Why is everyone able to put up a fight against anyone now?

[Doctor.]

His power, on the other hand, rather inconsistently with his coming out of retirement to begin with, essentially reinforces the smartness of his having retired in the first place. I don't see any compelling reason to commit to the idea that he's past, of near, their level, but maybe that's just me. From Goku being frequently worried about him on the battlefield, to him being the only member of their team to just eliminate himself for his own well-being, the broad strokes seem to communicate that he's still far and away the underdog of the team. Moreover, the fact that "he's been training!" and he's still said underdog, reinforces to me that he'd have been left in the dust even if he tried to keep up, maintaining the poignancy of the importance of the next generation.

Well, you have an entire episode dedicated to him beating Tenshinhan without much sweat and trading blows with Goku, with the latter exclaiming that Roshi was just hiding his true power all along. Plus Toriyama's comments about RoF that Roshi could always be that strong (in reference to Kuririn, I believe) if he "put his mind to it," or something of the sort. If anything, that feels a bit dissonant with the way he was portrayed in the tournament itself.

[rereboy]

Yes, it's obviously logically possible that the writers could provide an explanations for things they aren't. I'm saying that it's unrealistic to expect that the show would be produced in a way that allows for feats to telegraph someone's placement on the power scale in the same way that feats would telegraph characters' placement on the power scale in the original manga.

I'm not arguing for absolute coherence. Nowhere did I state that it had to be exactly like the manga. All I said is that it should include reasonable and satisfying explanations if we are to call it actual good writing, and they don't have to be absolute coherent with the previous series, they just have to make some sense and at least give an appearance of having some thought put into it. Super can exist without that, but in that case, at least in that aspect, I wouldn't call it good writing.

[precita]

Power scaling makes no sense. Everything Super does would have sounded like poor fanfiction if you told it to someone a decade ago.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

Personally speaking, I found it to be a refreshing take to just not have to even bother with meticulously scaling characters in-story, trying to fit them into these finite rankings that can/cannot do [X] things to one another.

From a writing standpoint, a huge amount of fighters of varying strengths and abilities would've been very difficult to write for in the direct power-oriented manner of old. I know people want explanations for these things, but I honestly don't care. I like that the focus has been brought back onto martial arts. There's a time and place for power levels, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun ignoring them a bit more often.

It all comes down to the setup, the Doylist perspective. The ultimate conclusion of the series (for the time being) bringing back the martial arts roots of the series to the forefront, with the ultimate power not being a bigger number or a greater ability to blow something up, but the ability to fine-tune one's bodily movements so well as to not even require the mind. It's the ultimate in Wuxia-style comebacks.

[Zephyr]

Well, you have an entire episode dedicated to him beating Tenshinhan without much sweat and trading blows with Goku, with the latter exclaiming that Roshi was just hiding his true power all along. Plus Toriyama's comments about RoF that Roshi could always be that strong (in reference to Kuririn, I believe) if he "put his mind to it," or something of the sort. If anything, that feels a bit dissonant with the way he was portrayed in the tournament itself.

Honestly, when watching the episode, it felt apparent to me that he'd been powered up by the spell, and Goku is just an idiot. Specifically because it'd make little sense for Roshi to catch up that much, that quickly, to someone who had been shown to train more rigorously, and thus the spell is a more suitable explanation.....and because of how Goku has been consistently written in Super (ie: like an idiot). Like, I wouldn't be surprised if the guy who wrote the episode intended for him to have indeed been powered up strictly through training, but if that's the case, then it was conveyed poorly and ended up being dissonant with the tournament proper, like you said. It's like trying to make (unknowingly) bad writing decisions, but being so bad at writing it that the bad part of it doesn't even shine through. I'd regard the Toriyama comment similarly, with the added caveat that it's not in the work itself.

Nonetheless, worst case scenario, within the work itself, we've got a single anime-only fight that maybe intended to communicate things that would retroactively undermine his original arc's closure, but if so failed pretty badly to pull off. Personally, I'm not terribly compelled to put much stock into it, for the purpose of relative-strength placement. Now, the fact they intend one thing, but the opposite comes across? The fact that they intend one thing, but other writers ignore it later on? There's your poor writing. Endemic of Super's overall poorly-planned production.

I'm not arguing for absolute coherence. Nowhere did I state that it had to be exactly like the manga. All I said is that it should include reasonable and satisfying explanations if we are to call it actual good writing, and they don't have to be absolute coherent with the previous series, they just have to make some sense and at least give an appearance of having some thought put into it. Super can exist without that, but in that case, at least in that aspect, I wouldn't call it good writing.

I get you. I just don't think that lacking satisfying explanations for power jumps, specifically ones that aren't particularly relevant to the overall narrative point the work is clearly intending to make, detract from the overall narrative point the work is clearly intending to make, and thus don't negatively impact the writing to any substantive degree. This whole "Super" thing has pretty clearly been about Goku and Vegeta learning from the highest gods of their universe. Roshi's power jumps, existent or not, contrived or not, are incidental to, have no bearing on, the execution of that. I totally understand disliking it, but I think it's ultimately a tree in the forest.

[DB▪Magnum-Expert]

Has been going on for some time now, but the recent episode of DBS made me think about it. So we have Golden Freeza in trouble due to the sheer speed of Dyspo which is fine, but Dypso's punches actually seem to hurt Freeza as well. That seems to indicate that Dyspo has to be quite strong anyway, at least SSG tier.

That has already been evident for us long ago. Dyspo hurts Hit and SsjG Goku alright. Although seeing him hurt Golden Frieza, who's supposedly as strong as SsjB Goku, it could simply be due to his sheer speed that his punches result in a stronger punch when launched at said speed.

Then Gohan comes up and Krillin says he can beat Dyspo in a straight up 1v1 brawl, I mean I know Gohan is strong, but not that strong right?

Gohan has always been strong. According to the narration, Gohan supposedly rivaled SsjB Goku to an extent, and his Full Power Kamehameha was enough to kill Koichiarator.

And then we still have Jiren who still brushes off everything not giving a fuck, he is just that much stronger to justify that I guess.

Toei is purposedly showing us how powerful Jiren is this way, given he's "unbeatable in the tournament". So I guess you're right here now.

[King13s]

I'd say that, in order to have proper fully fleshed out fights between a wide assortment of characters, the "rules" have been bent and reinterpreted to allow for a wider variety of scenarios that play up the importance of martial arts ability that started to be phased out by the time Raditz, Nappa, and Vegeta started to show up.

There's still a place for no-selling and massive power levels being untouchable, but those are the exception rather than the norm, especially in a tournament with rules.

Is it inconsistent with previously established norms and ideas? Sure. But so was the very idea that simply being off-guard would allow your body to be pierced by a simple laser. For the most part, I think this change in fight scene mentality has produced more positives than it has negatives. Power-scalers have trouble wrapping their heads around it, but I'm enjoying it a lot personally. I've never liked the idea of a higher power level simply trumping anything that a lower one, at least most of the time. The fact that Jiren embodies this old mentality in spite of the changes in writing when it comes to fights makes him that much more imposing, for example.

It's not for everyone, I admit, but I think this direction has ultimately been for the best, if only so that we don't need to have "the other Z-Warriors can only fight scrubs" propping up all the time.

I agree, this change has only been for the better. The mentality has shifted to a middle ground of technique vs power level. Keep current character roster without having to explain 6 more people as strong as Vegeta and Goku hiding in U7.

The logic of Super definitely takes getting used to, but I like to think it is more akin to Dragon Ball in this regard. The first time Goku met Ox King, his punches and kicks did nothing. So he spun the the dude in circles and dizzied him. Why? Because there is more than one way to win a fight.

Even if on accident, Toriyama has a tendency to get very close to the heart of certain martial arts quandaries. Someone with enough technique can fell a stronger enemy, but there is a line where enough of a physical strength difference becomes too large a gap, but still that line is flexible with enough cunning.

Since this is "In-Universe" I assume the desired logic though is beyond "Toei Marketing team wants toys to sell and merchandise, but doesn't want the risk of new characters."

In universe, go with the idea that not every attack is at peak strength. Nobody blocks perfect every time. Nobody throws a full power punch. Do you know how exhausted they would get in a couple minutes?

Side note: blocking a punch is way nicer to your opponent than dodging it. Hitting a wall drains your stamina less than hitting air. Maybe this explains why Frieza got exhausted firing energy into the nothing. If Ki blasts are punches outside the body. That would be gosh darn hard to flex every muscle in your hands and forearms for however long Gohan fought Dyspo

[Ilikepictures-meh]

Has Super really given us anything this egregious though? It's not like we had Krillin and Jiren going toe-to-toe, with nobody batting an eye, and no explanation, which is about what your example would be comparable to.

It's common practice to use hyperbole while using an example to clearly the demonstrate a point, trying to leave no room for misinterpretations regarding the issue we are talking about.

Super might not have any situation strictly as bad as the example I used if we tried to use a rating system to classify all the different situations, but the lack of care regarding the explanation of power consistency and the departure from the outlook prevalent in the manga/DB and DBZ is obvious throughout Super. It's fine if people enjoy that, but it's abundantly clear that not bothering to come up with satisfying explanations regarding power consistency can't be considered good writing.

The fact that it's common practice to use hyperbole in this fandom makes it difficult to take your criticism seriously, and makes the argument seem like it was made by someone of below average knowledge. Who didn't think it through. Lacking the ability to describe a point without using hyperbole is honestly strange.

[rereboy]

Has Super really given us anything this egregious though? It's not like we had Krillin and Jiren going toe-to-toe, with nobody batting an eye, and no explanation, which is about what your example would be comparable to.

It's common practice to use hyperbole while using an example to clearly the demonstrate a point, trying to leave no room for misinterpretations regarding the issue we are talking about.

Super might not have any situation strictly as bad as the example I used if we tried to use a rating system to classify all the different situations, but the lack of care regarding the explanation of power consistency and the departure from the outlook prevalent in the manga/DB and DBZ is obvious throughout Super. It's fine if people enjoy that, but it's abundantly clear that not bothering to come up with satisfying explanations regarding power consistency can't be considered good writing.

The fact that it's common practice to use hyperbole in this fandom makes it difficult to take your criticism seriously, and makes the argument seem like it was made by someone of below average knowledge. Who didn't think it through. Lacking the ability to describe a point without using hyperbole is honestly strange.

Hyperbole can be a rather effective tool to show someone else what we mean. If I'm trying to explain how the lack of power consistency and its lack of explanation can be bad, an easy shortcut to explain this is through an extreme example of such a thing, and, in this case, I used Ron Weasley standing up to Voldemort which immediately transmitted a clear example of a ridiculous, extreme case to show how power consistency and its explanation are actually needed. DB Super might not have such extremes examples but the exaggerated example I gave served the purpose of showing how power consistency and explaining it is needed, at least in some amount. And Super lacks it.

Regardless, it seems that there was no point in your post besides just pointing out what you think about the way I expressed my ideas.

[Gligarman]

People don't know what they want in situations like these. A person does, but an entire fanbase will never come to one conclusion. For years everyone complained that Goku and Vegeta were the only ones that really mattered and even then it was usually just Goku. But the tournament arcs was where we got so see other characters shine. With this new tournament everybody got a chance to defeat an opponent in their own way. In the end this is all stuff Toriyama just made up so he can change it at his will if he thinks it'll make it more interesting. Unless we all just want to see everyone get beat up until Goku shows up. Let's face it, the power scaling never made sense. Hell, this whole series began with a 12-year-old kid getting shot in the head and subsequently suffering from minor annoyance.