From: DeathChicken | #146 Who cares how many it specifically took to hurt him? Point is, he was in fact hurt during a standard brawl here. Which is more than you can say for Sarda, who is invincible to everything except Act of Plot
That's the difference between a character being 'Strong' and a character being 'Stupid'. You allow the first. You ban the second
I care. Because when you need three universes, shenanigans, and plot stupidity to hurt someone, that doesn't really translate well to '1v1, neutral terrain, no foreknowledge'.
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DeathChicken posted... Who cares how many it specifically took to hurt him? Point is, he was in fact hurt during a standard brawl here. Which is more than you can say for Sarda, who is invincible to everything except Act of Plot
That's the difference between a character being 'Strong' and a character being 'Stupid'. You allow the first. You ban the second
To add to this, yes Superman Prime would cruise to the finals. That alone is not reason to ban him. His power is overwhelming, but still "fair" in its basic nature. That should be the cutoff point. Also, you seemed to forget about tried and true rules, "must have a clearly defined powerset" and "must be defeatable by reproducible means". If you just stuck to those rules, they alone should take care of Sarda and the other problem characters. Yes, this means you have to make some subjective rulings, but you are not going to avoid that no matter what.
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From: DeathChicken | #149 Man, *Superboy* (as in, Kon-El, not Prime) manages to hit him and make him go 'Ow' during that fight <_<
And people beat the Molecule Man after the first Secret Wars. In spite of him being a really close second to a guy who would take Sarda to the cleaners. I get what you're trying to say DC, I really do, but the problem is that that approach comes riddled full of holes straight off the shelves. It's acceptable, in the sense that it is usable, but it's not *good*. And in fact, both options have their pros and cons. You can say Sarda was really stupid (he was), but he did give us one of the most interesting finals in the history of the contest. Similarly, you can say restricting power levels was a good idea, but the lower you go the more interest wanes, as the Fictional Character Invitational proved.
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From: redrocket | #150 DeathChicken posted... Who cares how many it specifically took to hurt him? Point is, he was in fact hurt during a standard brawl here. Which is more than you can say for Sarda, who is invincible to everything except Act of Plot
That's the difference between a character being 'Strong' and a character being 'Stupid'. You allow the first. You ban the second
To add to this, yes Superman Prime would cruise to the finals. That alone is not reason to ban him. His power is overwhelming, but still "fair" in its basic nature. That should be the cutoff point. Also, you seemed to forget about tried and true rules, "must have a clearly defined powerset" and "must be defeatable by reproducible means". If you just stuck to those rules, they alone should take care of Sarda and the other problem characters. Yes, this means you have to make some subjective rulings, but you are not going to avoid that no matter what.
But the powersets of (most of) the warpers are clearly defined. "Total control over matter" is a very clear thing. OP, but clear. "Insantly know all there is to know about your foe" (Nagato here, not The Host) is also very clearly defined, too. Just because a powerset is broad doesn't mean it isn't clearly defined.
(and Prime wasn't defeatable by reproducible means is my point. 'Fight him with a depowering sun nearby' isn't reproducible either, is it?)
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Molecule Man is like comparing apples and hand grenades. That's a guy who has Jim Jaspers levels of power, but loses because he has the personality of Woody Allen
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Again, where do you draw the line? What's the cutoff point? I went with the vaccine approach because I couldn't find a good solution to the question of power levels. If you have a good idea about it, let me know - most people complain about the way I've done things, but so far nobody's stepped up and provided even an idea to work out a better system.
I'd say there is no clear-cut "everyone is 100% satisfied" solution. ...But that's not say there's not better solutions and worse solutions.
Here's what I think, off the top of my head, would have been the best:
You've clearly identified that reality warpers are a "problem." (As a side note: I agree. Their inclusion is part of the reason I've sat this MPFC out. Went through that in the last one I followed a fair amount, and I have no interest going back) I'd just take the simplest solution and ban all reality warpers. Sure, this leaves you with the question of "What constitutes a reality warper?" And here's my answer: You, as a host, will have to make that decision yourself. Your decisions may not necessarily be popular, but at the very least they should hopefully be consistent, or at least reasonably close.
Instead, what I feel ended up happening was you identified reality warpers as a problem, but your solution was to introduce one that you felt is even stronger as a hard counter, but with an escape clause that would allow you to eliminate him the moment his "task" of eliminating the others was concluded. I find this problematic on several levels, some on a general level, some on a specific:
-Reality Warpers were defined as a problem, but now we have a bunch of them, and any other character who runs into them is now basically doomed. Sure, perhaps by the end you envision them all being eliminated, but it's going to take a while for this to happen. In the meantime, the reality warpers and your vaccine will annihilate their other opponents. At that point you might as well remove the vaccine and you might end up "saving" more matches at the cost of perhaps an extra round of reality warping matches (admittedly though, the round that might now be in peril could be the final, but there's no guarantee it wouldn't be even in the vaccine scenario should the finals be Vaccine v Problem)
-Assuming you go in with the vaccine's purpose as "Eliminate all problem cases" you are implicitly stating (at least to me) every match the vaccine is involved in is an automatic win. In "theory" this might be consistent (although I'd argue bad design) but on a specific level this could cause issues. Take The Host. My understanding from scanning the match he was in was that the voters could effectively "kick" him from the contest as he was bound to their will. Sure, that provides a way to make him lose once all the reality warpers are gone. ...But what if the voters invoke this early? It sounds like to me he should lose, but now the reality warpers are "free." For any consistency at all, I'd argue that you must honor the escape clause and have the vaccine lose, but obviously that's defeating the "purpose" of the vaccine. Which brings me from the specific back to the general: Micromanaging things to the extent where an entrant has a specific purpose to fulfill is probably not going to end well.
That's some of my thoughts on this at least. You can take with a grain of salt if you like, as I said, I've been sitting this MPFC out entirely, so my opinion may not "mean" as much regarding what's going on here. I've been checking in on some matches here and there, but that's about it.
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DeathChicken posted... Who cares how many it specifically took to hurt him? Point is, he was in fact hurt during a standard brawl here. Which is more than you can say for Sarda, who is invincible to everything except Act of Plot
This is why you can't take a contest like this seriously, it's just too much stress over a concept that's silly to begin with. Anyway Richard Rahl, pirateking is the most convincing person ITT.
<thumbs up> lol
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But like Superman Prime, the warpers are not defeatable by reproducible means. Some of them haven't even been defeated in canon. Why isn't that enough to ban them?
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Nah, these are pretty decent opinions and I can agree with them. I'll fully admit some of my decisions were not entirely bright (specifically, I NEVER should have allowed GANON in, and the warpers should have probably been taken out somehow), and I've learned a lot from this. I just take umbrage to some veteran voters and the perennial contest host acting like smug gits, criticizing everything down to the vanilla matchups, and then refusing to do more than lol at me instead of contributing something *meaningful*, particularly when, if they had cared at all, they could have talked to me in the two weeks we had of buildup before the nominations locked. It's really easy to pin the blame on the contest's frontman, but MPFC is a board affair, not a one-man project.
Anyway, back to the topic we were discussing, if you asked me to make a subjective decision, I'd actually probably swing way lower than you guys are thinking. My ceiling for stupidity is probably either Seiya or a milder reality warper (maybe cartoon series Genie from Aladdin?). These are guys who can be beaten mano a mano, as opposed to guys like Prime. It's a totally arbitrary value, which is why I refrained from using a power cap, but if you're curious about how I would have gone about capping power levels, there you go.
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From: redrocket | #157 But like Superman Prime, the warpers are not defeatable by reproducible means. Some of them haven't even been defeated in canon. Why isn't that enough to ban them?
The 'bigger gun' factor. How do you beat the guy with a big gun? Use a bigger, faster gun that you can shoot from farther away. That was the criteria I used for allowing the warpers in as a matter of fact: there's always a bigger fish out there.
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From: Ed Bellis | #162 I've been busy doing something else for the past hour or so. I'll respond, don't worry!
Nah, take your time Ed. My complaint is something you can't fix unless you have a TARDIS of your own, so it makes no difference if you reply or not.
Now, as for everybody else, just to make this clear, I am not defending my decisions (well, not most of them): I'm merely trying to explain what reasons I had for making them. If I'm not being clear enough on any point, please let me know and I'll see if I can explain myself better.
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And then you have to bring in somebody with a bigger gun to beat that other guy with a bigger gun, and then somebody to beat him, and then, and then, and then...
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From: todbot1 | #164 And then you have to bring in somebody with a bigger gun to beat that other guy with a bigger gun, and then somebody to beat him, and then, and then, and then...
"Which isn't a problem with the smaller characters...so why would it be one with the heavy hitters?" -Pre-noms Kan
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From: DeathChicken | #153 Molecule Man is like comparing apples and hand grenades. That's a guy who has Jim Jaspers levels of power, but loses because he has the personality of Woody Allen
Forgot to reply to this, but that is totally the case, I'm just making the argument since we were discussing Sarda's stupidity and all.
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KanzarisKelshen posted... From: redrocket | #157 But like Superman Prime, the warpers are not defeatable by reproducible means. Some of them haven't even been defeated in canon. Why isn't that enough to ban them? The 'bigger gun' factor. How do you beat the guy with a big gun? Use a bigger, faster gun that you can shoot from farther away. That was the criteria I used for allowing the warpers in as a matter of fact: there's always a bigger fish out there.
Just as a matter of opinion, this isn't valid because you are arguing a purely theoretical means of defeating them. The way I always saw this rule, and IIRC the way it was always implemented in the past was that there needs to be actual specific examples/evidence from their respective canon of how they could be defeated.
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From his looks Magus is Macho Man Randy Savage as an anime zombie. The black wind howls, and one of you will snap into a Slim Jim ooh yeeeah! -sonicblastpunch
From: redrocket | #168 KanzarisKelshen posted... From: redrocket | #157 But like Superman Prime, the warpers are not defeatable by reproducible means. Some of them haven't even been defeated in canon. Why isn't that enough to ban them? The 'bigger gun' factor. How do you beat the guy with a big gun? Use a bigger, faster gun that you can shoot from farther away. That was the criteria I used for allowing the warpers in as a matter of fact: there's always a bigger fish out there.
Just as a matter of opinion, this isn't valid because you are arguing a purely theoretical means of defeating them. The way I always saw this rule, and IIRC the way it was always implemented in the past was that there needs to be actual specific examples/evidence from their respective canon of how they could be defeated.
I don't disagree with that. I'm just pointing out that if there's a character out there whose powers are "the same, but better", then logically the first character shouldn't a problem because he could be defeated. In the end it doesn't work that way but not because it doesn't give a way for the first character to lose.
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Out of curiosity, if the Host was a character written by somebody else, would you have a problem with him (omnipotence aside)?
As for your vision...I can see where we differ. To me, MPFC is about...well, getting your fanboy on and arguing your utmost for the character you want to see win and who you believe can win the fight. It's a battle of fan vs. fan, tempered by logic and reasoning, like a version of our sitewide popularity contests that involves thinking as well as gut reactions. You see it from a meta-contest point of view, I see it from the level of the voters and their investment. Similar viewpoints, but at the same time they have noticeable differences in their approach.
As for your last point, I'll admit that this is a new experience for me. I think we still have too much of the contest left to say if my eyeballing abilities were good or terrible (I've had a couple 'whoopsies', but I don't think there's been any gross mismatches that weren't intentional yet, and the percentage of 'boring' matches has been faaaaaaar lower than the usual amount in previous MPFCs), but I'll man up and admit to my goofs. Said goofs were:
-Allowing the jokes. These are GANON, McNeely, DW Ditto (lesser offender). I consider that Chad, Twilight Sparkle, Mordekaiser, Minato Namikaze and Revolver Ocelot are serious enough to work as legit entrants, with Twilight being on the borderline because of mini-toonforceness, and Ocelot being borderline because he's a fanfic character, if one that provided us with a very entertaining match and who can be taken pretty seriously. -Not doing a flat-out arrangement of the bracket to dispose of the warpers or mitigate their effects. This goes counter to my philosophy of allowing the matchups to occur spontaneously, but it might have been wise. -Not getting rid of the questionable entrants in the nomination phase. Part of this was that I considered the possibility of capping the power level but I chickened out after remembering the Invitational's disaster. I decided it wasn't worth the risk to put a cap and turn some people off on the basis of MPFC being too staged. Quite ironic, isn't it? -Not doing top-of-the-line hosting. The matches should go up the minute 24 hours are up or reasonably soon after a mercy. I haven't quite done this and it pains me.
Did I miss any big mistakes? This is the first contest I have hosted, and I have every intention of running MPFC again next year unless you want to do it, so any criticism is highly appreciated. I think that, if I can fix the complaints that I've received in this topic, I could run a very succesful MPFC, so I'm very keen on getting the opinion of as many people as possible.
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Oh, right, and one thing I forgot...isn't 'defeatable by water or water attacks' broad enough to let an entrant in? That seems like a sufficiently common descriptor to me.
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Got it. I kinda find the "fanfic-status" bit weird (since really, the only difference between the Host and most other entrants is that previous to his match his story wasn't up anywhere, which is now fix'd), but I can definitely understand the other two concerns. Looking at it that way I can definitely comprehend why you'd find the Host problematic - even if I managed to remain perfectly impartial during his 'bouts, having the author immediately on hand to shed light on what he can and can't do, and what he might or mightn't do holds his opponent hostage, in a way. It transforms him into a Schrödinger's character who could potentially adapt to beat his enemy every time if the author felt like being an ass.
And I'll think long and hard about how official I want MPFC to be. I feel like I almost got where I wanted to go with this tourney, at least so far, but having to do rule clarifications every other match tells me something is wrong and I have to clear things up. The concept is there, but the details and executiona re still off.
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From: Ed Bellis | #174 Also, if you plan on making this a regular thing or even doing another unrelated contest, you've started an important step, which is analyzing the first one and seeing what was good and what wasn't. My first MPFC (video game character) had an awful bracket and terrible writeups, and I worked on those in future iterations. I've tried like three different processes for seeding a VGMC bracket and I'll be trying a fourth next year. You just need to pay attention to what's working and what needs tweaking.
...Dammit, now you've got me jonesing for a preview. Curse you Ed! Curse youuuuu!
(But seriously, thanks a lot for the honest criticism. In spite of the snappy comments I made before you had the patience to walk me through the key points of successfully understanding the workings of a contest, and that's just priceless. I can't express my gratitude to you and everybody else who is taking some time to give their opinions enough. Thanks a lot, guys.)
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From his looks Magus is Macho Man Randy Savage as an anime zombie. The black wind howls, and one of you will snap into a Slim Jim ooh yeeeah! -sonicblastpunch
<slow claps> well that was great glad you guys got that settled and the criticism could lead to even better MPFCs in the future. Now then <casually gets up> can we get back to the match? rofl
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wait a minute what did i d-- what? okay who's infringing on my copyright.
i have a patent on making people running things snap around here. i've even made guys like bellis go from liking me to wishing my firstborn were dead.
also this: But seriously, if Ed ever discounted MWC's votes that is infinitely more dictatorial than me holding a match hostage
is dead wrong. you can only say this if you have not seen mwc vote in dbz matches.
also, as for some other stuff you're wrong on, arc isn't omnipotent. she power scales, but she's beatable and has certain limits to her power scaling as well.
meanwhile i think i missed answering some stuff. partially 'cause i don't like to answer it as i like keeping my ideas to myself (due to my lack of trust of most anyone with final say over my ideas), partially because i wanted to see the fireball grow more. so i'll start with your main thing where you're wrong on - the bigger gun theory. before that though for a quick snippet if you couldn't tell - there is no way to save what you got if you're serious about it. there is if you're fine with a goofy and silly one. like i said, you seemed to think you were gunning for the former when really you were 100% doing the latter and it could only end that way. hell, begin that way.
bigger gun works assuming both players use guns. you arm a guy with a rifle and another with a pistol? fine. a rocket launcher and another with a pistol? still fine. a railgun and a bb gun, still okay. it's when you arm a guy with a magical nuke while being protected from everything under the power of a magical nuke to fight a guy with a gun where you have a problem. the field isn't running the same weaponry. it isn't that they're running different weapons, it's that they aren't even running the same field in any possible way. magical nuke person is only okay if he faces other magical nuke people. aka, reality warpers are only okay against other reality warpers. or darsh. >_>; exception to the rule, he is.
this is why GANON should win the contest, as he literally has the closest thing to a magical nuke.
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also bellis, to appease your state of mind there, i do deliberately hold out on people when a contest goes bad. and i know i'm not the only one. but i do occasionally help! occasionally. tends to be a matter of i don't easily trust my good ideas fully in the hands of those who are gonna only lead it straight to hell and make it look bad.
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The future must protect the clone's past. "Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.
What's this about Prime being unbeatable? There are tons of characters in both Marvel and DC who can hand his ass to him, without reality warping.
The problem with reality warping, IMO, is that is thins the relevant opponent stream for the competition. I see what you're trying to say in that being super powerful effectively makes you just as broken as reality warpers, but the principle is different. Prime can be beaten by a broad range of "bigger guns" -- here are some examples of prior contestants who are NOT reality warpers: - Galactus - Tyrant - Dark Phoenix - Unicron - Darkseid - SoK (arguable) - Darsh (arguable) - Gogeta (arguable)
Whereas someone like Sarda requires a very specific "bigger gun" -- another reality warper with better feats. At the end of the day, a good energy manipulator/telepath could take Prime out by reading his mind and hitting him with red star radiation (people have made this argument with Surfer). Or you just find someone who is more powerful to blow him out.
TBH, I don't think it matters with Prime, anyways. You guys seem to forget that Mxy couldn't do squat to him, and Mxy is at least as impressive, if not much more so, than the reality warpers in this contest....
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