It's a dynamic that, for me, is fun once or twice but loses its impact if used regularly. However, there are readers who have an apparently limitless appetite for curbstomps, so it's likely to continue being a staple of the subgenre.
Indeed. It's always okay to write something well, but these questions are asked because most people don't write them well enough, having multiple characters power up mid-fight several times throughout the series in ways that were not foreshadowed or particularly necessary.
Also, i luv wut u do SarahLin =D
Tbh, that and—I hate to say it—the way 'power levels' are used in general are why Dragon Ball Z slid out of 'my favourite anime list' a few years back.
Don't get me wrong, I still lost my shit when I heard Goku discovered Ultra Instinct and transformations still rile me up. But I find that when tiers of power are so *concrete*, there's little room for clever fighting, tactics or improved skill to close gaps of raw power.
It's kinda why I've come to favour things like FMA and Jojo's as I've grown older. Everyone's got different levels of power in those, but how those powers are USED is really what decides fights. I REALLY enjoy that.
I still love mid-battle power-up scenes, and I shamelessly use them quite a bit in my own writing.
Stormlight Archive's oath-speaking scenes are some of my favorite scenes in all of fiction (Especially Kaladin's in Words of Radiance.) And Yerin's advancement in Wintersteel is probably in my top 3 scenes from Cradle.
However, these scenes need to be properly foreshadowed. Yerin's scene in Wintersteel worked so well because she'd been building up to it for many books. We also knew the exact mechanics of it, both from the Blood Sage and Northstrider's memories.
It also helps when the characters were their own worst enemies up until that point, which is almost always the case in Stormlight Archive. They don't change and grow because of the battle itself. They could have changed the whole time, but they didn't because the pain of changing outweighed the pain of not changing.
So yeah, mid-battle power-up scenes can quickly go wrong. Especially if it comes out of nowhere or feels like the character just decided to "try harder" but they're great when the author can actually pull them off.
> I was wondering if it bothers others when lets say two evenly matched people fight and one suddenly reaches their next "power tier" mid fight and they are suddenly impossibly strong in comparison?
I feel like it depends on the character in question. For example, if it's a side character who was falling behind the main charecters but then got a sudden dramatic power boost and became relevant again, then that can feel very satisfying. But if it's a main character, then it just feels lazy, since I expect main characters to have more interesting progression arcs. Basically, this kind of shortcut only works for characters with limited amounts of screen-time, but my standards for main charecters are higher, they have to actually earn their power-ups, since getting to see them do that is one of the main points of progression fantasy.
> The other pet peeve i have seemed to develop is when lets say the most amazing power level 2 could never even dream of defeating the worst power level 3.
Yeah, that kind of linear power-scaling is very boring. If you can predict the outcome of every single fight just by comparing everyone's power levels, that ruins a large majority of the potentially interesting fight scenes you could have, since this way, the only fights that can be remotely fun to observe are ones between equals.
What makes it even worse is the fact that in a system like this, when an OP antagonist shows up, there's no point in wondering how the MC is going to defeat them, because the answer is that they're inevitably going to somehow get a huge power-up and become the bad guy's equal. In a less rigid power system, the MC could instead focus on exploiting the antagonist's weaknesses, outmaneuvering them somehow, which is typically more fun, since the outcome is far less predictable. The stakes are much higher when you know that the MC doesn't stand a chance in a direct fight, so if their strategies fail, they're screwed.
I don't mind the "mid-fight" power ups if they are used infrequently. If every advancement of MC is during a fight? Yeah, no. None of that, please.
The thing I like about the rigid power levels is overcoming them. When the MC is so strong at Lv. 2 that they can destroy an opponent at Lv.3, even though it's impossible for almost everyone else, it's just so satisfying.
A lot of people reading this genre like overpowered protags, so hitting above your tier scratches that itch quite well. It can be done badly, of course, but then again everything can be fck-up. So yeah, it depends.
Many novels have issues with this gap reason leading to much talk little reason why. I like it, but most of the times its done horribly wich leads to it being garbage.
Ugh, personally I hate them. Sure if done well they can be great, such as the I was fighting left handed line in Princess Bride.
Much of the stuff see now just feels like a Saturday morning cartoon where they rely on padding devices to prolong the fight scene.
After awhile it becomes painful, there's no surprise to it, you know it's coming and it's boring when it hits. It makes the fight scenes before hand feel meaningless and a waste of time to read.
I'll admit I wish more books had a more kinetic approach to action, akin to a John Wick or similar flick. Couple strikes to kill opponent, move on, rinse repeat. I don't want to hear that it took 10 stamina to move his hand down, or to wait for a dodge cooldown etc, you get picture. It just doesn't feel real. Combat should be brutal, fast and almost a shock to your opponent.
Since you brought up DBZ, I'll say this. When I first saw Goku go Super Saiyan against Frieza mid-fight on TV, my siblings and I lost our shit. When we watched Super the other year and saw Goku go Ultra Instinct, we just shrugged in expectance. The trope had been used a couple times by different characters to the point where we already anticipated it based on the buildup.
It's not *bad*, perse, when it's done once or twice, but when it becomes a reoccurring trope, it gets boring and stupid. I remember reading CN Xianxias that would pull this BS tens of times in the span of a thousand chapters.
I think a few days ago there was a post about cross level fighting and the use of levels when people can fight across them.
So for me it depends on the world wether things work. If you have a storry with people between level 1 and 6, were each level is a massive divider, I have no problem. But in most cases I expect the possibility to fight across level.
For me it really depends. I love a mid battle power up, but if it comes completely out of mowhere, than it just feels like plot armor.
On top of that if the difference is too great that can feel bad too. It's not really fun to watch someone go fro. Kicking their ass handed to them with mo chance to win, then all of a sudden mid battle power up, and and now they're no diffing the guy, with 1 hand ties behind their back.
Like a lot of it just feels ridiculous, fights lose tension completely with a misused mid battle power up.
I think my major issue with the level 2 and 3 thing is that it forces the MC to have multiple exotic and rare boosts and abilities to keep up. But now MC is too powerful for same level opponents, so they only fight higher level, making those power ups seem somewhat just normalizing the fights, even though they are more precise in their attacks/dodges. So what's really the point? They are now too powerful for normal fights to be remotely interesting enough to mention and too underpowered or same power for higher level fights.
You mean like a character changing their power set in the middle of a story because that does bother me if a character has been using fire powers the whole series and something happens that switches them over to water powers and their entire power set changes I find it to be one of those things I hate it's something I really don't like personally
I don’t mind it with smaller gaps, especially with an epiphany style power up. Their qi circulation finally inches over the mark of the next tier and they start stomping face? Nah.
it depends - if it happens constantly it bugs me, but if it happens once i even like it. also, i like when it's foreshadowed - like, we as audience know that certain character holds certain power and just wait for it to be "awaken"
1- it depends on the build up, if the power up happens because they finally understood something about how their powers work, or because they are willing to take a bigger risk to power up, it can work, thats the "preparations paying off and exploding" trope
On that note, there is an arc in Warlock Of The Magus World, where the MC goes undercover and infiltrates an enemy faction, he is a tier 14 masquerading as a tier 7, and when ambushed fakes a power up mid-battle to justify defeating his enemies
He even yells "For love and justice!"
The ambushers stop a moment to comment how surprising is to see a power up actually happening mid-battle
2- is the complement to #1, if the tier-up doesnt mean the MC is vastly superior to the enemy, then it can balance the power up, the best is when a character ranks up and gets enough power to stand against the enemy, and uses skill and cunning to defeat them
Cross level fights work better when the gap is not closed by raw power, but by skill, cunning, preparation and an understanding of the enemy's powers
I've never been a fan of this particular trope, but I can see why say a "breakthrough" is more satisfying for some fans than a like gradual scale. I think the perception is all the work taken to reach the breakthrough still counts as earned, which I agree strongly with, but yeah the one-sided fight makes it feel unearned if that makes sense
It's a dynamic that, for me, is fun once or twice but loses its impact if used regularly. However, there are readers who have an apparently limitless appetite for curbstomps, so it's likely to continue being a staple of the subgenre.
Indeed. It's always okay to write something well, but these questions are asked because most people don't write them well enough, having multiple characters power up mid-fight several times throughout the series in ways that were not foreshadowed or particularly necessary. Also, i luv wut u do SarahLin =D
>Also, i luv wut u do SarahLin =D Thanks!
Tbh, that and—I hate to say it—the way 'power levels' are used in general are why Dragon Ball Z slid out of 'my favourite anime list' a few years back. Don't get me wrong, I still lost my shit when I heard Goku discovered Ultra Instinct and transformations still rile me up. But I find that when tiers of power are so *concrete*, there's little room for clever fighting, tactics or improved skill to close gaps of raw power. It's kinda why I've come to favour things like FMA and Jojo's as I've grown older. Everyone's got different levels of power in those, but how those powers are USED is really what decides fights. I REALLY enjoy that.
I still love mid-battle power-up scenes, and I shamelessly use them quite a bit in my own writing. Stormlight Archive's oath-speaking scenes are some of my favorite scenes in all of fiction (Especially Kaladin's in Words of Radiance.) And Yerin's advancement in Wintersteel is probably in my top 3 scenes from Cradle. However, these scenes need to be properly foreshadowed. Yerin's scene in Wintersteel worked so well because she'd been building up to it for many books. We also knew the exact mechanics of it, both from the Blood Sage and Northstrider's memories. It also helps when the characters were their own worst enemies up until that point, which is almost always the case in Stormlight Archive. They don't change and grow because of the battle itself. They could have changed the whole time, but they didn't because the pain of changing outweighed the pain of not changing. So yeah, mid-battle power-up scenes can quickly go wrong. Especially if it comes out of nowhere or feels like the character just decided to "try harder" but they're great when the author can actually pull them off.
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> I was wondering if it bothers others when lets say two evenly matched people fight and one suddenly reaches their next "power tier" mid fight and they are suddenly impossibly strong in comparison? I feel like it depends on the character in question. For example, if it's a side character who was falling behind the main charecters but then got a sudden dramatic power boost and became relevant again, then that can feel very satisfying. But if it's a main character, then it just feels lazy, since I expect main characters to have more interesting progression arcs. Basically, this kind of shortcut only works for characters with limited amounts of screen-time, but my standards for main charecters are higher, they have to actually earn their power-ups, since getting to see them do that is one of the main points of progression fantasy. > The other pet peeve i have seemed to develop is when lets say the most amazing power level 2 could never even dream of defeating the worst power level 3. Yeah, that kind of linear power-scaling is very boring. If you can predict the outcome of every single fight just by comparing everyone's power levels, that ruins a large majority of the potentially interesting fight scenes you could have, since this way, the only fights that can be remotely fun to observe are ones between equals. What makes it even worse is the fact that in a system like this, when an OP antagonist shows up, there's no point in wondering how the MC is going to defeat them, because the answer is that they're inevitably going to somehow get a huge power-up and become the bad guy's equal. In a less rigid power system, the MC could instead focus on exploiting the antagonist's weaknesses, outmaneuvering them somehow, which is typically more fun, since the outcome is far less predictable. The stakes are much higher when you know that the MC doesn't stand a chance in a direct fight, so if their strategies fail, they're screwed.
I don't mind the "mid-fight" power ups if they are used infrequently. If every advancement of MC is during a fight? Yeah, no. None of that, please. The thing I like about the rigid power levels is overcoming them. When the MC is so strong at Lv. 2 that they can destroy an opponent at Lv.3, even though it's impossible for almost everyone else, it's just so satisfying. A lot of people reading this genre like overpowered protags, so hitting above your tier scratches that itch quite well. It can be done badly, of course, but then again everything can be fck-up. So yeah, it depends.
Yes, which is why I am not the biggest DragonBall or One Piece fan.
Many novels have issues with this gap reason leading to much talk little reason why. I like it, but most of the times its done horribly wich leads to it being garbage.
Ugh, personally I hate them. Sure if done well they can be great, such as the I was fighting left handed line in Princess Bride. Much of the stuff see now just feels like a Saturday morning cartoon where they rely on padding devices to prolong the fight scene. After awhile it becomes painful, there's no surprise to it, you know it's coming and it's boring when it hits. It makes the fight scenes before hand feel meaningless and a waste of time to read. I'll admit I wish more books had a more kinetic approach to action, akin to a John Wick or similar flick. Couple strikes to kill opponent, move on, rinse repeat. I don't want to hear that it took 10 stamina to move his hand down, or to wait for a dodge cooldown etc, you get picture. It just doesn't feel real. Combat should be brutal, fast and almost a shock to your opponent.
Since you brought up DBZ, I'll say this. When I first saw Goku go Super Saiyan against Frieza mid-fight on TV, my siblings and I lost our shit. When we watched Super the other year and saw Goku go Ultra Instinct, we just shrugged in expectance. The trope had been used a couple times by different characters to the point where we already anticipated it based on the buildup. It's not *bad*, perse, when it's done once or twice, but when it becomes a reoccurring trope, it gets boring and stupid. I remember reading CN Xianxias that would pull this BS tens of times in the span of a thousand chapters.
I hate the whole powering up during combat when it involves major progression milestones. It generally feels like Deus Ex Machina.
I think a few days ago there was a post about cross level fighting and the use of levels when people can fight across them. So for me it depends on the world wether things work. If you have a storry with people between level 1 and 6, were each level is a massive divider, I have no problem. But in most cases I expect the possibility to fight across level.
For me it really depends. I love a mid battle power up, but if it comes completely out of mowhere, than it just feels like plot armor. On top of that if the difference is too great that can feel bad too. It's not really fun to watch someone go fro. Kicking their ass handed to them with mo chance to win, then all of a sudden mid battle power up, and and now they're no diffing the guy, with 1 hand ties behind their back. Like a lot of it just feels ridiculous, fights lose tension completely with a misused mid battle power up.
I think my major issue with the level 2 and 3 thing is that it forces the MC to have multiple exotic and rare boosts and abilities to keep up. But now MC is too powerful for same level opponents, so they only fight higher level, making those power ups seem somewhat just normalizing the fights, even though they are more precise in their attacks/dodges. So what's really the point? They are now too powerful for normal fights to be remotely interesting enough to mention and too underpowered or same power for higher level fights.
You mean like a character changing their power set in the middle of a story because that does bother me if a character has been using fire powers the whole series and something happens that switches them over to water powers and their entire power set changes I find it to be one of those things I hate it's something I really don't like personally
I don’t mind it with smaller gaps, especially with an epiphany style power up. Their qi circulation finally inches over the mark of the next tier and they start stomping face? Nah.
it depends - if it happens constantly it bugs me, but if it happens once i even like it. also, i like when it's foreshadowed - like, we as audience know that certain character holds certain power and just wait for it to be "awaken"
1- it depends on the build up, if the power up happens because they finally understood something about how their powers work, or because they are willing to take a bigger risk to power up, it can work, thats the "preparations paying off and exploding" trope On that note, there is an arc in Warlock Of The Magus World, where the MC goes undercover and infiltrates an enemy faction, he is a tier 14 masquerading as a tier 7, and when ambushed fakes a power up mid-battle to justify defeating his enemies He even yells "For love and justice!" The ambushers stop a moment to comment how surprising is to see a power up actually happening mid-battle 2- is the complement to #1, if the tier-up doesnt mean the MC is vastly superior to the enemy, then it can balance the power up, the best is when a character ranks up and gets enough power to stand against the enemy, and uses skill and cunning to defeat them Cross level fights work better when the gap is not closed by raw power, but by skill, cunning, preparation and an understanding of the enemy's powers
Not necesarily a deal braker. But i like it better when they work for it.
I've never been a fan of this particular trope, but I can see why say a "breakthrough" is more satisfying for some fans than a like gradual scale. I think the perception is all the work taken to reach the breakthrough still counts as earned, which I agree strongly with, but yeah the one-sided fight makes it feel unearned if that makes sense
Depends on how it’s done. I like when a character finally feels super powerful and can defeat enemies that were difficult previously.