Discussion Main / GameBreaker

Well, the trope description is poorly written when it applies to single-player games.

Take a look at the Fallout subpage. Fallout, by design, is a franchise where a large number of weapons, abilities, skills and Perks have overpowered capabilities, yet people are posting stuff like "Everything in the Sink" (a reference to a New Vegas DLC that forces you to complete the whole thing first, be at a solid level to do so, and confers menial benefits in the context of the game) or "x Weapon" that is powerful, but is either hideously overpriced (fans calling them all "Disc One Nukes" when you can't even afford them outside of exploits before the midgame mark) or only have marginal benefits over their regular counterparts.

I have the mind to chainsaw a large number of examples on that page, nevermind the other franchises that have had the definition drift so fluidly that anything with a small amount of power is considered this.

Alright, the clear marks of a game breaker I'm seeing at the moment are "disproportionately strong" and "easily accessible". Any other elements that would define it?

The way I understand it is as follows, as it should hit at least one of the following criteria:

1) It can be acquired disproportionately early for its power rating — and when I say "disproportionate", I don't mean "a gun that is good by the standards of the game, but you can get it a couple levels earlier," I mean something so broken that by any normal metric (barring an extremely specialized build, exploits or cheats), you should not be able to acquire it under normal circumstances.

2) You can get it right out of the gate (armor/weapon), and it will not only be the most powerful item you can get up to the halfway point, it retains its "brokenness" through the entire game and then some. Using New Vegas as an example, I can walk into the Lonesome Road area and get stuff that I legitimately should not have at that point, including armor that's far and away better than 95% of what I can get in the basegame, and weapons that chew through enemy defense at max level, and I don't have to go out of my way to get it.

3) If it's something you can get normally past the halfway mark of the game, it's not a Game-Breaker, it's merely a more powerful item than you already have. The delineation between a Disc-One Nuke and a Game-Breaker is that the former stops being useful/is massively superceded by the midpoint of the game, while the Game-Breaker is something you got very early on that just doesn't stop being absurdly powerful all the way through.

4) The key one — it has to be overpowered by the standards of the basegame. If I get handed DLC weapons from the get-go that trivialize everything the normal game can throw at me, that's not only an example, but a failure of the developers to properly balance their game. (And multiplayer examples should be massively cut down/have a window of limitation before they start being added, because many examples are "broken, but eventually fixed", which isn't really an example.)

My philosophy, as it relates to Game-Breaker, consists of the following:

1) It has to be an item/armor/weapon that can be acquired extremely early in the game (at least before the midway point of the story), yet retains its broken-ness through the entire game. 2) It is unintentionally overpowered compared to most other items in the game. 3) A late-stage upgrade/item that is notably powerful but takes resources/time to build is not an example.

I would prefer that nothing user-created be considered for the page, considering that most of the mods produced for all games (regardless of genre) are either buggy (which leads to abuse) or unintentionally overpowered.

In GTA Online, you had a set of wheels that were very expensive, and those got cheaper after completing a series of stunts, or something like that. They cost $10.000 or any value like it before unlocking the event, and $1.000 after that. No problems so far.

Cars that are bought, not stolen, can be re-sold to the Los Santos Customs without a timer, with added value if you equipped them with any upgrade, but you never recover the full value of whatever you equipped in the vehicle. No problems there either...

One tiny little problem: the wheels never lost their sale value, after becoming cheaper to buy.

Now combine everything: you could buy a Karin Rebel for $3.000 (the cheapest buyable vehicle, FREE vehicles can't be sold), buy the special wheel set for $1.000, and sell the truck for $10.000, with a net profit of $6.000. Then order another truck, rinse and repeat.

If you had only $1.000 to begin with, you could steal any car and add $10.000 to its value by buying a $1.000 set of wheels as well.

It was patched before you could even tell your friends about it.

Golden Snitch is an explicit mechanic where the final event is worth the greatest weight. It doesn't derail anything, as it's basically the conclusion which can drastically change the end-result. Everyone knows that it's coming, and that it's more related to an Instant-Win Condition.

Game-Breaker results in an unexpected gameplay derailment, and is basically subjective. Such game breakers can appear at any time rather than the conclusion, to varying degrees of success.

The relation is that they both lead to a victory path, but that's more suitable to being in the same index.

Doesn't anyone have anything to say about my suggestion?

It seems you already created the page.

Although with Tower Defense, game breakers are generally the point of the genre - build a tower or combination thereof that can't be penetrated. There is a case where a certain tactic/tower is ridiculous, but there's almost always the ability to hold everything at bay.

I can see Master Knight's point that there's a difference between being Top Tier and being a Game-Breaker. And the fact is that if he really was a game breaker, he would have been banned.

Still, be aware Master Knight that you aren't the be all and end all of SSBB knowledge.

I can see Master Knight's point that there's a difference between being Top Tier and being a Game-Breaker. And the fact is that if he really was a game breaker, he would have been banned.

Still, be aware Master Knight that you aren't the be all and end all of SSBB knowledge.

Let's look at this in terms of tournament statistics, as recorded through the links to the individual character pages here. Meta Knight is S-tier, and the only inhabitant of that tier. He wins 60% of the time, and that's only because he wins 55% of the time against most of the A tier—everything below A except Kirby, and including Olimar, he can beat at least 60% of the time. Olimar is B-tier. He has a 50% win rate against some of the A-tier members, but he does badly against several other characters—the D-tier Luigi can beat him as often as Meta Knight can! Overall, his win rate is only 55%, comparable to Falco. Olimar is a bit of an irritant due to his Schrödinger Fu, but since he's easy to juggle or knock off the screen, he's not as bad as he could have been. As for the points you make in the archived discussion, I don't really think they stand up. For instance, regarding your argument that Pit is more of a game breaker, he's C-tier because his Annoying Arrows are easy to dodge and don't deal much damage, and his melee is sub-par. Besides, it's entirely possible for multiple characters to be different degrees of broken—consider Brawl Minus, which breaks every character in the game! So yes, I do think Meta Knight is overpowered, because of the statistics I linked. He may not be the most blatant sort of game breaker, but as a character with no bad matchups he at least deserves a mention.

Oh yes, because tier lists cannot possibly flawed. And people are certainly smart in general and glitch-fighting is such a cool, non-hypocritical thing.

Even if Meta Knight was the strongest character without glitch-fighting or whatnot, he's not broken enough at all to warrant mention outside of bugs. And Olimar being knocked silly? Good luck hitting him to begin with. Like I said, Olimar takes no real effort to combat human players with. As for Pit's Annoying Arrows, while you dodge them, I attack you or shoot you with another arrow. Sure you could close the distance as fast as you can anyway, but Pit's melee, while sub-par like you say, is far from an absolute joke.

My points stand until you dispute every single one of them. Good luck with that.

By the way, before you go ahead and stubbornly believe that glitch-fighting should be a standard anyway, okay then, I'll just bring up the player ADHD. Do I need to say more? And how do you know Meta Knight isn't simply popular to the point where it skews the tier list? Pit's far more popular in Japan and he's up there in Japan's tier list. Hell, he got C-Tier on your tier list despite poor popularity.

I notice a much higher level of hostility displayed towards me than I have so far displayed towards you. I would like to request politeness, since the goal here is not necessarily to "win," but rather to come to a conclusion. As for your points, I don't actually know what you're talking about with half of them. I just watch the kids at my school as they play Brawl on the console in the psychology classroom and the Meta Knight players smash everyone else. So what if he's beatable if you're really good compared to your opponent? This trope is difficult to measure objectively, given the varying levels of player skill. The best we can do is list the characters who seem broken to most of us, and my impression is that you're the only one removing him while a large number of other people are adding him. This is a group project, so to me, that seems wrong. (I will admit that I have a history of removing negative comments regarding Twilight. However, I stopped when I realized there was no way to keep everyone else from putting them back up. If I get sufficiently pissed off, I'll leave the site. In the meantime, I'll go along and try not to burst a blood vessel.)

"I just watch the kids at my school as they play Brawl on the console in the psychology classroom and the Meta Knight players smash everyone else."

So why did my Meta Knight get torn to shreds by a less skilled player? By all accounts, even without taking stock in matchup BS, I should have at least held out longer if not outright win. No, I lose quickly to a Link who didn't even actively shell me with projectiles. And this is a player I regularly beat.

Okay, I sent a PM to Fast Eddie. He says these issues are usually resolved by putting up the example, but noting the controversy over it. He doesn't think it's a big issue, though, so if you're not giving in, I'm not pressing it.

Actually,as a long-time player (no tourneys, though) I have to agree that metaknight is pretty broken. It's a simple matter of the ratio of how fast he his compared to the power of his attacks. He's a certified lightning bruiser. I'm not particularly good with him, but one of my friends is. Until he started using meta knight, we all countered his ass to death because he just attacked constantly to the point that he got predictable. With meta, it doesn't matter how predictable he is, since he's lighting fast, super powerful, and his attacks have almost no cooldown, making hard to hit him, or get away from the SOB.

Ok, perhaps we should instead rename the page to Elder Scrolls and move the stuff from RP Gs to there?

Good thinking Unknown Troper. I went ahead and just did it.

Ah, good.

God to admit, that was pretty epic trolling right there.

Nothing, as far as I can see. No edit reason was given. Changing it back now.

Well, see, that's where the guys in charge of this have opened a bit of a can of worms. Almost every trope is subjective to a degree. Almost. Every. Dang. One. But everyone judges them differently.

However, on this trope, it splits both ways. There are examples that everyone on the wiki and Word of God can agree on being Game Breakers. There are examples like the trope's picture, which, as of now, depicts a fencer pulling a revolver on his opponent in the middle of a match. In a professional fencing match, a pistol will almost always be considered a Game-Breaker, hence why it is illegal to do so.

I don't like the Subjective Trope Exile. I'll make no secret of that. However, this wouldn't have happened unless Fast Eddie supported it. For now, it's Subjective. There aren't enough non-subjective examples to change the controlling minority's stance on the matter. Like it or not, what FE says, goes. Hopefully, though, if this doesn't pan out, it'll be changed back to the good ol' days.

Damn, I'm realizing how good of practice the operations on this wiki can be for politics...