MelonHead

Arena Chat Thread

I believe this really boils down to communication between those involved. I recall when I first started out with combat role-playing that I encountered a situation where my character was described as being thrown into the bottom of a spacecraft flying overhead, then slammed into some sludge on the ground... Granted, the entire thread was to be judged upon the conclusion of the fight to see the overall victor, but I just could not wrap my head around someone else doing that. What I took away from it, however, was that I required better communication with those I am sparring with... And that such situations just push my creative talents to a new level... Simply because I myself aim to never do something like that on my end unless it serves to further the narrative and has been agreed upon by those participating in the thread ahead of time.

@Glass

That's a special level of rule-breaking. There's non-interactive attacks and then there's literally force hitting your opponent, which is not allowed at all here in the main fighting system we use. My points about non-interactive attacks is that they're akin to force hitting, because they don't offer your opponent any further option than 'well, that magic attack you pulled out your ass does exactly what you said it did, guess I lose.' In the vast majority of situations.

Arena Chat Thread

@MelonHead

Spawning fire on even some of my most basic characters wouldn’t be that much of a threat and it’s not because of strength. Some are better at combating it than others. Like some people say guns are overpowered but an easy counter to them is an advanced view of perception. If you have outterworldy eye sight you can judge the trajectory of any bullet before the shot is even fired out the nozzle.

Personally, I think using what you identified as “Non interactive” attacks are broken rather they just take skillful and considerate roleplayers to execute properly. When it's done right threads are really fun to read as they tend not to become a dodge-fest where no one gets hit or hurt.

@Liaison

I don't think you fully appreciate what being in a fire does to the majority of characters, then, to be honest. If someone can cause fire to ignite the air around you, your lungs will incinerate from the inside, your eyeballs will melt, your skin will melt, your clothes will ignite and you will asphyxiate and you will die painfully and in some cases immediately. Perhaps your basic characters aren't in anyway linked to real life physics, or perhaps you underestimate how bad it is to be directly inside a fire.

I've already said that fire alone isn't necessarily going to be super effective if used at the higher tiers, but the ability to generate it directly on a person is still broken in Arena combat in the majority of circumstances. Not every higher tier character is going to be inherently immune to burning to death, and as that's the only reasonable way to survive if you're suddenly and inexplicably engulfed in fire, it becomes non-interactive.

As for your gun example, people believe guns are overpowered because they share a wide range of similarities with non-interactive powers at the majority of power levels. It's only as you move out of the medium power level into the higher power levels that you have characters that can reliably dodge bullets, so you're left with pre-empting the pull of a trigger. The problem with this is that the speed at which people can aim and fire reliably increases with the speed at which characters can dodge and perceive actions. At the level your character is capable of avoiding a firearm, your opponent is going to have similar supernatural advantages, unless you agree that a firearm is unbalanced and that only an ordinary human should be allowed to use them at that power level. In reality, it takes no effort to simply point a gun in someone's direction, and with that you have cut off their ability to move in a wide range of fashions. Using guns is easy in arena combat, because no one ever misses their target. Also, when you actually translate what a firearm can do to cold-hard statistics, you would be highly dubious of a magical power capable of the same feat.

I think that personally if you need to rely on an attack your opponent couldn't conceivably avoid in any fashion, they just have to take it, then you're probably not a very good fighter to begin with. The entire point of the Arena is to manoeuvre your opponent into a situation where you can land the hits, disable their characters over time, back them into a corner and then finish them off. I don't really see any merit in 'My character incinerates the air around your own, this will result in your immediate death.'

Then again, I may be biased because I think the higher tiers are pretty worthless as Arena fights, they only really serve as fun mess around battles. There's no real skill involved at those levels, other than in writing interesting scenes of combat. You can only really have skill in a fight that is still at least partially grounded in real world logic. This is just been my experience over the years, but as the largest arena tournament currently being run has been and is run at the lower power levels, I think that pretty much speaks for itself.

I suppose what I'm saying is I completely disagree with everything you said, but you're entitled to your opinion.

The Rook Versus the ROCK: a Tanking Slugfest.

My character is still inspired by Gigue, armour wise. Not much else though. Your character has double the rock arms Sigurd has.

Arena Chat Thread

@MelonHead, I don't think gravity should be on that list. In that case you could say any type of magic, like advanced fire magic that spawns at your opponent's location at a glance. Time and teleportation is more inherently op, although any type of magic wouldn't be with certain restrctions. We're assuming a whole lot, but of course its much easier to generalize magic types rather than list all the possibilities.

@ImportantNobody

Like I said, most powers can be raised to the extreme at which it becomes non-interactive, and therefore broken. Most are expected to have a travel time for this reason, but gravity manipulation is usually direct, you change the force of gravity acting directly on a person, which can quickly allow you to kill them. The ability to generate fire on a person's location is also an example of an ability that is overpowered at any level. Sure, many higher tiers might not be overly bothered by fire but if they were they would die without being able to interact with it.

Arena Chat Thread

He's technically correct on this matter from a certain point of view. In my multiverse there are plenty of op people but are not op against each other. They are simply unfair to fight against for anyone who's not at their level. If someone has an attack that always hits, someone with an op dodging ability can counter him. My guy with infinite attack power can still be stopped by someone who's also op. Someone who stops time in my setting is countered and defeated. An immovable object and and unstoppable force are both op but can still fight on equal terms depending on what laws govern your setting.

@ImportantNobody

That's because you wrote your setting. Your setting is completely irrelevant to the medium of arena roleplay, which is what this discussion is about, and what my point is centred on. Arena combat does not entail people crafting characters with hyper specific powers to combat every variety of opponent, its about compromise and working through disadvantages and out-thinking an opponent. Some abilities will always be inherently overpowered, broken in other words, for the medium of arena combat, especially in T1 Eden. If an ability completely shuts down all avenues of further action unless one happens to have an ability that directly prevents it, the ability is broken.

Arena Chat Thread

The guy literally said we'd be wasting his time because we don't understand what overpowered means. We, as in, everyone (unless he made poor word choice) in the arena sub-forum. He also made the wild assumption that he'd have to water himself down just to participate in the sub-forum (emphasising the generalisation, here), now, this can mean a lot of things, but whatever he's asserting is still a wild generalisation of the community as a whole, from someone who has no real basis on which to make these statements.

I think, considering he hasn't actually experienced much of this Arena unless he's an alt, he's simply been hounded out of other such communities for being a god-modder. His remarks certainly suggest that much. He seems oblivious to the concept of non-interactive powers, which are widely considered broken at all power levels, irregardless of setting.

In any case, I don't think any of us have lost out much if he chooses not to grace us with his presence or his characters. Seeing as how he was already on the way out before I gave him a kick. It's usually a bad idea to preface your knowledge dump with 'obviously I won't be spending much time here because I'd be wasting my time -blah blah-.' Because frankly, no one is obligated to give a shit about your feelings if you've made it clear we're not worth your time, nor do I generally take well to people who feel the need to speak to me in such a condescending manner. I don't bite so much anymore, but I'll happily respond to them in kind.

Arena Chat Thread

Glass isn't a member of this sub-forum, and has two posts on the forum in general, read into that what you will, but they have no reason to find your condescending and generalised remarks about the arena community insulting, or amusing, as I did.

Your decision to no longer 'invest your time fixing up a tutorial for 'this' place' anymore, does not bother me in the slightest. You seem to be under the misinterpretation that I represent the Arena in some way, as opposed to just playing in it. Though judging by your attitude to my ribbing, you really weren't cut out for the Arena, or any Arena I've experienced, so I probably just spared you the foreseeable anguish when people challenged you.

If you want people to respect you, try showing some next time buddy.

Arena Chat Thread

For anyone who missed it.

I've already expressed my reasons for why I don't plan on participating much here. My characters are ultimately too 'broken' to be used outside of my own setting (which is built around actually balancing them) and I don't feel like wasting my time listening to people call what I post 'god-moding' just because they don't understand that the concept of overpowered or 'broken' is entirely subjective to the setting.

'I work with characters on a very high tier due to the depth and complexity of my project. There's nothing wrong with choosing to do that, and it's not wrong for me to have no interest in taking part in the arena forums due to feeling like I need to water myself down too much.'

@Shoryu Magami

I don't think you had any intention on engaging with this sub-forum anyway, bud, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Arena Chat Thread

An ordinary person can wear energy resistant armour, or hunker behind a barricade. We don't tend to allow the ability to cause a lightning bolt to arc down from the sky or for you to instantly incinerate people, powers are expected to have travel time.

In stark contrast, someone who can teleport can instantaneously reach a target, or avoid an attack. If there are no limitations. Someone who can stop time can kill an opponent who does not have the ability to interact with the power to stop time without any complications. Someone who can manipulate gravity can directly crush someone to death unless they too have a power to nullify or interact with gravity. They're called not-interactive powers for obvious reasons, and most fighting systems (including the one we use here, T1 Eden) ban their use.

Most powers can be extended to the point of being broken for Arena, in other words, but irregardless of context or setting, some are almost inherently broken because of this lack of interaction for the target. There is room for subjectivity in literally all aspects of human endeavour, but you can still determine that some powers are far more broken than others. These are the things we label overpowered. I'm not overly concerned with whether you consider your own setting too complex for us and have decided that no one here is capable of understanding said complexity in your setting. I find it funny, but not concerning.

Arena Chat Thread

When you refer to a character as overpowered for Arena, it's because they are using one or more of the 'banned' powers, which simply do not allow for fair combat, because they can only be countered by hyper-specific powers.

Examples are: Stopping time, reality distortion, significant gravity manipulation, non-limited teleportation, and the like. At the highest tier, almost everything goes, but even then there are limits, irregardless of 'setting' or 'context'.

It's very easy to create a character that is broken and overpowered at any tier level, and you will find no one is interested in fighting said character.