Needs Help: Critical Hit

There is absolutely nothing in a game not defined by the game's rules.

As written, everything that counts as extra effective attacks also counts as critical hits. Critical hits only refer to that thing currently called random critical hit off the site.

In addition, critical hit class is not a subtrope of critical hit, and surplus damage bonus is not a subtrope of extra effective attack.

I wrote the sandboxes, dude. I know what they say.

No, because a Critical Hit is an explicit mechanic defined by the game. Games can freely combine critical hits and other kind of extra effective attacks.

For example: Team Fortress 2 has random crits, crits from buffs, certain weapons can crit on a Back Stab, certain other weapons crit on a Boom, Headshot!, etc etc, but they're all defined by the game as a Critical Hit had all have the same effect (boosted damage, ignores range penalties, ignores damage randomization, etc). TF 2 also has various types of Extra Effective Attacks that are not crits (sniper rifle Boom, Headshot! and spy knife Back Stab are automatic One-Hit Kill rather than using the Critical Hit mechanics, for example).

Another example: Persona 3 and Persona 4 have Random Critical Hit with physical attacks, but hitting an elemental weakness also causes a Critical Hit. A Critical Hit in those games knocks the enemy down (a debuff that can't be caused any other way). If all enemies on-screen are knocked down at the same time, then you can do an All-Out Attack, a kind of special move that is not a Critical Hit (the mechanics are different), but is still an Extra Effective Attack (it ignores defenses and elemental vulnerabilities)

Basically, a critical hit is a critical hit if the game calls it a critical hit (or something similar, like Dragon Quest 1's "terrific blow" or Earthbound's "smaaaaaaash!" attacks), and critical hits can exist alongside other kinds of extra effective attacks that use different mechanics.

This is incorrect. A critical hit is a specific kind of EEA. Other EEA mechanics can exist instead of, or in addition to, critical hits.

Please explain your reasoning instead of stating your opinion as a fact and leaving it at that.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Perhaps I should rephrase. Critical Hit Class is not a type of Critical Hit, and Surplus Damage Bonus is not a type of Extra Effective Attack.

As written, everything that is an extra effective attack qualifies as a critical hit.

edited 21st Jun '16 8:45:14 AM by war877

I agree about Critical Hit Class (it's certainly related, but not a subtrope), but disagree about Surplus Damage Bonus. It's a certain kind of attack (one that does more damage than necessary to defeat the target) that is more effective than normal (has additional effects above and beyond "target is defeated").

Again: explain why you think that, don't just say it. What part of the wording makes you think they're interchangable? What would you change to make the distinction clear?

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

You misread Surplus Damage Bonus. Surplus damage bonus does not actually involve causing any extra damage or effects on the enemy at all.

All of the wording makes me think they are interchangeable. Looking at each subtrope in extra effective attack, none of them were ruled out by the text of critical hit.

Here let's make it easy.

We have three sandboxes. Please for sake of argument refer to sandboxes by their official name. Not by any sort of short hand.

• Extra Effective Attack.
  • Various other subtropes
  • Critical Hit.
    • Random Critical Hit.

Please give an example of a Extra Effective Attack that is part of the various other subtropes, but is not a Critical Hit, as the sandbox is written.

Even the Persona Example you gave when you have random crit of physical moves, and crits on effective moves that cause debuffs are covered by both tropes as written.

All your explanations are basically implying that Critical Hit is set by consistent rules of the game. And Extra Effective Attack is not set by consistent rules of the game. But everything that happens in a game is set by consistent rules of the game. The only thing that doesn't fit under 'rules of the game' are glitches or acts of god.

edited 21st Jun '16 11:35:09 AM by acrobox

Almost anything in Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors is not a Critical Hit as it typically goes by 'weakness' or 'Super Effective', Critical Hit is often limited to physical attacks only to balance out the weakness bonus like the Persona series.

Attack Its Weak Point where it does anything more than Scratch Damage, it might even do normal attack damage on anything else. It might also be able to Critical Hit on top of that too via timing crits, random critical hits or any other method of critical hits.

Weapon of X-Slaying, these weapons get a flat damage bonus of something like x2 or so when it hits whatever it is 'Slaying'. The attacks when using this weapon are almost always calculated as base damage hits so still subject to a critical hit dice roll, timing attack window critical hits, Attack Its Weak Point hits and so on.

The Gun Mage in Final Fantasy X 2 specialized in having skills that would do x4 damage, they could still crit too. The critical hit class was the Berserker. No trope seems to exist for skills that do this, only weapons.

EDIT: in Wo W sometimes races had passives that did that get this as an effect like Trolls in wow once had the passive that they "do 10% more damage vs Beasts"

edited 21st Jun '16 12:06:37 PM by Memers

the critical hit sanbox says

that includes, elements, weak points, sneak attacks etc. the only thing you mentioned that isn't covered by Critical Hit as written is Weapon of X-Slaying. But considering everything else is in there, it would be easy for anyone to assume that Slayer Weapons should count to.

edited 21st Jun '16 1:13:37 PM by acrobox

@shima, as a mod can you read the two sandboxes and tell me if i'm missing something.

the two sandboxes are the exact same thing worded different, which if 'sorted' and launched as is is going to lead to misuse.

My argument doesnt concern how things are used in the wild, just he fact that everyone seems to be in agreement about launching two identical tropes.

Links? The biggest difference on the subtrope is that Crits are called out by the system as being "Critical" or "Super" or " Perfect". The subtrope is defined by how the game labels them.

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

Yeah. Sandbox.Critical Hit. The problem as far as I can see is that detail is currently missing from the description. Or was earlier today.

edited 21st Jun '16 1:38:01 PM by war877

Then it needs to be fixed.

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

Sorry Shima if this counts as continuing the prior argument. Not sure. Anyways...

This is the nerdiest discussion thread on the entire internet.

Okay, I am a little confused. Actually, a lot confused. It feels like things are being done out of order here. Why are sandboxed pages being created before a crowner has been hooked? This would make sense if the action was unanimous. But there are several open and disputed points of contention:

1. Why are we paying deference to a fanspeak term? This site is about defining tropes. We can choose whatever names we want for tropes. Defining fanspeak terms is a secondary concern.
2. Is there something wrong with Critical Hit as it is now?
3. I think we are defining the fanspeak term? The fanspeak term is when a game simulates a high accuracy strike, usually to a vital organ.
4. Are critical hits and critical damage not different terms? These are not the same fanspeak terms.
5. As a fanspeak term, Critical Hit has no subtropes.
6. Why are we saying that criticals do not stack? My exploding dice disagree with you.
7. Are we paying attention to games that are purposefully getting the terms wrong? Any game that is using critical as a byword for For Massive Damage is obviously turning the word into something we can no longer make use of here at tvtropes. Memetic Mutation.

So many examples. It took me days to read through. I am dizzy.

So...

• Extra Effective Attack — A thing that makes sense only in comparison to an established standard of normal effectiveness.
  • Elemental Damage — Some attacks are strong and others are weak against a target because of the element of the attack and the element of the target.
    • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors — The elements are arranged in a circle or circles of who beats who.
    • Weapon of X-Slaying — A rather specalised form of elemental weakness.
    • Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors — Elemental Rock Paper Scissors but styled differently.
  • Weakpoint Weakness — Aiming for a precise location does extra damage.
    • Headshot — A very common weakpoint.
    • Attack Its Weakpoint — Aiming for a precise location is the only option.
  • Action Commands — Enhance an attack or a defence by a well timed button push quicktime style. (Also a subtrope of Quick Time Events) (I call these reflex actions. I am probably wrong.)
    • Perfect Timing — Variant of action commands where instead of pushing an action button in a critical window, a command is executed with perfect timing.
  • Random Crit — Simulating accuracy, or a lucky strike, an attack does considerable extra damage based on a random chance. Instead of extra damage, some games add an extra effect or two.
  • On Hit Chance — Something extra that sometimes happens when an attack lands. This version does not simulate accuracy. It is more like the weapon sometimes does this extra thing, like cast a spell on the target.
  • Attack Of Opportunity — (probably the wrong name) Attack does extra damage because the attacker can take their time for whatever reason.
    • Backstab — A very common attack of opportinity. (the extra damage is usually called a damage mltiplier and not a critical.)
    • Counterattack — Another type of attack of opportunity.
  • Limit Break — A character goes berserk for whatever reason and starts inflicting damage way above normal with each attack. Alternatively, an attack that is way more powerful than normal, but the character must charge up a meter before using it.

• Charged Attack — I do not believe this type of special move counts as an extra effective attack.

• Surplus Damage Bonus — This is what we call an overkill bonus.

• Right Between The Eyes — The super skilled shooter doesn't blink. Neither does the target. Ever again.

• Critical Hit — Any extra effective attack called a Critical Hit, or Critical or Crit by the work, or its documentation. Excludes things called critical damage. Alternative definition: Any extra effective attack meant to simulate high accuracy or luck, and the hitting of a vital organ.

• Critical Hit Class — As this is a build and not an attack, it is not a type of Extra Effective Attack.

• Damage Range — That thing where some games have a minimum damage and a maximum damage for any regular attack, and a number is chosen randomly between them. Aversions are probably more interesting.

Did I miss anything?

edited 27th Jun '16 2:10:55 AM by war877

• Perfectly Timed Hit, Missed Timed Hits cause reduced damage or no damage, So-So timed hits cause normal damage and a Perfectly Timed Hit causes bonus damage. Also known as a Critical Timing Window.

• Critical Block - Exactly like Extra Effective Attack but for damage reduction and avoidance, includes Perfectly Timed Block, Parry or dodge. Armor that has a random chance reduction or nullification of hits commonly known as Dodge Chance or Chance To Be Hit. Invincibility Frames, immunity on certain points on the player and such would also be included. Occasionally these grant access to a Counterattack Skill for an Extra Effective Attack or are unavoidable.

• Counterattack Skill - a move only accessible after being hit or avoided at hit, does more damage than a normal hit or is in of itself unavoidable.

• Double Critical Hit - Almost exclusively confined to older table top games. a Random Critical Hit gets 1 more dice roll to see if critical hit again, usually at a reduced chance, for x4 the damage.

• Critical Hit Bonus - a bonus skill or effect for when you critical hit, may cause you to move faster, heal up, give a damage buff, give you access to another attack. It only happens when you Critical Hit.

The big deal about Critical Hit is that games use Critical Hit as a term for one or more of the above and while Random Chance Critical Hit is the most common one games also use skills like backstab to raise the random chance up to 100%.

In every game but the oldest of the old you can only ever get 1 critical strike on a given attack. Other random effects always take on different names like World Of Warcraft's Multistrike.

edited 27th Jun '16 1:03:35 AM by Memers

Perfectly Timed Hit and Critical Block are both covered as Action Commands. Subtropes?

Double Critical Hit seems overly narrow. Exploding Dice for example allows unlimited crits, and I don't know why they would not be considered the same thing as a regular Random Crit, except twice. Subtrope?

Note: In some fighting games and action RPGs there is no such thing as Critical Block or Critical Dodge, just Normal Block and Normal Dodge. The only exceptions I can currently think of are a few cases of Action Commands. However, the phrase Critical Window may apply anyway, as this phrase is not directly derived from the phrase Critical Hit.

I like the following names better: Random Crit for Random Chance Critical Hit, and On Hit Chance for Chance On Hit. In the former case, aesthetics. In the latter case, to avoid confusion with Hit Probability.

I included backstab in the above tree. Like I said there, I think backstabs usually use a damage multiplier instead of a crit chance boost.

EDIT: IIRC, most counterattack skills actually grant an extra attack, rather than being better than normal.

edited 27th Jun '16 1:12:59 AM by war877

Many games have a Critica Window for their hits or blocks. Some might be a subtrope to action commands but not all of them.

Some examples that come to mind

• Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII has it so that an attack blocked does reduced damage, while blocking your resources drain away like Dark Souls. A Perfectly Timed Block will cause you to take no damage and cause the enemy to be unbalanced, leaving it open for free hits. Each monster and each attack has a different timing window to master.
• Shadow Hearts's timing ring◊ has 3 windows, a white window which causes the attack to fail, a yellow window which causes normal damage and a red window that causes a 100% chance of a Critical Hit. It is the only way in the game to critical hit and everything you do in combat has the ring.

As for critical block things like Lightning Returns qualify also

• In World Of Warcraft Warriors have a skill called 'Critical Block' which is a 12.5% chance to double the amount you can block modified by your mastery rating from gear, the chance you will actually block an attack is also percentage based and modified by your mastery rating.
• Final Fantasy XIII has an accessory effect that gives you a random chance to reduce damage to 0 called 'Random: Nullify Damage', it also has an effect called 'Random:Fire Eater' that can heal you instead of hurt you when hit with fire damage.
• And The Binding Of Isaac has the 'Infamy' item which does the same nullify damage chance but only from the front.

Counterattack skills usually have something special about them, they might do extra damage, undodgable, cause imbalance, cost no resources etc. otherwise doing just using a regular attack would be the same.

Stacking Critical Hits in any way work I guess. Anything modern will not use this ever.

I dont care on the names, I just keep grabbing names from games I play lol. Chance On Hit, Chance On Crit and Critical Block are Wo W terms.

EDIT: Oh do not forget about Weapon of X-Slaying.

edited 27th Jun '16 1:59:33 AM by Memers

I know a lot of turn based games where counter attacks are just normal attacks. The perk is that you're attacking not on your turn. It lets you get an extra attack in.

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

I used the power of time lords to go back in time and modify my tree slightly to work with some of your points.

• Perfect Timing — Variant of action commands where instead of pushing an action button in a critical window, a command is executed with perfect timing.

• Counterattack — Another type of attack of opportunity.

• Weapon of X-Slaying — A rather specalised form of elemental weakness.

• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors — Elemental Rock Paper Scissors but styled differently.

• Critical Hit Class — As this is a build and not an attack, it is not a type of Extra Effective Attack.

I think Critical Hit Bonus... I haven't actually seen that ever. So I don't know what to do with that.

---

The sandboxes so far: Sandbox.Extra Effective Attack, Sandbox.Critical Hit, Sandbox.Random Critical Hit

edited 27th Jun '16 2:11:33 AM by war877

Thats true, I was more thinking of ARP Gs where you can only hit so many skills or have active resources like

World Of Warcraft's Warrior's Revenge ability.

• Instantly attack an enemy and two additional enemies, dealing (374% of Attack power) damage to the primary target and 50% damage to the secondary targets, and generating 20 Rage. 9 sec cooldown. Your successful dodges and parries reset the cooldown on Revenge.

Its just a possible subtrope to Extra Damage Attack depending on the example.

For Critical Hit Bonus I was thinking things like

• In World Of Warcraft when a Rogue critical strikes with skills they get double the combo points earned or has resources refunded, depending on the spec. Also several trinkets only have a chance grant their effects when you crit, they use 'Chance On Critical Hit' on the description.
• Also Final Fantasy XIV's Bard has the passive ability "River of Blood" which grants a 50% chance that critical Damage Over Time inflicted by Windbite will reset the Bloodletter recast timer." its a bonus that can only happen when you crit.

edited 27th Jun '16 3:04:49 AM by Memers

This is why I hate reviving old discussions. Issues that were pretty much settled before have to get rehashed out all over again because either new people get involved and want their say, or people that were already involved in the first place want to rehash their original objections. Argh.

Alright, in order:

Because the thread was getting no activity when I was asking for commentary, so I decided to move forward and let people raise objections if they wanted to rather than wait indefinitely for "yes, go ahead" comments that weren't happening. In other words, no one cared at the time, so I took a lack of objection as tacit approval.

This site already has a (not unearned) reputation for impenetrable jargon. If we don't use pre-existing terms for pre-existing tropes, then it's only going to get worse. If we're defining a trope that everyone else in the world calls a "critical hit" but we call it a "squeedillyspooch", then that's dumb and we're dumb and we shouldn't do that. We use pre-existing terms wherever possible.

Yes. The current page defines a critical hit as an attack that has a random chance to do extra damage. We're transplanting this definition to Random Critical Hit and using the main Critical Hit page as a supertrope that includes not-random crits, as people were struggling to find a place to put not-random crit examples and causing misuse on other pages. This is all in the first post of this thread.

We're defining the trope as it's used by the community. Not the TV Tropes community, the wider gaming community that created the trope in the first place. The fanspeak term is wider than just "high-accuracy strike", which is why we have 12 pages of discussion and three sandbox pages about it.

"Critical damage" is not a term I hear often, and when I do it usually means either "damage done by a critical hit" or "damage that brings you down to critical(ly low) health levels". The former is no different than Critical Hit and the latter has nothing to do with it, so I don't think it's relevant to this thread.

We're not defining the fanspeak term. We're defining the trope, using the fanspeak term as the title. The trope has subtropes.

Where are you reading this? There's a bunch of exploding dice examples in the page.

If a game calls something a "critical hit" but doesn't fit our definition, then it's not an example and it shouldn't be listed on the page. But the goal is to make sure that our definition fits the definition that most people use when they're talking about critical hits, so those non-examples should be rare.

On your proposed trope tree: generally speaking, I think you're splitting too many hairs and a lot of your proposed new tropes aren't necessary and/or are irrelevant to this thread, which is about Critical Hit and that's all.

Here's what the Critical Hit trope tree looks like:

• Extra Effective Attack: Any attack that is more effective than normal for any reason.
  • Critical Hit: An attack that is more effective than normal because it fits certain conditions defined by the game.
    • Random Critical Hit: When random chance is part of the definition of critical hit.

The rest of it is irrelevant to this thread and should probably go in a Trope Launcher thread for Extra Effective Attack.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I disagree on just limiting it to just that, it's nice that we are now hammering out where everything might go so we can prevent overlap.

Imo we really should get the outline of everything set, the tropes themselves do not need to exist yet, which would include the sorting of critical hit and such. Then we can finally go back to splitting Boom, Headshot! into the narrative and Artistic License – Military subtrope Sniper Headshot and the gameplay Headshot Critical Hit which started this whole uber nerd discussion on critical hit.

edited 27th Jun '16 7:15:04 AM by Memers

This is a TRS thread for Critical Hit. We're positing two new tropes to fix the issues with Critical Hit: Extra Effective Attack (a supertrope to critical hit that encompasses all attacks that are more effective than usual, regardless of whether they're critical hits or use other mechanics) and Random Critical Hit (a subtrope to critical hit that is specifically about critical hits that happen randomly rather than with set specific conditions).

Everything else is irrelevant to this thread. It still needs to happen, but this thread is not the place to do it.

The Boom, Headshot! thread is over here. Take that discussion there so we can focus on Critical Hit in this one.

edited 27th Jun '16 7:29:49 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Try rereading that thread, it was decided to wait because Critical Hit wasn't defined the way to make a subtrope out of because it is defined as a Random Critical Hit. Hence this thread, it's a subtrope of Critical Hit or Extra Effective Attack depending entirely on what we define those two as and it would probably dictate the name too.

We need to finish this first.

edited 27th Jun '16 7:30:44 AM by Memers

For the purposes of this thread and the definitions currently on the table, a critical hit that happens because of a headshot would be a Critical Hit but not a Random Critical Hit. A headshot that causes extra effects but is not a Critical Hit (eg, in recent Fallout games, hitting someone in the head can reduce their accuracy and cause Interface Screw if it happens to the player, but that's a separate mechanic than doing a Critical Hit), then it'd be an example of Extra Effective Attack but not Critical Hit. It may be worth having an "extra effective headshot" subtrope of Extra Effective Attack, but that's a discussion on Extra Effective Attack (presumably in the trope launcher, since EEA doesn't actually exist yet), not Critical Hit (ie, this thread).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.