Needs Help: Competitive Balance

That makes them a Gradual Grinder. Problem solved.

It has nothing to do with Competitive Balance because either the person can fight back or they can't. If they can fight back, they're a Gradual Grinder, since their main attributes are speed and defense. If they can't fight back, then they're likely to be a support character because they don't help in damage or defense.

edited 18th Sep '12 4:10:42 PM by KingZeal

So you're agreeing that -Attack/+Speed/=Defense has a place in Competitive Balance and the Gradual Grinder would fit that description?

(-Attack doesn't mean a character can't fight back, any more than -Speed means a character can't move. They just don't excel at it as a stat on its own.)

Yes, in this particular case, it does. You mentioned "rogue-type" characters before again, using an RPG-like setting which, unless it's PVP, wouldn't have anything to do with Competitive Balance. A Gradual Grinder in competitive would be a character like Dhalsim, Rose or Guile in Street Fighter IV, who use safe positioning and long-range attacks that cover distance quickly to stay out of your range while they gradually whittle your health.

Are you saying -Attack/+Speed/=Defense is a valid build for use in Competitive Balance?

I'm sorry that when you asked me if I could name ANY example of builds that could be described as -Attack/+Speed/=Defense, I said rogue. I accept that this was a mistake and that "support characters" do not relate to Competitive Balance.

What I've been saying since then is whether or not the archetype is one that applies to Competitive Balance, it does not disqualify the build from applying.

What the resulting discussion has actually made even clearer is that builds and archetypes are definitely not the same thing. A build is how something looks statwise, and an archetype is how something is used within the game or the story. Some builds can spawn multiple archetypes, and some archetypes can span multiple possible builds. Further, some archetypes could clearly work either as part of a team or in a head-to-head competition, while others are more clearly focused on one or the other.

TV Tropes has always been focused more on the archetype side, because it's about stories rather than statistics. But it does make the task of categorizing things STATWISE more difficult, because of all those overlapping elements that are not often clearly distinguished.

edited 18th Sep '12 6:41:13 PM by Tyoria

What I actually asked was for an example of a character where the third stat was irrelevant. Even in a Gradual Grinder, the average health is part of the balance (assuming the character was designed to be that way). Otherwise, they'd have high speed, no attack, and no health. Which essentially would make them a character who would rely on getting the first hit and running away for the ENTIRE match. Most competitions ban characters like that for a reason.

You, some posts ago:

You asked for a character who didn't use the third stat and for a a high/low/average. I tried to give you both and the +speed/-offense/=defense character was for the latter.

It's an interesting observation, though. Of all the stats "defense" is the least likely to be dropped. It might be "average" rather than low or high, but is less likely to be "irrelevant". Mighty Glacier, Fragile Speedster, Stone Wall, and Glass Cannon all use defense. They don't all use speed. If there's a reason they ended up this way, one might get a suggestion that while tropes for +Defense/-Speed, -Defense/+Speed, +Offense/-Defense, and -Offense/+Defense are base moulds, +Attack/-Speed and -Attack/+Speed are templates added to some level of preexisting defense.

edited 18th Sep '12 11:26:59 PM by Tyoria

Yes, because you said something about how the three-point scale "excludes" characters. Which it doesn't. A low/high/average just has nothing to do with competitive balance as we're discussing it in the same way that Lightning Bruiser actually doesn't, either. You were totally right when you said it yourself: there's builds and there's gameplay styles. Your hypothetical low/high/average character is just a stat build that overlaps with a lot of character types on the scale. They can be a Gradual Grinder, a (as suggested before) Forceless Speedster, or as I mentioned before, a theoretical Agile Wall.

So what is even the argument now?

Also, no. Of the three, ATTACK is the least likely to be dropped. Because a cast of characters that all do low damage is going to lead to boring and tedious games. It's far more likely for defense to be dropped to keep the risk/reward factor high.

edited 19th Sep '12 3:48:39 AM by KingZeal

You should have stopped right there. You ask what we're arguing about now? We're arguing about what we've argued about earlier in the thread. The words that follow this "yes" are about what we argued about, which you must think is important or you would not have followed up that "yes" with an extended rationale about why the statement I pointed out was "right" in the larger sense despite the fact that it was "inaccurate" in documenting what had happened. I screwed up trying to give that rogue example as a Competitive Balance archetype, but I didn't appreciate your misrepresentation of the argument I've been making that anyone can backtrack and read, and now your insinuation that I've forced you into a tangent you wanted nothing to do with, when if that were the case you would have just said "oh, right, forgot". I'd be happy to drop it, I'm just not going to stand for my argument being provably misrepresented. Maybe we're both a little proud.

So, actual discussion forthcoming...

Yes, I've been saying the mandated three-stat build solution, which has generally proposed that we modify our existing two-stat builds (Fragile Speedster, Stone Wall, and Glass Cannon) kills off the possibility of viable builds that either only use two stats or have an average third stat. You state that "A low/high/average just has nothing to do with competitive balance", but I don't understand how that has been demonstrated. If you mean "the archetype you gave in particular has nothing to do with Competitive Balance," you're right, but it was an example of a possible build. Do we take it as a given that a high/low/high does have to do with Competitive Balance? If so why exactly would high/low/average not have anything to do with it?

But aren't attack and defense basically wedded to each other? I couldn't really think of any examples where a base-defense character wouldn't need an attached attack as well, but if your characters don't use the defense stat at all, what is the applicability of an attack stat? BTW I'm not enormously enamored of this little "theory", so you don't have to worry about aggressively shooting it down. I was just hoping to fly the idea past you.

edited 19th Sep '12 5:07:31 AM by Tyoria

Because what you're giving isn't an example of a "two-stat" build. It's still three-stats, except one of them is average rather than good. So long as a three-tier system DOES exist, your -Atk/+Spd/~Def build is basically either a mediocre Jack of All Stats or, at best, a slightly buffer Fragile Speedster.

Okay, let me try again: a "two-stat" system has nothing to do with Competitive Balance mainly because it's an entirely different game system that is its own severely limited beast. The only way it will affect anything is if a third stat doesn't exist in the game in the first place. If everyone moves the same speed, then there's only Atk+/Def-, Def+/Atk- and Atk/Def. But that only works in THAT game system. The second you introduce a faster character, then now you have Atk+/Def-/Spd-, Def+/Atk-/Spd-, Atk/Def/-Spd and ?/?/+Spd.

Do you see what I'm saying now?

"Attack" can basically be described as "the ability to win" while Defense is "the ability to not lose". A high ability to win results in faster, riskier games. A high ability to not lose creates longer, slower-paced games.

edited 19th Sep '12 10:27:10 AM by KingZeal

Let me get this straight. You consider a two-stat system as one referring to only two stats, while a hi/lo/average build would still refer to a three-stat system, right? In other words, the Glass Cannon, Stone Wall, and Fragile Speedster tropes can be considered three-stat tropes because while they only measure a trade-off of two stats their examples can still have a third stat, it just isn't measured in the actual trope, is that right? I'm just trying to get a better understanding. I don't think anybody is trying to exclude a third stat altogether, the question is if we should have the tropes measure all three stats or only two stats with the third left unmeasured/average.

@ Tyoria: While all three stats may be dropped, I'd have to say that I agree with King Zeal that dropping attack is least likely to happen. Defense may be dropped (One-Hit-Point Wonder) or speed (defense tower), but you can't defeat an opponent without attack. Something completely lacking defense or speed can still play a vital role, but something completely lacking attack power is nothing more than support.

edited 19th Sep '12 3:35:52 PM by shiro_okami

Yes, Glass Cannon, Fragile Speedster, and Mighty Glacier only really care about two stats. The third stat is completely arbitrary. The page for Glass Cannon even states that it may or may not overlap with Fragile Speedster; speed is irrelevant to the former and attack is irrelevant to the latter. Likewise, we really need a better trope for Attack+/Defense- than The Berserker, since that covers a lack of regard for defense, not a lack of defense. We also need an Agile Wall and Spiked Wall trope in regards to high defense and high evasion speed or attack speed.

EDIT: Wait, I'm wrong about Stone Wall. That trope is defined as a lack of speed AND power, but high defense, so it's definitely a three-stat trope. In that regard, Spiked Wall may be almost redundant to Mighty Glacier.

edited 19th Sep '12 4:55:44 PM by KingZeal

No, you were right, the trope description for Stone Wall says that it is not necessarily slow, so the speed stat is arbitrary.

edited 19th Sep '12 6:19:04 PM by shiro_okami

Tyoria, you are within your rights to consider the images I made for Competitive Balance "contradictory and confusing". However, I think that if anything you're upset with them because they quite clearly represent viewpoints you don't agree with. Though calling them art and myself an artist is a stretch (and I'm sure you'd have had some good contributions in the thread that lead up to them) those are some of my proudest contributions to this site. I'd appreciate some consideration for the effort that went into making them rather than dismissive comments.

But again, that's your prerogative.

I thought that Attack+/Defense- was Glass Cannon, but.

So, just as a quick sum-up check, we seem to be in conflict on whether the Competitive Balance tropes should only refer to two tropes each or three tropes each right?

@Earnest: It does seem that your images are creating confusion for the people here. I would like to ask, is it okay for us to comment them out until further notice? Also, I don't quite understand why your chart isn't the image for Lightning Bruiser.

edited 19th Sep '12 7:38:40 PM by WaxingName

Earnest....

If you go over the pages of Glass Cannon, Stone Wall, and Fragile Speedster, you will note that both the description and the examples allow for high-, low-, or medium-speed Glass Cannons and Stone Walls, while Fragile Speedster likewise allows for any variety of attack.

The triangle of the picture, however, assigns a fixed attribute to that stat, making it low in all cases. This contradicts both the description of the trope, and the examples given to the trope. We have the problem, (and it was not created by the image, but certainly perpetuated by it) that people assume the tropes in question imply a third-stat attribute.

It's true, I don't want the tropes modified to fit the picture either. But it would be a modification. That's not my subjective interpretation, it's a fact.

The images are well-done and aesthetically pleasing. If the three-stat solution were adopted, I'd want them on all the pages created. If we could come up with a way to make the triangle blurred out somehow on the attribute that's not accounted for, I'd have suggested that. But I couldn't think of any way to use that existing image in a way that illustrated the tropes as they are now and as I'd prefer them to remain. Since how nice they looked wasn't relevant to the discussion, and I couldn't think of a way to use them as I'd like, I didn't bring that up.

I'm really sorry that my comments made you feel disrespected as an editor and contributor. I know how important that is. To be honest I really had no idea who created the images, nor did I know you were keeping up with this argument and would be personally hurt by my words. Had I, I would have attempted to be more tactful. So I apologize. None of the things I have a problem with were created by your images, so I'm not blaming you for anything, but I see how it may have come across that way. Again, I apologize.

However, I stand by what I said regarding clarity.

edited 19th Sep '12 7:58:39 PM by Tyoria

Ah, sorry if I'm coming off as touchy. It's just I spent a good deal of effort trying to hammer out a consensus in the IP thread and make something worthwhile. Ego aside, if the pics are ultimately found to be misleading I'd accept them getting taken off.

We actually did have some discussion in the thread about how many and which stats to use in the illustrations, and ultimately support went to the three stat solution for being the smallest number of stats that could clearly illustrate the tropes.

That said, apology accepted, and sorry for the fuss. I do appreciate the danger of having bad signage and description on a trope, and hope y'all can get to a consensus on this.

The pics on the trope pages are actually placeholders, that's why Lightning Bruiser and Jack of All Stats have different images. Enough people liked the existing images that they were left alone and the graphs were put in the page's image links tabs.

edited 19th Sep '12 8:06:15 PM by Earnest

I think your chart could become Lightning Bruiser's image once we take the "subversion" angle away from that trope. I made two YKTTWs, Faster Than They Look and Stronger Than They Look, to do that since we agreed on that on a repair thread on Lightning Bruiser.

Alright, I wrote down a chart that fleshes out the major issues we have to deal with. For the most part, I get what Tyoria, Earnest and shiro are all saying, but most of our problems stem from an inherent problem with the Competitive Balance archetype. So, I wrote my proposal for how to fix it.

First of all, we need a Super-Trope called Game Balance and from there, the subtropes go as follows.

• Game Balance
  • Cooperative Balance (we can work on that in a different thread)
  • Competitive Balance

So then, Competitive Balance has three major elements, Attack, Defense and Speed. However, those three are then split into two subcategories. Most of our problems come from our initial failure to acknowledge these subcategories. So I made a quick chart to demonstrate:

• Attack: The quantity of damage given.
  • Damage Per Second (Attack+Speed): How much overall damage the character does.
  • Counterattack (Attack+Defense): Attacks that happen immediately after an event (most likely an attack).

• Defense: The quantity of damage negated.
  • Range (Defense+Attack): Distance covered while keeping vulnerable body safe.
  • Evasion (Defense+Speed): How well the character can avoid damage entirely.

• Speed: Amount of effect in X time.
  • Priority (Speed+Attack): How fast an effect happens.
  • Movement (Speed+Defense): Distance covered with vulnerable body.

So really, that's six factors we need to worry about. Three major attributes and two sub-attributes and the various combinations thereof.

edited 20th Sep '12 1:43:29 PM by KingZeal

I can start up a YKTTW for Cooperative Balance. I just need a good summary of its subtropes so that we have something to work from.

I posted this last page:

• Tanking
  • Stone Wall: (Absorbs lots of damage)
  • Agile Wall: (Avoids lots of damage)
  • Barbed Wall: (Discourages an initial attack or prevents further attacks following one)
  • Mirage Wall: Uses illusions/decoys to negate enemy attacks.
  • Aggro Wall: Keeping enemies focused on one teammate.
  • Covering Wall: Highly mobile; absorbs damage, status effects, or even death in place of an ally.

• Damage Per Second (DPS)
  • Gradual Grinder (deals steady amounts of damage over time)
  • Glass Cannon: They can't form any other function BUT attack.
  • Berserker (deals heavy damage in chunks)
  • Combination Attack (needs a single hit to link several attacks together)
    • All Your Powers Combined (deal major damage together)
  • Nuker (deals massive amounts of damage in a single overwhelming attack)
    • Finishing Move
    • Instant-Win Condition
    • Special Enemy Predator: Specializes in taking out a very troublesome type of enemy.
    • Mage Killer

• Support Teammate
  • Status Buffer/Debuffer
    • Power Nullifier
    • Anti-Magic
  • The Medic
  • Logistics Specialist: Makes sure the party has what they need to be most effective. Often in the form of thieving, haggling, scavenging, mixing, etc.
  • The Face: Tends to avoid attritional combat/makes new allies/secures new resources.
  • The Solver: Opens locked doors, disarms traps, deciphers languages, and solves other obstacles.
  • Mission Control: Provides critical intel.

edited 20th Sep '12 2:18:09 PM by KingZeal

Problem with "Agile Wall": The Stone Wall trope already refers to defensive characters whose defense is evasion based. We need to do something about that.

Also, can you convert that post to source code so that I can easily copypaste it?

edited 20th Sep '12 6:58:19 PM by WaxingName

If there's an overarching supertrope to the notion of "all character builds having their place within a game", it's still probably a subtrope to overall "Game Balance". Granted, it'd be the biggest slice. "Character Balance" might suggest more of a narrative focus, and "Player Character Balance" might suggest a game with multiple non-computer opponents. "Playable Character Balance"?

It's not so much that "Competitive Balance" (player controls only one character of many possible choices) and "Cooperative Balance" (player controls several characters on a single team) are two distinct sister tropes. Sister tropes can overlap some, but ALL applicable "Competitive Balance" builds show up in "Cooperative Balance". "Competitive Balance" applies when the majority of the game is structured around how well the character can carry out the barest minimum of tasks single-handedly: Run, punch, avoid being killed. Those tasks can be made harder, but not fundamentally changed in such a way that no single character can perform all the tasks — they will just have a harder time carrying out some of them than others.

"Cooperative Balance" does not require that any single character be able to carry out all available tasks. It often sets things up intentionally so that this cannot happen. Even if the game is fundamentally built around killing things, it can make things that only some characters can kill and a separate group of enemies that only another group can kill, and not include any overlap. Tasks can be divided up so that characters are helpless without each other: the monster can only be killed with the swing of an enchanted sword, which the mage can enchant but not swing and the fighter can swing but not enchant. There can be any number of non-battlefield-related tasks to accomplish that are doable only or primarily by characters who suck on the battlefield, yet are vital to completing the game.

The Solo-Character Run is when people try to take the "Cooperative Balance" game and play it as though it were a Competitive Balance game.

...all this taken in conjunction and one might conclude that Competitive Balance is a subtrope just of "Game Balance" (or whatever we'd like to call it) rather than that there are THREE tropes of Game Balance, Competitive Balance, and Cooperative Balace. "Game Balance" stipulates that there are multiple tasks to be accomplished, which may be done in a variety of ways with characters weighted to different strengths. Competitive Balance is the subtrope of when every task necessary to complete the game is accomplishable with any single selectable character.

edited 20th Sep '12 7:56:44 PM by Tyoria

Not trying to spoil anybody's fun or anything, but I think Cooperative Balance needs its own thread. Right now the priority is to fix Competitive Balance, the trope we do have, and we can make Cooperative Balance later. Let's not put the cart before the horse.

We need to take that clause out of the Stone Wall trope so it doesn't overlap with Fragile Speedster. Stone Wall should refer to toughness only. Thankfully, all the examples seem to refer to toughness.

edited 21st Sep '12 2:14:38 PM by shiro_okami

You couldn't really ignore it if you were to make a supertrope. Even if not... most, if not all, of the Competitive Balance tropes do operate within the proposed Cooperative Balance tropes.

Despite the title of the thread and the scope of everything that falls under Competitive Balance, the tropes we were talking about initially could have come under the far narrower umbrella of Necessary Drawback. I'd be fine with it if we wanted to narrow our scope to that, but I admit I like Zeal's proposed supertrope.

It's a tough call for me, it seems obvious that the majority of the idea behind Cooperative Balance is already implied with Competitive Balance. The only difference between the ideas is how it is implimented. The fundamental idea already existent in Competitive Balance is that every character contains some sort of advantage that keeps them "competitive" or otherwise be a desirable character to play as in a game. This is the reason why The Medic is useful in a fight despite not having particular impressive combat oriented skills to contribute and why a car with a higher top speed can be defeated by a car with better handling.

So either we create a brand new supertrope alongside Cooperative Balance, or we make Competitive Balance the supertrope and make subtropes in Cooperative Balance (team based specialization), Combative Balance (fighting, a more accurate name than Competitive Balance) and maybe even Vehicle Balance (Racing) to cover all the bases. And once that is organized we can probably focus our attention towards either broadening certain tropes to fit in multiple subtropes or making them more narrow so that doesn't happen (ie Lightning Bruiser being applicable for more than something combat oriented but also racing or cooperative).

That's my idea, it'll probably take more work to divide up the page but we won't have to change any wicks as they'll still go towards the supertrope. I think the argument to subdivide the attack/defense/speed triangle is not going to solve the issues of how a character's attack/defense/speed is always relative to how the editor interprets it.

edited 22nd Sep '12 1:34:56 AM by KJMackley