Smash 4 Tiers Discussion

[Malcolm Belmont]

Let's talk tiers. Before you harp on me talking about tiers before the game has even come out..well i have a reason. Quite honestly i am shocked that pepole made tiers lists of a "Demo". It was clear the Smash demo was not the final version. Which makes me wonder if Smash 4 will end up like plenty of other fighters game such as UMVC3 where most of the matches played are just with top tier or really good characters..that's the question i ask to you..do you think Smash 4 competitive play will be heavily affected by the tier list?

 

[Renji64]

I don't see people being that affected by tiers smash 4 should have alot of variety if balanced right.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Of course. The main point of competitive play is to win so people are largely going to want to pair themselves off with the best characters. Tier lists aren't completely static though and can change over time as new things are discovered. Aside from Metaknight, Brawl's tier list is a good example of this. For example, Olimar was middle tier in 2008 but would eventually rise to be top tier in 2013. King Dedede was top tier in 2008 but fell to middle by 2013. People will still primarily side with the best characters but who the best characters are can change with time and experimentation when new things are learned about matchups and new strategies are found.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Fatmanonice pretty much covered this well. Players will want to win, so they'll be likely to pick the best characters. There wre exceptions to that (Think Will with DK, Pink fresh with Lucas) where people play a lower tier charcter just because they are so good with them or they are devoted to loving the character but you'll see a lot of top tier folks yes.

 

[Cap'nChreest]

"Pray to win"

Good characters will get picked more than bad ones. This will go even more so with custom moves if they are implemented into tournament play.

The demo tier list has some kind of warrant though. I mean no one is really taking it seriously but its not like the game is going to change too drastically. Besides, its interesting to learn stuff like that.

 

[YoshiandToad]

One of the more balanced fighting games I've played is actually J-Stars Victory Vs.
Whilst tiers still exist, the majority of fighters are at least viable in that game. I'm hoping we get a slightly better balance akin to J Stars rather than Brawl and Melee so we don't get the same old character match ups to watch over and over.

 

[Pyra]

Tiers exist for a reason. That was already discussed by other people in this thread.

However, I don't play by tiers. I play by whichever character I enjoy playing as. I'm one of those people. Neither way is bad by any means, though. Therefore, I never cared about tiers.

 

[Hong]

Well, most of the characters deliberately been given reasonable kill moves this games based on the demo. That's already better than the last two games.

Even though Smash 64 is an incredible volatile game with a pretty clear-cut tier list, every character is a highly trained assassin. Even Samus, IMO the worst fighter, has a reliable shield break and 0%-> death combos that involve dair. In this game I can comfortably play Link, a rather low tier character, and still fare reasonably well against an enemy near my skill level.

In Smash 4, we have many examples of characters getting good kill moves. This is important, because a lot of characters like Roy in Melee are held in low regard because they can't close things as fast as other characters. If you want a newcomer example, WFT's jab combo plants you into the ground. All those funky, short-ranged smash attacks, are now great options for scoring kills. If you want two veteran examples, there is Samus and Pit. Samus's Screw Attack now KOs at a reasonable %, and this is just an OOS option. Pit on the other hand, a character who had a great moveset in Brawl but a hard time scoring KOs, now has the Upperdash Arm, a KO move with super armour.

Tiers will always exist. Largely based on who either has the most options, or who deprives the enemy of the most options, and how they affect each individual match-up. That said, if every character is broken in their own way and has reasonable methods in which to clean up a stock, there will be a much greater range of validity.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

From what I saw in the demo, every character had prospects other than Zelda who was just awful though the game is incomplete so I suppose it's too early to give up on even her.

The thing with a tier list is that it's the person or organization posting its subjective view on the value of the units being tiered based on their current knowledge. So when I posted a tier list for smash 4 based on my demo experience, I was posting how strong the characters seemed to me relative to each other based on what I knew. Honestly, as long as the characters remain different at all, I could complete this exercise even in a very balanced game; it's not a sign of the balance of the game to be able to estimate tiers (though seeing differences in different tier lists should be a good sign of incredibly tight balance).

No one can really tell you the balance curve of smash 4 now, but at face value, it seemed better than it had been before. Every character other than Zelda had a variety of strong things about them, and even the few who seemed more clearly lower (Mega Man and Rosalina) were complex enough that it was very plausible to assume that there was simply more to learn than could be learned in the time the demo allowed and that further these characters were obviously terrible in timed FFA and probably benefitted a lot from a more controlled 1v1 environment. Now, as games evolve, the balance really only gets "worse"; balance really never changes, but as we learn, we learn to exploit balance differences more which makes lower tiers relatively less viable with time. However, with both Melee and Brawl, a pretty broad class of characters were just obviously terrible and could be written off on day one so your starting point wasn't even that great. In this game, we get to write Zelda off day one (unless she is super-buffed from the demo!) but have to consider what so far seems to be the entire rest of the cast. In other words, there are no promises for the future, but the starting point seems optimistic.

In terms of the practical, what kind of character diversity you see in tournaments, realize that it's just as much cultural as a reflection on the balance. Here in the Midwest, people pick all kinds of crazy low tiers even to this day; the last Brawl tournament I was at had a Lucas player, a Wolf player, and a Samus player, and MK was only something like 1/6 of the field even including everyone who ever used MK as a MK player (that is, multi-character users who included MK in the rotation). To be clear, this is way more diversity than the game's balance really supports; it's just a sign that people are willing to put themselves at big disadvantages in the name of their favorite characters around here. On the other hand, if you go to Atlantic North and see a tournament, it's just plain different and people tier up a lot more, arguably even more than the game's balance really suggests they "should". So really, just as much as hoping for good balance, you also have to consider the cultures, and while you can probably nudge those, they aren't the most flexible things in the world. It's probably healthiest to just be happy using whatever character you personally want to use and not to worry about what others do...

 

[Cap'nChreest]

From what I saw in the demo, every character had prospects other than Zelda who was just awful though the game is incomplete so I suppose it's too early to give up on even her.

The thing with a tier list is that it's the person or organization posting its subjective view on the value of the units being tiered based on their current knowledge. So when I posted a tier list for smash 4 based on my demo experience, I was posting how strong the characters seemed to me relative to each other based on what I knew. Honestly, as long as the characters remain different at all, I could complete this exercise even in a very balanced game; it's not a sign of the balance of the game to be able to estimate tiers (though seeing differences in different tier lists should be a good sign of incredibly tight balance).

No one can really tell you the balance curve of smash 4 now, but at face value, it seemed better than it had been before. Every character other than Zelda had a variety of strong things about them, and even the few who seemed more clearly lower (Mega Man and Rosalina) were complex enough that it was very plausible to assume that there was simply more to learn than could be learned in the time the demo allowed and that further these characters were obviously terrible in timed FFA and probably benefitted a lot from a more controlled 1v1 environment. Now, as games evolve, the balance really only gets "worse"; balance really never changes, but as we learn, we learn to exploit balance differences more which makes lower tiers relatively less viable with time. However, with both Melee and Brawl, a pretty broad class of characters were just obviously terrible and could be written off on day one so your starting point wasn't even that great. In this game, we get to write Zelda off day one (unless she is super-buffed from the demo!) but have to consider what so far seems to be the entire rest of the cast. In other words, there are no promises for the future, but the starting point seems optimistic.

In terms of the practical, what kind of character diversity you see in tournaments, realize that it's just as much cultural as a reflection on the balance. Here in the Midwest, people pick all kinds of crazy low tiers even to this day; the last Brawl tournament I was at had a Lucas player, a Wolf player, and a Samus player, and MK was only something like 1/6 of the field even including everyone who ever used MK as a MK player (that is, multi-character users who included MK in the rotation). To be clear, this is way more diversity than the game's balance really supports; it's just a sign that people are willing to put themselves at big disadvantages in the name of their favorite characters around here. On the other hand, if you go to Atlantic North and see a tournament, it's just plain different and people tier up a lot more, arguably even more than the game's balance really suggests they "should". So really, just as much as hoping for good balance, you also have to consider the cultures, and while you can probably nudge those, they aren't the most flexible things in the world. It's probably healthiest to just be happy using whatever character you personally want to use and not to worry about what others do...

Poor Zelda

 

[Jigglymaster]

The tier lists are inevitable, however when they're not around its the most exciting, in the very beginning any character is viable and we learn new things at a very rapid pace, its also very exciting even to figure out what the tier lists are going to even be like. Where will your character stand? Can you perform well enough to be the one that gets your character on the top?

 

[Canuckduck]

Obviously, since this is a fighting game, and thus will be played competitively, there will be a tier list. Unfortunately, we can't decipher the rankings of the tier list now, since the game hasn't been released yet. As such, I don't know why we need a thread about this now, 3 months before the game comes out on the 3DS, and 4-6 months before the game comes out on the Wii U.

 

[Hong]

And they're perfectly okay.

Tier list is a manifestation of popular opinion. Most people, out of a sample of so-called knowledgeable or higher performing players, consider this character the best, that character the worst. When you see a tier list, just take it as that; an opinion. While characters mathematically perform better than others, it's far too variable based on the player base to say that is an objective representation of the character. Of course since it's just a median of a range of opinions, your own opinion will have some differences.

And that's just fine. I'm all for tier lists, and can only encourage a basic level of discretion in how you interpret it.

 

[Con0rrrr]

I just hope the community accepts this game and that Smash 4 gets a serious competitive scene first of all.

But when I look past that most characters seem viable. Maybe there will be a Meta Knight of Smash 4, but if not, the balance is looking to be good. Which I like, because at the core of the game, it's about fighting other Nintendo characters as your favorite Nintendo character. Which is something I have forgotten since 64 days, but has potential to return in Smash 4.

Besides Zelda of course

 

[LancerStaff]

Personally, I'm confident in SSB4's balance. Even FD won't be as polarizing as before because of the overall camping nerf and patches preventing things like chaingrabs from being the norm.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Of course it will. In past games, newbies have been known to just pick one of the top characters (and sometimes lose as a a result of not understanding how that character plays) and even today at top level play, we see people dropping characters in favour of a higher-tiered one (eg. Taj started to main Marth instead of Mewtwo sometime before he retired, Hax dropping C.Falcon for Fox, etc.)

That said, I guess that it depends on how balanced the game is. I think the game will be heavily affected no matter what, but if the game ends up so unbalanced that only a few characters can be considered even viable, then yeah...

 

[Egg.]

I like to think that if custom moves are implemented into the tournament scene we would have a chance at seeing more character variety than in previous titles. Replacing a character's specials may be just what we need to give them a fighting chance, since it could allow us to change their moves to have a way to avoid bad match-ups. If Mario turns out to have a horrible recovery for example, you could just change his Up+B to be the farther distance option and cover that weakness.

Even without custom moves though, just the fact that Sakurai isn't balancing the whole game by himself gives me hope that we at least won't have any more crazy god-like characters. There will still be top tiers most likely, but I don't think the gap between top and middle will be as bad as it has been in the past.

 

[Octillus]

And they're perfectly okay.

Tier list is a manifestation of popular opinion. Most people, out of a sample of so-called knowledgeable or higher performing players, consider this character the best, that character the worst. When you see a tier list, just take it as that; an opinion. While characters mathematically perform better than others, it's far too variable based on the player base to say that is an objective representation of the character. Of course since it's just a median of a range of opinions, your own opinion will have some differences.

And that's just fine. I'm all for tier lists, and can only encourage a basic level of discretion in how you interpret it.

All I'd like to say to this is I remember Gimpyfish's Bowser well from years ago. People get too caught up in numeric value sometimes - if you want to make a character work, you can certainly do so.

 

[ChikoLad]

It doesn't matter where or in what context people post this, it will always be funny to me.

--------------

One often overlooked quirk about tier lists is that certain characters naturally take more to learn even at a basic level, and therefore, certain characters will take longer to even be assessed for any spot on the tier list. This also applies to people who are simply looking for a character to play as for the first time - even if they aren't doing it for a tier list, some characters will take longer to understand than others.

For example, when I started with PS-All Stars, I couldn't play Sackboy to save my life because I didn't have a clue how to use him effectively enough to even beat Arcade Mode. However, I eventually became a really good player with the character. Initially, I thought he would be garbage tier, but he ended up being one of the characters who needed nerfing!

I think Rosalina is going to be a similar situation to what Sackboy was in PS-All Stars, since they are similar in the sense that they are highly technical and space is an especially important factor for them both (no pun intended), and are not beginner friendly at all.

 

[Senario]

Let's talk tiers. Before you harp on me talking about tiers before the game has even come out..well i have a reason. Quite honestly i am shocked that pepole made tiers lists of a "Demo". It was clear the Smash demo was not the final version. Which makes me wonder if Smash 4 will end up like plenty of other fighters game such as UMVC3 where most of the matches played are just with top tier or really good characters..that's the question i ask to you..do you think Smash 4 competitive play will be heavily affected by the tier list?

Well a tier list is essentially a theoretical list of if everybody played perfectly which would be the best character...

And honestly you can't really balance any game perfectly, something will always be stronger than the rest. I haven't seen any game, much less a fighting game where everybody was equally viable. Worrying about whether or not it'll affect people is a moot point. Some characters will be better than others, there is no getting around this. And even if there is it would be very very difficult to do and more time consuming than the money is worth (because game devs get paid).

Tier lists for the demo were made by people who have a lot of experience with the game from what I've seen, and all of them have said that things could change and who is better than whom can change.

Although this is all assuming Smash 4 will be decently competitive in the first place. That part needs to be determined first before worrying about a tier list that may not even matter for the most part because the game might not have good competitive aspects.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm with @ Pyra , I play who I enjoy using, but at the same time, I naturally enjoy using better characters. It's not something a consciously choose, but it just happens that way. Tiers will always exist no matter what you do, and there is no such thing as perfect balance. But Smash 4 seems to be taking a step in the right direction, which is all I wanted from this game. Also Kirby seems much better which is always a plus in my book since he's my favorite video game character of all time, but that's just bias. Regardless of how balanced the game is, I'm still excited to get my hands on it and destroy everyone I know.

 

[Meelow]

At the Smashfest I played Link for my first round (not to shocking seeing my account) and he seems like he is better then he was in Brawl.

Hopefully Ness is a little buffed.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Tiers exist for a reason. That was already discussed by other people in this thread.

However, I don't play by tiers. I play by whichever character I enjoy playing as. I'm one of those people. Neither way is bad by any means, though. Therefore, I never cared about tiers.

You can't care about tier lists and be a Little Mac main.

I bet he ends up being one of the most precariously placed characters.

 

[Pyra]

You can't care about tier lists and be a Little Mac main.

I bet he ends up being one of the most precariously placed characters.

Pretty much, Quilt!

Regardless of how people think he'd be tiered so far, he was fun as hell to play as and he's a cool character overall, so I'll play as him.

Even competitively.
Haha. Tiers are a cool thing to have for a lot of people though, and I have nothing against them.

 

[Morbi]

Honestly; tier lists are, for the most part, irrelevant. They can only provide insight as to which characters are competitively viable in the current meta-game with the current players. The list is subject to change once we discover new tech or once people begin to use characters more frequently and they do not account for "mind-games," certain play-styles, MU knowledge, or player circumstances. As someone mentioned earlier, they are supposed to hypothetically discern the most powerful and least powerful characters based on if two players of equal skill and mentality were to play. However, as I already alluded, they are not objective in the slightest. I would not be surprised if Yoshi jumped in the tier list just because AMSa is using the character (similar to Peach and Armada). Or another example, M2K shares the same opinion as I, Falco is the top character and tournament results (predominantly) support this. But of course, the tier list does not necessarily account for tournament results and even if they did, the results would not be accurate as; again, those would not be able to determine some inherent contributing factors to player performance.

I am not really sure what I am getting at. The Smash 4 competitive scene WILL be influenced by the tier list and what players perceive as "viable" characters despite common misconceptions that may or may not be pertinent to the individual. People want to win, so they will play the top character without actually determining whether or not the play-style suits them as the assumption is that the S or SS or SSSSSSSSSSS character covers everything and therefore they do not need to address their own habits and needs. Chris G might be a good example in Injustice. Green Arrow is not considered top-tier and the only reason he is mid-tier is because Chris mains him. However, Chris G has fighting game fundamentals, so a mix-up character was precisely what he wanted for the game. Injustice players are not typically as good at blocking as Marvel players. He could have, at launch, mained Superman because he was "top" or the best. It did not matter though, he chose a character that actually fit his needs and covered his strengths. Not many players are intelligent enough to do that. Another example, Perfect Legend from Mortal Kombat. He was the preeminent Kung Lao main and EVO 2011/2012 champion for MK9. After he lost during EVO 2013 MK9, he needlessly blamed his character and tried to pick the "top" character Kabal. Everyone would joke that his Kabal was the worst top Kabal. Even though Kabal was "easy-mode" he could not get the same results. Kabal was clearly lacking some of the tools that Perfect Legend abused with Lao that made him great (mostly the teleport) despite Lao only being upper-mid (if I recall correctly) tier by the end of MK9's life-cycle.

Top-tier characters could actually be worse based on the notion that everyone consistently practices the MU. For instance, Fox is the top character in Melee, everyone uses him as they erroneously presume that he is the best. You main Ganondorf or Samus. They might be used to facing other top-tier characters, but they lack MU knowledge of your character. You INSTANTLY have the advantage regardless of whether or not the tier list is 100% accurate. Obviously, the same applies the other way around, you have MU experience against Fox; therefore, you understand the the MU and you can respect their options whereas they cannot do the same. In fact, if you are better at reading your opponent, you have the clear advantage once again and that has nothing to do with tier lists. Player skill (whether it be from reactions, intelligence, technical skill, or fighting game fundamentals) is WAY more useful than maining a top character.

Maximilian actually made a video quite recently on this very subject. I would urge you to check it out if you are interested. He probably summarized the information more concisely. Albeit; he says, "echelon" a couple of hundred times. It gets a little annoying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep3sii5vsBY

 

[Venks]

If I made a tier list based off of my experience with the Smash 4 Demo it would be this:

S: Little Mac
A: Bowser, Link, Donkey Kong
B: Greninja, Kirby, Fox, Marth, Zero Suit Samus
C: Mario, Samus, Pit, Pikachu, Olimar, Sonic
D: Mega Man, Rosalina, Villager, Wii Fit Trainer,
E: Zelda

Now let me tell you why my tier list is pretty pointless. For starters the game isn't even out yet and thus everything is subject to change. Secondly, the only format I have experience with is FFAs with items on in random stages with two minute time. Obviously certain characters are better at this format then others.

Do you see the link between all the 'higher tier' characters? They all KO easily. These characters are slower then the rest and usually struggle to get in on their opponents. But in this format they can let the chaos raise everyone's percent and then reliably KO faster than anyone else.

Now lets compare the 'B tier' to 'C tier', do you know what the difference is here? Popularity. The characters in the higher tier were chosen a lot more then the tier below them and thus quite obviously won more matches overall. But does that actually make them better characters?

'C Tier' to 'D tier' should be obvious. No one understand how to properly play any of the newcomers excluding Little Mac. The boxer is very easy to pick up and play in comparison to the rest of the cast. Mega Man was chosen the most out of everyone in this tier, but way too many players wasted time tossing around metal blades or crash bombers and had a very hard time landing any KOs. All of these characters still have plenty of potential. A friend of mine who's probably the best Brawl Ness in all of Victoria picked up Villager and did an amazing job learning how to use his tools. She won nearly all of her matches by exploiting the Lloid Rocket and his instant axe. If more players were to learn from her than Villager would easily be much higher on my made up tier list.

And lastly Zelda at the bottom. Her popularity and apparent nerfs would place her there. Like Mega Man she's a zoning character and thus doesn't do very well in two minute FFAs. But honestly her down special is incredibly unexplored and there's no telling what could be discovered for the character with more time.

Oh and another reason my tier list is pretty silly is that most of my matches and the matches I have watched are mostly comprised of casual players playing a game they've never played before. I seriously watched a six year old kid beat three adults with Bowser. This tier list would look completely different with the standard format, more time with the game, and more capable players.

All of that said though I have a lot of hope for this game's balance. Excluding Meta Knight and Snake I found the disparity between high tier and low tier characters to be rather tolerable. With all the buffs going around to lower tier characters in Smash 4 (except Zelda) I think we'll see a lot of character diversity in Smash 4 tournaments. That said though a new character could be introduced and some new tactic invented. We'll just have to wait and see how things play out, but for now I'd say we're on the right track.