Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
She/Her- 9,358
- 10,900
It seems odd to me that, despite this being a wiki focused on the indexing on fictional characters and their abilities, there is one subset of abilities we consistently overlook; Potency. There are, of course, two ways to measure potency; Layers and Smurf hax. Yet, nowhere on any profile is there any mention of these concepts. To someone uninitiated with a verse, it may seem as though every ability only has a single layer, or would be ineffective against anyone who has any degree of resistance to those abilities. But often, mentions of layering or smurf hax are either 1. Confined to lengthy cosmology/verse explanation blogs, or 2. Not mentioned at all, and just pieces of information only really accessible to verse supporters. A particularly infamous example of this is Anos' 99+ layers of concept hax; Seems pretty notable, given it makes virtually all matches against him a stomp in his favor, right? Which is why it's weird that nowhere is that layering present on his profile; Instead, it's only mentioned towards the end of the incredibly long Maou Gakuin cosmology page. Consider, then, how this looks to casual visitors to this wiki, who merely want information on a character they like. Should we not list that information on the profile itself, so we don't force visitors to dig through lengthy explanations that they may not even understand? Even for people who frequent the forums this is an issue, as it makes it incredibly difficult to find fair VS matches, since there's no real way to gauge whether or not a character has a way to resist certain wincons, leading to numerous matches that amount to "(x)'s soulhax are more layered/are higher-dimensional than ( y)'s resistance, stomp thread". Listing hax potency on profiles would make situations like that far rarer, and also bypasses the issue of having to do a ******* essay's worth of research just to make a good VS match. And all of that is assuming a verse even has an explanation page explaining hax layering and smurfiness in the first place, which isn't always the case.
Thus, I propose each ability in a character's profile mention the number of layers each ability possesses, as well as the dimensionality of those hax. For example: Mind Manipulation (2 Layers. 5D; [Justification here]). For characters without layers or smurfiness, there wouldn't be any need to change the ability description.
There is, of course, the issue of the amount of work involved. First off, not all verses have layered hax or smurf hax; In fact, very few do, so the amount of work required wouldn't be as large as our page total makes it seem. Secondly, the amount of work isn't even particularly high for some verses; Some, like Umineko, have hax like Truths that already have a clearly defined level of potency, which would be very easy to add to individual profiles. And of course, this wouldn't even need to be a necessary addition; Consider the recent changes to resurrection/immortality, which dictates that the level of regeneration those abilities grant should be specified. There are thousands of users of those powers, and not all of them have their corresponding regen levels indexed. But nobody seems to mind the work involved with that, since the change was objectively for the better and made profiles much more accurate in regards to a character's regenerative capabilities. This is no different. Supporters of different verses can add layering/smurfiness to the profiles as they wish, depending on how important they think it is.
While I'm not sure where this would go, I would recommend writing a suggestion in the wiki rules somewhere that would read somewhat like the following:
"While not strictly required, it is advisable to index the potency of a character's abilities in their P&A section when creating or editing a profile. This can include the ability to overpower the resistances of characters who would ordinarily resist certain abilities (also known as 'hax layering'; Not to be confused with Resistance Negation), or whether or not the potency of an ability corresponds to that of a higher dimension (also known as 'smurf hax')."
Thus, I propose each ability in a character's profile mention the number of layers each ability possesses, as well as the dimensionality of those hax. For example: Mind Manipulation (2 Layers. 5D; [Justification here]). For characters without layers or smurfiness, there wouldn't be any need to change the ability description.
There is, of course, the issue of the amount of work involved. First off, not all verses have layered hax or smurf hax; In fact, very few do, so the amount of work required wouldn't be as large as our page total makes it seem. Secondly, the amount of work isn't even particularly high for some verses; Some, like Umineko, have hax like Truths that already have a clearly defined level of potency, which would be very easy to add to individual profiles. And of course, this wouldn't even need to be a necessary addition; Consider the recent changes to resurrection/immortality, which dictates that the level of regeneration those abilities grant should be specified. There are thousands of users of those powers, and not all of them have their corresponding regen levels indexed. But nobody seems to mind the work involved with that, since the change was objectively for the better and made profiles much more accurate in regards to a character's regenerative capabilities. This is no different. Supporters of different verses can add layering/smurfiness to the profiles as they wish, depending on how important they think it is.
While I'm not sure where this would go, I would recommend writing a suggestion in the wiki rules somewhere that would read somewhat like the following:
"While not strictly required, it is advisable to index the potency of a character's abilities in their P&A section when creating or editing a profile. This can include the ability to overpower the resistances of characters who would ordinarily resist certain abilities (also known as 'hax layering'; Not to be confused with Resistance Negation), or whether or not the potency of an ability corresponds to that of a higher dimension (also known as 'smurf hax')."