Instead of Equalizing Stats, How About Normalizing Them?

[A_Sword_Dancer]

Currently we are forced to equalize a variety of stats at times when trying to create matchups because otherwise there would be stomps everywhere and we'd have a much smaller list of viable fights to work with.

Speed is the most common stat that gets equalized, followed closely by ap and durability.

These equalizations have mostly done their job of allowing more matches to happen, but there are issues with this solution - and I have an idea for how to fix one of those problems.

It's true that equalizing stats allows fighter who are slightly mismatched to be able to have an interesting fight, but it's also true that completely equalizing a stat is both unfair to the character who'se stat advantage was taken away and also less representative of how that character would fight. If you equalize the flash for example (an extreme case) vs batman, you have a match that makes no sense because the flash's entire identity and combat style revolvs aroung being faster than his opponant - and that has been taken away from him.

Here's my poposed solution: rather than equalizing speed, or some other stat, so that both fighters are the same, how about you lower the stat of the higher stat fighter down into a reasonable level - but still have it be higher than the other fighter. The character who specialized in that stat will still have a stat advantage, but it won't be to the point where they auto win a fight.

This probably could use some more thought into exactly how close to bring the stats, but to start off the idea somewhere lets say to bring the higher stat down into the high end of the tier that the lower character was in.

For example, in a fight with a low end hypersonic character vs a relativistic character, you bring the relativistic characters speed down into the hypersonic range - but you leave it at the high end so that they still have a measurable and useful speed advantage. The match can now happen without one character getting insta blitzed and stomped, but the character who by all rights is actually faster still gets to enjoy the advantage of speed in the matchup.

What do you think? See issues that need to be addressed? Have better ideas for high to easily bring the stats closer while still giving one the edge?

 

[LordXcano]

If the Speedster has AP higher than the opponent (but not my a significant margin) that should be equalized, but speed should be brought down to around 2-3x the opponent (depending on how significant this part of them is).

Although, why would we need to quantify it? Wouldn't it be enough to just say "Speed normalized" and everyone could get a good assumption of how fast they are in comparison?

 

[A_Sword_Dancer]

Some general concept of 'character a/b is faster, but not to the point of blitzing' is whats desired. The difference in speed should be brought down to the point that they could always dodge a single linear attack from the slower fighter in isolation but should still be hittable if they slower fighter is more skilled or intelligent or uses a type of attack that hits in an area or something along those lines.

It doesn't need to be some specific number per say, but 'speed normalized with advantage to fighter x' should give people the same general understanding of the speed gap no matter where its used.

 

[A_Sword_Dancer]

Same sort of thing for ap/dura. If one fighter has higher ap and the other has higher dura they should just cancel out and be even, but if one fighter has the edge in both they should tank more hits and do more damage with their attacks, but still be possible to take down by the weaker fighter.

 

[DontTalk]

AP/Dura euqalized fights exist? Never noticed.

Well, personally I create threads and their rules like I believe is appropiate/they are the most fun and will continue doing so (and don't expect them to get listed on profiles in the first place), but then again other people do so to actively to try to get the results on the pages, I guess.

When I made the Standard Battle Assumptions article I was in favor of leaving them unregulated and just go with what appears as reasonable on case by case basis if there is doubt to the set up match being fair and people complain. (basically what is written in the head of the article)

If we should do such rules then let me mention two things that might as well be thought about at this point (for equalized and normalized):

• How do you deal with attack speed? For a subsonic character using real life laser (lightspeed) it might seem strange to equalize/normalize the speed of the laser. On the other hand if you leave flying swords that fight by themselfs unequalized the oponent is blitzed by those and generally leaving projectiles unequalized might lead to one character being practically unable to dodge.
• How do you deal with techniques that change the speed of characters (possibly in short bursts)? For example if a character can propel itself through an explosion caused by his attack power or speed increasing spells not taken into account in the base speed stat.

 

[A_Sword_Dancer]

Those are valid concerns that also effected the equalized system and bothered me whenever they came up then too, now would be a nice time to work them out though, I agree. Will probably take some thought and iteration.

For a start I'd say that any 'powerup' that lasts for more than an extremely short time period must either be active at the start of the battle (and thus subject to the normalization) or else not be used. This prevents the case where fighters suddenly power up and blitz their opponant - effectively skirting around the speed normalization. It still allows them to have a speed advantage during the fight if they would truly have one from their power up, but without it being excessive due to a loophole in the system.

Ie: If you're going to use goku in a fight, he has to start the match in whatever powerup mode he will fight the match in, and not save a super saying or kaoken or whateve rmode for later. If he's not using it at the start and getting normalize, he's not using it at all.

Short burst speed may still be fine as long as it is also scaled relatively so that we don't have a situation where someone one shots because they jumped 5 speed tiers for .2 seconds.

The issue of indirect attack speed and 'speed moves' is trickier and requires some more thought, though i'm inclined to let any move that is faster than the fighter can normally perform gain only one speed tier at most above the normalized speed and to have indirect moves like the independant blades you mentioned restricted to the speed of the user.

 

[Antvasima]

This suggestion is far too impractical to work in practice, as it would render our tiering system meaningless if we start lowering all of the statistics during matchups, it would be hard to define and specify to other members how this should work in practice, and also make it necessary to go through all of our profiles to remove outdated versus threads.

The current system of only allowing speed equalisation works reasonably well. There is no apparent need to change it, and saddle us with even more work. That is my final word regarding the issue.