Tier theory
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[edit] Writer Credits
This article was originally written by Break, with input from Akira, teh1337caper, Redman101, and The Sandman. The original topic may be found at http://azurechaotic.com/InvisionBoard/index.php?showtopic=326
[edit] The Broad Scope
Fighting game tiers have been a topic for debate for as long as there has been tourney-level play in those fighting games. This "theory" can be applied to even the best of fighting games, of all types.
The debate is whether this theory is true or not.
Basically, tiers are a loose list of characters, in a certain order, that gives a spectrum of advantages - those who have more advantages over the others is higher on the list, and those who have less advantages are lower. These are then divided into categories - top, high, mid, low, bottom (or sometimes even more). Tiers are also effected to a much lesser extent by tournament wins, as these are where the advantages and disadvantages of a character are best brough to light.
Tiers consider a whole range of advantages, and as such only play their biggest role in serious, near-tourney level play or higher. They are also not quite set in stone, as new advantages and disadvantages are being discovered all the time. Even a seemingly small discovery is enough to take a character to the top of the tiers, and might even make them broken (too good).
[edit] One Stance on Tiers
I, Break, believe they do exist. This is due to the imbalanced nature of balancing a game. In order to have an interesting game, it must be varied - variation, however, comes at the cost of balance. It's very difficult to make a balanced game that has a lot of variety - sure one can just trade off variety for balance - imagine playing Street Fighter with only Ryu as a selectable character. Balanced? Yes. Fun? Not a damn bit.
You can propose that measuring up statistics and then distributing them - give this character more speed, give this one more power at the cost of the aforementioned speed - and make sure it all adds up. But here's the problem with that. How do you know that all of the statistics are equally important? How are you going to measure how important each statistic is? You couldn't, at least not to an exact degree. So the game remains unbalanced.
A common argument against tiers is that it's all in the skill of the player. Please note that I'm not pointing any fingers (not like I could, for I've had no objections so far), just battling a theoretical enemy.
Sure, player skill is the biggest factor. When has the definition of tiers ever denied that? Point out to me the exact place where the definition says that tiers are the be all, end all. Don't worry, I can wait.
....
....done? Okay, then. Taking Soul Calibur II as an example, of course a pro Yunsung will wipe the floor with a n00b Cervantes. That is clear. However, if the pro Yunsung went up against an equally skilled Cervantes, it's more likely that the Cervantes would win, since Cervantes has more advantages, and Yunsung has more hurdles to clear in order to get his own spacing and damage in. Tiers only say who has an edge, not who will win - otherwise, there wouldn't even be a game to play. I could just pick Cervantes, do nothing, and you automatically die. sounds ridiculous when you think about it, right?
We also go back to the "damn near impossible to completely balance a game" point. A few anti-tierists seem to believe that fighting games are made perfectly balanced. Okay, I'll bite. Let's go through this slightly exaggerated example.
I'm Player 1. I have a projectile that can be fired off at machine gun rates, and one hit kills. You're Player 2. You are slower than a snail, can't jump, can attack for a small fraction of the other person's life bar per five seconds, and can't block. That is NOT balanced. Sure, that's a bit over the top, but this example is true to a much lesser extent in most great fighting games. Is it still possible to win with Player 2? Sure it is, it's just really freaking difficult. But of course you'd expect Player 1 to win more because he has more advantages.
[edit] The Evolution of a Tier Listing
I've mentioned before that tiers are not set in stone - they change as more about the characters are found out. What attacks rock, why they suck, what their advantages and disadvantages are - more of all of these are constantly being discovered, making tier lists quite flexible. However, tier lists do settle down as less and less discoveries are made (as in, the game is getting older, and there's less new crap to find). That's when a tier list is most settled - but not completely, as there might always be that breakthrough.
Back to Soul Calibur II as an example - again, we have Sophitia. People used to think she sucked. No great horizontals, doesn't do enough damage to matter, etc. But a couple of years after the release of the game, people found out she's a great "chaos" character - great at interrupting, and starting some trouble. And boy, was she ever effective for that! She shot up in the ranks, and is widely considered to at least be high tier, if not top.
[edit] The Fun Factor, as Said by The Sandman
While I do believe (more or less) in the idea that tiers only show who has an advantage and who not so much (I use Sheik, and I still say that some of her moves have a bit much lag), I think that there is an issue not quite tackled here.
In my opinion, strong and weak characters is a selfish perception of fighting games. I think that there's no such thing as a weak character, only ones that have different advantages. To use SSBM, take Mewtwo. While he's far from stardom as Marth (who I feel is just as good as Sheik in his own right) he's a lot of fun to play. So that's why I use him, even in a serious match. By selecting him, I (sometimes) throw off a player who trained him/herself to fight only top and upper tier characters. I even ended up winning once or twice.
Let's take SCII (Break, check this to see if I'm right). In SCII, one of the characters that I love to use is (go figure) Raphael. In my opinion, he's one of the better characters in the game, but I get mopped when ever I play with him. For the record, by the way, my best character in SSBM is Sheik and Cervantes in SCII. This brings me to my point: Truly skilled players should try to win with their favorites. If you're determined to win, why not try to with your favorite? I'm not saying that tiers are bad or anything, I'm just saying that while not all characters are made equal, together they make quite an ensemble. If SCII has shown us nothing, that much is true.
[edit] Aftercomments on the Fun Factor
Sandman's point was definitely one that should have been made earlier, as more proof that tiers should not dominate casual (or even serious) play. It's just a list, after all. It's possible to win, possible to have fun, possible to lose, possible to screw up - it's possible to do ANY of these things with ANY character. Again, no be-all-end-all here.
A perception of relative strength and relative weakness may be selfish, but it's unfortunately proven.
[edit] Conclusion
Tiers exist due to the nature of game balancing - the only way they would not exist if the game was completely balanced. Wikipedia put it best -
"Arguments about the existence (or non-existence) of tiers are commonplace among gaming boards, where the general consensus among experienced players is that tiers do indeed exist.
Tier listings are often scrutinized by players who misunderstand its purpose. Many misinformed players mistake the Tier listings as a "Best Character" listing, and that the intent is to say X character can not win against Y because X is high tier and Y is low tier. This is not true.
Given that X is a high tier character and Y is a low tier character, it is very possible that a player using Y can beat a player using X. However, if both players are of equal skill, X will beat Y more often. Therefore, in order to win consistently, the player using a lower tier character will need to work harder and be more skilled than the player using a higher tier character.
The influence of Tiers in play is also often misunderstood: in a well balanced game, any effect of tiers will likely go unnoticed in low to mid level play, and low tier characters may actually be perceived as being better than characters who are actually much higher ranked. For example, if a low ranked character has an easy to use, fast, and damaging mid-low-low-mid combo, which less skilled players often have difficulty blocking, that character may be abused in low to mid level play. However, after becoming more skilled, a player may notice that when blocked, the combo leaves you open long enough for a damaging juggle or punishment move."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiers_%28video_games%29
