Needs Help (New crowner 21 June 2021): Unwinnable By Insanity

Except it's not about the game logic "working perfectly". If it did work perfectly, it couldn't be abused in the first place to create such soft-locks. The fact that these lock methods exist at all are a mistake on the part of the programmers.

It's sort of moot anyway since consensus has been reached, but I'm really not seeing what you're getting at here. You seem to be interpreting the trope completely differently.

I just don't think someone stumbling into a programming or design error completely accidentally that prevents them from winning, and someone deliberately breaking or exploiting the game in such a way that it becomes completely unwinnable, are one and the same. The latter sort of implies that the dev team should have ridiculous amounts of Developer's Foresight, or they're otherwise committing "mistakes".

Again, I'm not gonna fight the consensus, but it's really hard to understand you guys at times.

I'll say that I've said the same, about 2 pages ago, just so I'm / we're not repeating args.

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So. the pre-merges are becoming redirects?

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Also, I vote: Unintentionally Unwinnable

Edited by Malady on May 29th 2021 at 7:17:47 AM

That's standard procedure, I believe.

I mean, I see what you guys are getting at, however I don't really think it makes sense personally to divide the concepts, especially not if we merge them under a name like Softlock or Unintentionally Unwinnable, at which point the exact likelihood of finding the softlock is less important than the fact that it can be softlocked at all.

That still brings up the problem of mixing up (sometimes very deliberate and out-of-the-way) softlocking with an Obvious Beta game that simply glitches out or crashes at a particular level or screen, and makes you unable to complete it at all, no matter what you try.

Edited by WackyPancake on May 29th 2021 at 4:23:16 PM

Well, only if we actually do refer to it as Softlocking.

I'd argue it'd be better if we just made a page called Softlocking and just put all examples involving softlocks there, while Game Breaking Bugs that just outright crash or break the game making it uncompletable are kept at Unwinnable by Mistake or Unintentionally Unwinnable.

That said, I still feel like it's mashing different, distinct concepts together.

Edited by WackyPancake on May 29th 2021 at 4:29:27 PM

Well, it really depends on what you interpret the tropes to be about; evidently, the people who voted for the merge just see the trope in the way I'm describing it, and the people who didn't vote for it see it your way. My POV just happens to be more common, or at least as far as this discussion goes.

Well, Unwinnable by Mistake can actually be at a 100% chance, such as Victoria: An Empire Under The Sun tutorial as said on its Other Video Games section.

And Mistake is long enough that we're splitting it already. And Unwinnable by Insanity already has 4 subpages.

If we're merging them, they're gonna be long enough to need splitting again, so why not leave the current split, which already can be given the firmer criteria they need, to be cleaner?

Oh, and Mistakes can happen even without being an Obvious Beta game.

Edited by Malady on May 29th 2021 at 7:32:16 AM

That's kind of shitty, though, because it indicates there's a trope concept in there that is getting erased or diluted. By and large tropes should not be "interpretative". Maybe we should salvage yard it.

Edited by WackyPancake on May 29th 2021 at 4:32:57 PM

Maybe. If we find enough examples while wick cleaning we can even take it directly to TLP. I wouldn't oppose that.

I mean, maybe we COULD do that, but the reason we're not is because the crowner chose to merge. Evidently, not enough people wanted to just "tighten the criteria", so we can't go with that.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 29th 2021 at 10:35:04 AM

I honestly think crowners are sort of pointless if they just boil down to a show of hands without people giving strong or convincing arguments about why certain things should be done in a certain way. The majority is not always right and by this logic, if a majority of tropers voted in a crowner that TVT should be presented in an eye-searing neon-pink color, we'd be forced to apply it.

But that's just another, massive can of worms that would probably mean we should overhaul the entire TRS system.

Believe me, I completely understand. I'm not happy with this decision either. But I think discussions on potential changes to TRS as a whole should be held elsewhere.

There's an all-purpose policy and meta discussion thread. Maybe you could talk about it there?

I mean, to be fair, we had a very robust discussion about this. Like, a massive debate here and on Trope Talk. So I wouldn't call it a "show of hands".

I mean, I understand being unhappy with the results, but it's unfair to boil it down to just being, well...that. Your version isn't necessarily the right one and the winning result isn't necessarily in the wrong here. There was enough of a discussion earlier for people to pitch in and really discuss the possibilities. One of those possibilities were more popular than the others. That doesn't mean the crowner is just a popularity contest.

I mean, ideally, maybe, but good luck getting all the lurkers to do that.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 29th 2021 at 10:44:54 AM

It is a show of hands, though. Ideally, every troper who voted in the crowner should be explaining why they voted that way.

No offense, Pancake, but I think discussing sweeping changes to TRS is a bit beyond the scope of this thread. Why not bring them up in the meta thread?

It has to be brought up somewhere. Regardless, I'm just one guy and I'd rather know if enough people agree with me to take it there.

In any case, I won't bother this thread anymore. Carry on, lads.

We're not asking you to leave this thread. Just keep the scope of the discussion on the topic at hand.

Well, I've pretty much said my piece in regards to the thread topic in question. Not that I can change much even if I keep arguing since current policy states the crowner results should be carried out.

Still, I think we'd all be happy if you were to participate in TRS on a regular basis. You can have a say in the decisions made.

Yeah, nobody's asking you to leave TRS or this thread in particular, I just think you're blowing this out of proportion and being a bit too biased about the crowner. Unless you can point to any moment in which this thread could've had more discussion, I think if anything this thread had more discussion than we usually put into these things.

That's right. There was actually more discussion here than in a lot of other TRS threads. You can still weigh in on other issues, and maybe there were things we could have done better here. Hell, maybe there are improvements to be made to TRS as a whole. We're understaffed and we want to break the perception that this is a clique, so we could use an extra pair of hands and a fresh perspective.

Don't worry guys, I ain't leaving TRS. At least for now.

Unless my shitty attention span ensnares me once again. In that case, I do apologize in advance.

Well, we'll be happy to have you for as long as your attention span allows.