Power Levels

[Ludwig]

I know I haven't really posted much on this forum but I do surf it a lot and well I always notice your guys have discussions over power levels. My question to you is: does this really matter? I even seen discussion heating up over something so ludicrous. I mean does power levels count that much to enjoy the series?

[Kaboom]

Discussions on them on here are few and far between (it's by mere chance that we happened to have more than one thread about them at the moment). And when they happen, they're usually more about the hows and whys of the concept, and tossing around ideas and theories. It never gets to the "MINE ARE RIGHT" vs "NUH-UH, YOU'RE WRONG" e-shlong-swinging contests you'd usually find on certain other sites.

Though I am considering starting up a single dedicated "Post Your Power Levels" thread in the Fan Works section, with some clear guidelines outlining that it's just for fun.

[VegettoEX]

I know I haven't really posted much on this forum but I do surf it a lot and well I always notice your guys have discussions over power levels. My question to you is: does this really matter? I even seen discussion heating up over something so ludicrous. I mean does power levels count that much to enjoy the series?

I see the exact opposite -- very few discussions about "battle powers" and comparisons between characters/strengths/inanimate-objects.

I suppose it's all relative, though. When I look at other forums either dedicated to or loosely associated with this franchise, I am overwhelmed with a deluge of power discussions. I feel the same way you do when I see this -- I'm in utter disbelief. I just don't "get it". Toriyama is such a poor writer in that regard, showing such little foresight and consistency, that my head nearly explodes in just trying to break through the most basic reasoning for even looking at it in the first place.

Our buddy and fellow moderator Kaboom explained it on a somewhat recent podcast to me that, at least for him (and I'm sure he'll be happy to weigh in further), it's almost like putting puzzle pieces together in something resembling an art-form. I can almost buy in on that, but for me it always comes back to trying to balance things against Toriyama's laughably-awful writing that it seems implausible.

Don't get me wrong... I think Toriyama is a fantastic writer in many ways, but this is one where he totally falls flat. It's not what the story is about. Time after time, we see that with a little help from my friends and just a little extra determination, I can win a fight. It has nothing to do with who's got the higher "battle power"... it's about how many people Mr. Satan can swindle into raising their hands in the air.

I'll never tell someone they can't talk about something, though. Go for it. Knock yourself out. My job is to keep everyone acting all super-shonen, even when I can't fathom why they want to talk about what it is they're talking about .

[Ludwig]

@ Kaboom: I actually saw a few of the discussions going to the 'Mine are right' VS the 'No your wrong'. It's something I find almost pointless to argue over or even discuss THIS much. Like when they print out the power levels, it's fun to see ok but to go to the point of argument over how much SSJ 1 Goku was at a certain time compared to when he was on another date, to me it takes the fun out of Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball basically is just people fighting, then losing, then training, then winning.

@Vegetto EX: A few discussions? For fun I did a search with the words power levels and whiten 2 pages found 8 topics where power levels were brought in. To me this indicates its an important argument to use against another.

I find is also very funny the creator doesn't really care about power levels himself but fans just swarm over them.

But I'm not here to bash people I asked this question because like you I also go '...power levels?' *raises eyebrow* To me a simple answer to a question like 'How come Gohan was stronger then future Trunks in the Cell saga' could be answered by 'Gohan pretty much killed the one thing EVERYONE else couldn't' instead of whipping out power levels.

But hey, what ever floats your boat right.

[VegettoEX]

@Vegetto EX: A few discussions? For fun I did a search with the words power levels and whiten 2 pages found 8 topics where power levels were brought in. To me this indicates its an important argument to use against another.

I'm not really sure that's taken far enough to extrapolate any real analytics about the subject.

What was the time period over how many posts you saw? Was this compared to previous time periods? Were they posts in a larger subject NOT about power levels, or entire threads about power levels? How many different people were taking part in the discussions (was it a vocal minority)?

I'm not really arguing any which way. Without digging in myself, I can only speak anecdotally as the one who actually runs the darn forum . What you've done just seems like a rough, cursory glance that doesn't really say much about anything.

[Hujio]

To expand a bit on what VegettoEX said: That is especially quite a small number when you compare it to other DragonBall forums where every other thread is a power level list. Now that is the extreme, but after being on these forums for over 6 years, I can say that the number of "Power Level" threads is quite small. At time they're quite rare, which I'm definitely not gonna complain about it.

But if you really want to look at it by the numbers, I also did a fun search using the words "power level", and there are 1137 topics that contain either word from that phrase. Based on the statistics stated at the bottom of the page, there are a total of 13084 topics on the forum at this moment. So 8.7% of all topics include either the word "power" or "level", or the exact phrase. Of those 1137 topics, only 653 of them actually contain the exact phrase "power level". That means you technically could say that only 5% of all topics are about power leves. Then on top of that, you could search for the exact phrase "battle power", which gives you 389 topics. Assuming half of those are simply an overlap of the same topics containing both phrases, we could guess that there are about 900 topics in total that are associated with "power levels" or "battle powers". That's only about 7%, or 7 out of every 100 topics. I'd say that's pretty damn small for what it could be.

[Akira]

I see both sides of this, and I fall into both camps dependent on the nature of the Battle power discussion. If it is someone arguing that a certain power doesn't make any sense to them, and trying to argue for something else, then I get annoyed and walk away. Kaboom equating it to an art form more describes my interest in it. I can't explain it, but some of it does make some sense to me. Not in terms of it being important to enjoying the story or even in proving anything, but simply that it is like a logic puzzle to me that references something that I enjoy.

I could care less what someone thinks or estimates Android battle powers, or Super Saiyan Battle powers to be after Goku on Namek. Battle powers don't interest me in trying to determine those, they don't even pertain to that portion of the story. What I enjoy doing is using the Kanzentai complete listing of them, and from that, trying to determine, ROUGHLY, within a range where some of the holes in the list might fill in. Then, use the list for mere reference when watching, say the earlier Dragonball sagas where the scouters are not present, but there are given battle powers for those sagas.

Right now, I am trying to roughly estimate what Goku and Piccolo's powers were at the 23rd Budokai. We have given powers for both characters for the major battles immediately proceeding and following that tournament, plus the recent discovery of Goku's fully charged Super Kamehameha power from that tournament. By using math, and seeing how much of a percentage Goku's power is suppressed by weighted clothing at the battle with Raditz, and looking at his rate of growth, and considering if he trained alone, or did what I call major training (Like with one of his masters Roshi, Korin, Kami, North Kaio) I try to pinpoint a number that is roughly what he would be in that saga. Will I get an exact number? No, I will not. If I consider all those things and round up to the nearest tens place, will I get a number that ought to be pretty darn close? Most likely I will.

I accept the list at Kanzentai as the official, fully researched listing, and work from there. It is like a large word problem, and all the variables are characters and a story I really enjoy anyway. I enjoy battle powers in this capacity, as a fun reference tool for a large chunk of the story. When it degrades into opinions, and "Well, I think..." statements, I lose any interest in it really quickly. Serious discussion about them is difficult to get, but every once in a while you'll talk with a few people who have some valuable insights. I enjoy the series regardless, but these numbers are a fun little side diversion for some of us, and for others, I suppose it is an ego driven opinion war..

I think the latter happening is what makes most fans just not care about them or want to even contemplate attempting to discuss them. I completely understand and respect that position, because it is one I held too, until I collected all the Manga and started reading them. I then figured out a few that were referenced in words, but not directly scanned, and it became a big puzzle to me to try and solve. Then Kanzentai's list came along, and Herms came to many of the same conclusions that I had, and it was almost like a confirmation of what I had figured out so far. (It also dispelled a couple things that I realized I was off on by quite a bit.)

You can discuss them, just be intelligent about it, and leave personal opinion out of it if at all possible. I think if people can adhere to that, VegettoEX really doesn't mind, but just don't bet on him participating in it.