Tier List Speculation

[Oracle]

Oracle this is totally DBZ
Let's Fusion Dance and become more powerful

Strong Boracle apex 2015 champ

@ Cassio who do you think doesnt have the tools to compete? Cant be pikachu

 

[Guilu]

The day Fox and Falco get PAL nerfs will be the greatest day of PM's life.
But for Europe... it is merely tuesday.

I don't care about Fox and Falco, I just want Ganon's backair back.

 

[Metazoa]

I hear about Mortal Kombat 9 or some other NRS that kept on changing very quickly between versions.
If it ever gets to the point that the game is changed like every week or so that'll be when things get too crazy.

 

[SixSaw]

Similar, but more in that you can cancel then resume the start up.

Picture: Ganon goes halfway through the start up then (shields). The next time he does Nspec, it would resume from where he canceled it last.

Ganon still has to go through the motions, but not all at once

So couldn't you just do all the startup and have a frame 1 warlock punch at your disposal?

 

[Kaeldiar]

What if Game and Watch held his hitboxes out for the whole match
I think what they might've been trying to do by keeping Olimar down at 4 Pikmin was keeping from going rapid-fire with the Pikmin Throw, since it's quite easy to not have Pikmin on standby if you just keep throwing them and tossing out Side Smash.

When I said that about G&W, I was thinking about his d-tilt. His moves last a while, and typically they will hurt you as long as they're out. His d-tilt is the exception to that. Long lasting hitboxes are all a part of his gimmicky play.

As far as Olimar goes...I see Olimar with 6 pikmin in Brawl as high tier, and Olimar with 4 pikmin in P:M as typically pretty low tier. 5 seemed like a nice medium, considering that he came out mostly the same with his other nerfs/buffs.

 

[Kaeldiar]

There has been a minimum of 6 months between every major patch/update. This is towards people that act like the game is changed frequently.

And 3.0 was released about 2 months ago (Dec 12). I'm not saying we need to wait a year to make changes, but give the players some time to adjust. Think about how much Jigglypuff improved with Wall of Pain, and how Wobbling bumped ICs up a handful of spots. I know that we won't have quite as many revolutionary discoveries, since we've had this game engine for a while, but it wasn't until Armada had time to figure out Pit that he became REALLY good. It takes time. 2 months is not enough. I can foresee the last big update on P:M coming after Evo 2014. Evo can tell us that X really really sucks or Y is really really OP. Apex gave us some insight into a good number of characters. Just look at the top 8 (10 characters due to secondaries)

I think that shows that the game is pretty balanced as is. It doesn't NEED a big update right now. If Evo starts to look like it might be the year 20xx, then that will be the time to make changes.

EDIT: Changed one of the Snakes to Marth, because I fail

So couldn't you just do all the startup and have a frame 1 warlock punch at your disposal?

Oh God, I would love to play with this a couple times just for the novelty, like Giga Bowser.

 

[JOE!]

So couldn't you just do all the startup and have a frame 1 warlock punch at your disposal?

In theory, unless it was only until a certain point / yadda yadda. From that one time I gathered all the frame data from brawl, the Warlock punch takes 117 frames to animate, 127 reversed (just about two whole seconds). Not entirely sure when it actually comes out during that time, but having a window where you can end it early then pick it up later (with it being interrupt-able still lets say) and then still having wind-up to it I think could be a fun trait to show off such a supposedly powerful dude. The drawback of "Time" is still present, and if other characters can have such advantages (See: other charge up maneuvers) or even just plain fast + powerful attacks, why not?

It'd have to be balanced sure, but this is getting derailed form the main thread fast lol.

Perhaps I should / somebody should make a "Vent what you;d want changed" thread lol.

 

[Ogopogo]

Thinking on that more, how hype would it be if you actually could "pre-load" the Warlock punch and use it for like, tons of different finishers?

I'm thinking it would be something akin to DK's Banana Slamma. You would charge it like Lucas does his Offense-Up (I'm not sure if you can charge it gradually like Needles or DK's Punch, I'm assuming you can't), and you'd press b to unleash it as an awesome combo completer.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I don't remember a Falco in Apex top 8, but there was a Marth. Mew2King was the only one who really used secondaries; Main Fox, Mewtwo v/s DEHF and Armada (1 match), Marth v/s Sethlon and Armada (1 match each).

If DEHF went Falco at somepoint pardon me for the lapse in memory.

 

[Kaeldiar]

I don't remember a Falco in Apex top 8, but there was a Marth. Mew2King was the only one who really used secondaries; Main Fox, Mewtwo v/s DEHF and Armada (1 match), Marth v/s Sethlon and Armada (1 match each).

If DEHF went Falco at somepoint pardon me for the lapse in memory.

Yeah, DEHF played Falco against M2K's Mewtwo (and got 3-0'd)

 

[\Apples]

Nice double Snake

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Yeah, DEHF played Falco against M2K's Mewtwo (and got 3-0'd)

DEHF went Fox all three games, not Falco.

Around game 3 he pretty much gave up and kept taunt-cancelling "Here I come". That sort of thing sticks with you.

Edit: Nvm, watching it again and DEHF went Falco at least game 1.

PS. Mewtwo beat spacies, nerf plz

 

[KingDozie]

I'm thinking it would be something akin to DK's Banana Slamma. You would charge it like Lucas does his Offense-Up (I'm not sure if you can charge it gradually like Needles or DK's Punch, I'm assuming you can't), and you'd press b to unleash it as an awesome combo completer.

Lol the leffen post.

 

[Kokomaniac]

The only accurate tier list will incorporate some sort of normal curve like a year from now that takes into account the placings of all characters in major/medium sized tournaments

 

[Jaedrik]

It is a common theme in high level Fighting Games. Even in counterpick matchups, the bad matchup can win very easily. Just because two players are "equal skill" doesn't mean that the player with the better matchup will always win. There are a lot of factors that go into a players skill, and players function entirely different based on a myriad of factors. Anything from lack of sleep, good diet, emotional state, lack of focus, and a million other things affect a players execution and decision making. Everyone basically has a spectrum of how of good and bad they could play at any possible time. In addition to that, even if the players are equally skilled, the player with the bad matchup might be a specialist in that matchup, or the good matchup player might be slightly inexperienced and just executing the known counter strategy without any adaptation. This stuff happens in games like Street Fighter, where there is a lot less freedoms. In a game like smash, where it's basically a sandbox fighter and has so many freedoms of movement, it is way harder to have those situations where a character virtually cannot win. Brawl Ganon is the closest thing I can think of to "unwinnable matchups" in smash bros, and I have seen high level Ganons take games off of high level Ice Climbers.

Oracle's statement that the better player wins means just that. Whoever is playing better at that time will most likely win. There certainly are cases where a player outplays his/her opponent for the majority of the set and loses, but that is hardly the norm.

Of course it doesn't, never would I claim such a thing, and I acknowledge all variables that affect a player's state.

What I am talking about is the generality of the situation, not victory at any given instant. It can be said, when intuiting the skill of a player, that a player's skill is comparatively better or comparatively worse than another, and since we can create ordinal rankings of skill, we can approximate which sets and types of skills are close enough among competitors to call them of 'even skill', and if they are of 'even skill', they will principally have match results reflecting the actual advantage and disadvantage a character has in a match-up, not in the perceived, but in the real. Character match-up is just as much made up of knowable qualities as are person's match-ups, to deny one is to deny the other.

The only way to know that one player is better than another is through analysis of their play, and analysis of their play implies that it can be analyzed, and since qualities (zoning, spacing, comboing, DI ability, mental attitude in the typical instance) determine the quality of a person's overall skill, and since we can know qualities through analyzing play, we can know--to whatever degree, however imperfect and incomplete, it remains true--really, actually, truly know, not just think we know or have the illusion we know, exactly how and why one player is better than another, and from this we can further approximate what combinations of ordinal rank in each skill are required to be of 'even skill' to another player with different strengths and weaknesses. I would much rather think of a character's moveset and attributes as multipliers for the player's skill to be inputted into, disregarding the obvious fact that there are no strict numbers we may objectively apply to 'skills'.

So, insofar as Oracle denies the ability to classify players as having 'even skill', he contradicts himself when he implies that he has the ability to classify one player as better than another. Obviously an inconsistency. That's all I was getting at.
If one denies this statement and maintains this inconsistent viewpoint, they open up the doors to further intellectual relativism such as 'tiers don't exist', Oracle's viewpoint could be summed up as the analogue 'skill doesn't exist'. But he obviously doesn't believe that, I know, which is why I want him to be consistent in his statements.

Not that I disagree with his advice--in fact, I couldn't agree more, blaming a bad match-up for a loss is extremely counter-productive to self-improvement, not to mention incredibly arrogant.

 

[Burnsy]

And 3.0 was released about 2 months ago (Dec 12). I'm not saying we need to wait a year to make changes, but give the players some time to adjust. Think about how much Jigglypuff improved with Wall of Pain, and how Wobbling bumped ICs up a handful of spots. I know that we won't have quite as many revolutionary discoveries, since we've had this game engine for a while, but it wasn't until Armada had time to figure out Pit that he became REALLY good. It takes time. 2 months is not enough.

Ok? Who are you arguing with? It seems to me that the person you quoted would agree with you that 2 months is not enough time to need a new balance patch. Where are you getting this information that the PMBR actually are planning on rolling out a balance update soon? I feel as though I missed something in the last 10 pages. You realize that the PMBR is known to ignore many vocal demands for balance, right? This isn't going to turn into some weekly updated LoL/Dota just because people whine in this thread (last two points were directed more at everyone who thinks the PMBR makes knee-jerk nerfs due to complaints, not just you necessarily). And besides all that, these devs have learned from past mistakes of over-doing the balance updates with Brawl+

 

[Oracle]

@ Jaedrik Well there are so many different things you could classify as skill that generalizing it into saying someone is 'better' is always gonna be more accurate. When I played rolex at apex, I felt I was a smarter player than he was in terms of prediction and adapting(no disrespect, he whooped me lol), but he punished harder, knew more ways around my stuff, and had a much better understanding of both characters than I did. Whos the better player in that scenario? Saying that hes better than I or vice versa isnt really accurate. In that scenario, he was better at the stuff that mattered, and thats that. I know that wadnt communicated well in my previous post, I should have said that "whoever plays better will win".

Wobbles' blog has a much better explanation about this topic here.

As for the last part, I would argue that its impossible to believe in the tiers/viability/bad matchups thing without having it negatively affect your play. Shedding that be mindset was kne of the most important, if not the most important, steps that led me to get as good as I am today (its hard to have that mentality when you learn smash through getting messed up by sethlons melee roy twice a week haha)

 

[Burnsy]

<3 Wobbles blog tho

 

[Jaedrik]

@ Jaedrik Well there are so many different things you could classify as skill that generalizing it into saying someone is 'better' is always gonna be more accurate. When I played rolex at apex, I felt I was a smarter player than he was in terms of prediction and adapting(no disrespect, he whooped me lol), but he punished harder, knew more ways around my stuff, and had a much better understanding of both characters than I did. Whos the better player in that scenario? Saying that hes better than I or vice versa isnt really accurate. In that scenario, he was better at the stuff that mattered, and thats that. I know that wadnt communicated well in my previous post, I should have said that "whoever plays better will win".

Wobbles' blog has a much better explanation about this topic here.

As for the last part, I would argue that its impossible to believe in the tiers/viability/bad matchups thing without having it negatively affect your play. Shedding that be mindset was kne of the most important, if not the most important, steps that led me to get as good as I am today (its hard to have that mentality when you learn smash through getting messed up by sethlons melee roy twice a week haha)

Ha! I can't say impossible, but it's a matter of perspective, just because something is true doesn't mean it has to affect you negatively! It is about perspective, and while many become bummed out that they lost, if one is not concerned about losing at all, why would it negatively affect his play? Truly, there are such people, and the belief in tiers and match-ups will not stop them from playing their best! Take M2K's recent development of playing for fun instead of playing for wins/money as a prime example, from his perspective it matters less and less the viability, and I suppose eventually one can reach a point where there is absolutely no concern in his mind about whatever previous reason for his nervousness. As for the ultimately pessimistic perspective, if one never expects to get out of his rut, then how can he motivate himself to get out of his rut? Action implies an end goal, and unless the person is attempting to disprove their own perspective for amusement (which further implies they admit they could be wrong), their weakness will remain invincible.

Okay, lemmie try to wax philosophical for a moment:
As for 'better', it is completely relative to the opponent, and with such limited knowledge I don't feel able to qualify from the results of your battle with Rolex. It does require a much larger analysis, but what I'm trying to say here is that it's possible to do, even if I'm too much of a scrub to do it. Better is instance dependent, and scenario specific, this accounts for all 'rock-paper-scissors' things.
Skill is, like I said, not instance dependent, it is a principle and generalization unto itself, scenarios have nothing to do with it besides helping us to ascertain which skills are more important than others within their parameters.
Skill is the number and strength of strategically relevant schema sets internalized in the player. Strength is frequency of execution in strategically relevant situations as well as the importance to said strategy. Therefore, skill can be called habitual, and skill depends on other skills to execute ad infinitum until we suppose a first skill. . . but that's another story altogether. What is "strategically relevant" is often called the "metagame", and the "metagame" is being actualized at all moments by every player that utilizes their knowledge in such a way to analyze the situation and respond accordingly.
Conceptualization of skill is both logically and temporally antecedent to comprehension of 'better' in the scenario, this means that absolutely no amount of 'better' will ever confirm or deny the principles set forth by right reason and its use of speculation and abstraction (and all the other abilities of the intelligence) to apprehend skill, different types of skill, and the general application thereof. After all, one cannot explain the cause of something without the causes.
So, in that, I am forced to disagree with Wobbles' assumptions as to the association between skill and being 'better' or 'worse'. I didn't even start out with the same definition of skill , so winning or losing more or less has absolutely no bearing on the player's skill. Indeed, this would make sense with the realization of metagame, I can say that since I beat my cousin using strategies that are relevant in those scenarios, I am better than him, but what is strategically relevant when considering any other scenario? I am confounded, it is impossible to suppose I would be 'better' than Oracle even though my win/loss is perfect. Likewise, since the skills I employ are not strategically relevant to the metagame (redundancy, ho!), I cannot say that I have more skill than one who is objectively more advanced in that respect than I.
But, all I really did was switch the definitions around and articulate them a little bit more thoroughly. Skill is a metagame dependent absolute, where 'better' is the ratio of all environing factors to skill, skill being the common denominator.
You can plug in Roadblock and Wildcard for this system and find acceptable results, I'm sure.
Lastly, when we say players are 'evenly matched', I guess what we really mean to say is that the outcome--that is, who is likely to be better--is uncertain.

At this point, I'm sure there are many inconsistencies and avenues one can go down to tear my system apart, but do you find this system agreeable so far? :D
Edit: oh dear, it's late, goodnight!

 

[BigglesWorth]

Wow, there is a lot good stuff in this last part. Is there still discussion of neutral being the determinant for a character's tier? I was going to chime in with a few kinds of "neutral game" different characters present (or at least a my own whimsical, ill attempt at classifying it).

 

[Empyrean]

Legion Commander is my waifu

I like how everyone started using LC when she got revealed. It's like they forgot that there were 100+ other heroes that most of which they hadn't even tried at that point and just jumped aboard the shiny, new character.

I was actually afraid that many would switch to Pit post-Apex. I'm glad that didn't happen though, for the sake of maintaining a healthy character variety.

 

[Ogopogo]

I like how everyone started using LC when she got revealed. It's like they forgot that there were 100+ other heroes that most of which they hadn't even tried at that point and just jumped aboard the shiny, new character.

I remember reading somewhere that more people played her in 2 months than have played Chen EVER. (I think that's right.)

I was also worried that everyone would board the Pit train. Whenever I saw a Pit I caught myself judgmentally thinking that they had only chosen to play Pit because of Armada's performance. I know that people like that exist (my best friend is one of those) but I stop myself when I think that.

 

[Empyrean]

I remember reading somewhere that more people played her in 2 months than have played Chen EVER. (I think that's right.)

Ah, Chen... What, there are like two people who use him in the world for pub matches? Removing the Fountain Hook didn't help with his popularity. Man, fountain hooking was like the sacred combo from Melee/PM.

 

[Cassio]

Ya'll are complicating things way too much. Clarifying a point stated earlier I think by oracle, you can quantify who is better but you can't quantify skill. In fact one of the biggest issues I see on the board are people's attempts to measure things you can't measure.

Its easy to quantify who is better because we start with the answer and then give it a name. People who win are better.

Skills become so complex within a function to determine victors that isolating them becomes too difficult. How you do measure someones ability to get enough sleep and eat good meals before an event; and how it affects your ability to shffl consistently vs make reads on your opponent? How do you quantify someones ability to hold it together under duress? These are all important abilities in winning, but trying to isolate them becomes harmful when we take a wrong answer we assume is right (instead of just acknowledging we dont know). The only thing I would ever attempt to argue on this matter is that external factors weigh more heavily than in game mechanics.

I think this is an issue for the PM community in particular. Many players came to this game because of the imbalances of Brawl and Melee, and became very focused on ultimate fairness and tend to disregard other aspects of competition. I think in the end while its definitely nice to have balance considerations, the degree of its importance in PM could potentially do it and the community harm. As examples, a player who could withstand the toughness of mechanical imbalances or issues becomes a powerful competitor. While balance is noble, in terms of competition the world doesnt toss you a level playing field you have to work with what you have. As another example, an emphasis on balance may be an issue when it seems to subvert other development considerations i.e. flow and personality.

Strong Boracle apex 2015 champ

@ Cassio who do you think doesnt have the tools to compete? Cant be pikachu

I emphasize possibility. Though I have ideas I don't know the rest of the cast well enough to feel comfortable judging, some of the more frequently discussed characters are candidates and perhaps others that have benefited from a metagame that isnt fully developed. However Im just banking on the odds. Pikachu is different. I know that character, but the discussion requires more depth then I can put into it for the time being. I will add that tonight I stopped by Pikachad's stream and asked him about PM pikachu, and without any nudging whatsoever he stated almost verbatim my true thoughts on the character too.

 

[Kaeldiar]

Ok? Who are you arguing with? It seems to me that the person you quoted would agree with you that 2 months is not enough time to need a new balance patch. Where are you getting this information that the PMBR actually are planning on rolling out a balance update soon? I feel as though I missed something in the last 10 pages. You realize that the PMBR is known to ignore many vocal demands for balance, right? This isn't going to turn into some weekly updated LoL/Dota just because people whine in this thread (last two points were directed more at everyone who thinks the PMBR makes knee-jerk nerfs due to complaints, not just you necessarily). And besides all that, these devs have learned from past mistakes of over-doing the balance updates with Brawl+

First off, yes, I agree with Oro?!. Sometimes people quote something that they agree with. I felt it would beneficial to comment on it because it emphasized a fact that supported my thoughts. PMBR doesn't make big changes at the drop of a hat. They make a big change, then tweak and bug fix for several months, then when they realize that Sonic is far too powerful in this version and he needs to be nerfed. PMBR is going to update it every now and then with minor changes (mostly bug fixes and animation stuff), but the big changes come SLOWLY. We are NOT at the final version of P:M. That is clear. There will be bug fixes, balance updates, etc. To what extent? No one knows. I doubt they do. I don't necessarily see a balance update coming "soon," but it's going to come. Will there be another big update? Who knows? I'm just suggesting that people should not clamor for big changes immediately following an update. Not even 2 months after an update should we be so sure that X is crap and Y is a God.

These things take time, and the community doesn't seem to be giving it time. Besides, diversity is good. P:M should be able to be played as a casual game as well as competitively. I know that it was intended more for competitive play, but who doesn't love a good 4 player Free-For-All with items set to High? If we make EVERY character equal on the competitive plane, it takes away from the fact that we have 41 different characters, so there should be at least 41 different types of players out there. It takes away from the good-old smashfest where Samus can sit in a corner and quietly fire projectiles at everyone, Link can sit there spamming Spin Attack and rack up random kills, or Pichu can run around and throw the Home Run Bat at people.

CliffNotes version:
1. Balancing a complex game is a long process. Give it time.
2. This is a casual game as well as competitive. We have to have good casual characters.
3. Character diversity is a GOOD thing, and cannot be achieved if all are perfectly equal. More equal generally means less diversity.

 

[Nausicaa]

I like how most LC's panic button is duel, and they just feed bonus damage to whoever is involved in killing them. Rare to find a good one, though I don't see them often in the format I play. LC is like the new Pudge, everyone plays her but... not in any decent level of play.
I think she's cool, and decent, but there are so many better options to draft that she really becomes ultra-niche, and that isn't flushed out yet.

Chen is hilarious as a hero. Poor guy.

 

[Jacob29]

Had this one LC who kept dueling as they were about to die.

Told her not to do it and asked if they knew how it worked. They said they did, but they kept doing it.

 

[Empyrean]

Pub games are an abomination most of the time. People always striving to get more kills, so like you have 4 ults that are performed on a low hp hero when a simple attack would have done the trick. You will also commonly see 4 carries on the same team, but that may be a low-level thing. LC's ult is pretty damn good in concept, but without a team to back you, you will easily die.

Also, Pudge is hype.

 

[guedes the brawler]

yo, this is smashboards, you know;.

 

[Jaedrik]

Ya'll are complicating things way too much. Clarifying a point stated earlier I think by oracle, you can quantify who is better but you can't quantify skill. In fact one of the biggest issues I see on the board are people's attempts to measure things you can't measure.

Its easy to quantify who is better because we start with the answer and then give it a name. People who win are better.

Skills become so complex within a function to determine victors that isolating them becomes too difficult. How you do measure someones ability to get enough sleep and eat good meals before an event; and how it affects your ability to shffl consistently vs make reads on your opponent? How do you quantify someones ability to hold it together under duress? These are all important abilities in winning, but trying to isolate them becomes harmful when we take a wrong answer we assume is right (instead of just acknowledging we dont know). The only thing I would ever attempt to argue on this matter is that external factors weigh more heavily than in game mechanics.

I think this is an issue for the PM community in particular. Many players came to this game because of the imbalances of Brawl and Melee, and became very focused on ultimate fairness and tend to disregard other aspects of competition. I think in the end while its definitely nice to have balance considerations, the degree of its importance in PM could potentially do it and the community harm. As examples, a player who could withstand the toughness of mechanical imbalances or issues becomes a powerful competitor. While balance is noble, in terms of competition the world doesnt toss you a level playing field you have to work with what you have. As another example, an emphasis on balance may be an issue when it seems to subvert other development considerations i.e. flow and personality.

You accuse me of complication and go on to present an even more convoluted system! Not I, sir, I explicitly stated that these things could not be quantified, at all, ever, it is due their nature. I said they could be qualified, and I deny the possibility of 'better' being quantified, it is impossible, one hundred percent absolutely impossible. You even confirm this when you say "development considerations i.e. flow and personality", which are both qualities, totally unquantifiable. Number of wins and number of losses is utterly irrelevant. There are no people who 'win', there are only people who win under given circumstances, period, as raw skill is not enough to determine the outcome of any given instance, so 'better' and 'worse' is the name we give to show who we approximate is more likely to win, if significantly so. What we need to do is remove ourselves from the mindset that the opponent's victory is assured, for as you say it is uncertain and unclear, yet to be written, and depends entirely on environing factors which include qualities like flow and personality.

I must maintain my opposition to your argument as to the invalidity of speculation, speculation is not subject to denial or confirmation by experience, it simply is valid at all times, no matter how imperfect or incomplete it is. Whether or not the person is in error in their speculation has no weight in the matter of the truth of speculation without error, and that speaks to the so-called 'complexity' issue, to which I say phooey. Phooey because we can, on principle, know these things truly as we intuit and judge the different levels of importance between types of skill, and even if what you are suggesting is true, that doesn't mean that speculation about skill is invalid within my system. Remember that skill is not a determining factor in who will win any given match, and you as much agree with me on this when you say "The only thing I would ever attempt to argue on this matter is that external factors weigh more heavily than in game mechanics", and I say that is the major component of what makes up 'better' or 'worse' players, as with skill there is no consideration of outside factors, only the internal habitual schema, while measuring player's 'betterness' or 'worseness' compared to another.

In that sense, balance is noble, but self-improvement is far more noble. It is, again, completely a matter of perspective as I pointed out. I would argue then that the PM community has another issue, if your observations are true, and that simply an arrogant attitude, wanting to be catered to instead of having to improve.

 

[Juushichi]

Just mentioned a few pages ago, people were talking about sword characters. IMO w/ letter grades!:
A
MK
A-
Marth
B+
Link > Ike
B
TL ~ Roy

For the record, my tier lists generally go from A to B- (2.6/3.0X) or C+/C (2.1/2.5)

 

[Cassio]

The problem youre having is you don't seem to grasp that external factors/circumstance are part of determining who's better. You seem to want to separate these things or attribute some to 'luck' while other things are 'skill' but it doesnt work like that nor is it really possible to. All of it matters, and the person who wins more is better. Also better is quantifiable, because we start with the quantity then give it the name (easy peezy lemon-squeezy).

I implied it became complex because youre trying to isolate factors that you aren't really able to. Flow and personality were in regards to the characters in the game, not something generic. Even if it was something generic, you can't isolate most aspects since many of them become functions of one another. For the most part, its not very useful either and just leads to bad judgement's being made.

Also you misinterpret what I mean by in game mechanics vs external. Game mechanics are the rules and limitations we follow and external is obv everything else. I also didn't say anything about speculation, and I'm not sure how you can argue that wrong information isn't harmful. It directly leads to bad judgments.

 

[kingprawn]

While I don't have enough experience in competitive play with PM yet to make a complete tier list. I can give what I believe to be the 5 strongest in my opinion as of yet.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

 

[Jacob29]

Mario not #1 !?!?

You know not what you've done...

 

[woundedust]

While I don't have enough experience in competitive play with PM yet to make a complete tier list. I can give what I believe to be the 5 strongest in my opinion as of yet.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

I disagree strongly with sheik/falco, and fix isnt number 1

Sheik is still good yes, but alot more characters have alot more ways to deal with her bs.

Falcos recovery is much too gimpable and poor, while also relying on a total of three moves to open up and continue combos.

 

[Oracle]

@ Jaedrik The point of that article was to stay who cares about some 'skill' if it doesn't determine who wins? We don't show up to tournaments to brag about how good we are, we show up to WIN. Clinging to the idea that you're a 'better' player in some imaginary skillset is just a scrubby mentality people use to make excuses about losing (one that I was guilty of for a long time). Trying to add quantification to your idea of skill is pointless; at the end of the day, the ones who get paid are the ones who win. I don't want to discuss this further because this is getting off topic lol

 

[Terotrous]

As far as Olimar goes...I see Olimar with 6 pikmin in Brawl as high tier, and Olimar with 4 pikmin in P:M as typically pretty low tier. 5 seemed like a nice medium, considering that he came out mostly the same with his other nerfs/buffs.

I actually think with the PM changes you could give Olimar his 6 pikmin back and he would not be OP. The reason he was so broke in Brawl was because he was absurdly good at keeping people out, even if you got in you'd get like one aerial for your trouble and he'd probably have done significantly more damage to you on the way in. Pair this up with super strong kill moves and you have a top tier threat.


However, in PM, pretty much all characters are either drastically more mobile or have more armor, and once you get in, you can do significantly more damage thanks to combos being available. Of all the characters, Olimar actually doesn't benefit much from these changes (he never wants to go in and his combos aren't great), so I feel like the switch to PM physics was basically all that was needed to fix him.

I do however recommend keeping the pikmin maturity mechanic + slower pikmin pluck. I feel this adds more depth to his playstyle, you now have to be more mindful of how you use your pikmin.

 

[Jaedrik]

@ Jaedrik The point of that article was to stay who cares about some 'skill' if it doesn't determine who wins? We don't show up to tournaments to brag about how good we are, we show up to WIN. Clinging to the idea that you're a 'better' player in some imaginary skillset is just a scrubby mentality people use to make excuses about losing (one that I was guilty of for a long time). Trying to add quantification to your idea of skill is pointless; at the end of the day, the ones who get paid are the ones who win. I don't want to discuss this further because this is getting off topic lol

Aye, I realized at some point I was rambling and spouting whatever popped into my head, forgive me for getting a little hot-headed about it, and it did get quite off topic, but I think it's relevant to the tier list discussion in one way or another.

I full well know that imagining oneself superior to another is an extremely dangerous mindset, and when the expectation is not met self-destruction ensues, or that person deflects to some excuse as to his loss (Johns, they're dumb), but I don't really see how any of that went against what I said. Lastly, Again, I just want to clear up a misconception here, I explicitly stated it is impossible to quantify skill, what I was doing was qualifying it. I think that's where most of the miscommunication happens. I claim that one can objectively know the qualities that make up a person's skill, just as it is possible to objectively know the qualities of a character's strengths and weaknesses, and create generalizations about hypothetical match-ups.

Everything I said in those silly posts is relevant to the debate between match-ups alone determining placing in the tier list and weighting for tournament results.
There are three sides to this debate.
1. The side that says we cannot quantify or qualify a character's abilities. Absolute relativism. Denies the existence of tiers and match-ups.
2. The side that says we can somehow know what characters are better through quantity alone, that 'experience' (results) is the sovereign lord and master of what is right and true. Subjectivism/Empiricism. (You guys, I'm assuming.) Supports tier list weighting.
3. The side that says it is impossible to make any sense of quantities without qualities or assumptions (speculation) that define our interpretation, and that also says there is an objectively right and wrong way to interpret quantities to attain qualities, if failing the interpreter is in error. Aristotelian/Scholasticism. (My side!) Glorifies unweighted match-up charts above all.
Edit: I really have no idea if my views accurately reflect the schools of philosophy I purport to support. I hope they are
Further Editage: 4. The side that says their knowledge is transcendental and can know everything, even the impossible.

 

[Coolwhip]

Luigi is way too low imo.

 

[kingprawn]

I disagree strongly with sheik/falco, and fix isnt number 1

Sheik is still good yes, but alot more characters have alot more ways to deal with her bs.

Falcos recovery is much too gimpable and poor, while also relying on a total of three moves to open up and continue combos.

I can agree with you on falco, just that he should be a few spots down, still in top 5 though