MelonHead

Arena Chat Thread

Also, I do love it when I mention the tiers being broken, vague, and unreliable at best and no one takes that point in stride. I also quite enjoy the fact that instead of offering better solutions, all my ideas and points have been met with resistance.

@yoshua171

What.

Arena Chat Thread

You'll also notice that the match-up is between two mundane weapon wielding humans in the example, which is pretty much the antithesis of our problem. Still it's probably good for new people to get the jist of how the turn based system works, loosely at any rate.

Arena Chat Thread

A friend of mine got this up on the forum so I thought I'd share it here due to relevance.

T1

@yoshua171

Already read it, claims to be the original, though I don't like it for a large number of reasons namely the restriction on tense, it's an ugly way to write. It also fails to cover anything other than the basics which are already established and pretty much agreed upon.

Arena Chat Thread

Logic dicates, if you cannot logically do something you cannot do it. If you are trying to grapple a robot who is stronger, no matter how eloqently you write, you are not winning that particular part of the conflict.

It really is not as difficult as you are making it.

You do understand T1 is build on common sense so you aren't breaking any "rules"

@Skallagrim

This is where my issue with T1 came in, and why I made such a fuss over Vordak's character in the tournament. In terms of pure physical strength and durability his character couldn't be injured by any other from a logical perspective. That might have been balanced out if every character was reliant on magical means of assault instead, but if LeeRoy's character was matched against him for example with only physicality to fall back on he had -literally no physical way at all- of damaging that character. Meanwhile the character's strength allowed it to -logically- break half the bones in Metz or Shin's body with a flick of its wrist. T1 seems at least to put emphasis on the range of actions a character can carry out and how the opponent should react to those, while also seeking to balance the more devastating effects of magic by requiring them to set up a preparation time. Due to this forums preferred character tier being somewhere in the middle ground immense physical characteristics are abound, and a lot of T1 as I've always understood it grows more irrelevant as people shoot bullets round corners and throw cars at each other while blasting magic out their eyeballs.

Ultimately the main issue is fairly obvious, there's a huge range of characters from different universes trying to be meshed together in Arena, and it doesn't provide a good fit, not even T1 does a great job of patching the seams when it comes to a Naruto character a Superhero and a Soldier having a fight, because those characters aren't designed in a world where they would be facing characters from different universes. How do you balance Magic Vs Gun Vs Superhuman Abilities? Not easily, because there's not much of an existing template to consult, those universes are kept separate in most fiction for good reason.

Also, having two reviewers for future tournaments would be a good idea, it's the established norm in academia in regards to essays and other marked work. However, the significant issue is that subjectivity is abound in power scaling, as Skallagrim mentioned, so both reviewers would need to first come to an arrangement on the system by which they plan to judge.

Arena Chat Thread

Man I wrote all that and no comment? Just a +1

@LeeRoy

Ditch all that other stuff and just leave it as a literal predatory balloon. Best arena character ever.

NoW: LeeRoy vs. Melonhead Rnd 2.

Metz was laughing manically as his spell impacted the ground, somewhere deep within him that small seed of darkness grew just that tad bit more as his outside demeanour revelled in power. There was a significant long term cost every time Metz did this, he would just have to hope the ends justified the means, they usually did. Metz raised his hand again and spat out a shortened version of what should be a lengthy spell, bypassing anything resembling finesse or control as he unleashed a fire elemental pillar right beneath his prone foe, trying to incinerate him. The radius was four feet wide and the flame erupted eight feet up in the air.

As the flame burst forth from the sand it scorched the earth, but it was not hot enough to turn it into glass. It did however provide Shin with burning granules of sand to contend with if he noticed the circle beneath him and rolled clear in time. The fire burned intensely for three seconds and then cut out just as suddenly, as Metz continued to laugh at the power manifesting itself at his fingertips. Shin was probably less than thirty feet away by this point, with the triangle of circles off to Metz left as he stood facing him.

[Ranked] 2 v 2 battle! Reapers Vs Champions; A Dance of Blades!

What did I just wake up to

@DJAtomika

A new day I hope.

[Ranked] 2 v 2 battle! Reapers Vs Champions; A Dance of Blades!

You know you're doing and talking about recovery speed and not attack speed at all right?

@GreivousKhan

You could argue both are the same thing for a spear, recovery is a big part of feinting and manipulating a weapon before launching an attack, or rather manipulating the weapon into position for a strike is. In terms of how long the point of a spear takes to travel a distance in comparison to a sword if launched with the exact same amount of force I don't know if they would differ, I suspect the spear is probably more aerodynamic and that the point would probably move faster in that regard as well.

Regardless, what Judgement is ultimately doing is recovering and launching a strike again to outpace the sword with its sheer mobility alongside his supernatural strength, so it still ultimately applies. Although his weapon is gigantic he has the greater control over his sword because he is using two hands and thrusting with it, while his opponent is duel wielding which is a notoriously difficult and unreliable skill and attempting to parry his sword point, this time after moving in and committing to another strike at him.

This isn't even broaching the advantages of half swording, the specific action Judgement is carrying out, this is more of a justification of my spear beats sword remarks. Ironically in this specific situation if Judgement had a spear he'd be at a disadvantage because of its reach, but he's actually shortened the length of his sword by half swording, so he's lost the advantage of reach and gained a host of other good things.

[Ranked] 2 v 2 battle! Reapers Vs Champions; A Dance of Blades!

In case you were wondering what those situations where it outclasses the sword were

1. Reach
2. Price
3. Training
4. Safety for user
5. Point speed (longer shaft allows for greater movement at the end with minimal movement from the blunt end, I'm unsure what the term for this would be, probably greater energy efficiency) Also, as is the case with Judgement, spears are particularly effective two handed weapons, and seem to be more easily recovered with after a strike than the majority of swords.

It's main weaknesses are obvious, but most aren't related to pitched combat.

1. Bigger, more cumbersome
2. Only dangerous at the point (unless it's double ended) (which is only really a weakness if your opponent -far- outclasses you, from what I've seen of multiple HEMA sparring videos with spear users fucking up sword users, especially ones without shields.)
3. Slightly more vulnerable to damage, though not much, it seems the shaft of a spear would actually be pretty difficult to shear through, and would likely get you killed.

Not sure you can really call all these factors 'nonsensical bollocks' regardless of how derogatory you're feeling.

[Ranked] 2 v 2 battle! Reapers Vs Champions; A Dance of Blades!

<Snipped quote by MelonHead>

There is a difference between parrying and blocking. The greater the difference in size and strength the easier it is to use that momentum against the attacker. If the person is skilled enough.

Also that whole segment about the spear outclassing the sword thing is total nonsensical bollocks just so you know. A spear has the advantage of reach on a sword, but if it was anything like you describe it to be. The world would have never have bothered producing the more expensive harder to train with sword. Thrust are faster than cuts (and more deadly) though are harder to land, but spear are not faster than swords, no weapon is inherently faster than another, as that's based entirely on the individual.

In HEMA they teach you, 'first comes the body, then comes the weapon' (and mind before that). Though I notice you only get that wsshing sound with a swords tip, never got a spears tip to move that fast without putting a whole lot of strength into it which would of course put you off balance.

@GreivousKhan

The point of a spear is faster than the point of a sword like for like simply because it is supported by a longer base which can be manipulated faster, the spear does outclass the sword in the majority of situations that's just obvious, that doesn't mean it's better in every circumstance or situation, but it does mean it's better in a wide variety of contexts. The point is, the way Judgement is wielding his sword gives it a number of advantages similar to the spear (it loses out on reach and it can't cut as well, but that's really unimportant.) That's why half-swording was useful, it gave greater control and power for stabbing through armour plates, though in this case Judgement is using it to carefully skewer an opponent that is effortlessly ducking and weaving under every slash he attempts. He's essentially negating some of the weaknesses of his big sword by granting himself greater control.

Really the argument that a sword wouldn't be required if spears outclassed them makes very little sense. Why were pistols a thing when they are bested by the rifle in the vast majority of situations? They fill completely different niches, but if you were to ask someone who knows how to fight with spear and sword which they would prefer in the majority of situations they'd say the spear. That being said, the only real similarity between what Judgement is doing and a spear is the greater control and the speed with which he can move the point of his weapon around and menace his opponent.