Highly Specific Counterplay

Edited for clarity

This new trope Highly Specific Counterplay seem problematic, at least to me.

• From its description ("These options may be very powerful in one specific situation or in a small number of specific situations, but they tend to be mediocre, weak or completely useless at any other time"), it sounds too similar to Not Completely Useless ("this is any time where something is useless for most of a game but has an advantage over your main tools for some section or other, even if it is not a particularly large one.")
• The word "counterplay" seems to refer to the whole thing (the situation in question and what you have to do/use to solve it) rather than just "something that is useful in certain few situations and nigh useless in others".

Edited by coconutkirin on Feb 14th 2021 at 11:36:31 PM

Moving discussion here.

For context, here's the original TLP draft. It was approved and launched with 11 net hats.

iTo be honest, yeah I am having trouble finding a meaningful distinction between Not Completely Useless and Highly Specific Counterplay. I want to say that the latter is supposed about gameplay mechanics as a whole but there are few examples that are about a specific weapon or spell which is covered by Not Completely Useless.

Thinking back, I wouldn’t say the geo element in Genshin is useless or mediocre, it’s just more defense oriented and not as focused on chain reactions

Edited by MacronNotes on Feb 14th 2021 at 9:41:26 AM

The word "counterplay" was included because I had Player Versus Player in mind for a lot of the examples. It's about items/weapons/abilities/etc. designed to counter something specific. Not Completely Useless is more general. I believe there is a meaningful distinction between "this item is designed to counter one specific thing" and a general "this item happens to be useful for a small number of specific cases, but is a poor choice everywhere else."

Maybe make HSC exclusive to Player Versus Player situations?

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Feb 14th 2021 at 7:26:48 PM

Yeah, about that... It's technically The Same, but More Specific. And if Player Versus Player is the focus of Highly Specific Counterplay, then some clarification note would've been more helpful.

With that in mind, the Genshin Impact example is disqualified. Because even though it has co-op, it's primarily a single player game and there's no PvP arena where players fight each other.

To understand it better, I want to ask: does Sniper's Razorback shield from Team Fortress 2 (all it does is preventing backstabs from Spies) count?

It's debatable whether it's The Same, but More Specific or a valid Sub-Trope. I'd argue that the focus on counterplay in a Player Versus Player dynamic serves a distinct function from something like "this item is only useful in one area in Level 5".

I don't know much about Team Fortress 2, but I guess it does — it only protects from one context-sensitive attack that can only be used by one of the nine classes.

At least if this trope is meant to be used for PVP-specific situations, then the description could've made that clearer.

But I think... there's a difference between "something that is clearly intended to be used for one specific situation" (like that "Anti-Raigeki" in that page) and "something that seems to have little use, but a situation comes where that something sees a great use".

Edited by coconutkirin on Feb 17th 2021 at 2:20:18 AM

Okay, I'll try to rewrite the description to emphasize the PVP aspect.

I agree that there's a difference between the two, and I think the somewhat less obvious examples (like the landwalk hosers from Magic) should also count. Also, I'd like to point out that Highly Specific Counterplay doesn't need to be powerful in any situation. It may be terrible even in the situation it's literally made for — the important factor is that it's very specific.

Alright, now that that's out of the way, I'll remove the Genshin Impact example since PvP is never the focus of that game.

Nice, thanks.

I have now rewritten the Highly Specific Counterplay page to emphasize that it's a PvP trope. I have also removed non-PvP examples from both the trope page and the associated work pages. Some examples have been moved to Not Completely Useless or This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman.