CaseyDDR said:
Not true, because two equally skilled players proves exactly how tiers can work, whether they are two beginners or two experienced users. Tiers are a lot more important than you seem to think. A perfect example would be MVC2, SF4, and SF3S. Tekken suffers from it also, but being a horrible game I don't know as much about it. Would you like specific examples? I can easily provide them :) Tiers DO effect gameplay quite a bit. |
Only in the event of two equally skilled players, and in a pool of people who are not pros skill level will vary greatly, and anybody with a slight skill advantage is still going to beat somebody of less skill a statistically significant number of times regardless of tier. People can't just pick Akuma (Super Street fighter 2 turbo) and expect to win against somebody who is better than them because Akuma is god tier and banned from tourney play. I've seen a great many a scrubs get their asses kicked using Akuma because they relied on tiers rather than trying to actually improve skill. Tiers do exist, I do not debate that. But unless the two people playing are of equal skill the tier is irrelevant. And the only place where you are likely to consistently find people of nearly equal skill is in the pro-leagues where people are all playing at a nearly perfect level, where there is almost no room left for improvement within the game (that they are aware of, until somebody develops some new tech or strategy that quickly gets adopted). But sitting around playing with friends or some online matches, you are much better served trying to learn the character you like than picking whoever is at the top of the evolving tier list thinking that somehow gives you the edge when you don't even know the very technical reasons that they are at the top of the tier list, which usually involves very precise calculations of hit boxes and frames of animation, and statistical data from tourneys. Unless of course the game is just grossly imbalanced or broken and certain characters are de-facto useless or cheaply unbeatable. But if that's the case odds are the game won't be overly popular in tourney crowds, or those characters are advertised and known as broken.
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