Hello. For all you haters out there, please know that I am not going to check this post again after creating it, so if you have something mean to say to me, please do so over Email at hermionefan465@yahoo.com rather than over this topic. Thank you! ^_^
Oftentimes I hear people say the darndest things about tiers. People complaining about how Meta-knights are overpowered, how Ganondorf can never be played tournament-wise, and above all, the unfortunate level of people who join tournaments and only use top tier/high tier characters.
I am here to demonstrate through the simple use of mathematics and OPT that the reasons for which people put those high on the tier list as such and vice-versa are in fact significantly flawed, and in fact outline which abilities do and do not affect the outcome of a player's performance in battle.
Overall, the end result of my argument comes to proclaim that the "factors" between which characters are stronger than whom are so significantly small that no single character, when played at an advanced level, should have anything more than a 40:60 disadvantage against another. The notion that Ganondorf has 10:90, 5:95 and even 0:100 matchups is absolutely ridiculous, and I shall provide evidence as such in both words and example.
Without further ado, here is my comprehensive detailing of the anti-tiers argument:
My personal argument for why tiers don’t apply.
A number of people make the arguments that tiers exist, under certain premises that I wish to address today. This is an argument against tier validity.
Brawl is considered to be a non-rotational game, or a game in which responses to attacks, as opposed to designated attacks, choose the victor. A massively vast and complicated game of rock-paper-scissors, if you will.
But what does this mean? Allow me to demonstrate with an example. Take one of the worst known “matchups” in gaming history: Ganondorf and Olimar. 10-90. Olimar’s long range combined with his speed and versatility outmatch ganondorf in every sense. So does this provide evidence for the existence of tiers?
Certainly not. There is a particular strategy used by Ganondorf players against Olimar players, and that is the SHSD(Short Hop Shield Dash), as demonstrated by this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5MwNPXSUZk&feature=related
Both fighters are professional; both are playing in a ladders tournament at this point in time.
This is known as the Optimal Procedure Technique (OPT), or as I like to call it, the rock-paper-scissors game. In an OPT, a player finds the most effective technique against an opponent, and spams it relentlessly in an attempt to win his game. Due to the incredible amount of different available strategies(including such strategies as spamming projectiles, powershielding, and even mindgames), practically every character has some form of OPT over another character.
A logical response to this information is to claim that spamming the same technique throughout your entire fight will get predictable, and that the opponent will respond by altering his fighting style. For example, in the above video, if the above Olimar decided instead of grabbing and tossing his pikmin from a long range to attacking at short range with his tilts(sadly, he never did), surely the Ganondorf in this video would have been screwed? Furthermore, how are lower-tier characters supposed to be fun to play if they have to spam the same ability to compete?
However… this is in fact the intended purpose of the OPT. Once an Olimar player chooses to fight close range, he is giving up his matchup advantage against Ganondorf. In an unfortunately unoptimal system, as seen in the video above, if the Olimar player continues to choose to play his matchup, he will lose terribly, but chooses to do it anyways, turning the game into a ganondorf-spam finish. In a more optimal system, the Olimar would play competitively and choose to use different, un-optimal styles of play to win the Ganondorf. In summary, for every matchup there almost always is an OPT against the main technique, and by playing the OPT one can defeat their matchup disadvantage.
Two extra notes. Firstly, an OPT cannot be a “defensive” technique; the OPT is strictly an offensive technique. If defensive techniques were considered OPTs, then one could even include running away indefinitely to be an OPT; however, the logic in this argument is obvious. The game would be at a permanent standstill, and victory would be unachievable as long as the opposite player continued to exploit that particular move. Second, regardless of a character’s moves, every ability has a slightly different function. Once the opponent starts playing a different style to counter the OPT, every move becomes equally available for the Ganondorf player to use against another player in every situation. Therefore, playing a “bottom tier” character is not boring; it merely means you have to know your character better, and hope your opponent will put up a fight (on the other hand, if he doesn’t, it’s almost a guaranteed win on your behalf).
Certainly, one could argue that the tier list applies for beginner and even intermediate gameplay; but once such gameplay turns advanced, and all possible techniques are mastered, or at least used correctly, tiers cease to exist.
Such is the competitive style of brawl. It is a reactive game, as many of you have noticed, and competitive play requires absolutely revolutionary styles of play almost every fight, multiple strategies functioning and forming just for one game. To claim that tiers exist is virtually the same as to claim that the black team in chess is at a disadvantage for always being one move behind; the different strategies unlocked by playing black allow for an optimal strategy as well. Neither side has a “greater” optimal strategy, due to the fact that each strategy has a counter. It’s a proverbial rock-paper-scissors game in which scissors is thrown the most by Ganondorfs because a majority of Ganondorfs play rock, thereby finding that in the competitive edge most people throw paper. Once the paper people switch to rock people, the matchup guide is gone.
But matchup is just a single issue concerning the existence of tiers; what about relative damage, capabilities of jump and recovery, varieties of attack, and so on? Allow me to address each separately:
Relative Damage: Each character has a set of moves that do an enumerable amount of damage. But what of those characters who have attacks that deal 30% damage, as opposed to those who can only hit for 6%? Certainly such a ratio of speed to offensiveness would be impossible to calculate?
The answer is no. Each character, despite seemingly having extremely random damage abilities, actually has their attacks in a relatively stable range. Each character has a few off-hand jab attacks that deal anywhere from 4-9% damage, medium-powered abilities that deal anywhere from 12% to 16% damage, and powerful thrusts that do anywhere from 20% to 25%, all with similar lags and recoveries. Don’t believe me? Look at each character and attempt to find an exception. Such a small range applies to nearly every character.
Likewise, every character has a K.O ability at 110%-130%, 85%-95%, and 55%-75%. Not a single character exists (besides Solimar, of course, who can only K.O at 160% with his f-tilt) who does not have an ability that fits this description.
Recovery Capability: Many arguments are made concerning a character’s ability to recover. However, EVERY character has a third jump in some form or other, and their relative traveling distances with one jump and a Bup can always gain them recovery from the edge of the screen to the edge of the stage. Don’t believe me? Yet again, try it with every character in the SSBB arsenal. This does not apply, however, to the ability to recover from a vertical drop, for example: Toon Link and Metaknight can recover practically from anywhere regardless if their jumps and Bup are retained, but this is cornered with the fact that not all deaths allow a chance to recover. Also D.K and Bowser have great horizontal recovery but terrible vertical recovery. This is okay though, because most who die under the stage do so from of a meteor smash and only a few characters can recover from one of those, if they’re lucky.
Some often talk of character’s ability to be edgeguarded: this legend is a total hoax. Perhaps in the beginner and intermediate players, this applies, but once applied to advanced gameplay, an unlikely recovery in which a player cannot hope to land on the ledge without a grab can be edgehogged by practically anyone. This does not mean that some characters aren’t more easily edge-grabbed than others, however; some truly are. But one cannot (unless played extremely carefully) kill a Ganondorf or a Link with an edge-grab at a low percentage; the least percentage required to successfully edge-hog a Ganondorf to death would be 85%-95%, around which percentages things become too close to call(since Toon Link and Meta-Knight can easily be K.Oed because of their light weight, as well as the Ganondorf and Link in question).
Variety of Attack: Certainly some characters have more useful abilities than others? Ganondorf’s down smash and Warlock Punch are perhaps two of the most useless abilities in the entire game, and yet a Falco never wastes a single move? Certainly the character with the most useful and equally balanced abilities would be higher on the tier than someone who only has three functioning abilities?
Actually, this does turn out to be the case. In the same way that the last two were the case. In beginning and intermediate play, the tier list does exist, and does apply quite well to such issues. Watch any Ganondorf or Ike player who is a beginner in brawl fight ,and you will see as well as I do the pathetic spamming of A-smashes and fully charged B moves for practically everything, whilst the Metaknight uses all of his attacks at random and is happy to find they all are extremely useful and quick. However, as players grow to be more advanced, the amount of moves they use decreases, until you get your typical advanced Olimar player who mainly uses grabs and smashes. The worst-case scenario is Ice Climbers; advanced players of him pretty much only use grab. Not because that’s their only useful move, mind you, but because the tier list that they follow so attentively also claims that the Climbers can only chain grab to remain competitive. And so they don’t play any other styles of Ice Climbers.
So why do people use more than four moves at all? The answer is the same for why people play Sheik/Zelda and Pokemon Trainer. Having an assortment of abilities at their disposal allows for different styles of gameplay with the same character, whether you choose to play a spammy Falco or a close-combat one, or a Link who uses his projectiles more often than his smashes, or vice versa.
It does provide a slight competitive advantage, however, to constantly shift your gameplay, so in a sense the characters with greater variety in their abilities could have some sort of a meager advantage over those with less variety; however, this would only be another form of mindgames, which can be easily replicated within the same fighting style, therefore leaving the style or styles of gameplay open to the players in much the same way that selecting what character you would like to use in Brawl to begin with is.
In conclusion, despite the existence of slight imbalances concerning recovery, damage output, and the sort, these advantages and disadvantages are drastically smaller than those believed to exist by the proponents of the tier list, to the point where skill, overall, is the main factor for winning, with little contribution to the actual character played with, or the fighting style used.
Oftentimes I hear people say the darndest things about tiers. People complaining about how Meta-knights are overpowered, how Ganondorf can never be played tournament-wise, and above all, the unfortunate level of people who join tournaments and only use top tier/high tier characters.
I am here to demonstrate through the simple use of mathematics and OPT that the reasons for which people put those high on the tier list as such and vice-versa are in fact significantly flawed, and in fact outline which abilities do and do not affect the outcome of a player's performance in battle.
Overall, the end result of my argument comes to proclaim that the "factors" between which characters are stronger than whom are so significantly small that no single character, when played at an advanced level, should have anything more than a 40:60 disadvantage against another. The notion that Ganondorf has 10:90, 5:95 and even 0:100 matchups is absolutely ridiculous, and I shall provide evidence as such in both words and example.
Without further ado, here is my comprehensive detailing of the anti-tiers argument:
My personal argument for why tiers don’t apply.
A number of people make the arguments that tiers exist, under certain premises that I wish to address today. This is an argument against tier validity.
Brawl is considered to be a non-rotational game, or a game in which responses to attacks, as opposed to designated attacks, choose the victor. A massively vast and complicated game of rock-paper-scissors, if you will.
But what does this mean? Allow me to demonstrate with an example. Take one of the worst known “matchups” in gaming history: Ganondorf and Olimar. 10-90. Olimar’s long range combined with his speed and versatility outmatch ganondorf in every sense. So does this provide evidence for the existence of tiers?
Certainly not. There is a particular strategy used by Ganondorf players against Olimar players, and that is the SHSD(Short Hop Shield Dash), as demonstrated by this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5MwNPXSUZk&feature=related
Both fighters are professional; both are playing in a ladders tournament at this point in time.
This is known as the Optimal Procedure Technique (OPT), or as I like to call it, the rock-paper-scissors game. In an OPT, a player finds the most effective technique against an opponent, and spams it relentlessly in an attempt to win his game. Due to the incredible amount of different available strategies(including such strategies as spamming projectiles, powershielding, and even mindgames), practically every character has some form of OPT over another character.
A logical response to this information is to claim that spamming the same technique throughout your entire fight will get predictable, and that the opponent will respond by altering his fighting style. For example, in the above video, if the above Olimar decided instead of grabbing and tossing his pikmin from a long range to attacking at short range with his tilts(sadly, he never did), surely the Ganondorf in this video would have been screwed? Furthermore, how are lower-tier characters supposed to be fun to play if they have to spam the same ability to compete?
However… this is in fact the intended purpose of the OPT. Once an Olimar player chooses to fight close range, he is giving up his matchup advantage against Ganondorf. In an unfortunately unoptimal system, as seen in the video above, if the Olimar player continues to choose to play his matchup, he will lose terribly, but chooses to do it anyways, turning the game into a ganondorf-spam finish. In a more optimal system, the Olimar would play competitively and choose to use different, un-optimal styles of play to win the Ganondorf. In summary, for every matchup there almost always is an OPT against the main technique, and by playing the OPT one can defeat their matchup disadvantage.
Two extra notes. Firstly, an OPT cannot be a “defensive” technique; the OPT is strictly an offensive technique. If defensive techniques were considered OPTs, then one could even include running away indefinitely to be an OPT; however, the logic in this argument is obvious. The game would be at a permanent standstill, and victory would be unachievable as long as the opposite player continued to exploit that particular move. Second, regardless of a character’s moves, every ability has a slightly different function. Once the opponent starts playing a different style to counter the OPT, every move becomes equally available for the Ganondorf player to use against another player in every situation. Therefore, playing a “bottom tier” character is not boring; it merely means you have to know your character better, and hope your opponent will put up a fight (on the other hand, if he doesn’t, it’s almost a guaranteed win on your behalf).
Certainly, one could argue that the tier list applies for beginner and even intermediate gameplay; but once such gameplay turns advanced, and all possible techniques are mastered, or at least used correctly, tiers cease to exist.
Such is the competitive style of brawl. It is a reactive game, as many of you have noticed, and competitive play requires absolutely revolutionary styles of play almost every fight, multiple strategies functioning and forming just for one game. To claim that tiers exist is virtually the same as to claim that the black team in chess is at a disadvantage for always being one move behind; the different strategies unlocked by playing black allow for an optimal strategy as well. Neither side has a “greater” optimal strategy, due to the fact that each strategy has a counter. It’s a proverbial rock-paper-scissors game in which scissors is thrown the most by Ganondorfs because a majority of Ganondorfs play rock, thereby finding that in the competitive edge most people throw paper. Once the paper people switch to rock people, the matchup guide is gone.
But matchup is just a single issue concerning the existence of tiers; what about relative damage, capabilities of jump and recovery, varieties of attack, and so on? Allow me to address each separately:
Relative Damage: Each character has a set of moves that do an enumerable amount of damage. But what of those characters who have attacks that deal 30% damage, as opposed to those who can only hit for 6%? Certainly such a ratio of speed to offensiveness would be impossible to calculate?
The answer is no. Each character, despite seemingly having extremely random damage abilities, actually has their attacks in a relatively stable range. Each character has a few off-hand jab attacks that deal anywhere from 4-9% damage, medium-powered abilities that deal anywhere from 12% to 16% damage, and powerful thrusts that do anywhere from 20% to 25%, all with similar lags and recoveries. Don’t believe me? Look at each character and attempt to find an exception. Such a small range applies to nearly every character.
Likewise, every character has a K.O ability at 110%-130%, 85%-95%, and 55%-75%. Not a single character exists (besides Solimar, of course, who can only K.O at 160% with his f-tilt) who does not have an ability that fits this description.
Recovery Capability: Many arguments are made concerning a character’s ability to recover. However, EVERY character has a third jump in some form or other, and their relative traveling distances with one jump and a Bup can always gain them recovery from the edge of the screen to the edge of the stage. Don’t believe me? Yet again, try it with every character in the SSBB arsenal. This does not apply, however, to the ability to recover from a vertical drop, for example: Toon Link and Metaknight can recover practically from anywhere regardless if their jumps and Bup are retained, but this is cornered with the fact that not all deaths allow a chance to recover. Also D.K and Bowser have great horizontal recovery but terrible vertical recovery. This is okay though, because most who die under the stage do so from of a meteor smash and only a few characters can recover from one of those, if they’re lucky.
Some often talk of character’s ability to be edgeguarded: this legend is a total hoax. Perhaps in the beginner and intermediate players, this applies, but once applied to advanced gameplay, an unlikely recovery in which a player cannot hope to land on the ledge without a grab can be edgehogged by practically anyone. This does not mean that some characters aren’t more easily edge-grabbed than others, however; some truly are. But one cannot (unless played extremely carefully) kill a Ganondorf or a Link with an edge-grab at a low percentage; the least percentage required to successfully edge-hog a Ganondorf to death would be 85%-95%, around which percentages things become too close to call(since Toon Link and Meta-Knight can easily be K.Oed because of their light weight, as well as the Ganondorf and Link in question).
Variety of Attack: Certainly some characters have more useful abilities than others? Ganondorf’s down smash and Warlock Punch are perhaps two of the most useless abilities in the entire game, and yet a Falco never wastes a single move? Certainly the character with the most useful and equally balanced abilities would be higher on the tier than someone who only has three functioning abilities?
Actually, this does turn out to be the case. In the same way that the last two were the case. In beginning and intermediate play, the tier list does exist, and does apply quite well to such issues. Watch any Ganondorf or Ike player who is a beginner in brawl fight ,and you will see as well as I do the pathetic spamming of A-smashes and fully charged B moves for practically everything, whilst the Metaknight uses all of his attacks at random and is happy to find they all are extremely useful and quick. However, as players grow to be more advanced, the amount of moves they use decreases, until you get your typical advanced Olimar player who mainly uses grabs and smashes. The worst-case scenario is Ice Climbers; advanced players of him pretty much only use grab. Not because that’s their only useful move, mind you, but because the tier list that they follow so attentively also claims that the Climbers can only chain grab to remain competitive. And so they don’t play any other styles of Ice Climbers.
So why do people use more than four moves at all? The answer is the same for why people play Sheik/Zelda and Pokemon Trainer. Having an assortment of abilities at their disposal allows for different styles of gameplay with the same character, whether you choose to play a spammy Falco or a close-combat one, or a Link who uses his projectiles more often than his smashes, or vice versa.
It does provide a slight competitive advantage, however, to constantly shift your gameplay, so in a sense the characters with greater variety in their abilities could have some sort of a meager advantage over those with less variety; however, this would only be another form of mindgames, which can be easily replicated within the same fighting style, therefore leaving the style or styles of gameplay open to the players in much the same way that selecting what character you would like to use in Brawl to begin with is.
In conclusion, despite the existence of slight imbalances concerning recovery, damage output, and the sort, these advantages and disadvantages are drastically smaller than those believed to exist by the proponents of the tier list, to the point where skill, overall, is the main factor for winning, with little contribution to the actual character played with, or the fighting style used.
