Needs Help: Competitive Balance

Except that depends on the game in general. You just said that their offense, defense and speed are equal quantifiably. That's what you just said. You said it's just as hard to hit Max as it is to hurt Kenny. Gameplay wise, that makes their weaknesses exactly the same. It still takes exactly the same amount of attacks to kill either, but for different reasons.

Unless, that is, there's ANOTHER gameplay element (such as Accuracy or Armor-Piercing), in which case exactly what I said is still in effect. Now, it's more specific than Offense, Defense and Speed—which is exactly what I've been arguing.

No shit. Which is exactly what I just said. You need a single point of reference. How much stronger/weaker a character is than another is pointless. What's important is both our individual point of reference (Venom is stronger than Spiderman and Captain America, but weaker than Nova or She Hulk and MUCH weaker than Dormammu or The Hulk—so does that make him average or below average?) and the game system's "average" amount of damage.

What's also important is the utility that they use for delivering their attacks (accuracy, critical hits, more button presses, less button presses, etc.) Competition isn't just about offense/defense/speed, it's also about the risk/reward associated with either. For example, if a character is a Glass Cannon in a game which favors offense, that's a better risk/reward than being a Stone Wall in said game. That's what game balance always amounts to. Not just arbitrary weaknesses.

Yes, and also more precise.

edited 30th Sep '12 10:04:04 AM by KingZeal

NO! The exact opposite should happen. The character tropes like Lightning Bruiser need to be non-video game tropes, the triangle itself re-worded, and both the tropes and triangle need to be taken out of Competitive Balance.

edited 30th Sep '12 10:28:29 AM by shiro_okami

Actually, that makes a ton of sense.

What's also important is the utility that they use for delivering their attacks (accuracy, critical hits, more button presses, less button presses, etc.) Competition isn't just about offense/defense/speed, it's also about the risk/reward associated with either.

So you agree with me that there is a difference between a character with an high damage per time rate because of strong and slow attacks and a character with fast but weak attacks?

The character tropes like Lightning Bruiser need to be non-video game tropes,...

Lightning Bruiser is not limited to video games.

...the triangle itself re-worded, and both the tropes and triangle need to be taken out of Competitive Balance.

The triangle is not part of Competitive Balance, really, look at the page, the only place mentioning the triangle is the page image.

Taking the tropes out of Competitive Balance doesn't make any sense, they belong there. We have this family three:

• Necessary Drawback
  • Competitive Balance
    • Fragile Speedster
    • Glass Cannon
    • Mighty Glacier...

There should be no split between tropes balanced using the attack/defense/speed triangle and tropes using other stats and Lightning Bruiser should be put under the imbalance header.

Look at my list at the top of the previous page. There's is a difference, but your words were "the current tropes are fine", which they are not.

I was talking about Competitive Balance, this trope is fine as it is, maybe some minor tweaks as mentioned above, getting rid of this image which is obviously to confusing, reordering the tropes listed on the page. No major changes necessary. If we find some tropes we can add to this index, fine, but there is no need to force it.

There is no need to make some huge changes, come up with overly complicated and confusing changes to what is meant by speed and what by attack, just to be able to force examples into the A/D/S triangle. Just keep it simple.

The fact that some of the subtropes uses two and other three stats which balance each other out is not a problem, because, like I said before, Competitive Balance is not about this triangle, it is about the balance between advantages and disadvantages.

And instead of making overly long lists of how the A/D/S triangle can be combined to new tropes, we should maybe just lean back, relax, and think of what combinations of advantages and disadvantages are actually commonly used in fiction an which are worth to be the basis of a trope.

If pages like Lightning Bruiser have problems then these problems should be discussed in a thread about this trope, not in the thread about the supertrope.

How can you say this...

and in the very next sentence say this...

The two statements contradict each other completely. The character archetypes are based off of the triangle. If the character archetypes belong in Competitive Balance, that automatically means that Competitive Balance is about the triangle to a certain extent. If the triangle is not part of Competitive Balance, that automatically means that the character archetypes do not belong there and must be moved.

edited 30th Sep '12 11:48:44 AM by shiro_okami

You misunderstood, I wanted to say that the triangle is not part of the description.

That is no freaking different from what I said.

I said a long, long time ago that "Offense" is defined as "the ability to win" and "Defense" is defined as "the ability to not lose". Everything else...Speed, Resources, Accuracy, etc....all exist to SUPPORT one or the other. You're not saying anything different than what I've already been saying.

But, that ALSO means that Competitive Balance is NOT fine, because it doesn't go into anything about the different types of drawbacks, risks/rewards, or individual effort that makes a game competitive. That means we STILL have to come up with what you called a "confusing, complicated" list of things that facilitate balance, and THEN try to create supertropes that categorize them.

I said a long, long time ago that "Offense" is defined as "the ability to win" and "Defense" is defined as "the ability to not lose". Everything else...Speed, Resources, Accuracy, etc....all exist to SUPPORT one or the other. You're not saying anything different than what I've already been saying.

You right, when it comes to competition winning is the final goal. But you are not right in your believe that speed, resources, accuracy and so one are some inferior stats and not worth considering.

We have some pretty successful and healthy tropes when it comes to the A/D/S triangle e.g. Fragile Speedster (1836 wicks and 632 inbounds) or Mighty Glacier (1934 wicks 1005 inbounds) by claiming that speed is a useless stat and not worth considering you claim that these tropes have nor right to exist.

But, that ALSO means that Competitive Balance is NOT fine, because it doesn't go into anything about the different types of drawbacks, risks/rewards, or individual effort that makes a game competitive. That means we STILL have to come up with what you called a "confusing, complicated" list of things that facilitate balance

The biggest problem with this idea is, that it is impossible to get a complete list of all possible advantages and disadvantage and of ways to combine them. All we can do is make a list of some examples. But that is a really risky thing to do. The mere presence of the A/D/S-triangle in the page image was enough to start a discussion of several pages, how problematic it is that some tropes use the full triangle, some just two stats, how confusing the definition of speed is... If we add some random examples of possible stats which can be balanced people will believe that the trope is about these specific stats and not the general idea.

Doesn't matter one bit. If the character archetypes are both based off the triangle and are in Competitive Balance, then Competitive Balance is still about the triangle, even if it isn't mentioned anywhere in the trope description.

edited 30th Sep '12 12:59:02 PM by shiro_okami

That's not even close to what I said.

Nope. Not what I said. Not even a little bit.

And that said, we've had a lot of successful tropes that have needed to be cut and/or heavily retooled. Being popular is not trope immunity.

That's not even remotely a realistic problem, nor is it relevant. Either Competitive Balance is not limited to the three stats (as you and I seem to agree) or it is. If it's not, then we need to start discussing and listing other stats it can affect.

edited 30th Sep '12 1:29:52 PM by KingZeal

Doesn't matter one bit. If the character archetypes are both based off the triangle and are in Competitive Balance, then Competitive Balance is still about the triangle, even if it isn't mentioned anywhere in the trope description

Saying Competative Balance is about the A/D/S triangle is as correct as saying Love Interests is about redheaded girls. Yes it is part of the supertrope, but not even close to covering what the Trope is about. Competitive Balance is not about this triangle, it is about how advantages and disadvantages of different character builds balance each other out, so that in the end each character build has a realistic change in winning the competition. The triangle is only one of many ways this trope can be used.

That's not even remotely a realistic problem, nor is it relevant. Either Competitive Balance is not limited to the three stats (as you and I seem to agree) or it is. If it's not, then we need to start discussing and listing other stats it can affect.

Either we are able to list every stat this trope can use (impossible) or we keep this trope as open as possible . Again, the A/D/S-triangle is not mentioned in the page just used as an example in the page images, without any hint that the trope is limited to this stats. But still people react to this trope as if this triangle is the main focus.

If we put a list of some possible stats on the page, or even worse, start to sort tropes according to theses stats, people will believe that only examples and sub tropes dealing with this specific stats belong there.

The triangle has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. At most, I'm talking about changing it to Offense/Defense/Support with the various subtropes therein.

Then we make it clear in the description that it isn't.

So, I see that these character archetypes and Competitive Balance are different things. We're limiting Competitive Balance to video games and tabletop games, right? We could note that there could be overlap in the archetypes between characters and competitive archetypes, but we should note that they're different, too.

I think what we need to do first, as the simplest thing to do, is to somehow leave that image out of the Competitive Balance main page until further notice. The image will surely cause confusion until we can settle on something. Should I start an Image Pickin' to take it off until further notice?

edited 30th Sep '12 7:53:49 PM by WaxingName

So that's what you mean. But my and King Zeal's arguments are that it shouldn't be that way and needs to change. Competitive Balance should either be all about the (current attack/defense/speed) triangle, or have the triangle completely removed and/or replaced. Having it be partly about the triangle and partly not about the triangle complicates things.

edited 1st Oct '12 1:23:53 PM by shiro_okami

So you want the trope to be about how strengths in one area are balanced out with weaknesses in an other areas, unless one of the affected areas is attack, defense or speed... that seems very random to me. Why excluding these stats?

But something completely different, right now the trope is focused on gameplay and limited to character builds. Both points are somewhat problematic.

Looking at the subtropes it is obvious that these trope are not limited to games. Having a supertrope which is medium specific, while the subtropes aren't seems wrong to me. And while Competitive Balance plays a bigger role in video or tabletop games than in other media the idea is certainly not limited to gameplay mechanics.

The other point is the character build aspect. During this discussion (and/or the Lightning Bruiser thread) a lot examples were used which are not really about characters but which are based on the same idea of balance e.g. racing games, combat units, weapons...

edited 1st Oct '12 2:15:11 PM by Osmium

You've got it completely backwards! Right now the triangle excludes stats that don't fit into it. We don't want to get rid of the stats themselves, we wand to get rid of the system that categorizes the stats and make a new one.

NO KIDDING!!!

This is the exact reason why we want to take the existing triangle and character tropes and put them in a new supertrope that isn't limited to games. If you don't like any of the solutions presented than stop pointing out problems we already know about after saying the "trope is fine as it is" and start offering solutions on how to fix them.

Thanks!

edited 1st Oct '12 2:35:25 PM by shiro_okami

shiro has got it 100% right.

Right now the triangle excludes stats that don't fit into it.

Right now the triangle is not part of the trope description. There is nothing in the trope description excluding any stats, there is no system categorizing these stats, besides the random separation of the listed tropes under different headers and that can simply be changed by removing these headers.

Why create a new trope if all we have to do is simply widening an existing trope ? If the whole difference between two trope is: Trope A is trope B in an other medium, than there is actually just one trope. If a trope description wrongly claims that the trope is medium specific, than the problem is simply resolved by removing this claim.

Because there's two tropes at work here that are exclusive but sometimes overlap. One is the triangle as portrayed in fiction which has nothing to do with balance and everything to do with audience recognition. The other is completely separate from fictional narrative and has nothing to do with the triangle but everything to do with balance.

Because there's two tropes at work here that are exclusive but sometimes overlap.

Maybe I have some language problem right now, but two things can not be exclusive and overlapping at the same time.

One is the triangle as portrayed in fiction which has nothing to do with balance and everything to do with audience recognition. The other is completely separate from fictional narrative and has nothing to do with the triangle but everything to do with balance.

And which of these two is the already existing trope? Because I am not able to identify it by these descriptions. Competitive Balance is neither all about this triangle nor has it nothing to do with the triangle.

edited 1st Oct '12 3:18:37 PM by Osmium

So you've never seen a Venn Diagram with two conjoined circles? One that signifies two things that partially overlap and are partially exclusive at the same time?

Neither of them is the existing trope. That's what we're here to fix.

The second point is irrelevant.

edited 1st Oct '12 4:21:36 PM by KingZeal

You said this already, and I already explained to you why it doesn't matter. Repeating the same point after somebody has already acknowledged it and disagreed with it for no particular reason won't get your point across, it will just annoy everyone. Maybe you like repeating yourself, but I don't.

Besides, while it may not be in the Competitive Balance trope description itself, it is in the trope descriptions of Glass Cannon, Stone Wall, Fragile Speedster, Mighty Glacier, and Lightning Bruiser, which are all based around the triangle, and are all listed under Competitive Balance. So your claim that "there is no system categorizing these stats" is entirely baseless and false.

What I want to do is make a supertrope for those tropes that does have the triangle in the description.

Okay, sorry. Just that osmium hit one of my Berserk Buttons.

edited 1st Oct '12 4:27:46 PM by shiro_okami

EDIT: Pointless now.

edited 1st Oct '12 5:12:12 PM by KingZeal