Tier list: Difference between revisions

==Existence of tiers==

It is a common opinion among new or casual players of a fighting game that all the characters in the series are equal and have the same amount of potential. These players believe that the inherent strengths and weaknesses of characters balance them out, thus eliminating the need for tiers. However, the consensus of competitive players and knowledgeable spectators is that tiers do exist. In reality, it would be almost impossible for developers to balance a game of unique characters, because the differing properties of each character produce a large number of variables that cannot be constantly monitored and modified on the spot for the purpose of perfect balance. Thus, developers may not be able to foresee top level strategies before their game's release date, and even deliberate efforts (i.e. updates to ''Smash 4'' or other recent titles) will not perfectly balance a game at a professional level. Furthermore, [[Masahiro Sakurai]] did not solely intend for the ''Smash'' games to be played at high competitive levels under tournament rulesets, which are what tiers are based off of, and his idea of balancing may have been different from that of other competitive games.  

It is important to note that every smasher mentioned above has put in a greater or equal amount of effort into their lower-tiered characters compared to top players who main higher-tiered characters, and has single-handedly pushed their characters' metagames to around the same level. However, barring a breakthrough in new tech that is useful and reliable (as seen with aMSa's Yoshi and Axe's Pikachu in ''Melee''), or updates in ''Smash 4'' that positively affect a character's viability (such as {{SSB4|Mewtwo}} since version [[1.1.3]]), lower-tiered characters by themselves are generally too inconsistent to survive in the long run against other top players who use higher-tiered characters; occasionally, such as with {{SSB|Ness}} in ''Smash 64'', there is even a chance that a character can drop significantly in the tier list as a result of being much less effective than initially perceived. Thus, there is an inclination to simply use better characters. Tier lists are deliberately ever changing to reflect individual character performances in tournament, and as a result, only a few characters will ever see significant shifts in placement, while the remaining characters will rarely shift from the general position they are in now.

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==References==