps that you gain the ability to heal and revive your monsters more easily.

* In ''VideoGame/StarWarsKnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' you can get through most of the game with a balanced JackOfAllTrades build that focuses on social skills and nifty force powers. This grows more and more unwieldy as the game progresses, until the final boss is all but [[{{Unwinnable}} impossible]] if you aren't a highly specialized combat machine.

* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot'' 3 has an interesting version of this that isn't present in the first two games. The first main chunk of the game consists of reaching the end of levels and obtaining crystals. After obtaining the running shoes, however, the game becomes all about completing challenges and time trials for 100% completion.

* The changing gameplay priorities are actually built right in to 4th edition ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' in the form of tiers. Every 10 levels, your characters get a pretty significant growth in power plus new capabilities, such as flight, {{teleportation}} or, in the final tier, the ability to cheat death and resurrect themselves at least once per day. There are some pretty dramatic differences between the capabilities and priorities of a heroic-tier party, where resources are scarce and powers need to be carefully rationed, and an epic-tier party, who won't flinch for anything short of a mad god and who can fight regular enemies for days straight without resting.