Nobody Understands Power Scaling 

Plenty of people have good points to make and I understand that there is definitely something to be said about how arbitrary it is which laws of physics do or don't get followed in this hobby. But can we maybe stop the just, ridiculous amount of slurs I've had to delete comments over? This hobby is just fun and shit, intense heated arguing over this stuff and whether people are inherently bad for enjoying it is pushing the line on what's ok, but slurs? Really lads? here are the tracks Trapped in Despair Birth by Exile Blackout Action Unforgiving Justice Fear the Worst Hope For Sin YOU DONE SH*T OF FUCK Invitation to Pyroland A Destined Fantasy The World Rings Out

I know its always whoever the writer wants to win, but I also think its important to keep charters power consistent

“The winner is whoever the writer decides”, “Alien X is omnipotent” and “dragon ball characters are immune to all hax” are probably the bane of my existence.

The point people often miss when criticizing the practice of powerscaling is that the concept of powerscaling and vs debating itself are inherently fine, however it incredibly often leads to massive toxicity when people get too heated in discussions where their favorite character(s) lose(s) or people think that character being stronger equals their media being better and it devolves from there. It's kinda similar to shipping in a fandom sense, conceptually fine but it breeds so much toxicity that it becomes a massive problem; and when people get toxic about it, it creates a counter-culture to it where outsiders view everyone who does that the same. They're like 2 sides of the same fandom coin.

Also let’s not forget, a character being “stronger” then another character does not mean they are automatically the better character. You can like a character more then another and also still keep your point of view in that character

As pretty much a newbie of the VS community, it’s good to have this video. I had no idea when it came to Power Scaling and all that until only recently with Gojo vs Makima but it’s nice to hear from other people that the VS stuff is meant to be fun if you find it fun. And I do. So thanks, Nem. Hopefully, you won’t have to take this video down because of its contents. EDIT: Thank you to those that have liked this!

This video actually has a bunch of information I've always wanted to convey, but could never put it into the right words. Very cool.

Makes me glad to see a video like this. My recommended has been full of people shitting on the hobby for no reason, so seeing someone who actually understands it for once is so refreshing. I hate people who take powerscaling WAY too seriously, but even they're not as annoying as people who feel the need to constantly put down the hobby just because they don't get it, in my opinion.

I think what people fair to realize is that when you watch or read or partake in any part of a source material, how you interpret a feat does not mean they will come to the same conclusion you did. Our “job” (using it very loosely) is to interpret the source material as accurately as we can. But it does not change that we are still doing it from our limited lense. So, unless we get the exact mindset by getting a Word of God (which can easily change for companies like Marvel and DC who change writers frequently), it is still very much an opinion.

I thank you for explaining the "moon level" "mountain level" cause i didnt fully understand that myself, attack potency vs scale

I feel like the "attack equals defense unless stated otherwise" only really works for systems like Ki that are a life energy that also has been shown to defend. Stuff like magic in other shows isnt usually implied to be the case, unless stated other wise.

Me and my friend Danny were debating separately on whether Vader or Obito would win and our other 2 friends in the call quoted Stan lee and specifically said “Nobody cares, The person who wins is whoever the writer decides” and I tried to explain why it mattered to me

"The winner is whoever the writer wants to win" people when they get knocked out by someone bigger and stronger (it was God, the writer's fault they lost.)

The funny thing is that I do both. The Story comes first but I want to have consistency with the power scale and logic. But, this is important, I forget sometimes about it and just go with the scene and feel of what I am trying to write to make it both intense and impactful while having fun. Stan Lee's statement of "I don't care about the Power Scale, of who wins or how powerful they are. If I want Spider to win against the Hulk, I want Spiderman to win that day, on another day, I may want the Hulk to win." should be taken as a means of being I kind of want to tell this fun story while keeping the power of each in mind, who would win might be based on what the narrative leads for the actual winner, not just the fact that "This guy has a bigger number, there for he wins." talk that most people get into, when talking with friends and looking at the stats and abilities of each character armor or whatever it is, it is kinda disappointing at times, but then ask, okay, but about if it was a narrative tale, "Who do you see winning in that sense?" so we talk about that, which then goes into a fun thing about how it would go and how far! Since the story part is always fun to have for it than just Power Scale Winner is. While I care and look into it, I have seen a lot of people using the VSWiki and just Power Scale and not take into account a lot of the talks for narrative that goes with it, to me, it gets tiring to hear that or see it more frequently than not as both a creator and a Scaler, more so the former now a days. I have create a setting where you have a single rule that is placed and plan to show the effects of what happens when you ignore or don't bother with using or training that rule. It is called, for those who want to use it as a writer of any kind, Narrative Control and With Strain, or what the VS Community like to call "Gag" or "Atomic/Matter/Realty Control/Manipulation" all characters have this ability and is shown to not cause much harm or negative effects around them, but it is also a form of gaining great or grater power as you need to direct that force and power somewhere else as you can not simply get rid of it, which this secondary effect is that it is only going to unleash the full force on the intended target and anything else would take a smaller or splash back of the power shown as it goes into the greater universe at large. Think of DB(Z/GT/S/D) and how the character who are clearly beyond Moon Power and don't destroy anything that isn't the intended target with a clear Chunking of the World they stand on. This is the main justification of the powers, and most know about this and train it up for better control, so those with this type (look at the quoted area in the paragraph) use on a daily and yes doing a Destroy the World! move is not seen as anything special or good, while they can control the powers to not kill everyone when fighting, they still need air, food, water and means of living, so Word Destruction moves are a big sin on the grand scale. If I wanted to see a fight with no narrative and see a one sided ass whooping, I'll look it up online, is it fun, yes, but also at the same time I would like to see the story for it if it had one, this is not saying I don't enjoy a good fight or one sided beat down, no I do, does it mean I enjoy the story for it and want all fights to have that, no. What I'm saying is this, I am human and I am hypocritical to this as well. That doesn't mean that I am 100% wrong and should thus be dismissed, no, it just mean I have a bit of a complex and conflicting thing for this as I both watch and create these things. I think all writers or creators have this issue where they love and enjoy a good mindless fight or a passionate and intense narrative fight more so than those who just watch the show. Yes this includes nuance for the story that people can ignore lol. (I had that happen a lot for it since it is you know, not really seen as important in the talks) I would love to just write the Cross Over Fight and have be fun and tell a fun story with the characters I made, but that *doesn't* mean I have thought about the FULL IMPLICATION OF THE POWERSCALE FOR THEM AND HOW IT IS GOING TO AFFECT THE NORMAL STORY, no, it was a fun thing I did because I wanted to do it. No writer does, we just want to tell a fun tale more often than not, if we just stuck with what VS Debaters want and just had VSWiki the Comic, it would be harder to just write for and, personally, find it boring to even read and watch as it just becomes a slough to get through and even the writing for it. if you are wondering. Yes I use a Multi-tier system for the writing world and cosmology, yes it is big that it hurts to think about, yes, when I state it to be infinite, it is not a Hyperbole, it is the full definition of Infinite. Yes, most gods do not or can not grasp the full size of a single universe, let alone the full Infinite Milti-Outerversal of Creation that is the Cosmology of the setting, if i put it down in the chat, and you read it.... well if Nemesisbloodryche ask, I will put it in the reply or in his pin lol No, I ignore this 99.9999999% of the time as it is not important for the stories told in the setting. Those who knows me and how I write for the entire thing knows why it is like this and why I don't care to delve into much other than explaining things. Yes, I use a VSWiki term to say how big it is (Outerversal is just a stupid thing when you know the term and think about how many characters do this that aren't Gag Characters). Again, if he/they/she/potato soup/purple hair ask, I will explain it and why.

Thank you, I always hate when someone outside of the community tries to have a moral high ground over us in order to justifice bullying us for simply having a hobby they don't like.

I still very much consider myself a newbie in this fandom/community and honestly I just enjoy watching people debate. I'm not gonna crunch any numbers myself but all the other stuff is pure fun.

I dont think you understand how goated this video is

People also gotta scale in character weaknesses as well, and what they can’t actually do. This is a major issue I see many people seem to gloss over as if their character has no weaknesses at all, it’s jarring, and killed power scaling for me long ago.

I'm going to speak specifically about Death battle here, I think that people are especially hard towards them because of their production budget and Quality. Naturally, they become 'de-facto answers' that people can point to to avoid re-writing out all the numbers themselves. This means that when there's an inaccuracy in one of their videos, it will pervasively persist any other time that character is talked about in a power-scaling sense. In this regard, I think people SHOULD be hard towards them, to make them strive to be as accurate as possible. Of course, nobody can consider EVERY variable unless they have a truly gross amount of free time, but it should be as accurate as possible. Now to the community at large, yeah, there's a lot less of a burden on you to prove your point if you're just arguing with some bloke in a forum somewhere or on Twitter.

Power scaling has and always will be subjective thats the fun nobody is truly right or wrong theres always arugements and evidence for both parties involved.

Death Battle was genuinely the reason why I got into and loved One Piece, and seeing it bringing up characters I love always got me excited. Whether those characters won or lost never really bothered me, cause I was just happy to see them getting some attention

Hey yeah, powerscaling is a pretty good hobby for me because not only do I get to share my love for the franchises I'm a fan of with others, but I get exercise my skill with physics that I learned in high school. I like it.

THANK you. Not only is this good to stop some people aggressively denying things related to this, but now I'm also a little more knowledgeable about it! Even though I'll probably forget most of this in a week like some kinda nimrod. I hate being forgetful

My issue with power scaling is that sometimes it's circular in nature. One example I like to use comes from Vs. Battles Wiki. I looked up how strong Link is and the site claimed "Universal, because he beat Majora", and when I looked up why Majora is Universal, the page said "He's comparable in power to Ganondorf", and when I looked up why Ganondorf is supposedly universal "Well, he's beaten Link canonically, so that's why"

*This* . This is what I want people to understand about VS. That said, I'm of the mindset that no matter what one is interested in, *someone* will make fun of them for it. As a fan of RWBY, Sonic, and other things that are easy to make fun of, I've gotten very used to taking this shit in stride, while trying my best not to make fun of others for their interests.

Goku has canonically died. Garfield hasn't even bled

If krillen just came out and beat freeza in the namek saga “just cause the writer wants” even though the whole audience knows it would make no sense would make the readers annoyed and be considered bad writing. At a certain point if a creator has established rules in there verse and just decide to break the logic it’s not a good thing. In battle manga fights are a way of communicating and telling the story. AUTHORS use power scaling themselves. I think this argument comes from people who don’t read deeply or only consume media with no long overarching story or plot line.

My issue is that many versus debaters seem to have this false idea that whoever wins is set and stone if it's been said on Death Battle or just because they debated it for an hour on a wiki or subreddit. The thing is, how we interpret characters, their feats, and how their abilities interact with other characters, unless the creators specifically come out and say it, is entirely subjective. This community gets so vitriolic that it honestly drives me away. The amount clowns who came out of the woodworks to say Jak and Daxter lose to Ratchet & Clank because Death Battle said so and there can be no other arguments made, was insane (And that's just one example). I know not every power scaler is like this, and this is part of that vocal minority you mentioned in the video, but I can understand where the grievances would come from for some people.

This video is the perfect summary of why I love powerscaling. Not only is it a hobby, but in a way, it’s also a method of viewing and interpreting a verse. And that exact mentality has helped give me a massive appreciation for a lot of my favorite franchises (some notable examples being Ultraman, Godzilla, and Lego Ninjago) and has allowed me to explore series that I wouldn’t have ever checked out on my own (some examples being The Nemesis Saga, Titanic Creations, and Lego Monkie Kid), and allowed me to gain respect for a lot of the characters within their series.

There is such a thing as bad writing. If character A is always nice then randomly, for no reason is extremely mean with no set up or explaination then that is incorrect that the writer wrote that. This applies to powerscaling too. If I write a story about normal humans, then one of them randomly picks up a building, I can write that, but it would be bad and should be ignored or taken into consideration that this might not be accurate

I like what you mention. Just because something seems meaningless to you, it doesn't mean it IS meaningless for everyone. Just that perhaps you don't care about it. Some people find something important and actually enjoy doing stuff you might consider worthless, or pointless. And that is 99& just subjective. I like digimon, like thinking about powers, levels, mental scenarios, I like hearing about what if battles, I like hearing the reasoning behind results, and have fun thinking about it.. Yes, it is likely less valuable use of time as opposed to... dunno, cook a meal to feed a hungry person. But that doesn't mean the thing is worthless, or meaningless.

"doesn't matter, kirby solos both lmao" is when it gets annoying to me

Power scaling is important to a narrative. For example, anyone could write a story where someone like Daredevil or Batman easily beats Superman or Thanos without any prep time, artifacts, or cool new forms. But the issue is, as a reader, you can't buy into that because we know these characters have skills, powers, and natural abilities that should essentially crush these guys easily. This isn't to say a weaker character can't beat a stronger one, of course, but within the rules of the universe, it has to make sense with what's established. I think people look at power scaling too negatively. Every writer, especially in the battle genre, whether western or eastern, takes this into account. It's not a matter of how powerful this attack is blah blah blah. Even though I personally love that stuff, I can understand why people don't like it. But power scaling is very important; it's to help convey to the audience how powerful a character is within their verse and also how characters may deal against them.

Honestly, though my job I have amongst the VS debating wikis out there about judging how someone crunch their numbers, I'm not always thinking about numbers all the time when reacting to different pieces of media. Like, I watched Puss in Boots: The Last Wish not because of how Puss would scale to the Sleeping Giant of Del Mar or how much Death scales to the rest of the world Shrek takes in, but it's becuase of how good the story was to so many. So, it isn't like my mind is in Analysis Mode for numbers all the time. Everyone has their reasons for enjoying something as it is, but it isn't always going to be in the Sphere of Influence of Power Scaling.

It’s a bunch of Normie’s that don’t understand power scaling that just constantly shit on it even though Marvel and DC other franchises use power scaling

Well I know a lot about power scaling. There's the watt, joule, ampere, coulomb, ohm, calorie...

I wanted soooooooo much to see someone do a video like this, especially after seeing so many videos of people that dislike power and saying that it's cringe because It makes people argue too much against each other without realaising that that's the beauty of scaling, discussing (in a non toxic way of course) and learning more about the verse you're talking about. I know that for some people there are other better ways of diving into an unknown verse than power scaling, but for me it's valid and iteresting as well, especially because thanks to scaling I have discovered many francises that I didn't even knew the existence of before

Powerscaling is fun but has been ruined by toxicity, illogical people and fanboys. I enjoy scaling a verses cosmology and characters, but when it comes to putting characters against eachother it's a whole different deal...

This video is (relatively) important. Thank you for making it Nem!

And this is exactly why I’m proud I’m not a part of the VS Community. I feel bad for all those who get treated like shit for the wrong assumptions.

the problem I’ve always had with powerscaling is that people often ignore the ‘power’ in favor of the ‘scaling’. The most interesting part of vs battles is the unique interactions and abilities. And while being stronger or faster in important, if your conclusion nearly always comes down to “this guy has the bigger number”….man that’s just boring.

I'd love more general powerscaling videos like this I really enjoy them. Shit like this is why i'm subbed, probably my favourite video by far.

The "whoever the author wants to win" isn't just for plot and stuff. The author can literally make their characters stronger. For instance. I have an imaginary character in my head that is literally not omnipotent, but he can defeat omnipotent characters. How? It's just how it is. His feats include: Destroying all of fiction just by existing, lifting a pencil in real life, creating the real life universe, preceding all logic (fictional or not), not existing while also existing, being capable of holding something while also not holding something, being above your pathetic legs, destroying the real universe and then recreating it (and your memories of it) 5 minutes ago, and inventing all of real life fiction and then impressing all of fiction onto it's "authors".

It’s true that the writer determines who wins; however, if John Average, who is completely average in all stats and has no superhuman abilities, fought a yellow sun charged Superman or enraged Hulk and knocks him out in one punch, with no explanation whatsoever, people would rightfully call BS. By a similar token, when someone with a science or math background points out that a writer or scaler fundamentally doesn’t understand how a concept works, like transfinite numbers, dimensions, or reference frames, they’re right to call BS

The personal issues I have with power scaling is these. 1. The feats of a lot of characters (like Goku or Superman) are so huge that I’m not sure how you can even compare them (granted, I may be showing that I suck at math). 2. I personally find the context behind a fight more interesting as you acknowledge, because that kind of thing can heavily affect a fight in my opinion, and because I’m someone who cares about character interactions a lot (it’s half the reason I watch death battle). The DBs most recent Scooby VS Courage is a perfect example of this. As for the context part. Things like the environment can easily have an effect on fights as well. To be clear, I’m not trying to say VS debating is pointless, I’m just saying that’s why I personally don’t care for power scaling, and would love to hear counter arguments.

jc the last thing I did before watching this was listen to Nye vs Newton I almost had a heart attack

But what if i just want to see 2 fictional people beat the shit out of eachother?

I just want to say that getting into powerscaling made me appreciate one of my favorite series (Megami Tensei) even more because I had to dive deep into the lore to have a better understanding of the stories and themes, as well as its inspirations. So yeah, it's given me a new appreciation that is not just limited to "who is stronger" or "big numbers"

"The winner is whoever the writer wants to win" people when they get into a street fight (the 'writer decided that they should get knocked out)

23:05 Nem scaling the viewer lowkey sounding like an inspirational speech

Thanks for explaining this 🙏

"The writer decides who wins" mfs when bad writing and inconsistency walk into the room:

I powerscale just for a hobby. Often times I may use it as an excuse to rewatch or re-experience a piece of media I used to love, upon scaling the characters, their stats could impress me and give me a new impression of the character - now, this is just my enjoyment out of it because I enjoy writing big numbers and slapping them onto absolutely non-threatening characters, but everyone can find some enjoyment in it. Powerscaling got me into Fate, Danganronpa, DBZ, OPM and quite a lot more because they have infamous characters or ones I've had to study for MUs. If I conclude in a mu that character x beats y, I don't suddenly hate y, i still like them and everything in their series, it's just a way to use my knowledge on both to find connections and almost share some cool knowledge on characters whoever I'm debating with may not know

Stan Lee could not go more then 3 issues with out contradicting his own story. His opinion is not final.

Some people really undermine video game characters by going specifically by lore, though that would be correct, there is also another half to it. LITERALLY the player's skill and everything, I mean look at games with a leveling system, item system, etc.; that makes just about every other overpowered character look like actual ants when compared to them, considering how strong you can be in the video games.

Thanks for this video, I never fully understood vs debating and power scaling but now I fully understand what it's about.

This video is nothing but facts. Edit: I feel like people are supremely strict with DB as much as they are super lenient towards it. Like how many times I've seen the "WHY DONT THEY DESTROY THE PLANET WHEN THEY TRANSFORM" argument, which imo is nothing but bad faith.

My most wanted match-up (previous to Gojo being the opponent but I really loved the episode nonetheless) was Kenjaku vs Makima. It wasn't because I wanted to just see who's stronger, faster etc. but because of the amount of connections between them, how their stories mirror and contrast against each other, Kenjaku a mastermind chaotic being and Makima being a manipulative one obsessed with her own order. The fight potential of the whole armies they have at their command, their varying abilities and how their power systems bounce off each other because of it. I don't really care about the winner but their abilities dictate the fight would end in the most ironic way possible for either in that they'd be the ones being controlled for a change. Makima is one of my favorite villains of all time, and both Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man have had significant impact on my own life, and I'd love to see this fight and characters... But power scaling is cringe apparently so that doesn't matter actually.

I belive the stan lee statement shouldn't be a way of discouraging vs debating, but a way of thinking of a matchup a different way. When i talk about this stuff with a friend of mine, besides the rough estimations for the characters' power whe have, we also like to discuss how would a story between these two would go. Take for example, a debate on who would emerge victorious (not necesarily in a fight) between Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes? Sure, both of them have impressive feats of dexterity and martial prowess across all the media they have appeared, as well as intelectual capabilities, but how would a story between the two go? Well, the answer may be found in the actual novel ''Arsene Lupin vs Herlock Sholmes'' (No, i didn't write that wrong). A novel in which famous greatest detective and famous phantom thief face off eachother. (I havent read the novel, but i love the fact that it exists) Lets make up a wild scenario. ///// Yujiro hanma wanders around and finds out a giant tower. What for a regular fighter would be a horrific pressence coming from that tower becomes interesting to the ogre, so he decides to walk in. Ignoring the receptionist, everyone working there and walking through every single security meassure inside the building, Yujiro eventually finds the source of that ominous aura. At the opposite end of a hallway, an odd figure can be seen laying down. Pink hair and dressed like a clown, this individual, wearing a frightening smile, eyes wide open, walks towards the ogre, both sharing what everyone witnessing the scene could only describe as two hungry beasts, euphoric at the sight of the greatest meal they'll have so far. As both Men stare at eachother, with twisted joy and curiosity reflected on both of their faces, The clown is the first one to break the silence. ''I can sense you are aching for a fight, am i mistaken?'' Yujiro simply Smirks. ''Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hisoka, and you have NO idea how much i'd LOVE to have a go right now... But this place follows a specific set of rules. So, if its not too much of a bother...'' The ogre, against anyones guess, complies with Hisoka's request. He walks towards the previously ignored receptionist, and asks to be registered in the tower. With the most terrifying smile, Yujiro turns back at Hisoka. ''You are making a huge compromise here, Kid. I hope you dont end up dissapointing'' Says the ogre. Hisoka makes a reverence, and calmly says ''Oh my good sir. I assure you i will fullfill all your expectations''. Barely containing his laugh, Yujiro simply waves him goodbye as he walks away. ''Toodaloo'' Says Hisoka.///// For those who didn't read all that, its basically a made up scenario for a fight between Hisoka From Hunter X hunter and Yujiro from Baki. I didn't pit them fighting because that's not the intention of this ''excersise''. Rather, i pictured a scenario in which these two characters would encounter and a fight would be plausible. Who wins this bout can be dictated by whoever ''objectively'' wins via stats or special abilities. But wethere it is a stomp or it is a close match VsDebate-wise, we can write a good story/fight basing ourselves on the info we have referring to Vs. However, Wether one or the other wins, We cant forget WHO these characters are. I firmly believe it is possible to portray a stomp in favor of a character who is considered weak in its origin series, against another one who is considered to be the strongest in its own series too, while still keeping the fact that one is considered weaker in his own narrative, and viceversa. The reason i love death battle, specially in these last three seasons, is the fact that they have been prioritizing character writing and escentially making what i consider an amazing fanfiction. And a lot may consider the veredicts are wrong, and thats fine, however, i see too many people only focusing on the veredict, and not the story that was told, as simple as it may be.

Wow I'm early for once, and although VS debating isn't a hobby of mine, but I love watching DB, and your analysis, reaction, and prediction video, and other VS debaters video

I've been meandering in the center of this whole argument for and against power scaling for pretty much my entire time in and around the community and this is what I've learned: Versus Debates are glorified fanfiction. Which, just to be clear, isn't a bad thing. Ask anyone who reads or writes fanfiction and they'll tell you that some of them are better than actual books. My point in calling it that is because I have been turned off by the most vitriolic and hyper biased parts of the vs. community a number of times. I have joined and left the community before all because I didn't like how people in it treated the whole affair, but I recently came back and started to enjoy it so much more, in no small part thanks to Nemesis, Biff, and a few other Vs. creators. But I call is glorified fanfiction because that is *not* how so many others in the community have treated it, they treat it like its the most serious and life defining thing, which has fueled a love-hate relationship with versus debates that I wish was just love. I still have my hang ups about power scaling, I have a vehement distaste for chain scaling because it takes circumstantial evidence to a whole new level, and an overuse of inconsistent feats is what made made me leave the community the first time. But I like a good versus debate because the idea of the themes and abilities of characters born out of entirely separate and distinct worlds and stories with wholly different rules bouncing off each other in both combat and interaction is fascinating. I don't blame people for disliking versus debates, for a long time I was right there next to them because of the frustrating anger of the people who try to shove "But can he beat Goku" down your throat unironically. But I've come to love and enjoy it again because one day, out of random, I saw Death Battle was covering Fire Emblem, one of my favorite franchises, and after I had been ignoring Death Battle and versus debates for a while for the aforementioned reasons, I decided to give it a shot and it blew me away. I was quickly bombarded with recommendations for Biff and Nemesis and their approach to the series encouraged me to try it out again. After binging the entire series, I'm back on board, even if I still have my problems with certain parts of "art of power scaling" as it were. As a final note: For all I said against the power scaling/versus community, I really dislike the idea of "The winner is whoever the writer decides." As a writer myself, that is the laziest way to possible approach a story. I want a world I interact with whether through tv, books, video games etc. to feel real. And one way to do so is to establish a flow of consistency and rules. (Part of why I dislike the use of inconsistent feats actually) If your readers/watchers know that the stakes of whatever media they're interacting with is determined entirely by "whatever the writer wants" and not preset rules the writer themselves established then what reason do they have to feel the stakes are genuine? Creating rules for your story and then creating scenarios for who can and can't win a fight within those preset rules makes your world feel real and tangible. And its why I love versus debates, because it takes two characters following two sets of rules and attempts to equalize them in a way that lets you imagine what a fight between them would look like. Keep up the good work, Nem, its always appreciated.

I have some gripes with the way Death Battle makes a lot of wild assumptions, like how anything that looks like a laser is assumed to be moving at light speed and the realistic part of any fictional universe is assumed to be the size of the real-world observable universe. characters are also always scaled to their most impressive feat without considering the limitations they are shown to have elsewhere in the story. If Jolyne Cujoh actually had the level of power shown in her meteor punching feat, she could have just punched her way through the prison walls

ive come to resent power scaling for a lot of reasons. but I can appreciate that it's a hobby, analyzing the media is fun in so many ways. I think what the problem is when someone is trying to enjoy a narrative or certain characters only to have someone come at you just because "x is a fraud" or "y is a bad/good character because he's weak/strong" completely ignoring how good their writing is. it's just a difference in what you care about in a piece of media clashing and I feel that's why these two camps fight so much

Everyone knows Ms. Frizzle is the most powerful character in fiction.

I don’t think I ever wanted Boros vs Deoxys until I saw that animation and thought about it. I never even considered that one of my favorite legendary Pokémon could be a decent matchup for one of the cooler villains in OPM thanks Nem for a new matchup for me to really like

ngl i think the real issue is the relativistic hobbyist nature of it, there needs to be DEFINITION of all this glossary no one can agree on a tiering system

I always told people that don't understand why scaling is important is that if you agree that Yamcha or Krillin or whatever other human character they agree that they're constantly clowned upon in their home series by much more stronger characters CAN'T be beaten by any of us (because he's operating in a universe where people can blow them up while we don't) then you have more than enough understand what scaling is. Character A maybe barely anyone in his series while character B is considered it's god but if you look at what "scales" they're put on then you'll notice Character A despite being weak in his series, has feats weighing heavier than what character's b series did, you just apply same logic as previously with us and Yamcha.

As a powe scaler myself, Finally someone who has read debating fallacies and physicis explaining to casual and main stream audience about these misconception was a beautiful thing ❤

I can understand the hate towards the drama, elitism and attitude that comes from the powerscaling and vs debate community, but I hate this whole "its whoever the author wants to win" schtick because it ignores internal consistency in writing. If Wolverine is gonna beat Galactus, then the writers are gonna have to do a LOT of legwork to justify that and make that outcome believable. Wolverine would need a training arc, tons of buffs to his character, a narrative reason for having to beat Galactus, etc. because Galactus is just that much above him. This is an admission that Wolverine is weaker and thus has to go through some sort of growth to overcome that challenge, WHICH ADMITTEDLY can be narratively satisfying if the premise and execution of the story is done well. (dont @ me if there is some god-slaying version of Wolverine, this is just a hypothetical designed to make a point) Vs Debates and powerscaling dont have that luxury because you're only allowed to use currently available information, and it gets even more strict if you're not using a composite version of the character and have to stick with feats of a character before and during a certain point in time in their story. Like, Chunin Exam Naruto and Six Paths Naruto would be two entirely different debates.

Who here remembers celebrity death match, that was the goat of verses debating

The problem I have with powerscaling is that the people I see doing it just reduce everything to the stats. But it seems like that’s not how everyone does it, from what you've said in the video

This was a very important video, thanks for the really good explanation of what is the VS community is. Take care Nem

Amazing video man Finally someone had to say this

I just wish some people wouldn't take it so seriously. Some people will get so pissed if you say X character beats Y character. It's fun to talk about but in my honest opinion, tiktok has given Power Scalers an absolute horrendous stereotype

I agree with most things here, but using piccolo as an example was kinda weird. Ki blasts don't really have recoil. And can carry concusive force while not moving. Using a character who does a physical attack would be better

Thank you for the videos

My view on power scaling comes from a nuanced approach to it. I think there are merits to it that make it cool such as how impressive it is when a dude truly crunches the numbers and figures out a character from this silly little cartoon is actually this unholy powerful demon in the real world and compared to other characters? That's fun. It adds a layer to learning about your favorite characters and I can even see how the debate can be fun when kept civil. Where power scaling stops being fun and where ultimately I feel people come to reject it is that if we're being totally honest? It has NOT had the best rep by fans because primarily when power scaling enters a convo? It's usually because people are taking it way too seriously and are applying power scaling to areas that it really doesn't belong in. For example, the Stan Lee quote people share is a fair one because Stan is speaking on the matter of story, pointing out how worrying about who would win in a fight is unnecessary ultimately when constructing a narrative considering it is up to the writer and if they bogged themselves down in scaling? What might happen is a story becomes more rigid and when people take it too far? They can bog down characters to being little more than stats than characters. It's why power scaling is fascinating to me as an outsider meanwhile I can't stand versus debate aside from Death Battle because I often feel when the discussion is less about the character and more about their tiers of power? It sucks out what I think makes an idea like this interesting but of course, that's me because if that's what floats your boat then hey I ain't stopping you if you're cool about it. What really rubs me the wrong way is when I see people doing things like attacking others for daring to suggest their character in a fanmade fight would be lost (Looking at you assloads of DBZ fans I would so, SO rather not be associated with.) or when I see people so obsessively applying it as if it's an important part of media literacy that they actively ruining the stuff they watch the same way that obsessions with things like CinemaSins can lead to an unhealthy fixation on nitpicks which can harm your view of media. And for the record, power scaling really isn't needed in media. What people often refer to as "scaling" is really just maintaining a basic consistency so that your character doesn't go from weak noodle man who can't throw a punch to macho gigagod who can defeat people by flexing his nipples in a single paragraph and when it seemingly is used like say when a character drops a line comparing attacks to another? That's just because there's natural overlap. That being said, there's a difference between not being necessary for media and being useless which is why I think toxicity often comes about. The idea that the hours you might've spent combing through wikis, comics and films to say figure out how fast a character could go potentially could be useless is an upsetting one, especially when someone is seeming like they're going out of their way to invalidate your hobby which does suck or when the media in question does something that either contradicts your points or adds info that basically reshapes how one has to analyze something in this context but that's where of course instead of telling someone power scaling sucks or is useless? That's the point to maybe tell that person to step away, recharge and rethink their reasoning for getting into this in the first place so that they can hopefully return to enjoying this hobby in a healthy manner because at the end of the day that's really all this is, just a fun crazy hobby.

Talk to em, I been power scaling for ages and the amount of people who don't understand it is wild

There are people who hate the idea of power scaling but in order to avoid what many like to call "plot holes" or "plot armor" some form of logic in the power structure is necessary I think. For example. The popularity of Madvocate's "The Flash is Insufferably inconsistent" series shows to me at least that many people do care when a character fails at something they logically shouldn't, even if it's the writer's decision ultimately.

unfortunately power scalers care about things and caring about things is "cringe" according to the internet.

Yeah the writer decides who wins but without writer bias some match ups are clearly one sided. As much as I'd rather Scorpion won against Ghost Rider objectively Hanzo is screwed in that fight. Even his netherrealm hax wouldn't save him.

Yeah my most wanted MU of all times is Monokuma Vs Korosensei and oh boy it is NOT because of the debate. I adore these 2 and would love to see their personalities clash and I love how thematic it is, plus it’s just really fun.

you where spittin straight scripture with this one, amen brother

The main problem I have with some powerscalers is when they view their approach as the most logical and correct one to take when comparing characters. Its like a sport. The framework behind it are the lines drawn on the floor and the metrics arrived at are the net basket someone put up. It isnt an objectively better or more logical approach. Its got lots of logical flaws and lax rigor. But its a working framework and set of rules, and its fun to do math within that framework pertaining to interesting characters and looking up obscure media about them, and obsessing over even more obscure details. But it can not decide how two characters from the same canon compare in canon. Because thats simply not what it is for. And a character scaling higher does not make that character any cooler. But that does not invalidate powerscaling and the fun of it. But it does kinda pose a barrier of entry tbh.

I actually think I have come full circle with powerscaling lol When I was younger I was super obsessed with it Later I hated it because I kinda just grew out of it and frankly speaking I'm personally not a big fan of most character portrayals in DB However now I'm okay with it again. I'm not SUPER into it anymore and quickly grow bored when I read calculations of someone trying to prove me "X beats Y" I think its just the attack potency thing that irks me the most. I weight in skillsets more than anything tbh Of course attack potency and whatnot is very important, but I'm just not the biggest fan of seeing DB put up 100000000000000 times of tnt on the screen It's still neat to find out who would win, but I think I am personally just fed up with the edath part in death battle, because a lo of character gets lost or interactions have wasted potential (again, totally my personal problem and I acknowledge that) I agree that debating wether Goku or Saitama would win in a Rap contest is meaningless, but it does create neat intereactions or rethinking of the source material and I do understand that a lot of fun comes from that. (yeah okay maybe not a rap battle in this case) I disagree that argueing wether a certain character would win on a authors bias doesnt make much of a debate however. You can derive a lot of how an author views a character by the way they write them. Argueing on a purely writing standpoint there is a lot more room to debate as there are no numerical values or definitive limits set by feats, as long as one party doesnt know the author personally lol: It's just a lot more wobbly and harder to put into words than actual feat comparison Something being "meaningless" or "pointless" is a dumb argument as breaking stuff down to its core almost everything we do is meaningless. Watching youtube videos writing comments etc. I agree here that that argument is extremely dumb. I also think the point Stan wanted to make is that he is tired of getting those versus questions. (warning personal interpretation) All he probably wanted was interacting with his fans and not being asked wether Spiderman is Cityblock level for the 500th time. I didnt felt like Stan Lee was demeaning to powerscalers as a whole but just those who always ask him those versus questions As you said, most creators dont have powerscaling in mind (maybe like a vague idea where everyone belongs in the general power tierlist) and are focusing on character and story first. In the end those who are into powerscaling should enjoy their hobby and there is nothing wrong with doing calculations for fun, thinking about interesting or cool match ups or even just who someone likes more. It's not something to be shamed on and definetly shows a great understanding of the srouce material someone has as well as how they interpret certain things onto how it would affect battle capabilities. I just think not everyone does think of powerscaling as for fun. And as much as you have seen some bs people spout against powerscaling there have been people who take it way to serious and obnoxious, which just continues to toxic back and forth. And I'll be honest here, people who hate powerscalers aren't anything special. Almost any type of Internet culture has some kind of "counter culture" Just look how toxic people talk about shipping sometimes, which in theory should have much less conflict creating potential as opposed to versus debates (2 characters liking each other as opposed to beating each other up) Anyway. I enjoyed the video.

Great vid. One point I think is worth mentioning as well is the idea of “well, the debate’s pointless because the winner will always be whichever character is the debater’s favourite”, which… also isn’t true, and is another stupid blanket statement? Not the best example, but just look at Goku vs. Superman. Ben Singer has gone on record saying that he hates Superman, yet he has written two episodes of Death Battle where Superman wins for being (in the episode’s words, not mine) INFINITELY stronger than Goku. There are characters I like more than Goku and Superman, but would never dream of putting them in a matchup with those two. That’s because by the rules for vs. battles set by the community, the characters I like would lose horrendously. This “debater’s favourite wins” argument ignores the fact that there’s still plenty of scalers who will like Franchise X more than Franchise Y, but will still admit that characters from Y beat X. This is because they’re following “the rules” of the powerscaling “game”. People who end up making it clear that they ARE just playing favourites tend to get called out, even by casuals. Going outside of powerscaling, there’s lots of people who like certain sweets more than certain fruits. But you still get a good number of people who will concede that their favourite sweets are not healthier than certain fruits. The same applies to scaling; not everyone will argue out of favouritism or have favouritism be the defining subconscious reason behind the conclusion they reach. Of course there’s examples of people playing favourites in debates. However, saying EVERYONE in one community has the exact same mindset and approach to how they do things just ignores the basics behind the way humans function.

I’m very into the versus community, however, I’m not that big into power*scaling*, I personally find the discussion of MU’s and all that goes with it a lot more fun (even if there are nincompoops that think MU discussion should be treated objectively despite the fact it’s arguably more subjective than versus debating) but anyway, I like how you touched on the MU side of things here, and how a lot of the people who make or judge MU’s do so out of a love for the characters rather than seeing them as pure stats. My favorite part was probably touching on the differences between peoples standards for MU’s. Like me personally I like out of the box series combinations and usually prefer characters to have similar motivations when it comes to thematics, but there are always gonna be people who prefer to just go for legacy MU’s or the most standard series combinations, and while it can be frustrating at times it is important to keep in mind it’s all just personal taste, and that no one is definitively right or wrong about a MU’s quality or whether you’re allowed to enjoy it.

thanks, I will still continue to personally lump everything above solar system level and below infinite as "the writers didn't care and these are all the same"

Debate powerscaling is good when both debaters knows both of the stories for example I got called a retard by the mk community cause I said galactus can beat mk1 fire god liu kang but none of them didn’t know who galactus was

This video needs WAYYYYYYY more views. We need more people to understand powerscaling.

24:57 Same thing for me but with Kirby vs Sackboy. Two of my favorite fictional characters and they do share some good connections but just seeing them duke it out would make me happy because of how much I love them.

Based, between the mention of salmon jacket man and the battle between kaiju satan and super d duper gyaos are my favorite characters mentioned in the vid along with the actual discussion itself

Whenever someone says "MUH AUTHOR DECIDES WHO WINS" just ask them if the author is in the room with us and ask them if they took their meds.

i say its more like "Narrative Speculation"

Very informative

Still waiting for the sun wukong vs hercules prediction

I am a not power scaler. but like you said, I understand that this is a hobby, and wanted to understand what was the process, or what peoples could seek in this. because my experience so far, as being peoples being obnoxious about it, because they want they fav characters to win so much to the point when the idea of power scaling would tend to trigger a flag that the discussion is going to be downhill from there. the fact that a ton of context is implicit definitively didn't helped me understood it. since well, I am non-iniated, so I never learned all the "codes" and "standard" to a power scaling discussion. if I came across a power-scaling debate, I would certainly appreciate that peoples would be more explicite about those, cause I think that part didn't helped my experience of it. so, thanks for explaining what it is for a non initiated. and demonstrate that my experience so far as being far from being the general environement of a power scaling debate. it's not going to be my hobbie, this didn't sparked my interest, but it certainly help my own understanding of what going on in this part of the communities I interact with. so thanks!

I think a lot of anti-power scaling sentiment comes from generalizations of feats and energy values using the “Town, City, Mountain” tiering system. I think people in general less likely to be skeptical when Death Battle says a feat is equivalent to 50 Tons of TNT than they are when someone says the feat is “City Block level”. It also comes from the vast majority of people merely dipping their toes into the concept of power scaling without bothering getting into the intricacies of it, as well as the inability to differentiate power scaling and versus debating from an actual writing perspective.

A lot of people still don't understand what powerscaling is for. An example i like using is RPGs. Imagine you're playing a game where your stats get randomized in every fight, no matter what you're fighting. You can defeat a dragon easily but then a wolf comes along and one shots you for no reason. It's a normal wolf and your stats changed with no reason for it. This is what a story with no powerscaling looks like. But if you got a story debuff and there's a reason why your stats became randomized then it's a unique part of the story and it's a cool thing.

Guys guys calm down the jungle gym is for everyone.