Establishing combat skill requirements

[DaReaperMan]

Well, the problem is that, going by my very extensive experience, the existence of lots of other pages with combat intelligence ratings will automatically encourage our members to create more and more of them to an eventually unmanageable degree, so we either need to properly define the requirements for these statistics or remove at least most of them.

Ant, it wouldn't be the first time you've changed an intelligence rating without a CRT, you're not exactly adverse to looking at a justification and saying "This is only gifted" and changing it, you've actually done this with Skill on one of my profiles, so the current ratings aren't completely useless in the regard of listing skill.

 

[Antvasima]

There may be a misunderstanding here. I was trying to explain that if we have no set standards whatsoever for combat intelligence ratings, we will need to attempt to find and remove the ones that have already been set in our profile pages in order to avoid gradually increasing chaos, and I would also personally much prefer if we can decide on workable set standards for practical reasons.

Regardless, it seems best if you leave this issue for our staff to decide, without commenting here further. This concerns a very important wiki policy issue after all.

 

[Antvasima]

There may be a misunderstanding here. I was trying to explain that if we have no set standards whatsoever for combat intelligence ratings, we will need to attempt to find and remove the ones that have already been set in our profile pages in order to avoid gradually increasing chaos, and I would also personally much prefer if we can decide on workable set standards for practical reasons.

@DontTalkDT

I would greatly appreciate if you are able to help define standards that you consider acceptable.

 

[DaReaperMan]

There may be a misunderstanding here. I was trying to explain that if we have no set standards whatsoever for combat intelligence ratings, we will need to attempt to find and remove the ones that have already been set in our profile pages in order to avoid gradually increasing chaos, and I would also personally much prefer if we can decide on workable set standards for practical reasons.

We've been using the current intelligence page for like, a year, and there's barely been issues. TBH I think your making a mountain out of a molehill here(Also it seems DT isnt interested in this thread anymore)

Regardless, it seems best if you leave this issue for our staff to decide, without commenting here further. This concerns a very important wiki policy issue after all.

Ahem, let me translate how this sounds in tone "I dont value your opinion on this matter, I want full control over this, now **** off, prayers!"

I know that ain't what you actually mean, but God damn is that prayer emoji the most toxic thing sometimes lol

 

[Antvasima]

We've been using the current intelligence page for like, a year, and there's barely been issues. TBH I think your making a mountain out of a molehill here(Also it seems DT isnt interested in this thread anymore)

Our current intelligence page does not currently define any guidelines for combat intelligence, so I would much prefer if our higher ranked staff members can reach an agreement that we all find sufficiently acceptable.

Ahem, let me translate how this sounds in tone "I dont value your opinion on this matter, I want full control over this, now **** off, prayers!"

I know that ain't what you actually mean, but God damn is that prayer emoji the most toxic thing sometimes lol

It simply means that, with no offence intended, you are not the one who is supposed to decide what we are going to do here, and yet you are the one mostly arguing with me, which takes up unnecessary time and forces away focus from other staff members, so I would much prefer if our staff members provide input here instead. The respectful bowing emoji was just intended to lessen potential offence from my practical-minded statement.

 

[DontTalkDT]

DT, like 3 people including me use a skill section on their profiles, might as well just delete the intelligence page if you want to argue that people will list the word and no feats, because everyone has to use the intelligence page, while Skill is highly optional.

And hell, if the word is wrong, it can be argued and changed in the mystical second thread known as applying this crap! Why bother sitting there coughing up fake boogeymen when we have changed intelligence ratings with no CRT before, we literally have a thread dedicated to it!

That's missing the point. The point is:
a) There is no point in listing the word if proper explanation is listed. 100% of all decisions should be based on the explanation.
b) Listing the word is harmful if the distinctions aren't clear-cut in hierarchy and objective, as people will just argue based on the word instead of the explanation.
The fact that you already suggest that the solution to the words in a case-by-case comparision not comparing skill properly is changing the words is great evidence to my point being exactly right. People will just say "Oh, cool, you have made arguments, but my buzzword is above yours on the list so if you want to argue your character has better skill you have to make a CRT to have your buzzword changed". The entire point is that even accurate ratings by the words will not create a linear skill scale and people lower ranked on it could be more skilled, despite being correctly ranked.
I.e. if the rating system we use could rate character A with arguably superior skill to a character B at a lower rating in the skill ranking system, by strictly and accurately following the systems guidelines, then that's an issue.

Instead of saying "Skill", I prefer the term "Combat Intelligence", it's still a sub category of Intelligence and thus would use ratings from the page.

The definitions of the ratings on the page right now don't really to capture how they would be ranked well. They are primarily tailored to scientific stuff.

I think that this suggested solution above seems like the most straightforward and objective to apply.

That's my favore solution at least.
Armorchompy said he favoured a solution somewhat like this as well. DaReaperMan was clearly against it. Not sure what the rest think.

@DontTalkDT

Given that so many of our pages already list combat intelligence ratings, if you would define them, and also name them according to our current titles for them, how would you do so?

I think separating them into as many ratings as our current intelligence scale has is not possible in a way that works well. As said, I basically think there are only three truly objective categories to sort them in:

1. No skill feats of note
2. Skill feats but nothing beyond real-life
3. Skill beyond real life

Maybe 4, if we add one for feats of being worse than average humans.

I also don't think there is any pressing need to solve it by having the exact same ratings as for scientific intelligence: As soon as we define what the ratings would be we will have to recheck all old ratings, no matter whether we use the same terms or not. Regardless how we define them, the current ratings will not work in accordance to that system.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay, that seems reasonable, although I at least think that we should categorise it in something similar to the following manner:

1. Completely unskilled fighter.
2. Relatively skilled fighter.
3. Real life human master fighter level.
4. Fighting skills far beyond real life human maximum levels.
5. Infinitely high fighting skills.

And we obviously need to give each type an appropriate title/name as well, and make it very clear that elaborate feat descriptions are required to justify the ratings and provide more indepth information.

 

[GarrixianXD]

Well, this seems to be in a vortex of debate at the moment. I'm currently neutral but a bit leaning towards DT's sentiments; ping me later if needed or once this needs to be applied.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Okay, that seems reasonable, although I at least think that we should categorise it in something similar to the following manner:

1. Completely unskilled fighter.
2. Relatively skilled fighter.
3. Real life human master fighter level.
4. Fighting skills far beyond real life human maximum levels.
5. Infinitely high fighting skills.

And we obviously need to give each type an appropriate title/name as well, and make it very clear that elaborate feat descriptions are required to justify the ratings and provide more indepth information.

What would infinitely high fighting skills be like? Would that be a category reserved for omniscient characters?

Aside from that, I'm not sure how to draw the line between 2. and 3. Feat wise I don't know how to differentiate a mediocre judo fighter from an expert. And with masters in fiction usually being superhuman, statements of being or not being masters hold little weight, even if one is lucky enough to have that.

 

[DavidTPPM]

What would infinitely high fighting skills be like? Would that be a category reserved for omniscient characters?

Aside from that, I'm not sure how to draw the line between 2. and 3. Feat wise I don't know how to differentiate a mediocre judo fighter from an expert. And with masters in fiction usually being superhuman, statements of being or not being masters hold little weight, even if one is lucky enough to have that.

5 levels with one being 0 skill and one being infinite skill definitely do sound like they're not enough.

Majority of fighters would be forced into the 4th level which would make deciding who's more skilled based on that impossible.

 

[Armorchompy]

Why are we back to saying that we should have skill ratings? I thought people agreed with my (and DT's) argument for why that doesn't really work.