Dragon Ball Super

[Mato]

Also, I flat-out do not believe that Goku is mentally capable of slacking off on his training to the point of being able to get hurt by a bullet. I... I don't know how that would even happen. That's weaker than he was before Z even started, right?

Super is deliberately avoiding increased scaling for the most part.

Like in Z, in the Saiyen arc everyone did some massive training and we got a new x4 transformation. For Namek/Frieza we had a seven stage boss with a lot of very poorly written power boosts that for the most part barely did anything other than just push the scale of things. By the Android/Cell saga we got four new SSj forms and a five(?) stage end boss. The Buu saga introduced two new SSj forms (majinn/ssj3), fusion, another ridiculously handed out power increase ("mystic") to combat the villain with, just a lot of stages of ever increasing power. It was pretty silly.

But the new theme really isn't invent a new increased power level, increased it again, and again, and again, and again, per villain. Super even nerfs the film depictions, such as SSG lasting the entire fight against Beerus and Saiyen "Beyond God!" got flipped into Super Saiyen Blue: It's slightly more powerful than SSj3. In the third arc, as people were just trying to debate with me, Universe 6's opponents were mostly pretty weak but used various specialized skills to challenge the combatants. Moving into the fourth arc, Black/Zamasu were both weaker than Goku/Vegeta. Even after learning Rose, we constantly see Goku pushing Black back. They still give us a quick power increase in the form of the time chamber try to give us an increasing power villain. But they still subverted things by the the protagonists not actually gaining anything new. They fuse, it ends. Super Saiyen Rage happens, and the character leaves. Coming into the fifth major arc, the filler episodes are teasing the idea everyone got weaker and even characters that'd make no logical sense to even put in the realms of Goku and Vegeta such as Master Roshi and Krillian are getting to enter the tournament so obviously they are going to stick to mostly low-balling the new characters. Like we're teased over a female Broli, the real Broli ranks below Cell, Buu saga Piccolo could probably take him.

There will be a character or two, and certainly one of them will use the worf effect on Hit, meant to be more powerful than Goku. But that's not the kind of power increases Z issued out.