Were there any power scaling problems back in DBZ?

[precita]

All the complaining about Super's power scaling makes me curious, what power scaling problems were there back in DBZ? Granted we had stuff where characters got thousands/millions of times stronger after something simple, like Elder Kai unleashing Gohan's potential, Goku training on his spaceship to Namek, Piccolo going from weaker than Nappa to being on par with Freeza's second form but that's after he fused with Nail, etc.

Some of the only inconsistencies I remember is Gohan being able to get hits on Freeza due to being enraged, kid Trunks kicking Fat Buu out of the way after he was standing over Vegeta's body (but he was unaware), etc. The other inconsistencies was Toei's filler, like Yamcha beating Olibu in Otherworld and stuff like that, but it's filler so I don't mind it.

[MajinMan]

How about how every one had a battle power of like 200-450 when Raditz came, but then they all had one that was like 1400+ when Nappa and Vegeta arrived? Or how Piccolo went from 400 to like 3000 just from standing and staring at Gohan for 6 months. These examples tell you that all the hard training the characters went through before Z barely made them stronger, and somehow they all got 3-10 times stronger in less than a year. The introduction of battle power numbers inflated the hell out of everyones strength. There is no "scale." All the power boosts are random as hell and I would have honestly preferred if their were no numbers. Super doing what its doing is no different. That's why I simply ignore power scale debates. It does not interest me in the slightest and is full of head canon.

[AloversGaming]

Power levels ruined the franchise more than Super's power scaling issues.

Kaio-Ken & SSJ ruined one of the biggest aspects that made DB so good; competition between everyone. Super pulling power boosts out its ass is trying to fix what Akira ruined.

[DBZAOTA482]

Aside from a few stretches and things that were more convoluted than others, power scaling in the original made sense just fine... except for the Babidi Spaceship bullshit.

All the complaining about Super's power scaling makes me curious, what power scaling problems were there back in DBZ? Granted we had stuff where characters got thousands/millions of times stronger after something simple, like Elder Kai unleashing Gohan's potential, Goku training on his spaceship to Namek, Piccolo going from weaker than Nappa to being on par with Freeza's second form but that's after he fused with Nail, etc.

Some of the only inconsistencies I remember is Gohan being able to get hits on Freeza due to being enraged, kid Trunks kicking Fat Buu out of the way after he was standing over Vegeta's body (but he was unaware), etc. The other inconsistencies was Toei's filler, like Yamcha beating Olibu in Otherworld and stuff like that, but it's filler so I don't mind it.

Given how Nail was so impressed with Piccolo's power he was probably even stronger than he was before they fused and Elder Kaioshin didn't unlock Gohan's potential... he simply brought out his latent powers. I also doubt the Mystic power up boosted him that much.

Like you said Fat Boo had his guard down... the kick did no damage at all.

Power levels ruined the franchise more than Super's power scaling issues.

Kaio-Ken & SSJ ruined one of the biggest aspects that made DB so good; competition between everyone. Super pulling power boosts out its ass is trying to fix what Akira ruined.

Even from day 1 it was established skill and "tactics" are secondary when there's a huge gap in power.... Jackie Chun (Muten Roshi) even said so.

That's why everyone during the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai was helpless against Piccolo when he was torturing Goku.

[AloversGaming]

Aside from a few stretches and things that were more convoluted than others, power scaling in the original made sense just fine... except for the Babidi Spaceship bullshit.

All the complaining about Super's power scaling makes me curious, what power scaling problems were there back in DBZ? Granted we had stuff where characters got thousands/millions of times stronger after something simple, like Elder Kai unleashing Gohan's potential, Goku training on his spaceship to Namek, Piccolo going from weaker than Nappa to being on par with Freeza's second form but that's after he fused with Nail, etc.

Some of the only inconsistencies I remember is Gohan being able to get hits on Freeza due to being enraged, kid Trunks kicking Fat Buu out of the way after he was standing over Vegeta's body (but he was unaware), etc. The other inconsistencies was Toei's filler, like Yamcha beating Olibu in Otherworld and stuff like that, but it's filler so I don't mind it.

Given how Nail was so impressed with Piccolo's power he was probably even stronger than he was before they fused and Elder Kaioshin didn't unlock Gohan's potential... he simply brought out his latent powers. I also doubt the Mystic power up boosted him that much.

Like you said Fat Boo had his guard down... the kick did no damage at all.

Power levels ruined the franchise more than Super's power scaling issues.

Kaio-Ken & SSJ ruined one of the biggest aspects that made DB so good; competition between everyone. Super pulling power boosts out its ass is trying to fix what Akira ruined.

Even from day 1 it was established skill and "tactics" are secondary when there's a huge gap in power.... Jackie Chun (Muten Roshi) even said so.

That's why everyone during the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai was helpless against Piccolo when he was torturing Goku.

Dragon Ball still ended with everyone having the chance to play catch up. Krillin vs. Piccolo was great, and the whole Nappa vs. Everyone was fantastic. Tenshinhan's Kikoho, and Krillin's kienzan would still wreck the main villain given the chance. Once Kaio-ken and later SSJ became a thing, there was no way the secondary characters could get a good battle in with the main villain.

People like Piccolo vs. 17 due to how equal they were, and many are still annoyed that Goku had SSJ3 ready to use at any moment against Vegeta. The fight its self can be mind blowing, but hearing one character was greatly holding back taints it.

Once Goku had the ability to increase his power beyond everyone elses max in an instant, every villain had to be able to match that, leaving every other character in the trash. DB was nowhere near that bad in terms of power difference, and Z wouldn't have been if transformations weren't introduced.

[ABED]

Power levels ruined the franchise more than Super's power scaling issues.

The didn't ruin the series. They make sense. Bad power scaling is bad storytelling. And the franchise was never ruined.

[SaiyanGod117]

Power levels ruined the franchise more than Super's power scaling issues.

Kaio-Ken & SSJ ruined one of the biggest aspects that made DB so good; competition between everyone. Super pulling power boosts out its ass is trying to fix what Akira ruined.

So it does it with subpar storytelling? Akira didn't ruin anything, if the people behind Super want to make weaker characters relevant, that's find. But they have to do in it a logical and coherent way, which their doing the totally opposite of.

[ekrolo2]

Almost any strength gain Piccolo ever did was absurd. He beats up Gohan for half a year after another half spent fighting by himself and he's somewhere in the 3000s range. He stays a few days on King Kai's and becomes stronger than Nail then he fights with Goku and Gohan, neither of whom power up greatly while he's somewhere in the Super Saiyan ballpark.

Power levels ruined the franchise more than Super's power scaling issues.

The didn't ruin the series. They make sense. Bad power scaling is bad storytelling.

Exactly, every shonen ever has a power scale, Toriyama just made his one readily available in-universe for a couple of arcs. A series that's all about progress and the fruits of said progress NEEDS to work a great deal of time or else you end up with Super where Goku & Vegeta work their asses off, barely improve but Piccolo, 17 and Gohan do nondescript bullshit off-screen and become dozens to hundreds to thousands of times stronger.

[DBZAOTA482]

Aside from a few stretches and things that were more convoluted than others, power scaling in the original made sense just fine... except for the Babidi Spaceship bullshit.

All the complaining about Super's power scaling makes me curious, what power scaling problems were there back in DBZ? Granted we had stuff where characters got thousands/millions of times stronger after something simple, like Elder Kai unleashing Gohan's potential, Goku training on his spaceship to Namek, Piccolo going from weaker than Nappa to being on par with Freeza's second form but that's after he fused with Nail, etc.

Some of the only inconsistencies I remember is Gohan being able to get hits on Freeza due to being enraged, kid Trunks kicking Fat Buu out of the way after he was standing over Vegeta's body (but he was unaware), etc. The other inconsistencies was Toei's filler, like Yamcha beating Olibu in Otherworld and stuff like that, but it's filler so I don't mind it.

Given how Nail was so impressed with Piccolo's power he was probably even stronger than he was before they fused and Elder Kaioshin didn't unlock Gohan's potential... he simply brought out his latent powers. I also doubt the Mystic power up boosted him that much.

Like you said Fat Boo had his guard down... the kick did no damage at all.

Power levels ruined the franchise more than Super's power scaling issues.

Kaio-Ken & SSJ ruined one of the biggest aspects that made DB so good; competition between everyone. Super pulling power boosts out its ass is trying to fix what Akira ruined.

Even from day 1 it was established skill and "tactics" are secondary when there's a huge gap in power.... Jackie Chun (Muten Roshi) even said so.

That's why everyone during the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai was helpless against Piccolo when he was torturing Goku.

Dragon Ball still ended with everyone having the chance to play catch up. Krillin vs. Piccolo was great, and the whole Nappa vs. Everyone was fantastic. Tenshinhan's Kikoho, and Krillin's kienzan would still wreck the main villain given the chance. Once Kaio-ken and later SSJ became a thing, there was no way the secondary characters could get a good battle in with the main villain.

People like Piccolo vs. 17 due to how equal they were, and many are still annoyed that Goku had SSJ3 ready to use at any moment against Vegeta. The fight its self can be mind blowing, but hearing one character was greatly holding back taints it.

Once Goku had the ability to increase his power beyond everyone elses max in an instant, every villain had to be able to match that, leaving every other character in the trash. DB was nowhere near that bad in terms of power difference, and Z wouldn't have been if transformations weren't introduced.

Oh, I see what you mean... I thought you were talking about how power suddenly being the end-all-be-all for the series in Z ruining it when it's always been like that.

Anyways, the point of this thread is if power scaling made sense or not in the original series.

[AloversGaming]

Power levels ruined the franchise more than Super's power scaling issues.

Kaio-Ken & SSJ ruined one of the biggest aspects that made DB so good; competition between everyone. Super pulling power boosts out its ass is trying to fix what Akira ruined.

So it does it with subpar storytelling? Akira didn't ruin anything, if the people behind Super want to make weaker characters relevant, that's find. But they have to do in it a logical and coherent way, which their doing the totally opposite of.

Akira ruined the Z portion of his work by including transformations.

Though you're correct about Super. Bringing everyone up close to Goku's level could be done in a more logical way. No. 17 probably being on SSJG level during the Buu arc is weird.

[Lord Beerus]

Dragon Ball's power scaling issues didn't start with Z. They started the moment Roshi blew up the moon with a battle power of 180. It happened way too soon and fucked up everything.

I mean, Goku fires a Kamehameha, right down at the Earth on Piccolo in the 23rd WMAT, which is more than five times stronger that what Roshi dished out to turn the moon to space dust, and nothing happens. How the hell did that Kamehameha not take out a decent chunk of the planet? And then when Vegeta powered up at the beginning of his fight against Goku in the Saiyan arc, he was created cyclones from it, turned the skies dark and literally made the whole world shake. And yet the only time we see anything even remotely similar to that is when Goku is powering up... into a SSJ3. Which is tens of millions stronger than anything we see in the Saiyan arc. And then later in the Namek arc, we see that you don't need a big gap in strength at all to kill you opponent, as clearly demonstrated with Vegeta and Zarbon fight each other. Hell, a very minuscule gap in power is more than enough to overwhelm and kill your opponent. Yet when Goku hits Vegeta, who has a BP of 18,000, with his KKx4 Kamehameha, which has a BP of over 32,000, Vegeta survives. How the hell does Vegeta not instantly die from an attack that? He should have been vaporised.

How does any of this add up?

It's the pitfalls of Toriyama's improvisational writing style, coupled with the awful power creep that has had a stranglehold on the plot of Dragon Ball from the Saiyan arc and beyond. Even though you know that a character with a battle power in the tens of thousands would wipe out the Earth by just powering up, you ultimately don't see that much in terms of display from a character that thousands, if not, millions of times stronger because there would simply be no Earth left, period. The best you're gonna get is lip service in terms of strength.

Power-scaling has really been an issue as old as time in Dragon Ball.

EDIT: And concept of the Androids is also pure bullshit and adds significantly to the problem.
EDIT 2: Oh, and just about every power-up Piccolo gets is nonsense.

[precita]

I mean, Goku fires a Kamehameha, right down at the Earth on Piccolo in the 23rd WMAT, which is more than five times stronger that what Roshi dished out to turn the moon to space dust, and nothing happens. How the hell did that Kamehameha not take out a decent chunk of the planet? And then when Vegeta powered up at the beginning of his fight against Goku in the Saiyan arc, he was created cyclones from it, turned the skies dark and literally made the whole world shake. And yet the only time we see anything even remotely similar to that is when Goku is powering up... into a SSJ3. Which is tens of millions stronger than anything we see in the Saiyan arc. And then later in the Namek arc, we see that you don't need a big gap in strength at all to kill you opponent, as clearly demonstrated with Vegeta and Zarbon fight each other. Hell, a very minuscule gap in power is more than enough to overwhelm and kill your opponent. Yet when Goku hits Vegeta, who has a BP of 18,000, with his KKx4 Kamehameha, which has a BP of over 32,000, Vegeta survives. How the hell does Vegeta not instantly die from an attack that? He should have been vaporised.

I always assumed stuff like this is the characters learning to control their power better so they don't blow up the planet by accident. As said, Goku could barely control SSJ3 when he powered up for the first time on Earth, that's why it took so long and made the world shake...yet when he becomes SSJ3 later on that doesn't happen. Same reason Super Saiyan God Goku and Beerus punching almost destroyed their universe, but nothing like that happened again.

Saiyan saga Vegeta was a maniac. He had no idea what he was doing. Freeza blowing a hole in Namek seemed like he was toying with Goku instead of blowing up the planet easily right away.

[Lord Beerus]

I mean, Goku fires a Kamehameha, right down at the Earth on Piccolo in the 23rd WMAT, which is more than five times stronger that what Roshi dished out to turn the moon to space dust, and nothing happens. How the hell did that Kamehameha not take out a decent chunk of the planet? And then when Vegeta powered up at the beginning of his fight against Goku in the Saiyan arc, he was created cyclones from it, turned the skies dark and literally made the whole world shake. And yet the only time we see anything even remotely similar to that is when Goku is powering up... into a SSJ3. Which is tens of millions stronger than anything we see in the Saiyan arc. And then later in the Namek arc, we see that you don't need a big gap in strength at all to kill you opponent, as clearly demonstrated with Vegeta and Zarbon fight each other. Hell, a very minuscule gap in power is more than enough to overwhelm and kill your opponent. Yet when Goku hits Vegeta, who has a BP of 18,000, with his KKx4 Kamehameha, which has a BP of over 32,000, Vegeta survives. How the hell does Vegeta not instantly die from an attack that? He should have been vaporised.

I always assumed stuff like this is the characters learning to control their power better so they don't blow up the planet by accident. As said, Goku could barely control SSJ3 when he powered up for the first time on Earth, that's why it took so long and made the world shake...yet when he becomes SSJ3 later on that doesn't happen. Same reason Super Saiyan God Goku and Beerus punching almost destroyed their universe, but nothing like that happened again.

Saiyan saga Vegeta was a maniac. He had no idea what he was doing. Freeza blowing a hole in Namek seemed like he was toying with Goku instead of blowing up the planet easily right away.

The issue with the Goku/Piccolo example is that Goku fires the Kamehameha right down on the planet. I mean it has to be, strong enough to defeat Piccolo but at the same time stronger than the blast it took form Roshi to blow up the moon as Piccolo was stronger than Roshi. So you would expect so major collateral damage as a result, but nothing happens. That Kamehameha from Goku should have created a crater the size of America, at the very least.

And Vegeta totally knew what he was doing. He was powering up to raise his strength to kick Goku's ass but also show off to the Goku the strength of an elite Saiyan. If Vegeta wanted to blow up the Earth, he could easily done it and he knew that. But he wanted to fight Goku first.

[ABED]

Almost any strength gain Piccolo ever did was absurd. He beats up Gohan for half a year after another half spent fighting by himself and he's somewhere in the 3000s range. He stays a few days on King Kai's and becomes stronger than Nail then he fights with Goku and Gohan, neither of whom power up greatly while he's somewhere in the Super Saiyan ballpark.

Power levels ruined the franchise more than Super's power scaling issues.

The didn't ruin the series. They make sense. Bad power scaling is bad storytelling.

Exactly, every shonen ever has a power scale, Toriyama just made his one readily available in-universe for a couple of arcs. A series that's all about progress and the fruits of said progress NEEDS to work a great deal of time or else you end up with Super where Goku & Vegeta work their asses off, barely improve but Piccolo, 17 and Gohan do nondescript bullshit off-screen and become dozens to hundreds to thousands of times stronger.

True, but I was thinking more along the lines of the dialog that stated Tagoma was on par with Dodoria and Zarbon. Piccolo fought evenly against second form Freeza in the Freeza arc and has only grown stronger.

[dragonball0900]

The only things that do seem quite strange for me are Piccolo's boosts, specially the one in the Namek arc. It's strange for Piccolo to train just for a few 6 days in King Kai's planet to come up stronger than Saiyan arc Vegeta, and manage to surprise Nail. Then there's also the big boost Piccolo made in the Android arc, from being just above Third Form Frieza (he trained after the Namek arc) to being above SSJ Namek Goku, even above SSJ Yadrat Goku.

If there's a power scaling issue that I might be forgetting, you can remind me of it.

[Boo Machine]

Power scaling went out the window for me when some Scientist built androids stronger than the planet busting emperor of the universe and the Legendary warrior prophesied by aliens to beat him using out of date data he gathered from his spy cameras.

I always thought Vegeta getting stronger after near death all the time on namek due to his biology was a really lame excuse for him to keep up. It has an explanation but that doesn't mean it isn't wonky. Or at least how I see it.

Now that it has been mentioned, Roshi blowing up the moon is pretty funny in hindsight.

[DBZAOTA482]

The only things that do seem quite strange for me are Piccolo's boosts, specially the one in the Namek arc. It's strange for Piccolo to train just for a few 6 days in King Kai's planet to come up stronger than Saiyan arc Vegeta, and manage to surprise Nail. Then there's also the big boost Piccolo made in the Android arc, from being just above Third Form Frieza (he trained after the Namek arc) to being above SSJ Namek Goku, even above SSJ Yadrat Goku.

If there's a power scaling issue that I might be forgetting, you can remind me of it.

Babidi Spaceship

[Desassina]

I don't think that the concept of power was a problem in Dragon Ball, but the supplements to the manga and/or anime were, because of multipliers and numbers that people got fixated on. It did start with the manga though, with innocent claims by the characters that they were using full power, except not due to another level, and the only multiplier in the series, which is the Kaioken. In case we treat their full power claims as the only power known to them, we can avoid saying that it's 100% multiplied by a transformation, because the latter put them at a higher percentage. It's still multiplication, but without the notion that it's fixed, and so Beerus can be using the only thing known to him before surpassing it. In other words, he's going all out with the full extent of his power that only happens to be 10% of what he can accomplish, his limits increasing notwithstanding. The 10% is only an example.

[BlueBasilisk]

And then later in the Namek arc, we see that you don't need a big gap in strength at all to kill you opponent, as clearly demonstrated with Vegeta and Zarbon fight each other. Hell, a very minuscule gap in power is more than enough to overwhelm and kill your opponent. Yet when Goku hits Vegeta, who has a BP of 18,000, with his KKx4 Kamehameha, which has a BP of over 32,000, Vegeta survives. How the hell does Vegeta not instantly die from an attack that? He should have been vaporised.

This is a question I've raised before. Based on what was shown earlier in the Namek saga, the heroes never should have survived as long as they did against Frieza, not even Goku. He should have turned them inside out with a single serious blow. The power gap is far too massive.

[TheBigBoy]

There's lots of power scaling problems all over the series - but they don't bother me. I'm totally fine with a rebalancing of the characters, be it contrived or not.

Or maybe I'm just a huge Kuririn fanboy and want to see him kick some ass.