Unwinnable by Insanity should not be a YMMV trope.

Hmm... Should we consider all three of the Unwinnable series of tropes viable for TRS if there's no clear distinction between each other and similar gameplay tropes like Good Bad Bugs and Game-Breaking Bug?

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Mar 7th 2021 at 1:36:29 AM

A Game-Breaking Bug is something that the typical player would be expected to encounter, though, not something that happens only when they dance in the faerie circle at coordinates 255,255 on a leap day during a full moon.

If we're going to consider taking this to TRS, we need a wick check for overlap between GBB, UBM, and UBI.

Agreed.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 7th 2021 at 5:26:29 AM

I think that there's at the least a clear distinction in the case of "Unwinnable by Design": in the case, the "unwinnable" state isn't something that the developer missed, it's something that the developer _intentionally left in_.

Now, confirming whether something is present by intention or mistake is another matter...

IMO the main difference here is if the unwinnable state is caused by:

• A poor game design element that can easily lock the player out by mistake
• The player intentionally doing things that they know can lock them out

In my experience, most cases of UBI aren't made by stupidity, but by curiosity and players wanting to challenge themselves. A lot of players will softlock themselves (or someone else) intentionally and willingly.

But this isn't a distinction that works well to define tropes, because it's true that these UBI scenarios wouldn't exist unless the game didn't account for certain things- and unless we want to start collecting examples of "player did this", then the difference is meaningless.

TL;DR: A merge sounds fine.

Hey guys, letting you know that this topic is stressing me out and frustrating me to the point of dreading new comments, so I will be leaving at this point. Thank you for your understanding.

Gonna do the same. The fact that more than one page is now at the risk of going to TRS (where anything can always happen, from a mere rename to a full deletion) because of this thread is appaling me.

...why would it be "appalling" to you? Do you not want issues to get fixed? TRS isn't "anything goes", it's "how can we fix these tropes?"

Leave if you want man, but I just don't get your problem.

My problem is that we're going from addressing one page's problem to putting a whole family of pages into the same bag just because not all parties involved in the thread can agree on the true problem and/or how to solve it (specifically, we went from debating on whether UBI should be YMMV or not to proposing a TRS investigation to that page, UBM 'and GBB). As a precedent, when one of the "True Art" pages was cut for being problematic, it led to nearly all other TA pages being taken to the same outcome.

By the way, I'm replying to you because I forgot to delist this thread from my watchlist, and took the chance to clarify my disillusionment. After I submit this post, I'll delist it and leave the rest of you to continue the conversation.

...In any case, if Guy isn't going to be participating here anymore, should we discuss the wick check idea again? They were planning to do it themselves, but I'm not sure they care to anymore.

It happens more often then it should, but someone has a question or suggestion for a trope and somehow we end up talking about cutting it altogether because it has some problems. The priority for trope talk should just be discussing a trope and not trying to fix it.

I really don't see a big deal with those tropes in terms of definition or examples, unless you really want to add another list to the TRS backlog.

• Game-Breaking Bug: The game has a notable bug that prevents proper operation of game mechanics. It doesn't necessarily make it unwinnable, but definitely harms the ability to play the game properly (a specific combination of attacks backfire and the boss gains health instead).
• Unwinnable by Design: Intentional elements, sometimes outright scripted, where the player is unable to be victorious in an encounter but it is an intended part of the story (villain defeats you and tosses you off a ledge, you recover and set on looking to get stronger to beat them at the end).
• Unwinnable by Mistake: Bugs or glitches that are easy to discover when playing the game that render you unable to progress (if you enter a certain room and come back, the trigger code for your key card doesn't activate).
• Unwinnable by Insanity: Extremely divergent gameplay that makes you unable to progress because the game was unable to anticipate or handle the player engaging in self-defeating tactics or actively trying to mess with the mechanics (throwing a grenade at your feet next to a certain wall pushes you outside the map geometry).

Edited by EmeraldSource on Mar 7th 2021 at 10:05:50 AM

That's Hopeless Boss Fight, not Unwinnable by Design. The latter is for when you can't finish the game due to something the designers intentionally put in, not a scripted loss that happens as part of the plot that the player can still progress from.

Edited by Serac on Mar 7th 2021 at 1:47:56 PM

Ah, I'm sorry to see MyFinalEdits and AGuy go! I feel that I can understand, however, that it can be frustrating when something seems terribly obvious to you, but those to whom you are speaking just aren't seeing it.

I still disagree with their perspective, but I am sad to lose their voices in the discussion!

As to said discussion, I'm still somewhat in favour of a merge of Unwinnable by Insanity into Unwinnable by Mistake. I don't have a problem with leaving it as it is (and still YMMV, to be clear), however.

I don't see a problem with Game-Breaking Bug, myself. To my mind, it has overlap, but isn't the same thing: A Game-Breaking Bug may not render a playthrough unwinnable, and an unwinnable state may come from something other than a bug.

Unwinnable by Design looks quite distinct to me, too. The only quibble that I have is that of determining whether the source of the unwinnable state is in fact intentional or not.

Yeah, the concepts of Game-Breaking Bug and Unwinnable by Mistake are fine; it’s just I’ve noticed a level of misuse classifying something as one when it should be the other. I’ll see if I can find a specific example when I have a moment.

That's fair—but it seems like a separate matter from this topic, and might want for its own thread, with its own wick-count.

The reason these came up is because some of the examples people were citing for UBI sound like GBB/UBM instead. The acid test of whether tropes are sufficiently distinct is whether they are used distinctly by regular tropers, not whether we can come up with arbitrary ways to distinguish them while having a discussion like this.

I'm less interested in the technical differences than whether users correctly employ the tropes in practice.

Clearly, Unwinnable by Design and Hopeless Boss Fight are not bugs or design oversights and don't fall into the same category, so we can discard them unless some tropers are actively confusing them for GBB/UBI/UBM.

The purpose of Trope Talk threads like this one is to clarify the definitions of tropes and determine if there are enough problems to warrant taking them to TRS. The hypothesis is that Unwinnable by Insanity should not be YMMV. We are discussing the possibility that making this change would cause it to overlap with Unwinnable by Mistake to the point where they should be merged.

Meanwhile, the possibility has also been raised that there's overlap between UBM and Game-Breaking Bug, especially because the distinction given above makes UBM a subtrope of GBB.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 8th 2021 at 6:58:58 AM

Ah, fair enough, then.

I would argue that the two are sufficiently similar even without making a change. On top of that, it seems to me that merging the two furthermore obviates the question of whether Unwinnable by Insanity should be YMMV.

(To be clear: I'm not arguing that obviating that question is by itself justification for a merge; if the two tropes weren't close enough that merging seemed worthwhile then I likely wouldn't bring it up.

Rather, I feel that said obviation is a perk of the already-to-my-mind reasonable idea of merging.)

Ideally, why not just create a new trope simply titled "Softlock"? It's what UBI covers anyway, and softlock is an official term to describe ways the player can be prevented from progressing through the game.

Hmm... It's an interesting and tempting idea. That is a standard term outside of this wiki, I do believe.

Such a page would, I feel, call for some mention of the three ways in which it can come about: Oversight, insanity, and developer evilness. And as long as it doesn't go all the way to a soft-split, then perhaps that's okay.

When speaking of Developer Evilness, my mind goes to the levels listed on Unwinnable by Design...

That's exactly what I was referring to, I believe. ^^;

But of course, if we merge the tropes, then "Unwinnable by Design" won't exist as an independent page any more, and so would presumably not be referenced by that name.

We don't need to eliminate Unwinnable by Design, because by definition it is not an oversight or bug.

I honestly think a Softlock page would make more sense as a definition-only supertrope to UBI and UBM, if they don't get merged; if they do merge, it could be a solid redirect for the concept.

Like I said, it's very hard to tell in broad audience-based examples if the unwinnable state is triggered by player intent or by the game's poor design. In fact, one cannot exist without the other, as pointed out before by A Guy.

On that note, starting a (hopefully collaborative) wick check. See my signature for the link; it'll be in the "current projects" folder when it's up. For now I'll only focus on UBI. If we also want to make a UBM check, we can do that too.

Edit: Actually I'll just give you the link: Wick Check By Insanity

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 8th 2021 at 2:59:41 PM

The proposed "Soft Lock" page would presumably include "Unwinnable by Design", as, regardless of intent, such things can result in a soft-lock.

I could live with it as a definition-only supertrope; that might not be a bad idea, actually.

That said, even if Unwinnable by Mistake and Unwinnable by Insanity are merged, Unwinnable by Design would presumably remain. And since, as mentioned above, that last also results in a soft-lock, the "Soft Lock" page would still make more sense as a super-trope than a redirect, I think.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Mar 8th 2021 at 11:57:06 AM

10 examples into Wick Check By Insanity. Thus far most of them only seem to focus on what the players do rather than the fact that the game allows this to happen.

No clue what an objective example would look like, so that's empty right now, but still.

Nevermind... Edit: Disregard the notes. They were a just-in-case anyone read before the changes.

^note From the page itself, how's this for Objective? The example seems to be needing splits with sub-bullets... ^note A game that barely autosaves would, if rephrased, be an objective case of this? "The game doesn't autosave except at very rare points, and death? ^note * Play through Dragon Age: Origins without ever taking a level or making a hard save. Get into a fight with an autosave at the start that you can't win at your low level. It's also possible to make the two candidates of the Orzamar throne distrust you, forcing a hard restart.

Note to Self: Bulletpoints can only go in notes if they're right directly after the note starter.

Actually, Continuing is Painful, in a way that makes people lose their Starter Equipment in the first level, would be Unwinnable by Insanity, maybe?

Edited by Malady on Mar 8th 2021 at 9:08:19 AM