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I think that solution runs into the exact problem that this thread was meant to try and avoid: tropes being retroactively redefined by the addition of other tropes, and tropers constantly trying to introduce new three-stat combinations into the family.
The problem with introducing two new tropes for strong offense / weak speed and strong defense / weak speed when Mighty Glacier is still defined as strong offense / strong defense / weak speed is that the new tropes are just The Same But More Specific.
At that point, what's to stop someone from deciding that there should really be a trope of strong offense / weak defense / weak speed / strong range? Call it the "Glass Turret" or something. At which point Glass Cannon gets de facto redefined to strong offense / weak defense / neutral-to-strong speed / weak range. And on and on the confusion goes.
edited 14th Oct '13 8:15:21 AM by hbi2k
On the subject of whether a fighting game character would be considered to have strong defense if they can entirely negate incoming attacks or reduce them to Scratch Damage when successfully blocking, but goes down in a few hits when not blocking:
I would consider that a combination of whatever high-defense/durability trope applies (Stone Wall, unnamed potential +def / -spd trope, Mighty Glacier, Lightning Bruiser, whatever) and Difficult, but Awesome. The character DOES have good durability, it's just that their ability to withstand punishment is dependent on player skill as opposed to a simple stat. If we're explicitly defining the tropes as being broader than just stats— which I continue to believe is the correct path— then we have to include attributes that come from skill as well as those that come from stats.
I mean, a heavily-armored warrior might go down just as quickly as any other man if you sneak into his bedroom and stab him in his sleep or poison his wine at dinner, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have high defense, it just means that a clever attacker can get around it.
edited 14th Oct '13 8:33:22 AM by hbi2k
You guys seem to be using durability in a much broader sense than I would have expected.
I don't see a problem with just using the vaguer concept of "might" instead of offense and/or defense (for Mighty Glacier). It's flexible enough to encompass either or both, as the example demands, without losing the essence of the trope. In fact, I think it hits the essence of the trope significantly better. It's even in the title.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Viewed in a vacuum, I don't think it's a problem. It's the implications for the greater trope family that I think are dicey. It makes things messy when the other tropes in the family are defined as one strength and one weakness, and then there's this oddball trope off to the side that's defined as one weakness, and one strength... or maybe two... it depends.... It also invites people to keep trying to shove new combinations of three attributes through YKTTW, which has been a problem in the past. If slow strong durable guys are a trope, why shouldn't slow strong fragile guys be one? Or fast strong fragile guys? Etc.
If we DO decide against splitting Mighty Glacier, I think it still needs a definition tweak. The current definition, which specifies that offense and defense are balanced, is overly restrictive, and most of the examples don't fit that standard very well. I would suggest instead that it be defined as sacrificing speed for offense, defense, or both, with no requirement that offense and defense be balanced with respect to each other.
edited 14th Oct '13 4:43:53 PM by hbi2k
If it's defined as sacrificing speed for either/or offense/defense, then it really will be two tropes in one. I think it's fine just as long as both strength and durability are abitrarily high attributes; they don't have to be exactly balanced.
The question is: Is there any misuse? If there isn't any, than considering how many examples the page has I don't see how the trope is restrictive at all. But if there is misuse, and only if there is misuse, I can see justification for change.
I think we should figure out if there is any misuse on the page first before we figure out what changes we want to make.
Earlier sentiments:
- Mighty Glacier and Fragile Speedster are inverses. High overall power (offense and defense) with low overall movement (speed, agility, mobility) vs. Low overall power with high overall movement
- Glass Cannon and Stone Wall are inverses. Can give a hit (offense) but can't take one (defense) vs. can take a hit but can't give one.
If you think of these four tropes as two duos instead of one group of four its a lot less complicated. Mighty Glacier and Fragile Speedster have no direct relationship to Glass Cannon and Stone Wall, so its not necessary to have this three attribute vs. two attribute vs. new tropes for all possible combinations of three attributes and two attributes.
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I agree, although we still need a trope to cover +speed/-strength which would also be an inverse of Mighty Glacier.
"Fragile" vs "Mighty" already encompasses broad, general concepts of strength and weakness—linguistically, anyway. This inverse relationship is why I like referring to them in terms of brawn rather than offense and defense. It allows the two tropes to be clear, straight opposites of one another, two ends of a sliding scale.
Like so:
(I don't think this has any effect on the set of examples that the trope covers; it's just a clean-explanation-of-the-trope-concept thing.)
(And it probably works for Lightning Bruiser too.)
edited 14th Oct '13 6:24:55 PM by troacctid
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Yes, but regarding Fragile Speedster, the trope itself is written only in terms of defense, not offense.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Misuse of Mighty Glacier? Doing a wick check...
Edit: so far I've finished 11 pages out of 50, and use is split between pretty much every expected misuse and correct use.
edited 15th Oct '13 5:39:24 AM by crazysamaritan
Link to TRS threads in project mode here. Yeah, that's the bit I'm talking about tweaking. Like I said, it doesn't meaningfully affect the scope of the archetype, it's just a more grokkable way of describing it.
edited 15th Oct '13 3:19:13 AM by troacctid
Rhymes with "Protracted."
All right, now we're getting closer to a coherent and consistent system. If we did this, we'd have:
- Necessary Drawback:
- Speed Tropes:
- Mighty Glacier: Weak speed, strong attack and/or defense.
- Fragile Speedster: Strong speed, weak attack and/or defense.
- Attack and Defense Tropes:
- Stone Wall (rename pending): weak offense, strong defense, neutral speed (could be weak, strong, or middling, doesn't matter).
- Glass Cannon: strong offense, weak defense, neutral speed (could be weak, strong, or middling, doesn't matter).
- Lightning Bruiser: Strong attack, defense, and speed.
- Speed Tropes:
And we might as well throw in:
- Range Tropes:
(Nobody's suggested doing anything different with these because they already seem to be working just fine the way they are, but they should still be considered part of the Necessary Drawback family.)
The only inconsistency here is Fragile Speedster. Every other trope in the family is defined by its weakness, except for Lightning Bruiser, which is a very specific AVERSION of Necessary Drawback: you'd think he'd have to sacrifice attack, defense, or speed, but he doesn't. So he's still defined by weakness, just by his lack of an expected weakness rather than the presence of one.
Fragile Speedster is defined by its strength, and it's the weakness that's left to the individual example. Even if we decide that this is an allowable oddity, there's the issue of the name. "Fragile" implies weak defense, but not really weak offense.
So either we rename Fragile Speedster to go with its new definition, or we introduce a new trope for strong speed / weak attack.
I don't think this system is quite as elegant as a straight one strength / one weakness per trope system, but I could live with some form of it as a compromise I suppose.
Thoughts?
edited 15th Oct '13 10:51:43 AM by hbi2k
Skip the attack/defense completely for speedster and glacier. Fragile Speedster is speedy, but fragile. Mighty Glacier is slow, but mighty. We can just use the actual English adjectives as the criteria; we don't need to translate them into tight mechanical interpretations.
Skip the "neutral speed" clause on Stone Wall and Glass Cannon. It's not important; it doesn't need to be mentioned at all.
That gets us back to one strength and one weakness.
We can also toss in Jack of All Stats.
edited 15th Oct '13 12:58:20 PM by troacctid
Rhymes with "Protracted."
No, that doesn't work. These tropes are interrelated in that they deal with the same group of three concepts: attack (or offense, or strength, or whatever), defense (or durability, or armor, or whatever) and speed. Introducing new concepts like "might" and "fragility," except as descriptive analogues for the purpose of naming, just muddies the waters and makes things more confusing.
These tropes cannot be dealt with piecemeal. It's been tried and it doesn't work. They must be dealt with as a group, with their relationships with one another laid out explicitly. That can't be done if we're using one set of vocabulary to deal with one trope and another to deal with another.
I do agree that speed needn't be mentioned at all in the descriptions for Stone Wall and Glass Cannon, unless misuse persists to the point where it becomes necessary in order to keep people from trying to insist that (for example) a Glass Cannon can't be fast. I've seen people try to do that, but not as often as I've seen confusion regarding Stone Wall and speed, and hopefully the upcoming rename should address that.
I don't think Jack of All Stats belongs in this particular grouping. Its weakness is that it has no strength. Its strength is that it has no weakness. And it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the attack/defense/speed attributes. It doesn't fit. It goes with the other generalist tropes (Master of All, Master of None) .
edited 15th Oct '13 1:53:59 PM by hbi2k
Jupiterian Local
Are we seriously going all the way back to the drawing board with how to organize the tropes? The thread has been open since August, and we've got 17 pages of discussion, and now you want to throw all that out and just say "well, maybe we should do it completely differently than we've already agreed to...."
That's why I've been pushing to get something finished. If we keep reinventing the wheel, we'll never accomplish anything.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
I'm not happy with it; like I said, I think the solution described in the crowner is far more elegant. If we can reach a consensus on that, so much the better.
As I understand it, these kinds of crowners are supposed to have around a 2:1 consensus before we act. Right now we're falling short of that magic number.
Apparently there is some silent faction invested in maintaining the status quo, since there are really only two people actively arguing against the crowner here in-thread. Unless more of them want to speak up, I have to assume that Troacctid's objections are representative and work with that.
edited 15th Oct '13 4:31:21 PM by hbi2k
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
I'm still on the wick check (50 wicks? Expect this done around Friday; I have a real job 
), but I'm checking in here.
Misuse is pretty high, assuming what I've seen is representative. But misuse for what is all over the board. The missing element might be any of the three, either unstated or incorrect.
We can use the sandboxes to adjust the trope definitions. We don't have to say speed is a factor for Stone Wall or Glass Cannon. However, we can't simply change the definition. That still requires consensus. The recently proposed reorganization looks like a good start on a new definition proposal.
After the current crowner is declared stable (no new votes for 72 hours), then we need to put the proposed names for Stone Wall up for votes.
After that, we will ask a few more questions about what to do with the tropes. The last thread with this topic was closed after they "did something", but before the decision was fully implemented. Let's make sure the change is something positive, and gets carried out, not done just to prove some sort of "progress" has been made.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Separate post:
Is it possible to ask that the crowner be held open until after the results of the wick check are made official? I think it might be good evidence that the proposed redefinition would be good thing for the wiki.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.I'm not invested in the status quo per se. I just want the tropes to be clear and intuitive, and to match the readers' expectations. Specifically, I'd like to pare these definitions down to their core concepts (as previously described), and I'd strongly prefer not to handcuff them to an arbitrary metastructure.
(It's pretty much all on Maxims of Trope Philosophy.)
Incidentally, this:
...seems like a point in favor of the simpler holistic definition, which anticipates and solves this exact problem.
edited 15th Oct '13 11:59:41 PM by troacctid
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Jupiterian Local
The core concepts are simple. Combat is a balance between three things: the ability to deal damage to the enemy, the ability to survive damage dealt by the enemy, and the ability to move quickly. These three things are effectively a zero-sum game (ie, each of them can only be increased at the cost of the other two), so you can pretty accurately describe general combat tactics by how those three attributes are weighted. In other words, any Fragile Speedster or Glass Cannon or Stone Wall or whatever is necessarily going to fight in a generally similar fashion (a Fragile Speedster is always going to use its speed to avoid attacks from more powerful but slower opponents; a Glass Cannon is always going to favor offensive tactics in an attempt to knock an opponent out of the fight before it can counterattack, etc).
These shared attributes and the tactics that result are enough of a storytelling convention to be tropeworthy. Saying that a particular character is a Fragile Speedster or a Glass Cannon is noteworthy information that has narrative implications about that character.
The problem we've been having is that we've been dealing with these tropes individually, which leads to a lot of disconnect between them. This thread is an attempt to deal with them as a group, and thus shape them into a continuous whole, without either gaps or overlap.
What we originally decided was to have a group of six tropes, each consisting of one strength and one weakness. That way, we can fit every possible combination of strengths and weaknesses with one (for a combatant with one strength and one weakness) or two (for a combatant with one strength and two weaknesses or two strengths and one weakness) tropes (plus the Lightning Bruiser odd man out, for combatants with all strengths and no weaknesses).
There are other ways to organize the tropes. The one that was just brought up was to have two tropes with "power vs speed" and two with "offense vs defense" (power including both offense and defense in our trifecta). The problem is that grouping things like that leaves gaps — what if a character has high speed and high offense, but low defense? In the six-trope scheme, he would be listed under Fragile Speedster (high speed, low defense) and Glass Cannon (high offense, low defense) and that would be that. In the four-trope scheme, though, there's no way to accurately describe them — they're still a Glass Cannon (high offense, low defense) but they don't count as a Fragile Speedster (high speed, low power) because their defense is bad. Examples like that are begging for misuse, because there is no proper place to put them if the tropes are organized like that.
tldr, the whole point of the thread is to close up the cracks in the trope family where examples can fall through, and shifting from the six-trope offense/defense/speed scheme to the four-trope speed/power and offense/defense doesn't do that.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
This is a concise and well-phrased summation of both the problem and what I agree is the best solution anyone has come up with so far. I agree on almost all points.
A couple of details:
- "...what if a character has high speed and high offense, but low defense? In the six-trope scheme, he would be listed under Fragile Speedster (high speed, low defense) and Glass Cannon (high offense, low defense) and that would be that. In the four-trope scheme, though, there's no way to accurately describe them — they're still a Glass Cannon (high offense, low defense) but they don't count as a Fragile Speedster (high speed, low power) because their defense is bad."
I believe the bolded section should read "because their offense is good."
- "...(plus the Lightning Bruiser odd man out, for combatants with all strengths and no weaknesses)."
It should be noted that under the current definition, it is not required for a Lightning Bruiser to be all strength and no weakness. A Lightning Bruiser has good attack, defense, and speed, but may have weaknesses in other areas (such as range, a Kryptonite Factor, or high resource cost) and still count. A character with all strength and no weakness is a Master of All, a related trope that overlaps substantially with but is not identical to a Lightning Bruiser.
edited 16th Oct '13 8:17:53 AM by hbi2k
Jupiterian Local
Whoops. Yes, both of those are true — the first was just a typo, but for "all strengths, no weaknesses" I was referring to our offense/defense/speed trifecta. You're correct in that other things outside those three may still be weak.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Crown Description:
The current name is misleading, implying as it does that a Stone Wall is either stationary or very slow. In fact, the trope description specifies that a Stone Wall is strong defensively and weak offensively. This has lead to rampant misuse. As such, the name should be changed. See discussion here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1375910344098917700&page=4
particularly the wick check on Page 4. Excluding Zero Context Examples, we're looking at a roughly 60% misuse rate.
If you want to have a discussion about why you think that offense, defense, and speed are too vague, then we can do that. We've sort of been going in circles a bit recently, so I'd like to get the matter at hand (the crowner) settled before we move on to a new topic. It looks like the "redefine" option isn't going to hit the 2:1 margin (it's at 15:9 at the moment), so that's presumably off the table, but the "create missing tropes" option is currently more than 3:1, which is clearly plenty of support. The "create missing tropes" option is described in the crowner as being contingent on the "redefine" option, but it strikes me that it isn't, really. Three of the four tropes on the redefine option are already defined as "one good attribute, one bad attribute" (the odd one out being Mighty Glacier, which is "low speed but high offense and defense"). I don't see any reason why we couldn't simply add another missing "one good/one bad" trope to take the place of redefined Mighty Glacier. We'd end up with something like this:
Perhaps it's not quite as neat-and-tidy as having Mighty Glacier take the (+offense, -speed) or (+defense, -speed) spot, but I think it's still workable.
edited 13th Oct '13 10:46:28 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.