I will never understand this hatred some people have for applying numerical values to a characters strength. It's often argued it's "useless" or "they don't mean anything" in which case, what are you complaining about, if you truly believe that then you most also believe they have no real effect on the story.
And beyond that complaint no one ever seems to come up with a legit negative consequence to the story brought on solely by the inclusion of power levels.
If it's a general complaint about the Power Creep getting out of control then fine, but power levels really have nothing to do with that.
edited 27th Sep '15 8:40:35 AM by VeryMelon
Late to this discussion, but: The reason power levels always bothered me is that it meant that 99% of the time a fight was over before it started. Characters rarely seemed to win fights through cleverness or skill or anything like that; one of them was stronger, so he won. The tendency of that to happen is why I've found myself taking in less and less shonen fare. It bores me to tears.
Should've checked the list.Yeah, Power Levels themselves are just a system of measuring.
This feels like a bunch of semantics. Power levels exist even if there aren't numbers attached to them, they're just coached in terms of "whoa this power... I've never sensed anything like this before" and "Tien? flippin lmao". I think "they make fights boring because the weaker one never wins" and "therefore the plot requires things pulled out of asses so that the protagonists can win" are both perfectly good reasons for thinking power levels are bullshit.
edited 27th Sep '15 4:36:15 PM by Moth13
Not really, that first reason is just saying you don't like stronger characters (almost) always winning because there stronger. That complaint in and off it self is a bit hard for me to take seriously.
The second one is more of a general writing problem than anything to do with power levels.
edited 27th Sep '15 4:42:57 PM by LSBK
Power Levels do a lot to call attention to and facilitate crazy Power Creep, which is bad.
But what's worse is that they make things tend towards a ridiculously linear measurement of who's going to win, when of course a good writer will have the outcome be partially dependant on environmental factors, the fighters' psychological conditions, how their respective abilities interact, random chance, and other stuff you'd never expect Power Levels to reflect. 'Who has more raw power' is typically the least interesting part of a fight, and anyway that's basically arbitrary in all but the most realistic series.
I don't really have a problem with the concept- being able to objectively establish that sort of thing is useful and interesting sometimes- but I find they're rarely implemented well, and make it a lot easier to fall into a some very bad writing traps.
edited 27th Sep '15 4:52:28 PM by Gilphon
It doesn't seem the same to me. What you said came down to "I don't like the strongest guy always winning" and "I don't like asspulls" and that's it. Those are also things many people have problems with and problems that could very easily be ascribed to other factors in a story.
That. Not liking how a system is established is not the same thing as blaming the system for problems it isn't directly responsible for.
edited 27th Sep '15 5:06:51 PM by LSBK
Power Levels aren't responsible for those things, they just give numerical values to understanding them.
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That post explained why I don't like the strongest guy always winning. And the second point is "I don't like that the way powerlevels are misused facilitates the occurrence of asspulls" I find the asspulls and the power levels very related. But if you don't see it that way, then whatever.
I said that the numbers themselves aren't the problem. They exist even without numbers.
edited 27th Sep '15 5:09:29 PM by Moth13
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They facilitate those things. It's theoretically possible to have power levels without those things, but they mean it's a lot easier to make them happen, and series that have power levels but not those problem are rare. And there's usually some kind mitigating circumstance when it doesn't happen, like 'Power Levels were brought up once and then never again', or 'the supplement material talks about them, but they're never made explicit within the series itself'.
edited 27th Sep '15 5:11:14 PM by Gilphon
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If the numbers aren't the problem then I'm not sure what we're talking about the same thing.
Again, it just seems more like you dislike bad writing for fights than anything else I'm not sure why you're specifically tying to Power Levels.
At most I can see power levels making those already existing problems seem more apparent but even then the problem isn't really with them. Is that what you mean?
edited 27th Sep '15 5:16:24 PM by LSBK
That moment when you realize Piccolo is only 4 years older than Gohan...
Also: "With my rice I love to have some cow, cow, cow!"
edited 27th Sep '15 10:19:05 PM by wanderlustwarrior
Power levels suck mostly because it's a flat out failure of Show, Don't Tell, it's never subtle and always in your face.
Show, Don't Tell is not a hard rule and oftentimes isn't the best storytelling method.

Was it really? Ok, either way, somebody let that into circulation and was a direct answer to a question about power levels.