The Great LTC Debate Thread (Yay? Nay? Burn in Hell?)

[Snowy_One]

I typically make the following assuptions when debating a tier list and just let the people argue it out. I prefer characters that are flexible and malleable enough to be effective across multiple styles of play. Ergo, FE9 Mia is REALLY powerful when paired with Wrath, so when she has it she will be a VERY good unit, but that's dependent on a player being willing to let her drop down that low, so it won't always take place, making her mid/mid-high at best.

Anyways, the things I assume.

1) The player will play up to a reasonable limit of turns. In FE9/10, he will play up to the BEXP limit, in other games he will try for a reasonable ranking as far as turn counts go. He won't try for 'A', but he won't throw the notion of a fast completion out the window either (B maybe). However, he will play up to the turn limit and use what extra time he has to gather resources. So while beating a 10 turn chapter in 5 turns doesn't help out a paladin, the 5 turns that he can gather resources (as opposed to the 2 or 3 for a non-paladin) do. How much these extra turns are worth depends on the chapter and what can be obtained.

2) The player will try to keep all units of a roughly equal level. Ergo, a unit who 'struggles' to get EXP will not actually fall behind in levels, but will cost extra resources to keep 'on-par' with other units.

3) Resources DO have an ideal place where they can be spent and that place is where the unit using them gets the most out of them. Unit X may suck, but preform a lot better with skill Z than unit Y, who is really good, but only preforms slightly better with Skill Z. So when X is fielded, they will be getting skill Z. However, taking a resource is NOT a negative regardless of what could otherwise be obtained, just less likely to happen.

4) Every unit has an equal right to resources. This does not mean that resources will be distributed equally though. What it means is, that, if there are two units and 1000 Bexp, both units can get up to 500 Bexp without any complaints. Any more than that needs justification. If one unit gets only 100 Bexp and the other 900 is not 'unfair' if proper justification can be made for the latter to get that Bexp (not for the former to get so little).

5) The player will always take the most rewarding option available unless he specifically plans to do otherwise. Ex: They will always heal the most wounded/in-danger unit when given the chance unless proven otherwise.

6) The player is capable of keeping at least four units out of combat at all time without negative repercussions unless designated otherwise.

7) The player knows the lay-out of the maps, but makes mistakes from time to time. He may know that two chests only have vulneraries and a third has a silver weapon, and he will pick the silver given the choice, but he will forget which chest it is in from time to time.

With those assumptions in place, I then try to see which characters remain the best across multiple styles and playthroughs. One runthrough Zihark gets a Muarim, the other he doesn't. One playthrough Seth is used to bash, on another he just functions like any other unit and so forth. Yes, it isn't a clear-cut 'well this unit takes X turns', but that's not why people debate and discuss tier lists in the first place. Different ideas, different notions, different arguments, all come together to make a list what it is.

Also, am I the only one laughing that both me and smash are against this notion at the same time? Enemy mine indeed.

[Naglfar]

Which notion are you against, again?

[Snowy_One]

The notion of LTC being the only metric in a tier list.

[Aethereal]

I typically make the following assuptions when debating a tier list and just let the people argue it out. I prefer characters that are flexible and malleable enough to be effective across multiple styles of play. Ergo, FE9 Mia is REALLY powerful when paired with Wrath, so when she has it she will be a VERY good unit, but that's dependent on a player being willing to let her drop down that low, so it won't always take place, making her mid/mid-high at best.

Anyways, the things I assume.

1) The player will play up to a reasonable limit of turns. In FE9/10, he will play up to the BEXP limit, in other games he will try for a reasonable ranking as far as turn counts go. He won't try for 'A', but he won't throw the notion of a fast completion out the window either (B maybe). However, he will play up to the turn limit and use what extra time he has to gather resources. So while beating a 10 turn chapter in 5 turns doesn't help out a paladin, the 5 turns that he can gather resources (as opposed to the 2 or 3 for a non-paladin) do. How much these extra turns are worth depends on the chapter and what can be obtained.

2) The player will try to keep all units of a roughly equal level. Ergo, a unit who 'struggles' to get EXP will not actually fall behind in levels, but will cost extra resources to keep 'on-par' with other units.

3) Resources DO have an ideal place where they can be spent and that place is where the unit using them gets the most out of them. Unit X may suck, but preform a lot better with skill Z than unit Y, who is really good, but only preforms slightly better with Skill Z. So when X is fielded, they will be getting skill Z. However, taking a resource is NOT a negative regardless of what could otherwise be obtained, just less likely to happen.

4) Every unit has an equal right to resources. This does not mean that resources will be distributed equally though. What it means is, that, if there are two units and 1000 Bexp, both units can get up to 500 Bexp without any complaints. Any more than that needs justification. If one unit gets only 100 Bexp and the other 900 is not 'unfair' if proper justification can be made for the latter to get that Bexp (not for the former to get so little).

5) The player will always take the most rewarding option available unless he specifically plans to do otherwise. Ex: They will always heal the most wounded/in-danger unit when given the chance unless proven otherwise.

6) The player is capable of keeping at least four units out of combat at all time without negative repercussions unless designated otherwise.

7) The player knows the lay-out of the maps, but makes mistakes from time to time. He may know that two chests only have vulneraries and a third has a silver weapon, and he will pick the silver given the choice, but he will forget which chest it is in from time to time.

With those assumptions in place, I then try to see which characters remain the best across multiple styles and playthroughs. One runthrough Zihark gets a Muarim, the other he doesn't. One playthrough Seth is used to bash, on another he just functions like any other unit and so forth. Yes, it isn't a clear-cut 'well this unit takes X turns', but that's not why people debate and discuss tier lists in the first place. Different ideas, different notions, different arguments, all come together to make a list what it is.

Also, am I the only one laughing that both me and smash are against this notion at the same time? Enemy mine indeed.

Esas suposiciones son terribles.

[Naglfar]

The notion of LTC being the only metric in a tier list.

Holy shit, arguments in which everyone's arguing for the same thing! SF's trademark.

[Snowy_One]

I think the sides are more 'we don't use LTC as our only metric' vs. 'we want to use other metrics' than what you are suggesting Naglfar

[Lord Raven]

No, Naglfar's on point, I don't know what you're talking about.

[Naglfar]

Note that nobody is arguing LTC as the primary metric. This thread is even more terrible than I thought.

[General Banzai]

Note that nobody is arguing LTC as the primary metric. This thread is even more terrible than I thought.

Then what are you so angry about?

Everyone you're arguing with agrees with you, hooray!

[Naglfar]

Then what are you so angry about?

You're the only one who thinks I'm angry.

Everyone you're arguing with agrees with you, hooray!

And they still manage to disagree somehow.

[aku chi]

1 turn = 1 turn

No matter how much stuff is going on, a turn is a turn.

As I understand it, the goal of a tier list to to rank units by their contributions towards completing the game. From this point of view, all turns "saved" are not created equal. As smash fanatic points out: a unit that can single-handedly "save" a turn in 1-P saves us a minute or two of hard-to-lose gameplay. A unit that could single-handedly "save" a turn in 4-4 would save many more minutes of more challenging gameplay. All else being equal, the former unit is less valuable than the latter unit.

Also, there is no need to sacrifice an objective measure to reflect that not all turns are equal. I have before suggested that the total number of unit actions per chapter would be a perfectly objective metric that closer captures the essence of a unit's contributions towards completing the game. With this metric, a turn-saving performance in 1-P might save ~4-8 actions, whereas a turn-saving performance in 4-4 might save ~20-40 actions. This would also reflect that, once you're worked out an efficient strategy, going stealth in FE9's C10 might be more efficient than the alternative, despite "costing" several turns. Such a metric is regrettably harder to keep track of (and impossible in maps with FOW), for all it's advantages.

Edited April 2, 2012 by aku chi

[Othin]

It's much harder to complete 1-P without Edward than it is to take a bit more time on a random Part 4 chapter. In fact, going slower can mean less of a challenge. Of course, if we're assuming that you've already come up with a perfect strategy (an assumption a tier list should NEVER make), then nothing is challenging in the first place.

[aku chi]

It's much harder to complete 1-P without Edward than it is to take a bit more time on a random Part 4 chapter.

Maybe. I want to make a distinction between the magnitude of Edward's contribution in 1-P and the nature of contributions in smaller, simpler chapters. Without Edward, it may take 10 additional turns to complete 1-P (guesstimating). Yet I'd be hard pressed to argue that he is more valuable in this chapter than Rafiel is in 4-4 (who "saves" 1-2 turns, at most). But I suppose we might disagree here.

The Black Knight in 1-9 represents a different problem to solve. It's almost impossible to complete the chapter without him, so evaluating his contribution with any "what does his absense cost?" metric would result in him garnering nearly infinite utility. So I think that there is something more fundamentally flawed in the "turns saved" mentality of evaluating a unit's worth; albeit, something that is seldom exposed. Either that, or the Black Knight is - by far - the most valuable unit in FE:RD.

In fact, going slower can mean less of a challenge.

If you're going slower in 4-4, that means that you're facing double the number of enemies due to reinforcements. Units that help us complete 4-4 before the storm of reinforcement on turn 10 clearly help us complete the game. The ridiculous number of enemy reinforcements is, I believe, one of the reasons smash selected this chapter as his example. (Which is a little unwise, because it muddies two legitimate issues: (a) certain turns costing more than other turns, and (b) saving multiple turns with single-turn actions due to reinforcements.)

Edited April 2, 2012 by aku chi

[Naglfar]

Last I checked, units aren't given credit for necessary or borderline necessary actions because it just shits all over discussion and the list as a whole.

[General Banzai]

You're the only one who thinks I'm angry.

And they still manage to disagree somehow.

Maybe you're the one who disagrees :O

And iunno, raging at how "terrible" this thread is is pretty lol

[dondon151]

Of course, if we're assuming that you've already come up with a perfect strategy (an assumption a tier list should NEVER make), then nothing is challenging in the first place.

A tier list of any other game assumes a high (if not the highest known) level of play. Why is Fire Emblem an exception?

[Colonel M]

A tier list of any other game assumes a high (if not the highest known) level of play. Why is Fire Emblem an exception?

Oh trust me, Fire Emblem isn't the only game. Shining Force gets the same rep, and they have people that are so OCD when it comes to levels that they sandbag their Pegasus Knights to high heaven.

[Toothache]

Returning to my idea about the multiple ratings approach. This is just a rough draft of how it may look, for FE6.

Unit      Combat Utility Efficiency Total
Roy       220       170       110    500
Marcus    440       290       510   1240
Alan      490       270       500   1260

In this example, I counted up the number of units (52), and the idea would be to assign a rating from 1-52 in each category for each unit. 52nd place would get 10 points in that category, 51st would get 20 points, and so on. Totals would determine the tier list position, and perhaps break points can be made at set points values to make tiering a little easier.

Again, the real problem with this approach is the categories themselves. Everything is open to debate, but I think this is still a possible way forward for tier lists.

Edited April 2, 2012 by Toothache

[Anouleth]

Returning to my idea about the multiple ratings approach. This is just a rough draft of how it may look, for FE6.

Unit      Combat Utility Efficiency Total
Roy       220       170       110    500
Marcus    440       290       510   1240
Alan      490       270       500   1260

In this example, I counted up the number of units (52), and the idea would be to assign a rating from 1-52 in each category for each unit. 52nd place would get 10 points in that category, 51st would get 20 points, and so on. Totals would determine the tier list position, and perhaps break points can be made at set points values to make tiering a little easier.

Again, the real problem with this approach is the categories themselves. Everything is open to debate, but I think this is still a possible way forward for tier lists.

What, precisely, does "Combat" mean? How is it possible that Roy can have the 30th best combat and the 35th best utility but be the 41st best unit in the game (especially when you consider that he has the 1st best availability)?

[Toothache]

The numbers aren't important here, this is an example. Neither are the categories of ratings. Each of those will need to be defined, and ratings set accordingly.

[nflchamp]

Returning to my idea about the multiple ratings approach. This is just a rough draft of how it may look, for FE6.

Unit      Combat Utility Efficiency Total
Roy       220       170       110    500
Marcus    440       290       510   1240
Alan      490       270       500   1260

In this example, I counted up the number of units (52), and the idea would be to assign a rating from 1-52 in each category for each unit. 52nd place would get 10 points in that category, 51st would get 20 points, and so on. Totals would determine the tier list position, and perhaps break points can be made at set points values to make tiering a little easier.

Again, the real problem with this approach is the categories themselves. Everything is open to debate, but I think this is still a possible way forward for tier lists.

I think this is nothing but putting what we already do in tier lists into numbers.

[Toothache]

Ah but this is the point. Current tiering is too vague I feel, and by breaking down how units are rated into individual categories, a clearer picture can be made about their place in a tier list. It may even help answer some awkward tiering questions we've had in the past, like how much value a thief or flier's utility has on their overall position.

[General Banzai]

A tier list of any other game assumes a high (if not the highest known) level of play. Why is Fire Emblem an exception?

Fire Emblem isn't competitive.

[arvilino]

Fire Emblem isn't competitive.

It does give you your turn count and other details(depending on the game) and sometimes even a ranking at the end(or in FE7's case throughout) though.

[Espinosa]

Combat, utility and efficiency seem like such closely related concepts, though. Every day on these forums, you can read something like "6/10 for Rapier utility", so utility is unchallenged combat niche and not simply extramilitary properties like rescuedropping and/or flight. And how else can you play efficiently when you lack good combat? Granted, in a game like FESD all you need is the Warp spell, a forge and a save point so that you can reset for a feasible enough critical for a 1-turn clear, but still.