Margins for error, learning curves, top-level vs perfect play and bad characters.

[Browny]

So one thing (there’s a lot) that bugs me most about discussion on this board is the overuse of the terms in the thread title. ‘Marth has a tiny margin for error’, ‘Peach has a high learning curve’, ‘Diddy has broken traits’ and ‘Luigi is bad’ etc. I believe such terms to be mere excuses to cover up a lack of reasoning behind any statements and that all of these terms have lost their individual meanings and are now skewed and mashed together. It is most prevalent when describing how good a character is in theory. What I aim to show, is that it is impossible for a good character to have a low total margin for error and that a margin is a character flaw and limitation, one which must be accounted for when determining viability. The difficulty in being precise with Marth which causes you to lose is a character flaw similar to the difficulty in winning with Ganondorf.

IMO​

TL;DR?
When discussing matchups and positions on the tier list, people will often cite top level play as their basis. This is perfectly fair and valid. The assumption is that a top player will be able to work around their characters flaws and maximise their strengths to be able to use their tools better. However tools is such a blanket statement and doesnt actually tell me anything of the likelihood of one tactic beating another. I like to refer to all aspects of gameplay, including the use of these 'tools', as a margin for error.

Every single moment of gameplay, the player has multiple options to choose at any given time. The risk:reward scenario for using each option, taking into account the likelihood of failure, creates this margin. Thus in the top-level play assumption, a good player will be able to maximise their margins as often as possible. The best characters in the game are those with the largest possible margin acheiveable by humans, and the worst have the lowest. It is simply a measure of your likelihood of winning each and every encounter, thus overall the entire match.

The issue is; some characters have more blatantly obvious margins than others which limit their character. Things such as precision on attacks are very visible, while the difficulty in getting off the ledge is not, for example. What happens is that people assume a top player will maximise margins such as precision but because they cant see the smaller, more numerous margins on other characters, they cant do it. This directly results in a 'learning curve', and the former characters are assumed better than the latter because their problems can be fixed. Im saying that the learning curve for each and every character is actually a measure of the difficulty in winning with that character. The difficulty in winning is the likelihood of winning (this a matchup ratio). The likelihood of winning is the viability. Therefore, the 'learning curve' is actually a statement of how limited the character truly is.

I accept that some characters require more effort in the sense of technical skill and speed than others who can camp and spam however this entire post is to explain how I define a margin for error and why no character can be judged on their worth assuming perfect play while others are not. In the purest sense of judging a character’s viability, those that win easily with little effort are able to maximise their margins. Those that have difficulty in doing so are constrained by their margins. This is the definition of a good and bad character, those that win and those that don’t. Difficulty does not win tournaments.


- Definitions

Let’s start with traits/attributes. Firstly, I believe this should be broken up into 2 separate categories immediately. I’ll call them... traits and attributes. It seems to me that people classify traits as some all-encompassing term which contains all aspects about how good a character is, ignoring the other character in the game. I see quotes about DK, fox etc have great traits but that doesn’t tell the whole story and most certainly is not enough to judge a characters worth on. To make sense about what I will explain later, I believe these absolutely must be separated.

Firstly, attributes. From RPGs etc, the most basic aspects of a character such as HP and range. The attributes of a character are one which the player has absolutely no control over. No shift in playstyle will alter this, a complete scrub using a character and m2k will be able to utilise a characters attributes the exact same. I would classify a character attributes as their weight, size, range and damage output, knockback and attack speed. Combinations of these basic attributes create good and bad characters but often the attributes of a character do not affect how viable they are to any large degree. An attribute creates almost a ‘base’ for how good a character is, and this is then altered to show how truly good a character is by their ‘traits.’

I would define traits as the aspect of the character which can be altered by the player using them and a top player will be able to abuse a certain character traits while a new player won’t even know they exist. I’m talking about things like frame traps, combos, walling ability, abusing mobility, ease of recovery and edgeguarding. There are far too many to name, but basically every aspect of a characters playstyle which is not purely an attribute. So when we look at a character like diddy, he has ‘broken’ traits in that when in the hands of a top player, he can create truly impassable walls and set up kill-combos from across the stage. However, none of these are related to good attributes, his traits completely overpower the attributes which are actually quite poor compared to the whole case. As you go down the tier list, characters can have superior attributes, but their poor traits do not allow them to exploit this. Like DK, he has great attributes but his inability to land vs. good characters and susceptibility to camping/difficulty approaching become too strong.


- Margins for error

So what does all this mean? I believe it ties in directly with a total margin for error. Before I start, let me say that I believe a total margin for error is the EXACT same as a learning curve. The reason for this is because a characters margin for error is very extensive and goes way beyond such things as precision. I believe a total margin for error can be a sole quantity which determines how good a character is and that this total margin is an extremely complex combination of all aspects of how good a character is.

I’m saying that a characters total margin for error is the cumulative sum of their ability to use their traits to overcome their weak attributes or boost their strong ones to a point of near brokenness for some characters. Does that sound a bit of a stretch? Think of it this way. Sonic has a very poor damage output (attribute). One possible way he can make matchups in his favour is by abusing his mobility to not get hit (trait). Due to the sheer amount of times he must hit the enemy with his low-range, low priority attacks, his margin for error is quite low. It is easy to mess up with sonic and an incorrect move may require you to hit the enemy 3 times to make up for it. Sonic has, as will be commonly agreed, a low margin for error when it comes to regaining a % lead once lost.

This is but one aspect of Sonic’s gameplay. I could go on further, but I’ll look at other characters’ margins for error. How about another commonly brought up one, Marth and landing the KO move. The issue here is Marth’s laggy kill moves (attribute). If he messes up a kill move, he is going to get hit hard and he can’t take too many hits due to his weight. To make up for this, the player will use things such as his frame traps or combos (trait) in order to guarantee they hit. Marth’s margin for error is small in the sense that the player has to have near perfect execution to remain safe. He will have a tiny frame window or precise range at which the attack must come out, quite easy to miss, or he gets punished hard. Observe 2 highly contrasting issues facing these characters, yet both are entirely definable by a margin for error.

I can go on all day about the various margins for error that each character has to deal with. Real quickly I can say that Lucario has a small margin when it comes to approaching, large when it comes to edgeguarding, average when recovering, average in combos, large in ledge pressure. The point being, that a characters margin for error absolutely cannot be restricted to aspects so insignificant in the grand scheme of things such as precision or nailing high-damage combo and tech chases. All aspects of gameplay and every bit of % ever taken were a result of an attribute either being abused or buffed by a character’s traits.

Now what must be noted at this stage is how things have been defined. Attributes are qualities of a character which are identical for all players. Traits can be abused to overcome/buff attributes and the margin for error is the product of these two. From here however I will emphasise this fact; the margin for error is the likelihood that a character will have their bad attributes abused. The overall margin for error encompasses all aspect of character gameplay and ads up to a total. The smaller the margin, the more difficult it is to stay within that margin, the more difficult the character is to play. The more often you are unable to stay in the margin, the more likely your poor attributes are abused, the more likely you are to lose, and the less viable you are. Thus a character’s learning curve is simply how hard it is to stay in this margin which is directly affected by their attributes. The further you go down the tier list, the more of an effect a characters attributes have on them as they have poor traits which do not allow them to overcome them easily or to any significant degree.

So what I’m getting at overall is that a characters worth can be entirely defined by their total margin for error which encompasses ALL aspects of the characters playstyle and each and every individual margin for error. No character can be very good while having a net high margin for error in the same way that no low-tier character has a low margin for error. In essence, the margin for error (learning curve) of any character is merely the likelihood that certain positive benefits will come out of every single decision made in the game. The sum of all of which adds up to the likelihood that a character will WIN, the very definition of a good character. When a character has great traits but is held back by a weak attribute, it is incredibly inaccurate to state that due to a single low margin for error aspect of their playstyle, the entire character has a low margin for error. There are countless other margins which all summate to a characters worth and the net sum may often completely negate a certain margin which is very low.


- Difficulty

I know it all sounds rather extreme that I am implying margin for error = difficulty to play = character worth, so again, imagine it this way. People like to talk about ‘perfect play’. We all know a perfect Metaknight is unbeatable, a perfect Wolf will shine everything, perfect Marth will never miss a tipper, and perfect Wario will camp until waft KO etc for every single character. This often comes up when talking about how good characters truly are and that we should aim to rate them assuming a near inhuman perfection. I believe in a certain way of evaluating characters, one which aims to use margin for error and difficulty in playing said character to rate them on account of the two being the exact same thing, the sum of which is how good the character is.

I’m saying we should assume every character, when played 100% perfectly for EVERY SINGLE MOMENT OF GAMEPLAY, including the 1000’s of margin-for-error moments within each and every match, is untouchable and unbeatable. From here, we apply the margins for error to knock down the likeliness of a character being played perfectly, thus increasing their likelihood to lose a match. Will a Ganondorf powershield every single projectile that comes his way? Will he space a dtilt perfectly such that it is safe on block vs. some characters? Will he always land and follow up the sideb to land the KO move he might have extreme trouble landing normally? All of these things are synonymous with how hard the character is to play perfectly which when he does these and about 50 more, he becomes very viable. All of these things have small margins for error on account of his attributes being very poor. The grand total of which might summate to a 20% chance of Ganondorf being able to be played perfectly at any given time. The other 80%, it’s him getting camped/combo’d/gimped etc.

For more examples, let me look at peach. Peach is cited as being hard to play, yet still a good character; she is just held back by her tiny margin for error when it comes to landing kill moves. Let me explain the hypocrisy here. Peach has a hard time killing because she can’t land her few powerful, small hitbox attacks. Sonic has a hard time killing because he can’t land his few slow, moderate hitbox and power attacks. Now because of this preconception that a margin for error can be entirely defined as something as simple as the range of pixels on an attack, peaches very poor attribute can be negated by a trait, to make it merely a margin for error, thus only a player flaw. Now despite that fact that even when played properly, her KO-ability is still very poor, compare it to Sonic.

He has a VERY similar difficulty when it comes to landing kill moves, but instead of needing precision, he needs prediction and timing; both of which are purely at the player’s control. Despite this, he will always have trouble landing them because of how naturally bad the attribute is. A player will very often find themselves unable to work around this and it is a major weakness. Yet when these two characters have their KO ability measured, despite both being as shockingly bad as each other in actual gameplay and for all intents and purposes, are identical, only one is cited as a player weakness while the other is a character flaw. And guess which one is used as an excuse for ‘difficulty’ of playing a character, has a tiny margin for error and isn’t as much of a weakness as the other which is purely a character flaw? Yep.


- Mixing the two

Ultimately I really would like to see the abolishment of character difficulty and margin for error being 2 separate things. It is entirely unfair to degrade certain characters worth because their margin for error is related to something such as regaining a % lead, while another character is assumed good because their margin is something like precision on attacks. In essence they are the same thing and hold a character back all the same. At any rate, these margins alone are insignificant to the total margin which is the point I can’t emphasise enough in that stating a characters total margin for error as a result of one tiny factor, is horribly inaccurate.

If your character has a certain margin for error which is so centralising in defining how good your character is (such as sheik and landing the usmash sweetspot), that is not worth a single iota more than a character who has multiple, larger margins which all add up to the same net effect (such as landing Luigi’s kill moves). The apparent ‘difficulty’ you imagine is involved with your character is not limited to one aspect; it is entirely your ability to win. If you inability to land a precise KO move is costing you matches, it’s time to stop thinking that your characters weak attribute is causing them KO problems which are hard to overcome; instead your characters inability to land a precise KO move is causing you to lose. It is the reason they are bad and not viable.

When you lose just as many matches as another character who might have a much easier time killing (say Ness), Ness might have a larger margin when it comes to landing the KO move, but his net margin, thus difficulty, is identical. And when two characters have the exact same amount of success, to me, that points to how good the character truly is. You can make a tier list entirely on this concept, one which I believe is more accurate than putting an unfair amount of weight on certain characters because they might have 1 margin for error which is more noticeable, while another character can have 2 margins which overall are double the size, but that character is called bad while the first is assumed good. Far too often the latter is simply defined as a bad character while the former remains high tier. At the least, it’s an insult to those who put in the work to overcome certain characters multiple margins, while other characters get a free ride into high tier because they have fewer margins, which all add up to the same net result.


-----

I hope throughout all that I’ve conveyed my opinion properly as to why I believe the difficulty of playing any character is purely a measure of their total margin for error. The margin for error which is a total measure of a characters worth. If a character has a net low margin, they are a bad character with all things considered. Simply, (margin of error = difficulty -> viability). Now before anyone bites my head off for that statement, let’s expand on the difficulty to viability path.


- Effort involved, difficulty and why you can't win.

Difficulty to play -> effort required -> difficulty to win -> likelihood of winning -> viability

Observe the above flowchart. Yes I am outright stating that a characters difficulty to play implies their viability. But going forwards in that chart introduces a lot of assumptions, so instead let’s work backwards as well as forwards to join them all together. Hindsight is a great tool as we all know. First, look at the effort involved argument.

If you have to put in a lot of effort into playing a certain character, this is synonymous with staying within their margins for error as much as possible. As in my ideology of margins existing at each and every moment of gameplay, this makes sense. Someone will be physically more tired, thus more effort involved, if they must focus to remain in these margins throughout an entire match. Now doesn’t this sound awfully similar to difficulty to play? A character is difficult to play when their margins for certain aspects are tiny. Characters that are considered ‘hard to play’ are simply those which are largely defined by a certain group of extremely low margins for error. This holds true for every character, just think about it. I believe this shows the direct link between difficulty to play and the effort required.

(Difficulty to play = effort required) -> difficulty to win -> likelihood of winning -> viability

Now, let’s define viability. What does the tier list show us; it shows us the likelihood of a character’s success in a tournament situation relative to all other characters. Any random B tier character could win massive tournaments but that doesn’t change their likelihood at all. It assumes over the course of an infinite amount of tournaments, higher tier characters are more likely to place higher. Now how does one place high in a tournament… by winning matches. You need a high likelihood of winning a match and winning a set to progress and you need this for every single character you come up against as you meet better players. To put it simply, you cannot be a viable character if you do not have a high likelihood of winning. Metaknight has the highest overall and Ganondorf has the lowest. Thus, the likelihood of winning refers to individual matches, sets, matchups and entire tournaments; it is the all encompassing aspect of character viability.

(Difficulty to play = effort required) -> difficulty to win -> (likelihood of winning = viability)

Now let’s go ahead to clear something up, the difference between difficulty to play, and difficulty to win. Firstly, the difficulty to win. These days, this term is further broken up two separate terms, the difficulty in winning, and the likelihood of winning (AKA a matchup, how good a character is on the tier list). As throughout this post so far, I believe having two separate terms is inaccurate and that they are actually the same thing. When we see a 60:40 matchup, we assume the 60 character is more likely to win by a subjective amount. The ability for the 40 character to win rests on… what? What must the 40 character do if they are to win? If you search the boards, you will find the common belief is simply; they have to work harder to win. This is also known as effort. So now working backwards, I believe this shows the link from the likelihood of winning, to the effort required. The difficulty to win is now sandwiched between the two and that is simply because the difficulty to win IS the effort required.

(Difficulty to play = effort required = difficulty to win) -> (likelihood of winning = viability)

As per the above chart, it becomes clear there is one link remaining in my effort to prove difficulty to play/effort required is synonymous with character viability. I must find the link between the difficulty to win and the likelihood of winning. But I know a better idea. Let’s assume that they are already identical, and we will work backwards and attempt to separate them into the current belief.

Look at any given matchup again. Let us attempt to separate a 60:40 matchup into two individual aspects; the difficulty to win the matchup for the 40 character and the likelihood of winning… It’s not that easy, is it? What aspect of the likelihood of winning is separate to the difficulty? If the matchup is hard for the other player that means by default they are not likely to win. To increase their likelihood, they must work harder. However this requirement to work harder was already accounted for in the matchup ratio! What does a 60:40 matchup tell us, if not the degree to which the disadvantaged player must outplay their opponent? The ratio is NOT purely a statement of tools vs. tools. Since the 40 character actually has a chance of winning, this outright states that the character can put in extra effort, constrained by the difficulty, to stay within their margin for error. If they stay within this margin sufficiently more than their opponent, they will win the matchup.

The point being, the effort involved and difficulty is directly related to a matchup ratio. Over the course of an entire tournament and endless tournaments, the ratios summate to the characters placing, thus viability. The likelihood of winning is synonymous with the effort required and difficulty.

(Difficulty to play = effort required = difficulty to win = likelihood of winning = viability)

From my previous analysis, I came up with
Total Margin for error = difficulty to play -> Viability.

So when we stick the two together…
Total Margin of for error = (Difficulty to play = effort required = difficulty to win = likelihood of winning = viability)

Total Margin for error = viability.

---

That’s right. I’m saying that if anyone implies a character has a low margin for error, they are encompassing all the factors I have explained above. If your character TRULY has a total low margin for error, it means they are difficult to play, require more effort, are hard to win with, are not likely to win with, and are not viable.

There is no such thing as a margin for error excuse as to why a character does poorly. It is a statement of a character’s viability. So THAT, people, is why I completely disregard statements such as ‘this character is good, but they have to work so hard/be precise/have low margins’. It is quite simply impossible.

If a character was TRULY good, its players would be able to achieve a maximisation of their margins for error, approaching 100% perfect play. An inability to maximise these margins or suffer the limitations of them is reflected in practice and ALL characters suffer the same problems when trying to win. The characters who actually win are those who are able to approach 100% perfect play often. The likelihood of reaching this is purely the total margin for error, which defines a character’s viability.

The tier list is a ranked order of characters’ ability to maximise likelihood of 100% perfect play. Any character with a true total margin of error which falls outside of their tier position, is in the wrong place.

/IMO​

Yeah thats right Shaya, I'm trolling alright. All I ever want to do is get a reaction out of people. STFU

 

[EPsilon933]

tl;dr
ban MetaKnight​

 

[WindMajor]

I think this thread belongs in Gameplay & Tactical seeing as it barely has anything to do with data or rulesets.

 

[NO-IDea]

Read all of it. Approve.

If perceptions of how to form a tier list change to your argument, kudos.

Regardless of main (except maybe externalities such as Ganondorf and MK), this is a good read.

 

[Browny]

Twinkie this thread is 100% relevant to tier list discussions which happen in this board. It has nothing to do with gameplay, merely our perceptions of character worth.

Thanks NOID

 

[WindMajor]

Ah, fair enough. I can see your point.

Great thread by the way, I forgot to mention it earlier.

 

[Steam]

good read. Brain melted

 

[Zero]

This thread needs more anime discussion

Love,

ZSS boards

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I do always find it funny when people say "Diddy/Marth/Melee Fox is really hard"... No, they aren't. Ganon is hard. Pichu is hard. And of course MK mains who john about how hard they have it are just morons.

/trolololo

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

With melee fox, it's more likely that so few people play him on the maximum technical level possible, and you can get by with Fox hovering really far away from the technical ceiling for him. This supposed "difficulty" is rarely if ever actually achieved. It's really easy to apply unbeatable shield pressure with shine or CG TO KEN COMBO with Marth, these things are not actually that hard.

What Browny is talking about is not the ability to physically perform techniques anyway, he's talking about precision requirements I think, which are a little different. Like with Peach "It's really hard to land the kill move but with enough effort and skill you can," stuff like that.

 

[Orion*]

It's really easy to apply unbeatable shield pressure with shine.

LOL

thread goes to SFP. Do you actually play melee to any degree wtf man

I started loling here...
"Sonic has, as will be commonly agreed, a low margin for error when it comes to regaining a % lead once lost. "

1. Because it's ****ing Browny lmao
2. In that case it's not that sonic has a low margin of error for approaching or whatever. Even if you argue the case that he does it really wouldn't matter because the actual approach itself sucks, so comparing with someone like marth who actually does have much better options is ********.

------------
Question

So if there was a character that absolutely sucked, like worse than ganondorf. But if you input the right options at the start of the game your opponent immediately lost all of his stock and you won, but the difficulty is on that buffer reverse D3 CG you wouldn't put him as the best character in the game?
Let me remind you your opponent has NO control over what's going you just have to push the right buttons and you win.

 

[Browny]

Firstly, I don't care about any other game with this thread. Its purely about brawl, I cited competitive bomberman 64 as much as I did any other game (ie; didn't)

Heres how I see it. If your character has a technique which you can pull off 10% of the time (as in, it can only work once per match), but results in a 100% chance to win (as in, 100% perfect play), the character has probably around a 3-5% viability overall, they are probably around F tier, since you have to do it twice in a set, or get lucky since you are using such a bad character. Every single aspect of the game from when the stage was selected in match one until the final KO at the end of the set is irrelevant, all that determines viability (in the tier list) is who moves to the right of the bracket. If this WASNT the case, the id like to know why metaknight has a tendency to move right far more than any other character, and he sits at the top of the tier list.

However such a scenario isnt impossible because a similar thing is happening every moment of gameplay. Look at olimar, if he makes the right decision over and over again, he cant utterly destroy people. You dont have to look far to find footage of an olimar whistle cancelling every single gimp attempt, pulling off his textbook combos for the maximum percent and always spacing the pivot grab perfectly. All of these are part of his 100% perfect play where he is unbeatable.

But what is the difficulty, thus likelihood, of him pulling this off? How often will he successfully predict and whistle a gimp attempt, will he always have the right pikmin in the line to maximise his combo damage and will he ever mis-space a grab and get punished? Of course he will. Lets say its around 50%, 50% and 50%. If he messes up any one of these horribly with multiple failures, he still has his very high margins for error on many other aspects on his character. Remember, at the start of this i am considering ganon and olimar to be equally unstoppable. When we account for the times they wont be unstoppable as we factor in their margins, ganon takes a significant hit as his margins are terribly low while olimars are high. Over the course of a match and all things considered, olimars ability to play perfectly is probably around 20-30%. This is solely a measure of how easy it is to stay within his margins. it is MUCH easier for olimar to rack up 50% via combos, than it is for ganon etc.

As for this,

2. In that case it's not that sonic has a low margin of error for approaching or whatever. Even if you argue the case that he does it really wouldn't matter because the actual approach itself sucks, so comparing with someone like marth who actually does have much better options is ********.

I dont buy it. Tell me, why does the approach suck? Seeing as I mained sonic for a long time and still use him, I'll say his approaches suck because his hitboxes are tiny, the disjoints are small and they are not safe on block. Now you can be quick to say 'those are the traits of a bad character' but I look at it a different way. Since, I'm my life, I have actually hit the enemy with sonic on occasion, I will say that his approaches can and do work, they just have a significant degree of difficulty with them. This isnt because of some attribute only, caused directly by the size of the hitbox. I can work around this with his mobility and cancellable approaches, but sonic requires a DIFFERENT margin for error than marth. marths margin is his precision and tipping shields etc to remain safe, sonics margin however is baiting a reaction from the enemy, and the risk:reward situation that follows.

If I dash towards the enemy I have to make a choice of a variety of possible approaches and consider the possibility of failure. Lets say he has 5, equally likely options (grab, shield, dash attack, sh fair, asc). If any of these connect, I have achieved 100% perfect play for that moment. But now lets work backwards and figure out the possibility of failure. If the enemy sits in shield, they can punish 3 of them easily but get hit by 2. If they spotdodge, punish a different 3, if they ftilt, they can punish 2, fair will punish different 3, pivot grab punishes a different 3 etc. I could go on.

So if I, as Sonic, want to achieve 100% perfect play, my spacing has to be spot-on and I have to predict what the enemy will do since they can shut down all of his options in a variety of safe ways, however there is ALWAYS the possibility I can make the correct decision through noticing habits, conditioning the enemy, mixing up an approach perfectly or any range of methods. Now compare to marth again, the difficulty with his approach involves spacing and tipping things to remain safe on shield. Its possible, but its not exactly easy and you wont be able to do it all the time.

The point being, every single aspect of gameplay can have a difficulty associated with it. Whether the difficulty requires precision, timing, spacing, baiting, tech skill, or anything else is completely irrelevant. All of these aspects fall under the banner of margin for error and they can all be compared the same. It is quite simply not fair to assume that a marth player can maximise their margin for error when it comes to spacing approaches perfectly, while a sonic player can not maximise their margin when it comes to baiting and punishing a reaction perfectly. The likelihood of one character being able to maximise theirs over another though, defines how good the character is. For arguments sake, I would say the likelihood of marth spacing an approach perfectly is around 50% while sonics likelihood of doing so is more like 30%. Add this to the fact that sonic has to hit the enemy twice as many times as marth, and his margins for getting the enemy up to kill % without taking much damage himself, are very small compared to marth.

Ultimately, it is horrendously inaccurate to base a character's worth off the assumption that precision based characters will achieve perfect play often, they are held back by their players and only considering the outcome of their perfect play while characters which require conditioning and baiting will not achieve perfect play often as this is a character flaw and we dont consider player skill in a matchup/tier list. That just blatant double standards, it all falls under margin for error which can be measured independently of player skill for all characters.

---

Please dont forget the entire point of this thread, I am solely arguing that certain higher tier characters do not have low total margins for error. When people tell me that their top/high tier character is very hard to play while my mid tier character isn't, I dont buy it since I'm measuring their difficulty to WIN. Since my thread is about character worth and positions on the tier list, why would I consider ANYTHING else other than the ability to win? Where is the difficulty tier list? Re-word their sentence to 'my top/high tier character is very hard to win with while your mid tier character is easy to win with.' See how ridiculous that sounds? If the reason a character has trouble winning, is because of the difficulty of playing them, that is the exact same as the difficulty as winning with them. If a character has a hard time moving to the right through a bracket, for whatever reason, they are a limited character. I'ts that simple. All of your theorycrafted tools and matchup ratios dont mean ANYTHING if the character is repeatedly knocked out early.

 

[Tagxy]

Question

So if there was a character that absolutely sucked, like worse than ganondorf. But if you input the right options at the start of the game your opponent immediately lost all of his stock and you won, but the difficulty is on that buffer reverse D3 CG you wouldn't put him as the best character in the game?
Let me remind you your opponent has NO control over what's going you just have to push the right buttons and you win.

I know this was directed towards browny, but assuming this character produced H tier results, I certainly wouldnt prop him up to S tier status. I mean maybe if the game had just come out, but after so long you cant really discuss it as part of the metagame until you see that people are capable of the tactics in tournament.

A follow up question I might ask is how long would you leave this character as best in the game while still producing horrid results? 1, 3, 10 years? Would you allow him to stay there the games entire competitive life while never being able to use the broken tactic to earn tournament success?

 

[Orion*]

A lot of the things you mentioned takes reads and baiting into account which is not what people are talking about when they mention PP.

In other words your optimal play when you talk about it is suggesting that the sonic player is able to outsmart the other character, I.E. bait them. Whereas my optimal play assumes that the two players are of equal skill (in other words they carry equal reading abilities), however they both just possess (and I do not mean like lol frame perfect) proper tech skill. But I think you already know this anyway so I will just get to my point lol.

This is your IMO and you put a lot of time into the post but I really do think you shouldn't lump tech skill and reading into one thing.

I know this was directed towards browny, but assuming this character produced H tier results, I certainly wouldnt prop him up to S tier status. I mean maybe if the game had just come out, but after so long you cant really discuss it as part of the metagame until you see that people are capable of the tactics in tournament.

A follow up question I might ask is how long would you leave this character as best in the game while still producing horrid results? 1, 3, 10 years? Would you allow him to stay there the games entire competitive life while never being able to use the broken tactic to earn tournament success?

What I can do vs what "I can do" I suppose is what's seperating our ideas. It's not that you are wrong, or anyone else is right, they are just looking at this differently which is why I asked the question.

Assuming you aren't ****ing up from a technical aspect he clearly is the best character.
what if he had like decent results but wasn't winning? what if he had amazing results? what if he had none? what if results weren't even a factor?
It's such an extreme question which is why I like it




------------------
again @browny

I understand that looking at it like x option beats y option is good but LOL it's like not that one dimensional when you actually put it into play.
I would also like to say you don't have to write a whole essay everytime I ask you a question it would save everyone a lot of time. The amount of time it took to read your post vs what it actually said was kinda ridiculous >.>

anyway

for sonic....
Compare his approaches wich you named to something like
Marth walking up and dtilting.

just look at how committed they are in comparison LOL.

 

[Browny]

I know man when I saw the size of that response im like WTF its 1/3 of the OP, but I just cant stop writing once I start, its how the OP got so ridiculously massive lol.

---

I dont even know if I can do any more. Like I've forgotten what exactly was on my mind when I started writing the OP and its impossible to convey my opinion any further without restating either the OP or that other huge post in a different order. People can think what they want I honestly dont know if its worth trying to debate a point in my ideology. Not saying because I cbf or anything, simply coz I accept it may not be right, its just how I see things and if theres a flaw in it so be it.

I guess it was all to vent my frustration after a certain someone accused me of trolling when comparing the results of A tier characters, I disagreed with the statement that Wario/Olimar are held back by character flaws, but marth is only held back by the players, thus marth is a better character.

 

[Orion*]

I know man when I saw the size of that response im like WTF its 1/3 of the OP, but I just cant stop writing once I start, its how the OP got so ridiculously massive lol.

---

I dont even know if I can do any more. Like I've forgotten what exactly was on my mind when I started writing the OP and its impossible to convey my opinion any further without restating either the OP or that other huge post in a different order. People can think what they want I honestly dont know if its worth trying to debate a point in my ideology. Not saying because I cbf or anything, simply coz I accept it may not be right, its just how I see things and if theres a flaw in it so be it.

I guess it was all to vent my frustration after a certain someone accused me of trolling when comparing the results of A tier characters, I disagreed with the statement that Wario/Olimar are held back by character flaws, but marth is only held back by the players, thus marth is a better character.

Fair enough. I do understand, or at least I think I should after reading this much (LOL) of your perception. Some part I do actually agree with, but as a player I always strive to play at optimal/PPlay so it's hard for me to look past purely technical errors I make as a player versus someone just out reading me.

I.E. in the long run I want people to essentially make the things that they can't do consistently with their characters or theory craft reality- Because it is possible eventually. We just have to put in the work IMO.

Sadly this community doesn't have the same attention as lets say SF so.... We don't have players practicing 6-10 hours a day (other than m2k... for MLG).

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Orion I was exaggerating a little bit, but l cancel nair shine is really strong and a very easy way to dominate low level play with Fox.

 

[Orion*]

at low level play fox is not scary at all.

It's like. Mix up between reg shielding and light shielding, and low level fox Will **** up because even at top level they occasionally do, especially if you're pressuring them. and when he does you get some ridiculously easy combo off of a grab -> edge guard. Some characters like peach can just wait and nair you after the shine lol

But even then assuming they don't make a technical error, at low level play, the followups they get off of the nair are very mediocre and almost not worth the risk they put in considering how easy it is to combo fox. Whereas if you play someone on who's high level the followups can easily lead to a stock, if not directly then by gaining the momentum and abusing the positional advantage.

You have apply the followups to level of play you're assuming. It's like... cool you can nair. But I'm still going to gimp you rofl.

 

[Steam]

I think this moreso applies to things like reading and spacing than technical stuff.

Like you can't assume marth will space everything perfectly because his opponent can simply avoid tippers perfectly...

if you took marth and extended his tipper range to half his sword you'd make it easier to get tippers, you'd also clearly make him a better character. difficulty of getting tippers is a limitation of the character. at the same time yes it is the fault of the player for not getting them, however if marth would have half his sword be tipper, the players would have an easier time with it and thus get them more often.

So what I think he's saying is that when discussing this stuff you can only really assume a character at the current top level. So you couldn't assume a marth spaces everything perfectly because no marth does that.

 

[Orion*]

I think this moreso applies to things like reading and spacing than technical stuff.

Like you can't assume marth will space everything perfectly because his opponent can simply avoid tippers perfectly...

if you took marth and extended his tipper range to half his sword you'd make it easier to get tippers, you'd also clearly make him a better character. difficulty of getting tippers is a limitation of the character. at the same time yes it is the fault of the player for not getting them, however if marth would have half his sword be tipper, the players would have an easier time with it and thus get them more often.

So what I think he's saying is that when discussing this stuff you can only really assume a character at the current top level. So you couldn't assume a marth spaces everything perfectly because no marth does that.

If that was the case then why even both talking about results. All of the randoms // non top players of said character are no virtually useless in this discussion and you can still simply look at character traits // potential within the current limitation of what we are doing

 

[Steam]

If that was the case then why even both talking about results. All of the randoms // non top players of said character are no virtually useless in this discussion and you can still simply look at character traits // potential within the current limitation of what we are doing

results in major tournies are quite useful. and its our only way of gauging which characters have larger margins for error. We can't know which character's margin's are bigger/smaller without putting them against other characters...

 

[Browny]

I like steams analogy of the half sword tipper... Makes a lot of sense with what my op was on about.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

You should make it immediately clear that this is about top level play vs. perfect play as an intro. And you write TL;DR and a lot of what I read seemed repetitive. If you want people to read, make your stuff more succinct.

 

[Browny]

I dont know how to make it more succint, that was actually smaller than what it was initially...

I feel I have to elaborate in considerable detail multiple with real examples since it forces people to think. Its entirely what this is about, since I dont believe people actually think when they make statements about how a characters difficulty is the reason they are bad.

Youre right about the top level vs perfect though... Ill think of a way to write that. OK and ill elaborate the TL;DR as well.

I only didnt do this before coz once I posted it I didnt want to touch it for a few days

 

[Orion*]

results in major tournies are quite useful. and its our only way of gauging which characters have larger margins for error. We can't know which character's margin's are bigger/smaller without putting them against other characters...

How does that measure margins of error? Where in any tournament data is there a "margin of error" being measured mid game play? You can just see placements and make speculated guesses as to why x player beat y.

The problem is... especially at the highest level of play it becomes more about the player than the character.

 

[Espy Rose]

Sonic has a very poor damage output (attribute). One possible way he can make matchups in his favour is by abusing his mobility to not get hit (trait). Due to the sheer amount of times he must hit the enemy with his low-range, low priority attacks, his margin for error is quite low. It is easy to mess up with sonic and an incorrect move may require you to hit the enemy 3 times to make up for it. Sonic has, as will be commonly agreed, a low margin for error when it comes to regaining a % lead once lost.

- Sonic's damage output is actually fairly high. Not many characters can tack on 20%+ from a single hit confirm, and Sonic is one of them.
- I thought the "No priority" mentality was destroyed back in 2008? Sonic's priority is fine. It's not fantastic, but it's not horrible either. His range, or lack thereof, is what hurts.

Other than those two outdated, Sonic-based claims, it was a decent read.
Good stuff.

 

[Browny]

Wat

Barring a perfect asc, his output is poor how can you argue that...

Strongest move does 15% (fsmash) and fair 14% only if every part connects, same with utilt. Uthrow is his only reliable high damage move, on average, everything else has a disproportionate amount of damage for how slow the attack is.

And priority = disjoint, barring u/bair... His are tiny :/

 

[Espy Rose]

At low percents, any type of spin will combo into SOMETHING (opponent DI dictates what can/cannot connect). On average, his spins should be dealing anywhere from 10-20% damage. I wouldn't call that output poor if all it takes is a single hit confirm, especially considering this is something Sonic mains use as a crutch for damage racking.

10-20 per spin isn't unusual, and I never consider perfect ASC'ing, because not only is it unreasonable, but the move can do up to 40%+ if you managed to connect each and every hit properly. Unrealistic when you consider his abilities.

Bair's damage is also reasonable, and he has guaranteed damage from his dtilt at low percents.
His grabs too. 11% at lower percents, up to low 20% at mid percents, and all the way near the upper 20% (or even 30%) range at high percentages, all including pummels. This isn't even taking into account the set ups his throws send characters into.

Sonic's damage output is much greater than what you're making it out to be.

And I guess the initial hop of Sonic's upB, and certain frames in his usmash have terrible priority then? They lack range, so that has to be true.

 

[BSP]

SDR -> Nair pretty much always combos, and Nair's always fresh, so a good 17-19% isn't too unreasonable from each spin IMO

 

[Browny]

You know the more I think about it... The more im sticking with what I said.

Almost every character has a variety of attacks which do 13+, and these are typically much more faster/reliable than spindash... Uthrow only decent one tbh.

 

[Espy Rose]

Whatever you say Browny.

You're the Sonic expert.

 

[Tesh]

This thread is now about Sonic.

But, yea what Espy said about damage is true, Sonic easily gets 15+ damage off of a read with a grab (1 pummel + upthrow) or double hit ASC (18%) into an aerial AND it puts people in a bad position.

Every character has low percent combos or strings that do at least 20%, but Sonic does have some reliable ways to do around 20 damage or more at any percent.



i also didnt read the rest of the thread

 

[Browny]

Its almost like jigglypuff is the only other character in the game...

 

[Espy Rose]

Or that every other character is Snake.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Whatever you say Browny.

You're the Sonic expert.

Yeah, I mean come on, it's not like you've ever top-8'd a major national with sonic.

 

[Tesh]

Australia nationals only have 8 players.

 

[Kinzer]

Its almost like jigglypuff is the only other character in the game...

B****es don't know about the terror that is... Jigglypuff...'s damage output...!

Gives me nightmares... *Shiver.*

 

[Orion*]

Whatever you say Browny.

You're the Sonic expert.

Australia nationals only have 8 players.

I love you LOOOL

 

[B.A.M.]

LoL i thought i was reading a decent thread then I see something about Sonic doing no damage lol. Like our character doesnt have spins to aerials (if our aerials did 17% or something we would seriously hit someone 3 times and be able to go for a kill) and doesnt have the unique capacity only rivaled to chase down the opponent for potential follow ups ANYWHERE WITHIN OUR BLAST ZONES.

Espy 's Sonic expertise isnt needed. We have the 3rd best DPS in pummels and one of the stronger throws in uthrow that sets us up easily for follow ups. our SDR goes through non charged smashes when we fully charge it. Our ASC can take out Aura Sphere. Our spindash has invincibility frames as well as our usmash and up B. Uair has solid priority.

This is just really sad to hear from one of our own mains. This is one of our strong suits. You're still in 2008 son. You really are too slow.

 

[Browny]

lol w/e. Also everything you wrote which wasnt regarding spin dash's damage is irrelevant and has nothing to do with this thread.

And since I'm sure on what I say because I've actually thought AN AWFUL LOT about this (which I cant say about others here) I did a quick analysis using none other than Espys own videos.

Looking at multiple, completely random matches vs different characters and the amount of attacks Sonic had to actually land in order to bring the enemy up to 100% I found a very common average of 12 attacks. It never actually strayed below 11 or more than 13 in the matches I looked at. I classed a single attack as any single hit, or combo (such as dtilt chains, uthrow-uair etc). Sonic is doing an average of 8.3% per hit. Please do not forget I'm counting grab-pummel-uthrow-uair as a single hit, even if it does like 21. Every single one of these hits required a new approach with Sonic's typical high risk due to his small range.

Compared to the characters he was against in all these matches however, they hit sonic around 8-11 with only ONE instance of 12 times in order to bring him to 100%. Certain characters hovered around 8 for multiple stocks. So they were all doing 9% - 12.5%.

See now that doesnt sound like a big difference, but everything is relative. These other characters I observed, they were averaging around 8.75% - 50.6% higher damage output. I should also note that none of these characters were snake.

AND ON TOP OF THAT, consider the fact that sonic has to often get his opponents for like 160 vs them getting him to about 130.

So yeah, I'm pretty confident in what I said and will stick by it stronger than before.