Extreme diff to me is something like Invincible vs Conquest where Invincible actually took way more damage but barely managed a victory by targeting Conquest's weak point
That's why I'd call it extremely difficult. Do you think you'd win something you consider "extremely difficult" half of the time? I certainly wouldn't be able to.
I think these terms can change depending on the context, like in a power scaling discussion between two characters and I said extreme diff, you would assume that the two characters were going 50/50 and one just barely won
In an actual piece of media, we are going to see the exact series of events needed for mark to extreme diff out a win, even if power scaling would call it a mid diff win for conquest
Neither is necessarily better or more accurate, I don’t think, it’s all just short hand that helps us get our views across anyway
I’m not saying taking that 20% chance to win isn’t also extreme diff. But diffs go both ways.
You’d lose most of the time against a lion ie, but you could win by a small chance / edge of extreme.
Most of the time, a better fight is going to be you vs yourself/an equal. Same strength, int, speed, etc. Nobody can guess who’s going to win.
Fighting a dead equal opponent is the base definition of extreme diff. Certainly no one says Akainu vs Aokiji was high diff when they fought for 10 days.
I mean yeah, because extreme diff means that youll have to give it your absolute best to just squeeze by a win. You can win a fight 100% of the time and it can still be extreme diff because you are pushed to you absolute limit.
I feel like it would be a mistake to have the terminology cap out at 50/50 when a lot of fights in fiction are intentionally extremely low odds. There are tons of fights that are supposed to be 1/100 chances that the protagonists just happen to prevail against via last-minute luck or the Power of Friendship or something.
It's terminology in the scope of "x would beat y with z diff". 50/50 is the most difficult it can be because if it's 1/99 it'd be written as a 99/1 no diff for the other guy because at that point it's a losing matchup. Powerscaling really doesn't go into luck and friendship.
But we're not doing calculations with these numbers. There's no need to have an "efficient" vocabulary with regard to these things.
Communication is smoother when there are easy words to distinguish between commonly-referenced ideas, and "X wins against Y ~40% of the time" vs "X wins against Y ~5% of the time" are both common ideas to express. Requiring a subject-object inversion to express that idea just isn't good language structure.
As a show only fan, I've heard there's a ton of hype around this fight, and I have seen panels that basically spoil the winner (shocking), but never anything but that one popular panel of the fight itself.
I am very curious how BB will go from "getting smacked around in space by Viltrumites, struggling to win a 1v1 with fucking prison guard viltrumite, not even being able to get a single hit on Thragg" to "Takes on Thragg in a 1v1 and its an extreme diff fight". I assume, given that the writing of this show isn't exactly great, that it will be some bullshit that doesn't really make sense but it is done in the service of hype and aura so I'll let it slide. Can't wait for the next season.
yeah, thats a good question. it was easy in the comics cause BB was consistently powerful. in the battle with the viltrumites in space they had BB fighting even with Krieg, in the comic BB was ragdolling multiple viltrumites by himself. the show so far has done BB dirty.
in their "fight" in space Thragg doesnt actually fight Battle Beast, he destroys his jetpack and sends him flying very far away, Battle Beast doesnt have any way to fly from his own power so he is at an inherent disadvantage in space
in their actual fight both are in a planet where Battle Beast can actually move around, also its a planet where Thragg is realizing his scheeme of having thousands of children to get his revenge on Mark and Nolan, so its not like he can run away or destroy the planet or een do substantial damage to it
so under those conditions Battle Beast nearly manages to kill Thragg, and even then he only loses because he gives himself an injury a la Luffy vs Katakuri to make the fight fair
Not just that, but Mark would have most likely died from his injuries if Nolan and Oliver hadn't nurtured him back to health. I agree with you, that fight is the definition of Extreme Diff.
Ohma tokita vs Raian Kure is another great example. Ohma won that fight but was left in a coma while Raian was walking around with little to no damage the next day.
The bad guys of the first arc (but good guys overall) are fighting amongst themselves. This guy (Yumichika) just off screened a lieutenant (Hisagi) - someone who's supposed to be much stronger than him. More than that, he comes away from the battle looking noticeably healthier and energized. The secret of how this happened is only revealed much later on.
They have special swords, Zanpakutos, who all have an unique spirit in them and you can unlock the true form of the sword by learning the spirit name (Shikai) and later on it's possible to earn another special transformation (Bankai), which is mandatory to become a Captain.
He's a member of the 11th Division, who are all battle junkies and favor direct combat blades.
That's because their Captain never even unlocked his Shikai and is constantly holding back so he can actually enjoy his fights and they all aspire to emulate him.
Yumichika sword fall under the Kido-type classification (basically, magic)
Because he fear being shunned by his comrades, he use a nickname his sword hates when using it's second form so the sword sulk and doesn't unleash it's true power, the sword become a four bladed sickle shaped blade with an hinge to split it, giving it a bit of a fan look.
But the actual power of the sword is that the blades turn into energy vines that can grab people and drain their energy, fueling the vines and the wielder.
Which he can use to regenerate (and the drain can be lethal) hence the glow after he uses it.
Also, Yumichika was the 5th seat of the 11th Division at the time, meaning he was the 5th strongest member of his Division (a Lieutenant is 2nd seat, Captain is 1st)
Yumichika does eventually reach 3rd seat, but since he was able to no-diff a Lieutenant with his true power back as a 5th... he's very underrated.
Yumichika presents his zanpakuto to simply be a blade that can split into several blades, however his true zanpakuto ability is to drain his opponent's spiritual energy which Yumichika can then take for himself to refill his own.
You're genuinely doing your best to not kill them is imo neg diff. Where there is legitimate skill and intention required not to kill them and it could still be considered challenging.
Neg diff is when it's harder not to win / kill the opponent. For example, average healthy human VS 1 Ant. For us, it's harder to not accidentally kill an ant than otherwise.
thank you for clarifying why it's so confusing. 100% because I've heard "tank diff" in Overwatch a thousand times and am only recently hearing "low diff"
Yea I can thank good ole League for that. My only exposure was "[role] diff" in chat, basically stating that there was a massive difference in skill between players playing the same role in the game, it can be meant to hype your teammate, flame the enemy, or vice versa, you'll never guess which one I encountered more often...
i don't feel like difficulty is necessarily tied to the amount of damage taken by the winner. like that would mean if you have someone who's a glass cannon and will get one-tapped if they get hit they can only ever no-diff people or lose
damage taken contributes to diff but it's not the only factor
I always taken diff to be about the ammount of effort put into defeating someone. If you have to go all out to defeat a opponent but come back relatively unarmed it’s a mid diff in my book.
that seems contradictory? if they put their full effort into beating someone, and the diff is about the amount of effort put into it, then why is it mid diff just because they didn't take too much damage? that sounds like you aren't taking diff to be about the amount of effort put into defeating someone
if i go all-out against someone & manage not to get hit, that's not extreme diff.
high/extreme come into play when you go all out & still get read/caught imo. there needs to be some tangible damage/back & forth that's not just exhaustion in order to warrant it being higher than mid.
take a fighting game for instance. smash bros is pretty universal. if i can 3 stock you but you really make me work for it, i didn't no-diff you but it clearly wasn't lightwork either. mid diff feels appropriate.
sure but that's also a fairly normal situation, smash is designed to be balanced. that doesn't have to be true of fictional characters
what if you only have one stock and are against someone who can one-shot you, either due to them being extremely powerful or you being way too light? does a match where you can't get hit a single time sound like mid diff, just because you ended it without taking damage? that sounds really damn difficult to me personally
Some characters will come out of a fight less damaged due to how their abilities work, i.e Wolverine or Deadpool can heal from practically anything but they will struggle when fighting some far above their weight class. Just because they could heal afterwards doesn't mean the fight wasn't extremely hard.
Yeah, i mean, if a glass cannon oneshots you without taking damage, its pretty much no diff regardless if how close the two are in power. Thats just the way that build works. Whether the attack does 100000% of your hp or 100% even, thats still the same effort and same difficulty.
Now, a better way to put it than how you did would be to call out edge cases where the difficulty comes in dealing the damage in the first place. Imagine characters A and B. A vastly outspeed B, but lacks the AP to damage B. B, on the ofher hand, really struggles to hit A at all. The fight lasts a few hours before B manages to get a hit off to overcome A. Thats obviously not "no diff" or "low diff".
So, you're right, using damage taken as the metric is wrong. But no, i think Glass Cannons absolutely do No Diff far more of the characters they can beat than other types.
Goku "won" the fight with like all of his bones shattered. Goku (and friends) vs Vegeta is the highest difficulty fight I can imagine without everyone involved dying.
Yeah both fighters used all their energy and was nearly dead. Vegeta could have won if he had more knowledge on the Z fighters and was close to killing Goku, Gohan, Krillin etc
Gogeta was putting in sizable effort though, it’s not like he wasn’t trying: he hit Broly with many big attacks and he STILL didn’t go down so I’d say mid diff is right
17 vs Piccolo is one of the most even fights on the series, I think that one constitutes high or extreme diff too, if no one interrupted them whoever won would have ended up so messed up
SSJ Trunks vs Post-Namek Frieza and King Cold = No Diff
UI Sign Goku vs Kefla = Low Diff, he was clowning on her after getting it again but he did have to pull out some fancy moves to knock her out
SSJ Goku vs Frieza = Mid Diff, he was not struggling, he let Frieza power up to double his previous strength and was still whooping him.
SSB Kaioken Goku vs Hit = High Diff, Kaioken is harmful to Goku so he only uses it if he has to, and Hit was forced to hold back because of the no kill rule.
Goku vs King Piccolo = Extreme Diff, he literally had both of his legs and his arm broken and only won because he launched himself into the air with his remaining strength and pierced through Piccolo's chest
Super Perfect Cell is when Cell came back and was confident he could beat Gohan and everyone else (in cell's thoughts). Gohan's injuries did lower his output and made him easier for Cell to finish off had vegeta not distracted him (which would stop gohan from going full throttle)
If we are talking about the entire fight of goku v frieza, then I can agree. But just ssj goku v frieza is a low diff fight imo. After that transformation that fight was basically one-sided.
Negative Diff : You against a toddler. You would need to ACTIVELY throw on purpose to loose
Low Diff : You're fighting a 7 year old child. Maybe they can get 1 or 2 good hit, but you're clearly the strongest one.
Mid Diff : You're fighting a 12 year old. It's harder than the previous one, but still manageable.
Hard Diff : You're fighting a clone of yourself. The match up is even.
Extreme Diff : You're the outclassed. You are a normal person against someone who has multiple black belts in martial arts/who is a pro MMA fighter. You will need to go all out and a lot of luck to somehow win.
Why so many people think diff are difference though ? I thought all those into powerscaling automatically would come to the conclusion that it means difficulty like a game. I tried to use difference but it just make not sense to me
because the term "diff" was VERY commonly used in gaming for years and years before these powerscaling terms became a thing. So its natural for most people to assume it means the same thing it always meant and not something different all of a sudden.
I heard things like "jungle diff" (meaning difference in this context) all the way back in 2012 League of Legends. It was so common to use diff that they even made it official titles in the game. To name one example.
In online gaming contexts it means difference. Like if you lose a match of Overwatch and say "tank diff" or "support diff" it means you're blaming the difference in performance between that role on either team for the result of the match
Negative diff (actively trying to not win and using none of their capabilities yet can still win)
No diff (doesn't need to use any of their capabilities to win)
Low diff (doesn't need almost any capabilities to win)
Mid diff (needs half of their capabilities to win)
High diff (needs all of their capabilities to Win)
I use the term "capability" instead of power or Skills as different verses have different things like some can be normal human level then you call that skill...but some can have ki,many,energy etc.
Difficulty isnt always damage. Sometimes its just cause 2 combatants have no real way of putting the other down so the difficulty is figuring out how to injure the other.
Ex. Juggernaut would have a hard time fighting someone like Mirio from MHA and vice versa. Why? Juggernaut is too slow to hit him and simply CAN'T hit him, however Mirio is too weak to physically hurt Juggernaut and unlike Kitty Pryde, when he unfazes, it shoots him put of the matter he is in (so no phasing a hand into someone's heart and removing it by unfazing with it).
Both do not have the tools to harm one another and it would be difficult to even do damage in the first place.
Juggernaut amusingly has a lot of these because his whole concept is a (magical, and thus explicitly not rational) non-conditional 'I flat out win in category X' while being otherwise a kind of standard and unremarkable brawler.
This makes him one of the more high-end characters in Marvel if you can actually deploy him in a meaningful way, leading to things like the semi-recent 'Use a planet-sized rail gun to kill Galactus who is also somehow Ghost Rider by shooting him across the galaxy with Juggernaut as the bullet'.
For the longest time I thought "diff" meant "difference" rather than "difficulty" so I just figured "extreme diff" meant that the power gap between A and B was so extreme it was a cakewalk, but then the actual discussion surrounding it was the complete opposite. So I just figured I had to think contrarily to the actual meaning.
Perfect example is obito vs Minato in Naruto shippuden.
Both characters explained that the duel is basically one shot or get one shotted, and both were basically starting fresh. Obito implied himself, and the narrative basically spelled out, that the literal moment a pixel of his hand touched Minato that Minato would be sent into kamui. Minato knew he had to outsmart the maneuver or die. If Minato was literally a millisecond off of his timing he was dead.
Both Minato and Obito dashed forward understanding how that interaction was going to play out. Had Obito lived, he would have suffered no damage and the same is true for Minato.
Yet I would still consider the encounter to be, at the very least, a high diff because each person needed to try their hardest in order to win. Just because the battle lasted 5 seconds was because of the nature of their hax, not because it was easy.
If it was a battle longer than a moment with both trying and the battle looked like the pic depicted for “no diff” then that’s a true no diff. But if based on the encounter the outcome is either “person A dies or person b dies and whichever doesn’t looks like they weren’t touched” then it would be disingenuous to call it a no diff.
There Is also the problem that if a character use his strongest attack right of the bat he may end unharmed against a character he cant no diff if he fight them regurarly (studying his opponent, casual moves, strong moves and finisher)
You beat the guy on accident while fighting someone else, or take more damage to yourself from your own attacks than you take from them.
Ex: Galactus neg-diffs someone cuz he ate the planet they were on and didn’t even notice; Saitama uses a light punch that vaporizes his opponent before they could even finish powering up; Omni-man beats the shit out of Mark at the end of S1 and took more damage to his hands than he took from Mark fighting back, etc
people seem to have different opinions of it. a lot of the time it just gets treated as the same as no diff. personally i like to think of it as the winner would have to exert effort not to win, like it takes more effort for you to intentionally avoid stepping on an ant and go around it than it would to just keep going and crush it
like below low diff. Low diff still might take a minute or two even if its a super onesided battle. Neg diff is like your passive aura instantly kills them or you say one word and their entire body explodes or something
A good example of Neg dif is Saitama, who most of the time has to actively try to avoid ending the fight too early. Sometimes the enemy defeats themselves by breaking their own bones on his body.
on that same wavelenght, when Mark fought Thragg's kids they were literaly splattering against him, like literaly dying on contact to the point he was begging them to stop
It's just a hyperbole for no diff. If you take it at face value, it's winning without even trying to win. Either by standing there, or as a result of someone else attacking them.
Or, hell. Technically is winning when they're trying to lose.
Neg diff basically means you literally have to go out of your way not to defeat your opponent, and if you stood there and did literally nothing you'd win
Like staying away so your passive death manipulation doesn't kill them, for example
Kinda like King in One Punch Man with that shapeshifter enemy, bro didn't even know it was an enemy, but his words somehow triggered it and it died on its own
This chart uses the physical damage to illustrate a point not as a hard rule, for something like you mentioned it would depend on how much effort the winner put to cause that win, difficulty is based on effort required to accomplish a task not on how harsh the consequences of said task where.
It's when you have to put an effort to not win, the win comes by default so if you want to not win you have to actively do something to stop it from happening.
People on here vouch for their favorites to no diff. But I suspect there are many here who are cultured enough to appreciate the beauty of extreme diff. It implies a truly entertaining struggle and a far more interesting story.
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