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You know what sucks about the most recent tier list?

DanteFox

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(Aside from it being reactionary and short sighted that is. :p)

The tiers are whacky!

How are we supposed to run low tier tournaments when the tiers are split up into goofy letter categories rather than proper top/high/mid/low/bottom like they've always been?

Am I the only one bothered by this?
 

Kink-Link5

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I have always hated Letter Tier systems for Smash since it is the only competitive game outside Pokemon that I can think of that has specifically Low Tier events and tournaments.

Also yeah yeah shortsighted Jigglypuff assumptions and other things.
 

ShroudedOne

Smash Hero
Premium
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lol

Puff is so disputed on that tier list. But...I dunno. Perhaps the categorization should be changed for ease of identification. Actually, no harm could come from that.
 

Kal

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
Messages
2,973
The only thing I find difficult is explaining to people why DK is not a low-tier. I can't just explicitly tell them that it's because my low-tier is Roy, can I? So usually I just make up **** about how broken he is in low tier tournaments.

If only the MBR would listen to my complaints and move DK to C-tier. Banning the entire D-tier is an excessive way to get rid of DK.
 

The Star King

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Nov 6, 2007
Messages
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Just trim off any tiers you wish lol

What bothers me is that the tiers are determined by gaps between average character ranking. Kind of silly.
 

The Star King

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No. Characters are supposed to be tiered by their relative viability at high level play, and average character ranking is not a good representation of this.

OK, suppose that Samus and Ganondorf didn't exist, causing Doc to be generally agreed upon as the 9th best character. He would end up being grouped together with Ice Climbers with the current system, even though the gap between these two characters haven't changed. Do you see the flaw that exists? Large differences between average rankings are caused by disrepencies regarding character rankings, not by gaps in character strength.
 

HyugaRicdeau

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DRZ#283
No actually, I do not regard that as a flaw. I think relative viability gap is more meaningful than absolute viability gap.

It is true that the tier list is supposed to represent relative viability, but the problem is and has always been how to actually measure such. Without a data catalog, the best option available is to have expert opinions rank the characters.

Or maybe you agree with all this, but you think we should use some other variable besides average rank? I do see a flaw in using average rank because when we make a ranking, it presumes that the gaps between neighboring characters are all equal; i.e. the diff between 1 and 2 is the same as that between 7 and 8. However, if we have a large enough data set, then averaging will gradually weaken the impact that assumption has in the final list.
 

The Star King

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Or maybe you agree with all this, but you think we should use some other variable besides average rank? I do see a flaw in using average rank because when we make a ranking, it presumes that the gaps between neighboring characters are all equal; i.e. the diff between 1 and 2 is the same as that between 7 and 8. However, if we have a large enough data set, then averaging will gradually weaken the impact that assumption has in the final list.
Sure. I'm not really sure what to use, though. Maybe have everybody group the characters into tiers as well as rank them, and somehow base it off of that?
 

HyugaRicdeau

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DRZ#283
The problem is that we don't really have a good way to quantify the difference between two characters' viability. I think for now, it's actually safer to assume the differences are all the same in each individual list.

It's kind of like measuring a trip that's, say 4.3 miles using an odometer that only measures in miles. Do the trip many times; if you take the results of each trip, you will get a bunch of 4s and 5s, but if you take the average, you'll get very close to the correct answer.
 

t3h Icy

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Messages
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There have only been three good Jigglypuffs in a long time: Mango, but he really only uses her in teams now, Darc who was never a top-elite, but certainly a good player who seems to have dropped lately, and Hungrybox who has slowly started to have trouble with other players (Armada, PP, Plup, Colbol, etc).

Puff 3rd is lol.
 

The Star King

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The problem is that we don't really have a good way to quantify the difference between two characters' viability. I think for now, it's actually safer to assume the differences are all the same in each individual list.

It's kind of like measuring a trip that's, say 4.3 miles using an odometer that only measures in miles. Do the trip many times; if you take the results of each trip, you will get a bunch of 4s and 5s, but if you take the average, you'll get very close to the correct answer.
Just ask everyone to group the characters into tiers and base it off of that. There may be no way to quantify differences in viability, but there isn't a way to quantify viability in the first place. So if there's no problems in ranking the characters based on the opinions of players, there shouldn't be one in separating them into tiers based of player opinion, either.

Your analogy does not work because the difference between two pairs of character may be different even if the difference in ranking is the same. Miles is a concrete distance.

I don't really like how this post was written, hope I was clear lol
 

Geenareeno

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ummm actually low tier goes from mario-pichu
Oh okay, thanks for clearing that up.




No but seriously, we need to define low tier. What i'm getting from some people is that anyone not viable (i.e everyone below ICs) is low tier. When my personal understand was that it was below mid tier. Imo it starts at Zelda (or whoever is right below YL).
 

Zodiac

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the tier list is based off of tournament results, therefore it will not always be 100% accurate as to what characters are actually the best, but it will accurate to what characters are most used. And thats why the tier list is more like a guide line.
 

SpaceFalcon

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The problem is that we don't really have a good way to quantify the difference between two characters' viability. I think for now, it's actually safer to assume the differences are all the same in each individual list.

It's kind of like measuring a trip that's, say 4.3 miles using an odometer that only measures in miles. Do the trip many times; if you take the results of each trip, you will get a bunch of 4s and 5s, but if you take the average, you'll get very close to the correct answer.
I can't believe you're using words like quantify and then you go and explain some pointless measuring.

son, are you serious?
 

HyugaRicdeau

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DRZ#283
The point of the example was to show that even without precisely ordering the characters, you can still converge on a more precise answer, and you don't need to try to have people subjectively quantify the differences between pairs of characters to get one.
 

The Star King

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Lol, of course you can get values that are *more* precise, but they can still be pretty terrible considering we are ranking the characters, not rating them.
 

Cleod

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Dec 15, 2011
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Truly agree with most of the posts. I do believe that Marth should move be just a little higher on the most recent tier list
 

HyugaRicdeau

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DRZ#283
Lol, of course you can get values that are *more* precise, but they can still be pretty terrible considering we are ranking the characters, not rating them.
I think with enough data points, averaging rankings will converge to a rating, normalized to a 1-26 scale. And the methodology makes more sense than trying to force ratings. I think the tier boundaries actually came out very well.
 

Hax

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puff is easily top 3 at human level / top 2 best picks in tournament alongside falco
 

Varist

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I feel like Puff is in decline though, why do you think she's still top 3? I feel like Sheik or Marth have the chance to move above her now.
most ignorant and degenerative statement in this thread

tier list is not exclusively a popularity list, otherwise this post would have at least a modicum of rationale behind it

character ability does not "decline" unless you're playing WoW.
 
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