Needs Help: Critical Hit

This is a case of Missing Supertrope Syndrome.

In actual games, Critical Hit is defined much more broadly as any hit in a game that does more damage than usual by fulfilling a special condition.

The current definition of the page is the much narrower "a hit that does more damage as a result of random chance."

This has caused misuse not only on Critical Hit, but it's also spilled over onto a number of sister tropes such as Attack Its Weak Point as people try to find a proper trope for the actual in the wild definition of Critical Hit.

I propose a Trope Transplant where the current definition be moved to Random Chance Critical Hit and Critical Hit become the broader definition, the supertrope to the current trope, as well as getting all the scattered examples moved to it.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Completely agree. It will also cleanup room for the various Crit subtropes like Weakpoint Critical Hit which is what people seem to be shoving to Attack Its Weakpoint.

x2

I think part of the problem of Attack Its Weakpoint is that its name isn't indicative of the "invincible/invulnerable everywhere but that one spot" part of the definition, plus it's based off of meme. Regardless of what we do a rename might be in order.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

I havent played the game but I am pretty sure that even the trope name isnt quite an example of the trope itself.

Also yeah completely agree, the meme is just "And you attack its weak point for MASSIVE damage." which can be applied to any number of things.

If it still needs a rename after it's cleaned up and after we get Critical Hit sorted we can do it then. For right now, we have other more pressing work to do first.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Might as well shorten it to Random Critical Hits instead of Random Chance Critical Hit; no need for the extra word.

We could even use Random Crits as the main name to make it even shorter (with the longer version as a redirect), since "crit" is a well-established short form for "critical hit".

Rhymes with "Protracted."

I prefer Random Chance Critical Hit . The trope isn't about absolutely random critical hits, it is based on a set percentage on a hidden dice roll.

Really the full name actually should be Random Number Generator Based Critical Hit But that is too long and it's very well known acronym RNG Critical Hit isn't quite good for a name.

edited 3rd Aug '15 9:29:01 PM by Memers

I was thinking maybe Randomly Crits, which seems a bit clearer to me than Random Crits.

"Random Chance" is redundant.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

I can get behind this.

The only problem I see, is the common definition of "critical hit" means "massive damage based on luck/RNG". That's how The Other Wiki defines, that's how it works in most tabletop RP Gs, that's how it works in Team Fortress 2.

We've already got examples of misuse in tropes whose names mean something else outside TV Tropes (e.g. the Badass tropes). Should we risk it?

Wikipedia says it originated with the RNG type but lists a bunch of other things that are also called critical hits. So I think what we're doing is in line with that. I admit that RNG is the most common type of critical, but it's not the only thing that uses the name. And some things are a combination of luck and skill. There are timing based criticals. There are things where your aim makes your critical chance go up. We should embrace the full range of uses.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Yep stuff that comes directly to mind is

• Weakpoint Critical: weakpoints do additional damage, headshots in Destiny Borderlands and other FPS with hit points love this one.
• Critical Skills Skills that give you a guaranteed critical hit or just additional chance to critical hit.
• Charged Attack Critical Hit some abilities or stuff built into the game has charge mechanics to create critical hits.
• Timed Hit criticals, Hits with the correct timing does additional damage. Mario And Luigi games love this one.
• Conditional Crits: like World Of Warcraft if you sit down you will always be critically hit.
• Some games use Elemental Weakness hits and call that critical hits.
• Critical Hit Damage: Stat or skill that increases the damage to critical hits.
• Critical Hit Percentage Up: a Stat or Skill that increases the chance you critical hit.

edited 4th Aug '15 7:09:01 PM by Memers

Backstabbing and sneak attacks would go under conditionals, right?

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Yeah.

A specific example would be Monk's skill Bootshine, a quote from the actual tool tip.

which is also a Critical Hit Skill.

Then there is the archer's heavier shot skill

World Of Warcraft's druid's Regrowth spell, which is another critical hit skill

EDIT: I want to add that Attack Its Weakpoint has redirects Weak Spot and Weak Point... they dont even remotely mean that trope.

edited 4th Aug '15 7:28:24 PM by Memers

Yeah, those need to be removed. Do we have a better trope to point those at?

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Nothing that I see, again we are looking at a missing super trope I think and the base needing a rename.

Something like

• Weak Point
  • Weakpoint Critical Attacking the weakpoint causes bonus damage
  • Can Only Attack Its Weakpoint The only way to damage an enemy is attacking the weak point.

edited 4th Aug '15 10:27:43 PM by Memers

So you think we need to Trope Transplant Attack Its Weak Point as well? That's fair. Ah, the messes that we inherit.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

That's what I was saying in the Boom, Headshot! thread. I support transplanting Attack Its Weak Point's meaning, and the proposed subtropes.

Only I'd suggest Can Only Damage The Weak Point instead of Can Only Attack The Weak Point, it's more clear about what this trope is supposed to mean.

There's also a third missing subtrope to Weak Point, Instakill Weak Point (e.g. in some games hitting the head is an instakill).

There's also a need to somehow distance the names of Weak Point (which is about a weak point where you do more damage) and its supertrope Achilles' Heel (which is about a weak point that can hinder the enemy in any way, including more damage but not limited to it). The bad thing is, Achilles' Heel has a name that actually sounds like a good name for Can Only Damage The Weak Point. We need to straighten this mess out before we get tons of misuse.

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Re: Critical Hit, I get what you're saying. Initially, RNG crits in tabletop RP Gs were supposed to emulate a lucky hit that hits vital organs. So of course there is relation to skill-based crits that require you to actually hit these vital organs in some video games. I think this should be somehow mentioned in the trope descriptions.

edited 5th Aug '15 4:44:23 AM by Rjinswand

Disagree, many times any one hit kill on a weak point is just they don't have the HP to survive. Turn up the difficulty, equip a weaker weapon or if they have buffs then it's very survivable thus not the trope. I can't think of a single example where this is not the case.

Take Halo for example, on easy Headshot Kil pretty much one shot almost everything but turn up the difficulty and even grunts take several head shots to die.

This sounds like Boom, Headshot!, Situational Damage Attack or For Massive Damage The second sounds like a The Same But More Specific version of the first. Also if you're broadening the definition of critical hit to "attack that deals extra damage", and Charged Attack is "attack that deals extra damage when charged", then I don't see where "attack that's a critical hit when charged" fits in.

If you want a name for the first trope, "Critical Skills" is going to cause all kinds of confusion - call it "Automatic Critical" or something.

That's just Action Commands, and generally it's less "press a button to make Mario deal extra damage" and more "press a button or Mario screws up the attack and deals minimal damage (or even hurts himself)". The entry for Super Mario RPG on the Critical Hit page right now is inaccurate and confusingly written. Overly specific. Sounds like a general trope on lowering your guard, if anything. The Mario & Luigi games have super-effective attacks inflict "critical damage", but there's also "Lucky Hits" which are RNG-based crits. Already covered by Critical Hit Class, though it should probably be renamed to Critical Hit Specialist or something. There's also Luck Stat.

edited 5th Aug '15 2:36:20 PM by Prime32

Boom, Headshot! does not mean that and its got its own thread.

For Massive Damage is an index of all things that do big damage. Something that critical hit belongs on.

It is still a critical hit. A better example would be Shadow Hearts, the skill ring is a roulette and you have miss zones, hit zones and critical hit zones, land in X and it causes that effect.

Backstabing, ambushing from being stealthed and attacking from the side also fit under this depending on the game and how they do things like that.

Then it is an example of both.

Equiping something that increases crit damage or crit chance doesnt suddenly make you a Critical Hit Class.

Also Luck and Crit are two different things in a lot of games. Luck is often based around loot chance and not crit.

edited 5th Aug '15 3:00:33 PM by Memers

Timed Hits are the normal version of the attack though, not an upgraded one. After your first few tries, you're expected to pull them off successfully about 90% of the time (with the exception of a few high-risk, high-reward moves earned later in the game). If you mess up the Timed Hit, your attack fails in some obvious manner.

E.g. If you select an attack called "Hammer Swing", then Mario holds his hammer over his head and the message "Press A!" flashes on the screen. If you press it then Mario swings his hammer at the enemy, inflicting moderate damage. If you don't press it then the head falls off Mario's hammer and lands on his toe, causing him to hop around for a few moments before tripping and falling on the enemy for a single point of damage.

Sorry, messed up my post earlier. I meant that there is no real reason for that trope to mention classes, and it could easily be broadened to encompass any kind of ability that enhances crits in some way.

edited 5th Aug '15 4:32:58 PM by Prime32

Yes, but if you hit it just perfect, you crit and do extra damage.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Gladius also has that kind of timed critical hit. There's miss, hit, and critical hit, I believe. Some attacks don't have criticals, and some have the critical hit section in the middle of a miss section. Crits also has the benefit of always hitting, which is sometimes a greater advantage than the extra damage.

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here is a pic of the shadow hearts version.◊