Misused (new crowner 12/2/13): Necessary Drawback

How do you figure? You're seriously losing me here. What I'm suggesting is not complicated, although I've explained it in a convoluted way. Let me simplify:

Attack = DPS: how much sustained damage you can do to a stationary target.

Defense = Survivability, i.e. how much sustained, direct damage you can take before keeling over.

Speed = Evasion and/or movement speed, two closely related and intertwined concepts.

edited 23rd Aug '13 2:57:42 PM by hbi2k

Both DPS and evasion are a function of movement. Evasion is about how fast you can avoid attack. DPS, or the type I'm talking about, is about being fast enough to launch an attack, recover, and be ready to launch another one. Would you say that a lightweight boxer who can launch punch after punch in the blink of an eye has the same attack power as a heavyweight that punches more slowly?

edited 23rd Aug '13 2:58:08 PM by shiro_okami

Intuitively, yes, but I'm talking about mechanically.

edited 23rd Aug '13 3:00:27 PM by hbi2k

What's the difference?

If I have a magic wand that fires one 10 DMG Magic Missile per second and a second magic one that fires ten 1 DMG Magic Missiles per second, intuitively the first one is ten times slower, but mechanically they do exactly the same thing.

Let me put it another way: I've suggested a simple system that can be applied to the tropes we already have (with a managable amount of modification) that allows 99% of the trope examples to be sorted into a system of overlapping categories with very few problematic edge cases. It's not perfect, but I believe it WORKS. Is excluding attack speed from our definition of Speed somewhat arbitrary? Sure. But it's going to be kind of arbitrary no matter how we do it.

If this system doesn't work for you, what is your proposed alternative?

edited 23rd Aug '13 3:03:53 PM by hbi2k

EDIT: I'm not talking about magic. Would you say that a lightweight boxer who can launch punch after punch in the blink of an eye is no different than a heavyweight that punches more slowly? Let me put it this way; do you consider Chun-Li and Zangrief to be functionally the same regarding offense?

For one thing, I don't believe your system can cover 99% of the examples, and if it can, it's only because DPS doesn't have a large presence in the examples. Furthermore, while it may work functionally for video games, it might not work too well for examples from other media.

All I'm asking for is an extra stat in the system and terminology that actually makes sense instead of having definitions twisted until the meanings of the words are non-intuitive.

edited 23rd Aug '13 3:17:23 PM by shiro_okami

Well, if you're not talking about magic, that's sort of a problem, because we've already decided that we don't want to have to distinguish between magical, technological, and direct physical sources of damage. It gums up the works if we need to have separate tropes for Glass Cannon (punch-y type), Glass Cannon (tech type), and Glass Cannon (magick-y type). And if Mighty Glacier is only considered punch-y type, then Mighty Glacier is too exclusionary and needs to be changed. Tropes Are Flexible.

I'd consider Chun Li and Zangief to be functionally EQUIVALENT in terms of offense, which is to say, I wouldn't say that one of them is high offense and the other is low offense. IIRC they take damage at the same rate (I'm not the most knowledgeable about the nitty-gritty of fighting games), but if Chun Li took 120% damage per hit and Zangief took 80% but Chun Li could dodge faster, I would NOT consider them functionally equivalent in terms of defense. I'd call Chun Li faster and lower-defense and Zangief slower and higher-defense.

Likewise, if the Flash takes out a mook in ten punches in the same time it takes Wonder Woman to take out an equivalent mook with one punch, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that they have equivalent offensive potential.

I don't think there's anything too terribly unintuitive or confusing about that.

edited 23rd Aug '13 3:39:24 PM by hbi2k

What about if the wand that fires ten 1 DMG Magic Missiles per second at the target, but fires them all at different points on or around the target, and the target can only avoid 1 Magic Missile per second?

WHAT? Street Fighter II is one of the few video games I have played, and I do NOT agree. While they may be overall equivalent, their offensive styles are completely different. Even disregarding Zangief's longer arm reach, Zangief's attacks are much more effective but slow while Chun Li may be somewhat weaker but fast. Because of his slowness, Zangief is rather frustrating to use for someone who doesn't really know how to use him properly, while Chun Li is somewhat easier to get used to offensively espescially considering that one of her combos is simply an Attack Spam.

edited 23rd Aug '13 3:56:31 PM by shiro_okami

Re: the magic wand: What about it? At that point, you've essentially given the enemy 1 point per second of damage reduction. Since the damage reduction is constant, mechanically it would fit under our definition of Defense, but that is not how dodging works in most examples. So we'd call that an edge case and make a note of it.

Let me ask you a little more about your suggestion so that I'm sure I'm understanding it correctly. Maybe it IS a better system than mine, but I'm not sure I understand it well enough to render an opinion.

You suggest that instead of three stats, ATK / DEF / SPD as I've defined them, we have four. You defined them as:

(1) "force", how much damage an attack deals; (2) damage per second, (3) "toughness" how well one withstands attack, (4) "dodging", [I've been calling it "evasion" but I think we're talking about the same thing] how well one avoids attacks.

Now, (2) doesn't make much sense to me, since DPS is defined as (damage per attack) * (attack speed). So can I assume that that was just a bad phrasing and you actually meant for (2) to be "attack speed: how many attacks you can make per second or other convenient unit of time"?

Now, given that we already have a stable of tropes built around a three-stat system of ATK / DEF / SPD (or Strength / Toughness / Speed, or whatever), not necessarily defined in the same way I've defined them, but still a three-stat system, how would your system deal with the tropes already in place? Which tropes would need to be modified to fit it, and how? Would new tropes need to be introduced?

edited 23rd Aug '13 4:04:49 PM by hbi2k

Re: Street Fighter II, we're agreeing on the facts but not the terminology. I said that they're EQUIVALENT in terms of offensive potential, not IDENTICAL. Same potential, i.e. each has the potential to be an effective offensive force in the hands of a player that knows how to use them, but different style. You wouldn't say that Chun Li is a good offensive character and Zangief is a bad one. And all that stuff you say about slower-attacking characters being more frustrating for newbies than faster-attacking characters is noted in the description of tropes like Mighty Glacier, and nobody's suggesting that should change.

It's still COMMON for Mighty Glacier characters like Zangief to arrive at their high DPS by having a slow attack speed and high damage per attack, and this is still noted in the trope. It's just not required for a character to count. The odd character with a slow movement speed, low evasion rate, and high attack speed— say, a big beefy dude lugging around a minigun in a first-person shooter— would also count.

edited 23rd Aug '13 4:13:38 PM by hbi2k

The definitions we've been using for these tropes for years at this point makes sense to pretty much everyone except you, Shiro. Here's how I see the stats:

• Speed: Rate of movement, evasion, and attack. Slow characters have short movement range, rarely evade enemy attacks, and/or attack slowly. Fast characters have long movement range, frequently evade enemy attacks, and/or attack rapidly.
• Attack: Power of individual attacks. A high attack character does large amounts of damage with a single attack. A low attack character does small amounts of damage with a single attack.
• Defense: Ability to withstand attacks. A high defense character mitigates much of the power of attacks that hit them, has a large health pool, or is otherwise able to take many hits before going down. A low defense character mitigates little, has a small health pool, or is otherwise unable to take many hits before going down.

Let's use a few examples. Say we have three character: high-attack Adam, high-defense Dave, and high-speed Sam. Let's give Adam and Sam the same theoretical DPS — in the time that Adam can do one attack for 100 damage, Sam can do 5 attacks for 20 damage each.

1. Adam and Sam both attack Dave. Dave has a defense value of 15, meaning that he reduces the damage from every attack by 15 points. Adam does 85 damage (100 attack - 15 defense = 85 damage), while Sam only does 25 damage (each attack is 20 attack - 15 defense = 5 damage, and Sam attacks five times). Adam's high attack lets him better pierce Dave's high defense than Sam's high speed does.
2. Adam and Sam both attack Dave. However, since this game has a Counter-Attack system, Dave is able to break his attacker's combos after one hit. Adam does 100 damage with his one hit before being countered, and Sam does 20 damage with one hit before being countered. Sam's high speed leaves him open to more counterattacks than Adam's high attack.
3. Adam and Sam attach each other. Adam is able to do 100 damage immediately, and then has a lengthy recovery time that prevents him from attacking again quickly, so Sam is able to do 100 damage to Adam before Adam can attack a second time. However, each character has 200 HP, so Sam dies immediately with Adam's second attack, having only done 100 damage to Adam. Sam's high speed couldn't stand up to Adam's high attack.

So there's three examples off the top of my head where high attack power/low attack rate vs high attack rate/low attack power makes an important difference that just "DPS" doesn't cover.

Again, I would argue that things like "tank" or "DPS" are descriptions of what characters do, while the stat archetypes we're discussion here are descriptions of what characters are. If you are a Fragile Speedster, you can still do a tank's job by being hard to hit. If you are a Speedy Weakling, you can still do a DPS's job by attacking rapidly. But that doesn't change the fact that a character who uses speed to augment their offense or their defense is still fast, not "powerful" or "tough" like a +attack or +defense character, respectively.

Let me put forward another example: a big heavy slow-moving guy in a first- or third-person shooter lugging around a minigun. His movement speed and evasion are low, his rate of attack and overall DPS are high.

Intuitively, he would be considered a Mighty Glacier, and probably also Immobile Iron (+DEF / -SPD). Under my system, where ATK = DPS and rate of fire is covered under Attack as opposed to Speed, he would count as a Mighty Glacier.

Under your system, @Native Jovian, wouldn't he be considered some kind of weird edge case, since he's very slow under two of the three definitions of Speed but very fast in the third? He wouldn't be a Mighty Glacier because he attacks so fast, but it would seem pretty silly to call him a Speedy Weakling just because he attacks so quickly and individual attacks do so little damage.

edited 23rd Aug '13 4:48:59 PM by hbi2k

As another example, let's take a stereotypical fantasy elven archer that can fire arrows at blinding speed. Individually his arrows don't do much damage, but his overall damage potential (DPS) is high because he can fire so many of them. He is lightly armored, so his toughness is low but his movement speed is high.

I feel weird calling him a Speedy Weakling, because "weakling" makes him sound INEFFECTIVE at offense, and he's not. I'd feel a lot better calling him both a Glass Cannon and Fragile Speedster.

edited 23rd Aug '13 4:28:13 PM by hbi2k

I have no idea what you just said. English please?

Yes, that's what I mean. No wonder you were getting confused. "Evasion" works fine instead instead of dodging, yes we were referring to the same thing.

I might need more than one post to answer this. Anyway, Glass Cannon would include both attack force and speed and Stone Wall (or whatever it becomes, presuming it's still +ATK/-DEF) would include both toughness and evasion (which would mean it seriously would need a rename). Lightning Bruiser should only need slight description tweaks at the most. Fragile Speedster (-toughness/+evasion) should only need a slight description tweak and possibly example clarification, but I don't think that that's necessary considering that all the examples should already be written in terms of evasion, anyway, since that's what we've been using it to mean so far. For Mighty Glacier (+force/+toughness/-attack-speed/-evasion) see below.

As for new tropes. Forceless Speedster would refer to -force/+attack-speed. We might also need tropes for +force/-attack-speed and +toughness/-evasion. We can either keep them in addition to Mighty Glacier, use them instead of Mighty Glacier, or not need them at all, in which case Mighty Glacier would stay virtually untouched.

@ Native Jovian: I should have never used the term DPS, it just seems to be confusing everybody.

So you are defining it differently than hbi2k, who put rate of attack under the "attack" definition rather than the "speed" definition. I don't have a problem with that; you've basically proved my point for me. But how would you make that work with the current tropes, because speed doesn't refer to attack rate in the tropes right now, at least not the last time I checked. It only refers to movement and evasion. Do you see why I'm confused?

Yes, Native Jovian and I are discussing two different definitions of Speed and Attack. I don't know that my definition is all that much more in-line with the way the tropes are currently used than his is; it's probably about half and half.

The whole thing is kind of an inconsistent cluster!@#$ right now, which is why we're trying to settle on consistent definitions so that we can apply them.

edited 23rd Aug '13 4:51:33 PM by hbi2k

WARNING! Wall of Text!
I gave up trying to follow what's going on. There thread is going too fast for its own good. Could someone just provide a brief summary of what's been established today?

Maybe I'm putting this bluntly, but I think his makes more sense than yours does.

edited 23rd Aug '13 4:54:21 PM by shiro_okami

Yo, don't be afraid to be blunt. You're entitled to your opinion, and you haven't been rude or dismissive so far. It's all good.

I'm still not quite getting what you find confusing about my definition, though. Whether you fold attack speed under Attack or Speed is going to be kind of arbitrary no matter which way you slice it, but I don't get how mine way is any less consistent or logical than his.

edited 23rd Aug '13 5:02:10 PM by hbi2k

@Rethkir:

Basically, we're having trouble reaching an agreement on whether Attack Speed should be considered part of Attack or part of Speed. I think the former, @Native Jovian thinks the latter.

Also, I worked up a bunch of working trope descriptions and useful notes, which can be found here:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Sandbox/StatCharacters

edited 23rd Aug '13 5:02:01 PM by hbi2k

As I said before, it's less consistent because you put attack rate/speed under "attack", you said "It doesn't matter HOW a character deals damage." But you put evasion under "speed" rather than "defense", which means that "defense" does matter HOW a character withstands damage, despite the fact that attack rate and evasion are both opposing functions of speed. It would be inconsistent to treat them differently.

I think we're overthinking this. Speed refers to how fast a character can move. Many times, being speedy allows someone to make fast and quick attacks. Think of a battle between a tiny speedster and a lumbering giant. The tiny fighter has the advantage of being able to make fast hit-and-run attacks and dodge the giant's slow attacks. The distinction should be made if the character can MOVE quickly. Ranged attacks shouldn't count.

Also, I'm going to edit the sandboxes. I'm thinking of indicating stat strengths and weaknesses using arrows ↑ ↓ . I also want to indicate a neutral stat with an icon, but I'm not sure what. Perhaps ↕ to say that it can be anywhere between strong and weak.

—>"As I said before, it's less consistent because you put attack rate/speed under "attack", you said "It doesn't matter HOW a character deals damage." But you put evasion under "speed" rather than "defense", which means that "defense" does matter HOW a character withstands damage, despite the fact that attack rate and evasion are both opposing functions of speed. It would be inconsistent to treat them differently."

Yes, and I explained that. As long as DPS is the same, the method of dealing damage doesn't matter because the result is the same: X damage in Y seconds. Defense based on toughness and defense based on evasion are mechanically different, because defense based on toughness is consistent (I take X damage in Y seconds) but defense based on evasion is not (I take X damage in Y seconds... UNLESS I dodge, in which case I take 0 damage in Y seconds). The results are different: 100% certainty of X damage in Y seconds, versus Z% chance of X damage per attack.

Let me explain it another way. I don't believe that Attack and Attack Speed can be separated. They're inextricably linked. First, Attack is most easily expressed as a function of Damage Per Second. Attack Speed is half of that equation. Second, it's built right into the laws of physics. Force = Mass * Acceleration. A fast punch will always do more damage than a slow punch. Always.

You can move fast and still attack slowly, like a horse-mounted archer with a slow rate of fire. And you can attack quickly and move slowly, like a heavy soldier toting a minigun. So it doesn't make sense to lump Attack Speed in with Movement Speed and Evasion.

edited 23rd Aug '13 5:41:43 PM by hbi2k

Agreed.

By the way, everyone seems to agree that Evasion should be considered part of Speed and not part of Defense. Am I correct in that? Anyone who wants to raise an objection, speak now or forever hold your peace. (-: