Super Smash Bros.: The one with Ridley in it

[Taruta]

Yeah I guess I'll play tomorrow, you guys made me get back into it and I need a serious de-rust.

[Nancymaker]

I'm up for more tomorrow

Maybe

Also I added everyone that posted their details over the last 6 or so pages so

[Chekt]

I'm totally up for more matches tomorrow. We should set up a tournament or something if we can get enough people.

[Bill Nye the Science Guy]

fuck i need to buy Brawl again
maybe over summer

[DoNotDelete]

I may be around for games later.

If yesterday's games are anything to go by I'm still pretty rusty.

[Dedivax]

I'd play too, if only my wii hadn't decided not to start up anymore

[Bill Nye the Science Guy]

ill probably be able to find brawl in a shop for a tenner somewhere
ill have a sniff around next week

[Tales]

ill probably be able to find brawl in a shop for a tenner somewhere
ill have a sniff around next week

you sold it? I'm sure I played online with you once, same for loli. If I wanted to play i'd need to try and find my FC code again, i always lose it.

[Shad]

I've also played against some amazing Ganondorf and Bowser players whose games don't suffer for their lack of speed.

Ah, but they do! Of course, a player can do amazing things with Ganondorf and Bowser, I myself have a good friend who is pretty great at playing Bowser. However, if they were a bit speedier, these characters would be better. It'd be going against the character design though, but there are ways around that from a game design point of view - making some moves recover more quickly, making some moves travel relatively quickly/ far to make up for the lack of "natural" mobility of the characters, or in Brawl, making the grabs a bit more powerful/ useful (allowing for short chaingrabs at low percent, allowing for combos/ juggles after a throw, allowing for mix-ups leading to good damage or a kill after a throw without too much risk, giving a good positional advantage after a throw).
That being said, Brawl was never designed with competitive play in mind, hence why there are such gaps between characters in term of overall strength. That's alright, mind you, Brawl is a game that was made to be played for fun and have chaotic fights to the death. For people who like the game and want to have fun with it competitively, it's not a "good" game because of the lack of balance and the lack of thought that went into some character designs - it won't stop them from playing it this way though, because that's how they have fun.

but also the ones who don't need the item because they're higher tier. Meta Knight and Captain Falcon

Not to get into another "Why does this character suck" argument, but Douglas was hit like a truck by the nerf baton, mainly because of the new Brawl physics.

So tiers are entirely based upon the skills of the player.


So everyone should have their own personal tier.

Nah, that's not what it means. Of course, every player has characters he's better with, or has a better understanding of. The tier list is... Basically, the tier list is here to "remove" the "player" factor out of the equation, to show what a character could be capable of if played perfectly. Of course, players aren't perfect - they aren't machines or supercomputers. The tier list is based on empirical data, lengthy match-ups analysis, discussions between players, testing out things and comparing results ; basically, if a player were to take the best out of all these data, he would play that character optimally. That's a competitive player's goal: to play his character optimally, to win. The tier list is here to say "so far, from all the data we have gathered, if you play this character optimally, here's how well it will fare against the rest of the cast".

Someone explain to me why people care about the tier system.

Tiers aren't as vital as one could make them out to be, but they're still an important part of a game's metagame. Tiers can be used for a few things:
-List the characters from strongest to weakest, at one point in the lifespan of a game, hence why there are multiple revisions to tier lists. Why is that important? Because people loooove rankings, and because players need something to refer to in order to compare the strengths of characters. A player looking for a solid second character will probably hit in the upper tiers - except if his main is already high, in which case he may pick in the lower tiers to have fun, challenge himself, etc.
-Show the "depth" of a game : if a tier-list is divided in numerous tiers, it means there are big gaps between characters, hence the characters at the bottom are competitively inept and bring nothing to competitive play. A simple example: Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo only has 4 different tiers, whereas Street Fighter Alpha 3 has 8 tiers. This means about every character in SSF2 is viable, whereas about half of the Alpha 3 cast gets completely overshadowed by the other half.
-A tier list can also be used to show the characters that need more love, especially in the first version of a tier list. A relatively young game, such as Mortal Kombat 9 today, can't have a "good" tier list in a few months of gameplay. The first tier list of a game often show what characters were worked on by the community (usually the "obviously powerful" characters), and which ones were left behind (usually the "apparently worthless" characters, along with the "hard to use effectively" ones).
-Finally, the revision of a tier list is a tribute to the evolution of a game and its community. It shows how the players were able to look into the depth of the game, to make the game evolve, to go beyond what was already found and find more. You know how the God Tier characters in Marvel vs Capcom 2 are Sentinel, Magneto and Storm? In 2001, everybody thought that Iron Man, Spiral and Blackheart were godlike, and that Sentinel was too slow, that Magneto didn't deal any damage, that Storm died too easily. Knowing a game takes time - tier lists are here to show "at this date, this is what we know".

Tiers are based on facts, and you discover new facts every day you play. Tiers aren't immovable, they aren't set in stone, they aren't a Godly gift we should pray and not question. Tier lists are a synthesis of all the hard work the community put together up to that point. They're the result of a lot of work, of testing, of playing, of fun and less fun things. That's why there is a certain respect to give to a tier list - because it's the synthesis of the work of a whole community of people who love the game.
If you don't agree with a tier list, you are of course free to voice your opposition, and give the reasons why you disagree. That's how a tier list evolves - someone thinks that a character isn't that weak, and posts about it, showing his reasons for thinking so. People then discuss these reasons, test them out, and they then see where it leads the character. Maybe it'll allow the community to find a character's hidden talent - maybe it will only cement that character's place in the tier list.

The tier list itself changes every year. Anything subject to change can not be considered factual.

The same could be said of science, but you'd never dare say that the results of science aren't factual, would you?
The tier list changes because we find new things about the characters, and about how to make them more efficient. People go "in the lab" and they "experiment". They test a move, they test its range, its damage, its knockback, they test what it beats, what beats it, they test what leads into that moves, what that moves leads to, they test how to defend against it, how to escape it, and they discuss the results with other players, they look at the best way to implement it into a character's strategy.
Why does the tier list changes? Because we discover new things about the characters, about the stages - about the game. We find out
"Oh! If I time that move right, it turns out I can grab my enemy right after it with no risk!"
"Wow, at that angle, I can beat Marth's Up B with just a single jab..."
"daisies, I don't know what's the deal about that character's front Smash - I can just hold my stick that way when I get hit, and it won't eject me until I'm at a very high percentage, it's really not as powerful as we thought."
"Hey, on that stage, I can prevent Snake from recovering pretty easily by being at a certain place, he has no options I can't beat!"
and we tell it to the community, we discuss it, we implement it in our strategies, we test it out, we see how good it is, how it benefits our character, and from there we can tell if a character is stronger or weaker than what we thought before.
Just because something evolves doesn't mean it can't be factual - it only means we haven't found out everything about it yet. And that's why tier lists are never final.

I was saying that it was my opinion that he is overpowered. But then Great Handsome Oppressor had to go and say that the Tier List was a fact

I'm sorry I wanted to share with you one of the few things I know, Wordsmith. I was just trying to help. Next time you plaster a thread with an ignorance-filled post, I'll just ignore it and move on, since discussing things seems to be too much of a hassle.

Le Great Handsome Oppressor, stop posting exactly what I want to post.

NEVER


tl;dr: tiers are pretty cool and you should give some props to the work they represent ; they evolve with times because we find new things about games ; it doesn't mean old tier lists are "wrong", only as "ignorant" as the players so far.

[DoNotDelete]

I care as much about Brawl tiers as I do about Smogon.

I love both SSB and Pokemon but... I just don't get dismantling the games to the extent that Brawl tiers and Smogon have.

I mean yeah, people can improve their gaming ability a little or a lot by visiting sites that discuss Brawl tiers or Smogon, but... for fuck's sake; Stop taking the fun out of my games already.

[Shad]

I care as much about Brawl tiers as I do about Smogon.

I love both SSB and Pokemon but... I just don't get dismantling the games to the extent that Brawl tiers and Smogon have.

I mean yeah, people can improve their games a little or a lot by visiting sites that discuss Brawl tiers or Smogon, but... for fuck's sake; Stop taking the fun out of my games already.

DnD, god damn it. If people like playing games competitively, if they like opening up a game, if they like knowing things about it, if they like "dismantling" it, if they have fun doing so, deal with it.
Different strokes for different folks ; that you don't care for tiers is entirely alright, but don't bash the guys that care about them. If it's how they have fun, let them. They don't force you to play with no items, Metaknight only, Smash Ville, do they? Then don't say it's stupid of them to do so.
They're not taking the fun out of your game. They're having their own fun. You have no right to judge them and belittle them.

[Syobon]

WORDS

Very well said, bravo.

[Avengifier]

I'd also be up for some matches again today. Hopefully I'll be home by the time everyone starts.

[Chekt]

I care as much about Brawl tiers as I do about Smogon.

I love both SSB and Pokemon but... I just don't get dismantling the games to the extent that Brawl tiers and Smogon have.

I mean yeah, people can improve their games a little or a lot by visiting sites that discuss Brawl tiers or Smogon, but... for fuck's sake; Stop taking the fun out of my games already.

DnD, god damn it. If people like playing games competitively, if they like opening up a game, if they like knowing things about it, if they like "dismantling" it, if they have fun doing so, deal with it.
Different strokes for different folks ; that you don't care for tiers is entirely alright, but don't bash the guys that care about them. If it's how they have fun, let them. They don't force you to play with no items, Metaknight only, Smash Ville, do they? Then don't say it's stupid of them to do so.
They're not taking the fun out of your game. They're having their own fun. You have no right to judge them and belittle them.

I agree with most of this, but at least with Pokemon Smogon has taken over just about every part of Pokemon, and it is hard to get anyone to battle without adherence to Smogon rules.
You pretty much have to choose between listening to them, or having a very small pool of people to play with.

Now, I don't know how it is in Brawl because I don't pay attention to the competitive scene, and I didn't even know their were tiers and stuff.

[Syobon]

Well, the competitive SSB community is far less influential than Smogon. They just play with themselves and if you don't want to be part of it, that's fine. With the random online system you can still find more than enough people to play with, or you can of course just play your own friends. The competitive rules are only important when you start doing big tournaments, and where it's more justified to play by stricter rules.

Smogon is 'worse' than the SSB community I think. First thing they tell you is to not use the pokemon you like, but the best ones. SSB says pretty much the opposite.