Kingdom Hearts Multiplier Scaling

[Bobsican]

To avoid me dragging for too long a CRT, I'm posting this thread to discuss publically some multipliers that have been found across the series, which would affect the tiering of the characters and be more concrete than KHII Sora being the same in strength as KHI and CoM Sora, which is uh... false.

Please note that I won't be here for a while as I have to deal with school exams and a ton of homework, however.

That being said, here's the blog, and if accepted a ton of changes will happen, and please refrain from tiering talk itself, I'd rather focus on who scales to what multiplier and if such multipliers are fine, after all, a tiering CRT from some feats found will come a while after this.

 

[Dalesean027]

Following

 

[Bobsican]

In a nutshell...

Xion = x1 KHI Sora
Final Form Xion = x4 KHI Sora = One Keyblade Roxas
Two Keyblades Roxas = x8 KHI Sora = 1/2 KHII Sora
KHII Sora = x16 KHI Sora
KHII Drive Form Sora = x32 KHI Sora
KH3D, KHIII Sora = x32 KHI Sora
KHIII Formchange Sora <= x64 KHI Sora

Such multipliers may be even higher with some of the scaling around, or lower depending how the thread goes.

 

[AKM sama]

@Antvasima @Dragonmasterxyz @Mr._Bambu @SamanPatou
I believe your input is required here.

 

[SamanPatou]

I'm iffy on the first multiplier, it says you get the second Keyblade for twice the attack power and ability, but it doesn't mean all of Sora's stats and such have a literal 2X boost.
It says that because having two weapons is better than one, that's what it means with twice.

Xion's seems good.

I also disagree with comparing Roxas wielding two keyblades as a Drive form. Even giving for granted the 2X multiplier (with which I disagree with FRA), Sora's using a friend's power to activate a drive form is different from the plain ability of wielding two keyblades, despite them sharing such trait.
I might be missing something, but how can we make match the fact that Roxas has half of KH1 Sora, but he can defeat Xion, who's 4X the same Sora? Roxas could have gotten stronger during 358/2 days, but Ansem's statement occurs after it.

I'm not even really sure we can compare Drive forms to base KH3D Sora. Nomura said he wanted to replicate the acrobatic, action playstyle, he's not actually comparing their power.
Same about Drive forms and Formchange, Nomura seems to be talking about gameplay perspective instead of lore, meaning he took the Drive mechanic and evolved it into the Formchange.
I'm not even sure we can compare Drive Forms and Formchange with the latter being a technique that only trained keyblade wielders can use, they don't really seem to related to each other.

I'm not fond of this scaling, just because Peter Pan and Sparky fought Terra, it doesn't mean they are comparable to him.
Only battling him isn't enough, they lose and aren't shown giving him troubles, it's perfectly possible for them to be far weaker, just like all other Unversed and random enemies that fight Terra.
This may also sound like incredulity, but we'd have Peter Pan and Stitch as being far above Xemnas, which tbh doesn't sound right.

 

[Antvasima]

Saman seems to make a good argument above, but I am not the best person to ask.

What do other people here think?

 

[Nehz_XZX]

I'm iffy on the first multiplier, it says you get the second Keyblade for twice the attack power and ability, but it doesn't mean all of Sora's stats and such have a literal 2X boost.
It says that because having two weapons is better than one, that's what it means with twice.

I also disagree with comparing Roxas wielding two keyblades as a Drive form. Even giving for granted the 2X multiplier (with which I disagree with FRA), Sora's using a friend's power to activate a drive form is different from the plain ability of wielding two keyblades, despite them sharing such trait.
I might be missing something, but how can we make match the fact that Roxas has half of KH1 Sora, but he can defeat Xion, who's 4X the same Sora? Roxas could have gotten stronger during 358/2 days, but Ansem's statement occurs after it.

I'm not even really sure we can compare Drive forms to base KH3D Sora. Nomura said he wanted to replicate the acrobatic, action playstyle, he's not actually comparing their power.
Same about Drive forms and Formchange, Nomura seems to be talking about gameplay perspective instead of lore, meaning he took the Drive mechanic and evolved it into the Formchange.
I'm not even sure we can compare Drive Forms and Formchange with the latter being a technique that only trained keyblade wielders can use, they don't really seem to related to each other.

I'm not fond of this scaling, just because Peter Pan and Sparky fought Terra, it doesn't mean they are comparable to him.
Only battling him isn't enough, they lose and aren't shown giving him troubles, it's perfectly possible for them to be far weaker, just like all other Unversed and random enemies that fight Terra.
This may also sound like incredulity, but we'd have Peter Pan and Stitch as being far above Xemnas, which tbh doesn't sound right.

Twice the attack power sounds like twice the Attack Potency to me which is what the multipliers in this thread are about. We aren't talking about multipliers for all the stats but we are talking about multipliers for only the Attack Potency as far as I know which would admittedly also scale to Durability.

Actually it has been stated to my knowledge that Sora could use Drive Forms on his own and that Donald or Goofy vanishing while a Drive Form is used is for the sake of gameplay balance. The fact that Sora is shown turning into Valor Form right after obtaining his KHII outfit without Goofy vanishing backs this up. The thing about Roxas is though that he can hold his own against Sora in the Dive to the Heart. Roxas with two Keyblades is clearly superior compared to when he is wielding just one and if we assume that Roxas and Sora are comparable while they are respectively wielding one Keyblade, then that means that dual wielding makes enough of a difference for Roxas to avoid getting overwhelmed by Sora's Drive Forms. There is also the fact that both Roxas and Sora have their dual wielding enabled through Ventus' heart and that Sora pretty much inherited the ability to dual wield from Roxas in the first place.

Roxas was half of Sora's power at the time Sora turned into a Heartless. By the time he faced Xion he spent nearly a year under the tutelage of the Organization doing missions for them, so Roxas having gotten stronger isn't just a possibility but it is a canonical fact instead as far as I'm concerned. Evidence for that is among other things the mission where Roxas beat up Heartless with a stick while lending his Keyblade to Xion whereas KHI Sora failed to damage Heartless in Hollow Bastion with a wooden sword. Ansem's statement was made after Roxas attained his second Keyblade, fought Riku and was captured, so Ansem shouldn't have been ignorant of about how strong Roxas was at that time since he and Riku were cooperating. The fact that Riku doesn't object to that statement despite having been there further lends credence to that. This is why we equate Roxas to half of KHII Sora who has been explicitly stated to have become better than in KHI.

The thing about KH3D Sora is though that he is fighting Xemnas later in the game without Riku's assistance which shouldn't be possible if he isn't capable of performing at a similar level to himself in KHII where he had access to Drive Forms. The fact that he can perform form change-like actions in base in the first place kind of implies that he got at least closer to the level of said form changes.

There wouldn't really be a point in switching to Formchanges if Formchanges were inferior to Drive Forms and Sora wouldn't be at his strongest in KHIII if he couldn't somehow match the performance of Drive Forms in KHII. Therefore, it isn't a matter of there being a relation between Formchanges and Drive Forms but how they compare in terms of potency and performance.

Peter Pan and Stitch would be around the level of the Drive Forms according to what is proposed on the blog and since Xemnas fought against Sora and Riku simultaneously he would also be on that level, so no, this wouldn't put Peter Pan and Stitch far above Xemnas.

 

[Bobsican]

I might be missing something, but how can we make match the fact that Roxas has half of KH1 Sora, but he can defeat Xion, who's 4X the same Sora? Roxas could have gotten stronger during 358/2 days, but Ansem's statement occurs after it.

I'm not fond of this scaling, just because Peter Pan and Sparky fought Terra, it doesn't mean they are comparable to him.
Only battling him isn't enough, they lose and aren't shown giving him troubles, it's perfectly possible for them to be far weaker, just like all other Unversed and random enemies that fight Terra.
This may also sound like incredulity, but we'd have Peter Pan and Stitch as being far above Xemnas, which tbh doesn't sound right.

Nehz already answered most of the points, but regarding some parts...

No no, he has half of KHII Sora's power, not KHI's, and even then the dual wielding happens after defeating Final Form Xion (the blog even links an interview confirming that), Ansem's statement over Roxas also happens after all of this, hence the multiplier stacking. Roxas simply became stronger than KHI Sora as he did missions for nearly a year, which is consistent with him being able to defeat Heartless with a stick, something late-game KHI Sora couldn't do with his wood sword.

Well, Stitch does upscale from Sparky (and didn't fight him directly, in fact he was able to support Ventus by a notable degree against an Unversed that was going to blow up the spaceship), they were treated as stronger than regular Unversed, and because Xemnas would scale to Drive Form'd Sora, as the blog explains over those at Roxas' level and above as being reasonable as a baseline for this, so they'd just be at the same level.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I'll start this by saying I famously do not like Kingdom Hearts. I don't know why AKM felt I should be the one called here, but as I was I will attempt to remain unbiased in this.

Saman addressed my issue with the first one. It certainly doesn't sound like an outright AP boost, given the word "usable".

I don't really agree with assigning Xion a 4x multiplier arbitrarily. Based on the scan, it could be taken as low as 2x. It does not say it stacks equally per world, only that her strength has multiplied. If we were to scale this to AP directly, 2x would be a far better baseline.

I don't agree with the logic of two keyblades = 2x AP. I feel like Ansem's statement ("he holds half of Sora's power within him") could be taken differently as well. At the moment, I agree to Xion being a 2x multiplier, and will tentatively agree to Ansem's statement being taken fully literally since I lack knowledge on the verse and my issue with it lies more in the implication of other meaning.

As multiplier 6 relies again on just having two weapons, I do not agree with it scaling to a direct AP boost.

That seems to be it.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

I'll start this by saying I famously do not like Kingdom Hearts. I don't know why AKM felt I should be the one called here, but as I was I will attempt to remain unbiased in this.

Saman addressed my issue with the first one. It certainly doesn't sound like an outright AP boost, given the word "usable".

I don't really agree with assigning Xion a 4x multiplier arbitrarily. Based on the scan, it could be taken as low as 2x. It does not say it stacks equally per world, only that her strength has multiplied. If we were to scale this to AP directly, 2x would be a far better baseline.

I don't agree with the logic of two keyblades = 2x AP. I feel like Ansem's statement ("he holds half of Sora's power within him") could be taken differently as well. At the moment, I agree to Xion being a 2x multiplier, and will tentatively agree to Ansem's statement being taken fully literally since I lack knowledge on the verse and my issue with it lies more in the implication of other meaning.

As multiplier 6 relies again on just having two weapons, I do not agree with it scaling to a direct AP boost.

That seems to be it.

I already heard about this and was wondering about why AKM did that as well but that's not important here.

Usable for twice the attack power and abilities. Given that three out of five Drive Forms make use of two Keyblades, we cannot exactly say that this is somehow unusable for the Drive Forms. Usable just means that it can be used and I don't know how you can extrapolate it not being an actual AP boost from that. Attack power is pretty much AP after all.

The thing is though that each of Xion's forms has the statement. In other words the first time Xion transports Roxas to a different world and gets enhanced by the device there and changes her form her power was already multiplied which would give her a 2x multiplier for the first form. Add to that that this process was repeated with two other devices which appear to be identical in appearance and function as far as we can tell and therefore go off the assumption that each one gave a boost equal to the first device which was equal to the power she had in her base form and you have the 4x multiplier. Therefore, the multiplier isn't as arbitrary as you seem to think.

You'll have specify how it can be taken differently. If you just reject the current interpretation without actually offering the alternative on which you base the rejection, then in terms of its effects it's the same as rejecting the validity of the statement and without actually elaborating the reasoning in a proper manner to boot. Other than what Roxas accumulated at the beginning of KHII and the ability to dual wield Sora did not inherit any abilities from Roxas and the dual wielding wasn't until he got his Drive Forms, so unless we want to go with some abstract or metaphorical meaning of power we'll have to go with Attack Potency. It also directly ties into how Roxas is half of Sora's power as his Nobody, so it fits with the lore just fine.

Other than that I can just point to my response to SamanPatou's arguments.

PS: If you don't actually want to discuss this Kingdom Hearts-related matter, then I can understand that. Just have someone else who actually wants to participate in this thread post your counterarguments, if you have anything you'd like to have said, and continue this to not just leave this hanging.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Apparently, AKM felt input was important from different voices. Fair enough, I suppose. Nobody wants an echo-chamber.

I don't feel this properly defends an outright multiplier. I don't understand how you can extrapolate it being an AP multiplier. Power is measured in many forms.

Yes, however I don't understand why we're assuming they're multiplied compared to each other. In fact, I doubt that was even the case being put forward in the OP, given a 4x multiplier still wouldn't make any sense whatsoever for that. Xion's multiplier being 2x is still fine for me.

My interpretation is that having twice the weapons doesn't equate to twice the AP. Like yeah, obviously it's better than one, but you have to give definitive proof that it literally multiplies his AP rather than give him double the opportunities to make use of his normal AP. I don't understand how you can even come to the conclusion presented here.

I mean. No? I'm not going to reply by proxy. I don't suspect I'll need to reply much anyways, given my points haven't really changed based on what you've said. I disagree with 90% of the propositions, Xion and Xemnas scaling are fine for now but Xion's should be reduced to 2x rather than 4x. That's it.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

Apparently, AKM felt input was important from different voices. Fair enough, I suppose. Nobody wants an echo-chamber.

I don't feel this properly defends an outright multiplier. I don't understand how you can extrapolate it being an AP multiplier. Power is measured in many forms.

Yes, however I don't understand why we're assuming they're multiplied compared to each other. In fact, I doubt that was even the case being put forward in the OP, given a 4x multiplier still wouldn't make any sense whatsoever for that. Xion's multiplier being 2x is still fine for me.

My interpretation is that having twice the weapons doesn't equate to twice the AP. Like yeah, obviously it's better than one, but you have to give definitive proof that it literally multiplies his AP rather than give him double the opportunities to make use of his normal AP. I don't understand how you can even come to the conclusion presented here.

I mean. No? I'm not going to reply by proxy. I don't suspect I'll need to reply much anyways, given my points haven't really changed based on what you've said. I disagree with 90% of the propositions, Xion and Xemnas scaling are fine for now but Xion's should be reduced to 2x rather than 4x. That's it.

Abilities have been referred to alongside attack power which indicates that they are separate and therefore require to be mentioned together, so what else should attack power be if not Attack Potency?

I'm not sure if you understood what I said. The first device already multiplied Xion's power for which we would use 2 as the multiplier. In other words it added power equivalent to KHI Sora. Since the other two devices are by all appearances the same we have in total three devices each adding power equivalent to Sora which combined with Xion's already present power results in 4x KHI Sora. The math makes sense to me.

We have the statement of twice the attack power which is specifically linked to the second Keyblade and it has been consistently shown that the characters are stronger than they we're before upon obtaining the ability, do you really not understand how a statement about twice the attack power ends up getting interpreted as 2x multiplier for Attack Potency by someone? "Twice" and "attack power" really invite that interpretation, you'll have to admit that much, so I don't understand how you can't understand someone coming to that conclusion. It should be pretty understandable even if you ultimately don't agree.

Understandable. As for your conclusions refer to the above and my other comments.

 

[Bobsican]

As the thread has been dying for a few hours, I may as well mention that Nehz is right, the statements are portrayed with the intent for what to us is Attack Potency, it just coming from using one extra weapon doesn't necessarily turns it invalid to begin with, Sora clearly gets amped from the Drive Form more than just having a secondary weapon, if that's your issue; "twice the attack power" is in itself more than explicit enought for our purposes, and gives a proper value for this power increase.

In fact, Valor Form is stated to be an increase in strength and lets Sora unleash his strength to the fullest, and the other Drive Forms are at least comparable, some even straight up upscaling (Master Form is considered to be a mixture of Valor and Wisdom's positive traits, which already call upon the power of Goofy (Former) or Donald (Latter), while Final is stated to draw upon the Keyblade's true power)

While there's some Drive Forms that don't let Sora dual wield (Wisdom, Limit and Anti), Wisdom is comparable to Valor Form, given that it lets Sora use his magic to the fullest, and we all know Donald and Goofy are pretty comparable to each other in terms of power, and as for the other two...

https://www.khinsider.com/news/Famitsu-2006-Nomura-Interview-2569
Is anti-form originated from when Sora got turned into a Heartless?
"Story-wise, yes. Drives are very strong so anti-form exists as a side-effect of using too much power. System-wise, I wanted to create something strong but troublesome."

Overall, all the Drive Forms are considered as a noticeable increase in power, and this x2 statement gives us a direct value for our purposes, and even then it's a low-end overall given that I've also shown how some Drive Forms are stronger than others.

 

[SamanPatou]

Abilities have been referred to alongside attack power which indicates that they are separate and therefore require to be mentioned together, so what else should attack power be if not Attack Potency?

Not really, Sora casts all of his spells through the keyblade, and imho I still think attack power refers to him striking two times instead of one because of having two weapons, just like Bambu said.
The Drive forms clearly give you a boost, but receiving a boost is different from being able to attack with two weapons, they don't seem to be related.

Roxas was half of Sora's power at the time Sora turned into a Heartless. By the time he faced Xion he spent nearly a year under the tutelage of the Organization doing missions for them, so Roxas having gotten stronger isn't just a possibility but it is a canonical fact instead as far as I'm concerned. Evidence for that is among other things the mission where Roxas beat up Heartless with a stick while lending his Keyblade to Xion whereas KHI Sora failed to damage Heartless in Hollow Bastion with a wooden sword. Ansem's statement was made after Roxas attained his second Keyblade, fought Riku and was captured, so Ansem shouldn't have been ignorant of about how strong Roxas was at that time since he and Riku were cooperating. The fact that Riku doesn't object to that statement despite having been there further lends credence to that. This is why we equate Roxas to half of KHII Sora who has been explicitly stated to have become better than in KHI.

Wasn't Sora still asleep in Castel Obvlision by the time Ansem made that statement? How can he compare Roxas to KH2 if the latter still has to go through KH2?

Peter Pan and Stitch would be around the level of the Drive Forms according to what is proposed on the blog and since Xemnas fought against Sora and Riku simultaneously he would also be on that level, so no, this wouldn't put Peter Pan and Stitch far above Xemnas.

Isn't the blog scaling Stitch and Peter Pan to Terra, who's stronger than Xemnas?

There wouldn't really be a point in switching to Formchanges if Formchanges were inferior to Drive Forms and Sora wouldn't be at his strongest in KHIII if he couldn't somehow match the performance of Drive Forms in KHII. Therefore, it isn't a matter of there being a relation between Formchanges and Drive Forms but how they compare in terms of potency and performance.

I disagree with this, this is a matter of gameplay.
Games, not only KH, change and replace mechanics all the time for the sake of variety and innovations.
Just because some don't return in next games it doesn't mean the replacements are automatically better or stronger, just like it doesn't mean the characters forgot or lost them (unless stated)

 

[Bobsican]

Not really, Sora casts all of his spells through the keyblade, and imho I still think attack power refers to him striking two times instead of one because of having two weapons, just like Bambu said.
The Drive forms clearly give you a boost, but receiving a boost is different from being able to attack with two weapons, they don't seem to be related.


Wasn't Sora still asleep in Castel Obvlision by the time Ansem made that statement? How can he compare Roxas to KH2 if the latter still has to go through KH2?


Isn't the blog scaling Stitch and Peter Pan to Terra, who's stronger than Xemnas?



I disagree with this, this is a matter of gameplay.
Games, not only KH, change and replace mechanics all the time for the sake of variety and innovations.
Just because some don't return in next games it doesn't mean the replacements are automatically better or stronger, just like it doesn't mean the characters forgot or lost them (unless stated)

Hmmm...
TBH I'm neutral on if this doesn't also apply to dual wielding in general, but I'm leaning towards agreeing, but I'll note that Valor Form doesn't let Sora use magic spells in the first place, this is confirmed to be a canon detail in the Memorial Ultimania, and several moves with Drive Forms don't relate directly to just using two weapons for "hitting twice", such as Brave Shot and Disaster

Simple, he watched Sora do stuff across the plot of Chain of Memories (And there's already a interview confirming that KHI and CoM Sora are about the same in power), and he wasn't even in Castle Oblivion at the time that statement was made, but Twilight Town, they moved the pods for safety purposes, but that's off-topic. Anyways, as the first scenes of KHII explain, after Riku-Ansem defeated Roxas, he sent him to a digital Twilight Town while Naminé prepared the rest of Sora's memories for the merging with Roxas or so, while Ansem the Wise and Riku supervised whatever was going on in there, especially with Org XIII somehow finding a way in and them trying to kidnap Roxas.

Well, now that you mention it, it would probably be safer to just put them at the level of Xemnas, it would cause scaling issues otherwise as we all know LW still is quite high-tier even in KHIII, plus SDG didn't actually damage LW and so on at the time of KHII.

Yeah, these statements over Formchanges get too much into uh... game mechanics territory out of where they go, however, there's one detail to bring up that may be noticeable...
All (fully leveled) Formchanges have this "Ultimate Finish" move, which is stated to unlock the Keyblade's full potential, now, how is this relevant beyond being a simple flavor note? And the answer is on how Final Form is stated to also do the same thing as I've said in my previous post, so I wonder if this move in particular could also get the x2 multiplier accordingly, to remain consistent.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

Not really, Sora casts all of his spells through the keyblade, and imho I still think attack power refers to him striking two times instead of one because of having two weapons, just like Bambu said.
The Drive forms clearly give you a boost, but receiving a boost is different from being able to attack with two weapons, they don't seem to be related.


Wasn't Sora still asleep in Castel Obvlision by the time Ansem made that statement? How can he compare Roxas to KH2 if the latter still has to go through KH2?


Isn't the blog scaling Stitch and Peter Pan to Terra, who's stronger than Xemnas?



I disagree with this, this is a matter of gameplay.
Games, not only KH, change and replace mechanics all the time for the sake of variety and innovations.
Just because some don't return in next games it doesn't mean the replacements are automatically better or stronger, just like it doesn't mean the characters forgot or lost them (unless stated)

So, twice the attack power refers for you to the fact that there are two Keyblades and therefore two Keyblades through which Sora can cast his spells and it's also what Bambu meant? Good that you've clarified that now. Well, the matter with having two Keyblades to perform spells with wouldn't apply to Valor Form which disables magic and twice the attack power specifically refers to the act of having a second Keyblade in the left hand, so I don't think that magic was really considered for the statement. Simply having two Keyblades to attack with wouldn't actually double the attack power. Dual wielding in general is a bit more complicated than that. You can't just attack with twice the amount of attacks since the two weapons would get in the way of each other if you aren't careful and striking with both at once tends to have less accuracy and power. There is also the fact that he is now wielding each Keyblade with a single arm instead of wielding a single Keyblade with both arms which should reduce the amount of arm strength he can put into one single Keyblade. This is why dual wielding generally isn't that common in real life, so no, merely having two weapons to attack with alone wouldn't get you twice the attack power since that wouldn't cause a mere doubling of your attack rate.

Well, Ansem has seen Sora's actions in KHI and CoM. By the time of KHII Sora's pod was moved to Twillight Town where the equipment for the virtual Twillight Town was which is why Sora wakes up in Twillight Town and Roxas was able to reach him there. It isn't hard for me to imagine that Ansem had a good estimate of Sora's strength through monitoring and observing him with Naminé's and Riku's help during the time he was asleep.

Stitch and Peter Pan would scale to the level of Sora's Drive Forms which is the same as what Xemnas would scale to. Since Lingering Will was the strongest foe encountered, I wouldn't necessarily put Sora and his summons entirely on par with him in terms of strength though he was still able to hold his own until Lingering Will realized he wasn't Xehanort, the same can be applied to summons. Sora also had help from Donald and Goofy which would push the level at which he would have to perform to defend himself further down.

Actually, it was a plot point that Xehanort's attempt to make Sora his 13th vessel in 3D made him lose his powers and that he had to regain them, so yes, you can consider it to be stated. As for it simply being a matter of gameplay and mechanics, Formchanges are a canonical part of Sora's arsenal and we also have a statement of him being at his strongest in KHIII which makes sense from a narrative perspective and is backed up by him fighting some of the strongest characters in the series in KHIII. So, yes, not only did Sora lose his powers but he went for Formchanges instead of the regular Drive Forms which would make Formchanges at least on par with Drive Forms which is further backed up by him being at his strongest.

 

[SamanPatou]

So, twice the attack power refers for you to the fact that there are two Keyblades and therefore two Keyblades through which Sora can cast his spells and it's also what Bambu meant? Good that you've clarified that now. Well, the matter with having two Keyblades to perform spells with wouldn't apply to Valor Form which disables magic and twice the attack power specifically refers to the act of having a second Keyblade in the left hand, so I don't think that magic was really considered for the statement. Simply having two Keyblades to attack with wouldn't actually double the attack power. Dual wielding in general is a bit more complicated than that. You can't just attack with twice the amount of attacks since the two weapons would get in the way of each other if you aren't careful and striking with both at once tends to have less accuracy and power. There is also the fact that he is now wielding each Keyblade with a single arm instead of wielding a single Keyblade with both arms which should reduce the amount of arm strength he can put into one single Keyblade. This is why dual wielding generally isn't that common in real life, so no, merely having two weapons to attack with alone wouldn't get you twice the attack power since that wouldn't cause a mere doubling of your attack rate.

Leave realism out of this, as combat in KH doesn't clearly follow real world rules.
These people fight with giant keys instead of swords and do all kind of crazy acrobatic movements and else.
If the manual says that having two keyblades is better than one, then all realistic arguments about it not being practical get thrown out of the window, as their fighting style is all but bent on realism.
And still, what gives Twice attack power and abilities is having a second keyblade and I still think it refers to having a second weapon to do double attacks, instead of an actual power boost.

TBH I'm neutral on if this doesn't also apply to dual wielding in general, but I'm leaning towards agreeing, but I'll note that Valor Form doesn't let Sora use magic spells in the first place, this is confirmed to be a canon detail in the Memorial Ultimania, and several moves with Drive Forms don't relate directly to just using two weapons for "hitting twice", such as Brave Shot and Disaster

Yes, but imho, this is going too much into nitpicks, just because some moves don't require both keyblades it doesn't mean they aren't the main focus of some forms.
If the boost was actually dependant only on the number of keyblades, Limit and Valor form wouldn't have any multiplier and Anti-Form would make Sora weaker. Final Form is also clearly above the others, but still has only two keyblades, and the Ultimate Form from KH3 would be a 9X multiplier.
Imho this multiplier rule revolving around the number of keyblades just doesn't make sense overall, and I still think it's a generic but unquantifiable boost.

Simple, he watched Sora do stuff across the plot of Chain of Memories (And there's already a interview confirming that KHI and CoM Sora are about the same in power), and he wasn't even in Castle Oblivion at the time that statement was made, but Twilight Town, they moved the pods for safety purposes, but that's off-topic. Anyways, as the first scenes of KHII explain, after Riku-Ansem defeated Roxas, he sent him to a digital Twilight Town while Naminé prepared the rest of Sora's memories for the merging with Roxas or so, while Ansem the Wise and Riku supervised whatever was going on in there, especially with Org XIII somehow finding a way in and them trying to kidnap Roxas.

Well, Ansem has seen Sora's actions in KHI and CoM. By the time of KHII Sora's pod was moved to Twillight Town where the equipment for the virtual Twillight Town was which is why Sora wakes up in Twillight Town and Roxas was able to reach him there. It isn't hard for me to imagine that Ansem had a good estimate of Sora's strength through monitoring and observing him with Naminé's and Riku's help during the time he was asleep.

Wait, are we referring to Beginning of KH2 Sora or End of KH2 Sora, when talking about Roxas' power? (being half of Sora's).



About Stitch and Peter Pan, doesn't scaling them even to just Xemnas make contradictions? Birth by Sleep takes place before the entire series, and having Peter Pan and Stitch on Xemnas level at that point doesn't make sense neither with KH1 nor 2, where Sora joins forces with them and they clearly aren't leagues above everyone else. it's not like Sora goes around kicking heartless and other goons while having a Final Boss-level ally next to him (Peter) or as a summon (Stitch).

Actually, it was a plot point that Xehanort's attempt to make Sora his 13th vessel in 3D made him lose his powers and that he had to regain them, so yes, you can consider it to be stated. As for it simply being a matter of gameplay and mechanics, Formchanges are a canonical part of Sora's arsenal and we also have a statement of him being at his strongest in KHIII which makes sense from a narrative perspective and is backed up by him fighting some of the strongest characters in the series in KHIII. So, yes, not only did Sora lose his powers but he went for Formchanges instead of the regular Drive Forms which would make Formchanges at least on par with Drive Forms which is further backed up by him being at his strongest.

I know, I was talking in a more broad way, but just because KH3 Sora doesn't have Drive Forms, it doesn't mean they that Formchanges are all inherently better and stronger than them, they are just different and I don't see how they can be compared.

Yeah, these statements over Formchanges get too much into uh... game mechanics territory out of where they go, however, there's one detail to bring up that may be noticeable...
All (fully leveled) Formchanges have this "Ultimate Finish" move, which is stated to unlock the Keyblade's full potential, now, how is this relevant beyond being a simple flavor note? And the answer is on how Final Form is stated to also do the same thing as I've said in my previous post, so I wonder if this move in particular could also get the x2 multiplier accordingly, to remain consistent.

At the end of the day those are statements to point out how stronger they are, but it's unquantifiable and we can't just slap a 2X multiplier as a lowball.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

Leave realism out of this, as combat in KH doesn't clearly follow real world rules.
These people fight with giant keys instead of swords and do all kind of crazy acrobatic movements and else.
If the manual says that having two keyblades is better than one, then all realistic arguments about it not being practical get thrown out of the window, as their fighting style is all but bent on realism.
And still, what gives Twice attack power and abilities is having a second keyblade and I still think it refers to having a second weapon to do double attacks, instead of an actual power boost.


Yes, but imho, this is going too much into nitpicks, just because some moves don't require both keyblades it doesn't mean they aren't the main focus of some forms.
If the boost was actually dependant only on the number of keyblades, Limit and Valor form wouldn't have any multiplier and Anti-Form would make Sora weaker. Final Form is also clearly above the others, but still has only two keyblades, and the Ultimate Form from KH3 would be a 9X multiplier.
Imho this multiplier rule revolving around the number of keyblades just doesn't make sense overall, and I still think it's a generic but unquantifiable boost.




Wait, are we referring to Beginning of KH2 Sora or End of KH2 Sora, when talking about Roxas' power? (being half of Sora's).



About Stitch and Peter Pan, doesn't scaling them even to just Xemnas make contradictions? Birth by Sleep takes place before the entire series, and having Peter Pan and Stitch on Xemnas level at that point doesn't make sense neither with KH1 nor 2, where Sora joins forces with them and they clearly aren't leagues above everyone else. it's not like Sora goes around kicking heartless and other goons while having a Final Boss-level ally next to him (Peter) or as a summon (Stitch).


I know, I was talking in a more broad way, but just because KH3 Sora doesn't have Drive Forms, it doesn't mean they that Formchanges are all inherently better and stronger than them, they are just different and I don't see how they can be compared.


At the end of the day those are statements to point out how stronger they are, but it's unquantifiable and we can't just slap a 2X multiplier as a lowball.

Everything is based on reality to some extent and we wouldn't even be able to have a discussion about something if we couldn't apply logic as we know it in real life at it to some degree and having two weapons simply doesn't result in having twice the attack power. Besides attack power in its most literal meaning refers to the power of an attack and not to the rate at which you can launch attacks. Giant keys and acrobatic maneuvers are simply fantasy and action elements that have been included in the series respectivey and the fact that they aren't things you would encounter like that in real life has no bearings for the topic of this thread. Arguing to ignore logic based on suspension of disbelief is not a good argument in my opinion.

Nitpicking? We are having a discussion and all the details we consider relevant are being brought up and this will happen regardless of what you consider nitpicking. If twice the attack power refers to having twice the attack rate according to the developers' intent, then that would be the obvious focus for dual wielding which isn't the case. Besides nobody argued on multipliers based on the number of Keyblades. It's a multiplier tied to dual wielding Keyblades for which there is in fact a special ability. Even if the number of Keyblades was some sort of multiplier Ultimate Form Sora is surrounded by floating swords with only the sword he is actually wielding by hand being a Keyblade, so that wouldn't apply. Who would seriously argue for that sort of multiplier anyway when there is Xehanort with an entire Keyblade storm and Vanitas riding on them?

Well, the statement about Roxas being half of Sora's power was made shortly before he was ended up in the virtual Twillight Town, so that would refer to Sora at the beginning of KHII since said Sora gained Roxas' power and items.

They wouldn't be scaled to Xemnas but to Sora in his Drive Forms, so they wouldn't be massively superior to Sora in KHII. There is also the fact that neither Peter Pan nor Stitch are available as summons in KHI.

My argument was that Formchanges would need to be at least on par with Drive Forms to be worth being resorted to while forgoing Drive Forms. They would be different but at least on par. As for them being inherently better and stronger, that wasn't my actual argument, at least on par isn't inherently better and stronger. If you really want to make a case against my arguments, then it's better if you stick closer to my actual wording even if you are free to have your own interpretations.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Since Saman is upholding the conversation satisfactorily, I'm just going to chime in and say that thus far I largely agree with his objections, especially in regards to the 2x keyblade thing.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

Since Saman is upholding the conversation satisfactorily, I'm just going to chime in and say that thus far I largely agree with his objections, especially in regards to the 2x keyblade thing.

Okay.

 

[Antvasima]

So should we go with Saman's conclusions then?

 

[Nehz_XZX]

So should we go with Saman's conclusions then?

Wait, we are already going for the conclusions and it's SamanPatou's? I didn't get the impression that we had gotten that far yet and I have yet to receive an answer to my latest arguments.

 

[SamanPatou]

It's better to see if more people are interested, I don't want to necessarily be marked as the one who has arbitrarily decided to kill the revision

Everything is based on reality to some extent and we wouldn't even be able to have a discussion about something if we couldn't apply logic as we know it in real life at it to some degree and having two weapons simply doesn't result in having twice the attack power. Besides attack power in its most literal meaning refers to the power of an attack and not to the rate at which you can launch attacks. Giant keys and acrobatic maneuvers are simply fantasy and action elements that have been included in the series respectivey and the fact that they aren't things you would encounter like that in real life has no bearings for the topic of this thread. Arguing to ignore logic based on suspension of disbelief is not a good argument in my opinion.

Ok, but my point was more like "If the game says that wielding two weapons is better than one, then it works in-verse regardless of real life implications.

Nitpicking? We are having a discussion and all the details we consider relevant are being brought up and this will happen regardless of what you consider nitpicking. If twice the attack power refers to having twice the attack rate according to the developers' intent, then that would be the obvious focus for dual wielding which isn't the case. Besides nobody argued on multipliers based on the number of Keyblades. It's a multiplier tied to dual wielding Keyblades for which there is in fact a special ability. Even if the number of Keyblades was some sort of multiplier Ultimate Form Sora is surrounded by floating swords with only the sword he is actually wielding by hand being a Keyblade, so that wouldn't apply. Who would seriously argue for that sort of multiplier anyway when there is Xehanort with an entire Keyblade storm and Vanitas riding on them?

I meant nitpicking with using a couple of single-weapon attacks to discard the "twice attack rate" is too specific, also because the manual clearly refers to having a second keyblade, which doesn't even apply to all Drive forms.
I made the multiple Keyblade example to further state how I disagree with the notion of the keyblades being actual amps.


The statements about (almost) Beginning of KH2 Sora being a master swordsman and him damaging Jafar could imply he is stronger than end of KH1 Sora, then it would make sense for Roxas to be so strong.

They wouldn't be scaled to Xemnas but to Sora in his Drive Forms, so they wouldn't be massively superior to Sora in KHII. There is also the fact that neither Peter Pan nor Stitch are available as summons in KHI.

Peter Pan is an ally in KH1, but he still isn't incredibly more powerful than Sora and everyone else.

I've also got lost regarding their scaling, first the blog says they scale to BbS Terra (who's above Xemnas) because they either fought him (Peter Pan) or helped him and are stronger than another one who fought him (Stitch above Sparky).
Then it was said they would scale to Drive forms, but why exaclty?

Also, if Peter Pan is really as strong as a Drive form (which can fight Xemnas), it means in KH1 he's far stronger than Sora and his allies when he joins them in their journey, and honestly it doesn't make sense.
The same works for summon Stitch in KH2, getting his summon would basically mean Sora got someone as strong as himself when he fights Xemnas at the end of the game.

My argument was that Formchanges would need to be at least on par with Drive Forms to be worth being resorted to while forgoing Drive Forms. They would be different but at least on par. As for them being inherently better and stronger, that wasn't my actual argument, at least on par isn't inherently better and stronger. If you really want to make a case against my arguments, then it's better if you stick closer to my actual wording even if you are free to have your own interpretations.

Not necessarily, I don't see why they'd be on par just because Formchanges replaced Drive forms as a gameplay element.



Also, once we end the debate, the blog should be rewritter to have a more clear view of how what gets accepted influences the scaling.



Btw, I still agree with Xion, high end 4X or low end 2X are the same to me, both have their reasons.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

It's better to see if more people are interested, I don't want to necessarily be marked as the one who has arbitrarily decided to kill the revision


Ok, but my point was more like "If the game says that wielding two weapons is better than one, then it works in-verse regardless of real life implications.


I meant nitpicking with using a couple of single-weapon attacks to discard the "twice attack rate" is too specific, also because the manual clearly refers to having a second keyblade, which doesn't even apply to all Drive forms.
I made the multiple Keyblade example to further state how I disagree with the notion of the keyblades being actual amps.


The statements about (almost) Beginning of KH2 Sora being a master swordsman and him damaging Jafar could imply he is stronger than end of KH1 Sora, then it would make sense for Roxas to be so strong.

Peter Pan is an ally in KH1, but he still isn't incredibly more powerful than Sora and everyone else.

I've also got lost regarding their scaling, first the blog says they scale to BbS Terra (who's above Xemnas) because they either fought him (Peter Pan) or helped him and are stronger than another one who fought him (Stitch above Sparky).
Then it was said they would scale to Drive forms, but why exaclty?

Also, if Peter Pan is really as strong as a Drive form (which can fight Xemnas), it means in KH1 he's far stronger than Sora and his allies when he joins them in their journey, and honestly it doesn't make sense.
The same works for summon Stitch in KH2, getting his summon would basically mean Sora got someone as strong as himself when he fights Xemnas at the end of the game.



Not necessarily, I don't see why they'd be on par just because Formchanges replaced Drive forms as a gameplay element.



Also, once we end the debate, the blog should be rewritter to have a more clear view of how what gets accepted influences the scaling.



Btw, I still agree with Xion, high end 4X or low end 2X are the same to me, both have their reasons.

That still leaves the question as to how exactly two Keyblades are better than one with it being explicitly said that there is twice the attack power with them. If it's supposed to refer to the attack rate, then it isn't exactly explicit and the real life implications do make it more difficult to consider it to be the actual intended interpretation here.

Three out of six Drive Forms dual wield and if the Drive Forms can be considered comparable to each other than the 2x multiplier could be applied to all of them. That would of course be subject to discussion about the scaling in regards to the multipliers. The multiple Keyblade example still doesn't really work out since nobody other than you brought that sort of thing up, so it kinda detracts from the actual topic. What is argued here isn't that a character's power gets multiplied by the number of Keyblades they wield but that dual wielding with Keyblades, also known as an ability called Synch Blade, is a 2x multiplier for a character's power which is consistent with how both Roxas and Sora get depicted as significantly stronger when dual wielding.

Sora gained Roxas' power, so he's stronger than he was in KHI by default. Becoming stronger is also generally a natural consequence of the body growing which happened for Sora during the year he slept. Him later fighting against Roxas, the Organization members and most of all Xemnas along with everything else make it in my opinion very clear that he is stronger than in KHI.

Peter Pan isn't really depicted as being far inferior after his fight with Terra though. I'd also like to note that he isn't an available summon in KHI, Sora can only summon him in KHII and only has Tinkerbell in KHI. The thing about Sora's summons is that they would be useless if they cannot contribute to a fight to some degree and that generally includes an appropriate level of power. These summons can for all I care actually be below the Drive Forms but they cannot be too far behind if they are supposed to have a meaningful effect on a battle, so they'd be around that general level. Besides, summons have a limited duration, so it's not like as if they are there all the time.

I'm not talking about Drive Forms or Formchanges from a gameplay perspective. It's a fact that Sora has began using Formchanges instead of Drive Forms in KHIII even though he theoretically could have gotten them early on like in KHII. So, it doesn't make any sense for Sora to go for them if Formchanges are in fact inferior to Drive Forms. If the Formchanges cannot match the Drive Forms in power, then they should be compensating for that in terms of hax and utility enough for Sora to use them instead and I'm not really seeing that.

I can agree with the blog getting rewritten. The purpose of this thread is basically to discuss its contents, so that's a given.

I do think that the 4x multiplier would be more justified since Xion's first transformation would already have the 2x multiplier with three more transformations following and it's far from unreasonable to assume that each of the three devices gave the same boost due to them being the same.

 

[Bobsican]

I'll also note that Captain Hook was able to put up a fight to Ventus in BbS, who SDG and Peter Pan fight in KHI, and of course I think it would be best to only scale Peter Pan to this to avoid scaling loops, which is consistent with Peter Pan being the one dealing the final blow, also, Sora's Peter Pan summoning in KHII does also include Tinker Bell, although she still does the same stuff as in KHI (Aka, be a cleric that also revives Sora once).

I'm still neutral on if Formchanges are equal or superior to Drive Forms in terms of power boost, I'd rather check the KHIII Ultimania when Archive.org isn't down before commenting further on that on my part.

And I also agree with the x4 multiplier, given that it's not a single multiplier per-say, but rather a multiplier done 4 times, so x4 is a reasonable to me overall.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

And I also agree with the x4 multiplier, given that it's not a single multiplier per-say, but rather a multiplier done 4 times, so x4 is a reasonable to me overall.

I thought of it less like a repeated multiplier and more like a repeated addition. Added strength equivalent to Sora per device. If we were to go for each device multiplying, then we would have 2^3 which would be 8x above KHI Sora which I wouldn't necessarily agree with.

 

[Bobsican]

Oh, I see, in that case it may be best to just go for the mid-end of x4 if you ask me, but I'm open for what others think.

 

[Antvasima]

What do you think Saman?

 

[SamanPatou]

I will reply soon, uni has started for me once again and yesterday I was too tired to reply well.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. No problem at all. Please take your time.

 

[Bobsican]

Bump.

 

[Antvasima]

@SamanPatou

 

[SamanPatou]

The isuue regarding the double keyblade can't really be solved in an ultimate way, I still believe they refer to twice the attack rate and I refuse to consider realistic implications when there's no room for the to be used in the first place.
It all falls down on opinions and interpretations.

Peter Pan isn't a summon, but still is a party member in Neverland. Considering him comparable to Drive form KH2 Sora because he fought Terra, means that in KH1 Sora and his party had an ally that was incredibly stronger than them and who could have easily defeated Ansem himself.
Even Captain Hook scaling to Ventus would make him much stronger than SDG in KH1, it still feels off. Here, Disney characters (aside from main ones like Donald, Mickey etc..) are used more as an example of "everyone can fight everyone", meaning that, for plot purpose, they are comparable to the BbS protagonists, then to the KH1 characters and so on, although it wouldn't make sense.


I also still disagree with comparing Drive Forms to Formchanges just because the former weren't available in KH3.
If we get a statement or something about Sora saying that he actually decided to stop using them because they aren't as efficient as Formchanges, then it's good, but without that it's just a decision the developer made to change the gameplay .

 

[Nehz_XZX]

The isuue regarding the double keyblade can't really be solved in an ultimate way, I still believe they refer to twice the attack rate and I refuse to consider realistic implications when there's no room for the to be used in the first place.
It all falls down on opinions and interpretations.

Peter Pan isn't a summon, but still is a party member in Neverland. Considering him comparable to Drive form KH2 Sora because he fought Terra, means that in KH1 Sora and his party had an ally that was incredibly stronger than them and who could have easily defeated Ansem himself.
Even Captain Hook scaling to Ventus would make him much stronger than SDG in KH1, it still feels off. Here, Disney characters (aside from main ones like Donald, Mickey etc..) are used more as an example of "everyone can fight everyone", meaning that, for plot purpose, they are comparable to the BbS protagonists, then to the KH1 characters and so on, although it wouldn't make sense.


I also still disagree with comparing Drive Forms to Formchanges just because the former weren't available in KH3.
If we get a statement or something about Sora saying that he actually decided to stop using them because they aren't as efficient as Formchanges, then it's good, but without that it's just a decision the developer made to change the gameplay .

The issue with your twice the attack rate idea is that something like attack rate isn't explicitly stated in the series and ignoring the realistic implications is selectively ignoring logic to suit your idea that it is the attack rate despite the already mentioned issues with that.

Peter Pan fought against Terra and is available as a summon in KHII. This much is a fact and in an indexing wiki we would be indexing that on the profiles. Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts 2 are two games in comparison to Kingdom Hearts I which is one game which you base your argument on. While it might seem weird for him to be that strong Sora, Donald and Goofy couldn't take him out of his world without breaking the world order and if it is possible to interpret the events in Neverland without contradicting his feats in other games, then that is what we should be going for to mantain consistency. Everything else would simply be arguing out of sheer disbelief.

Nobody argues a comparability of Drive Forms and Formchanges because of gameplay or even the decisions of developers. The comparison is based on what would make sense from an in-universe perspective, so I'd like you to base your arguments on an in-universe perspective as well. Fact is that Sora is at his strongest in KHIII and that he is beginning to use Formchanges shortly after beginning his journey in that game like he did in KHII with Drive Forms, so that naturally has comparisons as a consequence. Maybe he wanted to simply try something new but he certainly isn't going to make himself purposely weaker than he could be considering what he is up against.

 

[Bobsican]

Also, Lingering Will is stated to use his Keyblade with more ease than Sora, and considering that LW was the first character showing such an act (Formchanging), and thus this act being clearly considered superior than just using two Keyblades... yeah.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

Also, Lingering Will is stated to use his Keyblade with more ease than Sora, and considering that LW was the first character showing such an act (Formchanging), and thus this act being clearly considered superior than just using two Keyblades... yeah.

Do I understand this right in the sense that all instances of a Keyblade Wielder changing the forms fo their Keyblade would be considered a 2x multiplier? It would certainly even the power distribution among Keyblade Wielders.

 

[Bobsican]

Do I understand this right in the sense that all instances of a Keyblade Wielder changing the forms fo their Keyblade would be considered a 2x multiplier? It would certainly even the power distribution among Keyblade Wielders.

Likely so, Aqua, Terra and Ventus have the capability to change the form of their Keyblades with the Command Styles, and they're portrayed as an amplification of power really.

 

[SamanPatou]

I don't like to use realistic implications use a method of judgement, with this logic keyblades would be shitty weapons and a lot of other stuff made to look cool would be dangerous, unnecessary, not convenient etc., we are talking about a verse that heavily plunges into fantasy when it comes to combat, using real life logic to push for something is something I won't accept, especially when the original information is vague and comes from a secondary source.
At this point we are just bashing out heads onto each other's with the same arguments, this can only be solved with votes.

Peter Pan's inconsistent affair might be solved with a varies or a combination of likely/possibly for the ratings, it might be more consistent due to making sense in two games over one, but it there still is a discrepancy.

You can use in-verse perspective if this is stated, mentioned or referred in the games. Just because Drive forms are suddenly unavailable in the next game, it doesn't mean the characters actually realized they have better powers and discarded them, or just forgot how to use it.
I could make many examples of series changing mechanics, movesets and stuff from a game to another, but in-verse comparison should be made only if the story or the lore actually supports this with solid evidences.

 

[Antvasima]

Saman, can you summarise the arguments here please?

 

[Bobsican]

If anything we could just label the portrayal of Peter Pan and Captain Hook in KHI as an outlier, given that there's more feats to just scale them higher than KHI Sora and company.

That being said, I'll wait for Saman to summarize other thoughts he may have, also, this would only leave the Xion multiplier of x4, and Roxas having half of Sora's power as the only accepted non-unquantificable multipliers, right?