Needs Help: Lightning Bruiser

"Bruiser" sounds too vague. The name needs to refer to both high offense and high defense of either type.

Here's what else I can come up with that isn't vague: Diamond Cannon, Durable Attacker, Durable Damager. That's it.

Thanks, that should be more than enough.

EDIT: Ack, wait a minute, those are still biased towards durability. Never mind, I'll think of something.

edited 20th Nov '12 3:33:49 PM by shiro_okami

You're gonna get started on that YKTTW now? And can we holler this done?

Yeah. Started DefensibleCannon and brought in the "Hard-hitting Speedster" section of Lightning Bruiser as examples. All the examples should probably be examined, though.

Also, it seems I missed the necessity for another trope. We would need not only a trope for combined high offense and defense, but also combined high toughness and speed. Wasn't there a YKTTW for a trope like that made not too long ago?

edited 20th Nov '12 4:00:14 PM by shiro_okami

We agreed that Def+/Speed+ was just Stone Wall but faster. It's an arbitrary thing.

But this probably goes on the Competitive Balance thread instead considering we've settled on what to do with Lightning Bruiser. Can we call this done and continue this discussion over there?

Not really. For one thing, it's not "Def+/Speed+", it's "Durability+/Evasion+". I would see it more as a combination of strengths from Mighty Glacier (except referring to toughness only) and Fragile Speedster. And it wouldn't necessarily be The Same But More because the trope wouldn't necessarily need to have low offense, and thus would not necessarily be the same as Stone Wall. It would be just like Lightning Bruiser except with the offense is variable instead of high. Of course, maybe what I'm describing is different from the YKTTW I was referring to.

As for Lightning Bruiser, while I think we can call the matter decided (unless anyone else has some objections), but I think we should keep the thread open until the new trope is launched and officially replaces Lightning Bruiser, which might still take some time. Also, since the character archetypes are going to be solely part of Necessary Drawback, any discussion of repairing them should go in a TRS of Necessary Drawback or of the specific trope, not the Competitive Balance TRS. Anyway, I think we could still discuss them in this thread while it stays open.

edited 20th Nov '12 5:36:01 PM by shiro_okami

But you said high durability and speed in the previous post. That is Stone Wall but faster. Def+/Evd+ is somewhat different.

Also, I'm not quite sure if we need tropes that cover every single combination of two corners of the "holy triangle". The ones we have now are there because they're well-established archetypes that are often grounded in real life.

I think it would be best if you launch all of those combinations on YKTTW and see whether the community considers those other builds to be tropeworthy or not.

Why would you want to holler this done? We haven't fixed the problem or decided on any action.

And the tropes in this series that we want are the ones that naturally resonate with the audience, either by meeting their expectations or by meaningfully subverting them. For instance, "If you take off your armor, you can move more quickly" is something everyone will grok easily—hence Fragile Speedster. But "If you put on additional armor, you can move more quickly" doesn't make sense, which is why "Turbocharged Turtle" isn't a trope.

edited 21st Nov '12 5:43:57 PM by troacctid

Well, only two tropers (myself and shiro_okami), have been the only active people on this thread for a while. It would be nice if anyone else, including yourself, could give some input.

@ Waxing Name: Sorry, but I think I may have been mistaken and the tropes I proposed may not work as well as I thought they would. Because of the comparison of toughness vs. evasion in Fragile Speedster, I thought that "speed" in Lightning Bruiser was primarily being referred to in terms of "evasion". However, in looking the Lightning Bruiser examples, that doesn't seem to be the case, and it seems to be used in a more general way that covers offense, defense, and/or utility. In any case, it means that my proposed tropes wouldn't save nearly as many examples as I thought they would.

However, I still think that cutting Lightning Bruiser is the best option if we're getting rid of the "holy triangle", and that perhaps there shouldn't be a replacement for it, not until we fully establish and organize the more balanced tropes that it would subvert. This may include creating some missing tropes.

edited 23rd Nov '12 8:10:10 AM by shiro_okami

I did propose Faster Than They Look and Stronger Than They Look as two tropes that cover the subversion part that Lightning Bruiser allegedly has. However, those names are only placeholders; I need better names for them.

*bump*

I'm pretty sure we already have "Stronger Than They Look" under Muscles Are Meaningless.

Maybe we need a summary post. Honestly, this thread seemed to be a lot of in-group talk in secret language.

Muscles Are Meaningless doesn't cover if the given character is fast or fragile, only small. This is why I need a better name for the YKTTW.

What exactly do you not understand? We've been talking about a lot on this thread, so I can't quite summarize everything for you.

What the issue is. Also, I see we were talking either here or somewhere else about a triangle and a way to remove/fix it.

Alright. The issue is that Lightning Bruiser is used way too broadly. With its vague description of strong, fast, and durable, it can be used to fit every single Badass in the history of forever to some extent.

About the triangle. I'm sure you're aware of the "holy triangle" of Attack, Defense, and Speed. You can find an image of it on the Competitive Balance page. We agreed on this TRS for Competitive Balance that the holy triangle isn't necessary for the various archetypes like Fragile Speedster and Glass Cannon because they are only about two of the three "corners" of the triangle. We also agreed on that thread that the archetypes are a part of Necessary Drawback, but not a part of Competitive Balance (though action on that thread has been slow; we need more input).

Now, Lightning Bruiser's current problem ties into the Necessary Drawback problem. By itself, it can't be considered part of Necessary Drawback because having one is not an inherent part of the definition. This means Lightning Bruiser could either be a Game-Breaker or a Necessary Drawback because there is no definition stating either is necessary.

Shiro Okami and I were arguing whether we need to keep the holy triangle of Atk, Def, and Spd, and we agreed that while we can keep it around for Competitive Balance, we can ignore it in the case of the Necessary Drawback archetypes. After a little more arguing, we agreed to just delete Lightning Bruiser because while there's an idea in there, it's too vague and is applied too broadly.

Now, we're figuring out what to put in place of Lightning Bruiser, and we've got several YKTTWs up already.

I don't know what you're talking about with this "holy triangle" business. There has never been a standardized set of exactly three statistics that games adhere to and that's never been part of these tropes' definitions. You can't "keep" it any more than I can "stop" throwing jellyfish at...well, uh, live jellyfish at...uh, throwing live jellyfish left-handed at...um, well, the point is, there was never any triangle.

The problem with Lightning Bruiser is that it's messy and poorly-written. It needs cleanup and sharpening.

Wait, I didn't agree to that. In fact, I originally wanted to do the exact opposite, to keep it in the Necessary Drawback archetypes and get rid of it in Competitive Balance. Although depending on how things go, we might just get rid of it in Necessary Drawback too.

The first part of that statement is true, but the second part of that statement is completely false. For one thing, Lightning Bruiser is not primarily a video game trope. Mighty Glacier is stated to be a video game trope, but includes examples from other media too. And the "triangle" (as defined as a set of the three characteristics of strength, toughness, and speed) is the basis for these two tropes, with Mighty Glacier defined as high strength and toughness but low speed, and Lightning Bruiser as excelling in all three. I fail to see how someone can read the trope descriptions for these tropes and yet say that the "triangle" has "never been part of these tropes' definitions".

@ Waxing Name: What I meant when I said "missing trope" was that Fragile Speedster only really covers the defense use of speed (moving out of range of and ability to dodge attack) but not the offensive use of speed (closing the distance to the target and having attacks quick enough that they can't be dodged and can be repeated in a short time period). I was thinking of making a trope that would also serve as an opposite to Mighty Glacier, except it would be about the character archetype that lacks strength and forceful attacks but makes up for it with hard to dodge rapid-fire strikes. Mighty Glacier also alludes to this, as its description infers that the archetype is not only a slow mover but a slow attacker, too.

edited 26th Nov '12 7:13:47 PM by shiro_okami

The triangle thing is part of the tropes in the same way that, like, the streets of Washington D.C. make a pentagram. Which is to say it's a thing, but it's not really a thing.

That's it. I think we need a crowner to decide what course of action we should take now that we have other tropers' input. And I'm going to go through with this.

Crowner hooked per request.

*bump for votes*

Downvoted everything. What is this with "stricter, clearer" definition? What does that mean?