An Idea That I Had (Delete This Please)

[QuickLava]

Hey All! Been thinking a lot lately and I came up with what I think could be extremely helpful for all of us. Read more below!

[collapse=Leveled Tier List]
Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the way characters stack up against each other in the various smash games. This eventually brought me back to the Melee tier list. As I was looking over some of the character overviews, I had an idea that might prove extremely useful for all of us. When you think about it, tier lists do give a vaguely accurate idea of who the best characters in a given game are. However, in certain games (smash being one of them) those tier lists take into account certain aspects of a character that are left inaccessible to certain levels of players. One prime example of this is everyone's favorite anthropomorphic pilot, Fox. Let's say, we ask two players who the best character is in Melee. Player A is adamant that Ganon is the best. “He can kill you in just a few hits! He must be the best!” he says. Player B however says that Fox is the best. He says: “He can maneuver around the stage quickly, he has some of the highest off stage killing potential in the game with his shine spike, extremely high shield pressuring ability, and he boasts reliable combo potential between his throws and aerials,”. Can you see the difference between the two players? Player B is probably an experienced Melee player. Player A however is either new or inexperienced. But who is right about who the best character is? Well they BOTH are! The concept I'm proposing is “Leveled” Tier Lists. In high level play, Fox and Falco (a clone of Fox might I add) are the best in the game by quite a wide margin. But in low level (or casual) play, Ganon or even Bowser might be considered the best in the game. Why is this? Because different levels of play always yield different results. And what does that mean? The current tier list doesn't apply. Let's be honest, not everyone here on Smashboards is an elite player and they probably aren't in an environment full of Mango's and PPMD's. You might be, but others might not. Which is why I believe there are three core levels of players. Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. And that's where the “Leveled” part of my idea comes in. What I want to do is take the cast of Melee and organize them into Basic and Intermediate tier lists. But a task like this is not going to easy, so I'm going to need all the help I can get! As of now, I haven't started compiling any info since I don't really have much tournament experience. But those of you out there who have experience with Melee (regarless of level) should vote in the poll whether you are in favor of this idea or against it.
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TL;DR VERSION: 3 Levels of Tier List, one for each core level of player those being Basic, Intermediate and Advanced

 

[FalconSoup]

I think I see where you're going with this. How will it be helpful?

 

[Phan7om]

People would only go by the advanced one anyway

 

[Superspright]

Yeah, but it would be a fun exercise to see how the game naturally evolved.

 

[Xyzz]

Been suggested a billion times; the growth in strength between characters isn't linear; what's the point in lower tier lists?

 

[QuickLava]

Think that might help a bit.

 

[Saikyoshi]

The Basic tier list would be totally dominated by characters ordinarily crippled by lag, such as Link and Bowser, and I can name the reason - Punishment, their main weakness, is an extremely difficult skill to develop effectively and it just doesn't happen in low-level play.

Marth would be around D-tier because individually, his attacks are pathetic. Low-level play doesn't take sweetspotting and combos into account. Roy would be higher up than him because his sweetspots are easier to connect with at ultra-close range, which is where most low-level play takes place.

Jigglypuff would be close to the bottom due to the lack of knowledge of combos and punishment, her greatest strengths, along with losing the knowledge of how to use her main finisher Rest.

Pichu would be dead last because his few strengths simply cannot be exploited by an inexperienced player.

 

[QuickLava]

See everyone? Saikyoshi gets it. This is exactly the kind of speculation I wanted to see.

 

[Stryker]

I think you may need to more clearly define your tier.
Sure, basic and advanced seem pretty straight forward, but then, this just translates into our current tier list + a "low skill" tier list.
What qualifies a player as being basic or advanced? At what point do they move from the basic tier list to a more advanced one.

 

[QuickLava]

I think you may need to more clearly define your tier.
Sure, basic and advanced seem pretty straight forward, but then, this just translates into our current tier list + a "low skill" tier list.
What qualifies a player as being basic or advanced? At what point do they move from the basic tier list to a more advanced one.

Here's a link to an edited version of the Basketball Analogy Picture. (http://www.mediafire.com/view/kj6d75jjns02g38/Basketball Analogy.png)
It shows some general qualities a player of each level usually exhibits.

 

[Saikyoshi]

I think you may need to more clearly define your tier.
Sure, basic and advanced seem pretty straight forward, but then, this just translates into our current tier list + a "low skill" tier list.
What qualifies a player as being basic or advanced? At what point do they move from the basic tier list to a more advanced one.

I think what defines a "basic" player (at least more fairly than the basketball analogy pic) is simply that they haven't broken through the "barrier" yet; they have little to no knowledge of ATs, and they have yet to develop advanced fighting game fundamentals such as prediction and punishment. They only know how to play as the game tells them.

 

[Gentlefox]

I've thought about this too, but it's pretty hard to define levels.

I can L-cancel 95% of the time with Fox, do his AT's consistently, and even pull off his 1-frame window shine glitches. Due to my lack of energy and bad movement though, I was getting bopped so hard in tournament that I've switched mains.

One of the guys I used to play with takes this even further. His technical skill and pressure were incredible, but he was so easy to read that it was kind of depressing to play him.

Where would we be? A smart casual player could probably beat him, but his tech skill certainly makes him look advanced.

 

[Massive]

This idea seems to come up a lot, so here are some things to consider:

• The tier lists we have now have all come from a weighted vote from the best and most knowledgeable players in the smash community.
• Even with the combined knowledge and experience of the community, there is not enough character representation at competitive levels for the tier list to be accurate for more than the top 8-10 characters.
• There are no clear delineations between skill levels. The only accurate way to measure ability is by either tourney success or direct competition with others. Measuring ability by tech skill is like measuring a carpenter by the number of tools in their belt.
• Even at casual levels of play, there is a huge amount of variance between player ability. At this level the best character may just be the one they like the most and have used the most times. They may beat all thier friends with bowser and will be top tier in the meta game of that community.
• If you are practicing, you are aiming to beat people better than you. Why not prepare for the worst with the regular, competitive tier list?
• The current tier list is actually quite accurate for the average player.

There are plenty of other reasons not to have an ability leveled tier list, but I think these are enough talking points for now.

 

[Saikyoshi]

• If you are practicing, you are aiming to beat people better than you. Why not prepare for the worst with the regular, competitive tier list?
• The current tier list is actually quite accurate for the average player.

There are plenty of other reasons not to have an ability leveled tier list, but I think these are enough talking points for now.

I'm going to have to disagree with those two, because Fox and Marth are downright horrible in casual play. You have to have broken past the "wall" to even be semi-competent with them.

 

[QuickLava]

• If you are practicing, you are aiming to beat people better than you. Why not prepare for the worst with the regular, competitive tier list?
• The current tier list is actually quite accurate for the average player.

While I agree with some of that, I think the two points SaikYoshi pointed out are kinda off. I can understand where you're coming from, but it just isn't true. Judging just from this list, I'd say you've probably been a probably been a strong competitive player for a while now. But for someone like me, who's really only been competitive since last May, it's fresh in the mind how far metagames drift from the one dictated by the Melee tier list. I went to visit my extended family out in Georgia, and while I was there I went to some tourneys. The local scene was dominated by a Luigi player who, by the Basketball analogy, would be considered Intermediate. But at the same time, there was an arguably better Marth player there that wasn't doing nearly as well. That's because within that meta, the other players aren't playing in such a way that would put them in Marth's tipper range, and the Marth player himself didn't know how to put them there, when they would play like that. In this situation (Kinda like GentleFox's) one player isn't necessarily less competent, but his/her play style just doesn't work in that meta.

 

[polypuff]

Having just 3 "tiers" for all of the characters would place them in too broad of a list and wouldn't really be a good representation of each individual character. Also, even if there were 3 tiers, it's basically just mashing up all of the existing tiers into less groups, so it doesn't really give an advantage over the existing list structure.

 

[Massive]

I'm going to have to disagree with those two, because Fox and Marth are downright horrible in casual play. You have to have broken past the "wall" to even be semi-competent with them.

This is a completely subjective statement. Among my casual friends, years and years ago, Marth was considered unfair because all he had to do was press towards them with the C-stick and it would kill them. I also knew a kid who played with another group of people that would beat all of them with fox by pressing up on the c-stick over and over again when he was next to them.

Both of these players refute your statement with as much validity as your statement had before. Because really, what makes my anecdotal evidence less valid than yours or anyone else's?

...was dominated by a Luigi player who, by the Basketball analogy, would be considered Intermediate. But at the same time, there was an arguably better Marth player there that wasn't doing nearly as well.

What makes the Marth arguably better? Did he beat the Luigi? That's the only way you could validly argue that he was better.

Furthermore, the basketball analogy is flawed. Tech skill is not player skill. L-cancelling 100% of the time and doing perfect waveshines don't make you a good player. "Perservence" or "Keeping Cool Under Pressure" are completely subjective and don't really mean you are any better at the game. Experience, as in playing and learning from other players (especially those better than you) does make you play better.

Truly though, there is no metric by which you can measure anyone's player ability other than by who they have beaten or what they have won. If you have never been to a tourney or never played someone else competitive outside of your group of friends, you can't rate yourself "intermediate" or "basic" level, you can't fairly rate your skill level at all. You will never know where you stand until you actually test it.

 

[QuickLava]

What makes the Marth arguably better? Did he beat the Luigi? That's the only way you could validly argue that he was better.

Furthermore, the basketball analogy is flawed. Tech skill is not player skill. L-cancelling 100% of the time and doing perfect waveshines don't make you a good player. "Perservence" or "Keeping Cool Under Pressure" are completely subjective and don't really mean you are any better at the game. Experience, as in playing other players (especially those better than you) does make you play better.

Truly though, there is no metric by which you can measure anyone's player ability other than by who they have beaten or what they have won. If you have never been to a tourney or never played someone else competitive outside of your group of friends, you can't rate yourself "intermediate" or "basic" level, you can't fairly rate your skill level at all, and you can't know where you stand until you actually test it.

The Marth player was more experienced, smarter, and more consistent. The reason he didn't do as well as the Luigi is that Marth isn't as viable within that meta. That's like saying if Mango loses using G&W to some random that he isn't as good of a player. This concept extends to other games as well. Take a game like Pokemon for example. Success in that game is entirely based around who plays the smartest and most efficiently while remaining in line with a given ruleset. If you're playing singles, play is focused on using items to enhance the strengths or minimize the weaknesses of your team so that you can continuously output enough damage to KO your opponents team. Doubles however is much more defensive. Your opponents are often going to rely on elaborate strategies and traps to conquer you. That means that different Pokemon are more viable in doubles than in singles or vice versa.

And as far as tech skill not making a player good, it doesn't alone. But you can have all the mindgames and predictions in the world, but if you can't exercise that character you're using to their fullest extent, then it doesn't matter. That means L-cancelling, AT's, Wavedashing, punishing, gimping, etc... All of these things come together in the Advanced tier to make up that metagame. That is why those things were put into that list, not because any one thing off that list makes you a good player, but because when those things come together you hit a level of skill that is more than that of your average player. Hence "Advanced" level.

 

[Saikyoshi]

This is a completely subjective statement. Among my casual friends, years and years ago, Marth was considered unfair because all he had to do was press towards them with the C-stick and it would kill them. I also knew a kid who played with another group of people that would beat all of them with fox by pressing up on the c-stick over and over again when he was next to them.

Both of these players refute your statement with as much validity as your statement had before. Because really, what makes my anecdotal evidence less valid than yours or anyone else's?


What makes the Marth arguably better? Did he beat the Luigi? That's the only way you could validly argue that he was better.

Furthermore, the basketball analogy is flawed. Tech skill is not player skill. L-cancelling 100% of the time and doing perfect waveshines don't make you a good player. "Perservence" or "Keeping Cool Under Pressure" are completely subjective and don't really mean you are any better at the game. Experience, as in playing and learning from other players (especially those better than you) does make you play better.

Truly though, there is no metric by which you can measure anyone's player ability other than by who they have beaten or what they have won. If you have never been to a tourney or never played someone else competitive outside of your group of friends, you can't rate yourself "intermediate" or "basic" level, you can't fairly rate your skill level at all. You will never know where you stand until you actually test it.

The way I see it, tech skill knowledge is an accurate barrier of potential, not current skill level.

I support the leveled tier list in terms of that.

 

[Xyzz]

The amount of techskill you really need is actually super low... see how far Borp can get without being able to do any of the super basics. It's helpful, duh, but ultimately you just need the set of tools to be able to efficiently deal with each situation you tend to find yourself in.

Measuring ability by tech skill is like measuring a carpenter by the number of tools in their belt.

A lovely analogy <3

 

[Young Rinku]

I've thought about this too, but it's pretty hard to define levels.

I can L-cancel 95% of the time with Fox, do his AT's consistently, and even pull off his 1-frame window shine glitches. Due to my lack of energy and bad movement though, I was getting bopped so hard in tournament that I've switched mains.

One of the guys I used to play with takes this even further. His technical skill and pressure were incredible, but he was so easy to read that it was kind of depressing to play him.

Where would we be? A smart casual player could probably beat him, but his tech skill certainly makes him look advanced.

I feel the same way, since one time I was playing against some guy who was using Falcon, and while he was Wavedashing all over the place, he didn't have good tech skill besides, so I was able to beat him with almost a JV 3 stock.