Versus Culture and Versus "Styles"

So I, and presumably most of the people reading this, are interested in versus debating. Most people have noticed that various forums disagree not just on the position of some characters power-wise, and their relation in power, but also on the very fundamentals of versus debating, and likewise even within forums very versus debaters have clearly distinct styles of interpreting data. I have found this very curious and been trying to formalize it for some time.

Now obviously most people are any number of these to some extent. Likewise in different versus environments we might act differently. This is not so different to real life. An introvert might be outspoken and enthusiastic in specific situations, and a task oriented-person can enjoy relaxation and socializing with a certain set of people.

This is not a definite statement of who we are, rather these can be seen as the 8 Extremes. We each exist at some point of the continuum of them. We take on the mask of one archetype if the environment, such as the versus site in question or the whole of the versus debating culture in totality, we view as being too far in the opposite direction.

I apologize if my terms for these are really dumb or lame. I have no terms for these extremes or ideals, as I have never seen discuss the meta-versus debating in this way before. I categorized these 8 based on their position on 3 big versus questions that divide the community between and within forums.

1: Stat-Analytical vs. Ability-Conceptual: Perhaps roughly analogous to the left-brain vs right-brain question? Stat-Analytical Versus Styles are characterized by liking raw numbers and power ranges. What are the character's stats? What's the stat trio (offense, defense, speed)? Etc. In contrast, Ability-Conceptual prefer the character's powers in abstract. Elemental Manipulation, Forcefield, Flying, Super-Intelligence, etc. What can this character DO?

2: Scaling-Skeptical vs Scaling-Permissive: This question more then any of them is definitely a continuum, not a binary. The question here is to what degree should scaling be used. The extreme of the former says that powerscaling can't be used at all while the extreme of the latter says that every stat and ability can be scaled from two characters who are at least roughly even. Most serious versus debaters agree to some degree of scaling but also that scaling is confined in stats and does not apply completely universally.

3: Consistency-Focused vs. Apex-Focused: The core of this question seems to be what constitutes an outlier, though the question extends beyond that. As might be told by the terms, the former focuses on that which is consistent while the latter focuses on that which is the character's greatest showings.


With that said, the 8 possible permutations form what I view as the 8 versus styles

1: Pseudo-Casual

Ability-Conceptual
Scaling-Skeptical
Apex-Focused

I call this position "Pseudo-Casual" merely because it is closet to what the casuals think, not as a slight against it. Casual positions are similar to this but with the detriments of being uninformed or inconsistent. Pseudo-Casuals think in terms of a character's personal feat history, thinking about what their powerset is and what they have used it to do.

2: Starship Chair General

Stat-Analytical
Scaling-Permissive
Consistency-Focused

A play on "Armchair General", I call this position that because this group tends to to discuss army fights in science-fiction settings. They like raw numbers, comparing statistical capacities, and so forth in order to essentially play wargames using more advanced tech then existed on Earth. Sometimes also exists with Fantasy but those tend to be less stat-analytical

3: Series Advocates

Ability-Conceptual
Scaling-Permissive
Apex-Focused

Series Advocates are often interested in showing off the cool feats in the favorite series. That's not to say they are biased, they will generally accept other people explaining "their" verses powers. However the Series Advocates thinks that pragmatically people are going to be able to know and find the important feats and concepts of the verse better then an outsider and is mostly trying to simplify for general usage.

4: Feat-Ranger

Stat-Analytical
Scaling-Skeptical
Consistency-Focused

Feat-Ranger I call that because they tend to talk about the general "range" of a character rather then where exactly they are. This is because Feat-Rangers tend to use a character's general shown power levels and are heavily skeptical of a few showings far outside the bounds of the norm. They generally make best respect threads btw. They tend to be more associated with American Comics due to American Comics simply being longer and characters having that many more showings in general. They are the opposite of Series Advocates because they want to express as much of the totality of a character's feat listing as possible to get a good idea of the consistency of it, hence their love of respect threads, and not just singular instances which they view as cherry-picking.

5: Meta-Tactician

Ability-Conceptual
Scaling-Permissive
Consistency-Focused

Meta-Tacticians think of versus fights in very strict terms of abilities, rather then focusing on stats very much. A fight isn't so much a battle of how big a character's strength or speed but what kind of thing they can do to the other side, though they are permissive on stat scaling, since to them more characters are fighting on a roughly even playing field in-verse anyway. They are the ones most likely to create rock-paper-scissors scenarios.

6: Tier-Builder

Stat-Analytical
Scaling-Skeptical
Apex-Focused

Tier-Builders like versus matches to create a sort of internal power hierarchy. While there are occasional exceptions, for the most part if A>B and B>C in a fight then A>C. They often make tier lists for the favorite verses, hence the name. They are focused on character's best showings to determine their place in the tier, but don't like any attempt to scale outside of tier, since that leads to mucks up in the internal order. They are the opposite of Meta-Tacticians who view more characters as being on the same tier then most people.

7: Symbolist

Ability-Conceptual
Scaling-Skeptical
Consistency-Focused

The Symbolist does not view a character as a collection of powers, and thinks people who do are missing the point entirely, but instead think of the character as a character that represents something, has a psychological state paramount to combat, and has a particular story in which other characters play a role. This character beats this character because they have the thing the other character is weak to, or they are uniquely suited to exploting their psychological weakness. These people often agree with the literary idea that what makes a character interesting isn't their strengths but their weaknesses

8: Chronicler

Stat-Analytical
Scaling-Permissive
Apex-Focused

Croniclers are the opposite of Symbolists. While Symbolists are focused on the individual unique reasons a fight goes the way it does, Chroniclers are interested in building a set of constants like "this character's power does this much" and "this moves at this speed" from which they can directly compare other characters off of. They are more often the wiki-builders, the ones who like to provide link from character a being stronger then character b being stronger then character c being stronger then character d who destroyed a planet. To them that is the only fair and consistent way of assessing the whole of fiction without bogging down on subjective whims.









This is very VERY rough, I am just trying to express something that has been in my head for a while