Revising Area of Effect

First of all, I would like to apologize for posting on a board where I'm not really allowed to post in, Seeing as how things are currently, I'm not a staff member. However, seeing as there are no other boards which will allow me to discuss site policies and how I was a former staff member I believe what I describe can be imperative to the evolution of this wikia.

What is Area of Effect? And how is it commonly used?
Well, Area of Effect is described to be a plot conveniance which explains why the characters don't just wipe out the setting they reside in as the result of any fight they'd get themselves in. For how it's commonly used would look something like this, say you watch a TV show where the characters within it perform only a single city block feat but there exists about twelve instances where the characters clearly fail to demonstrate this level of power. The response you would most likely get if you were to point out this discrepancy in feats would look something like this.

"Look man, all those twelve instances are nothing more than an example of Area of Effect. If we wanted to downgrade this series just because these characters didn't destroy their surroundings in those instances then as a consequence we would have to downgrade (insert verse here) to about peak human level."

There is one gigantic problem I have with this argument, and it's that by using AoE one can effectively select the highest feat they want and simply blow-off any other instance in where that feat is contradicted regardless of the quantity. Which means that outliers exist no longer depending if one wishes to exploit the AoE argument.

Should we do-away with AoE?
Not at all, as the title of this thread suggests. I don't want to remove AoE, but rather reform it. How exactly I would I achieve this you ask? Well, one can understandbly think that being able to use AoE while simultanesouly being able to catch out people who abuse it to select the highest feat they want and dealing with the inverse, people who use it to downgrade any series to peak human level is an incredibly difficult balancing act. But, I have thought up of guidelines on proper usage of AoE which will allow us to pull this act off. I now present them to you.

Area of Effect guidelines
The following are a list of examples where the use of the Area of Effect argument is acceptable:

• The characters in question are striking each-other, this can range from people punching people into walls to ground and pounds.

• The character in question is holding back.

• The character actually has an in-universe AoE mechanic e.g ki control

The following are a list of examples where the use of the Area of Effect argument is unacceptable

• The character in question is shown to strike the environment.

FAQ
"Why exactly is someone striking another directly without causing the environment to be effected acceptable while someone striking the environment without effecting it be unacceptable"

For the former, you can simply chalk it up to their durability. A city block level guy punches another city block level guy in the head within an office building without causing it to collapse can be explained by the victim being able to disperse the force/energy of the attack internally (again, thanks to their way higher than average durability). However, a planet level guy striking the ground while only leaving a tiny crack is inexcuseable. Because even if we assume all that energy were condensed into the size of a fist, it wouldn't at all spare the environment. It can only be rationalised as a low-showing.

"If we have an instance where a character who is shown to be consistently city block level punches the ground without causing any damage to it, should we call all of his other feats into consideration?"

Of course not, an anomaly is an anomaly at the end of day. What he's consistently shown takes precedence over this single instance, they should only be questioned if this single instance grows to a point where they outnumber his prior consistent showings by a vast amount.

"Well, these characters do violate physics by having super strength and what not, so why shouldn't we assume that the reason they fail to effect the environment is due to the AoE argument?"

Well, just because a character contradicts their highest feat it doesn't mean that we should essentially prescribe them an ability in where they can throw out attacks of a high yield to the environment while doing barely any damage to it especially when the narrative doesn't imply they are capable of doing such things. With this said, that moves me to my next point.

Miscellaneous
Characters who in-universe are able to manipulate the force/energy they distribute to such amounts that they are able to hit the environment with high yields without reducing it to rubble should be given AoE as an ability within their profile. One example has been mentioned before, and that was characters within DBZ who can use ki control.

Yes, I am aware that a revision of this scale would inevitably lead to the revision of many many series. However, it all doesn't have to be done simultaneously and there serves no reason to be do that either.

Oh, we're doing this now, are we?

Goodjob!, I agree

I once was a staunch supporter of universal AoE justification for all verses regardless, like a year ago. But now, I honestly agree with this. I think using AoE as an argument for absolutely everything is not good. Especially when dealing with physical blows, where I think there must be absolute refutation (Like Saint Seiya where they go in depth about how they focus on atoms) to prove that their punches or kicks have AoE. However, for energy, AoE may be used if there is some consistency to it. If they keep having random and inconsistent amounts of damage with no justification, AoE should not be used as an excuse and instead PIS. Overall, I agree with these statements. Thanks for making this.

Good job on this. This has been bothering me for a while.

"Well, Area of Effect is described to be a plot conveniance which explains why the characters don't just wipe out the setting they reside in as the result of any fight they'd get themselves in"
No, it's a basic concept that relates to the fact that in-fiction, characters constantly break the laws of physics with their power, such as a character who's power is shown capable of, say, shattering a giant meteor with a punch, not destroying entire cities with every single attack in other scenes.

This can be observed to exist across literally any series with superpowered characters and is a basic concept that is not difficult to understand.

"Look man, all those twelve instances are nothing more than an example of Area of Effect. If we wanted to downgrade this series just because these characters didn't destroy their surroundings in those instances then as a consequence we would have to downgrade (insert verse here) to about peak human level."
First of all, thanks for blatantly strawmaning everyone who disagrees with you. Second of all, your example provides next to no context of what it actually means, you just said a vague example that could serve your point.

• What exactly happened in these 12 instances?
• Was he actively trying to destroy the environment or focused on fighting an opponent?
• What is the nature of these characters powers?
• His enemy's?

This is basic stuff to analyze which you didn't address in your example.

There is one gigantic problem I have with this argument, and it's that by using AoE one can effectively select the highest feat they want and simply blow-off any other instance in where that feat is contradicted regardless of the quantity. Which means that outliers exist no longer depending if one wishes to exploit the AoE argument.
Blatant strawman on a scale I can't believe.

If we accept AoEs, then Outliers don't exist? Don't lie to others like that.

If Outliers didn't exist because we're fine with AoE, then right out of the top of my head:

• Base Goku would be Low 2-C for surviving attacks from Soul Zamasu
• Thor would be 3-B due to his feats involving 1/5 of the universe
• Hal Jordan would be 3-C scaling from Green Lantern Frodo who grew to the size of a galaxy
• Superman would be High 3-A for lifting infinity.
• Kaguya would be 4-C for creating dimensions.
• Everyone of note in God of War would be 3-A because according to backstory, Cronos killed Uranus
• Gold Saints would have infinite speed because Aiolia dodged Cronus' Praga Spathe
• Kirby would be Universal
• The physical God-Emperor of Mankind would be 3-A
• Master Roshi would be Moon level
• Achilles Curse Percy Jackson would be 5-C since he casually deflected a blast from Hades.

And numerous other examples I could list. DON'T say that Outliers don't exist if you accept Area of Effect as a basic idea. That's a lie.

Area of Effect argument is unacceptable if the character in question is shown to strike the environment.
This is actually completely fallacious for a number of reasons. In fiction, even energy blasts often have low-range and are concentrated on a localized target. Plasma Weapons from Warhammer 40,000 have the potency of a Solar Flare, yet they barely destroy more than a few meters. Similarly, characters such as Freeza can fire beams that carry more potency than an exploding planet, yet are focused like a laser and do little to no damage, and would certainly not destroy the planet if it were fired at it.

For the former, you can simply chalk it up to their durability. A city block level guy punches another city block level guy in the head within an office building without causing it to collapse can be explained by the victim being able to disperse the force/energy of the attack internally (again, thanks to their way higher than average durability). However, a planet level guy striking the ground while only leaving a tiny crack is inexcuseable. Because even if we assume all that energy were condensed into the size of a fist, it wouldn't at all spare the environment. It can only be rationalised as a low-showing.
I'm actually surprised you are incapable of being internally consistent within the same paragraph.

You say that a Planet-level character punching another with no collateral is okay because of durability, but then say that if it punches the environment it should destroy it. You are most likely basing this on the simple fact that the more energetic an event is, the more collateral damage it causes. Then why are you only applying it to the later, and not the former?

And what about when character attacks clash with one another, either through physical strikes or through weapons. You should know that in real life, if two massive, accelerating objects directly collide, there will be a resulting impact from the blow. In Warhammer 40,000, The Emperor and Horus trade blows with their sword and talon, respectively, and their blows are explictely described as being capable of destroying planets, yet the room in which they are fighting isn't destroyed.

In another extreme example, characters from Getbackers swing swords with a density of 100 kg per cubic micrometer at supersonic speeds , yet they don't destroy the whole country they're in with the kinetic energy that's generated.

Well, just because a character contradicts their highest feat it doesn't mean that we should essentially prescribe them an ability in where they can throw out attacks of a high yield to the environment while doing barely any damage to it especially when the narrative doesn't imply they are capable of doing such things. With this said, that moves me to my next point.
Okay, so breaking the laws of physics is okay in one-hand, but it isn't in another? Do you even understand that super-strong fists without the needed mass and kinetic energy to generate energy is impossible? Something like Beerus blowing up a planet with a fingertap is completely absurd scientifically, yet the simple, demonstrable notion that characters in fiction consistently break the laws of conservation of energy much like they do break things like Newton's Three Laws and Einstein's Relativity isn't?

Except that characters not blowing the shit out of everything with every attack is just a common trope. Either that having the terrain destroyed would be inconvenient for the story or otherwise.

I can only say this is valid when a character is shown to be directly unable to destroy something their AP should let them do. Even then, this is painfully obvious PIS when the AP needed to destroy the obstacle tend to be Wall level at best.

Especially given that most human-like characters tend to be given human-like limits for the sake of the story. Be it human level reaction time, a character being unable to destroy an obstacle or a character being threatened by natural dangers.

Also, it isn't at all shocking that this is posted by AMM, then immediately highlighted by Lina Shields, and then immediately afterwards liked by the people I would expected to like this, who wouldn't even see the thread as notification as they are not staff.

Matthew Schroeder said:

-snip-

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I've been lurking because this thread is fairly interesting, and if you must forbid yourself from saying the Discord, then I'll say it. You're right. It is people from the Discord, because he posted the thread IN the Discord. There is no trouble arising from this fact, furthermore evident by the fact that he used the @everyone to notify everyone in the channel (I think it's 20+? I don't remember) that he made the thread. The Discord has people with similar ideologies in it, it's a no-brainer that they'll support it. There's two main chat hubs that have VSB involved from two different clients, and those two separate groups contain separate ideas, opinions, that junk. This is just those people supporting the idea they all already agree with

Also, everyone gets highlights, even in Staff-Only threads. I got one.

Yes, let's stay calm here, and stay on topic. Don't derail things.

I agree with Matt.

I also agree with Matt. There's not much more for me to say that hasn't been said by him or Saikou yet.

I also agree with Saikou and Matt here.

Matt laid it out pretty well, not much else to add.

I agree with Matt as well

Basically, authors want to make fight using superpowered individuals without thinking through all of the fight "shit an attack hit the terrain. Guess I'll have to make it blow up". To think that authors SHOULD follow our ratings for every fight is silly.

This argument should only come up when it's clear that the intent is to portray a character being limited. A character not blowing up a mountain when their blast hit a nearby rock isn't a "proof" of the character being weaker. But a character actually struggling to break a tree when they only have shown one or two feat higher than that could be considered.

I just don't want us to remake our entire wiki on the reasoning "If the character doesn't always blow up shit with all of their attacks then they aren't that strong".

If we were to question every attack from a tier 5 character that doesnt destroy the planet, there would be no character pasted tier 5. The argument of "The series could explain why that is" would downgrade almost every verse since only a handful give an explanation.

A fight between 2 tier 8 would level a town/city. After 2 tier 7s duke it out, new maps would need to be drawn. 2 tier 6s would leave a scar on the planet, if not destroy it. These are the results where every attack is consistent with their tier. Be honest, is it reasonable to demand this from every fight?

Geez Matt...lol.

But I agree, additionally because I feel like it's things like this that lead to the over-regulation of feats in the wiki.

Also pretty much what Saikou's last post stated.

RadicalMrR said:

If we were to question every attack from a tier 5 character that doesnt destroy the planet, there would be no character pasted tier 5. The argument of "The series could explain why that is" would downgrade almost every verse since only a handful give an explanation.
A fight between 2 tier 8 would level a town/city. After 2 tier 7s duke it out a new maps would to be drawn. 2 tier 6s would leave a scar on the planet, if not destroy it. These are the results where every attack is consistent with their tier. Be honest, is it reasonable to demand this from every fight?

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Someone show this thread to the Digimon fans. The Verse needs to be downgraded because 8 Digimon ranked at 2-A fought inside a building and the building wasn't destroyed.

For starters, personal attacks, accusations, insults, etc. have absolutely no place at all. Nobody here is a bad person with ill intent or some ulterior motive. We are simply people who disagree with each other on (honestly) very, very unimportant issues in the grand scheme of things. We should remain civil and if the opposition's points are truly as horrible as one is accusing, it's better off they destroy those points with logic and reasoning rather emotion and hatred.

Anyways to my personal thoughts, I feel that it is far too reoccurring in fiction for characters to (even if nonsensical) have extremely power attacks that just don't happen to deal too much damage towards the outward environment. Even in series that don't really have a canonical explanation for this. And that it makes no sense on both a budgetary and literary level for authors to make their fights always destroy massive stuff. So eventually the act of not using AoE all together can be extrapolated into making most characters like Street-Wall level, despite that clearly not being their actual power.

I also agree that AoE can potentially be abused to justify horrible outliers. There was this one upgrade attempt to make a villain Universe level+. The best feats in the series at that time were Planet level. This villain also has the end goal of destroying all life in the universe to the point where he even goes inactive if he cannot kill someone. I asked the person if this villain wants to end all life so badly and is Universe level+ why doesn't he just one shot the universe. Person tried to justify it saying the villain has Universe level+ AP and Planet level AoE. I thought that was a little too excessive use of AoE/AP, despite me being very passionate and some others may say too lenient on using it.

TLDR: Both lenient usage of AoE and skepticism of it are very necessary for analyzing fiction.

It seems both AMM and Matt agree upon this. Since AMM clearly does not want to do away with AoE all together and brought up numerous instances of maintaining it. And Matt clearly does not want all outliers handwaved by AoE and brought up numerous inatances of us not using AoE for outliers.

The disagreement comes from where in particular to draw that line. Along with AMM's opinion that directly striking the environment can't be justified under AoE, rather perhaps under a low end outlier at times. I respect any disagreement towards AMM's proposals. Though I do not think they are as bad as some may perceive them to be. He is simply trying to create a more organized version of a standard we already have. Which is to use AoE but not abuse it to justify outliers.

"Someone show this thread to the Digimon fans. The Verse needs to be downgraded because 8 Digimon ranked at 2-A fought inside a building and the building wasn't destroyed."

"The following are a list of examples where the use of the Area of Effect argument is acceptable:

* The characters in question are striking each-other, this can range from people punching people into walls to ground and pounds."

Ryukama said:

TLDR: Both lenient usage of AoE and skepticism of it are very necessary for analyzing fiction.

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I absolutely agree. I never once said that it applies to absolutely everything. We need context and evaluation of the verse as a whole, rather than simply the feat not destroying the environment on a vacuum.

If the best feat in a Verse is someone exploding a Moon, and then a new character comes along who states that "My attack is equal to the Big Bang which created the universe", yet he never did feats to demonstrate it, it'd obviously bullshit.

However, if this is a Verse filled to the brim with Cosmic Powerhouses who demonstrate feats like exploding multiple galaxies with their shockwaves, creating constellations with handwaves, and manipulating the fabric of reality in various ways, then I would be inclined to believe the character, even if he never blows up a universe.

Also, in regards to having to analyze each Verse:

This is why I usually think that asigning absolute rules across all of fiction solves nothing. Nothing applies universally because no series is 100% equal to any other. These types of decisions to create automatic responses to certain Vs. Debating "problems" basically just turns Vs. Debating into an automatic production line, rather than something that requires actual individual analysis of every series.

Everyone stay calm. I am almost positive we can handle this without getting at each other's throats.

"This is why I usually think that asigning absolute rules across all of fiction solves nothing. Nothing applies universally because no series is 100% equal to any other. These types of decisions to create automatic responses to certain Vs. Debating "problems" basically just turns Vs. Debating into an automatic production line, rather than something that requires actual individual analysis of every series."

Isn't "Oh that's just AoE" exactly that? Turning vs. debating into a production line? AMM is suggesting a system where we have to look at the verse and discern whether or not AoE is actually appropriate within the context and given the powerset of the character. Just a blanket "AoE" for every verse regardless of whether or not they have proper explanations is applying one rule universally.

"If the best feat in a Verse is someone exploding a Moon, and then a new character comes along who states that "My attack is equal to the Big Bang which created the universe", yet he never did feats to demonstrate it, it'd obviously bullshit."

Meanwhile, the assumption of said character being hinted to casually move planetary objects and stars while their best feat that was demonstrated to us being planet level would bring some skepticism to the validity of the first feat.

If said character was only able to successfully perform a planet level feat (as a demonstration of their power, and not just a casual feat), why would a casual feat that is rated higher than planet level make any sense?

Dragonmasterxyz said:

Everyone stay calm. I am almost positive we can handle this without getting at each other's throats.

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The posts were deleted. We definitely don't need to linger on them, I agree.

@Lina Let me guess, you're bringing up TMNT and Shredder? Could we not do that this doesn't derail?

Lina Shields said:

Meanwhile, the assumption of said character being hinted to casually move planetary objects and stars while their best feat that was demonstrated to us being planet level would bring some skepticism to the validity of the first feat.

If said character was only able to successfully perform a planet level feat (as a demonstration of their power, and not just a casual feat), why would a casual feat that is rated higher than planet level make any sense?

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Now you are basically arguing that a 5-A character can't perform a 5-B feat if they aren't explictely holding back.

If the character is blowing up a Planet as a demonstration of their power, why would the planet exploding need to wield 5-A or 4-C to be acceptable? Presumably, they would be at such levels from scaling from other characters, or their own feats which you may or may not accept yourself.

To use a real life analysis, this is akin to saying that if Usain Bolt ran at 20 km/h to show to someone he's fast, then his "best feat" of running at 44.72 km/h would be an outlier.

It doesn't make much sense.

LordXcano said:

Isn't "Oh that's just AoE" exactly that? Turning vs. debating into a production line?

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It isn't because two paragraphs above the one you just quoted, I state and explain that AoE definitely needs to be analyzed.

"It isn't because two paragraphs above the one you just quoted, I state and explain that AoE definitely needs to be analyzed."

2 paragraphs above you said

"If the best feat in a Verse is someone exploding a Moon, and then a new character comes along who states that "My attack is equal to the Big Bang which created the universe", yet he never did feats to demonstrate it, it'd obviously bullshit."

Which is about character statements not AoE

It's about both. It's an example of a situation where we can't excuse a character's power with a AoE.

"Think of it as being dumped into a parallel dimension in which the rules still generally apply (eg- humans still breathe oxygen and iron is still heavier than wood), but there are extra phenomena which are unknown to us (eg- subspace, hyperspace), and which you must now research based on what you see and read - Mike Wong"

It's odd to follow this line of belief when you dump extra phenomena within a series off the bat and stick with it even if the narrative doesn't hint or imply it's existence.

"And numerous other examples I could list. DON'T say that Outliers don't exist if you accept Area of Effect as a basic idea. That's a lie."

But they (outliers) don't, and all those instances you've provided were ones were we couldn't just excuse it with AoE any longer (aside from that one speed feat you added in there). Also, doesn't it seem weird to selectively apply it to certain franchises and let others go free without any guidelines to say when and how that's okay? It leaves a lot of it up to how much someone likes the franchise and how much people know about it, when putting guidelines in place would make the process a lot less subject to bias

"Okay, so breaking the laws of physics is okay in one-hand, but it isn't in another?"

Not when you have to break it to explain why a city block level character failed to level a building despite clearly striking it.

"You say that a Planet-level character punching another with no collateral is okay because of durability, but then say that if it punches the environment it should destroy it. You are most likely basing this on the simple fact that the more energetic an event is, the more collateral damage it causes. Then why are you only applying it to the later, and not the former?"

As described before, when a city block character punches another city block character the building shouldn't collapse as the victim is capable of internally dispersing that energy/force, therefore leaving no residual effects which can damage the building. The same applies towards clashes, assuming it's done in a way that the characters fists both strike each other directly.

"In Warhammer 40,000, The Emperor and Horus trade blows with their sword and talon, respectively, and their blows are explictely described as being capable of destroying planets, yet the room in which they are fighting isn't destroyed."

First of all, what we see > what is stated to do. Or, due to The Emperor being a psychic he is able to contain the force. It's also possible he shielded the blows.

"This is actually completely fallacious for a number of reasons. In fiction, even energy blasts often have low-range and are concentrated on a localized target. Plasma Weapons from Warhammer 40,000 have the potency of a Solar Flare, yet they barely destroy more than a few meters. Similarly, characters such as Freeza can fire beams that carry more potency than an exploding planet, yet are focused like a laser and do little to no damage, and would certainly not destroy the planet if it were fired at it."

You say it's fallacious without providing any fallacies I may have invoked but rather tell me that this weapon has contradicting feats and that this beam wouldn't be able to destroy the planet despite it showing feats that it could (due to ki control? Or perhaps it failed to do so that time?)

"I just don't want us to remake our entire wiki on the reasoning "If the character doesn't always blow up shit with all of their attacks then they aren't that strong."

Not really the case though, because those few cases where some character fails to damage the environment by striking it would still be outweighed by the other feats this character has. I'd rather have it written off as a low-showing rather than AoE, thats the only difference.

"A fight between 2 tier 8 would level a town/city. After 2 tier 7s duke it out, new maps would need to be drawn. 2 tier 6s would leave a scar on the planet, if not destroy it. These are the results where every attack is consistent with their tier. Be honest, is it reasonable to demand this from every fight?"

I demand those things from every fight, if they happen to violate the guidelines i've proposed. And yeah, I do think it's reasonable to assume someone striking the ground should result in an amount of damage that is consistent with their prior feats. Much more so than just assuming there exists a concept which excuses that discrepancy which is not hinted towards at all in the narrative.

"Basically, authors want to make fight using superpowered individuals without thinking through all of the fight "shit an attack hit the terrain. Guess I'll have to make it blow up". To think that authors SHOULD follow our ratings for every fight is silly."

When I see a city block level character punch a rock and fail to hardly put a dent in it, i couldn't care less what the author was thinking at the time of making that scene, I take what I see at face value and if there exists nothing to excuse what appears to be a hurrendous low-end (which i can find out by analyzing the scene via my guidelines) then i'll mark it off as a one-off discrepency.

I strongly agree with Matthew and Saikou regarding this issue.

It would also be extremely problematic to change our standards for all profiles, and would likely yield widespread extremely suspicious downgrades, such as Building level for most Dragon Ball characters.

As such, I am firmly opposed to changing our overall conventions.

However, as Ryukama mentioned, please keep calm, and maintain a polite tone towards each other. Fiction is not a sufficiently important issue to get upset about.

I will also go on vacation very soon, so I will not be around to help ensure that this discussion does not spin out of control.

"It's odd to follow this line of belief when you dump extra phenomena within a series off the bat and stick with it even if the narrative doesn't hint or imply it's existence."

It's better to assume that the universe works under similar, but not quite exact laws, then to demand our laws of physics to be followed 100% when they'll be broken.

" But they (outliers) don't, and all those instances you've provided were ones were we couldn't just excuse it with AoE any longer (aside from that one speed feat you added in there)."

Outliers exist, AoE or not. Implying that they don't under our current system is to strawman things completely. Though I'm confused about this, do you agree with me since I listed outliers, or you don't?

"Also, doesn't it seem weird to selectively apply it to certain franchises and let others go free without any guidelines to say when and how that's okay? It leaves a lot of it up to how much someone likes the franchise and how much people know about it, when putting guidelines in place would make the process a lot less subject to bias""

It's not about bias, it's about giving each Verse individual analysis instead of running them through a robotic production line devoid of thought. But, some verses do suffer from people being too harsh or too liberal with them, I admit. We are not perfect, never were. Us supposedly being biased or not has nothing to do with us accepting AoEs.

"As described before, when a city block character punches another city block character the building shouldn't collapse as the victim is capable of internally dispersing that energy/force, therefore leaving no residual effects which can damage the building. The same applies towards clashes, assuming it's done in a way that the characters fists both strike each other directly."

Not quite, force isn't entirely absorbed by the object it hits. It can disperse as well, that's the whole concept of shockwaves, after all.

"First of all, what we see > what is stated to do. Or, due to The Emperor being a psychic he is able to contain the force. It's also possible he shielded the blows. "

Nope. Omniscient third-person narrator statement. And the simple reason that they didn't explode the room they were in is because it's fiction, and the laws of physics are broken.

"You say it's fallacious without providing any fallacies"

Fallacious in the sense that it is blatantly, and demonstrably false, as I already explained.

"tell me that this weapon has contradicting feats and that this beam wouldn't be able to destroy the planet despite it showing feats that it could (due to ki control? Or perhaps it failed to do so that time?)"

I read this part about three times and I have no idea what you mean. Plasma Blasts in 40K are Continent level but they can't destroy a building, and Freeza's Death Beam is Small Star level but does next to 0 collateral, and Ki Control has nothing to do with it.

"I just don't want us to remake our entire wiki on the reasoning "If the character doesn't always blow up shit with all of their attacks then they aren't that strong."

I have no idea who this is addressed to as nobody said this, so I feel it would be best to actually quote the arguments rather than to paraphrase. That's potentially strawmaning things.

"Not really the case though, because those few cases where some character fails to damage the environment by striking it would still be outweighed by the other feats this character has. I'd rather have it written off as a low-showing rather than AoE, thats the only difference."

Or their attack simply has a mechanic that explains the lack of destruction, or simply possesses a small range do to being concentrated. A character can cause little destruction to the environment despite being high-tier.

I can name 9D characters who can't destroy a city due to their range limitation.

"I demand those things from every fight, if they happen to violate the guidelines i've proposed."

It's unreasonable to demand it.

" I do think it's reasonable to assume someone striking the ground should result in an amount of damage that is consistent with their prior feats. Much more so than just assuming there exists a concept which excuses that discrepancy which is not hinted towards at all in the narrative."

1. As already stated, minor environmental damage doesn't necessarily indicate a low-end feat.

2. But you are already willing to accept that Kinetic Energy is violated, that Newton's Three Laws are violated, that Relativity is violated, so what's wrong with accepting that Conservation of Energy is violated all the time in fiction? The only explanation I can see is "It makes characters stronger than I'd like them to be".

"When I see a city block level character punch a rock and fail to hardly put a dent in it, i couldn't care less what the author was thinking at the time of making that scene, I take what I see at face value and if there exists nothing to excuse what appears to be a horrendous low-end (which i can find out by analyzing the scene via my guidelines) then i'll mark it off as a one-off discrepancy."

Then your interpretations are very linear and limited. If you can either see as one or the other, rather than analyze the verse and character in-depth to see if there can be a reason for it, or just assume that the writers have no idea how strong their characters really is (Happens a lot), or just shrug it off as an inconsistency and move on. You act as if any time a character's feats of strength deviate from their shown maximum, it's reason to be alarmed and question everything.

@Ari

Understood, thanks. Staff only tho.

Just to clarify, my apologies, but we are definitely not doing away with area of effect as far as I am concerned.

We cannot initiate a massive wiki revision project that would unreasonably downgrade most of our profiles.

For one thing, it would cause us an enormous amount of work for no gain whatsoever, for the second it would yield extremely downplayed results, and for the third the backlash that said downgrades generate would be enormous and destroy the popularity of our community as a whole.

As such, I would greatly appreciate if everybody involved please permanently drop this issue. The proposal is extremely dangerous.

We should preferably close this thread and remove the highlight.

I also agree with closing the thread, and Ant is right on all counts there.

I disagree with changing AoE altogether. The environment kind of needs to be there in order for there to be a story at all. If an 8-C character suddenly performs a 3-A feat out of nowhere then that's different, but if it has any good consistency to it then I think it's perfectly valid to use.

AMM is not asking to remove aoe but just to try better establish where to draw the line, as it has in the past been used to defend big outliers.

I feel like people are just jumping the bandwagon and besides matt not even reading the thread at all.