• This forum is strictly intended to be used by members of the VS Battles wiki. Please only register if you have an autoconfirmed account there, as otherwise your registration will be rejected. If you have already registered once, do not do so again, and contact Antvasima if you encounter any problems.

    For instructions regarding the exact procedure to sign up to this forum, please click here.
  • We need Patreon donations for this forum to have all of its running costs financially secured.

    Community members who help us out will receive badges that give them several different benefits, including the removal of all advertisements in this forum, but donations from non-members are also extremely appreciated.

    Please click here for further information, or here to directly visit our Patreon donations page.
  • Please click here for information about a large petition to help children in need.

Mind Manipulation revision: Numbers ain't everything

Status
Not open for further replies.
Bobsican

Bobsican

He/Him
Messages
21,646
Reaction score
6,286
Okay, this has bugged me for years, and while it sounds ridiculous in paper, Mind Manip potency shouldn't just be measured on how many are affected at once, then claim that X can just concentrate that much power into a single target to bypass a "baseline" resistance.

There's an obvious burden of proof to claim if a mind hax works like that in the first place, let alone it being usable like that to target a single individual.

For example, character A inflicts a change on the way the minds of those inflicted work (aka, mindhax in this way), and all it's required for this to trigger is them hearing a noise, this noise was spreaded eventually as he traveled across a place, and then millions got mindhaxed in the long run accordingly. Does this means this mindhax has the potency of all of them at once? No, and that's because it doesn't work like that to begin with, that would be like saying that a disease that affected millions is this strong against a single individual (and even then a confirmation of the user being able to concentrate that into a single target is required), and so it would just be range, not "Y can mindhax thousands of people, so your character isn't resisting it", but instead more like "While Y can mindhax thousands of people, there's nothing to claim that their mindhax potency is related to numbers nor that it can be "concentrated" to a single opponent, so X's baseline resistance covers it".

And just lowering or raising the range isn't something that can just be assumed to be within the mindhaxer's capability, let alone such act turning the mind manip "stronger". Just because a time stop affects a universe, doesn't mean that limiting it to a single area (or vice versa) means that the time stop is necessarily "stronger" in there, for instance.

Therefore, I'd like if it's done more on a case by case basis, but not defaulting to numbers for potency, we don't do that to Time Manipulation or Disease Manipulation, for instance, but rather just "resistance layers", as we do with many other hax abilities, at least by default.
 
Actually, I believe last time the topic is brought up, we also factor the fact that active mind manipulation is usually stronger than passive mind manipulation as far as individual targets are concerned. Exception is if character A is basically immune to character B's active mind manipulation despite to otherwise have excellent control over an entire planet and then character C has a better version that easily effects them despite being passive. But we otherwise factor the fact that someone needs to be more active to prove someone's resistance is that good to begin with.

Another example is that we also consider the fact that the potency of mind manipulation is determined based on individuals being intelligent lifeforms and the like as opposed to it being mostly animals.
 
I agree, I remember when someone asked this regarding time manipulation, and it was also answered that the potential is measured by capes and not by range.
 
Rikimarox2 said:
Absolutely agree with this. Though, wouldn't the same be said to soul manip?
Click to expand...
TBH yes. Someone being able to absorb countless souls doesn't mean that "countless power" is applied to each individual one, nor that the one doing so can necessarily concentrate such power to a single target for the purposes of soul manip.
 
For the record, this would affect several previous vs threads, such as Star Wars characters no longer having "OP" mindhax out of the numbers not being really quantificable for this kind of purpose anymore.
 
This would effect the potency of virtually any character with mind/soul hax, drastically at that.

Rarely ever does a series show that it can or needs to be focused on a single character

Regardless, why is this any different from the several previous threads that were rejected regarding this topic? People have tried revising how we determine mind/soul hax potency for years, no idea why there's suddenly been such a massive change in opinion.
 
Purgy said:
This would effect the potency of virtually any character with mind/soul hax, drastically at that.

Rarely ever does the series show that it can or needs to be focused on a single character

Regardless, why is this any different from the several previous threads that were rejected regarding this topic? People have tried revising how we determine mind/soul hax potency for years, no idea why there's suddenly been such a massive change in opinion.
Click to expand...
Yeah, site-wide changes aren't unheard of.

Yeah, and that's not even exactly the issue, but rather such act actually raising its power, and even then by how much would be unquantificable compared to a resistance to bypass, we don't take someone time stopping a group of 5 characters that resist time stop as bypassing 5 resistance layers, but just 1 layer, for instance, so neither should we assume that mindhaxing 4 people (with a fifth one resisting) has the potency of 5 resistance layers (the 4 people didn't even have a resistance), let alone the one resisting having a resistance level that large (5 resistance layers) when there's nothing supporting the power working like that (or being measurable for our purposes normally, frankly), it's hax, after all.

Perhaps because better arguments were brought up, something not being approved for a while doesn't mean it's necessarily inherently wrong in the first place either.
 
Last edited:
Bobsican said:
Yeah, and that's not even exactly the issue, but rather such act actually raising its power, and even then by how much would be unquantificable compared to a resistance to bypass, we don't take someone time stopping a group of 5 characters that resist time stop as bypassing 5 resistance layers, but just 1 layer, for instance.
Click to expand...
I don't think any comparison of soul/mind hax to time hax works. Both are drastically different haxxes.
Time hax can only be measured in layers or smurf or some other whacky attributes like time stopping in timeless voids and such.
We never even use ""numbers"" for time hax to begin with.

Meanwhile numbers work for measuring mind/soul hax because these act like mental/astral AP/durability. And multitasking aspect comes into play aswell. These are two only haxxes I know that use numbers as one of factors in judging potency. Aside from smurf, abstract and other factors.
So I don't see why we have to steer away from good enough system we already have.

If someone wants mind/soul hax potency to judged unconventionally from default....then they should make that case for that specific verse. I don't see need to unnecessarily drag entire wiki into this.
 
GilverTheProtoAngelo said:
I don't think any comparison of soul/mind hax to time hax works. Both are drastically different haxxes.
Time hax can only be measured in layers or smurf or some other whacky attributes like time stopping in timeless voids and such.
We never even use ""numbers"" for time hax to begin with.

Meanwhile numbers work for measuring mind/soul hax because these act like mental/astral AP/durability. And multitasking aspect comes into play aswell. These are two only haxxes I know that use numbers as one of factors in judging potency. Aside from smurf, abstract and other factors.
So I don't see why we have to steer away from good enough system we already have.

If someone wants mind/soul hax potency to judged unconventionally from default....then they should make that case for that specific verse. I don't see need to unnecessarily drag entire wiki into this.
Click to expand...
So just analize the specific cases?
 
Bobsican said:
Yeah, site-wide changes aren't unheard of.

Yeah, and that's not even exactly the issue, but rather such act actually raising its power, and even then by how much would be unquantificable compared to a resistance to bypass, we don't take someone time stopping a group of 5 characters that resist time stop as bypassing 5 resistance layers, but just 1 layer, for instance, so neither should we assume that mindhaxing 4 people (with a fifth one resisting) has the potency of 5 resistance layers, let alone the one resisting having a resistance that large when there's nothing supporting the power working like that, it's hax, after all.

Perhaps because better arguments were brought up, something being not approved for a while doesn't mean it's necessarily inherently wrong in the first place either.
Click to expand...
I'm just pointing out how much of an impact this actually has, it's not just a small CRT affecting a few characters, it completely changes how potency for hax is quantified here.

Sounds like your problem is more with how we compare numerical hax potency to overcoming resistance, I don't think the best solution to this is to essentially remove potency for number of characters effected entirely, which is what your proposal would basically lead to with such a specific requirement.

Anyway, as for my opinion on the topic, I think it's fine as it is, though truth be told, I don't much care, it doesn't impact anything I care about.
 
Bobsican said:
For the record, this would affect several previous vs threads, such as Star Wars characters no longer having "OP" mindhax out of the numbers not being really quantificable for this kind of purpose anymore.
Click to expand...
just want to point out that Star Wars wouldn't be affected, as since their mind hax come from manipulating the Force there's no reason to assume they can't concentrate all the power to mindhax X number of people into a single person

though, neutral otherwise
 
GilverTheProtoAngelo said:
I don't think any comparison of soul/mind hax to time hax works. Both are drastically different haxxes.
Time hax can only be measured in layers or smurf or some other whacky attributes like time stopping in timeless voids and such.
We never even use ""numbers"" for time hax to begin with.

Meanwhile numbers work for measuring mind/soul hax because these act like mental/astral AP/durability. And multitasking aspect comes into play aswell. These are two only haxxes I know that use numbers as one of factors in judging potency. Aside from smurf, abstract and other factors.
So I don't see why we have to steer away from good enough system we already have.

If someone wants mind/soul hax potency to judged unconventionally from default....then they should make that case for that specific verse. I don't see need to unnecessarily drag entire wiki into this.
Click to expand...
Indeed, and this raises the question on why we don't do that to mind manip, and no, it's a false equivalency, mind manip is hax, and any kind of "durability" to overcome would just be a resistance, and even then it has to show someone resisting it, then bypassing it in some way to claim that it bypasses at least one resistance layer, going back to my previous example, doing a hax to multiple people that resist that ability (example, time stop) is just range and is bypassing a single resistance layer, not multiple.

In fact, we don't assume that a move with more range than a regular one is necessarily stronger than the other (or vice versa) to begin with by default, so the AP argument is moot.

Purgy said:
I'm just pointing out how much of an impact this actually has, it's not just a small CRT affecting a few characters, it completely changes how potency for hax is quantified here.

Sounds like your problem is more with how we compare numerical hax potency to overcoming resistance, I don't think the best solution to this is to essentially remove potency for number of characters effected entirely, which is what your proposal would basically lead to with such a specific requirement.

Anyway, as for my opinion on the topic, I think it's fine as it is, though truth be told, I don't much care, it doesn't impact anything I care about.
Click to expand...
Fine by me.

Well, as I've described previously, this kind of "potency" is just unquantificable at best, and we don't just jump adding numbers for the sake of making something usable outside its setting (Aka, a vs thread), this being the exception for no apparent reason really sticks out.
That being said, if this passes, such values would potentially remain usable for such cases where the amount above baseline is unquantificable, but arguments would have to be done, like how an unquantificable AP amp is measured at best on how easier of a match A has against B opponents in their series.

Overlord775 said:
just want to point out that Star Wars wouldn't be affected, as since their mind hax come from manipulating the Force there's no reason to assume they can't concentrate all the power to mindhax X number of people into a single person

though, neutral otherwise
Click to expand...
Actually, it would, an assumption is required to claim that they can concentrate it like that in the first place to a single being, if no more details are avaliable, but I can see some arguments for that verse staying about the same out of Force semantics, although out of a lack of resistance layers being involved for the most part, it'd likely get nerfed for the purposes of a vs thread.
 
Last edited:
Orioreeem said:
So if in verse concepts have durability, does that mean we should determine the potency of conceptual manipulation with numbers?
Click to expand...
Of course not, that's just Non-Physical Interaction + AP generally, which is a quite separate thing, or otherwise just hax that isn't quantified like that, as it's based on resistance layer bypassing for the purposes of a match (and the type), not how many are done at once unless that's confirmed to be a factor related to potency in the setting, which even then would just be unquantificable, and an assumption would often be required to claim that such power can be concentrated to a single target.
 
Orioreeem said:
So if in verse concepts have durability, does that mean we should determine the potency of conceptual manipulation with numbers?
Click to expand...
That was just an analogy, not an actual standard I gave to measure with.
And no conceptual hax doesn't even begin to compare with mind/soul hax. So its such a false analogy that its not even funny.

Conceptual shenanigans cannot and will not ever have "durability" in anyway.
Bobsican said:
Indeed, and this raises the question on why we don't do that to mind manip, and no, it's a false equivalency, mind manip is hax, and any kind of "durability" to overcome would just be a resistance, and even then it has to show someone resisting it, then bypassing it in some way to claim that it bypasses at least one resistance layer, going back to my previous example, doing a hax to multiple people that resist that ability (example, time stop) is just range and is bypassing a single resistance layer, not multiple.

In fact, we don't assume that a move with more range than a regular one is necessarily stronger than the other (or vice versa) to begin with by default, so the AP argument is moot.
Click to expand...
Manipulation of minds is not a just a simple on and off command like time hax or EE.
To manipulate minds can be comapred with a computer processing unit trying to multitask and operate multiple other processes or something equivalent.
The more difficult or complex the task is, more processing power is required.
So I will not agree that manipulators don't need potency equal to work they do.

While I can agree that individuals resisting/suffering under that influence would only resist/suffer their own respective portions of manipulating influence. So resistance in that case will be baseline.
 
GilverTheProtoAngelo said:
That was just an analogy, not an actual standard I gave to measure with.
And no conceptual hax doesn't even begin to compare with mind/soul hax. So its such a false analogy that its not even funny.

Conceptual shenanigans cannot and will not ever have "durability" in anyinway.
Click to expand...
That's why i said if verse treats it as having durability for example Persona does it like that.
 
Bobsican said:
TBH yes. Someone being able to absorb countless souls doesn't mean that "countless power" is applied to each individual one, nor that the one doing so can necessarily concentrate such power to a single target for the purposes of soul manip.
Click to expand...
This is why I agree, AoE is not power, Necrozma is 3-C for a reason.

I agree with this
 
Mind manipulation page says that the potency is determined with multiple factors but it's only ever determined by the numbers. If this gets accepted that should be changed and that change should be reflected on mind manipulation page.
 
GilverTheProtoAngelo said:
Manipulation of minds is not a just a simple on and off command like time hax or EE.
To manipulate minds can be comapred with a computer processing unit trying to multitask and operate multiple other processes or something equivalent.
The more difficult or complex the task is, more processing power is required.
So I will not agree that manipulators don't need potency equal to work they do.

While I can agree that individuals resisting/suffering under that influence would only resist/suffer their own respective portions of manipulating influence. So resistance in that case will be baseline.
Click to expand...
The problem here relies on how the mindhax works in the first place, if it was a character actually having to keep each individual within its control constantly then you'd have a point, but more often than not it's just a character doing something that changes how their mind work, at that point no multitasking is done in the first place, and so just a baseline mindhax would be involved, rather than whatever number of people-times mindhax (As I've outlined before, an amount of people and an amount of resistance layers aren't comparable or relatable normally), and even then this multitasking is unquantificable compared to an actual mindhax resistance, as said before.
I'm also not saying that "equal" potency is exactly required, but rather the "higher" amount being just unquantificable generally, and thus unusable for bypassing a resistance really.
 
Bobsican said:
Actually, it would, an assumption is required to claim that they can concentrate it like that in the first place to a single being, if no more details are avaliable, but I can see some arguments for that verse staying about the same out of Force semantics, although out of a lack of resistance layers being involved for the most part, it'd likely get nerfed for the purposes of a vs thread.
Click to expand...
IIRC, Mind based Force powers such as Nihilus' are still able to overpower the resistances of other Force Sensitives.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Sdjlakjh
Introducing the Mind Manipulation AP system to Lego Monkie Kid
Replies
12
Views
1K
Antvasima
Antvasima
deonment
I give my mind and SOUL (Hollow Knight SOUL CRT part 2)
Replies
23
Views
2K
deonment
deonment
Rakih_Elyan
  • Locked
Deleting Misunderstood Information Manipulation Type 2 From Genshin UES Fundamental Mechanism
2
Replies
59
Views
3K
Rakih_Elyan
Rakih_Elyan
Flashlight237
Shantae CRT: A Couple New Additions
Replies
3
Views
1K
SamanPatou
SamanPatou
DimeUhDozen
Evil Revision, Much?
Replies
12
Views
721
LephyrTheRevanchist
LephyrTheRevanchist
Back
Top