Duplicate Trope: Mechanically Unusual Fighter

I don't see much difference between Mechanically Unusual Class and Mechanically Unusual Fighter. They both deal with a playable option (classes in the former, characters in the latter) that are different in some ways than other playable options. The descriptions don't detail the differences, except that Mechanically Unusual Class is for RP Gs and Mechanically Unusual Fighter is for fighting games, which IMO is The Same But More Specific. Furthermore, there are a lot of examples from games that don't belong in either genre, so the noted differences are very vague.

My proposal is to cut one of them and move the examples to the other trope page. Afterwards, expand the surviving page's scope to encompass all kinds of playable options (characters, class, races, factions, etc) rather than merely RPG classes or fighting game characters.

Opening.

For added confusion, since one is specifically about fighting games and the other about RPGs, no one knows where to put examples from games belonging to other genres. Team Fortress 2 has its examples under Mechanically Unusual Class, while Overwatch puts them on Mechanically Unusual Fighter, despite the fact that both games belong to the same genre and should logically both be on the same page. Both pages also have a folder for Platform Games, with different examples in each.

As the term "class" implies RPG and "fighter" implies action game, it may be better to move both pages to a more neutral-sounding name, such as Mechanically Unusual Character. The current names could be kept as redirects.

Except a class means more than one character can be it. As in every character can be mechanically unusual which means it’s not unusual.

If merged they would need to be at least soft split with redirects that are allowed to be used refering to which one they actually are. Personally I would say keep em separate.

Is the fact that more than one character can be a certain class really enough of a distinction to deserve its own page? I don't think so. Both pages are about characters who play differently from most others, and that other players can pick the same class is a minor difference.

Mechanically Unusual Class has a redirect Gimmick Class, which I find is more accurate. It's about classes based around a gimmick that's distinctly different from all other classes.

Mechanically Unusual Fighter seems to be about a character whose fundamental controls are different.

I wouldn't make a distinction between "character" and "class", since from a video game mechanics perspective they're treated much the same in the ways that count for the tropes. Even without that, I still think the tropes are different.

That's an issue of semantics. Whether the trope itself applies to a character/class/faction isn't important, just that it's unusual in some way compared to its peers. Like how a Fragile Speedster can also apply to a character or a class.

In practice, though, it's hard to differentiate between the two. As one with unusual controls also tend to have unusual gimmicks as well.

There does not need to be any unusual controls for gimmicks at all. Also there can be unusual controls for normal abilities.

I would support exchanging it to "Gimmick Class".

For an example Heroes Of The Storm has the 'Specialist' as the fourth spec in addition to its standard Damager, Healer, Tank comp. These are built around gimmicks such as specializing in killing creeps or buildings but otherwise are not that different than other heroes mechanically... then you get The Lost Vikings a specialist who are 3 heroes in 1 and are so extremely different that they made their own unique UI for controlling all 3 of them at one time and Chogall who is a tank and a damager in one person and requires 2 people to play him.

The Specialists would all be Gimmick Class while The Lost Vikings and Chogall would be Mechanically Unusual Character.

edited 7th Jan '18 10:56:43 PM by Memers

There's probably more confusion due to trying to shoehorn the tropes into different genres. You have one trope with genre A and mechanic X, and another trope with genre B and mechanic Y, but then you have many examples that fit genre A and mechanic Y, or genre B and mechanic X. I think that's the main cause of misplaced examples.

So you're saying that one should be about "unusual role" and the other "unusual mechanic"? I like that.

Just to make sure I got your idea right, here's some examples from Final Fantasy Tactics A2:

• Tinker would be the former. Their skills are all casting buffs/debuffs on either all allies or all enemies. However, other than the weird effects of the skills, they're not played differently.
• Chocobo Knight would be the latter. Unlike other jobs, they can't equip secondary skillsets, and they don't even have a primary skillset until they ride a chocobo. Once they do, though, the skill effects are rather standard, like casting magic damage or healing.
• Geomancer is a lesser case of the latter. The availability of their magic spells is limited by the terrain they're standing on and the weather of the stage.

Bump. So, the latest suggestion is to turn Class into "unusual role". The class/character has can be controlled like everyone else, but the commands have weird and gimmicky effects.

Fighter will be turned to "unusual mechanic", where the gameplay mechanics just work differently for this character/class, but once you get the hang of it the effects are pretty normal.

Any objections? Any other ideas?

I like that definition. One being about characters with unusual effects on their abilities, and one being about characters with unique control schemes.

So these Dota 2 characters would fall under these tropes?

• The Techies would be a Gimmick Class. They don't have unique controls or mechanics, but most of their skills lay down different types of mines, which are less effective in a direct confrontation due to having an arming period. They're most effective when they set their minefield in advance, and setting up a large amount of Remote Mines can allow them to one-shot the whole enemy team if they're all caught in the blast radius.

• The Invoker would be a Mechanically Unusual Class. His first three skills summon an orb which grants him a minor buff, and his fourth skill gives him a new skill depending on which orbs he has active. These invoked spells aren't that weird, mostly just inflicting damage and different types of disables.

• Meepo would also be a Mechanically Unusual Class. His abilities are pretty normal, but his ultimate ability summons a permanent clone of him, who can also use all of these abilities. He can have up to five clones, all of which need to be controlled individually, and can be doing different things in different parts of the map.

Yeah those sound right.

Thinking on it the most common unusual mechanically unusual class is a class with a unique resource for their attacks. Usually something that does not automatically generate on its own, requires something like getting hit or doing moves to generate, or generates extremely quickly.

Potentially some of these could could be Resource Mechanic tropes in of themselves as counterparts to the standard Mana / Regenerating Mana.

Lets see if I can lay out the types

• Mana ISO resource system
• Regenerating Mana, Mana regens slowly over time preventing from being completely OOM but not so much that reaching that out of mana stage does not hinder your abilities
• Rage take hits gain resources to spend on all their moves, the common resource for tanks. in extreme cases this might be a subresource for a Limit Break.
• Quickly Regenerating Resource, a resource with a low cap but regenerates quickly thus limiting the amount of damage you can do in a burst but steadily over time and you never run out.
• Move Based Regeneration Resource, with these classes all moves will be split into 'Resource Generators' which do little or no damage but give you resources and 'Resource Spenders' which do large amounts of damage but cost resources. These require balancing between each to maximize the class.

edited 15th Jan '18 10:15:33 AM by Memers

Is it possible that these are suffering from Missing Supertrope Syndrome or are people saying that UMC is broken / makes no sense?

I read that and for some reason it didn't quite click, but yes there's certainly an issue with them missing their subtropes. Could this be a case of both — like, the missing subtropes you've mentioned but also the higher concept catch-all thing between them.

edited 16th Jan '18 11:43:45 AM by WaterBlap

IMO these are the supertropes and my last post is about its potential missing subtropes.

I don't want this to die, but I think the discussion pretty much reached its conclusion before the thread was forgotten about. Fighter is for characters who have unusual controls, Class is for characters whose skills have unusual effects (could be renamed Gimmick Class), different types of resources commonly used by Fighters could have their own pages made for them. What now, do we just start moving examples to the proper page?

Clock's up; locking for lack of activity/consensus. No action is to be taken on the basis of this thread.