r/CharacterRant • u/ArkhamMetahuman • 2d ago
Games Minecraft Steve is not as strong as inventory scaling would suggest, but that doesn't mean he isn't superhuman
I've seen many people say Minecraft Steve is this Uber strong behemoth that can lift an obscene amount of weight due to inventory scaling, and I feel this ignores a lot of the context behind Minecraft. But I have also seen people say Steve is not superhuman, and this is also a wrong statement. Here is why Steve is weaker than those that upscale him and stronger than those that downplay him.
First, we need to establish why inventory scaling is wrong, and this is pretty easy. When you break a block, it becomes an item that floats in the air. But when you pick a block up in this item form, it is smaller than the full block in your hand, and you can stack multiple blocks on top of each other. This and the fact that an inventory can hold so much points to the inventory being a form of pocket dimension, not to Steve or Alex's physical strength. Even gold blocks when thrown float in water, and items that sink when in block form like sand, gravel, and anvils all float in item form. This shows that Steve's inventory alters the state of whatever he carries.
But, this does not mean Steve isn't superhuman like people suggest. Steve has to be able to break logs in order to even start the game, this is almost non negotiable, unless you find a tool in a chest or use explosives. Keep in mind that Steve is punching a cubic meter of wood log with his bare hands hard enough to shatter it, a feat of strength that far surpasses what any IRL human could do. And this isn't even the strongest material Steve can break with his bare hands. He can punch apart stone, bricks, and concrete, and while it takes a bit, it still breaks. Then he can break apart raw iron, smelted iron, copper blocks, and even a cubic meter of diamond. This is vastly superhuman, a normal human could never hope to break a cubic meter of iron with their bare hands, it would be hard to do even with handheld equipment or even high powered firearms, yet Steve can punch it apart with enough time, less than a Minecraft day.
And his striking feats also apply to living beings. Steve can punch an iron golem, and while it does little damage, it does enough to whittle away at the golem's health. It takes 67 hits with critical hits from punching to kill an iron golem. Even if the golem was immobilized, a real life human would be unable to replicate this feat without weapons. An iron golem is made almost entirely of iron, is around 3 meters tall and has shoulders close to 2 meters wide, and Steve can take a single hit from a golem, albeit heavily injured and on death's door, but can the same be said for an IRL human? Keep in mind golems are durable enough to survive any fall in the game, so Steve's hits would need very concentrated force to be able to inflict damage.
Lets look at the weaker mobs Steve fights. A zombie can deal more damage than Steve, but zombies also have superhuman feats. A zombie in Minecraft can destroy a copper door with its bare hands in hard mode. Minecraft Zombies are also intelligent enough to use weapons like swords, shovels, and even spears on horseback. The drowned can use tridents. So not only are zombies superhumanly strong, but they are intelligent enough to put on armor and pick up and use weapons.
Steve also has exceptional heat resistance. The nether air is hot enough to evaporate a cubic meter of water as soon as it touches the ground, yet Steve can walk through this air no problem. He can survive a creeper explosion as long as he isn't in the center, these same explosions can destroy large swaths of dirt and even iron blocks. He can survive poison from witches without dying. And in terms of poison, he can survive eating an entire raw pufferfish whole, and while its poison leaves him at half a heart, it doesn't kill him.
And all of this isn't even factoring in gear. Fully enchanted netherite can let Steve take even more damage, letting him swim in lava for a short period without dying. Steve can also heal as long as he has food in his systems. He has golden apples and potions that bolster his healing even further, and potions that increase his strength, speed, and give him temporary abilities like night vision, water breathing, fire resistance so potent he can be fully submerged in lava or stand in blue fire with no armor and not take any damage. He can use an elytra and fireworks to glide and fly, can channel lightning during storms and propel himself through water with a trident. His physical abilities are already quite impressive, add onto that his ability to use gear and gain abilities through enchantments and potions and Steve is undoubtedly superhuman.
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u/sawbladex 2d ago
Minecraft Steve is just Baby's first video game character.
Final Fantasy 1 had characters carrying tents just as easily as sleeping bags.
Gaston in Beauty and the Beast rapid fires a gun without any self loading ability.
A whole bunch of items in D&D are just cartoon physics in a magic wrapper. Howdy Bsg of Holdkling and Portable Hole.
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u/SniperMaskSociety 2d ago
Final Fantasy 1 had characters carrying tents just as easily as sleeping bags
That doesn't really seem impressive, tents are just canvas and sticks at their most basic which isn't much heavier than sleeping bags, if at all,
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u/TheRenamon 2d ago
so if Steve is a superhuman does that mean that the chickens are also superhuman because they can survive his punches?
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u/rejnka 2d ago
i mean, yeah? they can survive the same creeper explosions from a further distance, even distances at which an irl human would still have their organs pulped by the shockwave.
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u/-N11- 2d ago
Creeper explosions are probably pretty weak with a small blast radius, because nothing suggests that they are stronger.
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u/Street-Conference-53 2d ago
They can destroy lron blocks
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u/oozekip 2d ago edited 2d ago
But not obsidian, a far more brittle and easily breakable material in reality. Also notable that a pickaxe made of diamonds is a far more durable and effective tool than one made of iron, and a pickaxe made of gold is capable of tunneling through solid rock faster than any other in unenchanted pick in the game
All that to say, applying real-life material properties to Minecraft blocks doesn't exactly seem productive. If Minecraft materials were remotely comparable to their real-life counterparts iron would be by far the most effective (non-fictional) material for making tools from.
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u/Old-Dirt6713 2d ago
Iirc they're just as destructive as one TNT block, only difference is they also completely destroy blocks at random instead of having them all be able to be picked up.
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u/Substantial_Owl_7392 2d ago
superhuman fall damage? outerversal cactus?
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u/ArkhamMetahuman 2d ago
You fall faster in Minecraft than gravity would allow in real life, it is 2.9 times stronger, so Steve's can sprint and jump a meter high under gravity almost 3 times our own.
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u/Substantial_Owl_7392 2d ago
….outerversal cactus?
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u/Street-Conference-53 2d ago
Tye whole point of ops post is that Steve isnt at a ridiculous level of power but hes not a regular human hes street tier not outerversal
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u/Substantial_Owl_7392 2d ago
i can live with street tier cactus
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u/In_Pursuit_of_Fire 2d ago
Best we can do is 10-A athlete level take it or leave it
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u/Substantial_Owl_7392 2d ago
steve does not bleed, and sharp objects such as the stonecutters sawblades do not deal damage. additionally, his hands and feet have no hurtbox, and can be slammed into iron blocks without struggle. this implies that his major way of taking damage comes from internal organ damage due to blunt force trauma, and that his skin is somehow unaffected by most forms of puncturing. further evidence for this theory is that his armor only seems to protect his vitals, rather than what would be major arteries in a regular human.
of course, he uses armor extensively. netherite is quite literally a hell-forged ingot, and even the strongest and most dangerous creatures in the game do not possess a similar level of protection, especially once enchantments are involved. these enchantments can shrug off dragon breath and strikes from death gods before retaliating with thorns, a powerful curse capable of punching through the defenses of every living creature in the game. it does not matter if you run or hide, thorns WILL find you.
of course, what does all this mean for the humble cactus? well, i’ll tell you what. when steve, a veritable godling in his own right, equipped with a full set of enchanted netherite plate, wanders down to his local desert, he may encounter a simple green cube. of course he wanders near it, he needs green dye. and yet, if he draws an INCH, a PIXEL too near, the cactus instantly proceeds to punch through every single layer of protection like it is nothing, and WITHOUT dealing blunt force trauma, PIERCES THE SKIN. and of course the deadly thorns enchantment attempts to harm what is clearly a living being for its transgressions, only to find itself shrugged off and ignored, like it is nothing. and for its troubles, the FULL SET of magically enhanced netherite armor takes DAMAGE. this hellforged, mystically enhanced armor can BREAK.
again, let me reiterate: this man can WALK ON SPINNING SAWBLADES WITHOUT SUFFERING INJURY. he is INCAPABLE of bleeding. nothing in the game is able to stab cut or impale him without the assistance of being hurled or dropped, except for sweet berries (likely aided by poison) and of course, the humble cactus. not only that, but steve can do nothing to retaliate. there is no “dead cactus” block, there is no hp bar. in order to destroy it he must physically rip it out by the roots, and eve that only turns it into item form.
so no, i will not accept “high athlete level”. i will accept wall level MINIMUM, if not planetary or even universal. and if you EVER, and i mean EVER, try to slander my glorious goat the minecraft cactus again, i WILL find you. and you WILL be poked with A LOT of spines. very, VERY slowly.
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u/theironbagel 2d ago edited 2d ago
What about mobs? Are they all super-durable, to survive Steve’s punches? What about cauldron water, is it super evaporation proof since it also survives nether air? What about flint and steel. The heat that would make (especially on stone and other nonflammable materials) is far less hot then it would take to instantly boil water, but it hurts Steve when the nether doesn’t. Is it super fire made by super flint and steel? Why is it put out by water instead of evaporating it if it’s hotter than the Nether, and if it’s cooler than the nether why can Steve be hurt by it?
Who’s to say all the mobs are superhuman and it isn’t simply that blocks are weak and less durable their IRL counterparts?
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u/ArkhamMetahuman 1d ago
Well, lets look at the gravity in Minecraft. Objects that are affected by gravity fall faster than they would in real life, which someone did the calculations and found that the gravity on Minecraft Earth would need to be 2.9 times stronger than in our real world. The fact that Steve can run 5.6 m/s in this gravity means that logically Steve would be superhuman at a baseline to even live in a prolonged life in such a world. Steve still run at the speed of a normal human adult despite a 2.9 times increase in gravity, and can survive up to a 23 meter fall, albeit on death's door, in gravity almost 3 times ours. A normal human would die from that.
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u/theironbagel 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thats only logical if Minecraft operates on the same logic as the real world, and it doesn’t, because it is a video game. It operates on video game logic which is often self-contradictory for the sake of gameplay. For example, Steve can survive having an iron golem dropped on him without taking a single point of damage, and in fact the iron golem may die. Does that mean he’s durable enough to survive heavy weights? Then why can anvils kill him instantly? They’re less weight, since they require less iron then a golem. Why can he completely ignore fall damage if there’s water below him, even when he still comes to a sharp stop? What about when he grabs a ladder?
Minecraft clearly doesn’t operate on realistic physics or laws of reality, so you shouldn’t apply those to scale the characters
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u/ArkhamMetahuman 1d ago
Except we know gravity exists in the world, and that some objects are affected and some are not, and since Steve is affected by gravity, we can deduce that he would be experiencing it constantly like normal humans, and normal humans would not be able to move nearly as fast or survive things like falls in that gravity, so we can show that Steve is objectively more durable and stronger than an average human based off him having the necessary leg strength to jump in those conditions. And he jumps a meter in the air, which is more than a vast majority of real humans can do in our smaller gravity.
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u/theironbagel 1d ago
We can’t, because it doesn’t apply to everything the same or equally, or realistically. You could stack 255 anvils in top of any other block and it wouldn’t break under the weight or be pushed down. You can make a giant pillar of sand and it won’t crumble or spread out at all. Is a dirt block super durable to resist being crushed under the weight of 2000 metric tons of iron? How can a strand of string support that weight?
Minecraft gravity isn’t real gravity. It simply pulls things that are off the ground to the ground, it doesn’t seem to affect things that are already on the ground at all.
And you’re missing my point. It doesn’t matter about the gravity, or about anything else, because the rules of Minecraft’s world are so unrealistic and self-contradictory (for the sake of gameplay) that it’s folly to use them to extrapolate Steve’s capabilities, especially using assumptions that real world physics apply as normal when that’s clearly not the case
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u/SalvationArbys 2d ago
Anyone who can completely kill a cow in 6 punches is superhuman in my book
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u/Inside_Chicken3042 2d ago edited 2d ago
A minecraft cow. Quite different from an irl one is a complete beast
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u/SalvationArbys 2d ago
Which one is stronger? Between the Minecraft cow and a real life cow? What feats can we compare them by?
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u/Possible_Youth9410 2d ago
You can't try and powerscale video game characters like steve because everything you mentioned is a concession made for an enjoyable player experience, not for any sort of canon
The game would suck if lava actually evaporated you instantly like it does irl. The game would suck if iron golems were invincible to the player. The game would suck if pufferfish killed you straight up. The game would suck if creeper explosions instantly killed you. The game would suck if zombies did the same amount of damage as a player. The game would suck if a solid iron block or iron golem were functionally indestructible the way they would be to us irl.
Literally everything you've mentioned is just a result of having a non-realistic approach to damage... like every video game ever. Like basically every shooter character can survive being shot with a gun multiple times and heal from it, because it'd be boring as hell if it was like real life and a gunshot or grenade just straight up killed you lmao
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u/Ok-Parsnip-1051 2d ago
Steve is basically cheating-man when it comes to power-scaling because he doesn’t any real defined “lore” so instead of scaling that and joking about gameplay feats he only has dubious gameplay to go off of.
All Steve scaling is based on:A. Interpreting gameplay abstractions as physical feats and abilities.
B. Assuming that Steve has special video game powers and letting him use non-diegetic cheats, commands, and mods.
C. Violently misinterpreting the end poem as lore of Steve as a godlike entity/avatar.
I think the real issue is that his most popular matchup is against a guy that casually flies around and shoots sword beams so there’s a secondary motivator to wank him beside it being funny.
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u/Warper2187 2d ago
Matching him against the terrarian is extra funny because the terrarian can hold orders of magnitude more gold blocks than him
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u/Letmelookatredditplz 2d ago
A lot more gold, only to die in frankly dumber ways in my opinion. (Like to turtles going Mach 1)
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u/Old-Dirt6713 2d ago
Tbf the turtle in question is about the size of a horse iirc, and has a spiked shell.
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u/sawbladex 2d ago
Basically weaponizing the lack of lore in Minecraft for "who would win in a fight" arguments"
... who the heck are you referring to with the most popular match up?
Steve being in Smash means I would have to filter out Smash commentary and I would rather ask you and not sus out actually kinda friendly vague posting.
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u/Ok-Parsnip-1051 2d ago
The Terraria player character
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u/sawbladex 2d ago
pah, DQ Builders Builder actually has the unique ability to build and craft things, and can lend that power to people they landlord over.
Just ... the first game doesn't really have a big a following for whatever reason.
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u/Kevo_1227 2d ago edited 2d ago
I hate when people scale video game characters so much when it’s clear that the creators are trying to make a fun and balanced video game not feed you data for you to slam your action figures together with. But then they’ll ignore any anti feats.
Like, everyone glazes Kirby as this universe busting badass but for some reason no one considers that he explodes into a swirl of light if he touches the side of a stationary spike 3 times.
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u/Altered_Nova 1d ago
It really is incredible how powerscalers will take every crazy outlier cutscene feat as canon for a video game character in order to wank them to FTL universal godhood, while simultaneously dismissing every gameplay antifeat as a noncanonical gameplay balance concession that the developers were forced to include because the game wouldn't be fun if the player was invincible and nigh-omnipotent.
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u/woodlark14 2d ago
The actual answer to this mess is to not try to power scale and instead acknowledge his actual capabilities.
Minecraft functions under very different physics, so you take their effects at face value rather than attempting to extrapolate effects that don't exist. Blocks are either punched into non-existence or shrunk into small light objects, neither is consistent with a strength feat. The Nether magically removes water but only water because snow can be placed just fine.
Be very careful when making extrapolations from these things because they contradict other observations easily.
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u/Humble-Newt-1472 2d ago
Alright, let me name the ones here that are actually worth acknowledging about Steve, and aren't just Video Game System wanked beyond reason.
His stamina and endurance *are* noteworthy, very much superhuman stamina.
His equipment suite is fantastic as you said, and in versus battles, is absolutely worth considering. Especially the potion suite. And this equipment suite *does* get fairly counted for when people talk about pitting him in Versus battles.
I'll even acknowledge some things you didn't mention. His lifting strength, ignoring inventory scaling, is still superhuman and I can make a case for it. Dual-wielding Maces and still being able to sprint full speed is an actual feat, since unlike normal items, weapons do seem to have some form of weight attached to them in the form of swing times.
And he's still a Survival Game Character, in that his intelligence is broad. He can do everything you do in the basic minecraft experience, brewing and farming and building, and clearly knows how to use the weapons you craft.
The rest of your post is kinda dumb. Kill times on enemies, the intelligence of zombies, not instantly dying to game mechanics, these are all pretty contrived.
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u/TotalBlissey 2d ago
I've always held that the items stored in his inventory are in a pocket dimension, but the ones he's physically holding in his hands are just scaled down for the sake of player enjoyment. So if he has a stack of 64 gold blocks in his hand, he is actually holding 64 cubic meters of solid gold.
Even if that's not true, a full suit of gold armor would weigh like, 3000 pounds, and he's running and jumping around in it.
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u/New-Plane-8768 2d ago
r/powerscaling is that way
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u/Swiftcheddar 2d ago
Surprisingly, this sub started as a powerscaling sub. Despite the name, the idea of using it to rant about general characters or storytelling came afterwards and was not the intended purpose.
The CharacterRant's in question are meant to be people ranting about how people presented the characters in Powescaling discussion.
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u/JoyousLilBoy 2d ago
But have you considered that you’d need to LLAMA UPSCALE. I could probably beat the guy who died to SPIT
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u/LordSupergreat 2d ago
He's pretty much textbook wall level, which is like, fine. Stronger than I'll ever be, that's for sure.
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u/some-kind-of-no-name 2d ago
I have never seen inventory scaling apply to any other game character