Sandbox / Awesomeness Meter Wick Check

OP written by: mathfreak231

Category: Misuse

Summary: Awesomeness Meter has a bit of an identity crisis. The opening paragraph would imply it refers to "style points" in video games, i.e. rewards for tricks or special conditions of stylishness. Tropes Needing TRS claims it may overlap with Idiosyncratic Combo Levels, which is listed as a sub-trope, but I think a combo is a distinct concept from style points. The final paragraph says the non-game equivalent is Thing-O-Meter, which would imply that the trope is just "meters in video games", which is a Chair to me.

Questions: What meaning do most examples use on the wiki? Is there a lot of overlap with Idiosyncratic Combo Levels or other tropes? 50 examples were checked.

Findings:

• 11/50 described a player being rewarded for tricks or a specific style
• 8/50 described a player being rewarded for style, but didn't specify what the condition was, making them poor examples even if they fit the definition.
• 1/50 described a punishment for not playing with "style", which doesn't quite fit the spirit but is close
• 6/50 were actually Idiosyncratic Combo Levels
• 2/50 were actually just Gameplay Grading
• 18/50 just describe a combo or other meter
• 3/50 were ZCE. But based on the context given I'm willing to bet that two of them are actually Idiosyncratic Combo Levels

Rewards player for specific techniques or stylishness

1. SuperSmashBros.Tropes A To D: Smash 64 and Melee give you bonuses at the end of a match for playing in specific ways or doing certain actions; for example, scoring a knockout while standing on the revival platform. These bonuses only have value in a Bonus Mode match or in the one-player modes where they count toward your score.
2. VideoGame.Go Vacation: Each resort has a number of "Great Performance" stars that you get awarded for doing particularly flashy or death-defying stunts, like leaping over the fountain in the City Resort, or clearing a jump between two tall rock peaks in the Marine Resort.
3. VideoGame.Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Eyes Of Heaven: Gameplay Grading: Like most modern fighters, you get a rank based on factors such a damage, health remaining, and JoJolity.^note JoJolity is a ranking based on how "in character" you played a character; such as filling up Jonathan's Hamon gauge to the fullest, or time stopping with DIO and performing your DHA.
4. VideoGame.Pure2008: The aptly-named Thrill Bar, which is built up by doing tricks, allows you to access cooler ones as it it filled, with it also doubling as a boost meter.
5. VideoGame.Goat Simulator: You can get points for stuff like making things explode, crashing parties, and doing 360 flips.
6. VideoGame.Super Mario Run: In Toad Rally, players gain Toad fans whenever they pull off quick maneuvers, like jumping while Mario is vaulting over something. The more fans a player gets, the more their score is boosted at the end of Toad Rally, and the more Toads the player gets if they win Toad Rally. In a close match, more Toads can let you or your opponent pull off an upset despite earning fewer coins. However, doing well but ultimately losing means you end up losing more Toads than if you did poorly.
7. VideoGame.Gravity Bone: Parodied. In addition to your base mission payment, you're also rewarded bonus cash for a number of strange reasons, such as a "$100 Full Gas Tank bonus" in a mission with no vehicles. And the less said about the "Phantom Pants bonus", the better.
8. VideoGame.NBA Playgrounds: The second game adds a meter that fills when a player performs certain moves, and filling it allows the use of a special ability.
9. VideoGame.Downwell: Killing strings of enemies without touching the ground grants you a combo bonus. 8 gives you 100 gems, 15 adds in 1 extra gunboot charge, and 25 comes with 1 extra health.
10. PokemonGo.Tropes AC: The game rewards the player for catching Pokémon with a little added flair, granting an experience bonus and increasing the chance of a successful capture. Landing the ball within the colored circle is deemed a 'Nice', 'Great', or 'Excellent' throw depending on the size of the circle, which is worth 10, 50, and 100 points, respectively. Throwing a curveball is an additional 10 exp bonus, which is accomplished by either spinning the ball before throwing it or throwing at a sufficient angle.
11. VideoGame.Bulletstorm: Notice This: The game actually bribes you to pay attention to crucial events by awarding extra skillpoints by holding the aim button to focus on them.

Rewards player for style, but doesn't say what the conditions are

1. VideoGame.Devil May Cry: Combat is graded based on a number of factors, including variations within combos, number of hits, taunting, and damage taken. The better you perform, the faster the Style gauge fills up, which in turn, raises that battle's Stylish Rank from D to SSS (depending on the game). The Style gauge trickles down if you remain idle for a long time, but the Stylish Rank can drop several levels at once if you get hit. The first four games visualize the gauge using a horizontal meter below the Stylish Rank, but DmC and 5 used the Stylish Ranks' D to SSS letters as the vertical meters instead.
2. HonkaiImpact3rd.Tropes A To F: Some of the gameplay modes have a "rank counter" that goes from D to SSS as you attack enemies and perform certain techniques. While this normally has little effect in gameplay beyond increasing your coin prize after the stage ends, in "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", some of the characters' skills are tied to getting S-rank or above in battle, so that the better you perform, the stronger your characters become.
3. Creator.Platinum Games: Gameplay Grading: Most of their games involve scoring in some form that takes into account how quickly you beat a mission, how little damage you took, and how cool you looked doing it.
4. VideoGame.Too Human: The combo meter. It fills as the player dispatches enemies using varying techniques. The more complex the action, the more combo earned. Combo can then be spent on room-nuking attacks or spells that act as buffs (increasing attack speed, bullet damage, etc.). So the game magic is fueled by Rule of Cool.
5. VideoGame.They Bleed Pixels: The game has a combo meter that builds on how creatively you slay your enemies, and resets if you don't do damage for a short time.
6. VideoGame.Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: The Chamber of Wills has special associated units that utilize the Chamber's Morale mechanic, a sort of Awesomeness Meter that increases or decreases based on the actions of you and your opponent. The DPS units gain a shocking amount of damage if you can push the Morale meter to its maximum, putting them leagues above any normal unit in that setting. This is to help make up for the fact that the player can deliberately buff the enemy for a better score, and doing damage to an enemy that has its stats nearly doubled more or less requires having units with similarly insane damage.
7. Webcomic.A Complete Waste Of Time: It's not whether you achieve goals in META, but rather how you achieve them.
8. VideoGame.No More Heroes: Depending on how awesome you were during the stage, you'll get bonus points at the end of a stage.

Punishment, not reward

1. Pinball.Guns N Roses Jersey Jack: During song modes, the Rock-It Meter (which steadily decreases when the player isn't making any relevant shots) drains faster if the player holds the flipper to trap a ball, encouraging more active and flashy playing.

should be Idiosyncratic Combo Levels

1. VideoGame.Speed Power Gunbike: Depending on how many hits your were able to land, you'll see various phrasing using "GUN" from your attacks, such as "GUN!" or "GUN! GUN! GUN!".
2. Pinball.High Roller Casino: In Slot Machine Multiball, the Slot Machine can award anything from a Super Jackpot to a Super-Duper-Mega-Extreme Jackpot depending on how many shots' Triple Jackpots were collected first. The longer the name, the more points that are awarded. was actually slash-listed
3. VideoGame.Onechanbara: Start with Bikini Samurai Squad, players are graded while fighting enemies and maintaining a chain of high combo hits and kills with an associated phrase. From lowest to highest in Bikini Samurai Squad/Bikini Zombie Slayers: "Cyclone!", "Blustered!", "Ace!", "Sensual!", and "Violence!". This style meter is dropped, starting with Z: Kagura. In place is a standard combo number counter and kill counter.
4. VideoGame.Hi Fi Rush: Your combos during fights are ranked from D to S. On higher ranks, Chai's scrap guitar transforms into a real one.
5. VideoGame.Ex Zeus: Based on how many hits can you land successfully, you'll get a phrased associated with your combo such as "Rock'in", "Terrific", and "Groovy", with a score bonus for hits that were landed.
6. VisualNovel.Rose Guns Days: Your skill in the mini-game is symbolized by an insignia which becomes more elaborate when you manage a flawless sequence (the more Score Multipliers you can manage, the faster it evolves) but regresses every time you screw up an attack. It starts with a single silver chevron and goes up to a golden lion head with golden laurels on the sides. Also, the insigna's motif changes depending on the time period.

should be Gameplay Grading

1. VideoGame.Ruiner: At the end of every fight, you get a letter grade depending on how you do, ranging from "S" as the highest and "E" for the lowest. Her will also react to your performance, being overjoyed if you do well and mocking and disappointed if you're mediocre.
2. VideoGame.Bayonetta: After completing each verse in a chapter, you're given a grade, from Stone to Platinum, on each of three categories: combo, time, and damage received. Based on your grades for these categories, you are then given an overall grade for that verse, which ranges from Stone, to Pure Platinum (the latter can only be received by getting a Platinum in each category). At the end of a level, you are also given a final grade on each chapter as a whole (taking into account the number of deaths and items used), ranging again from Stone to Pure Platinum (the latter is only awarded if each verse grade is Pure Platinum). Each chapter grade is accompanied by an appropriate statue (a Stone Enzo, Bronze Cereza, Silver Luka, Gold Rodin, Platinum Bayonetta, or Pure Platinum Bayonetta holding a moon. If you unlock Jeanne as a playable character, she also has her own trophies distinct from Bayonetta).

Other wrong trope or just a meter

1. VideoGame.Wetrix: Racking up combos causes a rainbow bonus to appear over the play field which adds extra points for the player.
2. VideoGame.Forgive Me Father: The Madness meter can be treated as this, as it rises up as you deal damage (and finding alcohol in a middle of the fight) and resets backs to 0 whenever you don't deal any damage in a few seconds. Getting it to high levels has you deal more damage and plays a part in recharging your Madness Abilities, as well as screws up your vision a bit.
3. VideoGame.Cabal Online: Combat features a combo battle system, where players can chain combos by timing the skill between the optimal zone and rewards chaining special attacks for extra experience points. Chaining combos is easy until it hits a sudden difficulty increase at 30 combos, where skills need to be precisely hit in a tiny zone to continue the combo. Mooks of the recommended level is usually little more than punching bags to be gathered in vast numbers for longer combos.
4. VideoGame.Magnetica: The game has a meter on the upper screen that fills up the more chains the player can rack up.
5. VideoGame.God Hand: The Difficulty Gauge. As it goes up, enemies become stronger and more aggressive and items other than money drop more often. It's increased by hitting, dodging, or taunting enemies, and decreased by taking enough damage or using the Grovel roulette move.
6. Characters.Okami: Godhood. Either by using a certain item or by landing hits without getting hit yourself, Ammy will gradually build up her Godhood, represented by a symbol of Amaterasu encased in a spherical aura. There's a maximum of three levels of Godhood, and as long as Amaterasu has at least one, she's flat-out invincible.^note  We mean actual invincibility; she won't take damage nor flinch from the hit, as her Godhood barrier will take the hit for her. Godhood loses one level of potency by getting hit.
7. VideoGame.Bust A Groove: The Groove Bars in Bust a Groove 2. Line 'em up, and something freaky/cool happens in the stage you're dancing in.
8. VideoGame.Marlow Briggs And The Mask Of Death: Combat Commentator: The Mask of Death. He compliments good performances; get the Awesomeness Meter to a 100-hit combo and he starts positively gushing.
9. VideoGame.Gungrave: The Beat Counter raises with every shot you land on enemies and destructible objects, and scoring enough Beats will steadily build Flame for Grave (or other characters) to perform devastating Demolition Shot attacks.
10. VideoGame.Soldier Of Fortune: Sort of. Gunfire and explosions drive up your noise meter; this results in more enemies appearing, necessitating even more gunfire and explosions.
11. VideoGame.Sunset Overdrive: The Style Meter. Not only it denotes how well you're fighting but certain amps will only become active if the meter is high enough.
12. VideoGame.Devil May Cry 5: Mickey Mousing: The Style Rank gauge visibly pulses in time with the background music's drumbeat, providing visual aid to the Variable Mix gameplay.
13. VideoGame.No More Heroes 2 Desperate Struggle: Competitive Balance: The Peony is a Mighty Glacier, with slow and powerful attacks. Its also Difficult, but Awesome because using it correctly requires knowledge of when to use charged attacks and the step-in slice and only reaches its true potential with a full Awesomeness Meter (which means it can't be used in boss fights as it resets if you continue).
14. VideoGame.Shadow Of Rome: Salvo meter, which you can use to win over the crowd and get better weapons.
15. VideoGame.God Of War: Each game has a meter that fills up by killing enemies (or, more rarely, collecting gold orbs) and briefly grants Kratos invulnerability when used - Rage of the Gods (God of War), Rage of the Titans (God of War II), Rage of Sparta (God of War III), and Spartan Rage (God of War (2018) and God of War Ragnarök).
16. VideoGame.Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae: Misa's zeal builds up to five levels indicated next to Life and Katana Meters as she deals damage to her enemies or uses her defensive techniques to avoid damage, and goes down if enemies lands any attacks on her. The higher her zeal, the more SP she gains from slain enemies and greater the damage dealt by Zanshin to bleeding enemies.
17. VideoGame.Audition Online: The ranking for timing goes Miss, Bad, Cool, Great and Perfect. Since Perfects are had to achieve and much less common than Greats, they are worth much more points, especially if you can make a combo of them. this is just how Rhythm Games work
18. VideoGame.Strong Bads Cool Game For Attractive People: The meter progresses for full completion of all five episodes. Completion Meter

ZCE

1. VideoGame.Sengoku Basara: How your combos are rated.
2. VideoGame.Manhunt: Arguably yes... and arguably no. See "Video Game Cruelty Potential" and "Do Not Do This Cool Thing" for more details.
3. VideoGame.Wolf Team: "Head Shot!" - Pistol, "Snake Attack", "Elite Wolf", "Rival Kill", "The King is Captured", "I AM the King".

Conclusion: The greatest misuse of this trope comes from misunderstanding it as "combo meter" or "meter exists."

Proposal: In its current state I think Awesomeness Meter should become a disambiguation between tropes that it's getting confused with. "Bonus for tricks/style" is certainly a tropable concept but I think it still might be too broad so it should be sent to the yard for now.