Duplicate Trope: Emergency Energy Tank

During the IP discussion for this trope it was proposed that Emergency Energy Tank is really just Healing Potion But More Specific.

@Kyler:

@Willbyr:

@Spark:

I also think there is no meaningful distinction between the two here, and the name was just plain bad from the start (the "emergency" part implying something like an Auto-Revive, which isn't the point).

edited 3rd Nov '13 9:54:11 AM by Stratadrake

Just read the description and, from the looks of it, I think this trope is trying to be the Infinity +1 Sword's version of the normal Healing Potion but I'm not sure it works as well due to the different vastly different mechanics of the two.

Also, this trope talks about the item's rarity (hence it's Too Awesome to Use elements) but I've played several games that actually have Full Recover potions sold in normal shops (though much more expensive than the normal HP/MP potions), making that aspect of the trope meaningless.

edited 3rd Nov '13 8:03:21 PM by theAdeptrogue

One of the most common things to be Too Awesome to Use is the extra-strength Healing Potion that instantly zaps you back to full health. It's a variant that crops up very often and accounts for a significant portion of the examples (as Larkman points out in the OP quote), enough to be a recognizable pattern on its own. And (as quoted by Willbyr in the OP), Emergency Energy Tank intuitively indicates the most important elements of the trope.

I'm not seeing the The Same But More Specific here. It is a subtrope of two different tropes. That's allowed. Is there any particular part of the description that's unclear that I'm not seeing?

Edit: I guess Healing Potion is like for literal potions or whatever so it technically isn't a subtrope, but, you know, whatever trope it is that's for healing pickups in general, it's a subtrope of that.

edited 3rd Nov '13 8:06:05 PM by troacctid

I see them as Sister Tropes. The Healing Potion restores a chunk of your HP but only restores it all if you're close enough to your HP cap when you use it, and is plentiful enough that you can use them pretty much at will. Restoring other consumables like mana or specific spell energy requires the use of other items tailored to that ability. The EET restores you to full health regardless of how low your HP is AND often restores your side abilities to full power as well, and is dropped infrequently enough that if/when you come across one, you should hang onto it until you absolutely have to use it.

edited 3rd Nov '13 8:10:46 PM by Willbyr

Well, the laconic on EET says "The best Healing Potion." That's not a meaningful distinction.

The main page says it's Healing Potion + Too Awesome to Use. I probably wouldn't call that a meaningful distinction either. And if full heals are one of the most common Too Awesome to Use items, that isn't reflected in the number of examples EET has.

Many RPG's do commonly have some rare healing items that nobody uses. But that's generally less about their awesomeness and more because the cheap, common sources of healing are almost as good. A rare 100% heal isn't all that special if 90% heals are dime-a-dozen in every town.

This is one of those things that I can't come up with a good definition, but I know it when I see it in a game.

I can see a difference if it's something that heals more than just your HP. Just a full HP refill isn't different enough for its own trope.

From a gameplay perspective, the difference between a 100% potion and a 75% potion is negligible, since for that difference to have any effect at all you have to be below 25% health, which is past when you probably would heal up anyway. So the only real difference is when it's about HP to One attacks, or following up on a weak resurrection that revives at very low health. And even then it's not a huge difference anyway.

Okay, I can see how many games feature basically one type of heal-everything potion (HP, MP, status, etc.) that is sufficiently rare and thus valuable, but then EET is still a poor name for it because the "emergency" part is up to the player to define, not the game.

edited 4th Nov '13 9:56:47 PM by Stratadrake

Indeed. Even if we decide to agree that Full Recover potions are distinct enough as a subtrope, the name is terrible because it does not indicate what the item actually does, and refers more to the situation in which it may be used (i.e. during emergencies).

Would also need a rename since the Energy Tank from Mega Man isn't an example; it only heals HP, not weapon energy.

Maybe Full Restore?

^ Some Megaman games have a variety of energy tank for restoring a weapon's energy, and a (sufficiently rare) "Mega" Tank for restoring absolutely everything (with a limit of one, as contrast with being able to stock multiple E-Tanks).

Or in Kingdom Hearts, sure there is the Elixir and Megalixir (restores full HP/MP, either for one character or the whole battle party) but there isn't much separating it from other healing items: Just the increased rarity of obtaining them.

But the difference between a healing item you have unlimited access to and a healing item you only ever get one of is not negligible.

I'll stress again that this is a type of Too Awesome to Use, not just Healing Potion Up To Eleven. The trope for tiered variations of healing potions (Potion < Super Potion < Hyper Potion < Max Potion < Full Restore) is one that I believe we do not currently have.

Case in point of that: In The Legend Of Dragoon all healing items operated on percentages. Standard Healing Potions recovered 50% HP. Later in the game you could buy more powerful healing potions that restored all HP to a character (Healing Fog). There were also team-wide versions of each (Healing Breeze/Rain), but the latter could not be obtained in standard shops.

Its healing items were obviously in tiers, but the highest grade of which was also unobtainable in shops (occuring only as item drops or treasures or minigame prizes).

edited 6th Nov '13 11:48:28 AM by Stratadrake

What makes it more than just two tropes combined? Too Awesome to Use with Healing Potions can't be all there is to it.

edited 6th Nov '13 4:48:36 PM by AnotherDuck

It's a common variation of Too Awesome to Use that collected enough examples of its own to form a subtrope. It's split off from its supertropes because its examples share a common element not seen in the other examples, making it distinct from the larger tropes while still being part of them. In this case, the additional qualifiers drastically change the item's function compared to a regular Healing Potion.

The fact that you can write a laconic as an X Meets Y doesn't disqualify it from being a valid subtrope.

So it's the type of subtrope that's basically just a common variant, split from the main trope. I wouldn't call it a trope of its own, but perhaps a variation common enough to deserve its own page.

But I wasn't saying it's not a trope because you can laconic it to something that doesn't sound like a trope, because you can make basically anything sound weird or silly by condensing it enough. Which is why I asked if there was more to it.

edited 6th Nov '13 9:05:55 PM by AnotherDuck

The description of Healing Potion is specifically about potions, but examples and links seem to use it more broadly; on Heal Thyself it is potholed as "classical healing items."