Raiden's "Reactive Power Level" (Metal Gear Rising)

[Qawsedf234]

You commented earlier here. Do you have some opinion on this?

Well Raiden killing Armstrong at the end of the fight isn't that shocking. In the final QTE segment you can see that Raiden has slashed Armstrong in the arms enough times that it caused notable and large amounts of damage.

So Armstrong at the end of the fight was likely worn out and running low on power. Which is what I got from the fight, Raiden slowly wearing Armstrong down after a prolonged engagement. Him suddenly doing damage with his physical attacks seem more indicative of that than sudden a sudden AP upgrade

 

[DaReaperMan]

Well Raiden killing Armstrong at the end of the fight isn't that shocking. In the final QTE segment you can see that Raiden has slashed Armstrong in the arms enough times that it caused notable and large amounts of damage.

So Armstrong at the end of the fight was likely worn out and running low on power. Which is what I got from the fight, Raiden slowly wearing Armstrong down after a prolonged engagement. Him suddenly doing damage with his physical attacks seem more indicative of that than sudden a sudden AP upgrade

I think your mistaking power for stamina, Armstrong isn't a type 2 Immortal and can be damaged

 

[SpookyShadow]

Him suddenly doing damage with his physical attacks seem more indicative of that than sudden a sudden AP upgrade

That's... the same thing.
Why would Armstrong be worn out after one casual EXCELSUS punch? He wasn't worn out when Sam slashed him multiple times with Murasama and cut off his hand.

 

[Twellas]

So Armstrong at the end of the fight was likely worn out and running low on power. Which is what I got from the fight, Raiden slowly wearing Armstrong down after a prolonged engagement. Him suddenly doing damage with his physical attacks seem more indicative of that than sudden a sudden AP upgrade

bruh

 

[Chariot190]

Him suddenly doing damage with his physical attacks seem more indicative of that than sudden a sudden AP upgrade

You do realize that Raiden by the second phase can start harming Armstrong with his raw physical blows, while Armstrong is still completely fine and not in the slightest exhausted? And yes, Armstrong is worn down by the end, because of the fact Raiden is pushing him beyond his limit, Armstrong at multiple points even says that Raiden has hurt him and this is the greatest fight of life, and he's still ready to fight after both times and is even enjoying himself to an extent. Both times in direct response to Raiden physically engaging with him.

 

[DaReaperMan]

But by what calc would we put Armstrong at anything outside of 8-C to 8-B? Sure he'd probably heavily downscale, but still

 

[SpookyShadow]

But by what calc would we put Armstrong at anything outside of 8-C to 8-B? Sure he'd probably heavily downscale, but still

That's irrelevant here, no need to mention it.

 

[Chariot190]

But by what calc would we put Armstrong at anything outside of 8-C to 8-B? Sure he'd probably heavily downscale, but still

There is none? When I said peak human i meant irl peak humans.

 

[Twellas]

But by what calc would we put Armstrong at anything outside of 8-C to 8-B? Sure he'd probably heavily downscale, but still

there's no reason to even give him a "nanomachine-less" key, because he never fights without them, that's his main thing

 

[SpookyShadow]

Yeah, that's like making Raiden fight without his exoskeleton, lol

 

[DaReaperMan]

That's irrelevant here, no need to mention it.

Yeah, that's for a CRT.

There is none? When I said peak human i meant irl peak humans.

I'd prefer to not have a tier outside of scaling for a featless character in that state

there's no reason to even give him a "nanomachine-less" key, because he never fights without them, that's his main thing

Wouldn't be another key, they're standard equipment regardless, would just be likely 8-C, At least High 7-C with Nanomachines.

 

[Twellas]

Wouldn't be another key, they're standard equipment regardless, would just be likely 8-C, At least High 7-C with Nanomachines.

but... why? It would be like giving superman a "10-C, at least 4-B with Solar Radiation" rating, nanomachines are his whole power

 

[Chariot190]

I'd prefer to not have a tier outside of scaling for a featless character in that state

Ok? I never said to give him one, the only reason why I brought up Armstrong without nano's was because without them, he would literally explode into paste if Raiden so much as looked at him funny, as a counterpoint to Armstrong not using nano's to block based upon visuals.
I never said to give him a key or that it was even important, just that the nano's always protect Armstrong due to being automated and if they didnt he would straight up die, in response to an argument above stating that Armstrong's nano's didnt protect him or were used at certain points.

Armstrong having another key is completely irrelevant to the current topic anyway.

 

[DaReaperMan]

but... why? It would be like giving superman a "10-C, at least 4-B with Solar Radiation" rating, nanomachines are his whole power

Because Superman is pretty much never seen without radiation and Armstrong(while featless) is seen for a solid 5-10 minutes without his nanomachines active(he's only got 30-40 or so minutes of screentime), probably not going to make the crt but still, and I shall state this now, we are derailing, im probably not making that CRT regardless

 

[Twellas]

Because Superman is pretty much never seen without radiation and Armstrong(while featless) is seen for a solid 5-10 minutes without his nanomachines active(he's only got 30-40 or so minutes of screentime), probably not going to make the crt but still, and I shall state this now, we are derailing, im probably not making that CRT regardless

you are right about the derailing part, let's just drop that.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Why would Armstrong be worn out after one casual EXCELSUS punch?

I'm not saying he was. My point is that the QTEs are not really guaranteed to happen immediately and can avoided completely with proper timing. So Raiden instantly damaging Armstrong isn't a guaranteed incident.

But if we're throwing that idea out of the window, then unless we assume that Raiden was in a constant lore state of Ripper mode he would need to get suddenly much stronger in order to damage Armstrong the way he did. So the power can stay.

He wasn't worn out when Sam slashed him multiple times with Murasama and cut off his hand.

The fight with Sam was never serious and Armstrong wasn't pushed to the breaking point. Unlike Raiden, Sam also never damaged Armstrong's arms with the Murasama. He just outsped the durability enhancement with his gun-scabbard.

 

[Twellas]

The "Armstrong was worn out and thus his nanomachines were weakened" argument has some very, VERY obvious problems, first one being that Raiden can kick his ass right off the bat, when there's simply no way he'd be tired, second one being that there's absolutely no evidence to suggest his nanomachines run out of power, furthermore, there's no canonical reference to how such a thing would even work, it could be that when they do run out of power (they don't, I'm just making an example), he just turns back to being "skinny", why should he stay buff but with weaker dura? We are in straight up headcanon territory at that point

I'm not saying he was. My point is that the QTEs are not really guaranteed to happen immediately and can avoided completely with proper timing. So Raiden instantly damaging Armstrong isn't a guaranteed incident.

no, the QTEs are absolutely mandatory and are even mentioned in the official guides, if you jump in order to avoid them (which is the only way to do so, since the grab bypasses the I-frames given by the dodge), Armstrong glitches out, starts spinning and then teleports on you when you land. This is simply false

The fight with Sam was never serious and Armstrong wasn't pushed to the breaking point. Unlike Raiden, Sam also never damaged Armstrong's arms with the Murasama. He just outsped the durability enhancement with his gun-scabbard.

? How is "Armstrong was suppressed" an argument? It means that he had nerfed dura during the fight, if anything it's proof that the Murasama would do even less against him while bloodlusted

 

[DaReaperMan]

The "Armstrong was worn out and thus his nanomachines were weakened" argument has some very, VERY obvious problems, first one being that Raiden can kick his ass right off the bat, when there's simply no way he'd be tired, second one being that there's absolutely no evidence to suggest his nanomachines run out of power, furthermore, there's no canonical reference to how such a thing would even work, it could be that when they do run out of power (they don't, I'm just making an example), he just turns back to being "skinny", why should he stay buff but with weaker dura? We are in straight up headcanon territory at that point

no, the QTEs are absolutely mandatory and are even mentioned in the official guides, if you jump in order to avoid them (which is the only way to do so, since the grab bypasses the I-frames given by the dodge), Armstrong glitches out, starts spinning and then teleports on you when you land. This is simply false

? How is "Armstrong was suppressed" an argument? It means that he had nerfed dura during the fight, if anything it's proof that the Murasama would do even less against him while bloodlusted

Yes! This exactly!

 

[Qawsedf234]

he just turns back to being "skinny", why should he stay buff but with weaker dura?

Armstrong is naturally ripped. The most that would happen in that situation would be lowered stats until his out of his absorbed energy.

How is "Armstrong was suppressed" an argument?

I'm not really arguing for it now. I dropped it at the end of my first response. The point of that comment was that Sam never pushed Armstrong like Raiden did, so that's why he never damaged his arms like Raiden did.

 

[Twellas]

rmstrong is naturally ripped. The most that would happen in that situation would be lowered stats until his out of his absorbed energy.

u-uh? Armstrong before activating his nanos, Armstrong after activating his nanos, normally he isn't even REMOTELY as swole as he is after activating the nanos, why the hell would he not just revert back were he to run out of power?

The point of that comment was that Sam never pushed Armstrong like Raiden did, so that's why he never damaged his arms like Raiden did.

But the problem is that Raiden was equal to Sam up until, what, 5 minutes before his fight with Armstrong? And then he suddenly can harm a bloodlusted Armstrong, when a suppressed one could no-sell slashes from someone equal to him? Mhhh, it's almost like he got stronger

 

[Chariot190]

I'm not saying he was. My point is that the QTEs are not really guaranteed to happen immediately and can avoided completely with proper timing. So Raiden instantly damaging Armstrong isn't a guaranteed incident.

They actually are for the most part, several of them happen whether you like it or not at various points, and mind you, Armstrong after the QTE's has scripted dialogue and reactions, and he's definitely not winded or even close to what you're trying to insinuate, he's only winded and exhausted after the LAST QTE that ends up with him dying. You're kinda ignoring the fact there was a whole fight between him and Raiden to get him to that point, and funnily enough, he's still able to fight all the same at that point.

But if we're throwing that idea out of the window, then unless we assume that Raiden was in a constant lore state of Ripper mode he would need to get suddenly much stronger in order to damage Armstrong the way he did. So the power can stay.

He wouldnt be in RM the entire time, for one simple reason, in both the cutscene preceding and following the fight, with the latter taking place as he holds his heart in his hands, Raiden is in base form still. Nothing actually implies he did, at best he only went RM temporarily at some point but not the whole fight.

 

[Chariot190]

But the problem is that Raiden was equal to Sam up until, what, 5 minutes before his fight with Armstrong? And then he suddenly can harm a bloodlusted Armstrong, when a suppressed one could no-sell slashes from someone equal to him? Mhhh, it's almost like it's an AP boost

That too, Sam was a very real threat to Raiden, Sam could even fight Raiden and contend with him using his bare hands. And between the Sam fight and Armstrong, Raiden had zero time to relax as he was on a timelimit and had to haul ass across the planet in a rocket.

 

[Qawsedf234]

u-uh? Armstrong before activating his nanos, Armstrong after activating his nanos, normally he isn't even REMOTELY as swole

I'm not sure how the first image isn't that of a really big dude still. You certainly wouldn't call him skinny. Guess the loss of muscle mass might happen if he lost every bit of his power under that theory (which might happen since he obviously shrank back down after beating Sam in the prequel DLC), but even under that proposed idea Armstrong wouldn't have run out of power against Raiden. Just lost enough to no longer withstand the Muramasa without being damaged.

Not that I support this theory as previously stated twice now.

Mhhh, it's almost like it's an AP boost

Yes, the thing I already agreed with keeping since we aren't doing the Ripper mode thing anymore.

 

[Chariot190]

Just lost enough to no longer withstand the Muramasa without being damaged.

That's blatantly and demonstrably false as even towards the very, very end of the fight and all throughout Armstrong can tank the Muramusa point black numerous times, it's only at the very end as Raiden swings at the exact same spot over and over again, chipping away the defenses faster then they can reform and defend, can the Muramusa do **** all beyond just basic chip damage that wouldn't amount to anything by itself.

And besides, why does this matter? Raiden harmed Armstrong multiple times without the sword? Even punching Armstrong square in the jaw, dealing massive damage with Armstrong even saying "That one hurt!". Which funnily enough, earlier Raiden punched him in square in the face and he just said "Heh, what did I say?" in reference to a second prior where he said "You can't hurt me Jack".

 

[Twellas]

I'm not sure how the first image isn't that of a really big dude still. You certainly wouldn't call him skinny. Guess the loss of muscle mass might happen if he lost every bit of his power under that theory (which might happen since he obviously shrank back down after beating Sam in the prequel DLC), but even under that proposed idea Armstrong wouldn't have run out of power against Raiden. Just lost enough to no longer withstand the Muramasa without being damaged.

I obviously call him "skinny" when compared to his nano self, he's still a buff guy, just nowhere near as big. Again, Raiden can punch him at the beginning-section of the fight, and saying that "no, he didn't run out of power but he lost just enough power to where he was weakened" is not even headcanon, it's headcanon squared

Yes, the thing I already agreed with keeping since we aren't doing the Ripper mode thing anymore.

what are you refering to? What "Ripper Mode thing"?

 

[Qawsedf234]

Again, Raiden can punch him at the beginning-section of the fight, and saying that "no, he didn't run out of power but he lost just enough power to where he was weakened" is not even headcanon, it's headcanon squared

Since you're not getting this, I'm going to be as simple as I possibly can here:

• I made a claim
• You countered the claim I made
• Upon realizing I could not back my claim, I dropped it and said that unless we're justifying it as Raiden being in state of constant Ripper mode lore wise and not gameplay wise he can keep the power. Since he would need the power to explain the sudden jump
• Sam not harming Armstrong through his nanomachines has very little, if nothing, to do with the above points and was a different thing

So to be very, very clear here; I am in support of keeping it barring some new incredibly persuasive argument.

 

[Twellas]

Since you're not getting this, I'm going to be as simple as I possibly can here:

• I made a claim
• You countered the claim I made
• Upon realizing I could not back my claim, I dropped it and said that unless we're justifying it as Raiden being in state of constant Ripper mode lore wise and not gameplay wise he can keep the power. Since he would need the power to explain the sudden jump
• Sam not harming Armstrong through his nanomachines has very little, if nothing, to do with the above points and was a different thing

So to be very, very clear here; I am in support of keeping it barring some new incredibly persuasive argument.

ah ok, I'm dumb, sorry

 

[Qawsedf234]

That's blatantly and demonstrably false as even towards the very

Whoa its almost like I said this right I explained that

Not that I support this theory as previously stated twice now.

 

[Abstractions]

You don't believe that Raiden went from getting his ass kicked to making Armstrong eat dirt? I could go and link a dozen examples if need be.

This isn't even a matter of believing something, it is quite literally what happens. And every single argument saying otherwise is either fake news (nanos weaken), irrelevant (the sword wasn't used in any of the blatant examples given nor does it actually effect Raiden's physicals) or isn't implied anywhere (RM).

Like what more do you want? It's undeniable he went from being weaker to stronger, the ONLY thing up to debate is the why, not if he did, saying he didn't go from being weaker to flooring Armstrong is beyond ignorant.

Mm, not indicative of a full-fledged strength increase, some of the examples show Armstrong when he's only attempting recruit Jack as an argument which doesn't work, he's holding back there.

You cannot claim something is objective fact when evidently it isn't, otherwise this argument wouldn't be happening, so I suggest dropping stuff like this as it is filler.

in an organization like the WODs, where you literally have to fistfight your employer to get in, if’s a nigh impossibility that an higher rank doesn’t translate to more strength

This is headcanon. Nothing here is actually preventing them being on the same level, the only obstacle was Armstrong, in which if all can keep up that means they are equal in that regard, assuming anything else is under the pre-conceived notions based on other media that leader = stronger. Not something inherently rooted in Metal Gear Rising. A strongman suddenly decides to pick up a martial art, do I consider the teacher stronger than him simply because he's the "leader" by technicality?

What is being presented here is this:

Armstrong >> Sundowner >> WoD

What is actually happening narratively is this:

Armstrong >= Sundowner = WoD

Which really drives a wedge into the idea of progressively getting stronger, as opposed to an actual climb in strength it in reality plateaus until an actual strong threat is presented.

Another thing to note is the same fodder are still being presented to you all the way up to the Armstrong fight, the game isn't considering you getting drastically stronger throughout the entirety of the game and claiming so is based entirely in one's subjective opinion, not fact.

You keep saying that but neither are the arguments saying he didn't get stronger, hell every argument given this far is either demonstrably false or based on actual fake news, yet I can supply a dozen examples of Raiden explicitly overpowering Armstrong, harming him and making him eat dirt in canonical sequences all without any outside interference or forces helping Raiden.

I honestly don't believe we are all watching the same scene, and not everyone seems to be on page with what's actually happening.

Armstrong starts off the engagement by charging at an obviously unprepared Raiden who inquires "What the hell are you thinking?" before being attacked, even though he's confused Raiden is still well and capable of dodging punches from Armstrong and there's nothing indicating a major gap here, especially since Raiden hasn't officially engaged yet.

When we reach "Why don't you stick around and find out?", Raiden is dealing small percentages with his strikes, which in turn leads into "Nice knife.". Raiden gets floored with a punch but gets back up. (This is where the start of the "AP increase through RPL" argument begins)

Raiden is given his first real chance to block one of Armstrong's punches because he is finally prepared for the fight, in which he blocks, and contends with a casual Armstrong with a few strikes, cool. But what this has done is establish them on mostly equal terms, and isn't indicative of an actual strength increase unless you deliberately look for it, and it only takes a moment later to see why.

Armstrong "Has a dream." and proceeds to continue to grapple and overpower the supposedly catching up Raiden, pulling apart the very arms that were just a second ago holding him back and headbutting him until he is brought to his knees. Raiden is clearly winded by all of this, mind you. If Raiden was truly the one gaining the upper hand here, why is he being overwhelmed? Is the question I ask specifically for this instance here.

After Raiden is floored and we reach "You're batshit insane!" Raiden catches Armstrong off-guard and throws him, this is fine, but not evidence of any boost as Armstrong simply wasn't prepared. Raiden states "...and now I'll take yours." and we are thrown into the next portion of the fight, however, Raiden has returned to dealing small portions of damage to Armstrong with no noticeable increase, even after a barrage of punches he is still standing at 91.1% health, in which we run into the next issue with the idea of an AP increase.

If Armstrong was previously knocked off his feet before, with what was a suggested strength increase, why is he not knocked off his feet even later with what was a vast amount of strikes by comparison? The answer is that there isn't a strength increase here, and claiming so is contradicted directly by the media presented. This is then furthered by "What did I just say?"

Now, Raiden suffers a barrage of punches, but is still able to return to his feet as he did prior, this shows that Armstrong is not vastly stronger than Raiden, just much more durable. Equipped with Murasama, a better sword and heightened resolve, Raiden engages Armstrong for the last time, with the actual narrative objective now to kill him as control is not wrestled out of the player's hands again.

All arguments up until this point in the fight for RPL are relatively null, as it can be discarded with something as simple as the proper knowledge of the events that transpired.

Now, before we get into the actual fight, I want to highlight an important argument:

Yes, Raiden is exceptionally skilled and one of the most skilled characters in his entire verse, even long before this game. But you fail to realize that being skilled doesnt mean somehow make you magically able to floor your opponent and hurt him badly, when minutes prior literally nothing you did phased him at all.

No amount of skill will let you hurt someone who can literally no-sell all your shit. The fact that his punches and kicks are skillful doesn't erase the fact that he physically wouldn't have enough strength to let them do anything if he didn't get stronger: no matter how skillfull I am at kicking a wall, that wall is not ******* moving unless i hit it with enough force

But the problem is that Raiden was equal to Sam up until, what, 5 minutes before his fight with Armstrong? And then he suddenly can harm a bloodlusted Armstrong, when a suppressed one could no-sell slashes from someone equal to him? Mhhh, it's almost like he got stronger

Firstly, I want to preface this by saying perhaps Armstrong isn't as durable as you build him up to be.

During the very first engagement of "lining your own pockets" Armstrong very clearly wasn't unfazed as he presents himself to be, he's tripped by Raiden's attack and wiping his mouth, he's not truly harmed but still relatively fazed by Raiden's strikes. My point being here is that while Armstrong is presenting himself as invincible, he truly isn't and we know this, even with what little damage Raiden is doing.

This isn't really my main point, but I want you to understand that there is an express narrative and development purpose for how the fight is presented:

Think about how games will present characters with multiple phases, checkpoints, if you will. They want you to get a taste of the fight before truly allowing you to complete it, they do this by stopping you at certain points of the fight to allow for more exposition or completely halt your damage output to allow for a transition, this isn't to say a character is unharmable, just that the developer doesn't want you to kill them yet. Which is exactly what we are presented with here.

They give you the opportunity to test Armstrong twice, but are doing this narratively because they want to establish his strength and durability while also providing exposition, and it does this by reducing the damage you deal to Armstrong and cutting into more dialogue. Now when dialogue is officially exhausted and you are finally given complete control to finish the fight, you appear to be doing more damage. This here is what's giving you the illusion that there's a strength boost at play, which you come to the conclusion with wrongly, as the narrative presented outside of the gameplay has already shown. But you may say:

"But if I'm clearly doing more damage, how is this not a sign of the ability regardless?"

Perhaps the developer thought it would be unfair to force you to finish the fight under design they put in place just for lore? The point was to establish Armstrong's strength before you are allowed to fight him for real, they aren't going to force you to chip him with .5% every strike just to keep consistent with that as it has already served its purpose.

You may disagree and you are fully free to, but narratively the game doesn't present Raiden as getting stronger all the way up to the end. Frankly I believe Armstrong's durability is exaggerated because him and Raiden are presented on fairly equal terms, just that Armstrong has nanomachines that mitigate harm done to him, and I don't need to make assumptions with that as it's what is put right in front of me.


I will not be responding to anything that turns this into a circular debate, and responding with your own subjective view on the events doesn't serve to debunk what I say, as it is your interpretation of events versus mine, and I simply find mine more sensible.

Consider this my rebuttal to any form of strength increase people claim Raiden gets. Thank you.

 

[Twellas]

This is headcanon. Nothing here is actually preventing them being on the same level, the only obstacle was Armstrong, in which if all can keep up that means they are equal in that regard, assuming anything else is under the pre-conceived notions based on other media that leader = stronger. Not something inherently rooted in Metal Gear Rising. A strongman suddenly decides to pick up a martial art, do I consider the teacher stronger than him simply because he's the "leader" by technicality?

What is being presented here is this:

Armstrong >> Sundowner >> WoD

What is actually happening narratively is this:

Armstrong >= Sundowner = WoD

Which really drives a wedge into the idea of progressively getting stronger, as opposed to an actual climb in strength it in reality plateaus until an actual strong threat is presented.

Absolutely moot argument, because i only presented Sundowner being stronger than Monsoon as a possibility, which is not required for my argument to make sense, because my argument is that Sundowner is AT LEAST equal to Monsoon (I think we can agree on that), Monsoon, while obviously being weaker than him, put up just as much of a fight against RM Raiden as every other boss does against base Raiden, the same goes with Sundowner. Now, if Sundowner is at least equal to Monsoon, and if Monsoon can fight relative to a much stronger, bloodlusted version of Raiden's base, how do you explain the fact that Raiden then procedes to beat Sundowner in base?

And what exactly do you mean "what is happening narratively"? I don't recall any statement being thrown out there about the WODs being necessarily equal to one another, and if anything, we have pieces of dialogue that imply that there is indeed a progression, such as Sundowner saying "you killed Monsoon, I'm impressed" and never even mentioning Mistral; I'm not saying that this is definitive proof of there being a narrative crescendo in terms of power, what I'm saying is that saying that it is "definitely not happening" narratively is disingenuous at absolute best

Another thing to note is the same fodder are still being presented to you all the way up to the Armstrong fight, the game isn't considering you getting drastically stronger throughout the entirety of the game and claiming so is based entirely in one's subjective opinion, not fact.

? Are you unironically using "They present the same moabs" as an argument? Besides the fact that as you progress, you are indeed faced with more and more complex fodder enemies, to the point where Blade Wolf, who was previously a mini-boss, ends up being presented as a normal enemy (the dog moabs are copies of Blade Wolf, with the only difference being that they, while retaining BW's moveset, are significantly less intelligent) how is that even remotely an argument when the fodders are just that, fodders who are not a challenge to the protagonist to begin with?

Armstrong starts off the engagement by charging at an obviously unprepared Raiden who inquires "What the hell are you thinking?" before being attacked, even though he's confused Raiden is still well and capable of dodging punches from Armstrong and there's nothing indicating a major gap here, especially since Raiden hasn't officially engaged yet.

Yeah, because we know from Dok that Raiden is faster than Armstrong. Also, "there's nothing indicating a major gap"? Did you miss the part where Armstrong is handling him like a toddler and snaps his visor, which is made of the same exact material as Raiden's body and thus should be at least comparable to his dura? And what do you mean "Raiden hasn't officially engaged yet"? He's dodged punches, he's tried to break free from Armstrong's grasp and he's been thrown around like a ragdoll, what more do you need for the engagement to be on?

When we reach "Why don't you stick around and find out?", Raiden is dealing small percentages with his strikes, which in turn leads into "Nice knife.". Raiden gets floored with a punch but gets back up. (This is where the start of the "AP increase through RPL" argument begins)

I mean, not necessarily if we consider the Sundowner thing, but ok

Raiden is given his first real chance to block one of Armstrong's punches because he is finally prepared for the fight

? He's been in battle for the last 15 minutes, why would he only now be "prepared for the fight"? And he's always had the chance to block Armstrong's punches, it was always an option for him

in which he blocks, and contends with a casual Armstrong with a few strikes, cool. But what this has done is establish them on mostly equal terms, and isn't indicative of an actual strength increase unless you deliberately look for it, and it only takes a moment later to see why.

Armstrong "Has a dream." and proceeds to continue to grapple and overpower the supposedly catching up Raiden, pulling apart the very arms that were just a second ago holding him back and headbutting him until he is brought to his knees. Raiden is clearly winded by all of this, mind you. If Raiden was truly the one gaining the upper hand here, why is he being overwhelmed? Is the question I ask specifically for this instance here.

So THIS cutscene "establishes them in equal terms", but the previous one, where Raiden gets literally thrown around like a ragdoll and sent flying with every blow doesn't establish Armstrong as being stronger? How does that work exactly?
Raiden was never "gaining the upper hand", he was merely catching up to an Armstrong who was going out of his way to not hurt him too bad and keep him alive, our point was never that Raiden becomes equal to Armstrong right here, it's that "suppressed Armstrong" needs to go "less suppressed" to actually match Raiden after the whole ordeal.
So, to answer your question, Raiden was being overwhelmed because while yes, he got stronger, Armstrong just went stronger..er by being less suppressed, you can see it in his demeanor, he's much more violent during his monologue, stomping on Raiden multiple times, and we know that Armstrong being suppressed means that his dura goes down, since in the Sam fight, while he's being extremely casual, he gets (somehow, Sam slashes him with the Murasama in-game, but given how he'd be dead if that slash actually happened, I'm not sure it can be accepted) knocked to the ground, but after Sam's refusal, he, again, becomes more agressive and can simply no-sell Sam's attacks. We also know that Armstrong has some willful control over the nanos, so it's not like him reducing their hardness goes agains established canon

After Raiden is floored and we reach "You're batshit insane!" Raiden catches Armstrong off-guard and throws him, this is fine, but not evidence of any boost as Armstrong simply wasn't prepared

Yeah, we agree here, that's the one case of skill-induced overpowering, as he both catches him off guard and does a sort of lever in order to push him down

After Raiden is floored and we reach "You're batshit insane!" Raiden catches Armstrong off-guard and throws him, this is fine, but not evidence of any boost as Armstrong simply wasn't prepared. Raiden states "...and now I'll take yours." and we are thrown into the next portion of the fight, however, Raiden has returned to dealing small portions of damage to Armstrong with no noticeable increase, even after a barrage of punches he is still standing at 91.1% health, in which we run into the next issue with the idea of an AP increase.

If Armstrong was previously knocked off his feet before, with what was a suggested strength increase, why is he not knocked off his feet even later with what was a vast amount of strikes by comparison? The answer is that there isn't a strength increase here, and claiming so is contradicted directly by the media presented. This is then furthered by "What did I just say?"

uh? As I said, the reason Armstrong is now no-selling again is because he's at least less suppressed and could actually be argued to be serious, as he doesn't want to recruit Raiden anymore, and given how we already have an instance of Armstrong's dura growing as he gets serious, which is in perfect accord with the description we are given of his nanomachines, it can very simply and accurately be explained as "Armstrong is not ******* around anymore and he's using his full strength".

I personally think he's still very slightly suppressed before the explosion of EXCELSUS, but it doesn't change anything

Now, Raiden suffers a barrage of punches, but is still able to return to his feet as he did prior, this shows that Armstrong is not vastly stronger than Raiden, just much more durable

You are ignoring Raiden's ridiculous stamina and immortality, it's entirely possible that every single one of Armstrong's punches completely splattered his internal organs and it wouldn't matter, because cyborgs can survive anything short of destruction of the brain. Raiden also has feats of enduring a stupid amount of punishment he couldn't resist (in terms of dura) while in far lesser bodies.

The idea of Armstrong not being stronger than Raiden, just more durable is also invalidated by every instance of Armstrong sending Raiden flying with single punches and straight up overpowering him. Also, Dok straight up says that "even a single blow" from Armstrong could be fatal to Raiden, so no, Armstrong not being stronger than Raiden is just not possible

Equipped with Murasama, a better sword and heightened resolve, Raiden engages Armstrong for the last time, with the actual narrative objective now to kill him as control is not wrestled out of the player's hands again.

are- are you going to make an argument of "Raiden beat him because the plot told him to"? christ, please no...

All arguments up until this point in the fight for RPL are relatively null, as it can be discarded with something as simple as the proper knowledge of the events that transpired.

They are really not, given how all of your counters up to this point can be debunked by taking into account Armstrong's displayed suppression capabilities

During the very first engagement of "lining your own pockets" Armstrong very clearly wasn't unfazed as he presents himself to be, he's tripped by Raiden's attack and wiping his mouth, he's not truly harmed but still relatively fazed by Raiden's strikes.

Yes, this is one of my arguments, Armstrong suffered no damage but was clearly fazed, but it ultimately doesn't matter to his "full power" self, because he was suppressed, the fact that he's not invincible is very clear to everyone, even Raiden himself.

I want you to understand that there is an express narrative and development purpose for how the fight is presented:

oh god, you're gonna make a "Raiden beat him because the plot told him to" argument, aren't you?

They give you the opportunity to test Armstrong twice, but are doing this narratively because they want to establish his strength and durability while also providing exposition, and it does this by reducing the damage you deal to Armstrong and cutting into more dialogue. Now when dialogue is officially exhausted and you are finally given complete control to finish the fight, you appear to be doing more damage. This here is what's giving you the illusion that there's a strength boost at play, which you come to the conclusion with wrongly, as the narrative presented outside of the gameplay has already shown. But you may say:

I'm starting to believe you're using "narrative" as a crutch to push your feelings over what the devs were trying to say as facts, because ALL of this is a straight up theory, it's a meta interpretation that has absolutely no bearing on the game and doesn't change the fact that Raiden canonically (both are scripted sequences) goes from this to this during the same bossfight.
It's a cool theory, but it doesn't change the fact that in the economy of the game, in the actual narrative, we are SHOWN that Raiden first can't even faze Armstrong and then he can, with no other CANONICAL explanation possible besides "he got stronger"

"But if I'm clearly doing more damage, how is this not a sign of the ability regardless?"

Perhaps the developer thought it would be unfair to force you to finish the fight under design they put in place just for lore? The point was to establish Armstrong's strength before you are allowed to fight him for real, they aren't going to force you to chip him with .5% every strike just to keep consistent with that as it has already served its purpose.

Again, theory, why the hell would they even put scripted sequences in which Raiden punches Armstrong then? They could have spared themselves the burden of creating a whole h2h system and QTEs in which Raiden uses his bare hands to fight Armstrong from scratch and just let Raiden use the Murasama, that would have perfectly portrayed what you think was their goal.

This argument completely falls apart the second you realize the change we are discussing is not only gameplay related, it's FIRST AND FOREMOST scripted-sequence related

but narratively the game doesn't present Raiden as getting stronger all the way up to the end

This is basically a glorified opinion of yours, which isn't even supported by a point you yourself brought up (the fodder enemies not changing, which they do, and a mini-boss becomes a fodder enemy you can kill multiple of at the same time)

Frankly I believe Armstrong's durability is exaggerated because him and Raiden are presented on fairly equal terms, just that Armstrong has nanomachines that mitigate harm done to him, and I don't need to make assumptions with that as it's what is put right in front of me.

You know what's also put right in front of you? This and this, but you don't seem to want to consider this, you'd rather go with meta-theories to explain it rather than accepting it. It's so obvious that Armstrong is displayed to be much stronger than Raiden that it hurts, it's perhaps the single most blatant case of an underdog fight in gaming

 

[Chariot190]

Another thing to note is the same fodder are still being presented to you all the way up to the Armstrong fight, the game isn't considering you getting drastically stronger throughout the entirety of the game and claiming so is based entirely in one's subjective opinion, not fact.

You mean the cyborgs that were fodderized by characters like Sundowner? Also you really just use the ol Goomba argument? Hell, there's cutscenes where end game enemies literally get one shot by notable characters as if they were nothing. Hell, in the Excelsus fight Gekko units get one shot by the MG so it's even reflected by bosses in gameplay even.

Mm, not indicative of a full-fledged strength increase, some of the examples show Armstrong when he's only attempting recruit Jack as an argument which doesn't work, he's holding back there.

What in the actual **** are you talking about? Every single example given where Raiden harms him is AFTER Armstrong starts going all out. **** you're outright arguing against yourself here as Raiden fails to hurt him when Armstrong is HOLDING BACK in your own words let alone when he's actively trying to put Raiden in the ground.

You cannot claim something is objective fact when evidently it isn't, otherwise this argument wouldn't be happening, so I suggest dropping stuff like this as it is filler.

No offense, but I can and will claim something as objective fact, Here's a few examples, at least, when it is objective.
See all those? Happens after Armstrong goes serious, happens without RM, happens canonically in intended and purposeful QTE's with scripted dialogue, happens without the Muramusa.
It is a objective fact that Raiden is harming Armstrong in every single one of those instances, you may not like it, you may even disagree and feel the need to argue it, but regardless of what you feel it is an absolute objective fact that Raiden is physically harming Armstrong in those scenes as well as beyond those examples. You can not sit here and use the excuse of "well if it was legit it wouldn't be argued" as if that's an actual argument, because it isn't, at best this argument is simply calling the kettle black, but I wouldn't even go that far.
So yes, I'm claiming something is an objective fact, at least here, Raiden physically hurt Armstrong without the aid of Muramusa, Ripper Mode or Armstrong's nanomachines arbitrarily getting weaker, because that's quite literally what happened. This is objective, you can't reasonably say Armstrong wasn't hurt in those events. The rest of the argument could enter the realm of subjectivity but as far as him actually harming him in phase 2? That's as objective as it gets.

I honestly don't believe we are all watching the same scene, and not everyone seems to be on page with what's actually happening.

Feeling's mutual. And given how much weird contradictions and back forth between your claims you made below, I'm not sure if even you're on the same page as yourself as odd as that sounds. But then again, chances are we aren't watching the same scene given I'm explicitly taking about the second phase in 99% of my posts and you went on to make an attempt at explaining phase 1, so yes, probably two different scenes, if you meant to respond to twellas I could understand the confusion but you quoted my in particular so...

Armstrong starts off the engagement by charging at an obviously unprepared Raiden who inquires "What the hell are you thinking?" before being attacked, even though he's confused Raiden is still well and capable of dodging punches from Armstrong and there's nothing indicating a major gap here, especially since Raiden hasn't officially engaged yet.

Yes, Raiden holds the speed advantage, Dok himself says so, Dok also says that Raiden is nowhere near as strong or durable as Armstrong and all he can do is dodge, he even speculates that Armstrong could likely kill Raiden in one punch (presumably a serious punch). This has even been linked in this very thread. Moot point, Raiden is stated to be faster and can dodge but also stated to be much weaker. And yes, Raiden hasn't engaged yet, but when he does he does very little, and then Armstrong starts taking it a bit seriously and Raiden is powerless.

When we reach "Why don't you stick around and find out?", Raiden is dealing small percentages with his strikes, which in turn leads into "Nice knife.". Raiden gets floored with a punch but gets back up. (This is where the start of the "AP increase through RPL" argument begins)

Not really, at least not for me, I'm almost entirely talking about Phase two where Raiden is shown makig Armstrong eat dirt physically rather then the other way. And yes, Raiden is dealing small percentage damages with his punches, between 0 to 0.1% per blow, and like 0.3/0.4% with his sword.

Raiden is given his first real chance to block one of Armstrong's punches because he is finally prepared for the fight, in which he blocks, and contends with a casual Armstrong with a few strikes, cool. But what this has done is establish them on mostly equal terms, and isn't indicative of an actual strength increase unless you deliberately look for it, and it only takes a moment later to see why.

Are you for real? Like actually, you literally just said yourself "a casual Armstrong", he's suppressed, when he starts putting in a bit more effort, Raiden gets humiliated and can't even hurt him five seconds later, and it's made even worse given Raiden actively says he's trying to kill Armstrong with the following blows that result in doing no damage, in a cutscene no less. I can't tell if you're joking or just forgot what happens immediately afterwards. Raiden is literally stated to be nowhere near Armstrong's physical equal in codecs at that point, Armstrong hilariously overwhelms him, floors him, and Raiden can physically do no real damage.

Armstrong "Has a dream." and proceeds to continue to grapple and overpower the supposedly catching up Raiden, pulling apart the very arms that were just a second ago holding him back and headbutting him until he is brought to his knees. Raiden is clearly winded by all of this, mind you. If Raiden was truly the one gaining the upper hand here, why is he being overwhelmed? Is the question I ask specifically for this instance here.

I'd ask the same, why the are you bringing up a part when Raiden is very clearly not even remotely on par with Armstrong yet as a counter to when Raiden is shown flooring Armstrong later on? Like, yes, Raiden starts getting his shit kicked in and made into a fool when Armstrong starts making even a slight bit of effort, directly contradicting any notion of them being even slight equal, at that point, as not only is it stated in game for that to not be the case in phase 1, but Armstrong was holding back and not making an effort when Raiden initially landed a few blows because Armstrong was trying to recruit him like he did Sam. You've basically confirmed my point, Raiden was initially much weaker then Armstrong. Though even then, you could argue that Raiden went from being unable to contend with a casual Armstrong to being able to maybe contend with him, but unable to contend with Armstrong who's starting to put in effort based upon the middle sequence. I myself am sticking with the phase 2 stuff but I can see why others may think otherwise.

After Raiden is floored and we reach "You're batshit insane!" Raiden catches Armstrong off-guard and throws him, this is fine, but not evidence of any boost as Armstrong simply wasn't prepared. Raiden states "...and now I'll take yours." and we are thrown into the next portion of the fight, however, Raiden has returned to dealing small portions of damage to Armstrong with no noticeable increase, even after a barrage of punches he is still standing at 91.1% health, in which we run into the next issue with the idea of an AP increase.

At this point you're literally just describing how Raiden is weaker then Armstrong at this point, which is my point. Yes, in phase one, Raiden is dealing miniscule damage, Armstrong has hyperarmor, and it's followed by a blatant example of Armstrong laughing off Raiden's best, x100. This, is exactly what I've been saying, Raiden is weaker and also can't hurt Armstrong at all.

If Armstrong was previously knocked off his feet before, with what was a suggested strength increase, why is he not knocked off his feet even later with what was a vast amount of strikes by comparison? The answer is that there isn't a strength increase here, and claiming so is contradicted directly by the media presented. This is then furthered by "What did I just say?"

Idk, I'm not arguing for Raiden to have increased in strength at that point really, at least not to the point of surpassing him, I'm more leaning on the blatant examples in phase two compared to end of phase one to where Raiden demonstrably skyrockets in strength I quite literally sent that scene three times already as evidence to Raiden being unable to harm Armstrong, what are you even attempting to argue here? Also here's the start of your contradictory claims, you're claiming that Armstrong isn't even budged by numerous strikes later when he starts getting serious, even though a bit down you basically try and say that Raiden even before that hurt him but he really didnt, while also ignoring the blatant example of Armstrong saying Raiden can't hurt him and then clarifying again by saying "What did I just say?" after being slammed in the face.

Now, Raiden suffers a barrage of punches, but is still able to return to his feet as he did prior, this shows that Armstrong is not vastly stronger than Raiden, just much more durable. Equipped with Murasama, a better sword and heightened resolve, Raiden engages Armstrong for the last time, with the actual narrative objective now to kill him as control is not wrestled out of the player's hands again.

Yeah, he does return to his feet, after almost 3 minutes of struggling to stand, only being allowed to do so because Armstrong allowed him to stand while he listened to Blade Wolf. Armstrong's AP ironically doesn't matter (even though it's conformed he's much, much stronger), all that matters is he's much, much more durable, and that Raiden went from being unable to actually really hurt him to being able to floor him. as if you didn't just describe the part of the fight where Armstrong was able to shrug off all of Raiden's attacks as if they were at best a minor nuisance.
Muramusa does **** all by itself, we know from Sam that it cant do anything by itself. Better yet, you ignore completely the fact that Raiden quite literally HARMS Armstrong WITHOUT the sword, the sword is a literal nonfactor to the argument because the sword doesnt explain how Raiden's punches did like 0.1% in scripted QTE's and zero damage and laughed off in a cutscene but by the second half of the fight Raiden those very same punches are doing like 10-20x more damage and full bodied blows are doing like 10-20% per hit in the QTE's and cutscenes, without the sword being used anywhere at all within the vicinity pf those blows. And heightened resolve? Yeah sure, Raiden has a more defined goal here, that doesn't somehow magically make him physically able to hurt the dude who a minute prior was laughing off Raiden's still serious blows. And narrative control not being wrestled out of the player's hand's again? Actual nonargument, especially when the second half of the fight is littered with QTE's and scripted sequences.

All arguments up until this point in the fight for RPL are relatively null, as it can be discarded with something as simple as the proper knowledge of the events that transpired.

You quite literally left out half the fight and only bothered to explain what everyone already knew, in that Armstrong could shrug off Raiden's attacks in phase 1, and then acted like the Muramasa was why Raiden's physical blows are now able to hurt Armstrong even when the muramusa is literally tossed to the side and Raiden is forced to go at it with his bare fists. Honestly, my retort to this is, same, simply actually paying attention to the dialogue, gameplay segments and cutscenes tells us Raiden is powerless but in phase 2 that's very blatantly and confirmed not the case.
Also you outright ignored several mate.

Firstly, I want to preface this by saying perhaps Armstrong isn't as durable as you build him up to be.

Don't know about that mate, 180+ blows and then some being chuckled at.

During the very first engagement of "lining your own pockets" Armstrong very clearly wasn't unfazed as he presents himself to be, he's tripped by Raiden's attack and whipping his mouth, he's not truly harmed but still relatively faxed by Raiden's strikes. My point being here is that while Armstrong is presenting himself as invincible, he truly isn't and we know this, even with what little damage Raiden is doing.

Really? Because Armstrong is clearly completely unharmed by Raiden, and what little damage Raiden can do is walked off. He's tripped up? You mean pushed back slightly? And he's whipping his mouth, sure, but he's also not at all actually hurt by it, and for arguments sake, lets say it did hurt him even if barely, barely is drastically less then what Raiden ends up doing later where he's actively making Armstrong eat dirt in single blows. And Armstrong presenting himself? It's not just him mate, Dok and Raiden both says he's basically invincible at that point and there's no way in hell they could beat him no matter what they do, and it's not even them, the game itself depicts it that way in gameplay, or like, the dozen interactions past that point. And given at the end of the sequence Armstrong is literally laughing off Raiden's attempts at going balls to the wall on him, it feels to me like you're purposely underselling him or taking one example that didn't actually hurt him beyond a "heh". Not that it would even matter, it's absolutely undeniable Raiden went from doing fractions of a percent of damage with multiple blows to doing loads of damage and inciting actual responses from Armstrong like pain and direct confirmation, it doesn't even matter how durable Armstrong is, all that matters is if Raiden got stronger comparatively, which he demonstrably did.

This isn't really my main point, but I want you to understand that there is an express narrative and development purpose for how the fight is presented:

There is yes, which is why I'm wondering why half of what you just said basically amounts to "Armstrong went easy on Raiden, Armstrong went a little harder on him and floored him, with it being reiterated numerous times that Raiden can not hurt him. This is supported by two gameplay segments were raiden can't do any meaningful damage to hurt a hyperarmor Armstrong followed by QTE's where Raiden goes all out and punches him numerous times and failing to do anything but make him shrug. A cutscene follows where Armstrong says he can't be hurt by Raiden, and Raiden then again tries to hurt him and completely fails and gets laughed at".
Like yes, there is a narrative here, and it says Raiden can't hurt Armstrong and he's much weaker. You're actually twisting it beyond belief here Abstraction.

Think about how games will present characters with multiple phases, checkpoints, if you will. They want you to get a taste of the fight before truly allowing you to complete it, they do this by stopping you at certain points of the fight to allow for more exposition or completely halt your damage output to allow for a transition, this isn't to say a character is unharmable, just that the developer doesn't want you to kill them yet. Which is exactly what we are presented with here.

Uh yeah? For one trying to use the narrative as a reasoning you're acting like the QTE's, cutscenes and basically everything that says Raiden couldn't do jack shit to Armstrong and everything bounced off or did so little damage that Armstrong wasn't the least bit phased by him don't exist.

They give you the opportunity to test Armstrong twice, but are doing this narratively because they want to establish his strength and durability while also providing exposition, and it does this by reducing the damage you deal to Armstrong and cutting into more dialogue.

Yes, they want to establish his strength and durability, that is quite literally the point, it is established, not ONLY in gameplay but even the following cutscene that Raiden can not hurt Armstrong. They reduce the damage because he quite literally CAN NOT HARM HIM at that point, as stated by every single character in play. And then shown in the cutscenes where Raiden throws like a hundred punches and does like 5%, and then in a rendered cutscene where Raiden punches him square in the jaw and Armstrong just laughs and says Raiden can't hurt him. This isn't some gameplay trick, Raiden quite literally can't do any real damage to him, **** Raiden even strains his wrist punching Armstrong and it does nothing. So yes, narratively, it is established Armstrong is so durable that Raiden can't hurt him even while trying his best, this is reflected in both the gameplay, character's statements, codecs and QTE's, all explicitly made to show Armstrong's durability>>>>>Raiden. It cuts into more dialogue, some of which includes "You can't hurt me" and Raiden asking why he cant hurt him.

Now when dialogue is officially exhausted and you are finally given complete control to finish the fight, you appear to be doing more damage. This here is what's giving you the illusion that there's a strength boost at play, which you come to the conclusion with wrongly, as the narrative presented outside of the gameplay has already shown. But you may say:

I honestly truly and fully can't believe you're resorting to an argument that basically amounts to "raiden not doing much damage in phase 1 is just a trick and raiden doing more damage in the second phase is just because of the dev's wanting you to beat him now", as if absolutely everything from the damage he takes, the QTE's, his reactions and statements, the other character's reactions and statements, all dont explicitly say that Raiden couldn't hurt him in phase 1 no matter what he did. Are we even looking at the same narrative? You're literally spitting on said narrative here and yet trying to use it as your justification.

Perhaps the developer thought it would be unfair to force you to finish the fight under design they put in place just for lore? The point was to establish Armstrong's strength before you are allowed to fight him for real, they aren't going to force you to chip him with .5% every strike just to keep consistent with that as it has already served its purpose.

Yes, it was meant to show his strength, it showed that Armstrong could fold Raiden, and that Raiden physically couldnt do any real damage no matter how hard he tried. Like yes, that is what the first phase was designed to do, and they did exactly that. The part you're ignoring is that in phase 2 Raiden can harm Armstrong, not just in the gameplay, but in cutscenes and QTE's, which even elicit dialogue like Armstrong literally saying THAT ONE HURT after getting punched in the face so hard he loses like 20% of his HP by Raiden's bare raw fist unaided by anything. This isn't just a gameplay thing, it's a canonical thing that happened and dealt far more damage opposed to the piss weak blows comparatively Raiden was tossing prior.

You may disagree and you are fully free to, but narratively the game doesn't present Raiden as getting stronger all the way up to the end.

"Narratively", is the new buzzword now? Ignoring that narratively, and even visually, demonstrably and clarified even, that Raiden was doing basically nothing to flooring him, with his bare hands. If a character fails to hurt a character but then becomes able to hurt said character who could facetank everything tossed at him like nothing, with no outside interference or factors, that's the character going from weak to strong, how it happened I don't give a ****, all I know is that Raiden went from being hilariously inable to hurt him to flooring him and Muramusa, RM and nano's weakening ain't why. Also even then, there's definitely some things earlier in the game that's at best, makes your claim open to interpretation at best and false at worst.

Frankly I believe Armstrong's durability is exaggerated because him and Raiden are presented on fairly equal terms, just that Armstrong has nanomachines that mitigate harm done to him, and I don't need to make assumptions with that as it's what is put right in front of me.

You're contradicting yourself here, you've gone on record, in this very post, saying that Raiden couldn't really do shit to Armstrong in the first half. Is it because of his nanomachines? I mean, obviously? Without them he's just a buff peak human, he'd explode into paste with them. Do the nano's mitigate harm? Yes, they do, by hardening in response to attacks, making him durable enough to withstand, which is so durable, that in the first half of the fight, Raiden could do barely anything if at all. You don't need to make assumptions about the nano's, but if you truly believe that Armstrong and Raiden were on equal terms, you're actually explicitly wrong and the game even outright tells you and shows you as much, it even goes out of it's way to say the ONLY thing Raiden had over Armstrong was speed and all he could really do is dodge. **** at one point Armstrong just stands there and lets Raiden throw like a hundred punches at him in a scripted QTE cutscene and Armstrong doesn't even budge, and the total amount barely do 5%.

I will not be responding to anything that turns this into a circular debate, and responding with your own subjective view on the events doesn't serve to debunk what I say, as it is your interpretation of events versus mine, and I simply find mine more sensible.

And this is where I have issue with the whole "this is subjective" and "this is my view", sure I can see where a few of your claims can enter the realm of subjectivity, but a few of the things you say come off as blatant lying to me, and I say lying, because it's clear you at least made an attempt to watch the links so it's not like you don't know at least surface level information. I can reasonably see how some of the things you stated are even something you truly believe given a good chunk of what you said is contradicted by other things of what you said, on top of that there's you trying to paint a picture of the game saying Armstrong was never really that much above Raiden and Raiden actually could hurt him when that's so hilariously blatantly false that it unironically feels like I'm being punked, and then trying to say something like "the dev's simply lowered your damage in phase one because they didnt want you doing loads of damage", as if that mattered, see Sundowner, and bosses don't even die when hitting one HP, you always have to enter a scripted cinematic sequence no matter the HP and at HP checkpoints.

Also, I don't know if you noticed this while typing it out but you contradicted yourself multiple times. For example.
You say that Armstrong and Raiden were always on equal grounds but also say things like the moment Armstrong made an effort he "proceeds to continue to grapple and overpower the supposedly catching up Raiden, pulling apart the very arms that were just a second ago holding him back and headbutting him until he is brought to his knees. Raiden is clearly winded by all of this".

You also explicitly say at points that Raiden failed to do anything to Armstrong after he actually tries and even defended Armstrong being tossed while offguard, but also try and say that Armstrong isnt actually that durable and Raiden could hurt him in a scene prior to when Armstrong got serious, ignoring you also said Armstrong is much, much more durable then Raiden.

And that's not even a quarter of it. Your points can't coexist, you have varying contradictory claims and points.
Your entire post is filled with contradictory claims Abstraction, like, did you even proof read? Actual question because for every argument you gave, you also gave one that contradicts the very claims you're trying to make.

Like come on.

Now on to actual clips because I'm starting to think people aren't opening the links I keep linking. Also, the clips have audio and sound when opened if anyone needs them (couldn't figure out how to embed videos on the forum).



End of phase 1. Armstrong is starting to grow tired of Jack and his bullshit, he lets Jack go all out and try to kill him. Raiden proceeds to pummel Armstrong, it does basically nothing. Raiden tries again, putting in so much effort that the following cutscene opens up with him visibly having a strained wrist.
A hundred direct blows to Armstrong does nothing but slightly inconvenience him, Armstrong stands there and takes it to show Raiden that even if he wails on him as hard as he can, he can't hurt him much if at all, Armstrong just shrugs it off. And mind you, given I popped the video into a editor to clip it, I went frame by frame as well, Raiden throws, like 180 punches there, give or take. In a scripted cinematic sequence it takes Raiden almost 200 blows to do minimal damage and for Armstrong to quite literally shrug it off and chuckle at how pathetic Raiden is.



Immediately following that, Jack shakes his hand, likely due to the fact he just punched a stone wall over a hundred times, and asks in anger why Armstrong won't die (Second time Raiden basically said he was trying to kill, the first time being Raiden literally saying it's time to kill him). Armstrong laughs at him, and says the meme. States his nano's harden, whatever we all know the rest, and then says, that Jack can not hurt him, plain as day, and given Raiden just punched him how many times and failed to do much at all and even yells in anger at his inability to hurt, well Armstrong, he ain't wrong.

Second part because clipping super long scenes doesnt work.
Armstrong says "You can't hurt me", Raiden then charges at him and punches him square in the face while yelling. Armstrong laughs at him, isn't phased at all and says "What did I just say", aka Raiden just punched him in the face full force and didn't hurt him. Then Raiden gets knocked on his ass and is stunned. Last bit doesnt really matter, all that matters is that Raiden couldnt hurt him.
So given Armstrong says "You can't hurt me", right after Jack pummels him and fails to actually hurt him and then is followed by a punch directly toe the fact that is laughed off with Armstrong clarifying once again that Jack can not hurt him. Needless to say, Jack can not hurt him.



Mind you, all these three are in a row, there's nothing cut out between any of these three clips and it's the very end of phase 1. It is made exceptionally clear that Raiden is fully incapable of doing **** all to Armstrong physically, the most he can do is minimal negligible damage while Armstrong literally stands there and takes it, and it's laughed off. (Better yet, we're even given a hp bar to show just how little it's doing, it will always be much, much less then the very same attacks in the second half of the fight).

Also in the gameplay segments of the first phase, everything Raiden does is drastically weaker compared to phase 2, and Armstrong can't be staggered, stunned and can't flinch, at all, by anything. He also says shit like "Man-to-man I can't be beat! C'mon!". It's not just damage portraying Raiden's inability to harm him, it's literally everything. (Also Raiden takes vastly more damage for what it's worth, one punch from Armstrong does like, almost half your whole bar).

Next part is Armstrong sitting atop Raiden and ora rushing him into the metal Gear then punching him so hard the Metal Gear explodes. Armstrong walks over to Raiden's limp body who's on his ass due to the pummel and Armstrong says "All right. I think we're about done here". As Raiden lays on the ground amidst the flames. Pupper shows up, something about Sam, and while the mutt distracts Armstrong basically and plays Sam's last words via audio recording Raiden struggles to get on his ass and stand back up (Armstrong notices this fyi, looks at Raiden and goes "eh" and looks back towards Blade Wolf, he doesnt really give a **** and just let's Raiden try and get back to his feet, it also takes nearly three minutes for him to stand back up and almost a minute to get on his knee, so you claiming Raiden simply stood right back up is a blatant lie). He gets tossed the Muramusa, they both get ready to brawl, cue second phase.

Now, we're on the second phase. We already know Raiden previously couldn't do **** all, blatantly so. It's made so blatantly obvious that Raiden physically can't harm Armstrong, it's shown not only in the gameplay itself but also the QTE dedicated to showing how Raiden can't hurt him twice over and a cutscene where Armstrong states that Raiden can't hurt him all the while Raiden punches him and fails to hurt him. This is the very last sequence of Phase 1 when Armstrong starts to take things a bit seriously, I can not stress this enough, your claim of Raiden having always been capable of harming Armstrong and him not being that durable (Which you yourself contradict in your own post) is both enforced by gameplay, cutscenes, codecs, dialogue, character interactions and reactions and narrative even, contrary to your claims.

Yet let's compare and point a few canonical instances of Raiden harming Armstrong without Ripper Mode, without Muramusa, and while Armstrong is actively pissed off and going all out following the initial bout.



This one right here is the most blatant ass example of them all.
Raiden strikes Armstrong with Muramusa, who grabs it and manages to disarm him, as in literally loses Muramusa.
Raiden proceeds to block a serious punch from Armstrong with one arm with drastically less effort then it took to block a casual punch earlier with both hands, then proceeds to rapid punch him like he did prior, but instead of doing **** all, it's actually hurting him, and not just a little, Armstrong is visibly and audibly being harmed let alone the HP bar indicator, compared to the previous jabs that Armstrong took like nothing and did little damage if at all. Raiden then does a swift chop in the neck which hurts him as well and makes him fall back.
Followed by Raiden crosscountering him and punching him in the face so hard, it basically freeze frames, Armstrong gets launched but beyond that, Armstrong himself literally says that punch hurt him, we have direct confirmation a punch from Raiden, unaided, hurt Armstrong by Armstrong himself as well as the game. Compared to where previously, a full powered electric punch to the face got Raiden laughed at.
The exact same moves that did nothing before can do actual harm and damage to Armstrong, without any outside aid, and this has nothing to do with your narrative excuse or gameplay, as this is a QTE and narratively, it was shown these very same attacks could do basically nothing a few minutes ago.



But hey, more examples the better right?
Here's Raiden kicking Armstrong in the ribs and side and again, hurting him, (hell, we can hear the metal crunch, or possibly even bone breaking) and Armstrong's response? Him screaming in anger. Another clear cut example of Raiden harming Armstrong, physically, even seemingly quite badly, when previously he couldn't. In a canon QTE.

 

[Chariot190]

Hell, here's Raiden slapping him with Muramusa, in a scripted event (that happens 3 times minimum), it failing to do much other briefly stop the attack, with Raiden then grabbing him and tossing his ass so hard into Excelsus it does a metric **** ton of damage. Another example of Raiden harming him, and in this case, explicitly far beyond what Muramusa did by itself. Armstrong even proclaims it's the greatest fight of his life.

"But the Muramusa is why", as if that obviously wasn't blatantly false.

Here's examples of Armstrong basically telling the Muramusa to **** off, while JACK wields it, not even Jetstream Sam.



As mentioned above, Armstrong can grab Muramusa with his bare hands and disarm Jack. Which forces Raiden to temporarily fight Armstrong with his bare hands, followed by a scripted QTE, the first one shown above fyi that explicitly shows that Raiden doesn't need Muramusa to put Armstrong on his ass anymore.

Plus as Twellas showed, Muramusa still bounces off Armstrong, the only time Muramusa is useful is when it's repeated blows at hyperspeed in the same spot preventing the nano's from reforming and defending or before the nano's can even react.

So actually, let's go over what we have.

*Raiden is stated at best on par then a casual Armstrong but likely weaker and if hit, it could actually be lethal. While not overly relevant to Raiden's AD as that's reliant simply on Armstrong's durability, not AP, it's still noteworthy.

*It is reiterated by all three characters relevant here that Raiden is simply incapable of harming Armstrong. This is made explicit to us not only in gameplay (All of Raiden's attacks do several times less then they do in phase 2. They fail to not only stun, stagger or make Armstrong flinch in the first phase gameplay sections, he has built in hyperarmor by design to show how powerless Raiden is. As such, both gameplay, statements and even explicit cinematic showings all enforce this).

*Raiden is shown blatantly attacking Armstrong with all his might and failing to do anything beyond a minor nuisance with 100+ punches, as well as a direct blow to the face once Armstrong stops ******* around far less then he was before.

*In phase two, Raiden's physical attacks do drastically more damage, in canonical QTE's, Armstrong can be physically overwhelmed and hurt badly by Jack.

*Raiden's attacks in gameplay even do much more damage then they did in phase one as well, by several times over, including when disarmed, as such, not only is it reflected in QTE's and cutscenes but also the gameplay itself (Which take priority over gameplay, but it's nice that gameplay also reflect this) Armstrong can also be stunned, staggered and flinched now.

*Armstrong now explicitly notes that Raiden is putting up much, much more of fight, and even goes to say that Raiden can hurt him now, after getting punched in the face (Hewill always say "That one hurt!" after the crosscounter punch), contrary to when previously he said Raiden couldnt hurt him when punched in the face. This shows a blatant progression of being unable to harm to harming.

*Armstrong's nano's automatically defend. Not only does Armstrong state that his nano's harden in response to physical trauma. But it's also stated that Armstrong's whole body is nano's, he's human claytronics amped up to 11. And as shown against Sam when he gets delimbed, his whole body inside is hardened as well. Not only that but it's also stated that Armstrong outright can't manually control the nano's beyond the most basic extent, and that his heart has a AI control center that actively and automatically controls the nanomachines to defend against all attacks automatically. (Plus we can see pieces of nano debris get launched in the second phase after a few hits regardless).

*Raiden in the Sam fight even makes a statement that alludes to, over time, if the fight drags on, sooner or later, it doesn't matter how skilled or strong Sam is compared to him, he won't be able to stop Raiden. This is a pretty blatant allusion to how Raiden over time can proceed to skillfuck, but even seeming bridge a power gap, as Sam at the time was seemingly even physically superior.

*Raiden went from being comparable to Sam to being able to fight Armstrong, in a timelimit of two hours, most of which was him in a rocket being launched across the planet. Sam is demonstrably weaker then even a casual Armstrong, only being able to inflict any meaningful damage by simply attacking faster then the nano's can defend.

*Raiden went from fighting Monsoon in a state that's 10x his base physically, Monsoon's body could withstand and tank blows from Raiden in this state, even in QTE's. Minutes later, Raiden fights a duplicate body that has the same physical stats as Monsoon, and defeats and dismantles it seemingly casually in base form, a body that could tank attacks 10x stronger then his base only minutes ago. Dok couldn't have upgraded Raiden here either, as Monsoon took place outside of World Marshal and Raiden fights the duplicate minutes later inside the building.

These last two points cover the whole "there's nothing in the game that even slightly alludes to Raiden being able to cover a power gap without outside aid". Of course you could say some of that is subjective. Yeah, you could, but that's not the point, the point is the there does exist evidence in the game elsewhere that leads credence to it, as if Raiden going from hurting his hand hitting Armstrong to flooring him with one punch wasn't enough.

Like actually come on here.

You can't tell me there isn't a blatant difference between these yeah?





Raiden is shown plain as day he can't hurt Armstrong, is stated he can't hurt Armstrong, is a plot point he can't hurt Armstrong, everyone says he can't hurt Armstrong, and is shown in gameplay and QTE's he can't hurt Armstrong.

Yet in phase 2 he can hurt Armstrong explicitly with his bare fists, deal massive damage (not a little bit more, but drastically more damage), pushes Armstrong beyond his limit, has Armstrong even confirm his blows can hurt him when previously they couldn't and all without outside aid like Muramusa as he even loses the sword and is forced into physical CQC with Armstrong without it.

I'm going to be honest here, we see plain as day that Raiden went from incapable of hurting him, to hurting him, this is portrayed by the character's dialogue, interactions, cutscenes, QTE, the gameplay and so on, every facet of the media presented enforces that Raiden couldn't hurt but in phase 2 he can. And this is physically speaking without Muramusa, RM, outside help or factors and so on.
And yes, I know I probably repeated myself a good three dozen times reiterating the same thing, but let's be honest, other then a few noteworthy points, the majority of what you said warrants the exact same response.

 

[Abstractions]

Absolutely moot argument, because i only presented Sundowner being stronger than Monsoon as a possibility,

Mm, except you phrased it this way:

in an organization like the WODs, where you literally have to fistfight your employer to get in, if’s a nigh impossibility that an higher rank doesn’t translate to more strength

So are you calling me a liar? Because you are clearly trying to present this as Sundowner being superior due to being a leader, which is simply your headcanon. Read the post again to understand why this matters.

Now, if Sundowner is at least equal to Monsoon, and if Monsoon can fight relative to a much stronger, bloodlusted version of Raiden's base, how do you explain the fact that Raiden then procedes to beat Sundowner in base?

Ah, I take it you're of the opinion that Raiden uses Ripper Mode once and never again, I take it? It's not like he has access to a new strength boost ability after the Monsoon fight or anything.

Weak argument.

And what exactly do you mean "what is happening narratively"? I don't recall any statement being thrown out there about the WODs being necessarily equal to one another, and if anything, we have pieces of dialogue that imply that there is indeed a progression, such as Sundowner saying "you killed Monsoon, I'm impressed" and never even mentioning Mistral; I'm not saying that this is definitive proof of there being a narrative crescendo in terms of power, what I'm saying is that saying that it is "definitely not happening" narratively is disingenuous at absolute best

Armstrong is the only gap for entry, if they all have fought him there is no need for any of them to be superior to one another, just relative. Drop the fluff and read the post again or don't respond.

? Are you unironically using "They present the same moabs" as an argument? Besides the fact that as you progress, you are indeed faced with more and more complex fodder enemies, to the point where Blade Wolf, who was previously a mini-boss, ends up being presented as a normal enemy (the dog moabs are copies of Blade Wolf, with the only difference being that they, while retaining BW's moveset, are significantly less intelligent) how is that even remotely an argument when the fodders are just that, fodders who are not a challenge to the protagonist to begin with?

Meanwhile you are still encountering the same ninjas that impaled Raiden at the Monsoon fight, the point is a small supporting argument to the previous one to show how little the game actually ramps up compared to your perception, but I'm surprised you decided to focus on this.

Now a lot of your later posts are just a complete misrepresentation of the scene, as I laid out the scene and their altercation piece by piece in my post, any viewer should do themselves the favor and watch the scene here! But I will highlight this piece:

So, to answer your question, Raiden was being overwhelmed because while yes, he got stronger, Armstrong just went stronger..er by being less suppressed, you can see it in his demeanor, he's much more violent during his monologue, stomping on Raiden multiple times, and we know that Armstrong being suppressed means that his dura goes down, since in the Sam fight, while he's being extremely casual, he gets (somehow, Sam slashes him with the Murasama in-game, but given how he'd be dead if that slash actually happened, I'm not sure it can be accepted) knocked to the ground, but after Sam's refusal, he, again, becomes more agressive and can simply no-sell Sam's attacks. We also know that Armstrong has some willful control over the nanos, so it's not like him reducing their hardness goes agains established canon

So your solution to this is to say Armstrong either has RPL of his own to fight back against the already questionable RPL or to assume the nanomachines that passively protect him are being subconsciously controlled to not protect him at certain periods? Do you understand how silly that sounds?

The idea of Armstrong not being stronger than Raiden, just more durable is also invalidated by every instance of Armstrong sending Raiden flying with single punches and straight up overpowering him. Also, Dok straight up says that "even a single blow" from Armstrong could be fatal to Raiden, so no, Armstrong not being stronger than Raiden is just not possible

Meanwhile in the actual fight!

are- are you going to make an argument of "Raiden beat him because the plot told him to"? christ, please no...

I'm sure your strawman would say that, but not me! I was discussing developer intent, had you read my post properly!

Again, theory, why the hell would they even put scripted sequences in which Raiden punches Armstrong then? They could have spared themselves the burden of creating a whole h2h system and QTEs in which Raiden uses his bare hands to fight Armstrong from scratch and just let Raiden use the Murasama, that would have perfectly portrayed what you think was their goal.

You mean the scripted bits where Raiden does chip damage for the sake of establishing Armstrong's strength to the actual fight? Hmm, read the post again!

This is basically a glorified opinion of yours, which isn't even supported by a point you yourself brought up (the fodder enemies not changing, which they do, and a mini-boss becomes a fodder enemy you can kill multiple of at the same time)

Mm, not really, try again. We see the same fodder types right until the end. I may save this bit for later too.

You know what's also put right in front of you? This and this, but you don't seem to want to consider this, you'd rather go with meta-theories to explain it rather than accepting it. It's so obvious that Armstrong is displayed to be much stronger than Raiden that it hurts, it's perhaps the single most blatant case of an underdog fight in gaming

Man, it's almost like you didn't watch the scene.

You mean the cyborgs that were fodderized by characters like Sundowner? Also you really just use the ol Goomba argument? Hell, there's cutscenes where end game enemies literally get one shot by notable characters as if they were nothing. Hell, in the Excelsus fight Gekko units get one shot by the MG so it's even reflected by bosses in gameplay even.

Oof, Chariot. Read above.

What in the actual **** are you talking about? Every single example given where Raiden harms him is AFTER Armstrong starts going all out. **** you're outright arguing against yourself here as Raiden fails to hurt him when Armstrong is HOLDING BACK in your own words let alone when he's actively trying to put Raiden in the ground.

You like to drone on and on but you actually need to watch the scene and read the post first before you comment.

You're contradicting yourself here, you've gone on record, in this very post, saying that Raiden couldn't really do shit to Armstrong in the first half. Is it because of his nanomachines? I mean, obviously? Without them he's just a buff peak human, he'd explode into paste with them. Do the nano's mitigate harm? Yes, they do, by hardening in response to attacks, making him durable enough to withstand, which is so durable, that in the first half of the fight, Raiden could do barely anything if at all. You don't need to make assumptions about the nano's, but if you truly believe that Armstrong and Raiden were on equal terms, you're actually explicitly wrong and the game even outright tells you and shows you as much, it even goes out of it's way to say the ONLY thing Raiden had over Armstrong was speed and all he could really do is dodge. **** at one point Armstrong just stands there and lets Raiden throw like a hundred punches at him in a scripted QTE cutscene and Armstrong doesn't even budge, and the total amount barely do 5%.

I'm not even contradicting myself, please cut down on the fluff and actually read please.

And this is where I have issue with the whole "this is subjective" and "this is my view", sure I can see where a few of your claims can enter the realm of subjectivity, but a few of the things you say come off as blatant lying to me, and I say lying, because it's clear you at least made an attempt to watch the links so it's not like you don't know at least surface level information. I can reasonably see how some of the things you stated are even something you truly believe given a good chunk of what you said is contradicted by other things of what you said, on top of that there's you trying to paint a picture of the game saying Armstrong was never really that much above Raiden and Raiden actually could hurt him when that's so hilariously blatantly false that it unironically feels like I'm being punked, and then trying to say something like "the dev's simply lowered your damage in phase one because they didnt want you doing loads of damage", as if that mattered, see Sundowner, and bosses don't even die when hitting one HP, you always have to enter a scripted cinematic sequence no matter the HP and at HP checkpoints.

Awful attempt at poisoning the well here, nothing here is actively being contradicted and you haven't even presented it as such.

In fact, I find it incredibly funny how both of you are going so hard out of your way with all this fluff against my argument when more than half of it is just the events of the scene re-capped.

Also, I don't know if you noticed this while typing it out but you contradicted yourself multiple times. For example.
You say that Armstrong and Raiden were always on equal grounds but also say things like the moment Armstrong made an effort he "proceeds to continue to grapple and overpower the supposedly catching up Raiden, pulling apart the very arms that were just a second ago holding him back and headbutting him until he is brought to his knees. Raiden is clearly winded by all of this".

You also explicitly say at points that Raiden failed to do anything to Armstrong after he actually tries and even defended Armstrong being tossed while offguard, but also try and say that Armstrong isnt actually that durable and Raiden could hurt him in a scene prior to when Armstrong got serious, ignoring you also said Armstrong is much, much more durable then Raiden.

And that's not even a quarter of it. Your points can't coexist, you have varying contradictory claims and points.
Your entire post is filled with contradictory claims Abstraction, like, did you even proof read? Actual question because for every argument you gave, you also gave one that contradicts the very claims you're trying to make.

Like, look at all of this, do you understand that what I was re-capping the scene for you so you bit by bit? "The supposedly catching up Raiden" is your argument for RPL.

You are still under this notion the Armstrong is no-selling everything, which I never even claimed he is, in fact I'm saying he's more durable, just not as durable as you build him up. You can type all this fluff you want but it doesn't mean anything unless you learn to read.

We reach the cherry-on-the-irony-cake, where you claim everything I said was contradictory and ask if I ever learned to proof-read, which is so rich coming from the person who will type up an essay but not even accurately dissect the opponent's argument. Why even say this? Your argument doesn't need it, or are you convinced that it does because you feel the need to comment on your opponent's capabilities rather than their own argument?


Now that we've established that my two opponents have not adequately read my post, I am free to ignore the obscene amount of fluff they produce, and will do so until they actually read.

 

[AKM sama]

Lot of words, Chariot. If you want others to read through and address your arguments, try to be concise and direct to the point. This is a common criticism about you that I have been hearing for a very long time now. You can't realistically expect people to read your walls of text every single time, and I wouldn't fault anybody if they choose to ignore it altogether. This is not how debating is done, it just feels like you want to drown the other side with words.

That said, I believe Abstractions has made more cogent arguments here and I find myself agreeing with her.

 

[Chariot190]

Meanwhile in the actual fight.

What's that gotta do with Raiden being unable to hurt him to being able to hurt him physically? Armstrong could be as physically strong as a normal human, it wouldn't actually matter to the point of Raiden being able to hurt him after awhile.

Oof, Chariot. Read above.

I did, Twellas ain't wrong.

You like to drone on and on but you actually need to watch the scene and read the post first before you comment.

Feeling's mutual 2.
I literally downloaded the video and went frame by frame. I've not only watched it I clipped the damn thing, it's why I can accurately give a number to Raiden's pummel. And I think we have a clear misunderstanding, it's almost like you think I'm using anything in phase 1 to credit Raiden's AD, I'm not personally, other then "Nothing Raiden did could hurt Armstrong really and this is reiterated multiple times" in comparison to phase 2 where Raiden floors him and hurts him badly multiple times with physical blows. That's the main basis of my argument.

Like, look at all of this, do you understand that what I was re-capping the scene for you so you bit by bit? "The supposedly catching up Raiden" is your argument for RPL.

I knew what you were trying to do, except you re-capping the scene involves blatant disregard for half the scene itself.

You are still under this notion the Armstrong is no-selling everything, which I never even claimed he is, in fact I'm saying he's more durable, just not as durable as you build him up. You can type all this fluff you want but it doesn't mean anything unless you learn to read.

Are you actually ******* with me right now? Armstrong ******* laughs off a punch that Raiden tosses at such a force, it MELTS his own hand. Armstrong is so much more durable then Raiden and what Raiden could dish out initially that I swear to god if you're actually going to close your eyes and ignore the most blatant examples in video game history of character no selling another character's attacks your opinion is going to be tossed because it's no longer just an opinion, it's blatantly blindness. Look, let's be blunt here, quite literally the only thing that actually matters is that Armstrong could laugh off a vast amount of punches and direct blows to the face, this happened, and in phase 2 that's simply no longer the case and is demonstrated all throughout, whether Armstrong is 2x more durable or 2000x, all that matters is that Raiden's attacks and physical blows went from doing little if anything to actually being able to harm, which, all things aside, they very clearly do.

We reach the cherry-on-the-irony-cake, where you claim everything I said was contradictory and ask if I ever learned to proof-read, which is so rich coming from the person who will type up an essay but not even accurately dissect the opponent's argument. Why even say this? Your argument doesn't need it, or are you convinced that it does because you feel the need to comment on your opponent's capabilities rather than their own argument?

What's there to even dissect? Everything you said just about is demonstrably false. And hello kettle.
I'm convinced you're purposely ignoring an absolute fuckton of blatant visual, narrative, auditory and canonical instances to suit your argument, when everything you say can be easily debunked with "armstrong could no sell like 200 punches and a full powered punch to the face and not even flinch and laugh it off" at the end of phase 1 and in phase 2 Raiden's attacks deal massive damage and is confirmed canonically to have done so...

Awful attempt at poisoning the well here, nothing here is actively being contradicted and you haven't even presented it as such.

You literally go on record and say things like Armstrong is much, much more durable and point out scenes at how Armstrong no sells Raiden's attacks, but also say that Armstrong cant no sell his attacks and isn't actually that durable to just name one.

In fact, I find it incredibly funny how both of you are going so hard out of your way with all this fluff against my argument when more than half of it is just the events of the scene re-capped.

Yes, re-capped but you're injecting your headcanon views onto how the scene played out and what it means.
That's the issue here. If you literally just re-capped it sure, but when every other sentence you toss in a "and this is why this means this", well yeah no shit people are gonna respond to that? Though at the end of the day, I'm still baffled at how this is even a real argument when the very end of phase 1 has Armstrong stating and clarifying he can't be hurt and taking almost two hundred blows to the chest to prove it and then slammed in the face so hard that Raiden's fist melts a bit and laughs at him for it. Like, we really doing this?

Now that we've established that my two opponents have not adequately read my post, I am free to ignore the obscene amount of fluff they produce, and will do so until they actually read.

Sounds like a cop-out to me tbh.

Lot of words, Chariot. If you want others to read through and address your arguments, try to be concise and direct to the point. This is a common criticism about you that I have been hearing for a very long time now. You can't realistically expect people to read your walls of text every single time, and I wouldn't fault anybody if they choose to ignore it altogether. This is not how debating is done, it just feels like you want to drown the other side with words

Which is why I summarized my points at the end for the sole purpose of giving people a tldr? I can realistically expect people to read any number of text, we aren't in grade school, it takes what, two-three minutes tops to read? I mean, feel what you want but when everything said can be blatantly proven false with the same few scenes, of course I'm going to be forced to reiterate it a dozen and a half times, I even said as much.

That said, I believe Abstractions has made more cogent arguments here and I find myself agreeing with her.

Her argument is literally spitting in the face of the very thing she's trying to use to justify it.

Like let's be real.





In what world is this not a clear example of Raiden doing more damage?

 

[Abstractions]

Yes, re-capped but you're injecting your headcanon views onto how the scene played out and what it means.

A complete failure to understand what I was actually doing.

If you claim Raiden has RPL, I'm going to put your proposition against the very scene you claim it comes from, which is exactly what my response was about. No headcanon, just the scene versus your claim, if you can't understand that then read it until you do.

Sounds like a cop-out to me tbh.

No, it's completely reasonable. What I'm doing is preventing you from stonewalling the argument.

 

[Twellas]

Mm, except you phrased it this way:
So are you calling me a liar? Because you are clearly trying to present this as Sundowner being superior due to being a leader, which is simply your headcanon. Read the post again to understand why this matters.

And even before that, I phrased it like this: "On top of this, Raiden fights Sundowner (again, in his base because nothing leads us to believe he went RM) who could be argued to be even stronger than Monsoon due to being the leader of the WODs.", and as i said, it's irrelevant

Ah, I take it you're of the opinion that Raiden uses Ripper Mode once and never again, I take it? It's not like he has access to a new strength boost ability after the Monsoon fight or anything.

Weak argument.

I am of the opinion that you physically cannot find a single cutscene of Raiden using RM in Sundowner's fight, and saying he did is a big assumption, especially when he very clearly doesn't like RM even after fighting Sundowner. Saying he would use RM is not enough to say that he did, and your argument for him going RM after the fight with Monsoon is nothing more than conjecture based on nothing, no statement, no cutscene, no scripted sequence, nothing.

i'd tell you "weak argument" but you literally don't even have an argument to begin with here

Armstrong is the only gap for entry, if they all have fought him there is no need for any of them to be superior to one another, just relative

They have to impress Armstrong in order to enter, and there not being a "need" (what the **** does that even mean?) for them to be stronger than one another is not an argument, you are quite literally arguing with nothing but conjecture at this point.
And again, it doesn't matter

Meanwhile you are still encountering the same ninjas that impaled Raiden at the Monsoon fight

and? And? What kind of ******* argument is that? I already told you that you also encounter a boss as a fodder enemy, what more do you want? Does the fact that you encounter SOME (the average enemies are much less as you progress, you are put against more and more armored enemies and such) erase that THEY TURN A BOSS INTO A FODDER ENEMY?

the point is a small supporting argument to the previous one to show how little the game actually ramps up compared to your perception, but I'm surprised you decided to focus on this.

I focussed on this to show that even your "small supporting argument" doesn't actually support your point.

Now a lot of your later posts are just a complete misrepresentation of the scene, as I laid out the scene and their altercation piece by piece in my post

and you made some objective mistakes, as I've pointed out, like how the **** are you gonna say that Raiden "is ready to engage" only 10 minutes after he started fighting? Makes no sense

So your solution to this is to say Armstrong either has RPL of his own to fight back against the already questionable RPL or to assume the nanomachines that passively protect him are being subconsciously controlled to not protect him at certain periods? Do you understand how silly that sounds?

No, I don't understand how silly that sounds, because it's straight up not what i ******* said, what I said was that Armstrong is suppressed, S U P P R E S S E D at the beginning and that he merely USES MORE OF HIS STRENGTH as the fight went on, which is clear as absolute day in the way he behaves. And there's no goddamn assumption in saying that he can control his own nanomachines, it's stated in the ******* official guide, "They flow in the body and can be altered BY THE SIMPLE WILL OF THE USER".
Have we reached the point where you have to straight up misrapresent what I say and put words in my mouth?

Meanwhile in the actual fight!

Yeah, that's one of the feats we are bringing on as proof that he got stronger and more durable, what about it?

I'm sure your strawman would say that, but not me! I was discussing developer intent, had you read my post properly!

developer intent is basically the plot, thanks for confirming my statement, not that it makes your original point any less dogshit

You mean the scripted bits where Raiden does chip damage for the sake of establishing Armstrong's strength to the actual fight? Hmm, read the post again!

Ahh right, the meta-theory you made up to try and bullshit your way out of what the game actually shows! That's definitely proof of me being wrong. i don't think you understand, that argument doesn't mean shit, it's a META-ARGUMENT that doesn't effect in any way what we are actually shown in the game

Mm, not really, try again. We see the same fodder types right until the end. I may save this bit for later too.

You are straight up trolling at this point. Your "fodders" argument is laughable, absolutely laughable and it's ridiculous that you're even bringing attention to it

Man, it's almost like you didn't watch the scene.

ditto! You're talking out of your ass


Yours has to be the single, absolute worst argument I have ever, EVER seen, and it's genuinely baffling to me that ANYONE is agreeing, baffling

 

[Abstractions]

Yours has to be the single, absolute worst argument I have ever, EVER seen, and it's genuinely baffling to me that ANYONE is agreeing, baffling

I'll save this one for later.

 

[Chariot190]

I'm sure your strawman would say that, but not me! I was discussing developer intent, had you read my post properly!

Dude, I think it's more of the fact you're confusing dev intent with your own headcanon? Like the only thing that was 100% intended was that "Armstrong is buff as **** and Raiden cant hurt him".
That's the only thing that is conveyed in Part 2 of Phase 1.

Armstrong is the only gap for entry, if they all have fought him there is no need for any of them to be superior to one another, just relative. Drop the fluff and read the post again or don't respond.

Relative maybe, but we talking a difference of 10x.

You mean the scripted bits where Raiden does chip damage for the sake of establishing Armstrong's strength to the actual fight? Hmm, read the post again!

He's actually talking about the Raiden loses his sword segments. In regards to the chip segments QTE's, yes, they establish Armstrong's strength, in that Raiden could wail on him all day and it wouldnt amount to much. Which is my point fyi.

Now a lot of your later posts are just a complete misrepresentation of the scene, as I laid out the scene and their altercation piece by piece in my post, any viewer should do themselves the favor and watch the scene here! But I will highlight this piece:

You actually didn't mind you, you only really went over phase 1, but still inserted a lot of your headcanon.

A complete failure to understand what I was actually doing.

Then I suppose you did a really bad job at it then.

If you claim Raiden has RPL, I'm going to put your proposition against the very scene you claim it comes from, which is exactly what my response was about. No headcanon, just the scene versus your claim, if you can't understand that then read it until you do.

Uh, excuse you?

My main argument is "Armstrong was so tough that Raiden couldn't do any meaningful damage, it's reflected in every single segment once Armstrong stops ******* around that Raiden can't harm him".

And that "In phase 2 the opposite is true, Raiden can harm him in canonical sequences and is even clarified to have been able to physically hurt Armstrong, far and beyond what he was capable of doing before".





10 punches with each one hurting him and making him back off is better then 180 that do next to nothing mate, or the exact same punch to the face being blatantly different.

Like, don't know about you but the scene I'm referring to shows that plain as day. I'd even go as far as it's purposely intended to show a huge variance due to the parallels. Like Raiden punching him in the face but Armstrong says it cant hurt him but alter Raiden does the same thing and Armstrong instead says it does hurt him.

No, it's completely reasonable. What I'm doing is preventing you from stonewalling the argument.

What would be reasonable is an objective explanation that doesn't rely on subjective at best or blatantly false information to explain why Raiden in canonical cinematic events is suddenly flooring Armstrong when the very last thing we saw in phase 1 is his completely inability to do exactly that.

 

[Twellas]

You're unironically arguing that "the dev's intent was to show them being relative in power" in a game that has this ******* scene, I can't