Hate Speech Theory Fighter University: Tiers

[BLACKSTAR]

In fairness, we were calling out a pretty specific subset of player who hides behind the low-tier ranking as a reason for their loss. I mean, even I use low-tiers every now and then (the fact that I use them as counter-picks notwithstanding).

Yeah, I understand. :) I just wanted to make it clear that it was a SUBSET, and not all low-tier users. This is pretty much why I usually don't like blanket statements.

But still, you have to ask yourself if picking low-tier is doing you any favors, especially when some top ties require just as much effort to play well, but give out so much higher reward (e.g. MvC2 Sent and Mags, who if you don't have the execution and knowledge of the games system to play them at their peak, are pretty much mid-tier).

That's the thing about purposely picking low-tier: you're NOT doing yourself any favors, and you know it. It's the entire point of it. You're pitting yourself in a disadvantageous situation (learning to deal with bad matchups usually, sometimes with how to defend with overpowered shenanigans as well) to see how you will overcome it. The idea is not much different than lifting weights, and can be just as frustrating, painful, and infuriating (or impossible, like putting too much weight that you can't possibly lift on a rack), but like how your body increases muscle, your mind becomes sharper and less resilient to tactics that others find difficult/impossible to deal with.

Now this says absolutely nothing about how much effort it takes to play high tier characters. I wasn't trying to either. Ivy is constantly knocked on as a high-tier character, but NOBODY calls her a scrub character, because of how difficult she is. Just like Magneto in marvel. Learning stuff like ROM combo or gravity loop takes weeks, let alone trying to pull it off in matches.

Also, speaking of making money, there is money involved so it does make sense to stack the deck in your favor by picking top-tier. At least with the SF/Marvel community, money matches and side bets have always been part of the competitive experience - so far, the highest amount ever on record was $50,000 of one MvC2 money match between fanatiq and Toan.

Definitely true. playing a Son-Son team in a $50K money match would be stupid. Playing Rock in a $10K FT20 would also be incredibly stupid. These all-0r-nothing win at all costs situations requires that one gets as many advantages on their side as possible. Just like when Goku took off his weighted clothing to fight Vegeta (sorry for the constant dbz references :P)

 

[KingAce]

This is why you want a balanced game. I don't think the fighting game community has played too many of these balanced games since most of these games are made in weird ass Japan.

SC5 motherfuckers.

 

[BLACKSTAR]

snip

I'll try a hand at it. :)

I'll say that the answer depends on EXACTLY WHAT you are defining as better. Without it, the question is too vague

if 'who's better in this match between player A and B'?

the match shows obviously that player B is alot better compared to A in that matchup

if 'who is the better player overall?'

then overall wins/losses/other statistics against other players will show that player A wins (if player B overall has significantly worse stats against other players)

That's like sports -- (don't hate me too much, because I don't watch too much sports) lets say, if the Miami heat has the best record in the NBA by a landslide, and the Clippers have the worst, but every single time the two play, the Clippers destroy the Heat, that doesn't automatically make the Clippers the best team overall (their record proves otherwise), but it does make them the obvious better team in the matchup for whatever reason (better Center? better plays ran/coaching? more capable defense? better outside shooters? some aspect of their game that exploits the Heat's weaknesses?)

 

[Dr. Hates]

I have a question as far as the who is better thing. Let's say there is 2 people. Now person A never loses to anyone ever. Except, when he goes up against person B. Person B beats the ever living dog shit out of person A every time. However Person B loses the some of his matches against all these other people that Person A runs through. So, my question is, who is better? Person A or Person B?

I'm sure there'd be some way to run the math on that, provided hard numbers were available (and the pool of potential opponents for both players was limited, stable, and defined) and arrive at a conclusion that's mathematically correct. Still, that doesn't strike me as terribly satisfying. I think there's always going to be an element of subjectivity involved. There's an odd and under-appreciated subjective, expressive, almost aesthetic sensibility to high level play which is probably worth further discussion.

 

[Nofacekill3r]

Person A is better because they are more likely to place in a tournament.