Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
She/Her- 9,828
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I am nothing if not a *********.
DBH has had a number of characters who possess probability manipulation, resistance to it, and negation of it. The specific mechanics of how this probability manipulation works has also led to people claiming it can completely negate someone's attempts to block This has given the impression of the verse being ultra-haxxed (or more haxxed than it already is), but upon closer inspection, the actual reasoning for these abilities is downright wrong and has 0 basis in either in-universe lore or our own site standards.
The abilities that qualify for probability manipulation revolve around a single game mechanics, that being Charge Impact (for the sake of fairness, I will treat this as though it isn't game mechanics, but that is also something I am iffy on). The way Charge Impact works is that any time two characters are about to clash, both players must play a short minigame where a bar moves back and forth, and you have to time your button presses so that the bar is as full as possible. If you are the attacker and you win, you simply hit the opponent for full damage. If the blocker wins, they block the attack and take reduced damage.
Firstly, none of this is "attack/damage reduction negation". Simply blocking an attack does not mean you have some supernatural ability to negate someone's ability to attack you, and any video game with a blocking mechanic works in this way. The fact that you still take damage when blocking (albeit a reduced amount) shows that there is no "negation" of any kind here. It is damage reduction under the most generous interpretation, but even then, we do not simply give damage reduction for game characters who can block attacks (Skyrim's armor/blocking mechanics directly reduce damage taken, but there is 0 lore reason for this, as an example). In a similar vein, negating someone's ability to block is nonexistent. They just failed to block the attack. This is something you can watch take place in real life fights. It's just how fighting works, you just get hit sometimes.
But the probability manipulation is where things get really bad. A few characters have in-game passives that change the way the Charge Impact gauge works; They can make your own gauge move more slowly, which makes you more likely to win the QTE, or they can make the opponent's gauge move more quickly, making them less likely to win. This increased or decreased difficulty, simply by virtue of "altering your odds" of successfully performing this task, is treated as probability manipulation And because some characters can ignore or cancel the effects of this Charge Impact alteration, they have resistance to or negation of probability manipulation.
However, this completely ignores that simply making a task easier or more difficult is not probability manipulation. I can spill a glass of water, but that does not mean I have probability manipulation for "reducing the chances" of me not slipping and falling. There is 0 indication that the odds of success or failure are being directly manipulated, as opposed to something else entirely that just makes things easier or harder.
But at the end of the day, none of this should even be assumed to be tied to any power, save for maybe stat amping. The Charge Impact gauge is just a QTE where whoever does it best "wins" that specific interaction; At its core, it is a game mechanic, and not much more than that.
TL;DR: Probability manipulation and everything tied to it is wack as **** and needs to be yeeted. If there are separate feats that can be used as replacements for specific characters, now would be the time to show them.
Was posting this two hours before work a good idea? no lol
DBH has had a number of characters who possess probability manipulation, resistance to it, and negation of it. The specific mechanics of how this probability manipulation works has also led to people claiming it can completely negate someone's attempts to block This has given the impression of the verse being ultra-haxxed (or more haxxed than it already is), but upon closer inspection, the actual reasoning for these abilities is downright wrong and has 0 basis in either in-universe lore or our own site standards.
The abilities that qualify for probability manipulation revolve around a single game mechanics, that being Charge Impact (for the sake of fairness, I will treat this as though it isn't game mechanics, but that is also something I am iffy on). The way Charge Impact works is that any time two characters are about to clash, both players must play a short minigame where a bar moves back and forth, and you have to time your button presses so that the bar is as full as possible. If you are the attacker and you win, you simply hit the opponent for full damage. If the blocker wins, they block the attack and take reduced damage.
Firstly, none of this is "attack/damage reduction negation". Simply blocking an attack does not mean you have some supernatural ability to negate someone's ability to attack you, and any video game with a blocking mechanic works in this way. The fact that you still take damage when blocking (albeit a reduced amount) shows that there is no "negation" of any kind here. It is damage reduction under the most generous interpretation, but even then, we do not simply give damage reduction for game characters who can block attacks (Skyrim's armor/blocking mechanics directly reduce damage taken, but there is 0 lore reason for this, as an example). In a similar vein, negating someone's ability to block is nonexistent. They just failed to block the attack. This is something you can watch take place in real life fights. It's just how fighting works, you just get hit sometimes.
But the probability manipulation is where things get really bad. A few characters have in-game passives that change the way the Charge Impact gauge works; They can make your own gauge move more slowly, which makes you more likely to win the QTE, or they can make the opponent's gauge move more quickly, making them less likely to win. This increased or decreased difficulty, simply by virtue of "altering your odds" of successfully performing this task, is treated as probability manipulation And because some characters can ignore or cancel the effects of this Charge Impact alteration, they have resistance to or negation of probability manipulation.
However, this completely ignores that simply making a task easier or more difficult is not probability manipulation. I can spill a glass of water, but that does not mean I have probability manipulation for "reducing the chances" of me not slipping and falling. There is 0 indication that the odds of success or failure are being directly manipulated, as opposed to something else entirely that just makes things easier or harder.
But at the end of the day, none of this should even be assumed to be tied to any power, save for maybe stat amping. The Charge Impact gauge is just a QTE where whoever does it best "wins" that specific interaction; At its core, it is a game mechanic, and not much more than that.
TL;DR: Probability manipulation and everything tied to it is wack as **** and needs to be yeeted. If there are separate feats that can be used as replacements for specific characters, now would be the time to show them.
Was posting this two hours before work a good idea? no lol