tier list

hey, i've been playing VF:EVO for a long time, but i'm new to the boards and this community. i was wondering if there are any characters that are considered "the best." in lots of other fighting games, there are characters that are significantly better than the others... despite the developers' attempts to balance the game. is there a tier list of characters for VF? anyone who plays SSBM will know what i'm talking about.
oh, btw... i've been playing lei fei for a while... he's my main... i'm not asking this so i can play with a better character, i just wanted to know how balanced to game is. it seems when i'm playing against the comp there are a few characters that give me a harder time than others.

 

Try a search through the boards and you'll find likely 5 to 6 threads from the past about this. For the most part, there are some who believe that tiering is abundant in VF4Evo, others who think it's not. Interestingly enough, in the Japanese arcades, the tiering was very subjective to arcade location, etc. Imo, it's quite subjective, but there's definitely some good points to made when applying "theory fighter" to certain character matchups. /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

<font color="yellow">.cheers.</font>

 

There are a lot of valid tiers for evo, but one thing to remember:

VF is 10% character and 90% player...so in that respect, the worst matchup in VF is like 4/6 (maybe 3.5/6.5 at the most), because every move has a counter blah blah blah...the system keeps the game balanced naturally. There are definitely some bad matchups in VF...but saying "bad matchup" in VF is very different from saying "bad matchup" in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo or something.

 

I think it is arguable that there are more top Kage/Akira players than any other character, but it in no way means they are the best characters.

There are top players for every character, and no character "dominates" everything else. This espescially can be seen with a Shun winning Evo.

 

I would like to add that in FT, it seems that the amount on Kage players has diminished after the change on TFT throw command.

Most players tend to stick with a couple their strongest characters so tiers seem to look as the way they look for specific reasons. Like how easy it is to fight satisfactory with X character. After hanging around in VF circles for years I can say that there have been awesome players with all characters more than most other fighters and that VF has so much "depth" and different variables that affect the gameplay that playing it optimally with most characters will take absolutely months, if not years.

Judging from the viewpoint on EVO 2004, the results were:

1. Itabashi Zangief (Shun Di, Japan)
2. Shou (Sarah, St. Louis, USA)
3. Kurita (Vanessa, Japan)
4. Ryan (Kage, UK)
5. Raoh (Lau, Japan)
5. Adam (Jeffry, NYC, USA)
7. Cappo (Pai, Florida, USA)
7. Maddy (Akira, Ohio, USA)

...so I think that proves my point even more. VF is a gamers game first and foremost and it has enough fuel to please players needs and various playing styles. It would be much more easier to put "easiest characters to play"-list than "the best characters"-one.

 

VF IMO has a lot more variety of characters that can compete compared to just about any fighting game. It also depends on the player's skill level. I still don't see a consistant top tier list for VF because just about any character can be good in the right hands.

 

Yes indeed. That is largely part of it´s scientifically determined game system and...

Judging by terms on character balance (hardly the only factor involved in gameplay balance) also SC2 seems to be hot property. The whole point of balance seems to generally be a way to guarantee that most gaming styles and fanboy routines get people to have fun in most situations. The concept of balance is also more important in people´s heads than on the actual playground. I enjoy fooling around over powergaming myself, but I still enjoy winning. That´s why it´s nice to know I can at least count on something...

 

[ QUOTE ]
...scientifically determined game system...

[/ QUOTE ]

/nitpick on

Complex, Well Structured, Detail Oriented - I'd buy these terms. But "Scientifically Determined" ?? /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif Well, I'd disagree with the term wholeheartedly. There's little to no science involved in the design of VF game'play' system (I will take exception to hardware design only).

/nitpick off

<font color="yellow">.cheers.</font>

 

See here!
/versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?s=60057b0b9e56ebf9b27a60962b3d5030&threadid=60456&perpage=&pagenumber=3

There is a Tiers list for VF4evo

 

Shun won the tourney because it was a SUPER shun. Only 1% of people can play shun like him. Just like very few people can play Lion like Chibita. VF is quite balanced but not perfectly balanced. Top tier imo = Akira, Kage, Jacky, Lau, Sarah and Pai.

 

Tier lists are so subjective.

Just because there are more top players that use a certain character, it doesn't make them better than any other.

 

Top tier characters tend to poke better, have bigger damage potential and safer moves. It's not subjective at all. I'm sure most people here would agree that Akira is stronger than Goh. But just because you pick a top tier character doesn't mean you will win 100%.

 

And I am saying it doesn't matter which character you choose, the person who plays the better game will win the match.

You don't lose and say, man if i was akira i so would have won.

It's just not the case.

There are top level people for nearly every character (ok maybe brad and goh excluded ), which leads me to believe that any other top level player could pick any other character up and be just as successful.

Like, what do you mean "super shun", if that level of play can be achieved, then the character has the potential to be played by anyone else.

 

/nitpick on

Complex, Well Structured, Detail Oriented - I'd buy these terms. But "Scientifically Determined" ?? /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif Well, I'd disagree with the term wholeheartedly. There's little to no science involved in the design of VF game'play' system (I will take exception to hardware design only).

/nitpick off

<font color="yellow">.cheers.

[/ QUOTE ]

That "scientifically" sentence was only meant to exemplify how deeply thought out game VF really is. Most of it can be analyzed by numbers and possibilities. The game gets more elements in there with so many circumstances. Perhaps VF1 wasn´t so deep to be that "deep", but it certainly went through with VF 2 judging by many players´ opinions.

It´s my nitpicking time! I think that the term scientific is mostly subjective in this case and determined by what people are thought to consider as "scientific". By no means, I´m a culture research student in university and pretty much forced to think this stuff most of the time. That is also why I´m talking purely in relative sense. In the world of fighting games, VF has it´s most elements designed such a manner that it can be analyzed very well by numeric variables and by spesific "scenario" thinking. The matches can be "ripped apart" and therefore proved if one thing works or not and why it didn´t work. Luck is also a different thing in VF than most other fighting games.

with utmost respect,

-Neonomide-</font>

 

Top tier doesn't mean it will "make" you win. You need skill. Just because you have the most accurate gun in the world doesn't guarantee you will hit the target. And if you think Goh is just as powerful as Akira then i've got nothing more to say. Some people want to believe that the game is perfectly balanced. But if it was really so balanced Final Tuned and so many other revisions (VF4 a-c/EVO a,b)wouldn't have been necessary. Or do you think they're just updating the game for cosmetic reasons?

 

Updated versions have been made to tweak certain moves to make them more useful/less abusive, for the sole purpose of further balancing characters.

in vf, there is no "easiest" character to use, and each character requires a great deal of time to become competitve with. And no character requires less time to become good with over another.

Character selection is all a matter of preference. I've played jeffrey half the time i spent on akira and i can say without question i am twice as good with jeffrey, does this mean he's a better character?

 

That's not what i was talking about. Did i talk about how easy a character is to use at all? You play Jeff better than you play Akira even though you spent much less time on him?
No offense but that probably means your Akira is weak. Akira is not the easiest character to play at the start (esp with the inputs) but is definitely one of the strongest.

Now, please answer my question. Do you think Goh is just as powerful as Akira?

 

[ QUOTE ]
vanity said:

And no character requires less time to become good with over another.
...
I've played jeffrey half the time i spent on akira and i can say without question i am twice as good with jeffrey, does this mean he's a better character?

[/ QUOTE ]

You 're contradicting yourself bigtime here.

As for tiers etc I believe you have to distinguish 2 different aspects:
1- Learning your moveset, combos etc which difficulty changes from one char to another (hard for Akira, pretty easy with Lion or Jeff for instance, i'm talking about basic shit here not stance dependant combos etc)

2-Learning to use your moveset effectively in the VF gameplay system


If you take Jeffry for instance, the first aspect is quite easy to master, his combos are quite easy to pull out, his moves as well (exept maybe TOKD and hit throws but these are not crucial IMO), Akira on the other hand requires training to be able to pull out his most damaging combos.

The 2nd aspect his more complex as it depends on which level of play you're talking about (and shitloads of other aspects). If you speak of low/mid level play, Jeffry is probably a quite easy to use character, but when your speaking of high level of play or even just playing against someone who knows your character frame stats it becomes another story, here you'll need a solid defense to win with jeffry, cause his most of his best moves leaves him TC., whereas Akira has a wider variety of options in his sleeves and has so much more advantages over Jeffry.
I mean "theoricaly" someone who knows how to DTEG consistently and has a good yomi, he can pull out wins by doing SDE all over the place and play Reverse nitaku, or DTEG , or combo followup according to the situation. So he can somehow abuse his SDE (ok I know DES is dodgeable ^^) where Jeff has no kind of move like that.

It's kindah weird but in a way Jeffry is simple to use from a strategic point of view (try to throw or hit with Knee combos in offense, play the reverse nitaku game at the right moment in defense to sum it up basically) but being able to pull it out on someone who knows the game system quite well and use option select at the right moment is another story again, and that's what makes Jeffry a harder character to master IMO even thogh 1st aspect is easy to learn and his strategy is simple, for me it's a char who requires a great deal of experience, yomi and defensive skill to be played effectively at high level.

 

i was aware that i "contradicted" myself, but i was saying that if akira is a high tier, or better character, then he should theoretically be easier to get good with, which was not exactly the case in my experience.

in regard to the rest of your post, i 100% agree with what you said.

Akira is far harder to learn from a move standpoint, but is more than possibly the easiest character to use on a strategy standpoint.

But in my case, i am better with jeffrey since i prefer the throw setup game. (Then again i lost 4-5 today jeff vs lau, then won 5-2 akira vs jeff).

Case in point, even at higher levels, there is no group of characters that can really be considered a higher tier than the rest, simply because any character in the right hands can be deadly.

 

[ QUOTE ]
vanity said:

Case in point, even at higher levels, there is no group of characters that can really be considered a higher tier than the rest, simply because any character in the right hands can be deadly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're quite confused with the definition of tiers and what it's meant to be used.
Tiers are just here to get an idea of characters weakness/advantages ON THE PAPER.
The fact that you can win with every character doesn't mean there aren't tiers, high level or not.

Take a simple example immagine two characters A and B with the exact same movelist, the only difference between these two char being that one of their moves does 10 damage for A and 20 damage for B
Can't you say who's the best charcater on paper ?
Of course it doesn't mean that someone who's better can't beat his opponent with char A. but it doesn't change the fact that B is THEORICALLY better than A.

It's the same with everything that surronds us, the example of the weapon given earlier is the exact same cocept, even if someone is capable of aiming better with a "lower-rank" weapon you still can't deny that one is better than an other. VF is more complex because it depends on your playing style and all that but ...

I still don't understand why people keep telling that tiers don't exist. The thing is that tiers usefulness is quite limited especially in this game, so you can say that tier are useless to a certain extent because like you said "any character in the right hands can be deadly" , but that doesn't mean tiers don't exist.