Tiers are a way to play the game without actually playing the game.
Soo… the problem isn’t ignorance, imbalance or conformity. It’s the lists…
From my experience the OP is mostly right. In the scrub level of the game, people tend to only pick the SF staples. Ryu, Ken, Chun li. And at higher levels of gameplay people tend to pick the high tier characters. Of course this isn’t 100% true, I have been a street fighter player since I was 7, and I always play characters that I just think are cool. And there are other vets that pick their classic favorites. I think around mid-level gameplay is where you’ll see the most diversity in character use. Ultra competitive players will pick whatever characters give them a technical edge just to squeek out wins.
People may or may not put too much faith in what tier lists tell them, but most people don’t understand how to read tier lists in the first place.
True, people forget that behind a good tier list, is a good match up table detailing who has the advantage in specific matchups. In other words, you have no right to complain about tier whoring if for example your Cammy was beaten by an Akuma player in SFIV seeing as she has the advantage in that matchup (6-4 in her favor) despite the latter being ranked higher.
True, people forget that behind a good tier list, is a good match up table detailing who has the advantage in specific matchups. In other words, you have no right to complain about tier whoring if for example your Cammy was beaten by an Akuma player in SFIV seeing as she has the advantage in that matchup (6-4 in her favor) despite the latter being ranked higher.
That and some games have much more compressed tiers than others. Mid tier in Marvel is very different from mid tier in SF4, and seemingly in SSF4.
Aside from that, there are multiple cases where a mid or low tier character actually has their best match up against characters that are top tier.
Why the hit boxes? Sagat was “god tier” and yet he had the worst hit box IE you could do things to him you couldn’t do to other characters, and some combos are easier to do on him then other people.
Blanka has the goofiest hit boxes that has literally made it to where I don’t even trust combos on him anymore. I stick to easy BNBs.
Chun li has a very unfair to her hit box. So does Abel.
Everyone else (that I can think of) has a pretty normal one though.
Also Shotos (in my opinion) are a little easier to learn, newer players won’t have to get down the priority of EVERYTHING to be successful. But it takes a little more learning to use some of the Low Tier characters. (I know because I am a new player who plays Shotos)
And tier lists constantly shift over time as new stuff is discovered and people start using it.
And 90% of the people on this forum (myself definitely included) are not playing anybody good enough for tier lists to matter, and would get brutalized no matter who they chose if they actually met a top player.
Etc.
That said, I do think the focus on tier lists has hurt the genre a bit. Lots of people are unwilling to ‘waste time’ with characters they see are low-tier, which means a) you get less variety in played characters; b) smaller communities for low-tier characters often means that stuff that might help those characters compete gets discovered much more slowly.
But I mean, it’s the nature of the beast, and it isn’t gonna change. So deal.
Thread should have ended with this post
-
If a character is “easy enough” they’ll be seen at tournaments no matter what the case is. Ken and Zangief are seen a lot at low level tournaments. Sagat? Not so much.
-
Nobody asked you, but since you are answering anyway, who cares? What difference does it make if people actually like winning? “Oh look at me, I’m a perpetual loser!” How fun does that sound to you? Sure overcoming adversity (or whatever BS you can come up with) sounds nice and dandy, but have you ever THOUGHT (I know I’m reaching here) that maybe picking LOW TIER is also a form of conformism? How many people do you hear say “oh man, no way I’ll pick that character because he’s top tier!” You’re number one. How many people main low tier just because they want to say “ha! I beat someone using top tier with my garbage character!” A lot of scrubs do this.
-
Tier lists don’t inhibit “originality.” You think if there were no tier lists that C Viper would be more popular than Ken or Ryu? I guarantee you’re wrong. Why? One character is easier to use than another. C Viper may even be a higher “tier” than Ken, but she’s definitely not more popular. While there are people who only pick high tier, there are also people who only pick low tier. It evens out.
-
“but i guess being uncreative and running with the pack is the in thing in modern times” - The thing that makes me mad about statements like this is that people make it seem as if they’re so smart with their “observations of modern society.” First, conformity has ALWAYS been what the majority of people do. That’s why it’s called conformity. Second, you ever watch Daigo or Poongko play? I’d say there’s a lot of creativity there.
-
And finally, your sig is amazing.
SSF4: t.hawk dudley - Considered by J Wong initially to be top tier in Super.
SF4: zangief dan abel - Consistently top 5-6 in SF4.
BB: tager
T6: Bob - S Tier and either #1 or #2 in the game.
Who he plays has nothing to do with what he’s saying, and is an ad hominem argument. Though I also disagree with his post, you don’t know why he plays with X character, and frankly it’s irrelevant.
As Pimp Willy said, a tier list is just a written interpretation of the state of the game. Regardless of whether or not there is a written list, people who play these games in tournaments, or even online, will form an understanding of the strong and weak characters. It’s impossible to play these games competitively and not recognize who the dominate characters are. There’s a reason that two-thirds of xbox live switched from Ken to Ryu in SF4. Through regular play it becomes obvious that Ryu is better than Ken. Look at the tournament players who played Ken in 4, and realized he was on the weaker side. Sanford, Edma, Damdai, Yipes, Ichi*, all played Ken for sometime before changing. Do you think they looked at the list and said “Hey, it says Ken is below average, that must be why I’m losing.”?
In a competitive atmosphere, people are going to sway towards the characters with the most options, and the most appealing ones. With a large online & travelling community, the strengths and weaknesses of each character are broken down quickly, and people figure out on their own what characters they want to play. Take Super right now for example, as there is no real tier list, assumed or otherwise. 3s Makoto players come into SSF4, interested in playing the character. A lot of these players are realizing that at this point in play, Makoto is weak. Players are being turned off by her actual gameplay. When an early tier list does emerge, Makoto will likely be on the lower end, reflecting the feelings of the players.
C.Viper moved around a ton in Japanese SF4 lists. That didn’t mean that she got any better or worse, the character was always the same. The list is just how the players viewed her in regards to the rest of the cast. The list has no bearing on actual gameplay
tl;dr Players define the list, not the other way around
I think, to a subtle degree that’s his very point.
The mentality people have of tier lists is faulty, and it reflects in the community that plays it. It’s not a fault of the game, but of the perspectives of those that choose to see tiers as dogma.
Don’t you see? That’s the entire point. Read his post. He has no idea why people pick certain characters either.
Tier lists are a representation of what the game is like at top level play. Honestly for 75 percent of us we will never be good enough in a particular game for it to truly matter. To say they are trash is not correct though. Even at intermediate level gameplay a good Akuma for example in SF4 will raped lets say a good Vega or Guile. It is a representation of the abilities of each character.
I think his reasoning is more along the lines of, new school players are picking the best characters off the list before they play. Instead of picking characters based off whatever else. He’s not including himself in the discussion
Yeah, but he doesn’t know if people are actually doing that. All he can do is see that a large amount of people picked X character and rationalize to himself that they must have picked that character solely because that character is top tier. Making this notion without even knowing why that character is selected is just as rational as me calling him out for playing “top tier characters.”
I’ve never really paid attention to the tiers until recently, and even then it doesn’t affect my character choice ever. Honestly I think that anyone who changes their character based on the tier list probably isn’t that good anyway… Not saying that’s true, but it reminds me of a friend of mine who basically switched what characters he played based on how well my other friend plays them, assuming he’ll be able to play just as well.
They’re interesting for the purpose of studying characters and going through and experimenting with different characters, but they really shouldn’t affect your character choice at all. 