Are Power Scalers a cause or symptom of toxicity in the fandom?

[KBABZ]

Except there’s no indication that the entire idea of battle powers is flawed. By all accounts, battle powers are in fact an actual quantifiable measure of a person’s strength in the Dragon Ball world, and that’s what’s annoying about it. If the series had suggested that all these numbers are really just a big pile of BS, I wouldn’t have had a problem with it, but that’s not what the series has suggested at all.

It is though? One of THE consistent rules about Battle Power is that if you're suppressing your ki, for all intents and purposes your higher levels of strength doesn't exist. Even when Battle Powers go away (and before they're introduced), many characters from Perfect Cell to Piccolo Jr. are able to figure it out just by observing their opponents and sparring with them, then say "You've been holding back!".

Battle Powers are flawed for several reasons brought up during the show, including:

• The heroes can suppress their ki, giving both a false Scouter reading and a false ki detection (Imperfect Cell hides the true extent of the power gained from absorbing humans until he fights Piccolo a second time).
• Goku also shows that if you're fast enough, you can increase your ki for the precise moment you need it and then drop it back down again before a Scouter or a ki sense can even detect it.
• You also need to be in-tune with your body. Goku had a battle power of 85,000 when arriving on Namek, but when Ginyu jacked his body he could only get 23,000 out of it despite him being capable of 120,000.
• Several villains and of course the heroes have the ability to transform into higher states, such as Vegeta, Zarbon, Goku and most significantly Frieza, who was able to hide his terrifying full power from every single one of his men despite starting out as MUCH stronger than they are.
• Certain techniques such as the Kaio-Ken can similarly increase and multiply one's Battle Power from seemingly out of nowhere.
• Moves like the Genki-Dama don't even need a high battle power to use, as their gathered power can vastly exceed that of the person throwing it (such as Krillin, Gohan and of course Goku).
• It doesn't account for robots and the Androids, who have no detectable Battle Power whatsoever and yet for a good chunk of time are MUCH more powerful than the protagonists.

The fact is that there's no true way to tell how powerful somebody is except through cold experience of their full power, which is something that even ki sensing cannot reliably tell you. Battle Power readings, be it through a scouter or ki sense, are only reliably useful against brutes who have no sense of technique with their ki, such as Raditz, Cui or Dodoria.

[ABED]

I was simply saying that I personally think telling us the stats of the characters made the fights feel less interesting as a result.

But did they? That's a question you can give an answer to. Were the fights worse for having a numerical value to them? From where I'm sitting, we still got great fights after the concept was introduced (and quickly subverted). Was there a lack of creativity and strategy in the battles?

[WittyUsername]

I was simply saying that I personally think telling us the stats of the characters made the fights feel less interesting as a result.

But did they? That's a question you can give an answer to. Were the fights worse for having a numerical value to them? From where I'm sitting, we still got great fights after the concept was introduced (and quickly subverted). Was there a lack of creativity and strategy in the battles?

I think there was definitely a lack of creativity for much of the Freeza arc.

Of course, I do think the bigger problem with the battle power concept is all the debates it spawned, and I guess it wouldn’t be entirely fair to blame Toriyama for that.

[Polyphase Avatron]

I'd take 100 power scalers over a single Vic stan any day.

[ABED]

You can't blame him at all for that, not even a little.

I think there was definitely a lack of creativity for much of the Freeza arc.

For instance?

I'd take 100 power scalers over a single Vic stan any day.

Perspective.

[Bebi Hatchiyack]

The problem are not the Power Scalers it's the criticism tat power scalers do regarding power scaling it tend more about how their express their criticism towards that subject and I'll quote myself from another topic.

My problem with negative criticism these days is not that people can't express bad criticism but the WHOLE INTERNET is filled with sour, sad, angry and so on negative criticism comment about anything on any subject and Dragon Ball is one of the victim too. It's like Internet helped to increase the morosity of mankind.

I'm tired of seeing all those negativity I want a change of pace for once Internet filled with joy and love.

So in definitve the problem is not power scaling but how power scalers talk their issues regarding said subject. Debating in a toxic way.

[LightBing]

People get up in arms discussing everything related to Dragon Ball, the difference is some topics are more vulnerable to disagreement since they have a lot of interpretation going around; plus like someone mentioned in the thread, it's the internet there's no check and balances people can be awful with very little to no consequences.

Dragon Ball doesn't bring out the negative. It's like blaming violent crimes on video games, it's bogus.

[WittyUsername]

For instance?

There were a lot of cases in the arc of the characters one-upping each other in a back and forth manner by constantly powering up. For example, first Vegeta beat up Zarbon, then Zarbon beat up Vegeta, then Vegeta beat up Zarbon again thanks to his convenient near death power up. The fight against Freeza was an even bigger offender of this. It just got tedious after a while.

[ABED]

For instance?

There were a lot of cases in the arc of the characters one-upping each other in a back and forth manner by constantly powering up. For example, first Vegeta beat up Zarbon, then Zarbon beat up Vegeta, then Vegeta beat up Zarbon again thanks to his convenient near death power up. The fight against Freeza was an even bigger offender of this. It just got tedious after a while.

Not one of those had anything to do with power levels having quantifiable numbers. And I fail to see how reversals like the one with Zarbon are an issue. Those were two of the best fights in that arc. I fail to see how that would've gone any different had battle powers not had numbers. The Freeza fight got tedious because how long it was. Whether Freeza's power was ever given an explicit number, it would've gone down the exact same way.

[WittyUsername]

For instance?

There were a lot of cases in the arc of the characters one-upping each other in a back and forth manner by constantly powering up. For example, first Vegeta beat up Zarbon, then Zarbon beat up Vegeta, then Vegeta beat up Zarbon again thanks to his convenient near death power up. The fight against Freeza was an even bigger offender of this. It just got tedious after a while.

Not one of those had anything to do with power levels having quantifiable numbers. And I fail to see how reversals like the one with Zarbon are an issue. Those were two of the best fights in that arc. I fail to see how that would've gone any different had battle powers not had numbers. The Freeza fight got tedious because how long it was. Whether Freeza's power was ever given an explicit number, it would've gone down the exact same way.

It was mentioned earlier that Vegeta’s battle power being 24,000 meant that he was stronger than Zarbon, and that’s exactly what he demonstrated before Zarbon transformed. As far as Freeza is concerned, the whole “I’m not using 100% of my power” thing just seemed like a forced attempt at prolonging the fight, and it still keeps with the idea that ki does have a quantifiable value to it.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

Seems as though we created the very thing we sought to destroy.

But I guess that's just one of the facets of being part of the community.

[ABED]

Seems as though we created the very thing we sought to destroy.

But I guess that's just one of the facets of being part of the community.

How is that the case? Because we disagree? People can disagree and be civil. Thus far the comments have been polite and there are no use of ad hominems.

It was mentioned earlier that Vegeta’s battle power being 24,000 meant that he was stronger than Zarbon, and that’s exactly what he demonstrated before Zarbon transformed. As far as Freeza is concerned, the whole “I’m not using 100% of my power” thing just seemed like a forced attempt at prolonging the fight, and it still keeps with the idea that ki does have a quantifiable value to it.

I don't know what you're looking for out of fights. It's the same sort of thing we always saw out of DB. One character seems to have the upper hand only to find out someone's holding back. Ki does have quantifiable value to it. Some are more powerful than others.

[WittyUsername]

I don't know what you're looking for out of fights. It's the same sort of thing we always saw out of DB. One character seems to have the upper hand only to find out someone's holding back. Ki does have quantifiable value to it. Some are more powerful than others.

It’s not some characters being more powerful than others that bothers me. It’s the amount of emphasis that gets placed on pure strength, which didn’t feel especially prominent until the time that King Piccolo showed up. The battle power concept just made this seem even more noticeable. Before that, fights in the series often placed a lot of emphasis on silly gags and wacky techniques.

[Kataphrut]

I wouldn't say power-scaling debates are "toxic" but I personally find them tedious and I don't like that such a huge amount of fandom discourse is devoted to them. Obviously this board isn't so bad, but elsewhere it's like 90 per cent of discussions around DB boil down to how "strong is character x", or" is character y to weak or too strong?" or "can character y beat character z?"

But you know, it's not like the franchise hasn't fostered it. Everyone loves to bring up the idea of "battle powers" as presented in the Saiyan and Namek arcs as being unreliable, and while that does have a point to it, pretty much every fight in Dragon Ball still ultimately comes down to numerical strength. There are very few fights were a supposed "weaker" character ekes out a win over a stronger one through skill or technique, which is one if the most frustrating things about DB compared to other shounen, super hero comics, etc.

[Rory]

It’s not some characters being more powerful than others that bothers me. It’s the amount of emphasis that gets placed on pure strength, which didn’t feel especially prominent until the time that King Piccolo showed up. The battle power concept just made this seem even more noticeable. Before that, fights in the series often placed a lot of emphasis on silly gags and wacky techniques.

I used to feel this way too, until I revisited early Dragon Ball a few times.
As I mentioned earlier, there's very rarely a case where the most powerful character in the fight doesn't win, and even if it's not boiled down to a number (which even after BP was introduced, it very rarely is), it still comes down to "you fool, I wasn't even using half my power!", or Goku's "time to stop using tournament power" moment.

Though one thing I'll happily concede is that round about the time battle powers were introduced, special moves sure got a lot more boring. It always amounted to either doing a big attack, or pumping your own power up. There's no denshi jars (though admittedly that move never got off the ground), no attacks which can blind the foe, no ability to leave after-images to confuse them, nothing. Sure there's the odd 'Boo uses his body to glue people to the floor moment (which had already been done anyway), and Freeza's uses of telekinesis, but the creativity seemed to die out shortly after BP was brought along. So I'll agree with you that the emphasis of how the fights played out seemed to change along with their introduction. Whether that's coincidence or not however, I'm really not sure.
Regardless, I apologise for off-topicing the hell out of this thread.

[ABED]

I wouldn't say power-scaling debates are "toxic" but I personally find them tedious and I don't like that such a huge amount of fandom discourse is devoted to them. Obviously this board isn't so bad, but elsewhere it's like 90 per cent of discussions around DB boil down to how "strong is character x", or" is character y to weak or too strong?" or "can character y beat character z?"

But you know, it's not like the franchise hasn't fostered it. Everyone loves to bring up the idea of "battle powers" as presented in the Saiyan and Namek arcs as being unreliable, and while that does have a point to it, pretty much every fight in Dragon Ball still ultimately comes down to numerical strength. There are very few fights were a supposed "weaker" character ekes out a win over a stronger one through skill or technique, which is one if the most frustrating things about DB compared to other shounen, super hero comics, etc.

Because that battle power isn't all raw strength. It seems to include speed as well. And it's not always the strongest. In the Cell arc, they make it quite clear that pure strength is meaningless if you can't hit your opponent.

There's no denshi jars (though admittedly that move never got off the ground), no attacks which can blind the foe, no ability to leave after-images to confuse them, nothing.

The taiyoken disagrees, and the after image is shown to be a fairly elementary technique that only the least skilled fighters fall for.

DB is a world where sometimes the gap between the weaker and stronger is so big that no amount of technique can make up for it.

[MarCas92]

I'd take 100 power scalers over a single Vic stan any day.

Lol. I'd take 10 Vic Stans over a power scaler :p


Also, I kinda knew it would happen. But it still baffles me whenever anyone starts a conversation about the merits of Power Scaling it always turns into an actual debate about power scaling!

[RandomGuy96]

It has always amused me that some forumites complain about fans wanting to know who's stronger than who in a series that's focused almost solely on fighting, a series whose protagonist cares about becoming stronger more than literally anything else.

"Power scalers" are more in-tune with what the series is actually about than, for example, shippers, or people who keep wishing for "slice-of-life" stuff, yet they're not complained about as much.

[Alruneia]

It has always amused me that some forumites complain about fans wanting to know who's stronger than who in a series that's focused almost solely on fighting, a series whose protagonist cares about becoming stronger more than literally anything else.

"Power scalers" are more in-tune with what the series is actually about than, for example, shippers, or people who keep wishing for "slice-of-life" stuff, yet they're not complained about as much.

Well, to put it this way, not all power scaling is the same. There's healthy power scaling, where you try to place the characters in relation to each other when it's possible while also recognising that it's just a fun thought experiment and that the writers never had that in mind, but then there's unhealthy power scaling, where you desperately try to push every character into a specific place and get angry with the writers when they later ignore the enormous list you've created. When people complain about power scalers, it's usually the latter they're talking about, not the former, and if it is the former... well, I'd say that's a bit aggressive.

[Kataphrut]

I wouldn't say power-scaling debates are "toxic" but I personally find them tedious and I don't like that such a huge amount of fandom discourse is devoted to them. Obviously this board isn't so bad, but elsewhere it's like 90 per cent of discussions around DB boil down to how "strong is character x", or" is character y to weak or too strong?" or "can character y beat character z?"

But you know, it's not like the franchise hasn't fostered it. Everyone loves to bring up the idea of "battle powers" as presented in the Saiyan and Namek arcs as being unreliable, and while that does have a point to it, pretty much every fight in Dragon Ball still ultimately comes down to numerical strength. There are very few fights were a supposed "weaker" character ekes out a win over a stronger one through skill or technique, which is one if the most frustrating things about DB compared to other shounen, super hero comics, etc.

Because that battle power isn't all raw strength. It seems to include speed as well. And it's not always the strongest. In the Cell arc, they make it quite clear that pure strength is meaningless if you can't hit your opponent.

There's no denshi jars (though admittedly that move never got off the ground), no attacks which can blind the foe, no ability to leave after-images to confuse them, nothing.

The taiyoken disagrees, and the after image is shown to be a fairly elementary technique that only the least skilled fighters fall for.

DB is a world where sometimes the gap between the weaker and stronger is so big that no amount of technique can make up for it.

The idea of balancing speed and strength never came up outside that one instance in the Cell arc though. At all other times, everyone has strength and speed relative to each other. I guess it sort of makes sense with how power works- if you can generate enough ki to power your attacks, the same amount should be able to boost your speed by an equal level.

Burter was meant to be a speedy fighter, but they didn't do a lot with the concept for him. Dyspo was a better take on the idea because he explicitly used it to get an advantage over stronger fighters. That's the sort of thing I hope we see more of.