Area of Effect vs Splash Damage.

As a data gathering tool, I'd like some posters to try to come up with basic definitions of Area of Effect and Splash Damage, and differences there of. Please don't copy others, I'm hoping to get some feedback for the tropes themselves.

Once you're done, please stop by this thread and see if there's anything you think should be done.

Hmm...

My knee-jerk is that Splash Damage is a subtrope of Area of Effect. The idea being that in an Area, damage is applied equally, or gradually. For Splash Damage, there's one primary target, and a lesser effect that 'splashes' on others.

Generally for me, Ao E is centered around you the player, like say, a fire aura that explodes around you.

Ao E also is generally longer than one burst of damage and is constant.

Splash damage is something more targeted in an area and hurts everyone in that area in a single large burst damage, with one spot being the 'center' target.

But thats just my opinion.

edited 3rd Oct '11 12:07:23 AM by Thorn14

Here's my take:

• Area of Effect: Creates a zone which has a certain effect on it. Not necessarily damage based. Can be buffs, debuffs, etc. Is subject to many forms of targetting (player based and designated to name two).

• Splash Damage: Damage on an area, no inherent special effects. Must be instant damage, not damage over time. Must target an enemy and hit surrounding enemies.

edited 3rd Oct '11 12:08:32 AM by NiftyLostKite

I've always thought of it as AoE hits a certain area, with all targets in said area having the same things happen to them, while splash damage is something that hits one target, while dealing lesser damage to nearby targets

^ Basically I've always thought that was the distinction as well.

Splash Damage, as different from Area of Effect, does damage to a target and then does additional damage to units in a small area around the target.

Area of Effect, on the other hand, is more uniform. Everything is effect at once by the same thing.

Area of Effect - a specific area that different spells take effect on. Can be stationary, can be movable, can be controllable.

Splash Damage - an attack that hits a target but also does damage to any close enemy nearby.

I'll tyr to explain it with weapons:

Area of Effect - Cluster Bombing

Splash Damage - Napalm Bomb

I've always taken AOE to be a more general term: It doesen't have to be damage, for one thing, and it can have all sorts of targeting variables as long as it affects an area.

(cones, pbaoes, targeted aoes, location aoes, etc.)

"splash damage" is secondary damage inflicted on other targets than your primary one.

Those were what the terms originally meant. As always, the meanings have drifted a lot.

To use Starcraft terms:

The Siege Tank does splash damage.

Psi Storm is an AOE attack.

That's still the terms I'd use, though.

edited 3rd Oct '11 4:15:55 AM by Medinoc

Well, for me, the definition has always been that AoE is an effect centered within an area distributed equally to all enemies, while Splash Damage is something which has a primary effect on the main target and a secondary or diminished effect on everything else in an area around the enemy.

Siege Tank vs. Psi Storm is how I've always thought of it.

edited 3rd Oct '11 6:15:27 AM by Clarste

I would say the most important distinction is that Splash Damage is *always* about a secondary effect of some primary, single target attack. If the blood splatter from shooting an enemy causes all nearby enemies to be blinded for a time, that's still Splash 'Damage'.

Pretty much as the others already said.

I'd just like to point out some things...

Area of Effect comes in three flavors: terrain focused, caster focused and target focused. The latter two frequently get confused for "splash damage."

• Terrain focused applies the effect, (damage, healing, buffing, debuffing, just about anything,) on a specific area on the terrain. Characters can walk in and out of it.
• Caster focused creates the effect around the user. If it's an attack, it will not harm the user, unless the developers felt cruel, and often the number of enemeis hit doesn't affect it's power. If it's healing or a buff, it will give the full benefit to the user and closeby allies. This can vary from the buff being given at the time of casting, or affect team mates only as long as they stay close.
• Target focused area effects work similar to caster focused ones, but obviously are casted at a specific character while the effect affects all those around it. Otherwise, works pretty similar to the caster centered one.

As for Splash damage/effects, these are abilities or attacks targeted at single characters or a spot of terrain, and the further away from the middle point of the effect a target is, the less effective the effect, unlike an Area Of Effect that causes the full effect, reagardless of where the target is, as long as it's in range.

Usually for Game Balance reasons, a direct hit with a splash attack is stronger than an area of effect attack, but the area of effect attack could be stronger than the splash effect and in general is easier to hit with.

edited 3rd Oct '11 10:53:14 AM by KuroFox

I've taken area of effect tools to being "the main point of this to be used against multiple targets", and splash damage is "works better against single targets than the area of effect concept, but still gets the bonus off doing some damage against nearby targets". Some games only use one or the other, but I generally find Ao E = the point of this is to hit lots of stuff, Splash Damage = this has the bonus of hitting lots of stuff in certain situations (obviously said situations being "enemies which are pretty close together").

An Area-Of-Effect can be anything, really, including Healing Auras, EMP bursts, Radar Scans, Poison Clouds, etc.

Splash Damage obviously implies, well, damage, like from a Rocket Launcher. Does the most damage at the epicenter, least damage at the edge.

edited 3rd Oct '11 6:21:20 PM by RocketDude

Ao E is just that, a given effect (usually damage) over an area. Splash damage has a primary target or center, and also (as a secondary effect, usually) damages those around it.

Okay then, looks like my assessment when we built Area of Effect and Splash Damage were on target. For those of you that have answered, would you consider Geo Effects to be a subtrope of Area of Effect? Also, would you consider a grenade in an FPS to be invoking one of these tropes? If so, which one?

My answers:

• AOE: Based on some choice by the player, the attack/spell hits a known subset of all potential targets. The subset is based on some fixed pattern, although it can be anything from "a circle with its center chosen by the player" to "everything standing on a blue floor tile". The subset is usually known before the attack/spell is fired off, and in most games, the attack/spell always hits exactly where the player aimed at.
• Splash Damage: The player aims at a single target. Effects are determined based on relative position to the point where the attack/spell hit, which is not necessarily exactly where the player aimed, but is a (usually deterministic) function of it (and possibly other factors). The player usually isn't explicitly told what will and won't be hit before hand; they must either try and see what happens or calculate it themselves.

Edit: For Geo Effects, if you mean the Trope Namer, yes. If you mean the trope, not always, but there is some overlap. For the grenade, that's splash damage but not AOE.

edited 3rd Oct '11 9:14:53 PM by PoochyEXE

According to strict definitions, the term Area of Effect would imply any that works within a certain area falls under it - this would include Geo Effects.

However...I'd have to say gamer vernacular totally doesn't use it that way, outside maybe of describing a game mechanic in a clinical manner ("The terrain improves everyone standing on its area of effect, represented by [clear visual cue]").

Grenades fall under Area of Effect, unless it's a particularly game specific one that encourages you to impact targets directly with it, with missing being a discouraged situation. Grenades screw you up in an area, and few games encourage or make it really viable to directly hit with them, so you generally will pretty much always be attempting to utilize their area potency to do as much damage as possible, or even just cause damage at all in multiplayer games because people tend to have more capacity to avoid even the entire area of a grenade, meaning the grenade mechanic desperately needs its area of effect to be useful. Most games make grenades do less damage than from the center point after exploding (which the laconic for Splash Damage currently describes), but the fact is going to remain there's little point in throwing them with such accuracy that you actually impact them on the desired target, so you still really just use a certain area.

edited 3rd Oct '11 9:05:45 PM by VutherA

Area of Effect: Target an area. Everything in the area is affected equally (assuming any other factors, like allegiance, are the same).

Splash Damage: Target a unit. It takes some damage, nearby units take less.

I wish more people had been involved with the YKTTW's considering how many different definitions I'm seeing.

I never liked the term splash damage. The only weapon I can think of that actually "splashed" was the electrolob in Metroid...and the balloons in Water Warfare...

Anyway, it is a problem people think of them as the same thing. Area of Effect is exactly what the words are, something that affects an area. It doesn't even have to be an attack or do damage. Peach's final smash in Super Smash Bros is an area of effect.

Splash damage is about damage. If you want a distinction start with the words themselves. Anyway, it is more of a shooting game term that refers to not hitting someone directly but still damaging them with the resulting explosion(or in water warfare's case, splash). Missing a target with Yoshi's egg but still getting it with the explosion would be splash damage.

Area of effect is anything meant to affect an area or a large number of targets in an area anyway.