How have YOU made the Earthlings relevant again?

[TheZFighter]

Hey dudes and dudettes, a question...

I know most of your fantastic fan-created works largely centre around the Saiyans, understandably, but I'm sure many of you, like me, are big fans of some of the "lesser" characters. Characters like Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, Yajirobe and hell, even Krillin I guess. I'm interested to know the ways/ ideas you have helped them keep up with the Saiyans and remain active and relevant to the story.

Aside from the slightly boring and too obvious (Super Human forms, yawn!), what ideas have you had?

Thanks.

[KentalSSJ6]

In DBSW I don't really focus on making humans relevant as much as beings of other races. Freeza's race, Tapion's, Bojack's, etc. We know plenty enough on humanity but little on these 3. That being said characters such as Bulma will still very much be involved. Many seem to forget just how smart this chick is. Shrinking watches, radars, technological communication (converting scouters), time travel machines, a ship that could freaking transport Earth's population in GT. In all honestly Bulma can be quite a plot device and it's a shame she's not used more.

[TheZFighter]

In DBSW I don't really focus on making humans relevant as much as beings of other races. Freeza's race, Tapion's, Bojack's, etc. We know plenty enough on humanity but little on these 3. That being said characters such as Bulma will still very much be involved. Many seem to forget just how smart this chick is. Shrinking watches, radars, technological communication (converting scouters), time travel machines, a ship that could freaking transport Earth's population in GT. In all honestly Bulma can be quite a plot device and it's a shame she's not used more.

Not so much Frieza's race but Tapion's race and Bojack's race both interest my greatly. I look forward to seeing more of them!

Yeah, I've always been a big fan of Bulma and her parents, great characters.

[Zephyr]

I'm no fanfic writer, but there are plenty of ways I've seen to make human characters relevant.

Have them learn Kaioken and/or fusion, receive a power boost from Namek's Elder and/or Old Kaioshin, or cybernetic enhancements of some sort.

[KentalSSJ6]

I'm no fanfic writer, but there are plenty of ways I've seen to make human characters relevant.

Have them learn Kaioken and/or fusion, receive a power boost from Namek's Elder and/or Old Kaioshin, or cybernetic enhancements of some sort.

Kaio-ken is largely useless now. I doubt any of the humans could go beyond 2. Even Goku could barely handle 3 when he fought Vegeta and was twice the power of Piccolo who was the strongest being on Earth until Goku was brought back to life. If the humans were to be relevent in terms of combat again, it would come down to becoming Jinzoningen and/or fusion. Maybe Kaioken could be handled after the previous methods were used as their body's would be stronger but on their own, I don't see it being used much if at all.

[Kaboom]

For GT Revised, I've had all the human fighters secretly go to the Kaioshin realm and have the Old Kaioshin work his magic on them. Now if they work together, Kuririn and Tenshinhan could work together to beat first-form Freeza, while Yamcha keeps Captain Ginyu off their back. It's ASTOUNDING.

...Anyway, what I actually have planned for the humans in GTR is a handful of meaningful assist roles. Most of them would be too spoilery to describe in-depth, but they'll be doing stuff like sneaking around and helping behind the scenes of the big battles, and certain special techniques the human fighters wield will end up helping too. When you're doing a GT rewrite, there's really no way around the fact that the non-Oob and non-Android humans are just too astronomically out-powered to help in any direct way against foes like Baby-Vegeta or the Shadow Dragons.

[rereboy]

I simply wouldn't have made the gap be so wide from the start and I would try to focus a little more on techniques instead of just power (and that fact would automatically make weaker characters potentially relevant for a variety of things).

[TheDevilsCorpse]

I'm doing a rewrite of the whole franchise. Not because I think I can do the series better, but because I wanted an attempt to bring everything into an expanded universe type deal. Where characters like Tullece and Janenba aren't only featured in side stories.

Anyway, as part of this, I'm basically combining rereboy and Kaboom's ideas. For the project, Goku and the humans never really have a gap larger than x2 until he trains with Kami. Things get a little out of hand with the Saiyan near death boots that are abused during the Saiyan and Freeza Arcs, but I've lowered those boots and allowed the humans to make slightly larger gains than the original franchise did when they trained with Kami and Kaio themselves. Super Saiyan stops the near death power-ups Saiyans get. So once that occurs, the absurdly large jumps in power for their base forms stop, allowing the humans to eventually catch back up and be pretty much on par without transformations for the rest of the series. They'll never be capable of truly matching the Super Saiyans, but by developing more unique attacks, they can still be fairly effective in specific combat roles.

[TheZFighter]

All interesting ideas guys, thanks. Some of these you're writing sound great, I look forward to reading them!

I think you're right though, the truth is the best idea would've been to not make the "Saiyan - everyone else" divide so great in the first place. It annoys me because, apart from probably Chiaotzu I guess, all the Earthling Z-Fighters have had at least one point in time where they were quite close to Goku, strength wise, but just got blown away in the end.

Guru's Unlock Potential and Old Kai's Unlock Ability are both great routes to take to improve them. I think Tien would be the only human who could handle Kaio-ken though, personally. I guess with him you could also exploit the ambiguity of his race and expand on that, maybe?

[Doctor.]

I doubt any of the humans could go beyond 2

I must ask: Why? It's obviously not a matter of battle power, unless you doubt they didn't get past 8,000. So, why? Is it a matter of mere biology?

[KentalSSJ6]

I doubt any of the humans could go beyond 2

I must ask: Why? It's obviously not a matter of battle power, unless you doubt they didn't get past 8,000. So, why? Is it a matter of mere biology?

Partly. Humans aren't made for combat. They can be trained, but fighting is in the Saiyan race's DNA. With humans it's like turning a car into a tank while a Saiyan is already a tank to begin with.

[FoolsGil]

-Humans learn the Spirit Bomb, In battles have them gather energy while the Saiyans & Piccolo fight the big bad.
-Humans spend time creating new techniques, and improving old ones that can benefit the group.

[Pantalones]

Several pretty easy ways to pull it off, though I don't currently write DBZ fanfiction or have any plans to. The humans will never be fighting equally alongside SSj3-level characters or anything, of course... but it shouldn't be hard to make them a serious threat to regular SSj-level enemies at least, or even cause some damage to higher-level enemies (or at least hold them off for a bit) before ultimately being defeated. Guys like Babidi's generic soldiers, Pui-Pui, and Yakon should've been a perfect opportunity for the humans to get some spotlight time and actually win fights again, but instead they were either not involved or turned to stone at the time. >_<

1: Further improved techniques. We already see than Kienzan can hurt people MUCH stronger than Krillin (Nappa would've been killed if Vegeta didn't speak up, Freeza only lost a tail chunk because he heard/felt it coming at the last second and knew better than to let it hit anything vital) and Shin Kikoho can hit with enough force to push back a version of Cell that took #16's punch head-on and didn't even flinch. If you assume Tenshinhan was roughly even with the base Saiyans of the time, that's a technique that provides a far bigger boost in power than Super Saiyan (since none of the Super Saiyans at this point had a chance in hell against #16, let alone Cell.) And the weaker you assume Tenshinhan was at this point, the more powerful Shin Kikoho becomes... what if he came up with an even-further-improved version, then?

2: Kaio-ken. And why couldn't they learn Kaio-ken? "They never used it in the series" is literally the only argument against Kaio-ken humans; we've already seen Krillin and Tenshinhan and even Yamcha quickly pick up the Kamehameha (even after Goku learning it so fast was some amazing thing at first), so you can't argue that they're that much worse at learning new techniques than Goku... and at this point in the series we just saw them make MUCH bigger gains training with Kami than Goku did, so you can't try to argue that Goku is just inherently going to get more out of North Kaio's training than the humans will, either. Of course, just big Kaio-ken boosts wouldn't ever let them catch up to the Super Saiyans or Piccolo, but imagine it combined with point #1. Kaio-ken x20 Shin Kikoho would be utterly terrifying for whoever's unlucky enough to be on the other end (probably near-suicidal for Tenshinhan too, considering Kaio-ken strain plus Kikoho life-drain, especially if he rapid-fires them like against Cell... but it's not like he's unwilling to sacrifice himself to wipe out an enemy. He's already attempted it several times before.)

3: Something that disables Super Saiyan forms or weakens the Saiyans in some other way so that they're no longer so disproportionately strong compared to everyone else. Either an opponent who specifically wants to wipe out Saiyans and thus only planned a special thing to deal with them in particular, not their allies (sort of Dr. Raichi-esque), someone who has a power to "turn off" the SSj transformation (Yakon-style, but unlike Yakon won't get blown up in the process when attempting to stop SSj2 or higher), or maybe someone who just has the ability to disable any "transforming" type technique and who previously used it to deal with opponents like Freeza's race, Zarbon's race, etc. before encountering Saiyans. Either way... once the Saiyans can't go Super anymore, they're no longer so absurdly far ahead of everyone else, since it was the ability to instantly become 50x stronger that made such a huge uncrossable gap between their levels in the first place (humans catching up with base Saiyans is perfectly believable... humans crossing that gap, and then proceeding to become FIFTY TIMES stronger, not so much.) A Kienzan or Shin Kikoho is definitely more than what base Goku or Vegeta are capable of (disregarding the Spirit Bomb possibility, at least, and that takes a lot more time to prepare.) How about instead of a "two/three/etc. Saiyans team up to land the final blow" ending like we've seen many times before, maybe we can have Goku (because it's DBZ, Goku's almost always going to be the hero) and his earlier rivals Krillin and Tenshinhan teaming up on the new enemy, firing up their highest level of Kaio-ken and blasting away all at once? The only problems would be Piccolo (way way past humans or base-Saiyans at every point from the Android saga onward) and Gohan (doesn't rely on Super Saiyan past Buu), but the Gohan issue can be solved by putting this story before Buu or just having Gohan busy with other stuff at the time and possibly not arrive in time to help fight, so keeping Piccolo from hogging the fighting spotlight is the big issue. Or maybe Piccolo can hog the spotlight. It's been a while since he got to do something big, after all. Or have Piccolo and Kaio-ken x20 Goku (another "old rivals flashback" situation) team up on the main bad guy while Tenshinhan and Krillin fight the high-level "minion" types and Yamcha... does what Yamcha does (gets pummeled by another minion, who someone else beats easily a bit afterward.) That last option sounds like a good one for a "shortly before the Androids" storyline, actually.

4: A magic-user who relies on a spell that "reverses" power relations. Someone who's drastically more powerful won't be able to fight this one (so Super Saiyans, Piccolo, Buu, Kaioshin, etc. are in trouble...), but someone on a similar (or lower) level could very well beat them. Could this be Yamcha's first victory over a major villain?

For GT Revised, I've had all the human fighters secretly go to the Kaioshin realm and have the Old Kaioshin work his magic on them. Now if they work together, Kuririn and Tenshinhan could work together to beat first-form Freeza, while Yamcha keeps Captain Ginyu off their back. It's ASTOUNDING.

Really? Old Kaioshin's power-up and they're only barely beating first-form Freeza... while ganging up on him... with implications that Ginyu would be able to make a difference against them?

"Astounding" is right.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Like Kaboom, I can't really go too in detail with what I have planned in my fic (which I seriously need to get back to ack!), but let's just say that a lot of what I'm working on for the humans involves some Dragon Ball Online inspired material. Beyond that, there's also something that a lot of people have been clamoring to see come back from a certain video game for a long time now. And...hmm. There's one more major one that I really wish I could drop a hint for but it's kind of hard to do without spoiling waaaaaayyy too much. Hmm...

...Think 'Sensui' from Yu Yu Hakusho. That's all I can really say.

[TheZFighter]

Great post Pantalones, solid.

Like Kaboom, I can't really go too in detail with what I have planned in my fic (which I seriously need to get back to ack!), but let's just say that a lot of what I'm working on for the humans involves some Dragon Ball Online inspired material. Beyond that, there's also something that a lot of people have been clamoring to see come back from a certain video game for a long time now. And...hmm. There's one more major one that I really wish I could drop a hint for but it's kind of hard to do without spoiling waaaaaayyy too much. Hmm...

...Think 'Sensui' from Yu Yu Hakusho. That's all I can really say.

You tease!

[RandomGuy96]

The better question is, why would I want to? I know you're not talking about Krillin, or Mr. Satan, or Yajirobe, or Bulma, or any of the actually cool characters, because they all had key roles to play. Heck, Gohan is an Earthling, so should we talk about him? I guess not. You're talking about the loser trio of Tenshinhan, Yamcha, and Chaozu. Why SHOULD they be relevant? They're boring. How would them being relevant enhance the story? IMO, the best way to take care of this little problem would just be to make Ten and Chaozu minor characters limited to one or two arcs (like future Trunks), increase Krillin's relevance just a bit, and just let Yamcha stay the team loser.

More importantly, why did you say "...made the Earthlings relevant again?". Those three were never relevant. Ever. Unless you count them putting up decent efforts in their very first fights, they've always been useless compared to Goku, Piccolo, and even Krillin (even when Ten was technically STRONGER than him in the Saiyan arc!). Yamcha and Chaozu should go without saying. Ten... just look at how he performs after his introduction:

Piccolo Daimao arc: learns a new technique that could seal Piccolo, never gets a chance to use it because he's a dumbass, and then gets beaten to a pulp by a fat minion Piccolo spits out. He gets to save Goku from taking some unnecessary damage with his flight ability, but he balances it out later by getting taken as a hostage, which gives Piccolo the advantage.

23rd Budokai: gets toyed with and easily crushed by Goku. Defeats Cyborg Tao, but it doesn't matter, as the worst thing Tao could do is get past Tenshinhan and get one-shotted by Goku in the next round. Sits on the sidelines and blabs about how powerful and untouchable Goku and Piccolo are, and about how completely and utterly useless he is.

Saiyan arc: doesn't even bother to show up to fight Raditz. Beats a Cultivar (which Krillin would have killed anyway), but is pretty much one-shotted by Nappa. He then launches one last suicide attack with all his strength. It does nothing to Nappa and Tenshinhan dies in vain.

I'll assume that people think he dropped out of relevance after that. But in truth, he was never relevant.

But if you, for some reason, really want to make them relevant, the obvious solution would just be to not bloat things so much in the Freeza arc. Heck, the majority of the power creep could be eliminated just by making Freeza himself weaker. Him being SO much more powerful than everyone to come before resulted in the Saiyans needing to make huge gains to match or surpass him. He was just so absurdly OP, and no reason was ever given for it aside from some vague statements after the fact about him being a mutant (which doesn't really explain much, as the Ginyus were mutants too). Over four times stronger than his strongest henchman in his 1st form? Said henchman already being several times stronger than the next strongest henchmen? Being over 200 times stronger than his 1st form in his final form? Yeah, no. Nerfing Freeza would also have the effect of making the zenkai boosts less stupidly broken.

Here's an example of how that could be done, and you wouldn't even have to change anything in the manga except the dialogue in Freeza's fights: 1st form Freeza is weaker than Captain Ginyu. Let's a say a tenth of his manga level, 53,000. He locks arms with Vegeta, who is stronger than the Ginyus (bar the captain) but still weaker than Freeza himself, at 45,000 or so. Freeza goes to his 2nd form, with a battle power of 90,000 (at least, after both of his power ups). Piccolo comes in, fights Freeza to a draw, then takes off his weights to power-up to roughly the same level as Freeza. Freeza goes to his third form, with a battle power of 115,000 (slightly weaker than Ginyu, because I think that being the top henchman should mean SOMETHING!). He crushes Piccolo. He goes to his final form to show off, with a battle power of 180,000. Vegeta gets a zenkai to bring him to 120,000, same as Ginyu (just to make sense of Freeza's later "I can't believe there's someone stronger than Ginyu" comment), but he quickly realizes that it's not enough and he gets stomped by Freezy Pop.

Goku comes in, having gone from 90,000 to 150,000 with a zenkai. He and Freeza fight. Freeza powers up to 50% power, 600,000. Goku powers up to KK x2, 300,000, then x3, 450,000, but neither stand a chance against Freeza. In desperation, he uses KK x4 (600,000) and pairs it with a Kamehameha (upping to 750,000), but Freeza, using two thirds of his power, is able to block the Kamehameha with only moderate damage. This drains all of Goku's energy. The Genki Dama happens, fails, blah blah, Goku goes Super Saiyan. It's a x10 multiplier in this version, so he's 1,500,000. Freeza goes 100% and is 1,200,000. The same battle happens.

When we get back to Earth, Piccolo and the rest have been training. Over the three years they train for the androids, Goku teaches them all kaio-ken. Via plot fiat, they all miraculously master x3 to the extent that they can keep it on all the time in a battle with minimal strain (similar to what KK x2 was to Goku in the Saiyan arc) and x4 to the extent that they can use it for special attacks somewhat regularly. On top of that, Goku progresses slower than the others due to his failing health, to the extent that he only goes from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000, with Vegeta at the end of his training being a hair stronger at 2,050,000 as a Super Saiyan. Piccolo can be... I dunno, 1,200,000 with the x3 kaio-ken (so 400,000 normally). The humans bar Krillin are still weaker than Ginyu, but not enormously so, and can still hit enemies off guard, finish off immensely weakened ones, and possibly do a bit of damage with special techniques (KK x4 Kikoho/KK x4 Kienzan?). Boom, the humans aren't many times weaker than the next set of antagonists, Super Saiyan isn't such a huge boost, and Piccolo's rise to relevance even before fusing with Kami doesn't seem as unbelievable. And all you'd need to change on top of some dialogue in Freeza's fights is a line from Piccolo (just reword the one has has about "amplifying [his] energy when [he] fight, causing it to explode". But still, none of the humans should even come close to surpassing Freeza, not even Krillin.

Heck, if you wanted to, you could also go back and change the gaps in the Saiyan arc, though apart from having Goku, Piccolo, and the rest too low at the beginning of the series, and the unnecessarily large Oozaru multiplier (I think x5 would work better...), they mostly seem fine. That's all I can really recommend, aside from maybe letting Krillin and Tenshinhan play more of a role in defeating Nappa, or maybe letting Krillin easily beat a moderately strong Freeza henchman after his potential unlock. Keep in mind though that even with these power boosts, there's not much time for them to be relevant. I guess they could help against 19 and 20 (though it would seriously devalue Piccolo and Vegeta if they didn't get to win these fights), have a Nappa-style fight against Cold alongside Piccolo and Vegeta trying to hold the line until Trunks swoops in (maybe it's just Cold and Freeza dies in this version?), and act as a distraction/small boost against initial Cell, but nothing else. It would really make Cell and Buu look shitty if anyone but Goku, Gohan, and Gotenks could stand up to them.

We already see than Kienzan can hurt people MUCH stronger than Krillin (Nappa would've been killed if Vegeta didn't speak up, Freeza only lost a tail chunk because he heard/felt it coming at the last second and knew better than to let it hit anything vital) and Shin Kikoho can hit with enough force to push back a version of Cell that took #16's punch head-on and didn't even flinch. If you assume Tenshinhan was roughly even with the base Saiyans of the time, that's a technique that provides a far bigger boost in power than Super Saiyan (since none of the Super Saiyans at this point had a chance in hell against #16, let alone Cell.)

1. The Kienzan isn't a one-hit-kill wonder move. The best feat we've really seen from it is cutting Nappa, who was a little over twice as strong as Krillin. The occasion with Freeza doesn't really count, as he hit Freeza off guard in a weak spot. Even if you were to count that, 2nd form Freeza was only a bit over one million and not even at full power when Krillin launched it at him, while Krillin was in the hundreds of thousands by that point (he was viewed as relevant back-up against 1st form Freeza and his power should still have been increasing throughout the fight). So even assuming that it could cut through Freeza, that'd only mean it can cut someone about x3 the user's strength. Very powerful, but not powerful enough to matter against final form Freeza-tier opponents and above. Also, this is ignoring the fact that Goku and Vegeta can both use that technique too. They just don't, because they consider it worthless.

2. Tenshinhan's Kikoho is the most overrated move in the series, or at least tied with the Kienzan. It didn't hurt Cell at all, it just pushed him. That's NOT an accomplishment. 70% Freeza pushed SS Goku with a kiai. Base Trunks pushed Cell with a kiai. It means exactly nothing. Tenshinhan stated that nothing he could muster could possibly hurt regular Imperfect Cell, and Piccolo stated that Tenshinhan could do absolutely nothing to Gero. On top of that, he didn't even try to use it against the androids... or King Piccolo, for that matter. The only time we've ever seen Tenshinhan land it on someone even remotely close to his power was when he shot Nappa with it. It did absolutely no damage.

It's basically a rapid-fire Kamehameha. While that is extremely powerful under the right circumstances, it's not a wonder move with a x500 boost.

Beyond that, there's also something that a lot of people have been clamoring to see come back from a certain video game for a long time now

Tencha?

[TheZFighter]

Thanks for all of that but I didn't bother to read on after the second paragraph. I was asking people who have an interest in those characters. Sorry, I thought I made that clear.

[RandomGuy96]

Thanks for all of that but I didn't bother to read on after the second paragraph. I was asking people who have an interest in those characters. Sorry, I thought I made that clear.

Nah, you just said to offer suggestions about how to make the humans relevant. You didn't say the person typing it had to have a specific motive.

...and I'm not sure why the second paragraph is the one that made you stop reading, given that it just pointed out facts. Tenshinhan, Yamcha, and Chaozu have simply never been relevant, bar their introductions. At the very best, they get to be stronger than the absolute weakest henchmen, then get easily beaten by other henchmen that Goku can still one-shot.

[rereboy]

I agree that a major step would be nerfing Freeza, but I don't agree that he should be weaker in his first form than Ginyu. How would he guarantee his loyalty if he's not stronger than him in the form he uses most of time? Not to mention that it would be weird, in terms of power progression, to go from Ginyu to a weaker-than-Ginyu Freeza.

Assuming that Ginyu's BP would be the same as in the manga, I would rather have Freeza be something like 190.000 in his first form to outstrip both Ginyu and the power Goku showed against Ginyu, but I wouldn't make him way stronger than that in his final form like he is in the manga. Maybe 310.000 in his second form, 405.000 in his third form and 500.000 in the beginning of his true form, but with him being able to reach as high as 3.500.000 in his 100% (meaning that at the beginning of his true form he would be using around 15% of his total power).

I probably would make Piccolo be something like 315.000 and Vegeta, after the Zenkai, 420.000. Goku would only be able to reach Kaioken x8 and I would make SSJ a x10 increase. Which means that if Goku had a power of like 400.000 at base after recovering from Ginyu, he would be 4 million as a SSJ.

These numbers are not as low as yours, but, without changing more stuff I think they provide a nice balance between the awe of how strong these guys were and they not being THAT far away from everyone else. As long as the humans managed to get their power to break the barrier of 100.000 or more, and learned Kaioken, they wouldn't be THAT far off from the Saiyans. For example, if Tenshinhan matched Ginyu's power (120.000) and Goku's Kaioken (x8) he would be rocking a power of almost a million. Still far from Goku but add to that a few interesting techniques, and he could be relevant (he even already has the ki-ko-oh).

Of course we could change more stuff than that, like removing some forms of Freeza of making Ginyu be weaker, stuff like that, which would make lowering these numbers even easier.

As for the Kienzan, I totally disagree from what you stated but I won't start that argument again.

[RandomGuy96]

I agree that a major step would be nerfing Freeza, but I don't agree that he should be weaker in his first form than Ginyu. How would he guarantee his loyalty if he's not stronger than him in the form he uses most of time? Not to mention that it would be weird, in terms of power progression, to go from Ginyu to a weaker-than-Ginyu Freeza.

Assuming that Ginyu's BP would be the same as in the manga, I would rather have Freeza be something like 190.000 in his first form to outstrip both Ginyu and the power Goku showed against Ginyu, but I wouldn't make him way stronger than that in his final form like he is in the manga. Maybe 310.000 in his second form, 405.000 in his third form and 500.000 in the beginning of his true form, but with him being able to reach as high as 3.500.000 in his 100% (meaning that at the beginning of his true form he would be using around 15% of his total power).

I probably would make Piccolo be something like 315.000 and Vegeta, after the Zenkai, 420.000. Goku would only be able to reach Kaioken x8 and I would make SSJ a x10 increase. Which means that if Goku had a power of like 400.000 at base after recovering from Ginyu, he would be 4 million as a SSJ.

These numbers are not as low as yours, but, without changing more stuff I think they provide a nice balance between the awe of how strong these guys were and they not being THAT far away from everyone else. As long as the humans managed to get their power to break the barrier of 100.000 or more, and learned Kaioken, they wouldn't be THAT far off from the Saiyans. For example, if Tenshinhan matched Ginyu's power (120.000) and Goku's Kaioken (x8) he would be rocking a power of almost a million. Still far from Goku but add to that a few interesting techniques, and he could be relevant (he even already has the ki-ko-oh).

That's reasonable. The only problems I see with those numbers are the small gap between zenkai Vegeta, Piccolo, and initial final form Freeza, the KK x8 thing (that seems like it would put KK too close to Super Saiyan, which wouldn't match Freeza deflecting the KK x"8" Kamehameha while far below his full power), and base Vegeta being stronger than base Goku on Namek. I just think Ginyu should have been given more credit, you know? Freeza is surprised anyone can be stronger than him, and he was known as the second most powerful dude in the universe. I mean, even with my numbers, the gap between Ginyu and Freeza is the biggest main henchman vs strongest villain gap in the series (Nappa was x4.5 weaker than Vegeta, Drum was like x1.3 weaker than young Piccolo, Chaozu was about x2 weaker than Tenshinhan, Blue was maybe x2-x3 weaker than Tao Paipai, and Ginyu by these numbers would be x10 weaker than Freeza).

Ginyu would be loyal to Freeza because he's just genuinely loyal. Overthrowing Freeza and taking over the universe doesn't seem like his cup of tea (plus, if he wanted to, he could presumably just body switch with Freeza). Also, I dislike how Vegeta went from weaker than Recoome to like four times Ginyu's strength with a single zenkai.

Of course we could change more stuff than that, like removing some forms of Freeza of making Ginyu be weaker, stuff like that, which would make lowering these numbers even easier.

That would be possible, but I was just trying to see how low I could reasonably take everyone solely by changing the dialogue in the Freeza fight. It's just Freeza's battle power statements (530,000 in his 1st form!? A x2 jump in between first and second!?) and percentages ("I'm only using a very tiny amount", "I'll crush you with just 50%", Goku: "he wasn't bluffing, he really was just using 50%!" [implying he powered up above 50% but below 70%], "that was just 70%", "I'm now at 85%... 90%", "there, I'm at 100%") + Goku's KK multipliers that really messed everything up. I'd prefer if Goku's KK multipliers were just kept the same as they were in the Saiyan arc, where x2 can be maintained fairly trivially, and x4 is used for finishers or last ditch desperation attacks, rather than changing them to be x10/x20 in the Freeza fight.