Question: On the usage of Tiers?

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

Well, anyway I’ve been thinking a lot of this to myself, espcially since G3Evolution has got a little more competitive and is developing a Mississauga scene, why do people get sick of seeing the same high tier teams winning all the time? This goes back to the Domination 101 topic on scrubs and playing to win.

People get respect when they use other people away from the usual top tiers, but does respect get you victory? Not all the time. A very simple example would be in 3S, in a field of 16 competitors there a 8 Chun-Li’s and 7 Yun’s. This is a little extreme, but think for a second. There is one more player, a Remy, perhaps. Sure people will go, FINALLY, something different from Genei-Jin and Houyoku Sen. But, why do we see so many Chun-Li’s and Yun’s in the finals? Because they win. Is it really a crime to go with the best odds to win?

I bring this up now, because, more recently, in KOF XI, I find myself using Kula, Gato and Momoko. Momoko aside, Kula and Gato are the cream of the crop in XI. That would make me a scrub and no different from other “tier whores”. But, hey, their shit is hard to stop. As with all top tiers. Now before I continue to rant, which I don’t want to do, my question is:

Is it variety that matters, or the level of play?

(As, I always seen many people complain: Too many Sion’s and V-Akiha in MBAC, too many Mr. Big/Hotaru in NGBC, too many Kula’s in XI, too many Yun’s and Chun-Li’s, too much MSP and Cable - even I hate Cable and Magneto.) I could go on and on. Anyhow, tier spammage, is it bad? Not necessarily. Although, I do admit games do get dull, when the same stuff keeps happening over and over. Whatever it takes to win, I guess.

If I don’t stop now, I’ll keep going. No flames, please.:rofl:

2

People don’t want to just be able to win, they want the highest chance of winning and the easiest route there. They want consistency and self-assurance. So you end up w/ people picking top tier instead of characters they actually like. But if it’s competitive play then it makes sense since the foremost goal is beating people. It doesn’t mean the games aren’t enjoyable anymore. 3S is pretty dull in terms of character selection in most regions, but most people still like playing it.

Unfortunately that’s the way games are at high level. But I’d rather take that over a bunch of scrubs using a wide variety of characters.

3

Whenever people go to a new game(it seems anyways) they look for the top tiers. and i must’ve fought 2 non top tier(top 6 is my base for the statement) players total since i started 3s,and almost every other team has a top tier in it in XI.

It happens in every game,so in short…

I want to say variety.

but my uh…tournament record says level of play -_-’

EDIT:^Post before me said what i wanted to in so many words :stuck_out_tongue:

4

People only get respect when they win. No one is going to give you props for choosing Remy, but if you win with Remy, you’ll get respect.

5

the problem is people don’t play who they have explored or taken a liking to but play on what they’ve read, been told or what they’ve seen someone else do. Immediately they get a new game they try and find out who’s the best. I’ve seen the “I just got this game, what are the tiers” topic done over and over even here.

it should be the other way round. explore the characters first, pick, then find out why so and so is top tier etc.

EDIT: Also everyone knocks people for playing top tier characters. But only picking low tier characters to maintain some sort of “honour” or to make you think you’re better than the rest is equally stupid.

6

There’s nothing wrong with picking top teirs. You are’nt going to be scrubby if you want to learn Yun in 3S. He’s top, but he’s a hella lot harder to learn than say Ken or Chun, so how would you be playing scrubby if the character you play is hard to learn? If you are picking Yun (or Chun or Ken for that matter) for the simple fact that he is top teir, than you are just whoring teirs, simple as that.

And it’s all a matter of what kind of games you are playing? If it’s casuals and in a rather relaxed atmosphere, then I guess variety would be most important. But in competive play, then do what you go to do to win. (Playing your best/character, etc. etc.) Of course you can also do both.

7

That’s just the thing. The level of play with regards to Chun’ and Yun isn’t terribly exciting.

Chun’ is easily the most slow paced and brain dead character to use in the game, while Yun is more about execution than strategy. His GJ combos might wow you the first couple times you see them, but after a while it just sort of feels like going through the motions. Yun activates and gets guaranteed damage, Yun runs and builds meter, Yun activates again, etc.

Granted, better players can find ways to lower or prevent this damage, but they have to try so hard and still often fail against what is really a very brain dead strategy, and it just gets frustrating to watch after a while. A lot of matches with Yun basically consist of him running away a lot and then the other guy defending once he’s activated, which means that the only time where there’s really much happening is the brief period where he doesn’t have enough meter to activate. The better Yun players obviously find ways to deviate from this, but that’s still the basic core strategy: Get meter and blow through them with offense. It’s not about mind games anymore, it’s just about building meter. Yun plays more like something out of A3 than the SF3 series. Remember how A3 turned into a game of meter, where if you weren’t using V, you were basically screwed? Well now imagine that, but only one character has access to V-ISM.

I think it’s almost unanimously agreed upon (even by a lot of Chun’ players) that she’s exceedingly boring to watch more than a couple times, let alone 10 matches in a row. It’s dangerous for most characters to rush her down since a single c. MK can turn the tide of the match, and she’s got shitloads of priority and range so half your offense gets stuffed anyway depending on what character you’re using, and because of this, the pace of any match involving her is usually a lot slower.

You know why Marvel players don’t complain about seeing Magneto, or why ST players hate seeing O. Sagat, but don’t mind seeing Dhalsim and Boxer who’re just as high on the tier list? Because characters like O. Sagat are just plain boring to watch. There’s nothing exciting about watching someone spam low tiger shots/tiger uppercuts 5 billion times, and it’s not like it’s really all that hard to do either.
People say that CE Bison made AE look like an ugly game, but I honestly think O. Sagat does the same to ST.

You have to understand, it’s not so much about the standing of the character, but the way in which they play. If the character plays in a way that fundamentally breaks or kills the pace of the game, then people are likely going to react negatively to it.

People do need to stop whining though. If you want to see a character better represented on the tournament ladder, then play them competitively instead of bitching about how overpowered so and so is.

8

I just had some Mid-tier pizza. Not bad i guess, could have been better with meatball assist.

9

I guess respect is the wrong word. More or less, they get recognized just for being unique. As my reason for making this topic is that people whine, seeing the same character and complain about variety. Often from highy skilled tournaments you get replies like: “WTF, so many Chuns! So Many Kulas! Boring!” Which is pretty idiotic, if you ask me.

I guess the most recent example would be, was it, Gamers Vision? Were Tokido and friends all switched to Chun-Li.

10

i dont know guys…i just play with who im compatiable with…for example…i learned in GG i suck with faust cause i cant use him properly…so i started using order sol and baiken cause they are more my style of play…if you like ken in 3rd strike cause of ken then cool…if you just using him cause you heard he was one of the best…WTF…

11

Ya see, I started playing as Ken on a 100% whim on MvS, back before I was really into fighting games and I thought he was cool. I didn’t know about all this shotoclone/shotoscrub stuff! Ken was just the character I’d pair up with Wolverine, dammit!

12

just cause you use top tier doesnt meen you’ll win, you could use top tier in A3 or ST and people in Cal or jp will own you with low or mid tier. Top tiers can be fun to use but games like MvC2 i got sick of it. Cause all i played was sent cable it got borring, and to me mag and storm arent fun at all so i gave up mvc2.

13

That’s pretty obvious. If you suck, you suck. (Tiers will not mean a thing. A pro Sean will wipe the floor with a scrubby Yun.) We’re talking about high-level competitive play here.

14

A tier list is just the order of characters in the game, arranged approximately from best to worst.

When people act like it’s anything more than that, it gets silly.

15

its not just thats its you can use top tiers and still have fun, if its borring then maybe its the game. Respect comes from how you win. If all you do is 1 move over and over again it gets old. People rather see more mix ups then borring shit.

16

most intelligent thing posted so far. sf is about winning. yun and chun might be boring to watch, and overplayed, but apparently its not such a huge problem that it makes 3s a bad game. you don’t need to choose a character that you can relate to, or you think has a cool costume, or has the highest chance or winning. some people like powerful characters, some people like goofy characters, but as long as we are all playing to win, no matter what tier your character is, what does it matter? i think the reason a person chooses a character is kind of irrelevant. what matters is their attitude towards the game.

17

They think it will make them win faster and easier, despite that everyone else is going to be using those characters, so they either have to work hard to be better than everyone else with a lower character, or just pick a high-tier character. I’m probably stating the obvious again here.
I’d like to see a tournament where they would find the 3-5 most used characters in the game being played, and ban them from that tournament.

18

no good players would show up only scrubs. If people complain about characters maybe they should play other fighting game. A lot of scrubs ruin tournaments with dumb shit like this, like the time me and Foward went to a Smash bros tourament, and they played all items on very high i was like wtf is this shit?!? If you cant beat a top tier maybe you should ways to beat him, and not bitch about it, or play something else like GG slash or vf4 evo.

19

I like how some people think it’s okay to use top tiers if you just happen to like the character, but if you pick them because they’re top tier then it’s “tier whoring”. Why shouldn’t I pick the character that gives me the best chance of winning (presuming this is a top tier character, which isn’t even always the case)?

20

Someone who refuses to pick top tier just because its top tier is a scrub. Someone who picks top tier because its top tier is being smart.