Needs Help: Standard Status Effects

I hope I can be forgiven if I am taking the wrong tack here, but the last TRS thread on Standard Status Effects indicated that a new TRS should be made to get rolling on a split after Status Ailment and Status Buff and Status Effect were created, so... here it is I guess.

Standard Status Effects is getting very close to being too long. It is already soft split into different types of effects. We could just move each folder to its own subpage and call it a day, but we could also make most if not all the types of effects subtropes. I believe they are trope-worthy myself.

The last thread created the Status Effect supertrope with Status Ailment and Status Buff subtropes, so the most logical course of action seems to be to make most of the effects into subtropes of Status Ailment, move the examples of more unique effects to the Status Ailment page, and then either cut Standard Status Effects or make it into an index. An index sounds good to me. There is no real point in subdividing Status Ailment into "standard" and "non standard," and Standard Status Effects is using the term very broadly and basically covering every effect used in more than one game series anyway. Additionally, it uses the word effects, which can also cover buffs.

The types of ailments that I would recommend subtroping are:

• Poison (any kind of HP sapping)
• Paralyzed
• Sleeping
• Silenced (anything preventing magic)
• Blindness (anything reducing accuracy)
• Berserk (needs to be under Status Effects instead of Status Ailment as this is a neutral effect)
• Confused
• Charm (possibly merge confused and charm)
• Frozen
• Petrified
• Stop (possibly merge frozen, petrified, and stop)
• Slow
• Bad transformations (will need a carefully picked name)
• Instant Death
• Doom
• Zombie

The others are ether not terribly common or so highly variable I do not think it makes sense to group them together. Examples under Burn, for instance, are only related in terms of being called "burn," otherwise they are very different effects. Ditto for Critical and Fear. Weird Transformation is also highly variable, the the examples are united the the accompanying visual effect so I am more inclined to group them.

I am leaning toward grouping frozen, stop, and petrify together since the terms can often be used interchangeably by different franchises. In games that have all those effects they are differentiated, but what is termed "frozen" in one series can be termed "petrify" in another with the only effective difference being the visuals. Likewise with Charm and Confuse, in games with both the difference is that Confuse will have you hitting anything and Charm will have you hitting allies, but in games with only Confuse it may work like Charm. These are just my thoughts, however.

The examples listed under Meta Effects appear to be covered by Interface Screw, IDK what the best way to handle that might be.

edited 15th Oct '14 9:34:56 AM by rexpensive

Opened.

"Examples under Burn, for instance, are only related in terms of being called 'burn,' otherwise they are very different effects."

That is also true of many of the effects you said were tropeworthy. Confusion, for instance, messes up a character's attack in some games and reverses the players' controls in others.

I might want to keep Standard Status Effects for a list of the standard names (of which "Meta-Effect" is obviously not one), which, as already noted in some cases, might correspond to different effects.

I'm also under the impression that Damage Over Time covers "poison drains HP," and I know I YKTTWed Baleful Polymorph to cover "turned into a weird creature."

edited 16th Oct '14 2:36:36 PM by Prfnoff

Confusion does tend to share commonalities, though (generally, it causes a character to behave randomly or unpredictably, even if the method and mechanics for that differ.) And more importantly, there isn't really another heading to put Confusion under, whereas Burn is usually a subset of something else (poison or stat-lowering.)

In RP Gs confusion almost always does the same thing. Other platforms may behave differently but there is definitely more unity among the examples than there is under burn.

We could move poison examples to Damage Over Time instead of making a new trope for it, certainly.

I considered Baleful Polymorph, but I feel there is a significant difference between transformation as a status effect and transformation as a plot element. We should probably also discuss that.

edited 16th Oct '14 3:51:34 PM by rexpensive

Confusion does not always do the same thing.

Turn based or ATB based JRPG typically just lose control and just do whatever but when you get into ARP Gs and other games then things get interesting with reversed controls, add friendly fire, lock out skills similar to Silence.

What we might want to do is keep the page and order the different tropes under the names of the status effects they are often called. That way we can accout for status effects with multiple ways of implimentation.

IE:

• Poison (any kind of HP sapping)
  • Damage Over Time
• Paralyzed
• Confused
  • Interface Screw
• Charm (possibly merge confused and charm)
• Bad transformations (will need a carefully picked name)
  • Baleful Polymorph
• Instant Death

I think we should trope the effects and note common names for them, rather than the other way around. ie, we'd have Damage Over Time and note "if this comes in the form of a Status Ailment, it's often called poison, and less often but still frequently called bleed, burn, etc".

edited 16th Oct '14 8:24:40 PM by NativeJovian

That would work. I have seen Burn for example cause stuns, any action kills you, damage over time, take more damage / weaken armor, etc.

I've always been in favour of listing them by the mechanical effects rather than their names and visual effects. Poison, burning, and bleeding are usually variants of Damage Over Time, with sometimes some different secondary effects. You could still make a sub-grouping for them if you really want to, but they'd still belong under Damage Over Time. Aside from the exceptions, naturally.

I mean, an example where a burning status make you hit the enemy harder (because of extra fire damage) doesn't belong in the same list as one where burning hurts you. (Overlaps are naturally possible, as it can certainly do both at once.)

The point is, it's about game mechanic tropes, not thematic or visual tropes used in games.

I agree with the points in favour of listing them as effects, rather than whatever in-game thing the effect is called.

@6: I am not disagreeing with that, that is more-or-less what I said.

I agree with 8, 10, and 11. I think noting the name/ visual effects/ etc that is most common is a good idea, but the actual division should probably be by mechanics. I feel like in the cases where the named effect almost always does the same thing naming it for the effect name vs. some name the reflect the mechanic may still be a good idea, though, because it feels more intuitive. For example, a trope named Slow Status that still hosts examples of any effect that does the same thing under a different name will likely be easier for a game to remember than if it were named after the mechanic. This is just my opinion, of course, but I am imagining what it would look like if all these effects had names based on mechanics and honestly it is not pretty! Also redirecting Poison Status to Damage Over Time might help garner more links to Damage Over Time maybe? I am surprised at how underused that trope is when you see it all the time, but I was not aware it existed myself so I am guessing that might be the problem right there.

Of course that sort of thing can be hammered out in YTTW.

edited 17th Oct '14 8:43:56 AM by rexpensive

I would not redirect Poison there, even that one does not always work like you would expect. There are games in which Poison negates experience or Tech Points gains and such and World Of Warcraft has poisons that do literally everything from slowing you down, taking more damage, reduction of healing effects, etc. That is just inviting misuse.

Going with above's layout I would go with something like

• Damage Over Time
  • Poison, Sap, Venom, Bleed, Burn are common names.
  • Leech and Drain which heal the caster and do damage to the target.
• Ao E damage Splash Damage Do T to friendly targets around the target, might or might not damage the one with the debuff.
• Status effect on a timer
  • Ticking Time Bomb debuff
  • Gradual Petrify
  • Doom
• Slow Movement Speed
• Slow Casting speed
• Immobilized, but can still act
• Skill Lockout
  • Silence
  • Interupts
  • Skill cooldown debuffs
• Interface Screw
  • reversed controls
  • Screen damage IE: Blooper from Mario Kart
• Loss of control
  • Can not act but can not take damage IE World Of Warcraft's Banish
  • Can not act but still take damage IE Stunned, Paralyzed, Petrifaction , Frozen, Baleful Polymorph, Stop
  • AI controlled IE Confused, Berserk, Fear, Charm
  • Controlled by enemy player IE World Of Warcraft's Mind Control
• Transformations but does not remove control. IE FF's Mini
  • Transformed but new skill set.
• Instant Death
  • Removal from battle
  • Death on a timer IE Doom
  • Death on Action
  • Death on next hit taken IE Shattering petrifaction
• Element Resistance Change
  • Things that heal also damage, things that damage now heal IE FF's Reverse
  • Healing damages but so does everything else. Zombie
  • increased elemental damage IE FF's Oil
• Debuffs that have a chance to affect things. Like a Dot that makes it a % chance that you would get stunned while casting. IE Pokemon Confusion
• Healing Reduction
• Screwed out of progression
  • XP Gain reduction
  • Tech Points Gain reduction
• Stat reduction like - Luck or -strength, -HP -MP
  • Accuracy Reduction IE Blind
• Increased Damage Taken
• Different parts of the body are reduced or destroyed.

• Added modifiers like stacking ranks of debuffs
  • damage increases or decreases over the length of the debuff
• Trap Debuff , Bad things happen when you remove debuff

There are probably more that I am forgetting.

edited 17th Oct '14 1:53:09 PM by Memers

That's a bit of a messy list. Several of those can be condensed into one. I still prefer a few proposals from the old thread.

Im still workin on it.

EDIT: is that better? It still needs probably a wording cleanup but those are the common types.

edited 17th Oct '14 1:53:36 PM by Memers

I was going to post a few suggestions, but I had to run an errand. At any rate, you did change a few I was going to suggest (like blind being a stat reduction)

"Immobilized, but can still act" is a Skill Lockout.

"Slow Movement Speed", "Slow Casting speed", and "Skill cooldown debuffs" are all variants of a slowing effect. Sometimes by a stat reduction, sometimes a skill reduction, and sometimes a straight out slow effect. I'd probably still list them on their own, for that reason.

"Healing Reduction" is a type of weakness, which I'd file under stat reduction.

Another stat reduction is "Increased Damage Taken", unless it's a resistance change.

Transformation is Baleful Polymorph. May include a bunch of status changes and effects. Zombie can sometimes be classified as such, since the actual effect of it can vary. But it's usually, as you've listed it, a kind of elemental defence change. Sometimes an XP lockout.

Crippling (or "Different parts of the body are reduced or destroyed") is really just a visual effect, like burning or fear. The actual effects are usually stuff like accuracy reduction for eyes, movement reduction for legs, etc.

Baleful Polymorph is a form of Crowd Control which changes you into 'harmless or useless form' That doesn't count the debuffs that transform you into something completely different but are not harmless, its a rather common mechanic in games to switch it up. Like World Of Warcraft's Professor Putricide fight in which one raid member needs to transform with the debuff to win the fight but can be dispelled easily by an ally. Hence why I listed them separately.

And I personally thing that debuffs that reduce healing received or Increased Damage Taken are quite different than just a stat reduction but /shrug.

EDIT: Ugh why does Crowd Control aka CC redirect to Ao E Herd-Hitting Attack? That is just stupid. Especially since most loss of control debuffs are called CC / Crowd Control.

edited 17th Oct '14 3:33:13 PM by Memers

Fair enough on the first bit. Not so sure about the second.

Also, I agree. Disabling even single enemies is a form of crowd control, depending on the total amount. Sure, in a game where you're regularly fighting hordes at once it probably needs to be an AoE, but if you're fighting a group of about five enemies or so, disabling a single enemy is a form of crowd control. I don't even remember Herd-Hitting Attack being used as a trope name.

edited 17th Oct '14 3:53:24 PM by AnotherDuck

Sorting things by the definition takes forever to navigate to find the definition you're looking for.

Sorting things by what their called and then finding the definition for that term is way faster; you end up having to read less.

Do not like post 14's suggestion.

edited 17th Oct '14 7:43:42 PM by ObsidianFire

The problem is the name of each debuff does do the same thing.

Pokemon Confusion status is nothing like the Confusion status effect in ATB based Final Fantasy games or the Reversed controls of ARP Gs.

Heck the same franchise have different names for things, like Final Fantasy IX's Virus status effect which negates XP gains is known as Pointless in Final Fantasy X 2.

And that is just two I can think of off the top of my head.

Edit: Even in the same GAME. World Of Warcraft has Hamstring, slowing poison, Slow, and about 50 other things that apply movement speed debuffs for example and that isn't even getting into multiples of the rest of that list.

edited 17th Oct '14 8:43:46 PM by Memers

Bump. Nothing?

Do we need a crowner?

Your breakdown is fine with me. IDK if we need a crowner or not but we ought to start YTT Wing the easy one soonish, those things take forever.

edited 20th Oct '14 12:07:55 PM by rexpensive

Does anyone else have an opinion about this?

Buuump

Can we just agree on a break-down so we can start to YKTTW the subtropes? I am really OK with any of them.

edited 30th Oct '14 8:40:48 AM by rexpensive