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.

 

[Antvasima]

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

Basically literally infinite processing ability applied to fighting ability.

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.

Well, I do not think that it seems particularly hard to distinguish for non-superhuman people, but you make a good point that superhuman speed and precision extremely complicates the issue, yes.

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.

Well, because so many pages already use intelligence for fighting skill, and we either need to forbid and gradually remove those ratings, or create a reasonable system for them, but I do not mind if we follow your and DontTalk's solution, as long as we get volunteers for cleanup work after I make a public announcement regarding this issue.

 

[DontTalkDT]

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

You shouldn't decide who's more skilled based on that. You should decide who's more skilled by comparing their feats and statements.
The fact that the moment ratings are suggested people immediately want to just blindly use them to compare characters really goes to show my point on how they can be harmful.

Basically literally infinite processing ability applied to fighting ability.

Hmmmm... my problem with that is that there are more aspects to skill than just processing ability.
E.g. even if a character could stop time to think about every aspect of what's going on for however long they like, it doesn't guarantee an optimal response. They could lack knowledge of the best responses or the physical ability (precision etc.) to perform the response. Prediction of what an opponent might do next also is a part of skill. Someone who can correctly guess the next 4 moves of the opponent can potentially gain better results than someone who has just processed what is currently coming at them in infinite detail.

Well, because so many pages already use intelligence for fighting skill, and we either need to forbid and gradually remove those ratings, or create a reasonable system for them, but I do not mind if we follow your and DontTalk's solution, as long as we get volunteers for cleanup work after I make a public announcement regarding this issue.

We can see if we find enough volunteers. Otherwise there is always the option of gradual revision.
It would be useful if we can find the pages that currently have such ratings, but I can't think of a way to search for them

 

[Detective_Blizzard]

Definitely going to be following this since the various series revisions I'm making are going to be effected by these changes

Hmmmm... my problem with that is that there are more aspects to skill than just processing ability.
E.g. even if a character could stop time to think about every aspect of what's going on for however long they like, it doesn't guarantee an optimal response. They could lack knowledge of the best responses or the physical ability (precision etc.) to perform the response. Prediction of what an opponent might do next also is a part of skill. Someone who can correctly guess the next 4 moves of the opponent can potentially gain better results than someone who has just processed what is currently coming at them in infinite detail.

Also, as someone who's plays chess competitively, yeah this is right. I've seen countless people spend the longest amount of time trying to make a move only to pull the biggest blunders in history. And while being able to predict your opponent could be an example of skill it could also be an example of say social knowledge, IE knowing your enemy is going to attack towards your chest based on reading their personality/mannerism but not being smart enough to know what exactly they plan to do by hitting you, what special effects their attack could do, or lacking any knowledge on how to properly counter attack

 

[Vietthai96]

I can understand what @DontTalkDT mean, but again those are exceptions to the general rule, should not somehow become rule, again like every other thing on the wiki we compare feats against feats, statements against statements, even when it come to haxes battle, no one see a guy with CM hax vs a guy without CM hax resistance assumed that the guy with CM hax automatically win the other guy without showing the actual feats of how that CM hax work, the same applies to intelligence.

I know that it is hard to apply a metric so something like intelligence, being smarter and more skilled doesn't automatically make you win, sure. But again vs matches and powerscaling itself is vague, doesn't stop us from making profile and powerscaling either, assigning abilities, stats to fictional characters; hell we even equalizing many aspects that most of the time exist exclusively in fictional verses so put them against each others; and vs match is the least of our problem since the foremost matter of our wiki is to indexing profiles. So i don't see the problem of assigning a metric to measure combat intelligence, just make a note that "these intelligence ratings is for reference only to measure overall combat intelligence that was displayed by characters, in a vs match it should not be an absolute factor to decide the result of battle, feats and statements should be compared in order to find out who going to have advantage in the fight"

Complaining about people going to use metric to claim their supported character going to absolutely winning in a match due to higher combat intelligence rating is......pointless, because no offense, there will be always people who going to make outlandish claims no matter what, even if we try to avoid these issues by removing ratings, or not assigning a metric to something, there will be always a guy who going to claim "this character A feats and statements is way better than that character B, he absolutely skill/combat/etc....stomp B, etc...."

 

[Antvasima]

Hmmmm... my problem with that is that there are more aspects to skill than just processing ability.
E.g. even if a character could stop time to think about every aspect of what's going on for however long they like, it doesn't guarantee an optimal response. They could lack knowledge of the best responses or the physical ability (precision etc.) to perform the response. Prediction of what an opponent might do next also is a part of skill. Someone who can correctly guess the next 4 moves of the opponent can potentially gain better results than someone who has just processed what is currently coming at them in infinite detail.

Okay. I suppose that makes sense.

We can see if we find enough volunteers. Otherwise there is always the option of gradual revision.
It would be useful if we can find the pages that currently have such ratings, but I can't think of a way to search for them

Well, first somebody needs to write a brief instruction text regarding why combat skill statistics are not allowed in our pages, and also write a draft text for my new public announcement thread, as I think our best available solution here seems to be to make as many members as possible aware of this issue, so they stop adding such definitive ratings and also help us find and remove the previous ones. Are you willing to handle it please?

 

[DavidTPPM]

You shouldn't decide who's more skilled based on that. You should decide who's more skilled by comparing their feats and statements.
The fact that the moment ratings are suggested people immediately want to just blindly use them to compare characters really goes to show my point on how they can be harmful.

Yes but the same argument applies to AP, speed, or other stats. A skill rating should at least give you an understandable ballpark

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. I suppose that makes sense.

Well, first somebody needs to write a brief instruction text regarding why combat skill statistics are not allowed in our pages, and also write a draft text for my new public announcement thread, as I think our best available solution here seems to be to make as many members as possible aware of this issue, so they stop adding such definitive ratings and also help us find and remove the previous ones. Are you willing to handle it please?

@DontTalkDT

 

[DaReaperMan]

Ant, for the love of all that's holy, stop rushing.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Yes but the same argument applies to AP, speed, or other stats. A skill rating should at least give you an understandable ballpark

No, because what you mentioned are objective linear stats. Someone with Building level AP is always stronger than someone with Wall level AP. There is a single objective measure of AP (energy) and that will clearly sort characters in categories where the higher category always has more of said objective measure (i.e. has more energy).
So you don't need to compare feats and statements to figure out whose attacks are stronger, because the person with the higher AP rating is guaranteed to win that competition regardless of which feats and statements got them there. (Hax not considered, as they are not really strength in common sense)
Same with speed. A supersonic character is never faster than a Hypersonic one.

The whole problem with splitting up the level as you suggested is the lack of a single objective measure of skill that separates characters as cleanly as energy does for AP. Skill is made up of a lot of capabilities which makes it impossible to say that someone that would have the higher rating would actually always come out on top in a skill comparison.
If you have a Superhuman Skill 1 rating and a superior Superhuman Skill 2 rating, you would need to define them such that the characters in the latter are always superior in skill to those in the former, because people will assume they are without comparing feats and statements. And I don't see that being possible at all. Hence it's better to have them in the same rating, because then people can't just say "mine has higher rating so mine are better" and actually have to look at details. It overall creates a much more healthy and accurate debate.

I can understand what @DontTalkDT mean, but again those are exceptions to the general rule, should not somehow become rule, again like every other thing on the wiki we compare feats against feats, statements against statements, even when it come to haxes battle, no one see a guy with CM hax vs a guy without CM hax resistance assumed that the guy with CM hax automatically win the other guy without showing the actual feats of how that CM hax work, the same applies to intelligence.

I know that it is hard to apply a metric so something like intelligence, being smarter and more skilled doesn't automatically make you win, sure. But again vs matches and powerscaling itself is vague, doesn't stop us from making profile and powerscaling either, assigning abilities, stats to fictional characters; hell we even equalizing many aspects that most of the time exist exclusively in fictional verses so put them against each others; and vs match is the least of our problem since the foremost matter of our wiki is to indexing profiles. So i don't see the problem of assigning a metric to measure combat intelligence, just make a note that "these intelligence ratings is for reference only to measure overall combat intelligence that was displayed by characters, in a vs match it should not be an absolute factor to decide the result of battle, feats and statements should be compared in order to find out who going to have advantage in the fight"

Complaining about people going to use metric to claim their supported character going to absolutely winning in a match due to higher combat intelligence rating is......pointless, because no offense, there will be always people who going to make outlandish claims no matter what, even if we try to avoid these issues by removing ratings, or not assigning a metric to something, there will be always a guy who going to claim "this character A feats and statements is way better than that character B, he absolutely skill/combat/etc....stomp B, etc...."

The issue isn't them arguing that their character wins against reason, skill is only a small part in that to begin with and, yeah, people will consider factors other than skill.
The problem is that people will argue that their character is better in specifically the skill department due to specifically the reason of having a higher rating written on the page instead of comparing the reasons for those ratings. As pointed out, some replies in this thread already demonstrated people's tendencies to wish to do exactly that and it's not something we should encourage.
Furthermore, with nebulous distinctions between two superhuman categories that don't properly consider all factors involved in skill, I think it will be far more than just a few exceptions once we get lots of ratings and lots of comparisons are made... well, assuming people would then consistently make the comparisons propely, which I doubt would be the case.

Well, first somebody needs to write a brief instruction text regarding why combat skill statistics are not allowed in our pages, and also write a draft text for my new public announcement thread, as I think our best available solution here seems to be to make as many members as possible aware of this issue, so they stop adding such definitive ratings and also help us find and remove the previous ones. Are you willing to handle it please?

Well, assuming that option is what gets accepted, we could put a "Combat Skill" section on the Intelligence page that reads something like

Combat skill encompasses a range of factors that together describe how well a person can fight. This includes not only how effectively they use their abilities, but also whether they can apply them in ways that usually require special training or practice, as seen in martial arts. It covers aspects such as knowledge of fighting techniques, variety in combat styles, precision, experience, strategy, prediction, information processing, learning ability, and more.
These factors can also influence a character's general intelligence rating. For example, skills like strategy, rapid learning or the ability to predict an opponent's moves could contribute to a high intelligence rating. However, for many characters, it's useful to separate combat skill from general intelligence. This distinction is particularly important when a character is highly skilled in combat but lacks academic or intellectual prowess.
Unlike general intelligence, combat skill is not ranked on a scale with labels like "Genius" or "Supergenius." Due to the many factors involved, a simple rating system would fail to accurately capture a character's combat proficiency. For instance, it wouldn’t make sense to say someone who can learn any real-world martial art by watching it for a minute is necessarily superior to someone who has mastered a single martial art to a superhuman level. These are different types of skill that can’t be easily compared.
Using one-word ratings for combat skill could lead to misunderstandings, as a higher rating wouldn’t always mean that a character is objectively more skilled than someone with a lower rating. To avoid this confusion and better represent a character's abilities, we omit such ratings.
Instead, if a character profile includes a section on combat skill, it should only feature specific feats or statements that demonstrate their proficiency. This approach allows readers to directly compare characters based on their actual achievements, rather than relying on a potentially misleading rating system.

For the announcement, I take it that is for after the decision is officially passed and the Intelligence page is edited? If so, maybe something like:

Following the recent discussion here, we've decided to no longer use ratings (like "Genius" or "Supergenius") to describe combat skill on character profiles. We have added a section laying out this decision to the Intelligence page.

The reasoning behind this is that combat skill involves a wide range of factors—technique, strategy, experience, adaptability, and more. A simple rating doesn’t do justice to these unique differences and can lead to confusion when comparing them.

Instead, we'll just list the feats and statements that would serve as the justification for ranking. We hope that it encourages readers to compare characters directly using these, rather than by relying on a much too simplified ranking.

As we move forward, if you come across any remaining combat skill ratings on character pages, we kindly ask that you remove them or report them in this thread so our staff can take care of it. Your help in this process is greatly appreciated!

 

[DavidTPPM]

No, because what you mentioned are objective linear stats. Someone with Building level AP is always stronger than someone with Wall level AP. There is a single objective measure of AP (energy) and that will clearly sort characters in categories where the higher category always has more of said objective measure (i.e. has more energy).
So you don't need to compare feats and statements to figure out whose attacks are stronger, because the person with the higher AP rating is guaranteed to win that competition regardless of which feats and statements got them there. (Hax not considered, as they are not really strength in common sense)
Same with speed. A supersonic character is never faster than a Hypersonic one.

Okay but wouldn't that logic also completely disregard regular intelligence as well?
You already need to compare feats when deciding who's smarter with normal intelligence so why would BIQ/combat skill be any different?

 

[Detective_Blizzard]

I would also like to say a personal ideology I have when it comes to things like this, "The Idiot Clause". Basically, how much impact will something have when you take away everyone that's smart and in the know. Game Devs often run into this issue due to having so much experience with the game they practically never see how newer people would see it or those less experienced, with those same people often finding and thinking of new things that the experience people would never think of.

If you remove the intelligence rating of combat skill, I feel like there would be plenty of people who just wouldn't be able to properly assess just how truly skilled a character is when it comes to combat. I personally know plenty of people who think Goku isn't all that smart at fighting despite his feats or that Luffy isn't that much of a genius either because someone thinks they could/would do the same thing if they had his powers. If we remove something like the intelligence ratings then we are just running down a line where everything gets more muddled as we rely more on a individual's personal bias or perception rather than the character's accomplishments.

 

[Armorchompy]

That's their problem frankly. The same "idiots" will just look at an intelligence rating and determine that's all they need to see to judge, and I think that's a bigger problem. The very fact that judging skill relies on personal perception of a character's accomplishments is a solid argument as to why ratings for it shouldn't exist.

 

[Antvasima]

I think that DontTalk's suggestions above seem to make sense.

 

[Planck69]

Yeah, I'm with DontTalk here. Skill is objectively far more subjective than any mother metric brought up here as a gotcha, even if Intelligence can admittedly be muddled in rating assignment. A single scale for skill shouldn't really exist.

 

[Spinoirr]

Yeah, I'm with DontTalk here. Skill is objectively far more subjective than any mother metric brought up here as a gotcha, even if Intelligence can admittedly be muddled in rating assignment. A single scale for skill shouldn't really exist.

Although skill feats are still intelligence feats given you know... It takes intelligence to do them

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

Although skill feats are still intelligence feats given you know... It takes intelligence to do them

These one-liner responses are becoming pointless. I agree with DT here.

 

[Arkenis]

We can see if we find enough volunteers. Otherwise there is always the option of gradual revision.
It would be useful if we can find the pages that currently have such ratings, but I can't think of a way to search for them

I'll help if needed.

And all that's happening is doing away with combat skill ratings but the descriptions for their feats will still remain? And this is just to remedy the tendency for people to base superiority off of rating yeah?