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The Absolute State of Verse Specific Powers and Abilities

Sir_Ovens

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VS Battles
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Ok so this has peeved me for a while now but certain VSPA (especially physiology pages) structurally make no sense.

I will approach this problem from the perspective of John Rando, the average passing wiki user.

Too Big
Let's look at Sephiroth's page. His "intrinsic" abilities contain verse specific jargon that I'm not familiar with. Spiritual Energy Manipulation? Let's open that. It takes us to this specific section on someone's blog. Now not only am I thrown into a page I have no idea how to navigate due to the sheer scale, but this same page is linked for every power in Sephiroth's intrinsic abilities. Like at what point do I just stop looking at Sephiroth's page and just read the entire blog. Oh yeah, why is this a blog? All VSPA should be vetoed through a thread by verse experts and made into their own page. This page is no exception.

Too Unnecessary
Let's look at these examples now. With these pages, we get a few general abilities of the magic system respective to the verses. Fair enough. Then they're bloated by the different schools of magic within the system (Sorcerers tab with Cursed Energy Manipulation and Herrscher Physiology for Honkai Energy). My issue with this is that the VSPAs were supposed to encompass powers all, if not most, of the verse use. If you have to divide the system into schools that specific characters (and I'm talking large groups) are incapable of using then what is the point of a unified page housing all the powers? In the bid to be inclusive of all powers, we've excluded any relevant information from the primary source, which should be character profiles.

Too Repetitive
Let's look at this example. Now my issues with this involve redundancy. With Special Ki, why on earth is Demon God Power even a tab? It's literally just Dark Ki and God Ki. But that's not even the egregious part. Towa is linked as having Demon Physiology, which leads me to this page, which upon clicking Demon God Power, takes me to the Special Ki page, and the description is tantamount to "Same powers as Dark Ki and God Ki" - which after removing the clown makeup from my face for having gone down this stupid rabbit hole - I still had to actually click on those other two tabs to even read what powers they give.

Now it's very telling that some of you have never taken a course on web design, but if I design a web page that takes the viewer on a point and click adventure, I'm going to lose their attention faster than reading our rules page.

The Solution
Now it might seem like I hate the idea of VSPAs, but I actually think there are some stand out cases for these pages.

Gem Physiology

Bleach's many physiologies

Sword Logic

Nen

The above are pages that I think are exemplary of good VSPA pages. First and foremost, they get to the point. An explanation on the hows and whys of the power, and then a list of all associated abilities. I actually remembered how egregious the Bleach VSPAs were, but now that they broke up the physiologies into individual pages, it's actually much easier to navigate. The specification on character profile pages also enhance the navigation like with Ichigo's page, I'm given in bold what specific levels of each individual power he has so I can navigate the VSPA pages and look for what I want. I'm not thrown in the middle of a word essay on a page whose structure I am unfamiliar with.

Which brings me to how we solve this issue.

Argument of Necessity: Not only should a VSPA be something a majority of a verse uses, but the power itself should be all encompassing. For example, Object Physiology should only contain the general powers of Objects. Specific subdivisions should, if we can at all help it, not be on the page if they could just as easily be on individual character profiles.

Standardised Structure: We need a general format, or at least guide, for verse specific powers that encourages readability over bloat. Links on character profiles should land you on the start of VSPAs so the user can read the summary, understand the power, and then navigate towards the specific subdivision. I heard from the Warhammer folks that they do this for their pages that link to Psychic Powers. I think this should be encouraged.

Common Sense: I think we get so caught up in trying to shove as many impressive feats into our VSPA pages that we forget what they're there for. I always saw them as explanation pages first and foremost, and power listing pages second. While the convenience of having a single page to point to so you don't have to relist everything on new pages was the original intent, I think we've simply lost the plot and have gotten lazy. To remind everyone, VSPA pages were supposed to be there so you didn't have to ask why Rose Quartz has Inorganic Physiology because you already read the Gem Physiology page and knew that if a character is a Gem, they have it by default. Ergo, it's dumb when you slap 10 subdivisions on it and I have to do an encyclopedia search every time I look at a character page.

That is all.
 
Verse Specific Powers and Abilities pages, yeah.

Not just exhaustive but also comprehensible. Cause some of these pages are a nightmare to navigate through and read.
 
idk how a standardised structure would be done.

I'm not sure what you mean by the common sense section.

I don't think it's something that the majority of the verse should use, as there are huge verses that would be greatly aided by having such pages, even if it doesn't cover the majority of characters.

I think a decent solution is for each subdivision to need to meet the requirements for a VSPA page of its own merits. I don't like the existence of subsections for one or two extra abilities, or just "previous abilities but stronger", or which only apply to 1-3 characters in the series. Things like that can just be placed on profiles. The "previous but stronger" could be written like "Enhanced [[Shmorg Manipulation]] (As a god-level Shmorgmancer, should possess enhanced versions of all high-tier Shmorgmancer abilities)".
 
I really do not think this is something we can make a "One size fits all" policy to all of them; it's more or less case by case. Of course, a new page for ones that are similar but better within the same verse exclusive to a few characters could be a subsection as opposed to a new page altogether like Agnaa suggested. But similar but better can also refer to having new lists of powers and abilities exclusive to them, and not just having higher raw power; or their Ki/Aura is so strong it cannot be sensed by typical Ki/Aura sense users unless they also have the same. But again, those can be subsections rather than entire redundant pages.
 
I disagree with Bleach's physiology pages being a good example, the verse does not need 50 different pages explaining three factions, especially when some of the sub-sections are utterly tiny and pointless
I also think the "Too Unnecessary" section is not a good argument? It just has extra stuff which applies to some characters, and when you link it to the page you can note that, it's a quality of life thing for editors in the end of the day. In general I don't really care to appeal to the random wiki user because verse specific pages are not for them, it's to make the life of people who revise the verse easier
 
I really do not think this is something we can make a "One size fits all" policy to all of them; it's more or less case by case. Of course, a new page for ones that are similar but better within the same verse exclusive to a few characters could be a subsection as opposed to a new page altogether like Agnaa suggested. But similar but better can also refer to having new lists of powers and abilities exclusive to them, and not just having higher raw power; or their Ki/Aura is so strong it cannot be sensed by typical Ki/Aura sense users unless they also have the same. But again, those can be subsections rather than entire redundant pages.
I am of the same opinion. At most, I agree that certain sections should meet a minimum user number to be on the page.
 
I disagree with Bleach's physiology pages being a good example, the verse does not need 50 different pages explaining three factions, especially when some of the sub-sections are utterly tiny and pointless
One look at Chad's page immediately makes this problem glaring, on top of some of the "physiology" powers being specific techniques not everyone has access to

Granted with verse standard powers that's gonna show up but ideally it's a result of there being a lot to deal with and note like Psychic powers, rather than "statistics amplification is common enough, cram everything into that"
 
Let's look at these examples now. With these pages, we get a few general abilities of the magic system respective to the verses. Fair enough. Then they're bloated by the different schools of magic within the system (Sorcerers tab with Cursed Energy Manipulation and Herrscher Physiology for Honkai Energy). My issue with this is that the VSPAs were supposed to encompass powers all, if not most, of the verse use. If you have to divide the system into schools that specific characters (and I'm talking large groups) are incapable of using then what is the point of a unified page housing all the powers? In the bid to be inclusive of all powers, we've excluded any relevant information from the primary source, which should be character profiles.
I had planned to make curses and sorcerers have their own page but from what I remember it wasn't agreed to make each have their page when the curse energy page has stuff sorcerers and curses use so putting them in the page together made sense so you wouldn't need to go from page to page. The point is to house everything specific to the verse I thought. If not then it should be. Why would you want a verse to have four different vsp for it when they can all go into one page organized? Of course with something like Ki and Special Ki they should have their own page due to the sheer amount of tabbers and information, it wouldn't be optimal to put in one page.

And I do this with several verses so far and they aren't hard to navigate.
Spiritual Power, Kegare Physiology, Exorcists Physiology
Soul Wavelengths, Witches, Clowns, Meisters & Weapons
 
idk how a standardised structure would be done.
I've looked through a lot of VSPA pages and found that they follow the same trend of Summary > General Abilities > Subdivisions (Low, Mid, High tier applications or specific class based abilities).

I'm not against having subdivisions on VSPA pages, but maybe we could encourage page makers to only add them if they 1) have sufficient users within the subdivision, and 2) have more than just 2 or 3 abilities within the subdivision

I'm not sure what you mean by the common sense section.
I mean that the VSPA pages should be intuitive to both navigate and comprehend for the normal user. Take my Towa example. If I was a normal user going through multiple pages just to end up at a tabber that told me to go read two other tabbers, I'd be pretty pissed off. Even moreso, I'd be very confused about how the pages relate to each other more and more with each redirection.

I don't think it's something that the majority of the verse should use, as there are huge verses that would be greatly aided by having such pages, even if it doesn't cover the majority of characters.
True, but my gripe is moreso subdivisions where it's unnecessary or should be entirely separate pages to curb bloat. I brought up Psychic Powers from Warhammer as an example of a VSPA page that works in tandem with the character pages well since the latter lists out specific powers of the VSPA that the character possesses without throwing the user into those specific sections without context. Ideally we should land the user onto the top of the VSPA page so they can read the summary and navigate to their desired section themselves. That's just an overall better user experience.

I think a decent solution is for each subdivision to need to meet the requirements for a VSPA page of its own merits. I don't like the existence of subsections for one or two extra abilities, or just "previous abilities but stronger", or which only apply to 1-3 characters in the series. Things like that can just be placed on profiles. The "previous but stronger" could be written like "Enhanced [[Shmorg Manipulation]] (As a god-level Shmorgmancer, should possess enhanced versions of all high-tier Shmorgmancer abilities)".
101% agree with this.
 
I had planned to make curses and sorcerers have their own page but from what I remember it wasn't agreed to make each have their page when the curse energy page has stuff sorcerers and curses use so putting them in the page together made sense so you wouldn't need to go from page to page. The point is to house everything specific to the verse I thought. If not then it should be. Why would you want a verse to have four different vsp for it when they can all go into one page organized? Of course with something like Ki and Special Ki they should have their own page due to the sheer amount of tabbers and information, it wouldn't be optimal to put in one page.

And I do this with several verses so far and they aren't hard to navigate.
Spiritual Power, Kegare Physiology, Exorcists Physiology
Soul Wavelengths, Witches, Clowns, Meisters & Weapons
My gripe with Cursed Energy is that all subdivisions (sorcerers and curses) use Cursed Energy. But the specific applications by sorcerers and curses should not be on the Cursed Energy page. If their redundancy doesn't warrant them being their own pages, then they shouldn't be VSPA pages in the first place. Black Flash and Barrier Technique don't even need to be there cause they're like one specific ability that could be written on character pages anyway. The only thing that should be there is Domain Expansion, cause it mechanically needs to be explained to be understood, which warrants it being on a VSPA page.
 
My gripe with Cursed Energy is that all subdivisions (sorcerers and curses) use Cursed Energy. But the specific applications by sorcerers and curses should not be on the Cursed Energy page. If their redundancy doesn't warrant them being their own pages, then they shouldn't be VSPA pages in the first place. Black Flash and Barrier Technique don't even need to be there cause they're like one specific ability that could be written on character pages anyway. The only thing that should be there is Domain Expansion, cause it mechanically needs to be explained to be understood, which warrants it being on a VSPA page.
While I agree BF and Barrier techs shouldn't be there, I don't understand how Curses and Sorcerers sections is redundant. And my issue is that putting all the abilities in the profile page clutters the pna section with stuff not exclusive to the character.
 
Magic (Yeah, this one probably needs some work, mainly the sections on Chaos Magic, Faltine Magic/Physiology, and the Darkhold)
This is fine. Just that the subdivisions of magic should not be there or at the very least be cut down severely. Like only Doom uses Balatraan magic, why does it need to be there?

God Physiology (I feel like this one is pretty good)
This is fine.

Astral Forms/Plane (I think this one is fine)
This works better as an explanation page rather than a verse specific power.
 
While I agree BF and Barrier techs shouldn't be there, I don't understand how Curses and Sorcerers sections is redundant. And my issue is that putting all the abilities in the profile page clutters the pna section with stuff not exclusive to the character.
Yes but VSPA pages are not there to be something that should be used to make page making easier. They should be pages to explain verse mechanics, then abilities. Domain Expansion works on the Cursed Energy Manipulation page because it has rules, the mechanics of which need to be elaborated on to be understood. It makes sense to be on a page that explains how a verse's magic system works. The Sorcerer and Curses tabs are just applications of Cursed Energy, which should be listed on character profiles instead of the VSPA page.

Hell, you even list out on Kenjaku's page that he has Reverse Cursed Technique despite already listing it on the Cursed Energy Manipulation page. It's just redundant.
 
Blade Physiology shouldn't have the Flesh Eater and Aegis subdivisions. The base explanation and abilities are fine. The other pages are good too.
How come, though? Flesh Eaters and the Aegis are very relevant kinds of Blades that have their own sets of abilities, so I'm not sure what the issue is

Trying to understand where you're coming from here
 
This is fine. Just that the subdivisions of magic should not be there or at the very least be cut down severely.
I think that the demon magic tabber section is fine (unless you think it'd work better as its own page), but yeah the rest can probably be relocated.
Like only Doom uses Balatraan magic, why does it need to be there?
Technically Eternity and Lord Chaos/Order have it too since they know all types of magic

Yeah this is true. I think I put it there at the start of working on the page just to add some starting substance to the page.
This is fine.
Yay.
This works better as an explanation page rather than a verse specific power.
Fair enough.
 
Yes but VSPA pages are not there to be something that should be used to make page making easier. They should be pages to explain verse mechanics, then abilities. Domain Expansion works on the Cursed Energy Manipulation page because it has rules, the mechanics of which need to be elaborated on to be understood. It makes sense to be on a page that explains how a verse's magic system works. The Sorcerer and Curses tabs are just applications of Cursed Energy, which should be listed on character profiles instead of the VSPA page.
Domain expansion is also an application of curse energy. You're drawing an imaginary difference, both curses and sor also have rules and also make sense to be on the page of their main source of energy. And again the stuff clutters the page with stuff not exclusive to the characters, we should want to make pages easier to navigate for characters.

Hell, you even list out on Kenjaku's page that he has Reverse Cursed Technique despite already listing it on the Cursed Energy Manipulation page. It's just redundant.
Everyone doesn't have rct, that's why its listed he has it.
 
They should be pages to explain verse mechanics, then abilities.
This goes against what's outlined on both the category page:
Pages that explain different types of powers and abilities that are related to a specific verse/franchise
And the VSPA page:
Verse-Specific Powers and Abilities pages are intended to ease the readability of character profiles by holding the relevant citations for a group of characters that all share the same abilities and justifications for them.
It's primarily for indexing group abilities. How the verse works is left for explanation pages:
This category is for pages that go in-depth into explaining the mechanics, structure, powers, and reasons for power-scaling within a particular franchise.

That aside, I disagree with the faults raised for CE page.
The different "species" share the same power system, utilize it the same way (fundamentally), and have very little (albeit noticeable) difference in physiology.
As long as the page is formatted in a way that eases reading and navigation (which it does), I see no reason why it should be split

Anyways, what do you think about this?
 
Ok so this has peeved me for a while now but certain VSPA (especially physiology pages) structurally make no sense.

I will approach this problem from the perspective of John Rando, the average passing wiki user.

Too Big
Let's look at Sephiroth's page. His "intrinsic" abilities contain verse specific jargon that I'm not familiar with. Spiritual Energy Manipulation? Let's open that. It takes us to this specific section on someone's blog. Now not only am I thrown into a page I have no idea how to navigate due to the sheer scale, but this same page is linked for every power in Sephiroth's intrinsic abilities. Like at what point do I just stop looking at Sephiroth's page and just read the entire blog. Oh yeah, why is this a blog? All VSPA should be vetoed through a thread by verse experts and made into their own page. This page is no exception.


Hmmm... yeah, I see the problem there. Being honest, for a while I was thinking as well that putting everything in the same page just made it bloated (Cosmology, Spiritual Energy, Materia stuff, Jenova stuff and SOLDIER stuff). And I know this sounds like a bad excuse but, it's the first time I've done something of the sort, verse specific powers, cosmology and whatnot. So it was a pretty bumpy ride.

The Spiritual Energy and related stuff should be a proper page, that's true. It was actually approved but I found out about that after I had made Sephiroth's profile and didn't get to fix it due to a massive burnout and working on something else.

But, yeah, sorry no more excuses. Then I guess that in order to fix things, the first thing I could do is split things? I was thinking to take out the cosmology altogether and put it separatedly, but from what you say, having all powers together is already problematic. In that regard, are they worth keeping (and just moved to their own place) or some should just be removed altogether and just added to the profile directly?

You also mention that Sephiroth's page is also too wordy in itself. Being honest, I was afraid of being too vague or not proving well enough why I was giving him this or that ability, and leave the potential reader too confused on why he had a certain ability, but I ended up swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction. What could be done in this regard? I mean, aside Sephiroth's individual profile, this could help in trimming down the other pages.

EDIT: Just realized something... With "verse specific" jargon you mean the names of the "levels" of the verse specific powers? Ah, those aren't actually terms from the games or anything, rather fan nicknames I gave to the levels myself to make things feel a bit more thematic and have a bit of fun myself when structuring things. I didn't really think it would just come as confusing boogus, my bad. I can come up with something more straightforward and indicative, if anything.
 
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Let's look at this example. Now my issues with this involve redundancy. With Special Ki, why on earth is Demon God Power even a tab? It's literally just Dark Ki and God Ki. But that's not even the egregious part. Towa is linked as having Demon Physiology, which leads me to this page, which upon clicking Demon God Power, takes me to the Special Ki page, and the description is tantamount to "Same powers as Dark Ki and God Ki" - which after removing the clown makeup from my face for having gone down this stupid rabbit hole - I still had to actually click on those other two tabs to even read what powers they give.
Demon God Power previously did have some abilities that not belong to Dark Ki and God Ki but got removed. But again, it still neccessary cause it can bypass Dark Ki and God Ki resistances, with how popular hax layers nowaday, it serve its purpose without listing the same thing over and over across like 20 pages

With Demon Physiology and Dark Ki in it, it is how the verse structure itself, sure i could solve the problem by separate Dark Ki from Demon Physiology, but that is all

Aside from it, no offense but i literally made Special Ki because i don't want to make too many individual special ki page, i want that if reader want they only need to navigate within a single page rather than needing to open too many tab on their browser. You complain about needing to click on tabber to see the information but not complain when you need to click on a link to open a page to see the information despite both actions are the same is beyond me
 
I'll try to come up with a format for VSPA pages but it will take some time.

To answer everyone above about their VSPA pages, my ultimate gripe is that navigating towards a VSPA page should only be necessary when a verse mechanic has unique rules or the VSPA itself is universal within the series; as in most, if not all characters use it the same way.

When you divide the VSPA down into further subdivisions, you're essentially making new VSPA pages that don't have to follow the rules of "too little abilities" or "not many users". At that point, why not just add it to the pages normally? Especially on pages like Mira, space is absolutely no issue when you shove all his abilities onto another page. Users should not have to move to another page just to read the basic powers of characters. VSPA pages should be reserved for complex or advanced magic systems that benefit from a broad understanding, not a place to dump abilities to make page making easier.
 
I'll try to come up with a format for VSPA pages but it will take some time.

To answer everyone above about their VSPA pages, my ultimate gripe is that navigating towards a VSPA page should only be necessary when a verse mechanic has unique rules or the VSPA itself is universal within the series; as in most, if not all characters use it the same way.

When you divide the VSPA down into further subdivisions, you're essentially making new VSPA pages that don't have to follow the rules of "too little abilities" or "not many users". At that point, why not just add it to the pages normally? Especially on pages like Mira, space is absolutely no issue when you shove all his abilities onto another page. Users should not have to move to another page just to read the basic powers of characters. VSPA pages should be reserved for complex or advanced magic systems that benefit from a broad understanding, not a place to dump abilities to make page making easier.
So essentially, get rid of stuff like "levels" of it and just leave the absolute most general?
 
So essentially, get rid of stuff like "levels" of it and just leave the absolute most general?
Levels of mastery is fine. Unless the highest level is reserved for only 2 people or the mastery just gives you two abilities.

Subdivisions should also try to categorically be the same as the main VSPA. In the Special Ki page, Dark Factor and Demon God are categorically not Ki. Dark Factor amplifies Ki abilities and Demon God is just a state of being.

I think my gripe with Cursed Energy Manipulation is a formatting issue. The techniques should be placed below the Cursed Energy summary and abilities. I'll remember this when I come up with the format page.
 
Levels of mastery is fine. Unless the highest level is reserved for only 2 people or the mastery just gives you two abilities.
Ah, right. I did this. Good to know.
Subdivisions should also try to categorically be the same as the main VSPA. In the Special Ki page, Dark Factor and Demon God are categorically not Ki. Dark Factor amplifies Ki abilities and Demon God is just a state of being.
I also did this. Mixed up together a funkaton of different stuff into a one big paella. But I'm getting a clearer idea of what to do to fix things.
 
Especially on pages like Mira, space is absolutely no issue when you shove all his abilities onto another page
Mira is a terrible example, i'm currently fixing that page's format


In the Special Ki page, Dark Factor and Demon God are categorically not Ki. Dark Factor amplifies Ki abilities and Demon God is just a state of being.
I don't know why you came with this conclusion, but Dark Factor is literally ki/life-force of Dark King. And the tab literally named Demon God Power, sure if you think this is too redundant then i can remove Demon God Power, but saying they aren't Ki is........no offense, bullshit
 
When you divide the VSPA down into further subdivisions, you're essentially making new VSPA pages that don't have to follow the rules of "too little abilities" or "not many users".
This isn't true though. The pages that do this follow those rules. From the vspa "such pages must have at least 5 users with either the verse-specific power/ability itself, or a resistance to it, with the verse-specific power/ability itself inherently granting at least 10 regular Powers and Abilities, or 5 for considerably more detailed cases."

I'll name some pages that have sub divisions where the groups have their own abilities/resistances that meet the rules and go beyond.

Spiritual Power - Has Kegare and Exorcists as subdivisions.
Honkai Energy - Has standard effects, low manipulation, high manipulation, then Herrshers, then Herrsher authority.
Cognitive Physiology - Has two different tiers for its demonic physiology then the archetype section.
Cracking Being Physiology - Has several different types of cracking being subdivisions
Plant Physiology - Has independent plants and nonindependent plant, and angel arms subdivisions.
Creatures of Chaos - Has standard chaos magic, chaos creatures, vampires, dark lords.
Demon Clan Physiology - Has lower and upper demon divisions.


Some that I did see that probably could use a removal are
Mid-Ranking Devils or Higher from BC - It only reaches five abilities with no resistances put.
Choujin Classifications - Barely reaches five abilities for the classifications.
Nevadean Physiology (Madness Combat) - Standard, Zed and Mag don't have enough abilities or resistances to be its own page but do have enough users.
 
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What about these two pages?
 
I don't think linking 30 different VSPA pages and asking for Oven's opinion on them is a helpful way for this thread to continue.

If you are going to link one, please do so as means of approaching a clear, specific, new question.
 
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