Yeah, there are some low tiers that are bad and some that are good I mean look at gill in Sf5 he's like bottom 5 but he's great if you know how to play him
I can’t believe I never replied to this but yeah 100%. A game like soulcalibur 2 or Mark of the wolves you’ll frequently see the best character in the game lose frequently to the worst. But in games like mk9 or tekken yeah no, tiers exist and matter a lot no matter the level of play. It’s why I like to explain how much tiers matter on a game before talking about what tiers really mean for the game.
@@Neogears1312 I generally agree, but Tekken is not a great example of non-existing tiers. Otherwise I'd love to see you argue how Gigas = Mishimas/Akuma/Paul/Nina. I understand your point being that a good Gigas player will more often than not beat a worse player with one of the other characters. But that entirely depends on the skill level, matchup viability and context - even if Gigas is only 1% worse, he's just a lower tier in principle. Because characters in fighting games aren't all the same, there will always be tier lists.
@@nivyan I think this was just strangely punctuated I think its meant to be: In a game like street fighter or tekken, "yeah no", tiers exist and matter a lot... The "yeah no" being a dismissal of the arguement rather than it reading: In a game like street fighter or tekken, yeah, no tiers exist...
I think the "tiers don't matter until high level play" argument is a more ham-fisted version of "If you don't plan on winning EVO then play who you like.". Modern fighting games tend to be much better about having a roster that is mostly playable, though, so it works out better.
Another argument: On beginner levels, tiers are also a thing, because some strategies are harder to counter when you're a beginner. For example, if you don't know how to deal with command grabs, Zangief will be a stronger character. Or, it you're not fast or blocky enough, M. Bison and Vega can spam sweep and that command jump-in.
This is why I argue yuzuriha isn't top tier at my level in uni or why yosuke isn't nearly as good at a low level people need to realize skill changes tier placement
In MK games, this is why teleports are so potent at lower skill levels... it's a gimmick that in a way breaks the rules of the game, and you have to actually have knowledge on how to counter it. These scrubkiller characters are basically SSS-tier until you take a game seriously and do like 5 minutes of research lol
Well said. And in games with auto combos not all are created equal so mashing/low execution for good reward combos or buttons benefit lower ranks disproportionately. Lower ranks also are less likely to know frame data and think in appropriate punishes so "cheap" stuff can be repeatedly rewarding
@@quickcar5255 ???!!?? wtf are you talking? Have you ever played mvc2? Even Justin Wong says cable is top 4 right behind those 3. All of them are S+ tier
@@mrhObo9921 I mean its not just that. A character could be easier to use but in the long run provide no easier ability to win with than a character is harder. The issue is more who is easier to win with with easier to use being a bonus. I mean take sfv and Ryu after season 2. Hes so easy to use but in comparison but struggles to win in comparison to other characters.
I agree with your take on this, even if I think MK in general has horrid balance. Tier lists based on high levels of competitive play can be irrelevant for beginners and in some cases intermediate players but beginners/intermediate play has it's own "tier list" based on how easy it is to abuse an attack/setup if your opponent doesn't know the matchup well, and even then you have stuff like Cable's Hyper Viper Beam combos which are really easy to use making him incredibly strong in low levels of play and remain relevant in high levels of play, so only tech that requires high execution/deep knowledge of the fighting system fall into the "only relevant for pros" category rather than tiers themselves. My example would be Eddy from Tekken 3, most casual players consider him the strongest character in the cast because his animations are harder to read so blocking his attacks is pretty hard if you don't know well his movelist and can't use the movement options well enough to avoid getting caught in his blockstrings. Meanwhile in high levels of play Eddy is almost irrelevant and characters who looked tamer on the surface become incredibly overpowered once you learn exploits and the intricacies of the combat system.
Tier lists do exist and they exist for a reason, but people like to forget they also need to look at match-up charts in games like ST to get the full picture
Shoutouts to Fei Long having a 3-7 against Honda even though they're both "mid tier" and Old Sagat having a 3-7 against Dhalsim even though they're both "top tier"
I think that's something the melee community does kinda well, tiers obviously exist there, but they take mus into consideration a lot more than most games.
Matchup charts went the way of the dodo with SF5. People just assign random letters with no context other than "oh this character won this many tournaments."
@@henriquerodrigues7795 Yeah, I love that there's a balance between the top 7 characters. Specially how somehow Fox isn't winning mayors half the time despite being considered the best and instead we get Peach then Jigglypuff and now Marth on top.
@@Bafael that's actually somewhat refreshing to hear. For some reason even tho NRS games are hugely popular, it's somewhat hip to just shit on the games for some reason...
A small thing I'd like to say: Tiers are a thing, but it shouldn't discourage you from picking up a low tier. Yes they might have bad matchups or bad normal. Though this shouldn't discourage you from playing them, if you enjoy them, keep playing them. Understand their weaknesses and play to their strengths. You can't tell yourself that "my character is so bad." Why are you playing this character then? If you really only care about your performances/wins, play a character that is objectively better. An example of this is Ryu over Ken in third strike. Ryu is objectively worse than Ken, but does that mean you should just play Ken? Not really. They have a similar moveset, but have their own unique moves to separate them. You really have to understand that yes, your character is weaker, but it does not mean matches are unwinnable. Play to your strengths, and understand your weaknesses. Play what you enjoy, but don't complain that your character is trash all day. Adapt and learn what you can do in unfavorable matchups. Even if you lose in those matchups, analyze what you did well, and what you could've done. So you can fix from previous experiences. That's what fighting games are all about; outplaying your opponents. Also sorry for rambling, but I hate low tier warriors who complain all day about how they wish their character was top tier. Like just pick a top tier if winning matters that much to you. If not, keep practicing and play to your advantage! Read your opponent, and learn their habits.
speaking of third strike, this makes me think about how the dev's deliberately made Sean trash so that experienced players could use Sean against newer players to help balance their respective experience gap. If tiers didn't exist then why would they feel compelled to do this rather than, for example, allowing you to reduce your starting life bar like some older games used to do? If tiers weren't real then any character would work just as well to help new players have an advantage against experienced and there wouldn't be a need to deliberately neuter Sean from his 2nd impact build. At least any shoto would work given their similar move-sets and frame data. At least it makes sense to me.
Varies from game to game, can you win with claw, Dan and Dee Jay in USFIV, of course you can, it will just be harder, can you win with Roll, Zangief and Chun-li in MvC2 ??? FUCKING NO.
@@lunadachi4792 literally what my whole post was about. I play a lot of low tiers, but I don't blame anyone but myself for my loses. Because I know I could do better
I "main" Sagat and sometimes it's frustrating that I lost because I know I could win but the match up makes it harder, so I just use a different character. I love Sagat but I sometimes prefer other characters in matchups so I can give them a different look and present a different playatyle to perhaps confuse them
I kind of understand complaining about bottom tiers if there aren't any competitive characters with a similar role/playstyle. Like if you play a game in which every single grappler is low/bottom tier and you only like playing grapplers, it can feel like "do you want to have fun or do you want to win". Of course, that situation is really rare and probably only happens in very poorly balanced games.
Sailor Moon tiers are really weird tbh only the third- and second-lowest-ranked characters have infinite combos, and the lowest-ranked character can force a timeout and guarantee a round win from a life lead now, Marvel? You're gonna learn about tiers REAL fast
@@tanyaharmon6739 Melee is a good example but it gets more obvious in Marvel when it's not just a low tier vs a top tier, but 3 low tiers vs 3 top tiers ESPECIALLY in marvel2
I think that when people say, "Tiers don't matter at lower levels of play," they usually mean that unforced errors, rather than differences in character strength, tend to be the deciding factors of those games. That rings true for me, but it doesn't mean that characters with better toolsets aren't more consistent at all levels of play, just that an Ultra Bronze Alex can beat a Gold Akuma if the Akuma makes bad decisions due to lack of matchup knowledge.
Well, it's also that some characters' strengths don't come through if the players don't know what they're doing. Like if a character has strong okizeme set ups and option selects, it doesn't matter if the person playing them doesn't know/can't execute them. It's why simple characters, or characters with tools that need a little training to figure out how to counter, are generally very strong at low levels.
People who think tiers don't exist probably beat their Meta-Knight using friend in Brawl with a low tier and thinks that means something despite never having played any of the thousands of people who really know how to play the game.
@@raphu2272well… they said “played”, “played” is past tense, not present tense. And as for that… well you’re statement is just wrong, brawl sold millions of copies so people did in fact play it and people do in fact still play it.
Most of the time when I hear someone say "tiers don't matter" it's generally offered as advice to newbies who want to learn to play. If you're picking up a stick for the first time in your life, the differences between Ryu and E.Ryu in a game like USF4 are going to mean nothing to you. But once you actually learn to play to a certain extent, character differences start mattering.
I feel this. When I try to teach my Ult friends Melee I tell them to pick whoever they have fun with. Once they're familiar with the engine and want to take it more seriously we'll talk about viable characters.
It's the same pushback you see when folks get to talking about any sort of meta. I may have only been super into fighting games for like 2 years, but I remember hearing the same stuff for years in games like Pokemon, League of Legends, and World of Warcraft. I think it's defensive personality thing. Character/Class, playstyle, team structure, end goal, etc; these games offer an undeniable personal appeal to them and I think that leads to people getting VERY attached to those personal choices and thus feel slighted when it falls short in the eyes of inherently impersonal meta theory. In the end no can actually stop you from playing what want, but I feel like out right ignoring the meta is silly and causes you to miss out on vital information since from those tier/meta discussions you learn so much that to me really does help clear the gap sometimes or at the least gives a better visual to the problem that you needs to overcome in play. TL;DR: In all things understanding and knowledge is king, and what are tiers and metagame but explorable information?
games like league are so much more complicated and have so many variations (practically infinite amount of possible team compositions) that it is much more difficult to make strong "X champ is better than Y champ" arguments, because of how situational everything is in these games. in fighting games it's much easier. everything is a pure 1v1 with full information on both sides, so character tiers are much easier to establish
That's a great point. I wish people like that would understand that metas add MORE appeal and character for some people. When I played Titanfall 2 I mained Scorch, which was arguably one of the worst titans in the game. But because I knew how bad scorch was, every victory felt so much more sweet. Or think about characters like Dan in SF or Tachanka in R6: Siege, who for the longest time have arguably been popular as a result of how bad they are.
"I remember hearing the same stuff for years in games like Pokemon" Wow, there's people who think pokemon is balanced? Not only do half your favorite pokemon suck, they suck on purpose because you're supposed to switch them out for better ones later in the game.
I’ve always really liked this argument, because people tend to confuse “tiers don’t exist” with “tiers don’t need to factor significantly into character choice”. There are lots of games where weaker characters are still considered competitive (Virtua Fighter is a fantastic example of this), but strong characters are considered so for a reason, and all of this depends on the context of the game. I also really appreciate the way you frame it as putting a lot of pressure on developers to perfectly balance a game, which is very difficult to do in a genre largely based around asymmetrical toolkit design. I loved the plug for UMK3 at the end as well -- it’s a very fun game with a low skill floor and a fairly high skill ceiling. And the top tiers are all extremely fun characters!
We still play umk3 competitively in russia, community is actually growing here, also the ultimate cup Rom was hacked by our community member. Few things i can add: 1) h.smoke doesn't have just one combo that scorpion has (hk-hk-lk-lk). 2) tier list shown in the video is pretty old, ermac is top 3. 3) at high level tiers in umk3 do matter. Also there is a jab-block technique, that really equalised characters, it is a offensive+defensive tech at the same time. Many umk3 players think this game has a decent balance, especially considering its age, despite having infinite combos and traps. I think even those things are balanced enough by tight execution requierment.
It's actually weird to here people argue that tiers don't exist when we live in an era where whenever a new fighting game/dlc drop, people are immediately going "who's top tier/bro x is top tier/man y is fucking broken dude" 2 hours in.
im teaching a few of my friends. I simply tell them "tier lists are relevant, they just aren't relevant to you yet". Partially because i believe it to be true, but also because they get easily demoralized and think they just simply can't beat a character who is considered better than theirs. That's the downside to having access to high-level play footage online. New players build this overwhelmed impression of the game and if everything isn't perfection and S tier then its no point for them.
This. It's especially a problem when they also play other competitive genres where it's easier to emulate tournament-level play, so they get this really broken expectation of what the learning curve is supposed to be like
I agree, but I think the general sentiment with the "tiers don't exist" argument is to advise newer players to not choose who to play based on a tier list, but instead who they like. Like for instance, if a newcomer really like Alex or Nash in SFV, they should play them instead of not doing so because they're lower down on the tier list. If someone wants to play a character because they're high on a tier list, go ahead. But no one who isn't at a competitive level should not play a character they really like just because they're weak.
I main Alex, and I'm mostly in Silver rank, so I'm definitely the prime example of someone not particularly good at the game, but have enough basic knowledge to pull moves and combos. Even at Silver, I always feel I have to work a lot harder to win matches. Alex's normals are generally worse than a lot of characters, so you'd have to space them out and hit at the tip. If you used a crouching MP at a range when you can combo off it in a Counter Hit, then you're way too close and pressed the wrong button because this close just about everyone outpokes him. And that itself is already how telling tiers can be. I stuck with Alex for a long time, but I also knew I needed to learn other match-ups and play styles. So I picked up Bison, Ibuki and Rashid. And whenever I use them, I generally win more matches, and with less effort. So for someone to say tiers don't matter in low level games is BS. Ibuki has easy target combos that are entirely safe on block, won't activate on whiff, and a dash that lets her get in close and mix up. Rashid has easy frame links, easy and reliable anti-airs and a great V-Trigger 1 that forces your opponent to go on the defensive. In comparison, Alex can't even throw out a standing or crouching MK without opening himself to a full jump-in combo if it whiffs. And the thing is, learning to play other characters helped me play Alex just that little bit better, simply because I have better idea what an opponent of my skill level can and would do if they were using Bison, Rashid, Ibuki or another Alex.
I agree that a tier list is not going to be useful to someone who is just starting to play fighting games, but I also think that "just play who you like" is bad advice for players like that. The first fighting game I tried to be good at was Third Strike. Chun-li was my favorite from the start, so I picked her, and I was absolute ass. Chun-li is a terrible character to hand to an absolute newbie because she teaches horrible habits. She teaches you to use her really good moves as a crutch instead of as a tool. I ended up googling "how to become good at Street Fighter" and got some excellent advice: Play Ryu until you're decent. Ryu is a fantastic character for new players because none of his tools are that good, but he has tons of them. You win with Ryu by learning your opponents weaknesses and figuring out how to exploit them, which requires you to build up a little knowledge about every aspect of the game. That's the advice I give to new players. Play the mediocre character who can do anything poorly. Even if they aren't your favorite or even if you think they're totally lame. I main Chun now and I love it, because playing Ryu for three months all those years ago made me appreciate all of the things she can do and readied me to hone every strength she has. It made me want to be the best Chun-li I can be. It's an experience I never would have had if I'd tried to just stick with her from the start.
@@awkwardcultism just play who you like is a bad advice? Sure. That’s your experience and what worked for you. I played MKX without giving a tad shit about tier lists,and got pretty good results with what apparently is a “low tier character” named bo rai cho. Mainly,play who you like,the process of seeing which playstyle you like more is in practicing each character and finding your way through how to get better at the game while playing who you like. Sometimes y’all need to step back and check what are you playing for.
I think you're underestimating the number of people who don't play fighting games and sincerely make arguments like "Oh but the slow character is strong so that's why it's balanced" or "I beat my friend with [bad character] so tiers are fake". It's not just a sentiment that's been misunderstood, I have actually seen people say stuff like this, although it's not common.
I just wish people would stop hiding behind tiers as an excuse for why they're not succeeding. In a game like Street Fighter, you absolutely can take a "bad" character really far up the ranks before you hit that wall where their weaknesses are glaring. At low levels of play there are a lot of fundamental holes that players need to cover, so the differences between characters in terms of tiers or even matchups are much more diminished. People who say things like "I quit SFV because Ryu is just too bad to win with" while being in Silver ranks are only making excuses.
Awesome video; thanks for the link to the mod btw. I think the conception that tiers don't come up in beginner level play is from the fact that sometimes high tiers are high execution/difficult characters and sometimes low tiers are very easy to learn. Sometimes a person won't get why a character is high tier without deeper education.
Because everyone has their own tier and i don’t give a shit if everyone in any fighting game is carried and broken in someone’s eyes. That’s why i don’t think tiers matter
Great work Bafael, this is basically a perfect video that effortlessly demonstrates in an easy to digest way that there are imbalances in fighting games that players uses tiers to quantify. The only thing that could be added is that tiers often looks different at lower levels of play because some strategies are either easier to execute or harder to defend against without a deeper understanding or stronger execution.
Tiers exist. The only truly balanced fighting game would be one that lets players only pick one character. Imbalance is fun. It creates matchups, theory, differences in gameplay. I feel like the goal with fighting games is not to balance the game completely but to make the distance between high tier and low characters as small as possible. Tiers happen because of character differences within the game design and mechanics. Certain characters are going to universally have an easier time in said game design/ mechanics than others in a cast. Certain characters are going to do well or have easier options against most of the cast so by default a division of characters already appears. Maybe the arguement is not that tiers don't exist but restructuring what we mean by tiers or defining matchups better within a tier list.
I think it can be as simple as just saying "Okay, imagine you have two characters that are literally exactly the same in every way, except one does double damage. Is the one that does double damage better? Okay then, he's higher tier."
Even at the lowest level, tier lists exist. Low skill level players prefer some character to others due to them being easier to use and giving better results with less effort than other characters.
Yeah, there are Tier lists and *TIER LISTS* Some games like Jojo's Heritage of the Future have clear cut good and bad characters. Pet Shop is top tier and Kahn is low tier Now there are games like Street Fighter 4 where even the lowest tier characters like Hugo (Who is arguably the third worst character in the game) have great competitive representation. The most iconic moment in the game's history was a Hugo play (Alex Valle vs Bonchan).
I used to believe the "tiers exist but don't matter except at the top level" but once I actually got past the skill level where people blame their character I realized I had the right idea, but was actually wrong.
I'm an 09er that got back into the fgc while in quarantine... so I'm pretty fresh but... From my perspective some of these long held opinions from folks who played like st in the 90s before widespread internet are so strange.... i get the same vibe hearing Seth Killian talk about why he wrote Domination 101 and the confidence some folks had when spreading misinformation. Coming from games like melee of course tiers exist and they do affect all levels of play... i can look at all this data on the internet and prove it pretty soundly
Smash is even worse because some roles are so broke that almost everyone on that umbrella is automatically high or low tier. The ones of the "tank" type like Bowser.
@@Spunney definitely, most characters are unique and the only categories I can think of are “swordies”, “spacies” and “heavies”, but even in those categories they vary wildly character to character unless direct clone characters
It was a much more prevalent opinion before competitive fighting games (and competitive gaming in general) went mainstream. I think most people understand the concept of "high tier" or "meta" now, between MMOs and MOBAs and RTS and FPS and FGs.
@@Bafael i think online video sharing helped too, you can see the broken stuff day 1 rather than flipping a coin on whether your arcade has anyone who knows how to use genei jin or not
@@Bafael people were arguing yesterday that Tiers don't exist in Genshin Impact lol, it's fucking ridiculous. It's clear they've never played a competitive game in their life - it doesn't matter what genre the game is, the choices you make are tied to number values and some choices just lead to inherently better numbers. That's all gaming is when you boil it down. Obviously you have to consider context and situational value but some people can't even acknowledge the games they play are based on 1's and 0's.
Tiers exist. If you bring a knife to a gun fight, you are opting for the lower tier weapon, and putting yourself at a disadvantage. Now, you could still win. The chances are slight, and it will take you more work to do so, but you are 100% at a disadvantage. Also doesn't help that guns are plus on block.
Still one of my favourite videos of yours. Some people get extremely delusional about game's balance, I've genuinely seen people act like developers are flawless human beings and their first iteration of balance is perfect. Some people also dismiss tiers as not mattering because it's *theoretically* possible for a character with all-round awful tools to beat a flawless character, ignoring that tier lists mostly quantify how much effort it takes for a character to perform well, relative to others.
For the longest time I always assumed that tier lists were created solely off of opinion and not any substantial information; this video very much changed that perception for me.
Actually,they are opinion based. This is just a very very very specific example where this character has exactly the same stats as the other but with a few extras. That’s just bad character design
@@PomadaGaming with matchup charts, math, and a whole lotta research, tiers can actually be factual. A lot of people just stopped doing them and started basing tier lists on their opinion
It is possible to make a game where characters can't be separated into tiers. You need to make a game where ALL characters with the exact same traits - in other words, spriteswaps. As long as characters have differences, tiers will exist. The matter is how much influence said differences have.
I think its pretty well agreed among fighting game players that tiers exist. The bigger problem is people talking about "meta" and "tier lists" when they have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. So when someone complains about a scrubs shit opinions, its not against the idea of tiers but against the scrub. Also tiers and bad matchups are often used as excuses to not improve, which is another issue.
Only argument I could pose is that with newer games having the ability of patches, tier lists aren't as important as most characters can play on the same level. For example, smash ultimate on launch had numerous glitches, top tiers, bottom tiers, etc. But now, with all characters out, you can usually pick any character, and with enough time, be amazing with them. Although that doesn't mean patches are always good in all games. In TF2, the patches were usually unbalanced and guns that were broken with godlike power on launch, becoming irrelevant with the next patch. Also sorry for writing an essay.
I think the argument that “tiers don’t exist at low level” isn’t attempting to argue that the game is objectively balanced so much as saying “whether or not the opponent’s character is better, that’s not the only reason you lost” I.E. it’s not so much saying that tiers don’t matter as much as saying that being a better player is still the most important option until you get to a point where everyone is optimized Going with your example, at a low level if you play Scorpion and you keep losing to a Human Smoke player who is slightly better than you, yes they were playing a better character, but even if you switched to Human Smoke, they’d still usually beat you, whereas if you got a lot better, you’d win with either Scorpion OR Human Smoke
Even more against the point of "tiers not mattering until high level" a lot of times a characters normals are a big part of their strength and placement in a list. Even if you are brand new to the game, fighting against someone else brand new. It will take you 2 seconds to realize if you have a normal that reaches way farther than theirs and is faster, and you will intuitively just spam it against them. This exact situation is what happened when I got some of my friends who aren't fighting game players to fight each other in sfv
Its wishful thinking to say that tiers dont exist. If any argument should be made, it should be that you can play really well with mid or low tier characters if you invest enough time or come up with good enough strategies
I've been waiting for this video since the original statement was made. I have never really played an MK game and always wondered what this would look like in practice. Great work as usual Baf!
I just wish people would stop hiding behind tiers as an excuse for why they're not succeeding. In a game like Street Fighter, you absolutely can take a "bad" character really far up the ranks before you hit that wall where their weaknesses are glaring. At low levels of play there are a lot of fundamental holes that players need to cover, so the differences between characters in terms of tiers or even matchups are much more diminished. People who say things like "I quit SFV because Ryu is just too bad to win with" while being in Silver ranks are only making excuses.
@@Cybrisk grinding rank does not mean low tier character is useless. In tekken all my character pass genbu already, the different how much effort is required to rank up
I think Tekken is the biggest example of there being different tierlists for different skill levels. King and Eddy are scrubkillers but never tend to make it far in proper tournaments.
I agree 100%. I also believe you can achieve success with low tiers if you put in the extra effort . You'll get quicker results with high tiers but you can still get places with low tier. I think a lot of beginners think that the reason they lose is because of tiers and not their skill which is why people have to tell them "tier lists dont matter" when really they mean tier lists dont matter at ur level.
For anyone who watches this and still doesn't think tiers exist, load up 3rd Strike on Fightcade and play as Sean, Twelve or Q. Proceed to get bodied by anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of Chun-Li, Ken or Yun and you'll see what I'm talking about real quick.
@@PixelAtionGuitar just got done watching a video about that, actually. I don't hate Q. In fact, I fuckin' love him! But he's low tier for a reason. If you got that Kuroda swag on deck, to where you can play him on the highest technical level, he's great! Good luck tryna do any of that shit on a controller or keyboard though, especially the frame perfect kara-cancel tech. Normal-skilled players are still getting bodied hard for using Q.
@@BridgetGX yeah of course he's bad but my comment was about how since he has a lot of helpful tech he can get wins and he isn't nearly at the same level as someone like Sean also I'm 98% sure on the video you watched and yeah, its a great video
One other thing that wasn't explicitly mentioned with Human Smoke (I could be wrong through): Human Smoke has an auto-combo that leads into a "parsed" Infinite Juggle Combo, based on resetting the auto-combo timing system within the game system itself; Scorpion doesn't have anything close to that. For reference, (HK, D+LP, D+HP) is the dial-a-combo that sets up this "parsed"/"reset" infinite, and is the combo I'm referring to. By delaying the input slightly between (HK) and (D+LP), the game's combo detection system will get slightly thrown off, even though you're still in the middle of performing an auto-combo. This will cause the combo meter to reset and allow you to perform the rest of the combo, which leads to a juggle state. I.e., the combo is this: {Spear --> (HK, D+LP, D+HP) --> JK ~ Teleport --> Spear...}, Repeat Loop. It's extremely hard to break out of that loop. Usually, only a computer controlled character can throw you to break the loop because of the small timing window between HK and D+LP. Other than that, good video.
I think people like to say tier lists dont matter because of those moments when you see a low tier character beat high tier. What people need to understand is a character being low tier doesnt mean they cant win. All a tier list is telling you is that this character has more or less tools to deal with different kinds of situations. The more tools you have the more problems you can handle and vice versa. I know the video has already stated this but I just wanted to reaffirm it.
I like to think of it as how much work the player has to put into a match. Certain characters require tremendous focus and defense and difficult combos to be effective. Top tiers have some combination of high damage, speed, easy combos, powerful specials and the like.
I knew you were gonna make a video on this but I was hoping you'd make it an April Fools Bad/Good Balance Video where you praise Smoke and then rip on Scorpion lol
Tiers are real for sure. People who say they don’t exist must only play in a very small circle of players and never google the game they play. Or use training mode. Or play other characters.
Id say smash melee is a good example of very clearly defined tier differences with how each character interacts with the universal mechanics of the game. For instance, crouch-cancelling is a very good reversal tool that allows you to tank through a hit almost like hyper armor, and then punish it with your own, and the best characters have tools that counter this tech with either a wide degree of application or heavy damage (crouch-cancelling peach’s down smash would be the fighting game equivalent of taking 50% of your hp off of one hit). Low tiers dont have these same tools and struggle a lot more to play neutral or punish better characters because every risk they take is higher and every reward they land is lower. That same risk/reward skew translates to any game and is what defines tiers most predominantly, even moreso than blatantly glaring issues. But smash isnt a fighting game so it doesnt count : )))
"Tier lists don't matter" "The differences between high and low tier are imaginary" "All characters are equally good at top level play" (SSBU) Little Mac: So you're telling me there's a chance...
Zero was beating up active pro players with Little Mac, doesn't mean little mac is equal but he does have a chance if you do your homework even against that level of play, but still Mac has to do a lot of work to pull it off at that level. If you are not playing international level pro players then it really doesn't matter as long as you put the work , tiers do exist and will always exist.
I'll just say my performance with Balrog in SFV was enough to demonstrate tiers to me. I picked him up on launch in season 1, he was...not great. But I enjoyed playing him and kept at it and was slowly climbing. Then season 2 Balrog dropped. I think I won something like 17 of my next 20 ranked games. The buffs had made him top 5 at least, maybe top 3. I didn't change overnight, Balrog did.
Tiers do exist, the scaling that the games exist in is different though, for example MvC2 is tier scaling is WAAAAAAYYYYYY too far apart to the point where they have separate tournaments specifically for high tiers and mid/low tiers. DBFZ is a game where everyone is virtually viable, but that doesn't mean there aren't certain characters who have the advantage over others, thus meaning that tiers are true, but deciding on who is on top and bottom is subjective, since we have different awareness of what each character has and how the meta of said game can be played.
In a nutshell, some characters will have strategies and abilities that will work way better than others. The difference in effectiveness can be really low though or really high.
Maybe in Tekken and Soulcalibur you can actually not care about tiers till high level, simply because everyone has tons of cheesey knowledge and reaction checks and combo damage is somewhat unified. Obviously tiers super exist but sometimes their importance can get over extended
I think there is a definitive tier list at high level but not at lower levels. While there are strategies that will work better on lower-level players, different players will learn to counter those strategies at different rates. For example one day you decide you're not going to let people jump in on you for free and you decide to practice your anti-airs, or you figure out that you can backdash to escape command grabs. From that point forward you will be significantly better at dealing with a certain type of strategy while still getting wrecked by others. Whereas at a high level every player will know how to counter basically every type of move in the game and their strategies will be near-optimal, meaning tiers start to emerge based on the current meta.
The fact that there are FGC weirdos that would disagree with this video is proof that there's something wrong mentally with the community, as they all try too hard to be contrarian masters of fighting game knowledge.
If I was to play Devil's advocate, I'd say that this is one extreme example which doesn't apply to most fighting games. Human Smoke is literally Scorpion with more tools, whereas even clone characters in other games, like Ryu and Ken from the earlier SF installments, had their advantages and disadvantages when directly compared to each other. I've honestly never encountered someone with this belief, so I have no idea what their reasoning could be. Seems pretty clear to me that some characters are easier to win with than others.
Great video. I really like how concise and to the point you are. It's very neat. When talking about tiers, I usually see two different definitions brought up. One being the strength of a character's tools, like you described in the video, while the other is based on tournament results. The first can play into the other, but I don't think that's always the case. I think the first can be difficult, since you'd have to analyse the character's tools, then compare them to others to get a good estimate of their strengths. This takes a fair bit more knowledge than the second method, which is simply to look at what characters win tournaments. However, I don't think that's always a proper reflection of how strong those characters are. Things like representation and match-up spreads can affect the meta and make certain characters seem stronger than what they would be deemed as going only by analysing their kit. Let me try to explain what I mean with an example. If a top tier sees widespread usage, but has a losing match-up against a mid tier with very low representation, someone maining that mid tier could fill a niche and manage to squeeze out some big wins due to there being so many other people maining a character that loses to their main.. I could be completely wrong in how this works, but I hope it at least makes sense.
I think you’ve accidentally made three definitions of tiers, not two: 1. “Tiers lists are fully/perfectly informed models of all character’s tools and matchups” aka “the one true tier list” 2. “Tiers are people’s analysis of all character’s tools and matchups (either by pro players or en mass by poll or some other method)” aka “tiers by analysis” 3. “Tiers are aggregate tournament results” aka “tiers by results” I think it’s pretty clear that 1 is the goal, and 2 and 3 are seeking to approximate it by different methods. Early on in a game’s life, “tiers by analysis” probably does a good job of figuring out what’s going on, but as more and more people play and the game’s community and meta approaches maturity, “tiers by results” should get closer and closer to approximating “the one true tier list”.
Fahkumram is a good comparison to this video too. Like with Smoke and Scorpion there is no point in using Josie at all in T7 with Fahkumram around because he does everything she does better with no exceptions. Not to mention even if he weren't around she's still trash. Kagemaru was struggling with her against some random Lili a year or so back at EVO and it made me wonder what the point is.
I'm pretty sure you already uploaded this video about tier lists, at least I'm sure I watched it some time ago. IMO Tier list DO exist, but only matter in a competitive environment where both players are about the same level AND both of them know the ins and outs of the matchup they are going to play, I know pretty common opinion.
I think this is a common take but I actually disagree with it. I have a paragraph about it in the description but basically I think tier lists are simply DIFFERENT at low level play. Some characters punish you a LOT for not knowing the matchup. Example: Raiden in MK11 with his huge hitbox electric field which he can turn into a launcher on reaction, and if you fully block it it's completely safe. However, you can neutral duck the final hit and if you do it's always punishable. Characters who exploit matchup inexperience are "top tier" when both players don't know the matchup, but there's not much point discussing which characters are good in low level play since most players get out of low level pretty quickly.
@@Bafael Yes I agree with you in that sense, my response was referring to the tier lists in an ideal case at the highest level that most people refer to even at intermediate play level made by top players (admittetly without knowing too much they tend to peek at them for various reasons, I usually don't care), if you lower the skill level of the player and the knowledge of the game he has he will do different plays compared to better players, and if you don't know how to counter certain stuff you might see what are considered low tier characters as god tier (probably someone who keeps getting looped by Quan Chi in MK9 could be a good example).
I'd also like to add a little note regarding how time matters in establishing a tier list, if a game is brand new even "top players" might misjudge what is a good character, and that can be rectified only by playing and with time, an example that comes to mind is in MvC2 when people believed Ice Man to be top tier, only to fall to mid tier by other previously "lower tier" characters.
I've never seen the argument "tiers don't exist" I have seen the argument "Tiers don't matter" and I think that is true to a certain extent especially in a newer fighting game.
Tier lists definitely exist and are relevant in every tier of play from casual to high level. There's a reason characters tend to be considered "scrub killers". Because they beat up on lower level players who don't know better hence low level players view them as good. No matter what level you play, a tier list can be made. Ignoring it and saying that a tier list doesn't exist is not only being ignorant towards data proving otherwise, but there are examples of tier lists existing. Why do you think it was so amazing to watch Rangachu win a major with panda? Because panda is considered a bad character, but he made it work. Not all characters are viable and that's something you have to accept. That doesn't mean you can't play them, it means that you will have a harder time doing well with that character. But if you really enjoy a character, keep playing them. Fighting games are meant to be enjoyed.
It's kinda funny how the developers just made Human Smoke a better Scorpion with no downsides in UMK3, though they did try to address this a bit in Trilogy with Scorpion's forward teleport being exclusive to him. Either way glad to see classic MK on this channel, I used to play a lot of Trilogy on N64 and it's still probably my favorite in the series. That version has a lot of exclusive quirks that make it a lot more enjoyable to play than UMK3 and PS1 Trilogy imo. Might be a cool topic for a video.
Also who the heck disliked this video? I mean you can't get anymore bullet proof than what Baf is saying here. This game is 25 years old - and it's legitimate historical proof here.
Most characters in UMK3 on the surface level are definitely pretty easy to learn, but difficult to master. It takes a looong time to be able to actually “compete” with good players. Anyway, tier lists absolutely exist, to suggest otherwise is just factual incorrect. However, having an actual list isn’t as important as people make it out to be.
Many people don’t realize that “META” isnt just a weird word we added a definition that allows us to describe games. It stands for Most Effective/Efficient Tactic Available. So like it or not meta’s and tiers always will exist because there’s always a most effective way to play any competitive game.
As a Blanka player, let me first say that yes, tiers definitely exist. Depending on the game the tiers can make more or less impact, but they definitely exist. I'd agree that in a decently balanced game tiers make less of a difference and low and even mid levels of play, but again that depends heavily on what game it is. In USF4, which I consider to be a well balanced game, you have matchups like blanka vs thawk, or gouken vs hugo, but a large majority of the matchups are 6-4 or lower, which is easily winnable for either player, and individual skill plays a larger factor.
The more balanced a fighting game is, the less tiers matter. There are fighting games where tiers aren't very important, but I've never played a fighting game where every single matchup was dead even.
I agree and I can prove it. Sonic Fox is the only person on the planet that can use mk11 D'vorah and even he wouldn't be caught dead using her in a big tournament.
Another example is Nu-13/Lambda-11 in BlazBlue series: They're palette swaps but the exclusive moves given made one a high-tier and the other a crappy tier. I've been pummeled to the ground enough by many MSPs on Marvel vs. Capcom 2 to make me notice the tier list. Still, I have fun using Akuma/Gouki.
this gave me nostalgia I never knew I had for UMK3. my prime was UMK3 on 360 XBLA. I must've been pretty good at UMK3 because I was always in the top 30 rankings & I always used to go up against now known MK players like UMKShock & DedMK. this one guy named Crazy Dominican had a SCARY Nightwolf & everybody was afraid of him. Dude would spam that shoulder move at speeds not possible on a controller & then he would launch you & juggle tf out of you in the corner with the axe uppercut. I was the only person that ever gave him problems. I had a Nasty Kabal. I'd block+run spam right up to people & fake like I was gonna combo & stop just short of touching them to make them react, then I'd 1,1,d1 to launch & once they were in the air, nothing but 50% combos... it was curtains 😂
Someone who told me tiers don’t exist also commonly uses the phrase “Never bring a knife to a gun fight.” While not getting the irony. I tried to explain it to him once and he was like “but a knife is better when you’re up close and it has unlimited ammo. Plus you can throw it.” I just rolled my eyes. But also with tiers you have Banned characters who’re banned for obvious reasons like Shin Akuma (in pretty much every game he’s in). Shin Akuma can do everything Akuma can do and then has better frame data, does more damage, and has moves Akuma doesn’t have. He gets the ban hammer cause he’s made specifically to be a better character.
i agree with everything you said but a character being outright superior and outclassing someone doesnt make them bannable, otherwise Smoke here would be banned. being a boss character definitely makes you bannable
great content! two things: 1) how come umk3 seems more accepted in general than mk trilogy? i loved mk trilogy but i have zero experience with umk3. 2) also, i'd also love to see mk trilogy noob saibot on your bad balance series.
It's really just because umk3 has an arcade port and is a bit more refined, while trilogy has multiple console versions that have fairly big differences between them and it's even less balanced in some ways than umk3. Trilogy is still great too though.
I think a good way to phrase it would be, "Tiers exist, but their importance depends on how well the game is balanced, and the skill of both players."
That's perfect
Yeah, there are some low tiers that are bad and some that are good
I mean look at gill in Sf5 he's like bottom 5 but he's great if you know how to play him
I can’t believe I never replied to this but yeah 100%. A game like soulcalibur 2 or Mark of the wolves you’ll frequently see the best character in the game lose frequently to the worst. But in games like mk9 or tekken yeah no, tiers exist and matter a lot no matter the level of play. It’s why I like to explain how much tiers matter on a game before talking about what tiers really mean for the game.
@@Neogears1312 I generally agree, but Tekken is not a great example of non-existing tiers. Otherwise I'd love to see you argue how Gigas = Mishimas/Akuma/Paul/Nina. I understand your point being that a good Gigas player will more often than not beat a worse player with one of the other characters. But that entirely depends on the skill level, matchup viability and context - even if Gigas is only 1% worse, he's just a lower tier in principle. Because characters in fighting games aren't all the same, there will always be tier lists.
@@nivyan
I think this was just strangely punctuated
I think its meant to be:
In a game like street fighter or tekken, "yeah no", tiers exist and matter a lot...
The "yeah no" being a dismissal of the arguement rather than it reading:
In a game like street fighter or tekken, yeah, no tiers exist...
I think the "tiers don't matter until high level play" argument is a more ham-fisted version of "If you don't plan on winning EVO then play who you like.". Modern fighting games tend to be much better about having a roster that is mostly playable, though, so it works out better.
Another argument:
On beginner levels, tiers are also a thing, because some strategies are harder to counter when you're a beginner.
For example, if you don't know how to deal with command grabs, Zangief will be a stronger character. Or, it you're not fast or blocky enough, M. Bison and Vega can spam sweep and that command jump-in.
This is why I argue yuzuriha isn't top tier at my level in uni or why yosuke isn't nearly as good at a low level people need to realize skill changes tier placement
In MK games, this is why teleports are so potent at lower skill levels... it's a gimmick that in a way breaks the rules of the game, and you have to actually have knowledge on how to counter it.
These scrubkiller characters are basically SSS-tier until you take a game seriously and do like 5 minutes of research lol
Well said. And in games with auto combos not all are created equal so mashing/low execution for good reward combos or buttons benefit lower ranks disproportionately. Lower ranks also are less likely to know frame data and think in appropriate punishes so "cheap" stuff can be repeatedly rewarding
@@keystonelyte Teleports and gun projectiles are the devil in MK.
@@NSFSponsor yeah, my least favorite character to fight against in MK3 is Stryker... and he's not even THAT good lol
people who dont think tiers exist have never been air hyper viper'd lol
@@quickcar5255 does Jill have a hyper viper beam?
@@quickcar5255 how stoned do you have to be to make that statement? Cable is absolutely top tier. Top 4 easy.
@@Ieatbabys123456 Hes crap compared to Sent, Storm and Mags.
@@quickcar5255 ???!!?? wtf are you talking? Have you ever played mvc2? Even Justin Wong says cable is top 4 right behind those 3. All of them are S+ tier
@@Ieatbabys123456 Wong isn't even good anymore. Might as well quote Eddie Lee.
"tiers don't exist; just some characters are harder to win with than others".
(Lol)
That's just skill floor and skill ceiling.
@@matshbocks maybe we could call them character brackets instead of tiers then.
@@matshbocks i mean if 2 characters fill the same role but one is easy to play and the other is difficult the easy character is obviously better
@@SpitefulAZ imagine arguing semantics
@@mrhObo9921 I mean its not just that. A character could be easier to use but in the long run provide no easier ability to win with than a character is harder. The issue is more who is easier to win with with easier to use being a bonus. I mean take sfv and Ryu after season 2. Hes so easy to use but in comparison but struggles to win in comparison to other characters.
But bro. Like I swear, he's good if you know how to use him!!!!1
and then you ask if they know and they go "nah but this one guy i saw online once was winning like crazy"
Me with Akatsuki in UNIEL
____ isn't bad, I won matches with them.
what is it with scrubs and saying "if you know how to use them"
like bro you cant even input a quarter circle
"I don't think he's actually top tier, people just need to learn the matchup."
I agree with your take on this, even if I think MK in general has horrid balance.
Tier lists based on high levels of competitive play can be irrelevant for beginners and in some cases intermediate players but beginners/intermediate play has it's own "tier list" based on how easy it is to abuse an attack/setup if your opponent doesn't know the matchup well, and even then you have stuff like Cable's Hyper Viper Beam combos which are really easy to use making him incredibly strong in low levels of play and remain relevant in high levels of play, so only tech that requires high execution/deep knowledge of the fighting system fall into the "only relevant for pros" category rather than tiers themselves.
My example would be Eddy from Tekken 3, most casual players consider him the strongest character in the cast because his animations are harder to read so blocking his attacks is pretty hard if you don't know well his movelist and can't use the movement options well enough to avoid getting caught in his blockstrings. Meanwhile in high levels of play Eddy is almost irrelevant and characters who looked tamer on the surface become incredibly overpowered once you learn exploits and the intricacies of the combat system.
Who's reading all that?
@@offended323 me
@@offended323 it took like 25 seconds
Edit: not even 20
@@offended323 You don't have to if that's too much brain power for you, go play Akuma or Fornite while the adults have a meaningful conversation.
@@Bafael
don't lie
Tier lists do exist and they exist for a reason, but people like to forget they also need to look at match-up charts in games like ST to get the full picture
Shoutouts to Fei Long having a 3-7 against Honda even though they're both "mid tier" and Old Sagat having a 3-7 against Dhalsim even though they're both "top tier"
That's just how it be sometimes. Dhalsim is pretty broken all around, his throw loops are stupid.
I think that's something the melee community does kinda well, tiers obviously exist there, but they take mus into consideration a lot more than most games.
Matchup charts went the way of the dodo with SF5. People just assign random letters with no context other than "oh this character won this many tournaments."
@@henriquerodrigues7795 Yeah, I love that there's a balance between the top 7 characters. Specially how somehow Fox isn't winning mayors half the time despite being considered the best and instead we get Peach then Jigglypuff and now Marth on top.
I’m more surprised you covered UMK3, I wouldn’t mind seeing more.
I'm a big NRS fan actually.
@@Bafael I’m a former NRS fan, I jumped ship after Injustice 2 when I realized I wasn’t very good at NRS fighters. :< I stick to ArcSys’s DBFZ now.
@@Bafael that's actually somewhat refreshing to hear. For some reason even tho NRS games are hugely popular, it's somewhat hip to just shit on the games for some reason...
@@Bafael umk3 isn't nrs though it's Midway?
@@kawaiiempoleon8721 most people know this, generally we just refer to MK and Injustice as 'NRS games' even though NRS only developed MK9, X, and 11.
smoke's biggest advantage over scorpion is how much more horrible he is to look at
It’s so laughably bad how they designed him
“Oh yeah this guy isn’t gray scorpion.. he’s uhh… ‘human smoke’, as you can see he is very smoky”
A small thing I'd like to say:
Tiers are a thing, but it shouldn't discourage you from picking up a low tier. Yes they might have bad matchups or bad normal. Though this shouldn't discourage you from playing them, if you enjoy them, keep playing them. Understand their weaknesses and play to their strengths. You can't tell yourself that "my character is so bad." Why are you playing this character then? If you really only care about your performances/wins, play a character that is objectively better. An example of this is Ryu over Ken in third strike. Ryu is objectively worse than Ken, but does that mean you should just play Ken? Not really. They have a similar moveset, but have their own unique moves to separate them. You really have to understand that yes, your character is weaker, but it does not mean matches are unwinnable. Play to your strengths, and understand your weaknesses. Play what you enjoy, but don't complain that your character is trash all day. Adapt and learn what you can do in unfavorable matchups. Even if you lose in those matchups, analyze what you did well, and what you could've done. So you can fix from previous experiences. That's what fighting games are all about; outplaying your opponents.
Also sorry for rambling, but I hate low tier warriors who complain all day about how they wish their character was top tier. Like just pick a top tier if winning matters that much to you. If not, keep practicing and play to your advantage! Read your opponent, and learn their habits.
speaking of third strike, this makes me think about how the dev's deliberately made Sean trash so that experienced players could use Sean against newer players to help balance their respective experience gap. If tiers didn't exist then why would they feel compelled to do this rather than, for example, allowing you to reduce your starting life bar like some older games used to do? If tiers weren't real then any character would work just as well to help new players have an advantage against experienced and there wouldn't be a need to deliberately neuter Sean from his 2nd impact build. At least any shoto would work given their similar move-sets and frame data. At least it makes sense to me.
Varies from game to game, can you win with claw, Dan and Dee Jay in USFIV, of course you can, it will just be harder, can you win with Roll, Zangief and Chun-li in MvC2 ??? FUCKING NO.
@@lunadachi4792 literally what my whole post was about. I play a lot of low tiers, but I don't blame anyone but myself for my loses. Because I know I could do better
I "main" Sagat and sometimes it's frustrating that I lost because I know I could win but the match up makes it harder, so I just use a different character.
I love Sagat but I sometimes prefer other characters in matchups so I can give them a different look and present a different playatyle to perhaps confuse them
I kind of understand complaining about bottom tiers if there aren't any competitive characters with a similar role/playstyle. Like if you play a game in which every single grappler is low/bottom tier and you only like playing grapplers, it can feel like "do you want to have fun or do you want to win". Of course, that situation is really rare and probably only happens in very poorly balanced games.
"Tiers don't exist"
Have any of yall played Sailor Moon S!?
Sailor Moon tiers are really weird tbh
only the third- and second-lowest-ranked characters have infinite combos, and the lowest-ranked character can force a timeout and guarantee a round win from a life lead
now, Marvel? You're gonna learn about tiers REAL fast
@@Ihavenolifeorvideos melee
@@tanyaharmon6739 Melee is a good example
but it gets more obvious in Marvel when it's not just a low tier vs a top tier, but 3 low tiers vs 3 top tiers
ESPECIALLY in marvel2
@@Ihavenolifeorvideos yeah,I just wanted to add on to the pile of examples
I think that when people say, "Tiers don't matter at lower levels of play," they usually mean that unforced errors, rather than differences in character strength, tend to be the deciding factors of those games. That rings true for me, but it doesn't mean that characters with better toolsets aren't more consistent at all levels of play, just that an Ultra Bronze Alex can beat a Gold Akuma if the Akuma makes bad decisions due to lack of matchup knowledge.
Well, it's also that some characters' strengths don't come through if the players don't know what they're doing. Like if a character has strong okizeme set ups and option selects, it doesn't matter if the person playing them doesn't know/can't execute them. It's why simple characters, or characters with tools that need a little training to figure out how to counter, are generally very strong at low levels.
Well, i have a counter argument, i suck at fighting games so evey character i pick is low tier. Take that Bafael
People who think tiers don't exist probably beat their Meta-Knight using friend in Brawl with a low tier and thinks that means something despite never having played any of the thousands of people who really know how to play the game.
Nobody plays brawl cuz its trash
@@raphu2272well… they said “played”, “played” is past tense, not present tense. And as for that… well you’re statement is just wrong, brawl sold millions of copies so people did in fact play it and people do in fact still play it.
Most of the time when I hear someone say "tiers don't matter" it's generally offered as advice to newbies who want to learn to play. If you're picking up a stick for the first time in your life, the differences between Ryu and E.Ryu in a game like USF4 are going to mean nothing to you. But once you actually learn to play to a certain extent, character differences start mattering.
I feel this. When I try to teach my Ult friends Melee I tell them to pick whoever they have fun with. Once they're familiar with the engine and want to take it more seriously we'll talk about viable characters.
Tears do exist. Usually in the eyes of scrubs who deny facts and game knowledge
UMK3 is so underrated as a competitive fighting game.
One of my favorite fighting games ever, right between ACR, ABK and MvC2. I wish there was more footage/events for it.
It really isn't. Game has too many exploits, bugs and Noob Saibot exists there.
@@BlackMetalVayu you know Noob wasn't playable in UMK3 right? Unless you mean the Wavenet version which is undumped as of now.
No its not, its too broken
Umk3 is busted. Its fun but absolutely broken
It's the same pushback you see when folks get to talking about any sort of meta. I may have only been super into fighting games for like 2 years, but I remember hearing the same stuff for years in games like Pokemon, League of Legends, and World of Warcraft. I think it's defensive personality thing. Character/Class, playstyle, team structure, end goal, etc; these games offer an undeniable personal appeal to them and I think that leads to people getting VERY attached to those personal choices and thus feel slighted when it falls short in the eyes of inherently impersonal meta theory. In the end no can actually stop you from playing what want, but I feel like out right ignoring the meta is silly and causes you to miss out on vital information since from those tier/meta discussions you learn so much that to me really does help clear the gap sometimes or at the least gives a better visual to the problem that you needs to overcome in play.
TL;DR: In all things understanding and knowledge is king, and what are tiers and metagame but explorable information?
games like league are so much more complicated and have so many variations (practically infinite amount of possible team compositions) that it is much more difficult to make strong "X champ is better than Y champ" arguments, because of how situational everything is in these games.
in fighting games it's much easier. everything is a pure 1v1 with full information on both sides, so character tiers are much easier to establish
That's a great point. I wish people like that would understand that metas add MORE appeal and character for some people. When I played Titanfall 2 I mained Scorch, which was arguably one of the worst titans in the game. But because I knew how bad scorch was, every victory felt so much more sweet. Or think about characters like Dan in SF or Tachanka in R6: Siege, who for the longest time have arguably been popular as a result of how bad they are.
"I remember hearing the same stuff for years in games like Pokemon"
Wow, there's people who think pokemon is balanced? Not only do half your favorite pokemon suck, they suck on purpose because you're supposed to switch them out for better ones later in the game.
@@byronmartin6293 Tell me you've never played League OR Street Fighter, without telling me you've never played League or Street Fighter.
I’ve always really liked this argument, because people tend to confuse “tiers don’t exist” with “tiers don’t need to factor significantly into character choice”. There are lots of games where weaker characters are still considered competitive (Virtua Fighter is a fantastic example of this), but strong characters are considered so for a reason, and all of this depends on the context of the game. I also really appreciate the way you frame it as putting a lot of pressure on developers to perfectly balance a game, which is very difficult to do in a genre largely based around asymmetrical toolkit design. I loved the plug for UMK3 at the end as well -- it’s a very fun game with a low skill floor and a fairly high skill ceiling. And the top tiers are all extremely fun characters!
We still play umk3 competitively in russia, community is actually growing here, also the ultimate cup Rom was hacked by our community member. Few things i can add: 1) h.smoke doesn't have just one combo that scorpion has (hk-hk-lk-lk).
2) tier list shown in the video is pretty old, ermac is top 3.
3) at high level tiers in umk3 do matter. Also there is a jab-block technique, that really equalised characters, it is a offensive+defensive tech at the same time. Many umk3 players think this game has a decent balance, especially considering its age, despite having infinite combos and traps. I think even those things are balanced enough by tight execution requierment.
It's actually weird to here people argue that tiers don't exist when we live in an era where whenever a new fighting game/dlc drop, people are immediately going "who's top tier/bro x is top tier/man y is fucking broken dude" 2 hours in.
@From Maui That's not clickbait when I've seen bunch of peoples on twitter/discord going like that anytime a new character is released/balanced/etc.
im teaching a few of my friends. I simply tell them "tier lists are relevant, they just aren't relevant to you yet". Partially because i believe it to be true, but also because they get easily demoralized and think they just simply can't beat a character who is considered better than theirs. That's the downside to having access to high-level play footage online. New players build this overwhelmed impression of the game and if everything isn't perfection and S tier then its no point for them.
This. It's especially a problem when they also play other competitive genres where it's easier to emulate tournament-level play, so they get this really broken expectation of what the learning curve is supposed to be like
I agree, but I think the general sentiment with the "tiers don't exist" argument is to advise newer players to not choose who to play based on a tier list, but instead who they like. Like for instance, if a newcomer really like Alex or Nash in SFV, they should play them instead of not doing so because they're lower down on the tier list.
If someone wants to play a character because they're high on a tier list, go ahead. But no one who isn't at a competitive level should not play a character they really like just because they're weak.
I main Alex, and I'm mostly in Silver rank, so I'm definitely the prime example of someone not particularly good at the game, but have enough basic knowledge to pull moves and combos. Even at Silver, I always feel I have to work a lot harder to win matches. Alex's normals are generally worse than a lot of characters, so you'd have to space them out and hit at the tip. If you used a crouching MP at a range when you can combo off it in a Counter Hit, then you're way too close and pressed the wrong button because this close just about everyone outpokes him. And that itself is already how telling tiers can be.
I stuck with Alex for a long time, but I also knew I needed to learn other match-ups and play styles. So I picked up Bison, Ibuki and Rashid. And whenever I use them, I generally win more matches, and with less effort. So for someone to say tiers don't matter in low level games is BS. Ibuki has easy target combos that are entirely safe on block, won't activate on whiff, and a dash that lets her get in close and mix up. Rashid has easy frame links, easy and reliable anti-airs and a great V-Trigger 1 that forces your opponent to go on the defensive. In comparison, Alex can't even throw out a standing or crouching MK without opening himself to a full jump-in combo if it whiffs. And the thing is, learning to play other characters helped me play Alex just that little bit better, simply because I have better idea what an opponent of my skill level can and would do if they were using Bison, Rashid, Ibuki or another Alex.
I agree that a tier list is not going to be useful to someone who is just starting to play fighting games, but I also think that "just play who you like" is bad advice for players like that.
The first fighting game I tried to be good at was Third Strike. Chun-li was my favorite from the start, so I picked her, and I was absolute ass. Chun-li is a terrible character to hand to an absolute newbie because she teaches horrible habits. She teaches you to use her really good moves as a crutch instead of as a tool.
I ended up googling "how to become good at Street Fighter" and got some excellent advice: Play Ryu until you're decent.
Ryu is a fantastic character for new players because none of his tools are that good, but he has tons of them. You win with Ryu by learning your opponents weaknesses and figuring out how to exploit them, which requires you to build up a little knowledge about every aspect of the game.
That's the advice I give to new players. Play the mediocre character who can do anything poorly. Even if they aren't your favorite or even if you think they're totally lame.
I main Chun now and I love it, because playing Ryu for three months all those years ago made me appreciate all of the things she can do and readied me to hone every strength she has. It made me want to be the best Chun-li I can be.
It's an experience I never would have had if I'd tried to just stick with her from the start.
@@awkwardcultism just play who you like is a bad advice? Sure. That’s your experience and what worked for you. I played MKX without giving a tad shit about tier lists,and got pretty good results with what apparently is a “low tier character” named bo rai cho. Mainly,play who you like,the process of seeing which playstyle you like more is in practicing each character and finding your way through how to get better at the game while playing who you like. Sometimes y’all need to step back and check what are you playing for.
I think you're underestimating the number of people who don't play fighting games and sincerely make arguments like "Oh but the slow character is strong so that's why it's balanced" or "I beat my friend with [bad character] so tiers are fake". It's not just a sentiment that's been misunderstood, I have actually seen people say stuff like this, although it's not common.
I just wish people would stop hiding behind tiers as an excuse for why they're not succeeding. In a game like Street Fighter, you absolutely can take a "bad" character really far up the ranks before you hit that wall where their weaknesses are glaring. At low levels of play there are a lot of fundamental holes that players need to cover, so the differences between characters in terms of tiers or even matchups are much more diminished. People who say things like "I quit SFV because Ryu is just too bad to win with" while being in Silver ranks are only making excuses.
tires don exits
came here for this.
understandable, have a nice day
Awesome video; thanks for the link to the mod btw.
I think the conception that tiers don't come up in beginner level play is from the fact that sometimes high tiers are high execution/difficult characters and sometimes low tiers are very easy to learn. Sometimes a person won't get why a character is high tier without deeper education.
"Tiers dont matter" is one of those opinions a ton of people have but which i cant imagine having. Literally makes me question reality
Because everyone has their own tier and i don’t give a shit if everyone in any fighting game is carried and broken in someone’s eyes. That’s why i don’t think tiers matter
@@PomadaGaming did you even watch the video
Great work Bafael, this is basically a perfect video that effortlessly demonstrates in an easy to digest way that there are imbalances in fighting games that players uses tiers to quantify. The only thing that could be added is that tiers often looks different at lower levels of play because some strategies are either easier to execute or harder to defend against without a deeper understanding or stronger execution.
Tiers exist. The only truly balanced fighting game would be one that lets players only pick one character.
Imbalance is fun. It creates matchups, theory, differences in gameplay. I feel like the goal with fighting games is not to balance the game completely but to make the distance between high tier and low characters as small as possible.
Tiers happen because of character differences within the game design and mechanics. Certain characters are going to universally have an easier time in said game design/ mechanics than others in a cast. Certain characters are going to do well or have easier options against most of the cast so by default a division of characters already appears.
Maybe the arguement is not that tiers don't exist but restructuring what we mean by tiers or defining matchups better within a tier list.
I think it can be as simple as just saying "Okay, imagine you have two characters that are literally exactly the same in every way, except one does double damage. Is the one that does double damage better? Okay then, he's higher tier."
Even at the lowest level, tier lists exist. Low skill level players prefer some character to others due to them being easier to use and giving better results with less effort than other characters.
Yeah, there are Tier lists and *TIER LISTS*
Some games like Jojo's Heritage of the Future have clear cut good and bad characters. Pet Shop is top tier and Kahn is low tier
Now there are games like Street Fighter 4 where even the lowest tier characters like Hugo (Who is arguably the third worst character in the game) have great competitive representation. The most iconic moment in the game's history was a Hugo play (Alex Valle vs Bonchan).
I used to believe the "tiers exist but don't matter except at the top level" but once I actually got past the skill level where people blame their character I realized I had the right idea, but was actually wrong.
I'm an 09er that got back into the fgc while in quarantine... so I'm pretty fresh but...
From my perspective some of these long held opinions from folks who played like st in the 90s before widespread internet are so strange.... i get the same vibe hearing Seth Killian talk about why he wrote Domination 101 and the confidence some folks had when spreading misinformation. Coming from games like melee of course tiers exist and they do affect all levels of play... i can look at all this data on the internet and prove it pretty soundly
Smash is even worse because some roles are so broke that almost everyone on that umbrella is automatically high or low tier.
The ones of the "tank" type like Bowser.
@@albertonishiyama1980 smash doesnt really have traditional roles in the same way most fighters do
@@Spunney definitely, most characters are unique and the only categories I can think of are “swordies”, “spacies” and “heavies”, but even in those categories they vary wildly character to character unless direct clone characters
i didn't even realise people had that opinion... its so utterly ridiculous and obvious i thought everyone would be on the same page...
its hard to account for ignorance in 2020
It was a much more prevalent opinion before competitive fighting games (and competitive gaming in general) went mainstream. I think most people understand the concept of "high tier" or "meta" now, between MMOs and MOBAs and RTS and FPS and FGs.
@@Bafael i think online video sharing helped too, you can see the broken stuff day 1 rather than flipping a coin on whether your arcade has anyone who knows how to use genei jin or not
@@Bafael people were arguing yesterday that Tiers don't exist in Genshin Impact lol, it's fucking ridiculous. It's clear they've never played a competitive game in their life - it doesn't matter what genre the game is, the choices you make are tied to number values and some choices just lead to inherently better numbers. That's all gaming is when you boil it down. Obviously you have to consider context and situational value but some people can't even acknowledge the games they play are based on 1's and 0's.
@@Gilthwixt1 "Amber isn't a bad character!"
Tiers exist.
If you bring a knife to a gun fight, you are opting for the lower tier weapon, and putting yourself at a disadvantage.
Now, you could still win. The chances are slight, and it will take you more work to do so, but you are 100% at a disadvantage. Also doesn't help that guns are plus on block.
In fact we can even use a gun analogy for the UMK3 example
Scorpion is a bolt action assault rifle and Human Smoke is a semi auto one
Still one of my favourite videos of yours. Some people get extremely delusional about game's balance, I've genuinely seen people act like developers are flawless human beings and their first iteration of balance is perfect.
Some people also dismiss tiers as not mattering because it's *theoretically* possible for a character with all-round awful tools to beat a flawless character, ignoring that tier lists mostly quantify how much effort it takes for a character to perform well, relative to others.
For the longest time I always assumed that tier lists were created solely off of opinion and not any substantial information; this video very much changed that perception for me.
Actually,they are opinion based. This is just a very very very specific example where this character has exactly the same stats as the other but with a few extras. That’s just bad character design
@@PomadaGaming with matchup charts, math, and a whole lotta research, tiers can actually be factual.
A lot of people just stopped doing them and started basing tier lists on their opinion
After 1:30 spent watching this I went straight to the comment to see if anyone else noticed how cake'd tf out scorpion is
Golly 😅
It is possible to make a game where characters can't be separated into tiers. You need to make a game where ALL characters with the exact same traits - in other words, spriteswaps.
As long as characters have differences, tiers will exist. The matter is how much influence said differences have.
I think its pretty well agreed among fighting game players that tiers exist. The bigger problem is people talking about "meta" and "tier lists" when they have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. So when someone complains about a scrubs shit opinions, its not against the idea of tiers but against the scrub.
Also tiers and bad matchups are often used as excuses to not improve, which is another issue.
Only argument I could pose is that with newer games having the ability of patches, tier lists aren't as important as most characters can play on the same level. For example, smash ultimate on launch had numerous glitches, top tiers, bottom tiers, etc. But now, with all characters out, you can usually pick any character, and with enough time, be amazing with them. Although that doesn't mean patches are always good in all games. In TF2, the patches were usually unbalanced and guns that were broken with godlike power on launch, becoming irrelevant with the next patch.
Also sorry for writing an essay.
I think the argument that “tiers don’t exist at low level” isn’t attempting to argue that the game is objectively balanced so much as saying “whether or not the opponent’s character is better, that’s not the only reason you lost”
I.E. it’s not so much saying that tiers don’t matter as much as saying that being a better player is still the most important option until you get to a point where everyone is optimized
Going with your example, at a low level if you play Scorpion and you keep losing to a Human Smoke player who is slightly better than you, yes they were playing a better character, but even if you switched to Human Smoke, they’d still usually beat you, whereas if you got a lot better, you’d win with either Scorpion OR Human Smoke
Even more against the point of "tiers not mattering until high level" a lot of times a characters normals are a big part of their strength and placement in a list. Even if you are brand new to the game, fighting against someone else brand new. It will take you 2 seconds to realize if you have a normal that reaches way farther than theirs and is faster, and you will intuitively just spam it against them.
This exact situation is what happened when I got some of my friends who aren't fighting game players to fight each other in sfv
Its wishful thinking to say that tiers dont exist. If any argument should be made, it should be that you can play really well with mid or low tier characters if you invest enough time or come up with good enough strategies
I've been waiting for this video since the original statement was made. I have never really played an MK game and always wondered what this would look like in practice. Great work as usual Baf!
It's not why tier lists exists, it's how goated smoke is
So.... tier list
one could say he's better than scorpion
which would make him above scorpion if you rated every character
@@PixelAtionGuitar all would say
tiers don't exist tho, you just have to be good with the character. that's why Daigo plays Ryu in every Street Fighter
OH WAIT
I just wish people would stop hiding behind tiers as an excuse for why they're not succeeding. In a game like Street Fighter, you absolutely can take a "bad" character really far up the ranks before you hit that wall where their weaknesses are glaring. At low levels of play there are a lot of fundamental holes that players need to cover, so the differences between characters in terms of tiers or even matchups are much more diminished. People who say things like "I quit SFV because Ryu is just too bad to win with" while being in Silver ranks are only making excuses.
@@Cybrisk grinding rank does not mean low tier character is useless. In tekken all my character pass genbu already, the different how much effort is required to rank up
*cries in Bonchan*
I think Tekken is the biggest example of there being different tierlists for different skill levels. King and Eddy are scrubkillers but never tend to make it far in proper tournaments.
I agree 100%. I also believe you can achieve success with low tiers if you put in the extra effort . You'll get quicker results with high tiers but you can still get places with low tier. I think a lot of beginners think that the reason they lose is because of tiers and not their skill which is why people have to tell them "tier lists dont matter" when really they mean tier lists dont matter at ur level.
For anyone who watches this and still doesn't think tiers exist, load up 3rd Strike on Fightcade and play as Sean, Twelve or Q. Proceed to get bodied by anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of Chun-Li, Ken or Yun and you'll see what I'm talking about real quick.
hey, Q can be good if you learn all of the crazy tech he runs
@@PixelAtionGuitar just got done watching a video about that, actually. I don't hate Q. In fact, I fuckin' love him! But he's low tier for a reason. If you got that Kuroda swag on deck, to where you can play him on the highest technical level, he's great! Good luck tryna do any of that shit on a controller or keyboard though, especially the frame perfect kara-cancel tech. Normal-skilled players are still getting bodied hard for using Q.
@@BridgetGX yeah of course he's bad but my comment was about how since he has a lot of helpful tech he can get wins and he isn't nearly at the same level as someone like Sean
also I'm 98% sure on the video you watched and yeah, its a great video
@@PixelAtionGuitar Big Yellow, right? New one?
@@BridgetGX mhm
One other thing that wasn't explicitly mentioned with Human Smoke (I could be wrong through):
Human Smoke has an auto-combo that leads into a "parsed" Infinite Juggle Combo, based on resetting the auto-combo timing system within the game system itself; Scorpion doesn't have anything close to that.
For reference, (HK, D+LP, D+HP) is the dial-a-combo that sets up this "parsed"/"reset" infinite, and is the combo I'm referring to.
By delaying the input slightly between (HK) and (D+LP), the game's combo detection system will get slightly thrown off, even though you're still in the middle of performing an auto-combo. This will cause the combo meter to reset and allow you to perform the rest of the combo, which leads to a juggle state.
I.e., the combo is this:
{Spear --> (HK, D+LP, D+HP) --> JK ~ Teleport --> Spear...}, Repeat Loop.
It's extremely hard to break out of that loop. Usually, only a computer controlled character can throw you to break the loop because of the small timing window between HK and D+LP.
Other than that, good video.
I think people like to say tier lists dont matter because of those moments when you see a low tier character beat high tier. What people need to understand is a character being low tier doesnt mean they cant win. All a tier list is telling you is that this character has more or less tools to deal with different kinds of situations. The more tools you have the more problems you can handle and vice versa. I know the video has already stated this but I just wanted to reaffirm it.
I like to think of it as how much work the player has to put into a match. Certain characters require tremendous focus and defense and difficult combos to be effective. Top tiers have some combination of high damage, speed, easy combos, powerful specials and the like.
'Just pick a top tier' - A Wise Man
H.Smoke's four kick auto combo is actually an Ermac auto combo. The two hit pop up combo he has is also an Ermac auto combo too if I'm not mistaken.
I knew you were gonna make a video on this but I was hoping you'd make it an April Fools Bad/Good Balance Video where you praise Smoke and then rip on Scorpion lol
Tiers matter at every level. Tiers also CHANGE at every level
Tiers are real for sure. People who say they don’t exist must only play in a very small circle of players and never google the game they play. Or use training mode. Or play other characters.
Id say smash melee is a good example of very clearly defined tier differences with how each character interacts with the universal mechanics of the game. For instance, crouch-cancelling is a very good reversal tool that allows you to tank through a hit almost like hyper armor, and then punish it with your own, and the best characters have tools that counter this tech with either a wide degree of application or heavy damage (crouch-cancelling peach’s down smash would be the fighting game equivalent of taking 50% of your hp off of one hit). Low tiers dont have these same tools and struggle a lot more to play neutral or punish better characters because every risk they take is higher and every reward they land is lower. That same risk/reward skew translates to any game and is what defines tiers most predominantly, even moreso than blatantly glaring issues.
But smash isnt a fighting game so it doesnt count : )))
This is one of my favorite older videos you made so I'm glad to see it remade
"Tier lists don't matter"
"The differences between high and low tier are imaginary"
"All characters are equally good at top level play"
(SSBU) Little Mac: So you're telling me there's a chance...
Sadly no lol. And they nerfed him because he was too strong online hahaha
@@Native2087 haha no way, did they really?
Zero was beating up active pro players with Little Mac, doesn't mean little mac is equal but he does have a chance if you do your homework even against that level of play, but still Mac has to do a lot of work to pull it off at that level.
If you are not playing international level pro players then it really doesn't matter as long as you put the work , tiers do exist and will always exist.
If every match up is not 5-5, tier lists exist.
I'll just say my performance with Balrog in SFV was enough to demonstrate tiers to me.
I picked him up on launch in season 1, he was...not great. But I enjoyed playing him and kept at it and was slowly climbing.
Then season 2 Balrog dropped. I think I won something like 17 of my next 20 ranked games. The buffs had made him top 5 at least, maybe top 3.
I didn't change overnight, Balrog did.
Tiers do exist, the scaling that the games exist in is different though, for example MvC2 is tier scaling is WAAAAAAYYYYYY too far apart to the point where they have separate tournaments specifically for high tiers and mid/low tiers. DBFZ is a game where everyone is virtually viable, but that doesn't mean there aren't certain characters who have the advantage over others, thus meaning that tiers are true, but deciding on who is on top and bottom is subjective, since we have different awareness of what each character has and how the meta of said game can be played.
In a nutshell, some characters will have strategies and abilities that will work way better than others. The difference in effectiveness can be really low though or really high.
Maybe in Tekken and Soulcalibur you can actually not care about tiers till high level, simply because everyone has tons of cheesey knowledge and reaction checks and combo damage is somewhat unified.
Obviously tiers super exist but sometimes their importance can get over extended
I think there is a definitive tier list at high level but not at lower levels. While there are strategies that will work better on lower-level players, different players will learn to counter those strategies at different rates. For example one day you decide you're not going to let people jump in on you for free and you decide to practice your anti-airs, or you figure out that you can backdash to escape command grabs. From that point forward you will be significantly better at dealing with a certain type of strategy while still getting wrecked by others.
Whereas at a high level every player will know how to counter basically every type of move in the game and their strategies will be near-optimal, meaning tiers start to emerge based on the current meta.
Just suggested , Baf delivered !
The fact that there are FGC weirdos that would disagree with this video is proof that there's something wrong mentally with the community, as they all try too hard to be contrarian masters of fighting game knowledge.
Thank you for redo-ing this video, love the content man, keep it up!
If I was to play Devil's advocate, I'd say that this is one extreme example which doesn't apply to most fighting games. Human Smoke is literally Scorpion with more tools, whereas even clone characters in other games, like Ryu and Ken from the earlier SF installments, had their advantages and disadvantages when directly compared to each other.
I've honestly never encountered someone with this belief, so I have no idea what their reasoning could be. Seems pretty clear to me that some characters are easier to win with than others.
Great video. I really like how concise and to the point you are. It's very neat.
When talking about tiers, I usually see two different definitions brought up. One being the strength of a character's tools, like you described in the video, while the other is based on tournament results. The first can play into the other, but I don't think that's always the case.
I think the first can be difficult, since you'd have to analyse the character's tools, then compare them to others to get a good estimate of their strengths. This takes a fair bit more knowledge than the second method, which is simply to look at what characters win tournaments. However, I don't think that's always a proper reflection of how strong those characters are. Things like representation and match-up spreads can affect the meta and make certain characters seem stronger than what they would be deemed as going only by analysing their kit.
Let me try to explain what I mean with an example. If a top tier sees widespread usage, but has a losing match-up against a mid tier with very low representation, someone maining that mid tier could fill a niche and manage to squeeze out some big wins due to there being so many other people maining a character that loses to their main..
I could be completely wrong in how this works, but I hope it at least makes sense.
I think you’ve accidentally made three definitions of tiers, not two:
1. “Tiers lists are fully/perfectly informed models of all character’s tools and matchups” aka “the one true tier list”
2. “Tiers are people’s analysis of all character’s tools and matchups (either by pro players or en mass by poll or some other method)” aka “tiers by analysis”
3. “Tiers are aggregate tournament results” aka “tiers by results”
I think it’s pretty clear that 1 is the goal, and 2 and 3 are seeking to approximate it by different methods. Early on in a game’s life, “tiers by analysis” probably does a good job of figuring out what’s going on, but as more and more people play and the game’s community and meta approaches maturity, “tiers by results” should get closer and closer to approximating “the one true tier list”.
Its crazy in 2020 people still saying tier lists don't exist. Seems like people saying that probably play high tier. Nice breakdown!
How do people think tiers aren't real when Tekken 7 Fahkumram & Leroy are a thing and also Bayonetta single handedly killed smash 4.
Fahkumram is a good comparison to this video too. Like with Smoke and Scorpion there is no point in using Josie at all in T7 with Fahkumram around because he does everything she does better with no exceptions. Not to mention even if he weren't around she's still trash. Kagemaru was struggling with her against some random Lili a year or so back at EVO and it made me wonder what the point is.
I didn't know UMK3 had this kind of depth. I assumed it was like earlier MK titles (fun, but not very complex). I might check it out.
To be honest MK2 has a surprising amount of depth too. They're both actually pretty interesting as competitive games.
I would recommend Ketchup And Mustard longform video about it. "Road to Evo 2 UMK3 GRAND FINALS: Shock vs L.I. Joe " Is a really good set
I'm pretty sure you already uploaded this video about tier lists, at least I'm sure I watched it some time ago.
IMO Tier list DO exist, but only matter in a competitive environment where both players are about the same level AND both of them know the ins and outs of the matchup they are going to play, I know pretty common opinion.
He uploaded this one because before it was just a stream snippet, I forgot where it was but he had said he wanted to make a better video on the topic.
@@aero9710 Oh I see, also here instead of the Scorpion V Smoke comparison uses Sheeva and Kabal as an example, my bad
I think this is a common take but I actually disagree with it. I have a paragraph about it in the description but basically I think tier lists are simply DIFFERENT at low level play. Some characters punish you a LOT for not knowing the matchup. Example: Raiden in MK11 with his huge hitbox electric field which he can turn into a launcher on reaction, and if you fully block it it's completely safe. However, you can neutral duck the final hit and if you do it's always punishable.
Characters who exploit matchup inexperience are "top tier" when both players don't know the matchup, but there's not much point discussing which characters are good in low level play since most players get out of low level pretty quickly.
@@Bafael Yes I agree with you in that sense, my response was referring to the tier lists in an ideal case at the highest level that most people refer to even at intermediate play level made by top players (admittetly without knowing too much they tend to peek at them for various reasons, I usually don't care), if you lower the skill level of the player and the knowledge of the game he has he will do different plays compared to better players, and if you don't know how to counter certain stuff you might see what are considered low tier characters as god tier (probably someone who keeps getting looped by Quan Chi in MK9 could be a good example).
I'd also like to add a little note regarding how time matters in establishing a tier list, if a game is brand new even "top players" might misjudge what is a good character, and that can be rectified only by playing and with time, an example that comes to mind is in MvC2 when people believed Ice Man to be top tier, only to fall to mid tier by other previously "lower tier" characters.
I've never seen the argument "tiers don't exist" I have seen the argument "Tiers don't matter" and I think that is true to a certain extent especially in a newer fighting game.
Objective analysis that's universal for fighting games. Really good for beginners to watch and understand immediately.
Tier lists definitely exist and are relevant in every tier of play from casual to high level. There's a reason characters tend to be considered "scrub killers". Because they beat up on lower level players who don't know better hence low level players view them as good. No matter what level you play, a tier list can be made. Ignoring it and saying that a tier list doesn't exist is not only being ignorant towards data proving otherwise, but there are examples of tier lists existing. Why do you think it was so amazing to watch Rangachu win a major with panda? Because panda is considered a bad character, but he made it work. Not all characters are viable and that's something you have to accept. That doesn't mean you can't play them, it means that you will have a harder time doing well with that character. But if you really enjoy a character, keep playing them. Fighting games are meant to be enjoyed.
i legit thought youtube was just reccomending me a video i saw years ago
It's kinda funny how the developers just made Human Smoke a better Scorpion with no downsides in UMK3, though they did try to address this a bit in Trilogy with Scorpion's forward teleport being exclusive to him. Either way glad to see classic MK on this channel, I used to play a lot of Trilogy on N64 and it's still probably my favorite in the series. That version has a lot of exclusive quirks that make it a lot more enjoyable to play than UMK3 and PS1 Trilogy imo. Might be a cool topic for a video.
Also who the heck disliked this video? I mean you can't get anymore bullet proof than what Baf is saying here. This game is 25 years old - and it's legitimate historical proof here.
love your original video about this, opened my eyes
Great work. Also great to see UMK3 getting love.
Great video Baf! Nice to see some of your recent vids get a lot of attention
I literally just watched the video where you were explaining this. It's like years old. Nice man
Me too. I didn't even realize the video was that old. Crazy...
I can’t believe there are two Mortal Kombat games with Kabal being the best character in the game and Sheeva being the worst.
Sometimes moves are simply strong or weak on paper
Most characters in UMK3 on the surface level are definitely pretty easy to learn, but difficult to master. It takes a looong time to be able to actually “compete” with good players.
Anyway, tier lists absolutely exist, to suggest otherwise is just factual incorrect. However, having an actual list isn’t as important as people make it out to be.
This video really made me want a bad balance video on Ultimate MK3
Many people don’t realize that “META” isnt just a weird word we added a definition that allows us to describe games. It stands for Most Effective/Efficient Tactic Available. So like it or not meta’s and tiers always will exist because there’s always a most effective way to play any competitive game.
Unfortunately, you have forgotten to take into account that i am built different
As a Blanka player, let me first say that yes, tiers definitely exist. Depending on the game the tiers can make more or less impact, but they definitely exist. I'd agree that in a decently balanced game tiers make less of a difference and low and even mid levels of play, but again that depends heavily on what game it is. In USF4, which I consider to be a well balanced game, you have matchups like blanka vs thawk, or gouken vs hugo, but a large majority of the matchups are 6-4 or lower, which is easily winnable for either player, and individual skill plays a larger factor.
Bringing back some "Tires don exits" flashbacks.
“But that is only true to this game and not the one I’m talking about”.
A common answer I hear
The more balanced a fighting game is, the less tiers matter. There are fighting games where tiers aren't very important, but I've never played a fighting game where every single matchup was dead even.
@@Bafael footsies, nair, and among us arena /j
I agree and I can prove it. Sonic Fox is the only person on the planet that can use mk11 D'vorah and even he wouldn't be caught dead using her in a big tournament.
Another example is Nu-13/Lambda-11 in BlazBlue series: They're palette swaps but the exclusive moves given made one a high-tier and the other a crappy tier. I've been pummeled to the ground enough by many MSPs on Marvel vs. Capcom 2 to make me notice the tier list.
Still, I have fun using Akuma/Gouki.
this gave me nostalgia I never knew I had for UMK3. my prime was UMK3 on 360 XBLA. I must've been pretty good at UMK3 because I was always in the top 30 rankings & I always used to go up against now known MK players like UMKShock & DedMK. this one guy named Crazy Dominican had a SCARY Nightwolf & everybody was afraid of him. Dude would spam that shoulder move at speeds not possible on a controller & then he would launch you & juggle tf out of you in the corner with the axe uppercut. I was the only person that ever gave him problems. I had a Nasty Kabal. I'd block+run spam right up to people & fake like I was gonna combo & stop just short of touching them to make them react, then I'd 1,1,d1 to launch & once they were in the air, nothing but 50% combos... it was curtains 😂
Someone who told me tiers don’t exist also commonly uses the phrase “Never bring a knife to a gun fight.” While not getting the irony.
I tried to explain it to him once and he was like “but a knife is better when you’re up close and it has unlimited ammo. Plus you can throw it.” I just rolled my eyes.
But also with tiers you have Banned characters who’re banned for obvious reasons like Shin Akuma (in pretty much every game he’s in). Shin Akuma can do everything Akuma can do and then has better frame data, does more damage, and has moves Akuma doesn’t have.
He gets the ban hammer cause he’s made specifically to be a better character.
i agree with everything you said but a character being outright superior and outclassing someone doesnt make them bannable, otherwise Smoke here would be banned.
being a boss character definitely makes you bannable
wait right after i hit send i realize you meant "be a better character" as in "be broken"
great content! two things:
1) how come umk3 seems more accepted in general than mk trilogy? i loved mk trilogy but i have zero experience with umk3.
2) also, i'd also love to see mk trilogy noob saibot on your bad balance series.
Rain, Noob and some of the MK2 Chars are really strong.
It's really just because umk3 has an arcade port and is a bit more refined, while trilogy has multiple console versions that have fairly big differences between them and it's even less balanced in some ways than umk3. Trilogy is still great too though.