Martial Arts & Skill on Profiles

[Lacku]

I was looking at the Martial Arts ability on the wiki and how it’s been used and I was wondering are we ever going to expand on or change how it works? It’s surprisingly basic and doesn’t really convey how good someone is at fighting. At least in my opinion, I don’t think it’s right that characters like Kingpin or Arthur Morgan who are brawlers share the same ability as trained fighters like Daredevil and Goku that just shows that they have some level of fighting ability. We do have the intelligence section but even then sometimes a character could have for example Extraordinary Genius with no mention of any skill feats while also having Martial Arts in their ability section.

I was thinking maybe we could change the ability to have tiers based on how adept someone is like the new Ki Manipulation page Dragon Ball has. Thoughts?

 

[Suigetsuhyugs]

I was looking at the Martial Arts ability on the wiki and how it’s been used and I was wondering are we ever going to expand on or change how it works? It’s surprisingly basic and doesn’t really convey how good someone is at fighting. At least in my opinion, I don’t think it’s right that characters like Kingpin or Arthur Morgan who are brawlers share the same ability as trained fighters like Daredevil and Goku that just shows that they have some level of fighting ability. We do have the intelligence section but even then sometimes a character could have for example Extraordinary Genius with no mention of any skill feats while also having Martial Arts in their ability section.

I was thinking maybe we could change the ability to have tiers based on how adept someone is like the new Ki Manipulation page Dragon Ball has. Thoughts?

I agree that is a problem for a lot of abilities another example is also for poison, because of the lack of actual levels or clear layers you could have Captain America resist poison ivy's poison manipulation which is ridiculous. For fire it's easy you can measure each one by the amoung of temperature one endured but other abilities don't have a simple way to measure it.
The problem is there is not a definitive way to measure their levels
I mean sure you could say that A who learned 3 marcial arts is better than B who learned only one, but there are many variables there like A only trained them for 1 year so his level in each of them is low while B trained 1 marcial art for his entire life being a master, overall B would most likely win over A in these scenario.
There are also marcial arts that are significantly better in technique, since marcial arts have different "goals" like marcial arts who are focused on lethal ways or on incapacitating.

The wiki falls short on hax level, you have some verses where layers are actually defined although you have search for it in other pages which aren't even linked in the profile, but most verses don't even have that.

 

[Nullflowerblush]

At least in my opinion, I don’t think it’s right that characters like Kingpin or Arthur Morgan who are brawlers share the same ability as trained fighters like Daredevil and Goku that just shows that they have some level of fighting ability.

that's what justifications are for

We do have the intelligence section

or that.

 

[Lacku]

that's what justifications are for

Those justifications sometimes go completely unused. Additionally sometimes a character with no sort of training can hold their own in fights and still get to have the ability Martial Arts on their profile. It’s a strange generalisation that could be better. Imagine if Immortality didn’t have types and we had to solely rely on justifications, sure it’s possible but what we have now is far more efficient.

 

[Lacku]

I agree that is a problem for a lot of abilities another example is also for poison, because of the lack of actual levels or clear layers you could have Captain America resist poison ivy's poison manipulation which is ridiculous. For fire it's easy you can measure each one by the amoung of temperature one endured but other abilities don't have a simple way to measure it.
The problem is there is not a definitive way to measure their levels
I mean sure you could say that A who learned 3 marcial arts is better than B who learned only one, but there are many variables there like A only trained them for 1 year so his level in each of them is low while B trained 1 marcial art for his entire life being a master, overall B would most likely win over A in these scenario.
There are also marcial arts that are significantly better in technique, since marcial arts have different "goals" like marcial arts who are focused on lethal ways or on incapacitating.

The wiki falls short on hax level, you have some verses where layers are actually defined although you have search for it in other pages which aren't even linked in the profile, but most verses don't even have that.

I agree with what you’re saying, there’s a lot of depth when it comes to fighting skill but we could still try to make the ability less vague. Even having an untrained or basic level tier followed by an adept and then master tier would be at least something.

 

[Suigetsuhyugs]

Those justifications sometimes go completely unused. Additionally sometimes a character with no sort of training can hold their own in fights and still get to have the ability Martial Arts on their profile. It’s a strange generalisation that could be better. Imagine if Immortality didn’t have types and we had to solely rely on justifications, sure it’s possible but what we have now is far more efficient.

The anilities of "mastery" like vehicle mastery, weapon mastery, marcial arts are very often used wrong, there are profiles giving vehicle mastery because one has a license,or weapon mastery because a guy used a bat once

 

[Nullflowerblush]

Imagine if Immortality didn’t have types and we had to solely rely on justifications

Immortality and being able to use your body to punch and kick good are not quite the same.

 

[Lacku]

Immortality and being able to use your body to punch and kick good are not quite the same.

Still we could make the ability less vague. That goes for many others too but with the whole point of the wiki literally being on indexing the strength of characters you’d think there’d be more to the only ability that revolves around fighting skill.

 

[Lacku]

The anilities of "mastery" like vehicle mastery, weapon mastery, marcial arts are very often used wrong, there are profiles giving vehicle mastery because one has a license,or weapon mastery because a guy used a bat once

There’s a lot that should be improved but still with this being a wiki about how strong characters are shouldn’t updating Martial Arts be a priority?

 

[Suigetsuhyugs]

I agree with what you’re saying, there’s a lot of depth when it comes to fighting skill but we could still try to make the ability less vague. Even having an untrained or basic level tier followed by an adept and then master tier would be at least something.

For me marcial arts should be similar to the intelligence stat for genius.
1-"significant degree in 1 or more martial arts"
2-"mastery over 1 marcial art"
3-"mastery over more than 1 marcial art"

There’s a lot that should be improved but still with this being a wiki about how strong characters are shouldn’t updating Martial Arts be a priority?

This would need to be a wiki wide revision so you need a staff revision and it most likely would have to applied slowly or only for the new pages because of how common the ability is on profiles with over 8000 with marcial artist category

 

[Lacku]

For me marcial arts should be similar to the intelligence stat for genius.
1-"significant degree in 1 or more martial arts"
2-"mastery over 1 marcial art"
3-"mastery over more than 1 marcial art"

Even then I think the ability should be renamed (which I think a thread was made for not too long ago) or reworked as a whole since like I mentioned before characters can have no form of training whatsoever and still be capable fighters and I think that also needs to be taken into account. I do like that tiering system though and think something like that could work.

This would need to be a wiki wide revision so you need a staff revision and it most likely would have to applied slowly or only for the new pages because of how common the ability is on profiles with over 8000 with marcial artist category

That’s the thing I don’t know how to go about this since I’m not a staff member or anything and usually they handle this type of thing. I thought I’d at least try to get some thoughts on it but where to go from here idk.

 

[Suigetsuhyugs]

Even then I think the ability should be renamed (which I think a thread was made for not too long ago) or reworked as a whole since like I mentioned before characters can have no form of training whatsoever and still be capable fighters and I think that also needs to be taken into account. I do like that tiering system though and think something like that could work.

Marcial arts is not supposed to be a fighting level stat, marcial arts is for who knows marcial arts not for every character who can throw a punch

That’s the thing I don’t know how to go about this since I’m not a staff member or anything and usually they handle this type of thing. I thought I’d at least try to get some thoughts on it but where to go from here idk.

You need to talk with a staff member

 

[Lacku]

Marcial arts is not supposed to be a fighting level stat, marcial arts is for who knows marcial arts not for every character who can throw a punch

If that’s the case it’s been used incorrectly for at least a couple dozen or even hundred profiles. There’s far more to fighting skill than just knowing a Martial Art so I think that should be changed or expanded on.

You need to talk with a staff member

I’ll see what I can do.

 

[First_Witch]

Martial Arts as per definition is different from what the Wiki intends with the ability page. There was a discussion about renaming the ability page, but there was simply no elegant solution.

Martial Arts (VSB) is not solely about knowing combat arts, but about unarmed combat in general. So long you were a skilled Close Quarter Combatant, you were elligible for it. So yes, a wild, formless brawler would still be elligible so long he shown high combat skill.

 

[Lacku]

Martial Arts as per definition is different from what the Wiki intends with the ability page. There was a discussion about renaming the ability page, but there was simply no elegant solution.

Martial Arts (VSB) is not solely about knowing combat arts, but about unarmed combat in general. So long you were a skilled Close Quarter Combatant, you were elligible for it. So yes, a wild, formless brawler would still be elligible so long he shown high combat skill.

With that being the case I still think we should do an overhaul of the ability to properly display or even elaborate on that rather than having it just vaguely be named Martial Arts and leaving it at that.

 

[Nullflowerblush]

Martial arts are simply the practice of combat, hence the name. Technically, they should include Weapon Mastery as well, but the mere act of flailing your arms about either in way of defense or offense is, in essence, an application of martial arts, regardless of skill or intent. Martial Arts is a broad set of abilities, not defined by any metric like Intelligence or Immortality.

 

[First_Witch]

With that being the case I still think we should do an overhaul of the ability to properly display or even elaborate on that rather than having it just vaguely be named Martial Arts and leaving it at that.

For what it is worth, that fact is mentioned in the ability.

To quote the page

" For our purposes, martial arts is given to those and only those who possess notable skill in unarmed combat."

The Page isnt there to serve as a guideline for hand to hand combat skill, but as a way to note down that your character can punch really well in a bullet point list/text wall. You will never just write down martial arts in a character page and leave it at that. You elaborate on it in the justification.

 

[Arkenis]

Agreed. I've been labeling the character pages I make with proficient or master to draw distinction.

I think Shiro notably the intelligence section helps illustrate the skill he has in combat.

This thread goes more in depth on we should scale skill also.
https://vsbattles.com/threads/ficti...-and-you-giving-skill-a-concrete-form.162561/