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So there is an actual research paper containing a study on 40 people on how much pressure it takes to hurt someone, both for hurting oneself and hurting others: https://journals.lww.com/pain/Fullt...ng_pain__differential_pain_thresholds.25.aspx
According to the study, the mean pressure value needed to cause pain from outside sources (be it objects or opponents) is 521.49 kPa. For intentionally harming oneself, the threshold for pain is 729.57 kPa. Doing the math, this means you would need 1.399010528 times (1.4x if you really want to simplify things that much) as much pressure to cause pain to yourself as it takes to get hurt from outside sources.
Why am I bringing up pressure? VS Debaters use pressure in a weird way, and we at the wiki are no exception. Basically we think of pressure (force over area) as energy over a certain value. Like, for example, 1 MPa is 1 joule per cubic centimeter. Don't ask why; it's just the way it is. Anything remotely considered an attack uses pressure, hence why we have PSI ratings for punches in boxing.
As for why I'm saying this... Well, first of all, don't get it twisted. This has nothing to do with any sensitive real-world topics. Characters have performed self-harm as an actual combat tactic, most notably Captain Ginyu when he intentionally damaged his own ribcage with a punch in order to make switching bodies with Goku a genuine detriment to Goku. We have lord knows how many other characters with them damaging or otherwise causing pain to themselves as durability justifications, but the Ginyu example is the most well-known example.
While the Durability page understandably excludes self-harm due to the implications behind such, a lot of pages' durability sections don't. However, I think bringing up how this affects one's durability along with linking the paper directly in the Durability article for citation purposes should give people a decent idea on how self-harm in a combat setting affects durability. That and, well, it took an age for me to find the paper in the first place; why shouldn't we allow people to see the paper as a readily-available reference. Now, I see a potential that this would get a little out of hand if we just rolled with it without any advisory statements. There is an obvious difference between hurting oneself as a durability feat and one-shotting as an AP feat. What I mean is while the 7.5x multiplier is arbitrarily devised by us at the wiki, the 1.4x causing pain to oneself multiplier has actual research backing it up, meaning we should be less worried about the latter than the former. However, caveats should still be applied.
I think the easiest way to go about it is through a couple notes. Aside from obvious real-world concerns, I'm thinking something like this.
According to the study, the mean pressure value needed to cause pain from outside sources (be it objects or opponents) is 521.49 kPa. For intentionally harming oneself, the threshold for pain is 729.57 kPa. Doing the math, this means you would need 1.399010528 times (1.4x if you really want to simplify things that much) as much pressure to cause pain to yourself as it takes to get hurt from outside sources.
Why am I bringing up pressure? VS Debaters use pressure in a weird way, and we at the wiki are no exception. Basically we think of pressure (force over area) as energy over a certain value. Like, for example, 1 MPa is 1 joule per cubic centimeter. Don't ask why; it's just the way it is. Anything remotely considered an attack uses pressure, hence why we have PSI ratings for punches in boxing.
As for why I'm saying this... Well, first of all, don't get it twisted. This has nothing to do with any sensitive real-world topics. Characters have performed self-harm as an actual combat tactic, most notably Captain Ginyu when he intentionally damaged his own ribcage with a punch in order to make switching bodies with Goku a genuine detriment to Goku. We have lord knows how many other characters with them damaging or otherwise causing pain to themselves as durability justifications, but the Ginyu example is the most well-known example.
While the Durability page understandably excludes self-harm due to the implications behind such, a lot of pages' durability sections don't. However, I think bringing up how this affects one's durability along with linking the paper directly in the Durability article for citation purposes should give people a decent idea on how self-harm in a combat setting affects durability. That and, well, it took an age for me to find the paper in the first place; why shouldn't we allow people to see the paper as a readily-available reference. Now, I see a potential that this would get a little out of hand if we just rolled with it without any advisory statements. There is an obvious difference between hurting oneself as a durability feat and one-shotting as an AP feat. What I mean is while the 7.5x multiplier is arbitrarily devised by us at the wiki, the 1.4x causing pain to oneself multiplier has actual research backing it up, meaning we should be less worried about the latter than the former. However, caveats should still be applied.
I think the easiest way to go about it is through a couple notes. Aside from obvious real-world concerns, I'm thinking something like this.
Something like that. Personally, I recommend reading the linked research paper prior to making any assumptions. Otherwise, the writing might come off as wonky. So yeah, feel free to discuss.
- While characters have harmed themselves, the means of them doing so may vary, so it is advised to personally assess the situation at hand before applying it to durability.
- The 1.4x multiplier for causing pain to oneself is strictly used for vs debating purposes and thus shall not apply when deriving durability from self-harm.