Originally posted by FreshestSlice
SKILLZ has left SWTOR for Marvel. And while I can't deny that's the most intelligent thing to do, someone must keep the Brigade away from Neph and LeGenD, and that someone is me.
Take them to the woodshed, if you must. But it will be difficult to truly redeem SWTOR.
Originally posted by DarthAnt66
The notion that Darth Vader could overwhelm the trio in question when he's never came close to exerting the same battlefield domination against any Jedi he's ever fought, let alone multiple ones that are significantly more powerful than the ones he regularly fights, is laughable.
Not saying it's as impressive as Revan's own feat just wanted to point out that Vader has accomplished similar feats.
So whether or not he replies, I'm going to deal with Darth Ant's Revan arguments, because they sort of encapsulate a lot of the issues with TOR wank.
Essentially, Ant never disputes the fact that Vader and Starkiller's feats in The Force Unleashed I and II are massively beyond anything Revan's ever done. So instead, he tries to argue that these showings are incongruent with the rest of Vader's source material, and that we should toss them as outliers - and he goes on to provide some pretty bizarre arguments in support of this motion. Let's disassemble what he's actually saying:
(EDIT: the fact that the OP talks about "peak Vader" sort of puts enough of a nail in this coffin)
1. He doesn't understand the meaning of statistical uncertainty. Specifically, he argues that Vader has struggled against "featless" Jedi, so he must be weak because those Jedi are. Why are those Jedi weak? Because they have no feats, Ant says. Of course, a more astute observer might notice that someone not having feats signals a lack of knowledge over their abilities, not a knowledge of their weakness! So why, exactly, would we try to use the unknowns as the benchmarks for the more known quantity (Vader), rather than the reverse? We wouldn't, of course. These featless Jedi doing well against Vader is a mark in their favor, not the reverse!
Of course, in the absence of feats, we do typically assume that those characters are weaker than ones with good feats simply because of probabilities - we'd assume some value towards the average of their context and surrounding abilities, and this usually reduces to a lower value than their opponents, since most well documented combatants are significantly above average. But this sort of expected-value analysis does not override actually having a good benchmark (Vader + his feats) to use!
2. He doesn't make any effort to explain the disparities. When confronted with some sources that show X and others which apparently show Y, rather than try to create a unified model to explain both, as we do in other endeavors like the sciences, Ant just picks what happens to be more convenient for him. You could argue that he has the weight of numbers on his side, but you could just as easily point out that The Force Unleashed is more recent material that is actually more integral to the plot of the Saga. If the events that we read about didn't actually happen because Vader and Starkiller can't actually do that, how did the necessary consequences of those events, like the formation of the Rebellion, happen? No explanation.
There are, of course, several potential explanations. Vader grows more powerful throughout the Dark Times and the OT, and his psychology improves. This alone explains a lot of the alleged power disparities Ant refers to, and he subsequently responds by vaguely referencing near-RotJ times Vader underperforms...with no elaboration, of course.
3. He muddles suspension of disbelief. Darth Ant's final card, given the clear superiority of Vader's feats and comparable accolades, is to try to argue that The Force Unleashed's powers are over the top, and that the creators intended as much. Well, yes, TFU is over the top, but the question is why. There are two explanations:
a) That Starkiller is an incredibly powerful protagonist whose potential rivals Luke's.
b) That the events in the game/novelization aren't actually "canon", but rather distorted by the writers to appear over-the-top.
Option a) has the advantages of being backed by explicit statements from the creators, not requiring breaking the fourth wall, not requiring breaking the continuity of the mythos, not requiring authorial intervention, and overall making more sense, while option b)...well, it supports Revan's case, so naturally it's what Ant goes with.
Finally, in the rare attempt to actually engage with the feats war (given that no argument from accolades or powerscaling was put forward), Ant presents two contentions:
1. That Revan can tank an explosion that can "affect all life within one kilometer". Of course, Starkiller's blast is even more potent, being visible from space, and Vader is standing right next to it without being affected. But hey, that's just me...
2. That feats against inanimate objects don't show how "good with combat" people are. Never mind the fact that Starkiller performs many of these feats, like soloing hundreds of stormtroopers with a single push, in the middle of combat.
Let's talk about the latter for a moment. Ant seems to think that feats against inanimate objects don't matter that much, but he completely ignores the analysis of why they do. You see, when we're scaling characters against one another based on their opponents, you have the unknown variable of the strength of said opponents to mess things up. Sometimes you can scale these opponents against one another, but other times some of them are featless, just as Ant shoots himself in the foot with. So what advantage do inanimate feats provide? They provide a common reference point to compare abilities, and this is where Vader clearly outstrips Revan.
I myself have presented a case for why feats may be overrated unto themselves, but I don't feel like providing arguments for the other side just so that I can shoot them down or explain them.
Simply put, based on his actual demonstrations, Revan is not as powerful as Darth Vader is. If an argument can be put forward on Revan's behalf, and I'm sure it could be, nobody to my knowledge has done so in this thread.
Who are these featless Jedi of which you speak of Elimist? The fact they are Jedi alone, is a feat given what it takes to be a Jedi, another being is that they survived Order 66 which exterminated the whole of the Jedi Order pretty much, so that is also a feat.
Might not be glamorous sure compared to actual characters, but the term 'featless' is thrown around too loosely in the SWU.
Originally posted by Zenwolf
Who are these featless Jedi of which you speak of Elimist? The fact they are Jedi alone, is a feat given what it takes to be a Jedi, another being is that they survived Order 66 which exterminated the whole of the Jedi Order pretty much, so that is also a feat.
Agricultural corps member survived Order 66. ***** please.