Discussion Characters / OverwatchSupport

Well, the way I see it is that he needed to tell himself that lie in order to survive up until the point that he joined Talon. After that, he didn't need to keep lying to himself, and he accepted the truth for what it was at a point when it was no longer necessary. I did make the change to the entry to mention that he believed that mantra up until he joined Talon. I don't think it's a Bait-and-Switch because he really did need to survive by his own terms as a child. A more straight example would be if he said all that survival mantra only to reveal that he was actually well off the entire time.

But his origin story has him displaying the typical "only the fittest survive" attitude that several characters have, then has him say that's completely wrong and he was weak for believing it. If that's not a bait and switch, I don't know what is.

For what it's worth, according to Kaplin in a video that was just uploaded, he joined Talon after he'd been a mercenary for some time and only signed up for the pay, so the IDWIHTD certainly doesn't apply there.

Oh wow, someone just updated his entire profile with the story listed on Battle.net, which explains SO MUCH MORE than his origin story.

Upon reading all of that detail, you have a good point about the origin video. It's a huge influx of new detail so I think it's understandable that some debate over these tropes is going to happen.

Ummm. Yeah, go ahead and include whatever changes you want to make. I'll back out for now.

I agree with Bisected 8 on this one. In my opinion, the trailer is constructed in a way to make him at least seem sympathetic to the idea of Social Darwinism, only for him to turn that around towards the end.

Not sure about the wording, but the narrative framework is definitely there in my opinion.

Cool, I'm readding Bait and Switch. I'll hold off on calling I Did What I Had to Do a subversion for now.

It's still KTD by virtue of her being callous about it. Plus she mispronounced Mei's name, so it's probably meant to be taken as "Moira's a meanie".

Yeah she seems to be unaware of Mei's history, and didn't mean to upset her. The entry should be changed to at least mention that much.

I still disagree. Her overall tone is still pretty disrespectful (Malicious Misnaming for one) and it would take a brain pretzel to assume she doesn't know that Mei's colleagues are dead.

It's not as if the fact they've been missing for multiple decades would have gone unnoticed, even if Mei didn't report it for some reason. Moira's not going to have heard anything about theirs or Mei's work without knowing that.

I’d call that Speculative Troping though. We’re never told she knows, even if it were likely.

I don't think Malicious Misnaming applies. I think that's a voice direction mishap. (Like how in the past Reinhardt pronounced Brigitte's name wrong)

^^ There's a point where something can be reasonably inferred without it being speculation.

For Moira not to be aware of the death of Mei's colleagues, she'd have to be completely unaware of anything about them, and thus couldn't possibly be interested in their research.

For comparrison's sake: It's not been explicitly stated that she knows Mei was stationed at Antarctica, but nobody would argue otherwise.

There’s nothing to infer here. All of your points make an assumption that may make a good story with competently written characters, but those are stikl factors that have yet to be written into the story.

As you said, no one has stated she knows. And that’s the bottom line. Inferring anything else is speculation.

My point is that it would be ridiculous to assume she doesn't know they're dead; the fact Mei's colleagues are dead, even if it isn't public knowledge, is blatantly obvious.

If anything, it would be speculative to assume Moira, respected member of the Oasis scientific community is just assuming every other member of Mei's team (whose work she's interested in) just hasn't put out a paper in a while since they went to Antarctica decades ago.

You might as well argue that it hasn't been confirmed that Gabriel Reyes is Reaper (all we have to go on are skins, which might not be canon, and he fact that he has the same powers in Retribution).

Those two cases are not the same. The Reaper/Reyes connection has SEVERAL confirmations, including Ana flat out calling him Gabriel.

The speculation about Moira has zero confirmation and is based on nothing other that what, in your opinion, would make sense.

Speculative or not, i don't think Kick the Dog is appropriate in this case.

It's still to do with fanservice, because it's still purely aesthetic and draws attention to the breasts.

Just because it doesn't show skin doesn't change that.

I have to disagree. It's not inherently about "fanservice". It's about Secondary Sexual Characteristics; it's common to give women some sort of traits that signify that they are women. (See also, Furry Female Mane and Non-Mammal Mammaries.)

For example, after Captain Phasma was revealed for The Force Awakens, a bunch of people complained about the armor not having boobs to know that she's female, which got mocked by the creators. They weren't asking for it to be sexy—just that a female character be sufficiently feminized.

While that's true, there's still an element of fanservice to it. It's still possible to give armour purely aesthetic feminine curves without going so far as to include separate breast cups.

While the Captain Phasma example was mainly about gender neutral defaulting to "male" (thinking about it, do we have a trope for that), a lot of the complaints about Phasma's armour could be read as "she isn't sexy looking enough for my tastes".

I'd argue that it boils down to the fact that it's hard to separate the issue of women characters being expected to have a more feminine design from the issue of fanservice in the first place (so there's enough examples that are hard to separate into "gratuitously feminine looking armour" and "impractical armour that's clearly for fanservice" that it would be difficult to split the Chainmail Bikini trope).

But giving armor separate cups isn’t inherently fanservice, either. That sort of implication is an unfortunate side-effect of the belief that a woman’s breasts, with no other context, are inherently sexy. In this particular case, there is no such context. As we’ve established from the very reason the example was removed, nothing else about her armor invokes titillation. So there’s honestly no way we can look at Brigitte’s Legendary armor and say the cups are inherently there for sexualization unless we fall into the trap of Circular Reasoning.

The cups are sexy because cups are sexy because cups are sexy.

My point is more that both needlessly feminine looking and needlessly sexualised armour come from the same source, so it's impossible to tell.

But it's really not. The Internal Subtrope of Boob Plate is specifically about armor with unnecessary boobs on it. Nothing about that section of the trope indicates a need for sexualization.

We agree on the point that Secondary Sexual Characteristics are so ingrained that there tends to be a slippery slope between whether its meant to be sexual or not, but where we're disagreeing is that this isn't a nugget the trope was designed to unpack.

Yeah, oldest, but apparently the kids in the "Reflections" comic are Torb's GRAN Dkids, which means that SOMEONE's been busy.

She was actually confirmed to be the youngest child of Torb after Michael Chu clarified those other kids in reflections are his grandkids.

Yeah, common misconception.

Yeah, i don't think the troper who added that made a great case. Sure she used to look far more scrawny in older comics but that's more Art Evolution than anything.

Same troper added a Impossible Hourglass Figure that i personally think is a bit reaching.

That last one was me actually, haha. I did label it a downplayed case since it's more a proportional thing, but I've been seeing a quite a few people finding her waist at least kind of odd-looking.

I saw a thread on the official forums talking about how her waistline is a bit too small for someone wearing what is basically Reinhardt's armor.

The poster got flamed with claims of thin-shamming, the exact opposite of the Skinny Mei fiasco that happened during the Year of the Rooster skins.

There's nothing "impossible" about her figure, is the thing. Her armor is designed to be wider at the hips and shoulders than at the waist. I have no idea if there's any reason for it other than aesthetics, but it has nothing to do with the body of the person inside the armor.

Pharah also has a similar waistline design yet i don't think that trope is listed there.

You know what, that's fair. So what to do about the You Don't Look Like You entry?

Art Evolution. Just look at all the other comics where the characters aren't drawn exactly like their character models show in the game.

The comics are more like Depending on the Artist. It makes sense that characters would look different between in-game models, animated film models, and drawn media. Mei is another great example of this.

She considers herself Above Good and Evil and cares more about science. She doesn't care who she has to work with so long as it furthers her own investigation.

Bifauxnen seems the obvious choice, here.

I agree that the androgyny seems deliberate. Overwatch's design devs are WAY too deliberate and careful with their design choices for something that obvious to be overlooked.

I agree with Bifauxnen. I also removed Crossdresser because of the sub-types of Crossdressing tropes that also exist.

I agree too, Bifauxnen is definitely the best fit, unless we have a more general androgyny trope.

Not sure what the right trope is (do we not have Upper Class Snob?), but Upper-Class Twit is massive misuse.

I removed it a long time ago.

Well it is broader, but 'Sheltered Aristocrat' does fit her situation further, the 'snobby and superior type that can be cruel' type. Symmetra isn't born into 'aristocracy', but she's raised without most contact from outer world within the very elitist Vishkar group, it was close enough for 'Aristocracy' in that setting. But I kinda thought it might be a misuse as well. So I chose not to. But tell me your thoughts on this idea anyway. I don't mind if Sheltered Aristocrat doesn't get a go.

And if it is, given how PC (for better or for worse) Blizzard is being, there's no chance they'd come out and say it.

Edit: Off-topic.

Unnecessary, possibly. Incorrect, unlikely.

... ironically, I'm on the side of "for better" because I do love the game for its representation. I'm also just a realist, though.

Considering that Symmetra plays nothing like the other Supports, that alone fits. I think that should stay. Granted this trope is primarily used for fighting games, but seeing as how she has completely different mechanics than the other Supports to the point where Blizzard had to adjust the warning just for her, it's safe to say her mechanics are unusual.

Also, it's not just having a different control scheme, it's the fact that she plays differently from everyone else. Look on the trope itself. Also, can D.Va manually choose which Ultimate she's using? Nope.

She doesn't play differently than "everyone else." She plays differently than other supports. That's not a function of her, in and of herself, being unusual, it's a function of the fact that Overwatch's role categories are kinda messed up. Having two togglable ults is mildly different, yes, but not enough by itself.

Symmetra has the ability to build static defenses like Torbjorn, to project a shield like Reinhardt or D.Va (just one with less utility because she's not primarily a tank), and to deal lock-on damage like Winston (but single-target only). There's literally nothing in her kit that's completely unprecedented compared to the other heroes in the game.

Regardless of how you feel about the roles, they're still roles and each serve a purpose. The fact that she plays differently from the others in her role makes her unusual. You admit that it's "kinda messed up" because of these inconsistencies — because she's unusual.

See my entry in the other discussion. I agree with Crate overall, but have a compromise.

Lazer, no. These characters are not mechanically unusual because they have no unique mechanics. You are adamantly trying to shoehorn this trope without understanding it. For it to apply they'd have to have a completely unique mechanic to them. Not a unique ability... pretty much every character in the game has unique abilities. You'd need someone who functions completely different from the rest of the cast.

Overwatch's character balance is very volatile. Sure, Mercy's in a bad place now, but she was also considered one of the best characters in the game when it first came out, and Blizzard is actively trying to fix her, hence why she gets buffed every patch while Ana and Lucio are getting nerfed. Eventually, things may swing around again and put her at the top. If she were intended to be a skill gate character, she would always be easy, but bad.

Lucio is easier than Mercy precisely because he has more to work with. His kit allows him to keep himself alive on his own far more effectively than hers does, while still not being particularly complex or hard to use, even for a newbie. The only thing that was difficult about him was wall riding, which is probably the reason he got 2 stars, but that has since been simplified and isn't even really needed at lower levels of play.

This has nothing to do with balance. Mercy is supposed to be beginner friendly and that's the reason she doesn't have a really complicated kit.

Personally, i find Lucio much more difficult than Mercy. And i mostly play Ana or Zenyatta if i have to heal. (I'm decent at them)

It does have to do with balance, because a skill gate character is not just easy to play, they have to be weaker than other characters as a tradeoff.

If we add it back now we'll just end up deleting it again when/if she gets buffed.

The Laconic of the trope says "A character who's easy to use for a newbie, but also easily defeated by a more experienced player"

How strong mercy is really depends. If she is indeed buffed, she will still be counterable by more experienced players, given that her kit can't really deal with a heavy ambush. They have to radically change her kit in order for that to not be the case

Yeah the point isn't that the character is "bad". Ryu is listed as a classic Skill Gate Character in every Street Fighter, and he was one of the best characters in the game in SFIV. Same with Cable in MVC 2. He was specifically supposed to be easy to use, and wound up being god tier.

Meta Game is what determines how good a character is, but that doesn't change the idea that a character is designed to be easy to use but also have abilities easy to counter.

If she's buffed to the point that she's used more than the other healers, it changes nothing except some wording.

I third her being a Skill Gate Character.

I'm going to propose a slight rewording:

• Skill Gate Character: Mercy is usually recommended to new players (especially if they've never played a First-Person Shooter before) because she's relatively simple to use and requires no aiming or precise timing to heal and buff. At higher levels, players like to have other supports like Lucio, Ana or Zenyatta. Even if Mercy happens to be one of the strongest meta picks at the time, the other characters are still used alongside of her because they have much more utility...so long as the player has the skills for it.

No. Poisonous Person specifically refers to someone whose biology incorporates toxic elements.

Could be Master Poisoner, though. I don't know the details.

The problem overall is that Ana is not a "poisoner". The technology of her weapons is Mercy's technology, reverse-engineered by Torbjorn to be offensive instead of medical. Ana just uses it.

Then just Poisoned Weapons, I suppose.

It's like a syringe-gun, far as I know. Abnormal Ammo?

Both Poisoned Weapons and Abnormal Ammo fit, as does Universal Poison (so universal that it affects robots, D.Va's mech suit, etc.)

I originally tried Master of the Mixed Message, but that seems to about romance only.

I agree. Lucio's health is equivalent to that of a Genji, and i'm pretty sure he also qualifies as a Fragile Speedster.

Also, why is he listed as a Quirky Bard? Does he qualify for that?

No, that's just a ridiculously broken trope so it's shoehorned by someone who doesn't actually read tropes they add.

Lucio having "the second-lowest Health after Tracer" (and unsuited D Va) is loaded language, because if that's the case, then 13 members of a cast of 22 have "the second-lowest health".

Saying Lucio is a "Fragile Speedster" goes against the spirit of the trope. To me, there's one part of the description that is key here: "Still, being fast has its downsides — what you gain in mobility, you lose in durability."

Lucio doesn't lose anything in durability. His health is the same as the majority of the cast, and he isn't fragile, because unlike most other characters with the same health value, he constantly regenerates his health when his Crossfade is set to healing. Lucio is not only hard to kill because he's fast, but he's hard to kill because he constantly gets his health back.

TL;DR: Lucio isn't fast and weak. He's just fast and average.

Almost everyone with equal or less health has some kind of self-heal or defensive ability. Genji can block shots, Tracer can self-heal, Soldier can self-heal, Mercy regenerates, Zenyatta and Symmetra have regenerating shields. Lucio's on a par with any of them in terms of squishiness; his one survivability advantage over any of them is his mobility.

Two Reinhardt smacks and he's down unless he's at full health. One Rein charge, down. Winston, who doesn't have to aim much, can burst him down with regularity. Two Widow shots will do it. He has maybe a 50/50 chance of surviving a Roadhog hook, depending on if his alt-fire is on cooldown.

He's a squishy.

That argument means that Soldier:76 is more squishy than Lucio, since Lucio's self-healing is passive and boosted every 12 seconds. Soldier's self-healing ONLY happens when his Biotic Field isn't on cooldown. Soldier also has a permanent dash ability, which makes him faster than your average character.

Going by what you're saying, he's more of a Fragile Speedster than Lucio, and I would even say that's a stretch.

There's also Junkrat, McCree, Pharah, and Widowmaker, who lack ANY defensive or self-healing abilities whatsoever. Even characters with regenerating shields/health ONLY regenerate when they haven't taken damage for a few seconds, meaning they actually aren't any more durable during a battle. Lucio regenerates while the damage is happening, meaning you are constantly trying to outpace his healing factor.

And I'm even against arguing that Genji's Deflect somehow makes him more durable. It doesn't. It doesn't work against a huge number of attacks, and only works if he's facing the opponent.

This feels like a massive shoehorning to me.

Right. Soldier: 76 is marginally more squishy than Lucio. He's also not as fast— his Sprint makes him faster than average, but still noticeably slower than the game's real speedsters like Luci and Tracer, and even Genji over short distances— so he's not a Fragile Speedster.

Soldier's speed is unique. He can outdistance Lucio over time (and if Lucio is on his team, trying to catch up to Soldier just makes Soldier outrun him faster). Genji may be faster in a burst thanks to is Quick Slash, but Soldier outruns him over distance.

I still wouldn't call any of these characters squishy, except Tracer, who was specifically given less health for balancing reasons.

Maybe because the troper added her quote from the Overwatch page where her bio can be seen. There it says "Heroes Never Die" as well.

Though i agree that her intro quote is better IMO. Ana also has the same issue of having her bio quote

If there's no objection, I can correct that.