Hangout Tournament General Discussion/Hangout Thread

[Kiki]

Watching people is entertaining mufufufu

However, I want use my chance right here right now to praise the people who actually had the idea of this tournamnet and organized it so well!!! It was the first tournament so of course, it wasn't perfect but it still was exciting and fun as well!!! I was able to read some interesting opinions in the vs-threads too.
Thank you and I trully hope this wasn't the last one !!!!!!!

We thank you for your supports

I feel sad somehow, as the tournament nearly ends. Time goes so fast

 

[Jko]

There's not even a point in discussing in this tournament when only the popular characters are going to win .

 

[Takuan]

Well some characters are popular especially because they are so powerful and kinda badass, like Laxus or Gildarts. And then we have Natsu who's the main character of the shonen, of course Mashima is putting him more and more above everyone else.
But yeah i understand what you mean. I feel like Wahl and God Serena deserved to win their last battles against Gildarts and Natsu respectiely (even if i said i was leaning towards Gildarts, i didn't vote in the end). I don't know if the results were entirely based on popularity as you're implying, those battles were pretty close in terms of votes.

 

[Summer]

They should think of something next times so that the underrated one that actually deserve to be on final gets on final next times.... becoz it's kinda unfair . Some of these are just full of hype just like gildart.

 

[Holt]

They should think of something next times so that the underrated one that actually deserve to be on final gets on final next times.... becoz it's kinda unfair . Some of these are just full of hype just like gildart.

To be honest, it's all based on opinions. In the end, people will vote for who they think should proceed. There's not much we can do in that regard..

 

[Summer]

To be honest, it's all based on opinions. In the end, people will vote for who they think should proceed. There's not much we can do in that regard..

Then the character that had the most supporters will forever wins Lol.... maybe you could hire some professional someone whatsoever to evaluate each characters ..... like give his professional view and let's the majority decide...

Or maybe the professional someone isbthe one that decide after looking at what the majority said...

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 19, 2016, Original Post Date: Jun 19, 2016 ---

It would be great if you could contact one of mashima assistant somehow.

 

[Holt]

Then the character that had the most supporters will forever wins Lol.... maybe you could hire some professional someone whatsoever to evaluate each characters ..... like give his professional view and let's the majority decide...

Or maybe the professional someone isbthe one that decide after looking at what the majority said...

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 19, 2016, Original Post Date: Jun 19, 2016 ---

It would be great if you could contact one of mashima assistant somehow.

Well, yes, but being a supporter in this case doesn't necessarily mean you're a fan of said character. FT mages likely have the most fans, but a ton of them dropped out (like Erza for example). Natsu himself was going to lose to Serena but the last day discussion really boosted him and he scraped the win. Either way, from my observation, a number of these votes are because people legitimately believe the character will win.
About getting an assistant, that's not feasible but even if we could, it'd defeat the purpose of the tournament. Ultimately, this event was organized to allows members have fun discussing/debating who wins in the various fights. If someone was brought to simply list the winners, then the tournament becomes redundant. For the first point you made, I'm not sure his professional view would change much. In the end, it's simply another opinion. Mashima himself writes the manga, and we all read and interpret it in different ways. We have a credible source already (manga drawn/written by Mashima) and for the second bit, would there really be a point for everyone to vote if someone else simply picks the winner regardless of the votes?

 

[Summer]

Well, yes, but being a supporter in this case doesn't necessarily mean you're a fan of said character. FT mages likely have the most fans, but a ton of them dropped out (like Erza for example). Natsu himself was going to lose to Serena but the last day discussion really boosted him and he scraped the win. Either way, from my observation, a number of these votes are because people legitimately believe the character will win.
About getting an assistant, that's not feasible but even if we could, it'd defeat the purpose of the tournament. Ultimately, this event was organized to allows members have fun discussing/debating who wins in the various fights. If someone was brought to simply list the winners, then the tournament becomes redundant. For the first point you made, I'm not sure his professional view would change much. In the end, it's simply another opinion. Mashima himself writes the manga, and we all read and interpret it in different ways. We have a credible source already (manga drawn/written by Mashima) and for the second bit, would there really be a point for everyone to vote if someone else simply picks the winner regardless of the votes?

Well it's just a suggestions.... you guys could always think of another ideas to make the tournament much more fair and square....

 

[Holt]

Well it's just a suggestions.... you guys could always think of another ideas to make the tournament much more fair and square....

Yeah I know. All suggestions are welcome here
Hm, well considering this is an open and fictional tournament, different opinions will always come into play so I'm not sure if there's much that can be done there. Restrictions & limitations imposed were done in order to make them event more fair, and I think it's been so to a reasonable extent and reading through the debates done over the course of the tournament, I've seen most trying to be as objective as possible. If you do have any other thoughts in mind, you can always share.

 

[BluePegasus]

Well, to me it seems pretty clear that Natsu, Laxus and Jellal came so far thanks to many fans.

Natsu shouldn't have won against God Serena. It's just too obvious that God Serena would eat every attack Natsu fires at him. The only reason why Natsu won was because of his fans.

But the best example was Jellal against Mirajane. I mean come on, it's more like a fact that Mirajane would easily defeat him with Macro. The only arguments that were used against Mirajane were posts like "She probably has limitations, because otherwise she is too hax". First of all, doesn't that break the rule that everything we've seen in te manga counts? But still, Jellal won with a big difference in votes compared to Mirajane. It's just nothing more than a spam of votes from many fans.

Not to mention that it was absolutely okay to discriminate Mirajane, but it was forbidden to state that Natsu can't use Dragon Force.

 

[XXEliteXXAceXX]

To a certain extent, I understand why some people think that the tournament is unfair and for many different reasons. Yes, it can't be perfect but it can be minimized.

Fans/Bias

Honestly, this has the most impact in the results despite the denials. The fact that nobody wants their favorite character to lose is pretty much a given. However, I do want to acknowledge that there are some fans who actually give a fair analysis of the fights.

Trust me, I've dealt with a fair bit of this in the past and I know it's only going to get worse, especially when the two characters with the most fans go head to head.

Hype

Probably the second biggest issue here. Not only does it provide little impact in arguments, but it is often used to twist or spin events that happened in the manga.

An example of hype is Natsu's Dragon Force. Like many, I questioned Natsu's DF (but for different reasons). While others argued about whether it could have been activated at will, I was more concerned of it's actual power. Regardless of Natsu being able to use DF at will, the question still stands. Exactly how strong is it?

Limitations

I admit that this does have the least significance here. It could be the lack of understanding on my part, but some of them weren't clear in my eyes. To this day, I don't see how emotional barriers being negated would support Natsu being able to use DF. One involves the need for an internal drive of emotions while the other prevents emotions from holding you back.

I probably read the rules at least 2-3 times and I've always interpreted Restriction #8 as a rule that applies to people fighting the ones they have "relations" with, including Neinhart's Historia of the Dead.

 

[Brandish μ]

I'm sorry that some people feel that this has become a popularity contest. I appreciate the concern, but I'll respectfully disagree.

I'm going to add my 2cents on some of the things mentioned over the past few pages... I apologise in advance if this comes across as confrontational as that is not my intention.

There is always going to be bias, because we're all human.

It's actually a tough thing to not be bias. Scientists go out of there way to control the bias with their data collection and interpretation. Obviously we're just reading manga here, interpreting Hiro's art/story in our own way. Thus, it is reasonable to expect a wide scope of interpretations.

I believe that a lot of the time the differences in opinions come from interpretation bias or tendency rather than character bias. For example, my interpretation bias is that I generally offensive power and durability/endurance above other things like speed/intelligence/hax etc. However someone else might rate hax or speed a lot better than I do. The same goes for intelligence/strategy, something I believe isn't that important in this manga, but others will disagree. Others might think it's prudent to equate all stats equally. There's not much we can do other than be consistent with our views I guess.

Also, I think some people are possibly mistaking consensus for favoritism. There is a difference between a lot of people thinking the same way and voting for a character because they like them. It's quite possible, and statistically normal, for the majority of people to think one way and a minority think differently. Consensus/groupthink has problems but we're on a forum, this will occur to some extent. And I'm not saying there isn't favouritism, but imo it isn't a huge factor.

Sorry for the ramble. Note that this post isn't about how people should vote or anything, I'm talking about the forum voting/interpretation in a post-hoc way. And there's probably more but that's what I got off the top of my head.

In the end everyone gets one vote, and for whatever reason they vote is up to their judgement and opinion, and thus treated equally. And I welcome anyone who wants to make a comment about how they've seen the tournament progress so far, it would help for future competitions perhaps but it is also interesting to see others views.

 

[Nemispelled]

The tournament is relatively fair in my opinion. (I know, you guys are gonna be like "Wow... coming from a guy like Nemispelled....".)

I think it was organized in such a way that it was fair for everybody.




The only thing this tournament lacked is the stupid "Feats".

Because this tournament was started in 2016, and the manga just began another arc/timeskip, not everybody in the manga has had a chance to prove themselves.


Strong characters like Gray, Mira, and Gildartz has had no feats, that's why 2 of them were voted out pretty fast.




I was an advocate from the beginning about not using "manga scans/pages and feats" as your determining factor to the battle.


But people still used them for the basis of their argument regardless of what I'm saying.


That is the exact reason why the Mira fans were so pissed. Her Macro had canon feats to prove how it would work as well as any restrictions associated with it.


In addition, the rules of the tournament fully supported it.


But to the majority, they negated it without even giving it a second thought.




In hindsight, we should have restricted this tournament to Tartaros and backwards. That way everybody has an equal footing.


Alvarez and beyond causes a problem because:


1) A lot of characters still haven't even gone 50% of their full power


2) You put "Tartaros" characters in an "Alvarez" setting tournament...



Badass infamous characters in the entire history of Fairy Tail, like Mard Geer, were being degraded below inexperienced Alvarez fodders because those fodders had "Spriggan" behind their name.






To make things more fair, we should have implemented this rule:


_____________________


"Characters that have not shown a great amount of feats (by this, we mean characters that have not fought a real battle against Spriggan-level opponents) are allowed to be hyped.....

All other characters that do not meet the following are negated from this rule and are not allowed to be hyped any further than they have shown."


_____________________





But it's not really a big deal. I don't really care who wins, this tournament was just a way to interact and look at characters' fights in depth.


It's not like the winner of this tournament is going to be published in Mashima's manga...


(If it will be, I demand a restart of this tournament immediately... just kidding)



I don't really care what happens at this point. I'm looking forward to the Fairy Tail Awards as this year will be my first time participating in it.

 

[~Charging Lightning~]

I'm sorry that some people feel that this has become a popularity contest. I appreciate the concern, but I'll respectfully disagree.

I'm going to add my 2cents on some of the things mentioned over the past few pages... I apologise in advance if this comes across as confrontational as that is not my intention.

There is always going to be bias, because we're all human.

It's actually a tough thing to not be bias. Scientists go out of there way to control the bias with their data collection and interpretation. Obviously we're just reading manga here, interpreting Hiro's art/story in our own way. Thus, it is reasonable to expect a wide scope of interpretations.

I believe that a lot of the time the differences in opinions come from interpretation bias or tendency rather than character bias. For example, my interpretation bias is that I generally offensive power and durability/endurance above other things like speed/intelligence/hax etc. However someone else might rate hax or speed a lot better than I do. The same goes for intelligence/strategy, something I believe isn't that important in this manga, but others will disagree. Others might think it's prudent to equate all stats equally. There's not much we can do other than be consistent with our views I guess.

Also, I think some people are possibly mistaking consensus for favoritism. There is a difference between a lot of people thinking the same way and voting for a character because they like them. It's quite possible, and statistically normal, for the majority of people to think one way and a minority think differently. Consensus/groupthink has problems but we're on a forum, this will occur to some extent. And I'm not saying there isn't favouritism, but imo it isn't a huge factor.

Sorry for the ramble. Note that this post isn't about how people should vote or anything, I'm talking about the forum voting/interpretation in a post-hoc way. And there's probably more but that's what I got off the top of my head.

In the end everyone gets one vote, and for whatever reason they vote is up to their judgement and opinion, and thus treated equally. And I welcome anyone who wants to make a comment about how they've seen the tournament progress so far, it would help for future competitions perhaps but it is also interesting to see others views.

Good God... This might actually be the best and most well thoughtout post I've ever seen on a debate forum. It makes me sooo happy to see people writing posts like this. I agree with everything you've said here and that isn't even the main reason why I love this post so much. Why can't there be more people like you in this world Randi?

Sorry if I got off topic. I just had to point out how much this post delights me .

 

[Takuan]

I'm sorry if that's massively off topic, but you guys started to talk about that so...
What is the Fairy Tail Awards ? A tournament of some kind?
I joined the forum recently so i'm not aware of it. Can anybody explain it to me?

EDIT: Nevermind, found the thread. =)
I'm gonna read it, seems interesting

 

[Crimson Ice]

Are people still crying over Mira not being here? People still don't understand what an NLF is? Despite that there is some clear bias, Gildarts should have lost his past two matchups.

 

[XXEliteXXAceXX]

I'm sorry that some people feel that this has become a popularity contest. I appreciate the concern, but I'll respectfully disagree.

I'm going to add my 2cents on some of the things mentioned over the past few pages... I apologise in advance if this comes across as confrontational as that is not my intention.

There is always going to be bias, because we're all human.

It's actually a tough thing to not be bias. Scientists go out of there way to control the bias with their data collection and interpretation. Obviously we're just reading manga here, interpreting Hiro's art/story in our own way. Thus, it is reasonable to expect a wide scope of interpretations.

I believe that a lot of the time the differences in opinions come from interpretation bias or tendency rather than character bias. For example, my interpretation bias is that I generally offensive power and durability/endurance above other things like speed/intelligence/hax etc. However someone else might rate hax or speed a lot better than I do. The same goes for intelligence/strategy, something I believe isn't that important in this manga, but others will disagree. Others might think it's prudent to equate all stats equally. There's not much we can do other than be consistent with our views I guess.

Also, I think some people are possibly mistaking consensus for favoritism. There is a difference between a lot of people thinking the same way and voting for a character because they like them. It's quite possible, and statistically normal, for the majority of people to think one way and a minority think differently. Consensus/groupthink has problems but we're on a forum, this will occur to some extent. And I'm not saying there isn't favouritism, but imo it isn't a huge factor.

Sorry for the ramble. Note that this post isn't about how people should vote or anything, I'm talking about the forum voting/interpretation in a post-hoc way. And there's probably more but that's what I got off the top of my head.

In the end everyone gets one vote, and for whatever reason they vote is up to their judgement and opinion, and thus treated equally. And I welcome anyone who wants to make a comment about how they've seen the tournament progress so far, it would help for future competitions perhaps but it is also interesting to see others views.

I strongly disagree. I know bias is apart of human nature. But that is exactly why the tournament is unfair to a certain extent. To say that it exists and is fair at the same time is a contradiction. Besides, something as opinion-based as this is more likely to be imperfect especially when it comes down to fairness.

Actually, there are many posts I've read that were more associated with character favoritism rather than interpretation bias. If it was indeed interpretation bias, many others would have brought up the confusion including me. If you don't believe me, we can set up a poll and ask people to pick the top 2 most important stats. I think there will be a clear consensus there. So it isn't as much of a problem as it seems. Just to make things clear, hax is not a stat. In fact, hax cannot be applied to battles because usually it is not supported by concrete evidence.

Groupthink is actually a problem that I forgot about. In fact, it is probably more of a factor than hype. I would actually place it second on my list. The problem here lies in pressure from others. I won't go in depth here but it is clear many follow the bandwagon. There are some who are stubborn too so there is almost no middle ground. If you want a real-life example of how influential it actually is, read the spoiler tag.

Spoiler

A group of psychologists did an experiment where they invited an outsider to compare the length of two pencils. One of them was clearly shorter than the other. Despite the obvious, the group of scientists all agreed that the shorter pencil was the longer one. As a result, even the majority of outsiders agreed.

I'm not here to cause a fight or become confrontational with the tournament itself but I am here to show the reality. By refusing to acknowledge this will probably cause more problems in making the tournament better in the future. That is just my opinion.

 

[Pirate Queen]

Honor system? Dont vote if your favorite character is in a battle, but contribute to the discussion to sway others by showing feats? Or manga facts?

 

[Axiomus]

"Characters that have not shown a great amount of feats (by this, we mean characters that have not fought a real battle against Spriggan-level opponents) are allowed to be hyped.....

All other characters that do not meet the following are negated from this rule and are not allowed to be hyped any further than they have shown."

No, this would actually be unfair. All characters have hype and feats. Some characters have better feats and better hype. It makes no sense to allow hype for characters who have no feats, and then ban hype for characters who have better feats. If anything, characters with better feats should be placed in a higher standard because their hype is actually proven. If we truly wanted to include hype into the tournament (and I'm not against this), then it should look something like this:

Greater feats + Greater hype > Lesser feats + Lesser hype
Greater feats + Neutral hype > Lesser feats + Neutral hype
Greater feats + Lesser hype >= Lesser feats + Greater hype

And yes, feats should be weighed more than hype. The feat is a demonstration of skill. Hype is reputation or hear-say. Of course feats should be held in a higher standard than hype. I won't go so far as to say that hype is meaningless, as I'm willing to take into account reputation established like Spriggan-levels or Wizard Saint levels. However, feats ultimately have more weight in the discussion, because it's something you can back up.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 21, 2016, Original Post Date: Jun 21, 2016 ---

Badass infamous characters in the entire history of Fairy Tail, like Mard Geer, were being degraded below inexperienced Alvarez fodders because those fodders had "Spriggan" behind their name.

I completely disagree with this. One of the most utterly ridiculous things to have come out of this tournament was the fact that some members of the Spriggan 12, like Ajeel, Jacob, or Neinhart, were being called fodders. Brandish was stated to have a higher power-level than any mage Fairy Tail has ever met before, and Ajeel was stated to be on the same level as Brandish. Even if Ajeel was weaker than some of the other Spriggans, there's no reason why Ajeel should be considered a fodder among them - much less someone who Juvia can potentially oneshot, as some tried to claim.

Spoiler

 

[Nemispelled]

No, this would actually be unfair. All characters have hype and feats. Some characters have better feats and better hype. It makes no sense to allow hype for characters who have no feats, and then ban hype for characters who have better feats. If anything, characters with better feats should be placed in a higher standard because their hype is actually proven. If we truly wanted to include hype into the tournament (and I'm not against this), then it should look something like this:

Greater feats + Greater hype > Lesser feats + Lesser hype
Greater feats + Neutral hype > Lesser feats + Neutral hype
Greater feats + Lesser hype >= Lesser feats + Greater hype

And yes, feats should be weighed more than hype. The feat is a demonstration of skill. Hype is reputation or hear-say. Of course feats should be held in a higher standard than hype. I won't go so far as to say that hype is meaningless, as I'm willing to take into account reputation established like Spriggan-levels or Wizard Saint levels. However, feats ultimately have more weight in the discussion, because it's something you can back up.

No, what you propose is unfair.


How is it fair for Gray, Mira, and Gildartz in comparison to Natsu, Erza, and Laxus?


The latter three has had at least 10x the amount of panel time compared to the first 3.


We give those that don't have feats hype that way you can even out the playing field. In other words, we give them the benefit of the doubt because Mashima isn't giving them enough feats.


It's hardly fair to allow hype for both sides when one side clearly has way more feats.


You said it yourself.


Feats are more important then hype. That's giving Natsu, Erza, and Laxus way more advantage.


That's absurd, especially when they have enough feats to back them up.




If Natsu, Erza, and Laxus' feats aren't good enough to prove themselves worthy, then too bad.


Their skill just didn't match the level of their opponent. What's there to argue about that?


No, I'm not giving them any extra hype.


Hype is reserved for those that haven't had the chance to prove themselves.





People are degrading Gray, Mira, and Gildartz's feats to "Tartaros level" in an Alvarez-Setting Tournament.


If anybody is deserving greater hype, it's those that don't have feats up to date.