Calc Stacking Downwards

[Agnaa]

Is it considered calc-stacking to use values from another calc when the end-result is lower? This removes the issue of characters' stats getting extended higher into infinity. And in most cases, the alternative that is used is just saying they're "roughly comparable" and giving them the same rating.

Finding out that a character is actually 80% of another character's speed sounds a lot more accurate than saying they're 100% of their speed.

 

[Damage3245]

Can you explain this further? Give some examples maybe?

 

[Agnaa]

Character A has a calculated speed of 30 m/s. In a separate scene, Character A punches Character B, Character B dodges, moving 18cm in the time Character A moved 30cm.

This puts Character B's speed at 18 m/s, but this is technically calc stacking. However, profiles can get around this by just power-scaling, putting Character B's speed at 30 m/s. In trying to avoid inflation of statistics, we actually increase a character's statistic by 1.67x

 

[DemonGodMitchAubin]

Character A has a calculated speed of 30 m/s. In a separate scene, Character A punches Character B, Character B dodges, moving 18cm in the time Character A moved 30cm.

This puts Character B's speed at 18 m/s, but this is technically calc stacking. However, profiles can get around this by just power-scaling, putting Character B's speed at 30 m/s. In trying to avoid inflation of statistics, we actually increase a character's statistic by 1.67x

Why not just scale Character B to Character A?

 

[KLOL506]

Why not just scale Character B to Character A?

I remember Qawsedf saying something similar in the MCU threads when we were dealing with Mjolnir and Corvus Glaive scaling shenanigans, and Vision too I believe.

 

[ProfessorKukui4Life]

Just to throw this in, but after thinking about this for a bit, wouldn't the downward results basically be the same as just normal scaling? But the small difference being there's an official number of how roughly comparable the scaling is?

 

[KLOL506]

Just to throw this in, but after thinking about this for a bit, wouldn't the downward results basically be the same as just normal scaling? But the small difference being there's an official number of how roughly comparable the scaling is?

Really no point in doing so, just scale them to the same speed. We'd have to go through the effort of determining if the dudes are even punching at full power and such.

It could even go for AP stuff.

 

[Agnaa]

Why not just scale Character B to Character A?

For the same reason we don't scale characters to the entire speed of bullets when they're a quarter the speed. Accuracy.

It could even go for AP stuff.

That seems way too hard to actually quantify most of the time due to all the factors at play, so I wouldn't really go there.

 

[KLOL506]

For the same reason we don't scale characters to the entire speed of bullets when they're a quarter the speed. Accuracy.

Except bullets have a constant speed calculated from real life with bullet velocity drop included all the time. Characters in fiction don't. For all we know, they could even be punching slower and we wouldn't even be able to determine by how much.

That seems way too hard to actually quantify most of the time due to all the factors at play, so I wouldn't really go there.

Same can apply to using calc'd speed of a character's punch if it isn't based on some IRL-calculated value (Like shooting lightning bolts, SoL beams and whatnot).

In an actual fight involving only melee attacks and no special abilities (Or any concrete speed-based statements to scale to, like "punching at the speed of lightning" or "punching at the speed of a 30-06 bullet"), this can become inconsistent real fast.

 

[ProfessorKukui4Life]

Except bullets have a constant speed calculated from real life with bullet velocity drop included all the time. Characters in fiction don't. For all we know, they could even be punching slower and we wouldn't even be able to determine by how much.

Well, like how I tried to point out before in an earlier talk on calc stacking, character speeds really don't deviate or change unless there's specific factors at play that make that happen. Like, if they purposely hold back. Or, if they're fatigued from having fought earlier, so their stats lower.

But we know how that ended despite this, so.

 

[Agnaa]

Except bullets have a constant speed calculated from real life with bullet velocity drop included all the time. Characters in fiction don't. For all we know, they could even be punching slower and we wouldn't even be able to determine by how much.

The issue here is that you're taking the higher end. "Maybe they could be punching slower, so let's rate them higher" makes zero sense.

All of the issues you're talking about apply to scaling speed 1 to 1, as that is essentially a calc stack but just taking 100% of the value. Taking a lower value because that's what the series shows is simply more accurate.

For an unrealistically extreme example, Character A attacks from 100 trillion light years away, with an energy beam that was previously calculated as moving at 100 trillion light years a second. We're explicitly told that Character B picks it up with their cosmic senses from 1 trillion light years away, and begins to move to dodge it, being 30cm away by the time it arrives. If we calc stacked downwards their speed would be Superhuman. If we scaled them to Character A their speed would be MFTL+

Same can apply to using calc'd speed of a character's punch if it isn't based on some IRL-calculated value (Like shooting lightning bolts, SoL beams and whatnot).

In an actual fight involving only melee attacks and no special abilities, this can become inconsistent real fast.

Speed is still much simpler because it's just distance and time. AP involves stuff like type of attack, material it's landing on, size of attacking object, portion of the material it's landing on, and probably some more stuff I'm not thinking of. It's hard to say the exact difference in strength of breaking a character's femur and breaking a character's forearm. But for speed we can always just measure how far they moved.

 

[KLOL506]

Except bullets have a constant speed calculated from real life with bullet velocity drop included all the time. Characters in fiction don't. For all we know, they could even be punching slower and we wouldn't even be able to determine by how much.

The issue here is that you're taking the higher end. "Maybe they could be punching slower, so let's rate them higher" makes zero sense.

I was more so referring to the inconsistencies involving only using a character's speed from one scene in a different fighting scene.

All of the issues you're talking about apply to scaling speed 1 to 1, as that is essentially a calc stack but just taking 100% of the value. Taking a lower value because that's what the series shows is simply more accurate.

For an unrealistically extreme example, Character A attacks from 100 trillion light years away, with an energy beam that was previously calculated as moving at 100 trillion light years a second. We're explicitly told that Character B picks it up with their cosmic senses from 1 trillion light years away, and moves 30cm to dodge it. If we calc stacked downwards their speed would be Superhuman. If we scaled them to Character A their speed would be MFTL+

Except there's no drop in velocity here like what happens normally with bullets, and the beam itself is calculated within that exact scene.

It should be fine if both the beam's speed and the distance dodged happen within in the same moment (Not exactly sure how to word it), but using the speed of the beam in one scene and then using a dodging maneuver against the same beam in a different scene (Like for example at one scene beam travels at x speed but a few hours later the same beam is shot at character B and character B dodges beam by Y distance), then we have a problem.

 

[KLOL506]

Well, like how I tried to point out before in an earlier talk on calc stacking, character speeds really don't deviate or change unless there's specific factors at play that make that happen. Like, if they purposely hold back. Or, if they're fatigued from having fought earlier, so their stats lower.

But we know how that ended despite this, so.

Yeah uh from what I remember I don't think characters were ever agreed to be like that, IIRC the only thing we agreed that would remain unchanged would be speeds of stuff like bullets, lightning bolts, meteor impacts, speed of light itself etc.

 

[KLOL506]

Speed is still much simpler because it's just distance and time. AP involves stuff like type of attack, material it's landing on, size of attacking object, portion of the material it's landing on, and probably some more stuff I'm not thinking of. It's hard to say the exact difference in strength of breaking a character's femur and breaking a character's forearm. But for speed we can always just measure how far they moved.

This can get harder to discern in most live-action media or animated media (And to a smaller degree in works like books, comics and manga) where one's attacks may not always travel at full speed (If there is no stated speed for such attacks to begin with). Hence the inconsistency.

 

[Agnaa]

I was more so referring to the inconsistencies involving only using a character's speed from one scene in a different fighting scene.

I'm referring to how saying "Finding it accurately is inconsistent, so let's rate them 2x higher" seems like a bad way of going about things.

Except there's no drop in velocity here like what happens normally with bullets, and the beam itself is calculated within that exact scene.

It should be fine if both the beam's speed and the distance dodged happen within in the same moment (Not exactly sure how to word it), but using the speed of the beam in one scene and then using a dodging maneuver against the same beam in a different scene (Like for example at one scene beam travels at x speed but a few hours later the same beam is shot at character B and character B dodges beam by Y distance), then we have a problem.

Since I wasn't clear enough, the speed of the beam itself in that hypothetical comes from a different scene.

I just find it pretty ludicrous for you to have a problem with downscaling to 30m/s if we get the speed in the same scene, but are okay with scaling to MFTL+ if the speed's from another scene.

This can get harder to discern in most live-action media or animated media where one's attacks may not always travel at full speed. Hence the inconsistency.

If a character's dodges range from 100 m/s to 200 m/s because they don't always travel at the same speed, we can just take the high end and rate them at Subsonic+, since they canonically showed the capability to dodge at that speed.

Why would that be worse to you than scaling them to 250 m/s over dodges with inconsistent speeds?

 

[KLOL506]

I was more so referring to the inconsistencies involving only using a character's speed from one scene in a different fighting scene.

I'm referring to how saying "Finding it accurately is inconsistent, so let's rate them 2x higher" seems like a bad way of going about things.

You're not exactly finding it accurately if the thing attacking you isn't maintaining the same speed as it was calculated to have. Like Mjolnir for example.

Except there's no drop in velocity here like what happens normally with bullets, and the beam itself is calculated within that exact scene.

It should be fine if both the beam's speed and the distance dodged happen within in the same moment (Not exactly sure how to word it), but using the speed of the beam in one scene and then using a dodging maneuver against the same beam in a different scene (Like for example at one scene beam travels at x speed but a few hours later the same beam is shot at character B and character B dodges beam by Y distance), then we have a problem.

Since I wasn't clear enough, the speed of the beam itself in that hypothetical comes from a different scene.

IDK, based on what you said, it sounds like the beam stuff and the dodging stuff happens within the same chapter.

What I meant was, X beam's speed gets calculated in X chapter. Then several chapters later (Suppose a few days after said beam feat), the same beam is shot at Character B during combat (In most cases they'd maintain standard melee range distance) and character dodges it by moving Y meter. This is the situation I was talking about.

This can get harder to discern in most live-action media or animated media where one's attacks may not always travel at full speed. Hence the inconsistency.

If a character's dodges range from 100 m/s to 200 m/s because they don't always travel at the same speed, we can just take the high end and rate them at Subsonic+, since they canonically showed the capability to dodge at that speed.

Why would that be worse to you than scaling them to 250 m/s over dodges with inconsistent speeds?

Once again, I was talking about the speed of the object hitting you not being the same speed as the calculated one. We couldn't possibly figure out how much slower the object was and without a concrete value we couldn't even make a proper calc to begin with.

 

[Agnaa]

You're not exactly finding it accurately if the thing attacking you isn't maintaining the same speed as it was calculated to have. Like Mjolnir for example.

Way more accurate than just assuming 100% scaling (something that character has never demonstrated) to a speed from another scene.

IDK, based on what you said, it sounds like the beam stuff and the dodging stuff happens within the same chapter.

What I meant was, X beam's speed gets calculated in X chapter. Then several chapters later (Suppose a few days after said beam feat), the same beam is shot at Character B during combat (In most cases they'd maintain standard melee range distance) and character dodges it by moving Y meter. This is the situation I was talking about.

I didn't think about what relative chapter it happened in since calc-stacking is scene based, not chapter based.

Once again, I was talking about the speed of the object hitting you not being the same speed as the calculated one. We couldn't possibly figure out how much slower the object was and without a concrete value we couldn't even make a proper calc to begin with.

This is only an argument against calc stacking downwards as much that it's an argument against scaling as a whole.

If you think the speed of the object/character is different between scenes, then you should be against scaling in general.

 

[M3X_2.0]

Rather than inflating the calc using calc stacking, we currently inflates the scaling by scaling the character to the full speed of the projectile (example).

Example, Raikage is clearly faster than Sasuke, but if I take the speed of the Raikage, and calc a feat of Sasuke barely dodging it, I could get something lower than Raikage speed and call it consistency. But as it isnt allowed, we would just say "Likely X (Barely dodged the Raikage)".

Well, it sure need discussion, because people can wank this to extreme results, and "likely", "possibly" and downscaling can cover that, without an specific value though.

 

[Agnaa]

But as it isnt allowed, we would just say "Likely X (Barely dodged the Raikage)".

Huh, so we currently treat situations like this by keeping the old speed, and adding "Likely (speed of a projectile/character they barely dodged)"?

 

[M3X_2.0]

Yeah, more or less like that. I did something like that with JoJo. In Part 5, characters barely react to King Crimson, but they do react. What I did was "At most MFTL", because while I know they are much slower than him, I can't say for sure if they are FTL, FTL+, but I can say they cap at MFTL, because there are values for that.

 

[KLOL506]

Yeah, more or less like that. I did something like that with JoJo. In Part 5, characters barely react to King Crimson, but they do react. What I did was "At most MFTL", because while I know they are much slower than him, I can't say for sure if they are FTL, FTL+, but I can say they cap at MFTL, because there are values for that.

I suppose it should nicely work in situations where you "barely" dodge the attack, but in cases where you can consistently keep up with the attacks (Like Dragon Ball fights where characters match each other blow-for-blow, or the Matrix where "One" Neo evolves and casually parries every single attack by Smith and vice versa when Smith turns into a virus), then it can become problematic to not scale to the full value.

 

[Damage3245]

If there is a case where a character is obviously much slower than something, then another alternative is not to the scale them to the full value but just say they're unknown as far as that feat is concerned.

 

[Agnaa]

If there is a case where a character is obviously much slower than something, then another alternative is not to the scale them to the full value but just say they're unknown as far as that feat is concerned.

Well, I'll keep that in mind then.

 

[KLOL506]

If there is a case where a character is obviously much slower than something, then another alternative is not to the scale them to the full value but just say they're unknown as far as that feat is concerned.

"Unknown, possibly >X speed value<" then? I remember something like that being applied for some profiles.

 

[M3X_2.0]

I think should really use more downscaling. It's ridiculous to simply discard a feat because the character is slower. If a speed of light character is faster than someone, but this somone can barely react to the light speed character, then use "Relativistic+" or "Relativistic", it's simple. It opens a lot of opportunities to relieve the scaling. This is of course something that would only work with baseline values.

 

[ProfessorKukui4Life]

Yeah uh from what I remember I don't think characters were ever agreed to be like that, IIRC the only thing we agreed that would remain unchanged would be speeds of stuff like bullets, lightning bolts, meteor impacts, speed of light itself etc.

Oh to clarify for this, I meant the character speeds being unchanged in situations that are relevant for scaling and such, like fights. Not as in the character moving at their rated speed for every second of every moment like an everyday thing.

And for fights I assumed we did this since, well, it would be strange to think they’d go into a confrontation without giving it their all or notable effort.

 

[KLOL506]

Oh to clarify for this, I meant the character speeds being unchanged in situations that are relevant for scaling and such, like fights. Not as in the character moving at their rated speed for every second of every moment like an everyday thing.

And for fights I assumed we did this since, well, it would be strange to think they’d go into a confrontation without giving it their all or notable effort.

Well, M3X just told us here that we give out "likely"/"possibly" ratings for characters that can barely dodge said attacks. You can check some of his examples on how to do this.

Doing this with characters handedly keeping up with each other on equal ground would absolutely not be fine however. In those cases they should scale in full.

 

[M3X_2.0]

This is no different from a faster character without a new rating.

"At least X, likely far higher"

 

[ProfessorKukui4Life]

This is no different from a faster character without a new rating.

"At least X, likely far higher"

That or characters who, say, do casual dodging feats and earn the "higher" rating without getting a new speed level?

 

[M3X_2.0]

Both

 

[ProfessorKukui4Life]

Okay. So just to confirm, we would instead use "possibly", "likely", "higher" or full on scale characters?

 

[KLOL506]

Okay. So just to confirm, we would instead use "possibly", "likely"

Only in cases where the dodges were barely performable.

or full on scale characters?

Only when the characters straight-up match each other's blows.

The "higher" rating would arise if the character could just straight up slow-mo the attack and casually dodge it/swat it aside.

But in both cases we need to be certain that the attack being dodged was going at top speed (Unless it's some IRL projectile like bullets, arrows, lightning, then we don't need to be certain).

 

[ProfessorKukui4Life]

Only in cases where the dodges were barely performable.


Only when the characters straight-up match each other's blows.

The "higher" rating would arise if the character could just straight up slow-mo the attack and casually dodge it/swat it aside.

But in both cases we need to be certain that the attack being dodged was going at top speed (Unless it's some IRL projectile like bullets, arrows, lightning, then we don't need to be certain).

Gotcha. To sort've re-ask this from before then, wouldn't we in most cases go with top speed being used by the character unless extenuating circumstances happen to conflict with that? Like fatigue or the character's not taking a fight seriously?

 

[KLOL506]

Gotcha. To sort've re-ask this from before then, wouldn't we in most cases go with top speed being used by the character unless extenuating circumstances happen to conflict with that? Like fatigue or the character's not taking a fight seriously?

Ehhh... depends.

For example, we have a calculated speed of Mjolnir in MCU. But most of the time, it doesn't go that fast because "ordinary humans can't see MHS+ fights, and if they could, fight would be over too quick" BS and all that.

 

[ProfessorKukui4Life]

Ehhh... depends.

For example, we have a calculated speed of Mjolnir in MCU. But most of the time, it doesn't go that fast because "ordinary humans can't see MHS+ fights, and if they could, fight would be over too quick" BS and all that.

Oh, by ordinary people you mean is the audience or normals in verse that spectate the fights?

 

[KLOL506]

Oh, by ordinary people you mean is the audience or normals in verse that spectate the fights?

ye

 

[Agnaa]

"Do you mean option A or option B?"

"Yes"

:v

 

[KLOL506]

For realsies tho, mainly audience A, because cinematic timing and whatnot. Part of the reason why nobody scales to the top speed of the Mjolnir Stormbreaker, which is Mach 4000+ I think (The arguments were that "Mjolnir isn't shown to be that fast in the Thanos fight" or something like that). They only scale to a lower-end lightning deflect feat which is only around 1100 Mach IIRC (I WANT TO CLARIFY, THE LIGHTNING-SMACKING FEAT AND STORMBREAKER'S FEAT ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FEATS, NOT RELATED TO EACH OTHER).

In b4 this causes all projectiles in movies (Bullets included) to get a downgrade because they visually appear slowed down on screen

But jokes aside, again, depends.

 

[Agnaa]

That seems like the worst and most contradictory position to take. If you're going to go by the visuals, don't scale it to the just-as-invisible mach 1100. And if you're going to scale to higher speeds despite it not looking to be that fast, scale it to mach 4000+.

 

[KLOL506]

That seems like the worst and most contradictory position to take. If you're going to go by the visuals, don't scale it to the just-as-invisible mach 1100. And if you're going to scale to higher speeds despite it not looking to be that fast, scale it to mach 4000+.

Gotta clarify, the Mach 1100 value is from a different feat, it's not related to Mjolnir (Or Stormbreaker). So the Mach 1100 feat is irrelevant to this discussion.

Only Mjolnir and Stormbreaker are the point of contention (Since there are claims that Thor doesn't always hurl them at top speed because they don't look to be that fast due to needing to accelerate to get to top speed or something, not my claims tho).