Needs Help: Fragile Speedster

Can we get a moderator approval that the discussion is done, and clean-up should commence, or do we want a crowner?

Yeah, this discussion is done. There have been no new arguments offered for why it should be changed to mean or include "weak offensively" rather than, or along with "weak defensively" other than "I think it should.", which is insufficient.

Fragile means "easily broken"; it doesn't mean "ineffective".

Let the clean-up commence

edited 30th Mar '15 8:27:49 AM by Madrugada

What about creating a trope that is about being "ineffective but fast"? Could that be put through YKTTW? Tropers may be less likely to associate that with Fragile Speedster if there is already another trope for it.

edited 2nd Apr '15 5:56:48 PM by shiro_okami

That just moves us farther down the road to "27 balance tropes". Not really somewhere we need to be headed.

It is a trope though and related to but not restricted to Death of a Thousand Cuts as well as possibly No-Sell, Implausible Fencing Powers, Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs etc.

The weak hits tend to average out to be the same DPS as say a hard and slow hitter as a factor in Competitive Balance.

In World Of Warcraft you could compare a dual wielding Fury Warrior vs a heavy hitting two hander Arms Warrior as a basis for it, they have the exact same defenses, one hits fast and weak in large numbers of hits the other hits hard but slow. They in theory are supposed to have the same DPS.

Now a Rogue would be both this trope and the new one.

edited 3rd Apr '15 3:53:12 AM by Memers

Memers, none of those are "Ineffective" and so wouldn't be said trope.

They don't have to be 'ineffective'. They just have to be weak and fast hits. A weak hit that does 1 damage is ineffective on say a target that has 1000 but you hit that guy 1000 times quickly its not ineffective, it worked.

Ineffective versions often lead to No-Sell though.

So, "Ineffective but fast" doesn't need to be "Ineffective"? That makes sense.

I was trying to play off of the same terminology the mod was using, but maybe it doesn't really fit. Anyway, the idea of the trope is very similar to Death of a Thousand Cuts, except that that trope is about the attack itself, whereas the new trope would be about characters who use those kinds of attacks by using fast motions.

Whether a trope is viable or not should depend on how well it does in YKTTW. Balance tropes are not a group where if you allow one new balance as a trope you have to allow all of them. Also, most theoretical balances do not have pre-existing inversions, while this one does; it would serve as another imcomplete inversion of Mighty Glacier in addition to Fragile Speedster.

edited 5th Apr '15 2:27:57 PM by shiro_okami

Death of a Thousand Cuts does not require speed at all nor does it have to be a single character. You just gotta do so many weak hits to KO a target, IE World Of Warcraft bosses, their HP might be in the billions while you only hit for 1000 or so and take 20 people 10 minutes to do enough damage to kill a boss.

The image though is the perfect example of a quick weak hitter, although he is also a Fragile Speedster having low HP and a high dodge rate.

Anyone think we need a separate Trope Talk thread that discusses Competitive Balance as a whole so that these Repair Shop threads don't keep flaring up?

I got involved with one discussion about them (where we decided to move all Competitive Balance to Necessary Drawback), but that was changed back. I don't want these arguments to have to flare up on again-off again and it would be much better if they were just continuous.

Not a bad idea. If its a recurring issue it should have a single recurring discussion.

I'd agree with making a ykttw about a speedster with weak damage.

Ny argument is that, in games such as Shmup or Beat 'em Up, most of the time they have the same amount of health/defense, so Fragile Speedster can't be in play there. Instead, there'll be one that moves slow but hits hard (Mighty Glacier) and one that moves quick but hits "soft" (this potential ykttw).

Thanks! Now I just have to make sure everyone else agrees. I have been biding my time to wait for the right moment to revive Forceless Speedster, but I'm not sure that time has arrived yet. Hopefully, this time acrobox won't be around to kill it with a derailing argument.

edited 23rd Sep '15 5:48:11 PM by shiro_okami

I'm pretty sure it's been gone over multiple times, and each time it was decided we don't need a Same But More Specific version of Fragile Speedster were they do less damage.

Damage output isn't even relevant to the trope. It's the balance of bulk and speed.

I don't think you understand, it would not be a subtrope of Fragile Speedster, but a different trope entirely. That Fragile Speedster says nothing about damage is exactly the reason why there is an opening for a new trope. The new trope would be about damage and not about defense, so it is not The Same But More, but rather the exact opposite.

edited 24th Sep '15 3:46:35 PM by shiro_okami

did someone mention my name

Only doing it for anyone who hasn't followed this:

—-

my entire argument

Competitive Balance is in foil pairs for the exception that Fragile Speedster (+overall mobility -defensive bulk) is slightly more narrow than Mighty Glacier (-overall mobility +overall bulk). The cleanest solution is to redefine Speedster to be as broad as Glacier so they match. (FG = +overall mobility -overall bulk)

You do that by letting Forceless Speedster be a version of Fragile Speedster instead of a new separate trope. (which is already somewhat implied by the current definition, and (mis)used as such in practice.)

—-

But if everyone thinks its better to create more new tropes instead of sticking to foil pairs go ahead.

I'd rather new voices take up the arguments than just waiting for one or the other of us to get tired and leave.

But I'm officially tired and leaving, and got banned over this once, so... That's my last word. I have bowed out.

edited 24th Sep '15 5:48:40 PM by acrobox

I think this discussion is done, the cleanup can be a long/short term thing if we really want it to be.

It was taken to the YKTTW

the idea was to launch essentially new/redundant tropes Might Less Speedster to Fragile Speedster and Weak Glacier to Mighty Glacier, and then merge those redundant tropes into the old ones in order to expand them both.

Ultimately taking the long way around instead of expanding Fragile Speedster directly by editing the definition.

edited 31st Dec '15 5:37:30 PM by acrobox

Those were deemed unnecessary much earlier by a mod. A Weak Glaicer is a Stone Wall, anyway.

No it's not. A Stone Wall is offensively weak and defensively tough. Speed doesn't enter into it; they can be fast, slow, or anywhere in the middle.

That sounds like a Weak Glacier going off of the name.

We don't need more Competitive Balance Archetypes, several already overlap with each other. That's the reason why Glass Ninja was axed before.

And the reason why its best just to allow Fragile Speedster to cover Might Less Speedster.

That way you only have two tropes that are basically Strong And Slow (covered by Mighty Glacier), and Weak And Fast (covered by Fragile Speedster) and not worry about specifically defense or specifically offense.

Bulkiness/Power vs Mobility/Speed archetypes over specific stats.

edited 31st Dec '15 6:53:57 PM by acrobox

Locking as part of New Years Purge.