Post V3 Discussion & Moving Forward

[Gunla]

Hello everyone,

It's been a bit under two weeks since V3 was released. While it generally had a smooth release, there's always some points of contention and issues abound. I am planning on releasing a follow-up article next week, and, as per usual, I would like to hear your opinions on the tier list, as well as characters of contention (these would go on the article, most likely).

For back here, I'd like to ask; how did you feel about the process of V3, such as the shorter voting phase, the more open process we had, and the lower number of tiers? Any personal points of contention about character placements and the like?

For reference, here's the raw data:

Spoiler: Voting Data

Character | Ordered Score | Standard Deviation | Group Score | Group Standard Deviation | Difference from v2.0
Bayonetta | 2.0 | 1.35 | 7.94 | 0.227 | +10
Diddy Kong | 2.3 | 0.991 | 7.95 | 0.211 | -1
Cloud | 3.31 | 1.443 | 7.77 | 0.438 | -1
Sheik | 4.22 | 1.988 | 7.62 | 0.564 | -1
Sonic | 5.63 | 2.257 | 7.35 | 0.608 | +1
Mario | 6.59 | 1.936 | 7.25 | 0.614 | -1
Fox | 7.06 | 1.904 | 7.17 | 0.667 | ±0
Rosalina | 8.61 | 2.635 | 7.01 | 0.678 | -4
Mewtwo | 9.17 | 2.039 | 6.89 | 0.615 | +1
Marth | 9.73 | 2.822 | 6.81 | 0.662 | +9
Zero Suit Samus | 9.86 | 2.099 | 6.74 | 0.594 | -3
Ryu | 12.4 | 2.758 | 6.51 | 0.766 | -3
Corrin | 15.06 | 3.691 | 6.0 | 0.808 | +5
Meta Knight | 15.39 | 3.046 | 5.82 | 0.717 | -1
Pikachu | 17.67 | 4.67 | 5.83 | 0.734 | -3
Mega Man | 17.7 | 4.126 | 5.62 | 0.556 | -1
Villager | 18.2 | 3.22 | 5.66 | 0.609 | -3
Lucina | 18.78 | 5.992 | 5.67 | 0.841 | +18
Lucario | 20.23 | 5.581 | 5.4 | 0.741 | +3
Toon Link | 20.84 | 3.874 | 5.33 | 0.654 | -3
Peach | 22.79 | 4.303 | 5.14 | 0.791 | +5
Greninja | 23.52 | 4.657 | 5.08 | 0.569 | -1
Captain Falcon | 23.61 | 4.608 | 5.11 | 0.801 | -3
Ness | 24.82 | 5.534 | 4.95 | 0.748 | -8
Bowser | 25.0 | 5.46 | 4.87 | 0.807 | +7
Luigi | 25.69 | 5.669 | 4.86 | 0.846 | +3
Olimar | 25.82 | 7.005 | 4.76 | 1.01 | +4
Donkey Kong | 26.63 | 4.32 | 4.71 | 0.644 | -3
Yoshi | 28.26 | 4.968 | 4.6 | 0.891 | -6
Pit [Dark Pit]| 28.69 | 6.021 | 4.52 | 0.825 | -6 [-3]
Lucas | 30.12 | 4.659 | 4.35 | 0.814 | +1
R.O.B. | 30.34 | 4.799 | 4.28 | 0.949 | -5
Robin | 30.64 | 5.555 | 4.22 | 0.782 | -4
Ike | 35.04 | 4.111 | 3.68 | 0.812 | ±0
Wario | 36.77 | 5.097 | 3.62 | 1.004 | -2
Duck Hunt | 37.09 | 6.539 | 3.42 | 0.917 | +5
Shulk | 37.31 | 5.894 | 3.47 | 0.871 | +6
Link | 38.59 | 4.908 | 3.37 | 0.842 | +4
Mr. Game & Watch | 39.18 | 5.54 | 3.29 | 0.972 | -3
Samus | 40.3 | 5.563 | 2.94 | 1.135 | +4
Palutena | 40.64 | 4.971 | 2.94 | 0.837 | -2
Little Mac | 42.0 | 4.461 | 2.87 | 0.911 | -4
Roy | 42.59 | 5.43 | 2.86 | 0.979 | +6
Charizard | 42.87 | 5.45 | 2.84 | 0.994 | +6
Pac-Man | 44.39 | 5.608 | 2.66 | 1.048 | -8
Kirby | 44.51 | 4.777 | 2.65 | 0.989 | -6
Bowser Jr. | 45.51 | 5.31 | 2.5 | 1.094 | -1
Wii Fit Trainer | 45.61 | 4.496 | 2.4 | 0.821 | -3
Falco | 45.68 | 4.059 | 2.39 | 0.829 | -1
Dr. Mario | 47.09 | 4.542 | 2.26 | 0.839 | -3
King Dedede | 50.0 | 2.991 | 1.71 | 0.859 | ±0
Ganondorf | 51.67 | 2.364 | 1.46 | 0.655 | +3
Mii Gunner | 51.75 | 2.537 | 1.69 | 0.533 | -1
Zelda | 51.93 | 2.531 | 1.43 | 0.579 | ±0
Mii Brawler | 52.14 | 3.27 | 1.73 | 1.006 | -2
Mii Swordsman | 52.5 | 5.099 | 1.61 | 0.629 | ±0
Jigglypuff | 53.64 | 1.459 | 1.18 | 0.356 | ±0

Some public concerns I've noticed:
- 4th highest standard deviation, will probably accept multiple submissions on this one due to her definitely being the biggest point of contention
- Highest standard deviation
- 3rd highest standard deviation ( as well)
- 2nd highest standard deviation

Other notable figures:
- high standard deviation, post-Frosbite opinions are mixed
- interesting position on the list (I will likely talk about this)
- lower end of standard deviation, but still a point of contention
- Japanese opinion of Sonic is that he's top 3, or even the best

Lastly, I'd like to ask what we should aim to do next. There is desire to do something new, and while I am looking into plans to bring the Backroom Pass back into the public, there's definitely more we can aim to do. I'm open to taking suggestions on this, so fire away.

 

[Illusion.]

I honestly think she's in a very good, if not perfect, spot. As for people saying she should be lower than by a mere 4-5 spots (in conjunction with this list), I think there's a valid argument for that. For people saying she should be right next to (basically moved up to top tier), I don't think any valid argument exists for that yet. Fundamentally, they're the same characters in the sense that they share the exact same moveset, gameplan, and share the same MU spread to some degree, which is why I believe that they should be no more than one tier apart, but 's tipper is what gives him the edge (no pun intended) and actually does determine MUs. The tipper on his sword kills opponents extremely early, earlier than could ever dream of (though she does have some impressive kill power of her own). There are actual setups into the tipper kill moves, meaning he has a couple more kill options than her that also kill earlier than she can. Don't get me wrong, has been achieving decent results as of late thanks to Kogarasuma, and now both Mr. E and ZeRo starting to use her more in bracket. The thing is, they're not on the same level as those of her ancestor. Players such as MKLeo, Mr. E, Pugwest, Fuwa, and a few others have achieved great, consistent results with , including winning a major. As of very recently there has been talk that is potentially better than , but that's another issue: potential is not a factor that can be used to place a character on a tier list; potential is merely subjective in the sense that it just talks about what could happen rather than what is happening now. People very recently claiming that is better than is a possibility, but it just remains to be seen. The characters are very similar, but the Hero-King is clearly a step above for now if we look at objectivity.


I agree with a lot of people that he's too high due to his results not being good as a select few of his fellow B tier brethren, but the amount of people underrating the guy by saying he's mid tier is surprising and just incorrect. Did people forget about Cosmos' 17th finish at his first ever major (The Big House 6), or YOC having won 2 or 3 decent sized tournaments in Japan, or Ryuga getting consistent top 24s at majors, or even Frozen's 17th finish at SSC 2016, making him one of 3 s to be in top 24 of that massive tournament? Theoretically, it has been agreed by top players of the character that he loses only to top tiers. If you've done any research, the data speaks for itself, he is not a mid tier character.

Future project:
A MU chart project would be fun to do, but I can see it being difficult to accomplish since there are some characters that have actually 0 representation here in the 4BR.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

MU chart project would be very hard but possible.

I'm pretty ok with how this tier list turned out. Only issue I had was with some people being kind of dickish to it's release.

 

[Luco]

MU chart would likely need what we did for Brawl's tier list v3, which is having knowledgable members of character boards / discords step up to create a panel for each character with a br member either in or managing that panel. Panels would work together and with other panels to create a spread for their character, and we might have to make a cap on the character panels they get to 'contest' for their placement, but that's not important to evaluate right now.

I believe it would go smoother than brawl's - bigger community, more information spread / general theorycrafting for smash 4 has radically improved, high level players are arguably more contactable now than in brawl or at least connections are easier to find since the advent of twitter and discord smash communities.

Yeah I think it's feasable if we want to do it.

 

[A10theHero]

There was also mention of doing a Doubles Tier List in the Discord server. We'd probably run it similarly to how we'd run MU discussion: Getting panels of people to make a short list of characters who pair well with their character.

Oh and we could always expand on ruleset discussion if we'd like. There's a lot we could do with this topic. The problem would mostly be deciding what we'd specifically like to talk about.

And, personally, I'm interested in seeing the BR Pass up and running again. Maybe after the followup article is published, we could start releasing those again.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Just to show what Shaya had in mind for possible stuff to do if anyone wanted to see other ideas.


1. We could help das/freezie with the orion rankings if we decide to go down this route, they have most of the stuff done but it can be finessed a bit more maybe since the 4br has tried doing a power rankings before they popped up.


3. Doubles tier list would be fun to do but that'd need more time in terms of smash 4 to find more interesting fun little janky stuff like the recent MK vs Game and watch while trying not to put every team just having Cloud + X character. We'd have to get high level doubles gods like say Marrs and pugwest or aarvark elegant if we were to attempt the first ever doubles tier list.


4/5. I would love to do this MU chart but the way v3 of the brawl MU chart went, how dead SB is outside of tier list thread and socials, top players just post a differing opinion on a MU chart or a handful of characters every couple weeks or months on twitter for followers/activity on their page (depends on player) and the mass will like that more than what we'd possibly pump out makes it seem less likely to ever finish even if we gave it a year. (Even then still no idea what's in store for Sm4sh in fall if the rumors are true with smash on switch)
At the same time if we can get mid-high or high level players to be active, it can be manageable but I honestly think we should finish it before winter, since fall is the possibility of a new update so snapshot of the meta before it.

If we could seriously somehow get all of the characters done and eventually finish it as best as we can, it would be better to have say we've done it at least once instead of beating around the bush and never doing it.

We missed our chance with possibly making 1 or maybe even 2/3 (one with differing stocks and mii legality) rulesets before the 10+ TOs just gathered together and make a ruleset that the mass actually hated but because its made by the big TO heads it's forced to be standard for everyone without much choice.


6. Gathering high level players I'd be fine with, or even data/content creators like how we've added Das koopa recently and now MySmashCorner. We're slowly getting people to maybe do stuff for us in the future, can't let it all go to waste.


As for characters listed I can't really delve into them since I play none of em, even if I pay attention to most of the characters. The Yoshi inactivity and decent sized dip I'll maybe go into if we do multiple articles but for now I'll hold on it.

 

[Illusion.]

Myran Tagging because I think you're the best candidate for commenting on Olimar.

 

[Myran]

I've said my thoughts on Olimar on a few occasions now so I won't get into that area really. Honestly I'm a bit surprised he's that low. I don't know what foundation people are using to judge him. I keep hearing he isn't good enough or something similar, and see people put characters like Toon Link or Greninja above him. I'm genuniely curious at this point why so many people think he isn't that good? It can't be the lack of results. In SoCal, Japan, and Florida alone you have numerous top wins. I myself have beaten a few PGR members while placing decent, usually 25th or 17th at the big tournaments this year for me. On top of all my FL wins which I get consistently. Shuton does phenomenal being PR'd 3 in all of Japan, and usually top 3ing a good portion of the tournaments he enters there. Add that to the fact that he got 5th at Frostbite, and 17th at Civil War (I know it came after), as well as having taken sets off a few top 10 pgr players, I feel people are severely underrating him. I've delved into Olimar on the mechanical level detailing his strengths, weaknesses, and MU spreads. I've gone on account letting people know that he does quite well in tons of MUs and loses barely any.

So as always feel free to ask me questions about him if there is something you would like to know. Also please do try to fill me in on how he is a mid tier? I'm a little salty at peoples poor perception of him, and constantly being told he's bad (It gets old after awhile) so sorry if this came off rude. Just trying to understand for like the 4th time why people rate him poorly.

Other than that I think the voting was fine.