- 2,779
- 1,689
Some of the fundamental aspects of Baldi's Basics' implementation on the VS Battles Wiki were decided over five years ago and have remained unchanged. However, after thinking about them, I believe that some of the ideas don't hold up.
General
Known Stats
Rather than keeping characters without impressive strength feats ranked as "Unknown", I'm sure it's safe to give "Human level" strength rankings to adult characters who don't use physical power to attack, such as Principal of the Thing, and "Below Average Human level" strength rankings to child characters who don't use physical power to attack, such as Playtime. This isn't a significant assumption at all; it's practically standard. Do I even need to explain something so self-explanatory? Too many profiles on the VS Battles Wiki give "Unknown" rankings when we do have some reasonable idea of what the rankings could be, even though it's just something as basic as breaking air and walking around a school as capable people of their ages.
Player
Varies
An essential part of Baldi's Basics is the limitations that the playable character has compared to the special attributes of other characters, which is compensated by the playable character's potential to make clever use of items and to navigate the school strategically. However, the playable character is taken out of this consistency during the final intense scenario against Null, or against a red Baldloon if Null has been defeated, during Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered. The playable character was suddenly capable of picking up furniture to throw at Null or the red Baldloon to harm them, the playable character no longer had to worry about running out of stamina, and the fight gradually got faster as it progressed, to the point where the playable character ended up being capable of running a lot faster than usual, at a comparable speed to their formidable enemy. Null and the red Baldloon are more capable than Baldi, the playable character would use these capabilities against Baldi in normal circumstances if they could, yet the playable character already normally relies on items to achieve similar capabilities. They must eat an Energy Flavored Zesty Bar or collect a notebook to replenish their stamina, and they must use BSODA or the luck of other characters getting in Baldi's way to slow him down. It would be a mistake to scale all the characters to the playable character's peak demonstrated stats, since the final battle let the playable character have better capabilities than when they interact with most characters. It appears that the playable character can suddenly get a burst of enhanced statistics in a special circumstance, namely when Null or the red Baldloon were glitching the school and had tried fighting in a way that would've made them undefeatable if the playable character hadn't went beyond their regular capabilities.
Long story short, there is proof that the playable character's stats can be Baldi level, but obviously this isn't how strong they usually are, since Baldi is normally portrayed as an enemy that the playable character can only escape from or sometimes delay, and yet the climactic final battle in Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered would make no sense if the playable character being Baldi level weren't the case. As a result, the playable character's strength, speed and stamina should be considered as varying based on the evidence.
Baldi
Anger and Hitting
From the Baldi's Basics fandom's early existence, most people know Baldi as secretly being evil. As the series became less popular over time, this notion didn't hold up well. There is actually more honesty in Baldi's friendliness than a lot of people realize, and there technically isn't actually proof that Baldi kills the playable character when giving the player a game over. Surely it's implied that he hits the playable character, but the player getting sent back to the title screen doesn't necessarily mean that the character died, opposed to simply getting defeated and sent elsewhere.
First of all, I should present how Baldi's kindness is more honest than a lot of people realize. Nowadays, Baldi seems to consider his original violent twist as simply a way to make his time with the player more fun, rather than as a genuine rage. During Baldi's Basics Plus, he cheerfully treats it a game of hide-and-seek, and he is willing to stop mid-chase to compliment the player when they answer a math question correctly, which gives the playable character an opportunity to escape a bad position. During the camping trip minigame, if the player answers math questions incorrectly, Baldi's not mad, just disappointed. After Null is deleted from Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered, on subsequent playthroughs, Null's appearances are replaced with Baldi talking with the player normally, even being willing to give math advice after the player incorrectly answers all questions. In accordance with that logic, after the player collects all the notebooks, Baldi says "find a way out before I catch you" instead of saying "GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN" like he initially does, implying that Baldi is less violent than we were initially led to believe. Even as early as the birthday version of the original game, it turned out that Baldi had tricked the player into joining a surprise party, rather than staying mad at them for answering math questions incorrectly.
The idea that Baldi doesn't actually kill the playable character is primarily because it has only ever been officially deemed as a "game over", but there is more evidence. That notion is supported by how, during Baldi's Basics Plus, the playable character gets sent back into the elevator they came from upon being hit by Baldi, rather than getting sent back to the title screen, meaning Baldi doesn't actually one-shot kill the playable character, and the player has multiple chances to try succeeding on the different floors during one playthrough as long as the elevator has power tubes. It's also valuable to take into consideration that the playable character doesn't die after getting hit by other powerful actions. The playable character is tough enough to survive 1st Prize crashing them through a window and Dr. Reflex flattening them with his hammer. I have a feeling that Baldi simply smacking the playable character with a ruler to give them a game over isn't meant to imply that he's even stronger than the other strong characters, but that he's strong in the same way those other characters are, and his attacks have the additional special property of forcing the player to quit despite the playable character's durability.
My conclusion is that, upon hitting the playable character with a ruler, Baldi sends them back to where they came from as a form of BFR (which still does physical damage, but isn't lethal to the playable character). In the original game's case, he sends them back to the title screen, and in the case of Baldi's Basics Plus, he sends them back to the elevator until it runs out of power tubes. Without power tubes, the playable character gets sent back to the title screen.
In case you're wondering, me describing Baldi's BFR as being able to "send the player back to the title screen" is metafictional. Baldi's Basics is a video game in-setting, being a parody of 1990s edutainment games and creepypastas, with canonical glitches stemming from "this game is not what it seems" or whatever Null's presence was doing to the game, as described three paragraphs before this one. This is already implied with further information on the VS Battles Wiki profiles, so this notion shouldn't have protest, in case you didn't already realize that this series if metafictional. It's even officially described as "a meta horror game that's really weird".
Spatial Manipulation Tactic
Despite it being described in the Powers and Abilities section of Baldi's profile on the VS Battles Wiki, it seems that people tend to not realize that it's in character for Baldi to use spatial manipulation when he's in a disadvantageous situation. I would like to have this clarified in the Standard Tactics section.
When the playable character is capable of exiting the school after collecting all the notebooks, Baldi blocks exits by turning them into walls. During the ending of Baldi's Basics Plus, after the player beats his game, he seems to cause a spatial glitch that crashes the game. It isn't a stretch to claim that Baldi would try such things if he were losing in a versus battle, since these are the only times we see him change his strategy to stop an opponent, even though those events didn't take place in a 1-V-1 fight.
Scaling
For some reason, the VS Battles Wiki scales Baldi's strength to the steel locker fragmentation that the Grappling Hook item can do, even though the playable character can't use that item to try harming characters, and the playable character's physicality isn't where the feat comes from. The item is depicted as a gun that shoots a hook. Baldi being able to harm the playable character should have him scaled to the other feats, not this one.
Gotta Sweep
Physics
The VS Battles Wiki currently regards Gotta Sweep as being capable of slamming other characters into walls at super speed. However, this isn't exactly true. The way Gotta Sweep's influence works is, characters making contact with him decreases their speed and pulls them in the direction he's going at the same speed as him. Putting aside the frantic nature of a big broom suddenly moving you very fast while yelling, it's not very difficult to escape him, and it doesn't require strength to do so, as anyone trapped in him simply needs to move away while under Gotta Sweep's effect. The sweeping that Gotta Sweep does isn't portrayed as an attack or something meant to be dangerous. Any character can slip out of his range despite the speed reduction effect and pull effect, and characters who leave Gotta Sweep's influence don't maintain any of the momentum they gained from being pulled by him. The way Gotta Sweep's influence works has nothing to do with slamming characters into walls. 1st Prize is the one who does that to the playable character, and there is no feature implying that Gotta Sweep does the same. Gotta Sweep moves fast down hallways, but he swiftly moves through them and turns corners efficiently, not banging into walls and thus not producing the bang sound that 1st Prize does.
I think the scaling and stat listings of characters should be altered in accordance with the previous paragraph, and Gotta Sweep should have statistics reduction and vector manipulation listed on his profile as superpowers. Gotta Sweep should also be considered as smart enough to use his super speed efficiently to clean the school.
Playtime
Paralysis Inducement
I find this ability being listed a bit misleading. Playtime doesn't force the playable character into a state where they can't move, since the playable character is expected to play jump rope with her upon contact. She just inexplicably stops the playable character from leaving on their own whim and starts a minigame that the playable character can't skip unless an interruption happens or the playable character cuts Playime's jump rope using Safety Scissors. In a recent update of Baldi's Basics Plus, the playable character is now even capable of moving forward a bit while jumping, which can make Playtime stop her minigame early in some situations. I feel like, rather than being a paralysis inducement ability, it's just one of those odd video game things that is difficult to justify using anything other than game design until there is an official justification. "The playable character must stop when Playtime makes contact with them even though they're trying to escape Baldi, because otherwise Playtime wouldn't be an obstacle," y'know? Thus, unfortunately, Playtime's profile should simply describe that she can force the playable character to play jump rope with her, rather than listing a specific ability that it is, (unless there is an ability I'm not thinking of that accurately represents what Playtime does,) since she doesn't actually paralyze the playable character. I'm open to suggestions for alternatives though. I have a few in mind, but I'm proposing the safest option here.
Intelligence
The justification for Playtime's intelligence ranking should be re-written. I can do it. Her rank won't change from Below Average, but there are some details I want to remove.
First of all, it's headcanon that the playable character dislikes Playtime. Even though she's an obstacle, the same can be told about pretty much all the characters in the game. I recall that a lot of players, as in the real life ones separate from the playable character, dislike Playtime, but they judged her that way for what purposes she fulfills in a game design perspective, not for who she is as a character, and that's information from outside of the game. I don't even dislike Playtime anyway. Characters shouldn't be described using personal opinions like that. What should be focused on is that she doesn't realize when Baldi is chasing the playable character.
Secondly, Playtime continuously doing what she's programmed to do despite the player using items made to repel characters isn't evidence that she's dumb. You could claim the same kinds of things for any character. For example, "The Test is dumb, because he's always trying to follow the player even though it makes them uncomfortable." See how that's so informal? If not, then think of it this way: Characters being programmed in a certain way doesn't necessarily reflect their canonical mental state. This is easily discerned in a lot of other kinds of games, such as how, in stealth games, the playable characters' incredible stealth skills or the games' programming oversights make plenty of guards look like fools, even though those guards are supposedly highly trained.
Arts and Crafters
Intelligence
I feel like Arts and Crafters' intelligence justification is currently overly skeptical. A simple "At least Below Average (He is an elementary school student)" would do nicely instead. He's clearly a living being who attends the school and has feelings, so we don't need to act like there's barely any evidence that he's even conscious.
General
Known Stats
Rather than keeping characters without impressive strength feats ranked as "Unknown", I'm sure it's safe to give "Human level" strength rankings to adult characters who don't use physical power to attack, such as Principal of the Thing, and "Below Average Human level" strength rankings to child characters who don't use physical power to attack, such as Playtime. This isn't a significant assumption at all; it's practically standard. Do I even need to explain something so self-explanatory? Too many profiles on the VS Battles Wiki give "Unknown" rankings when we do have some reasonable idea of what the rankings could be, even though it's just something as basic as breaking air and walking around a school as capable people of their ages.
Player
Varies
An essential part of Baldi's Basics is the limitations that the playable character has compared to the special attributes of other characters, which is compensated by the playable character's potential to make clever use of items and to navigate the school strategically. However, the playable character is taken out of this consistency during the final intense scenario against Null, or against a red Baldloon if Null has been defeated, during Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered. The playable character was suddenly capable of picking up furniture to throw at Null or the red Baldloon to harm them, the playable character no longer had to worry about running out of stamina, and the fight gradually got faster as it progressed, to the point where the playable character ended up being capable of running a lot faster than usual, at a comparable speed to their formidable enemy. Null and the red Baldloon are more capable than Baldi, the playable character would use these capabilities against Baldi in normal circumstances if they could, yet the playable character already normally relies on items to achieve similar capabilities. They must eat an Energy Flavored Zesty Bar or collect a notebook to replenish their stamina, and they must use BSODA or the luck of other characters getting in Baldi's way to slow him down. It would be a mistake to scale all the characters to the playable character's peak demonstrated stats, since the final battle let the playable character have better capabilities than when they interact with most characters. It appears that the playable character can suddenly get a burst of enhanced statistics in a special circumstance, namely when Null or the red Baldloon were glitching the school and had tried fighting in a way that would've made them undefeatable if the playable character hadn't went beyond their regular capabilities.
Long story short, there is proof that the playable character's stats can be Baldi level, but obviously this isn't how strong they usually are, since Baldi is normally portrayed as an enemy that the playable character can only escape from or sometimes delay, and yet the climactic final battle in Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered would make no sense if the playable character being Baldi level weren't the case. As a result, the playable character's strength, speed and stamina should be considered as varying based on the evidence.
Baldi
Anger and Hitting
From the Baldi's Basics fandom's early existence, most people know Baldi as secretly being evil. As the series became less popular over time, this notion didn't hold up well. There is actually more honesty in Baldi's friendliness than a lot of people realize, and there technically isn't actually proof that Baldi kills the playable character when giving the player a game over. Surely it's implied that he hits the playable character, but the player getting sent back to the title screen doesn't necessarily mean that the character died, opposed to simply getting defeated and sent elsewhere.
First of all, I should present how Baldi's kindness is more honest than a lot of people realize. Nowadays, Baldi seems to consider his original violent twist as simply a way to make his time with the player more fun, rather than as a genuine rage. During Baldi's Basics Plus, he cheerfully treats it a game of hide-and-seek, and he is willing to stop mid-chase to compliment the player when they answer a math question correctly, which gives the playable character an opportunity to escape a bad position. During the camping trip minigame, if the player answers math questions incorrectly, Baldi's not mad, just disappointed. After Null is deleted from Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered, on subsequent playthroughs, Null's appearances are replaced with Baldi talking with the player normally, even being willing to give math advice after the player incorrectly answers all questions. In accordance with that logic, after the player collects all the notebooks, Baldi says "find a way out before I catch you" instead of saying "GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN" like he initially does, implying that Baldi is less violent than we were initially led to believe. Even as early as the birthday version of the original game, it turned out that Baldi had tricked the player into joining a surprise party, rather than staying mad at them for answering math questions incorrectly.
The idea that Baldi doesn't actually kill the playable character is primarily because it has only ever been officially deemed as a "game over", but there is more evidence. That notion is supported by how, during Baldi's Basics Plus, the playable character gets sent back into the elevator they came from upon being hit by Baldi, rather than getting sent back to the title screen, meaning Baldi doesn't actually one-shot kill the playable character, and the player has multiple chances to try succeeding on the different floors during one playthrough as long as the elevator has power tubes. It's also valuable to take into consideration that the playable character doesn't die after getting hit by other powerful actions. The playable character is tough enough to survive 1st Prize crashing them through a window and Dr. Reflex flattening them with his hammer. I have a feeling that Baldi simply smacking the playable character with a ruler to give them a game over isn't meant to imply that he's even stronger than the other strong characters, but that he's strong in the same way those other characters are, and his attacks have the additional special property of forcing the player to quit despite the playable character's durability.
My conclusion is that, upon hitting the playable character with a ruler, Baldi sends them back to where they came from as a form of BFR (which still does physical damage, but isn't lethal to the playable character). In the original game's case, he sends them back to the title screen, and in the case of Baldi's Basics Plus, he sends them back to the elevator until it runs out of power tubes. Without power tubes, the playable character gets sent back to the title screen.
In case you're wondering, me describing Baldi's BFR as being able to "send the player back to the title screen" is metafictional. Baldi's Basics is a video game in-setting, being a parody of 1990s edutainment games and creepypastas, with canonical glitches stemming from "this game is not what it seems" or whatever Null's presence was doing to the game, as described three paragraphs before this one. This is already implied with further information on the VS Battles Wiki profiles, so this notion shouldn't have protest, in case you didn't already realize that this series if metafictional. It's even officially described as "a meta horror game that's really weird".
Spatial Manipulation Tactic
Despite it being described in the Powers and Abilities section of Baldi's profile on the VS Battles Wiki, it seems that people tend to not realize that it's in character for Baldi to use spatial manipulation when he's in a disadvantageous situation. I would like to have this clarified in the Standard Tactics section.
When the playable character is capable of exiting the school after collecting all the notebooks, Baldi blocks exits by turning them into walls. During the ending of Baldi's Basics Plus, after the player beats his game, he seems to cause a spatial glitch that crashes the game. It isn't a stretch to claim that Baldi would try such things if he were losing in a versus battle, since these are the only times we see him change his strategy to stop an opponent, even though those events didn't take place in a 1-V-1 fight.
Scaling
For some reason, the VS Battles Wiki scales Baldi's strength to the steel locker fragmentation that the Grappling Hook item can do, even though the playable character can't use that item to try harming characters, and the playable character's physicality isn't where the feat comes from. The item is depicted as a gun that shoots a hook. Baldi being able to harm the playable character should have him scaled to the other feats, not this one.
Gotta Sweep
Physics
The VS Battles Wiki currently regards Gotta Sweep as being capable of slamming other characters into walls at super speed. However, this isn't exactly true. The way Gotta Sweep's influence works is, characters making contact with him decreases their speed and pulls them in the direction he's going at the same speed as him. Putting aside the frantic nature of a big broom suddenly moving you very fast while yelling, it's not very difficult to escape him, and it doesn't require strength to do so, as anyone trapped in him simply needs to move away while under Gotta Sweep's effect. The sweeping that Gotta Sweep does isn't portrayed as an attack or something meant to be dangerous. Any character can slip out of his range despite the speed reduction effect and pull effect, and characters who leave Gotta Sweep's influence don't maintain any of the momentum they gained from being pulled by him. The way Gotta Sweep's influence works has nothing to do with slamming characters into walls. 1st Prize is the one who does that to the playable character, and there is no feature implying that Gotta Sweep does the same. Gotta Sweep moves fast down hallways, but he swiftly moves through them and turns corners efficiently, not banging into walls and thus not producing the bang sound that 1st Prize does.
I think the scaling and stat listings of characters should be altered in accordance with the previous paragraph, and Gotta Sweep should have statistics reduction and vector manipulation listed on his profile as superpowers. Gotta Sweep should also be considered as smart enough to use his super speed efficiently to clean the school.
Playtime
Paralysis Inducement
I find this ability being listed a bit misleading. Playtime doesn't force the playable character into a state where they can't move, since the playable character is expected to play jump rope with her upon contact. She just inexplicably stops the playable character from leaving on their own whim and starts a minigame that the playable character can't skip unless an interruption happens or the playable character cuts Playime's jump rope using Safety Scissors. In a recent update of Baldi's Basics Plus, the playable character is now even capable of moving forward a bit while jumping, which can make Playtime stop her minigame early in some situations. I feel like, rather than being a paralysis inducement ability, it's just one of those odd video game things that is difficult to justify using anything other than game design until there is an official justification. "The playable character must stop when Playtime makes contact with them even though they're trying to escape Baldi, because otherwise Playtime wouldn't be an obstacle," y'know? Thus, unfortunately, Playtime's profile should simply describe that she can force the playable character to play jump rope with her, rather than listing a specific ability that it is, (unless there is an ability I'm not thinking of that accurately represents what Playtime does,) since she doesn't actually paralyze the playable character. I'm open to suggestions for alternatives though. I have a few in mind, but I'm proposing the safest option here.
Intelligence
The justification for Playtime's intelligence ranking should be re-written. I can do it. Her rank won't change from Below Average, but there are some details I want to remove.
First of all, it's headcanon that the playable character dislikes Playtime. Even though she's an obstacle, the same can be told about pretty much all the characters in the game. I recall that a lot of players, as in the real life ones separate from the playable character, dislike Playtime, but they judged her that way for what purposes she fulfills in a game design perspective, not for who she is as a character, and that's information from outside of the game. I don't even dislike Playtime anyway. Characters shouldn't be described using personal opinions like that. What should be focused on is that she doesn't realize when Baldi is chasing the playable character.
Secondly, Playtime continuously doing what she's programmed to do despite the player using items made to repel characters isn't evidence that she's dumb. You could claim the same kinds of things for any character. For example, "The Test is dumb, because he's always trying to follow the player even though it makes them uncomfortable." See how that's so informal? If not, then think of it this way: Characters being programmed in a certain way doesn't necessarily reflect their canonical mental state. This is easily discerned in a lot of other kinds of games, such as how, in stealth games, the playable characters' incredible stealth skills or the games' programming oversights make plenty of guards look like fools, even though those guards are supposedly highly trained.
Arts and Crafters
Intelligence
I feel like Arts and Crafters' intelligence justification is currently overly skeptical. A simple "At least Below Average (He is an elementary school student)" would do nicely instead. He's clearly a living being who attends the school and has feelings, so we don't need to act like there's barely any evidence that he's even conscious.
Baldi not one-shot killing the playable character doesn't change how Baldi can harm them and is clearly stronger than them.
