system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[DBZ] How can the collateral damage be so low?

All fighters are ridiculous strong. Even at the beginnings of DBZ people are strutting about destroying planets without even trying very hard.
Even Piccolo could do it and he was nothing compared to Goku or Vegeta.


How the hell is it possible that people that can do something like that spend their time fighting each other with punches or their standard ki-attacks.

If you have the power to vaporize a planet why hold back so hard?
gpt
They're not holding back. Their powers revolve around Ki. Having more Ki makes someone stronger, faster, more durable, and more powerful. When they fight they enhance their physical/energy attacks with Ki and can control the size/power of their blasts. So instead of just using huge beams/balls of energy they can put all of the energy into a smaller beam and still cause maximum damage in a smaller area. Check out Vegeta 's sacrifice against Majin Buu for an example of this -- when he expends all his ki he reduces the area of effect to avoid collateral damage but still delivers almost all his damage output in that area. If he didn't control the explosion it would easily have destroyed the planet but decreasing the area/size of the blast avoids that damage but still allowed him to concentrate his maximum damage output in a smaller attack/area.