Establishing combat skill requirements

[Mr. Bambu]

I disagree with the idea of categorizing skill levels at all. As this thread has already amply shown there isn't a consensus on what is better than what, and the standards presented by the OP are already very silly. I don't think good standards for this sort of thing can exist, and they definitely haven't been proposed to far.

I actually came here to write this out in a more angry way but Armor said it right. Despite the zeitgeist's interest in combat skill, it is an essentially arbitrary thing to measure beyond saying that, yes, this guy is skilled. I disagree with the foundation of the thread.

 

[Lonkitt]

Archerfish agenda’s about to go crazy

 

[Smashtwig]

Shouldn't there be an intelligence for strategy as well? Like for example I don't think Shikamaru is all that skilled in combat, but he greatly excels in "combat intelligence" because of his battle strategy. I found the opposite problem with characters such as Zero (Mega Man), who is extremely skilled in combat, but his actual strategical prowess is lacking with no need to figure out an opponents strengths and weaknesses mid battle and really just resorts to fighting head on with pure skill

I feel like there's gotta be some kind of differentiation between the two

 

[CodeCCLL]

I disagree with the idea of categorizing skill levels at all. As this thread has already amply shown there isn't a consensus on what is better than what, and the standards presented by the OP are already very silly. I don't think good standards for this sort of thing can exist, and they definitely haven't been proposed to far.

I totally agree.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I recognize that DDM previously said they wouldn't close this but it should be Staff Discussion. I agree, and this is why I will also not close it, but will shift it to Staff Discussion. So bear in mind from here on out, you need permission to post (barring DaReaperMan, who I preemptively give what permission I can to post). You may request permission on my wall or another staff member's.

 

[DaReaperMan]

I suppose I should argue for the implementation of a skill section completely, huh?

1. It is becoming increasingly common to list a skill section in profiles, especially in extremely high-profile profiles like Goku, Hazbin Hotel Adam, and various HST profiles like Roronoa Zoro. It's something to keep track of how skilled they are, and while my opinion of the HST and DB ain't changing, you have to adapt to them.
2. To add onto what I just said, organization of various intelligence has been something I've been doing more and more as well as something I'd straight up advertise new profile-makers to do, Skill and General being by far the most common of these organizations, but one of these doesn't have anything listed down for it.
3. People are going to want to list their skillwank, so giving them guidelines is simply the obvious solution to the blatant issue that they're just going to slap whatever rating they want onto a new profile.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I disagree with the idea of categorizing skill levels at all. As this thread has already amply shown there isn't a consensus on what is better than what, and the standards presented by the OP are already very silly. I don't think good standards for this sort of thing can exist, and they definitely haven't been proposed to far.

Yeah, I'm with that as well.


The criteria in the OP heavily favors variety in combat skill and learning, for example, but you can also be incredibly high via being super good in just one martial art. Whether the guy that can copy any real world martial art at a glance is better than a martial artist whose skill in one fighting style is so great that superhumanly skilled martial artists would consider it superhuman is hard to say.
And combat skill also goes beyond just martial arts skill and includes stuff like strategic thinking.

---

Btw. as a general tip to OP, try to avoid hyperbole like

their mere presence being capable of turning the fields of battle into their favor

in rules and definitions. It will be taken literally.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Yeah, I'm with that as well.


The criteria in the OP heavily favors variety in combat skill and learning, for example, but you can also be incredibly high via being super good in just one martial art. Whether the guy that can copy any real world martial art at a glance is better than a martial artist whose skill in one fighting style is so great that superhumanly skilled martial artists would consider it superhuman is hard to say.
And combat skill also goes beyond just martial arts skill and includes stuff like strategic thinking.

Hence the whole "Yo this can and will be rewritten" part of the OP. Plus, just throwing it out there, strategic thinking is apsolutely more of a general intelligence thing then a combat intelligence thing, what your thinking of is tactics. I'd be happy to refer to the entire thing as skill rather then combat intelligence, since 9/10 what you just mentioned gets lumped into either it's own section or with the general intelligence stuff

---

Btw. as a general tip to OP, try to avoid hyperbole like

in rules and definitions. It will be taken literally.

All right, will do!

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

barring DaReaperMan, who I preemptively give what permission I can to post

That's not necessary.

• If a staff member permits a regular member to create a Staff Discussion thread, the thread starter is automatically permitted to continue posting indefinitely there unless those rights are specifically revoked.

 

[Armorchompy]

It is becoming increasingly common to list a skill section in profiles, especially in extremely high-profile profiles like Goku, Hazbin Hotel Adam, and various HST profiles like Roronoa Zoro. It's something to keep track of how skilled they are, and while my opinion of the HST and DB ain't changing, you have to adapt to them.

For the record I think this is a very good thing to do, after all we index characters based on their combat abilities so spending some time detailing just how skilled they are is absolutely worthwhile- I just don't think a rating should be put on it.

 

[DaReaperMan]

For the record I think this is a very good thing to do, after all we index characters based on their combat abilities so spending some time detailing just how skilled they are is absolutely worthwhile- I just don't think a rating should be put on it.

Thing is, a rating is the easiest way to quantify a characters' skill, it's why this concept(Not quite my execution) has a lot of blue-name support. It's also why I'm doing this, most of the profiles that are doing this list a rating, most notably Son Goku, who's probably one of- if not our most-viewed page on the wiki. We have @Antvasima passing judgement on rating skill characters like Settra under our intelligence page, we have precedent from the highest authority on the wiki that skill can be rated under our tiers of intelligence.

I'm usually the one to say "two wrongs don't make a right", but this isn't exactly a wrong; it's something optional people have started doing to fluff up their pages and make them seem better!

Spoiler: Mini-rant about the current intelligence page

Unrelated to your comment, but diving into a criticism said, and yes, the current justifications don't cover everything, but our current EG and SG categories hard-focus on science, and there's not anything for characters who are strategically brilliant! There's more to strategy then a fight, or a battle between armies, or a war-- there's also political strategy, business strategy, etc. Use of better judgement should be pulled, yes, but give the people something to work with, give Real-world examples of both scientific and strategical geniuses from history-- just something to give folks an idea on what the hell to list in regards to strategy!

 

[Armorchompy]

I'm usually the one to say "two wrongs don't make a right", but this isn't exactly a wrong; it's something optional people have started doing to fluff up their pages and make them seem better!

As someone who has in the past put combat intelligence ratings on pages, without really thinking about how those would affect the greater scope of things, I would rather that not be a thing at all over putting weird random standards on it. It's something that is fine in a vacuum (and should definitely not go past EG at absolute most), but trying to say "mastering all martial arts is X good, whereas copying a move after seeing it just once is only Y good" is inevitably going to start a bunch of disagreements.

Spoiler: Mini-rant about the current intelligence page

Unrelated to your comment, but diving into a criticism said, and yes, the current justifications don't cover everything, but our current EG and SG categories hard-focus on science, and there's not anything for characters who are strategically brilliant! There's more to strategy then a fight, or a battle between armies, or a war-- there's also political strategy, business strategy, etc. Use of better judgement should be pulled, yes, but give the people something to work with, give Real-world examples of both scientific and strategical geniuses from history-- just something to give folks an idea on what the hell to list in regards to strategy!

The reason they don't focus on strategy is that you can't really be EG or SG via strategy- No matter how smart a writer wants a strategist to be, they can only think of plans as good as their creator can come up with, and since extraordinary genius strategists don't exist, they can't be written either. Technology is different because you can just say a character made something beyond IRL human limits (And similarly you can get EG/SG via taking and comprehending a massively superhuman amount of data) without elaborating too much, but that doesn't really work for more down to earth fields like that.

 

[DaReaperMan]

As someone who has in the past put combat intelligence ratings on pages, without really thinking about how those would affect the greater scope of things, I would rather that not be a thing at all over putting weird random standards on it. It's something that is fine in a vacuum (and should definitely not go past EG at absolute most), but trying to say "mastering all martial arts is X good, whereas copying a move after seeing it just once is only Y good" is inevitably going to start a bunch of disagreements.

All right that's fair, I don't like it, but if ratings can continue to be used then any further arguments will fall into the eye of the beholder. If staff concensus is against me on that, then at the end of the day nothing changes.

The reason they don't focus on strategy is that you can't really be EG or SG via strategy- No matter how smart a writer wants a strategist to be, they can only think of plans as good as their creator can come up with, and since extraordinary genius strategists don't exist, they can't be written either. Technology is different because you can just say a character made something beyond IRL human limits (And similarly you can get EG/SG via taking and comprehending a massively superhuman amount of data) without elaborating too much, but that doesn't really work for more down to earth fields like that.

I mean... Grand Admiral Thrawn. His profile isn't the best but he's probably the best example of an EG strategist/tactician.

Oh, and Roboute Guilliman, but admittedly he's got more reasons to be EG then just being ridiculously good at strategy

 

[Armorchompy]

I mean... Grand Admiral Thrawn. His profile isn't the best but he's probably the best example of an EG strategist/tactician.

Oh, and Roboute Guilliman, but admittedly he's got more reasons to be EG then just being ridiculously good at strategy

Glup Shitto AND Glup Shitto have EG tactics feats? Good for them, good for them

 

[Adam1396]

Before trying to put a standard for supergenius skill, do we at least have a exemple for that?

"capable of processing infinite combat information", is there any character that does that with NOTHING but skill? The only guy that I can think with similar thing is Zero (and probably some other precog users out there), who can see and process infinite amount of information on his brain and take the best outcome out of the infinite possibilities, but he is def not some supergenius in skill

Urahara

 

[Adam1396]

He aint even EG

He can derive infinite plans

 

[Dalesean027]

Urahara

He aint even EG

Did you two get staff permission to comment here?

 

[LIFE_OF_KING]

I lost the notifications of this thread long ago, I didn't know it was moved to staff only. Perdon

 

[Adam1396]

Did you two get staff permission to comment here?

Sorry about that

 

[Dalesean027]

Sorry about that

I lost the notifications of this thread long ago, I didn't know it was moved to staff only. Perdon

All good no worries, didn't mean to kill ya convo

 

[Antvasima]

I do not think that we should overcomplicate this issue, but Genius combat skill should start close to the real world human maximum, Extraordinary Genius should start considerably beyond it, and Supergenius should mean literally infinite combat processing ability.

However, I definitely agree about that this should not be an excuse to not properly explain combat skill feats.

 

[Armorchompy]

Unlike regular intelligence, defining what is "considerably beyond" the peak of IRL human skill is nearly impossible. Actions like fighting off ten comparable foes at once or copying a technique after witnessing it once are arguably EG given how far beyond the abilities of IRL combatants they are, but I think many others would actually view these as grounded enough to be theoretically feasible, if unrealistic to pull off in practice (thus more fitting of normal Genius). Is having centuries of combat practice superhuman? Literally, yes, but very quickly you're going to hit diminishing returns, so can that really be assumed to bring one to Extraordinary Genius levels on its own? (I personally do not think so) "Literally infinite processing ability" is also bizarre as a standard- is that really more impressive than pulling off feats that are basically magic? A nearly omniscient character (especially one who is bound to a relatively realistic verse's physical and biological limits) could still lose to a less "intelligent" combatant if the latter has techniques so powerful and effective that they cannot be defended against with sheer technique (Say an omniscient guy vs someone who can amp their speed x20, even if they can predict the entire fight ahead of time they still will just get blitzed and defeated easily).

There's also the fact that skill often isn't comprised solely of intellect. I can think of relatively unintelligent characters that fare amazingly in battle thanks to being naturally gifted with strong fighting instincts, and while they're very effective I don't think that's really intelligence if your body just tells you what to do on its own. There's also characters whose combat ability is aided by technological or magical enhancements (Think something like Robocop's targeting systems) and obviously that isn't intellect but it would be misleading to see a character rated as Above Average combat intelligence despite them having many feats of accuracy or info analysis well beyond human limits.

Finally, skill very often has to deal with verse mechanics. Doing stuff like beating multiple stronger clones of yourself that have all your abilities and intellect sounds like an EG feat, but when you think about it for a moment it's just poor writing that doesn't make much sense no matter the assumed skill level. Or stuff like Fate characters being so good at swordsmanship that they can cut through concepts: it's obviously impressive and superhuman but by how much? there's no real world equivalent for this and it's not like it's something that can reasonably be seen as the logical extreme of cutting really well (since frankly it just isn't logical at all), so besides "whatever the verse portrays it as" there isn't really an answer.

In conclusion I think trying to put an intelligence rating on all skill levels is inevitably going to lead to a bunch of inaccuracies and confusion. There's also the fact that while we already (wisely) say that higher Int ratings should not be treated as objectively better in VS Matches, this would absolutely lead to people going "This character has Extraordinary Genius skill, this one only has Genius, the first character skillstomps" in matchups, which in my opinion would be a shame both because it would lead to inaccuracies, but also because it would make having skill debates, currently one of the more nuanced parts of VS Threads, much more difficult (which i think is the opposite of this thread's intention) 'cause I think a lot of users, especially newer ones, would just take the ratings at face value.

 

[Dalesean027]

Once again agreed with Armor here going by the above. Ant, your suggestion would make about 90% of the wiki EG as many of those either are gifted or would be still have feats that easily fall beyond what humanity is normally capable of and that's perfectly normal since we should be judging this more strictly based on fictional standards. Off the top of my head characters like Leon S. Kennedy, Ethan Winters, or Kat have all dealt with supremely extraordinary circumstance with the latter two having moments of survivng 1v100 encounters with those of similar if not superior stats coming at them at once, and this level of prowess is something we have attributed to those who are gifted. Heck even Raiden in MGS2 is only gifted. Point being all of these fighters far surpass irl experience and combat intelligence to some degree and it fits with their gifted ratings. Vaguely making Genius to EG just being a basic version of being above what you say irl people are normally capable of makes a LOT of people EG cause in terms of fiction that kind of skill ain't really something that's hard to do

This ofc is only speaking in terms of combat intelligence or feats as general intelligence is seperate

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. It seems like my idea was bad then. What solution/approach do you think that we should apply here? Some instructions in our Intelligence page to avoid setting definitive intelligence tiers to fighting skill seem appropriate at the very least.

 

[Armorchompy]

I'm honestly not sure given there's a lot of combat intelligence ratings on VSBW profiles (which is something i've done myself in the past), so idk if it's feasible to remove them altogether, IMO at least we should emphasize that skill feats should be elaborated upon in profiles (maybe as a subsection for general intelligence), and compared in vs threads, while eventual ratings don't themselves hold much meaning in vs threads

 

[DaReaperMan]

Yeah, I've always said that feats mean a lot more than one or two words in a profile, so honestly that wouldn't change, it'd just make sure folks are more aware of it.

 

[Antvasima]

I'm honestly not sure given there's a lot of combat intelligence ratings on VSBW profiles (which is something i've done myself in the past), so idk if it's feasible to remove them altogether, IMO at least we should emphasize that skill feats should be elaborated upon in profiles (maybe as a subsection for general intelligence), and compared in vs threads, while eventual ratings don't themselves hold much meaning in vs threads

I do not think that we have more than at most 100 combat intelligence ratings at the moment, so if we are going to disallow using them, we need to clearly define this before the problem in question turns worse.

 

[DaReaperMan]

I do not think that we have more than at most 100 combat intelligence ratings at the moment, so if we are going to disallow using them, we need to clearly define this before the problem in question turns worse.

Now disallowing them is something I vehemently disagree with. Do you dislike organization? Is a wall of text disguised as an intelligence section your kinda lingo? Well then disallow using combat intelligence ratings!

 

[Antvasima]

But we do need to either not allow combat intelligence ratings, or set up some kind of, possibly vague, official guidelines for them. We cannot just allow our members to randomly set whatever ratings they want in this regard.

 

[DaReaperMan]

But we do need to either not allow combat intelligence ratings, or set up some kind of, possibly vague, official guidelines for them. We cannot just allow our members to randomly set whatever ratings they want in this regard.

We have guidelines, AKA the intelligence page. If some lists it incorrectly enough people patrol around that it'd be changed to something more proper in a heartbeat

 

[Antvasima]

We have guidelines, AKA the intelligence page. If some lists it incorrectly enough people patrol around that it'd be changed to something more proper in a heartbeat

We do not have any guidelines for combat intelligence, and we have few edit-patrollers in our staff, who already have more than enough work as it is, especially if we do not know how to properly correct these ratings.

 

[DaReaperMan]

We do not have any guidelines for combat intelligence, and we have few edit-patrollers in our staff, who already have more than enough work as it is, especially if we do not know how to properly correct these ratings.

Our current ratings except for maybe EG/SG fit fine with combat intelligence/skill ratings.

For instance, Above Average would be for someone who isn't exactly superhumanly skilled but is still a normal martial artist, etc, etc. It's not difficult to rate skill, and if someone wants to hitch a ***** about it they can make a CRT and lay down why XYZ rating would be warranted.

one thing I would note is don't just change CRT'd combat Intelligence sections, Get more information from the particular individual who made the CRT, if a lower(or higher) rating is agreed upon, change it. CRTs are always preferable, but those take awhile.

 

[Armorchompy]

I suppose an alternative would be to make bespoke skill ratings that don't follow the genius/gifted/whatever intelligence trend, and keep them very vague. Something like Average for people who have normal skill, Above Average for people like cops, soldiers and so, and then something like "Skilled" for stuff that's within human limits and something like "Extraordinarily Skilled" that's for going beyond it. But that does fall into a few of the issues I mentioned above, so I dunno. It's a spiny situation.

 

[DaReaperMan]

I suppose an alternative would be to make bespoke skill ratings that don't follow the genius/gifted/whatever intelligence trend, and keep them very vague. Something like Average for people who have normal skill, Above Average for people like cops, soldiers and so, and then something like "Skilled" for stuff that's within human limits and something like "Extraordinarily Skilled" that's for going beyond it. But that does fall into a few of the issues I mentioned above, so I dunno. It's a spiny situation.

Yeah, it falls into problems... it also doesn't really roll off the tongue good, or fit into tabbered intelligence sections, imagine going from "Genius" to "Extraordinarily Skilled" in an intelligence section...

 

[Armorchompy]

Yeah, it falls into problems... it also doesn't really roll off the tongue good, or fit into tabbered intelligence sections, imagine going from "Genius" to "Extraordinarily Skilled" in an intelligence section...

I mean, we could just think of better terms, that's not the issue. I think if we do do it though it'd have to be very lax, last thing we want is for people to get into debates about whether Yujiro is High Mega-Skilled+ or High Mega-Skilled++

 

[DaReaperMan]

I mean, we could just think of better terms, that's not the issue. I think if we do do it though it'd have to be very lax, last thing we want is for people to get into debates about whether Yujiro is High Mega-Skilled+ or High Mega-Skilled++

People are going to do that regardless of ratings

I know my vote doesn't mean much but keeping it as-is seems fine, we've functioned well with the current intelligence page for skill thus far, and if it ain't broke..

 

[Antvasima]

Well, we need some clear solution here, preferably one that fits with our current naming system. The section is called intelligence after all, not skill.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Well, we need some clear solution here, preferably one that fits with our current naming system. The section is called intelligence after all, not skill.

And at the same time, it's perfectly serviceable and can be easily made neat in current profiles.

Plus, this is a revision for the Intelligence page, if you want to make a Skill page I'd request that a different staff-thread be made for it with some Blue-name input on the matter

 

[Lonkitt]

Name changes or not, removing skill sections in intelligence sections is certainly not the way to go. Sure, I’m not saying the original purpose of this revision needs to come through. But removing the parts of the pages that go into detail about a character’s fighting level is just a disservice to them. These pages are meant to index the combative capabilities of characters after all. If we didn’t take into account skill, we might as well get rid of ability pages like “Martial Arts” and “Weapon Mastery”

TL;DR: Don’t remove skill sections from pages

 

[Antvasima]

We are not going to remove the skill explanations from Intelligence sections. I just think that we should stick with our standard intelligence ratings for different types of areas of intelligence.