Did the powers have to be so haxed?

[withheldforprivacy]

I think AT fell for a trap from the beginning of the series, believing that, for a saga to be interesting, the powers
had to leave the previous sagas' powers in the dust. This rendered the scaling ridiculous past a point. There were
many times where the plot could be interesting with no haxing...

-21st TB: Goku already had superhuman strength in the beginning of the series, which was enough for the
readers to be impressed back then, when not everybody and their mommas in the series were practically gods
compared to real life humans. Roshi's training could focus on teaching Goku actual martial arts and how to use
his already existing power. His training with Korin could be the first big power up in the series.

-22nd TB: At Baba Saga, Yamcha had already stated that Goku was a favourite to win the next TB (22nd). This
was enough for the reader to be interested, waiting to see how the improved, post Korin, Goku would fare in
the next tournament. No further big power up was needed; it makes no sense anyway (Goku was just wandering
around the world; he couldn't have done any super hard training under those conditions).

-Freeza Saga: Freeza was haxed to 530k to look formidable, only for AT to change his mind and retcon the
formidability by haxing everybody else as well, then he changed his mind again and re-rendered Freeza
formidable by giving him 1000 power ups... a mess. He could have given Freeza more reasonable numbers and
there was no need for Goku's zenkai; considering he had never used his 10x kaioken yet, the reader's interest
was already caught. All in all, all the gaps in the first part of the battles against Freeza (before Goku showed
up) should have fit in Goku's kaioken range.

-Androids Saga: The Androids were already dangerous because of their infinite energy. There was no need
for them to be a lot stronger than SSJs on top of that. Also, Trunkses 'I can kill 100% Freeza in a moment'
statement was not needed; him being just at Namek Goku's level was enough to make the new enemies
seem powerful.

-Buu Saga: No need for Super Buu to be more powerful than Fat Buu. Them being equal makes more sense
math wise and the 'better suited to battle body and pure evil heart' line was enough to make him seem
more dangerous and keep the readers' interest caught. Also, no need for any Gotenks pre rosat, since he
offered nothing to the plot. The boys should have successfully fused for the first time against Super Buu
in ROSAT.

 

[Let's Go Fearless!]

I think the power scaling in DB part 1 wasn't that really a problem but it really went ridiculous during the Frieza arc IMO. It all began there and pretty much destroyed the power scaling and made the humans irrelevant and even Piccolo could barely catch up with them. Then Super tried too hard to make the humans relevant by having their skills MATTER when it comes to the fight but sadly the damage was done.

 

[p123]

King Piccolo - 23rd Budokai is super haxxed. That's what started the bloat. Prior to that, it was nothing major...

Piccolo Jr. 250
Kami 75
King Piccolo 15
Tien .750
Jackie Chun 21st Budokai .075

Those are all "reasonable" and minimal.

Every big arc brings a 10x boost. 21st to 22nd is 10x, 22nd to King Piccolo is 20x, King Piccolo to 23rd is another 20x boost.

 

[Let's Go Fearless!]

King Piccolo deserved to be haxed that way given that he was the first major villain although I would put his FP old form on par with Goku not "almost half" of his power.

 

[withheldforprivacy]

King Piccolo deserved to be haxed that way given that he was the first major villain although I would put his FP old form on par with Goku not "almost half" of his power.

Actually, you can argue this is the case. Back then, the ki suppression concept had not been introduced yet, so the 'less than half' was referring to effort and Goku took some hits without being knocked out, so Old Piccolo's less than half is about 1.2x-1.25x Goku.

 

[p123]

King Piccolo has decent ki control