nflchamp

What I mean by when everyone is performing at a "high/upper mid tier level", I mean that, relative to the enemies, our units are going to be about as good as someone like Oscar or so. That is, they won't be capable of soloing the map (lolike), but they aren't terrible at tackling the enemies (liek Soren). Basically, I don't want the game to turn into "what would happen if FEDS H5 didn't have Sedgar or Wolf" or "what would happen if everyone was as good as FE9 Titania". This is nonsensical in terms of making units equal without giving everyone equal availability. They're all beating the map better than someone who isn't there, so they're all getting positive utility in comparison to someone who isn't there. This makes it into an availability fest. Let's show it this way. U (Utility) = P (Performance) - C (Cost) Utility is simply what we're finding, Performance is the measured performance a character has within a chapter, and Cost is the cost of using resources (whatever they may be). A unit who doesn't exist simply has a utility that looks like this: U = 0 - 0 = 0 AKA no performance and no cost, so no utility. A unit who does exist, of course, has a utility that looks like our original equation: U = P - C If P = C, then U = 0. However, this means that I find no difference in using the resource and not using the resource. This of course cannot be true. So long as using the resource promotes winning, I'd always prefer to pay the cost to get the performance than not pay the cost and not get the performance. Of course, this can be shifted to be neutral by having an expected performance, or rather, by expecting a unit to help beat the game. This changes the equation though. U (Utility) = P (Performance) - C (Cost) - X (Expected Performance) So now if P - C = X, U = 0. That is, if the difference in gains between a unit's performance and cost is equal to what we expect of a unit in the chapter, then they have no utility. Note that X is a constant; I'm now expecting every unit to be able to outperform their cost by a certain amount, including those units that aren't in the chapter. As such, the utility of have a unit not in the chapter is: U = 0 - 0 - X = -X The unit still has no performance and no cost, but now they aren't living up to my expectations. Edit: Removing the stupid end of the post. Forgot to get rid of it when writing.

Nah, I don't think I need to make a separate topic for it. I can finish this in a few posts. SOmeone else can make a new topic if they want to. Negative utility doesn't spawn because you're performing worse than the average unit. Rather, negative utility is when the performance output does not exceed the resource input, in most cases the resources being kills/EXP (though in most cases you are weighed against the average unit anyway). In your example, Edward would be doing things, or wahtever, and do it really badly because he's lolgarbage, and then eats up resources in the process. His bad performance does not justify all the kills poured into him. That's how he ends up with negative utility. Ike can't fight in 1-4 or any DB chapter, but he's not taking any resources in the process. That's how he's neutral. You can, in fact, use Edward less, to the point where his performance output equals his resource input. For example, instead of having Edward be an active tank and attacker, he does a couple of potshots and once in awhile tanks if absolutely necessary (like an enemy would otherwise reach Laura). In the process he takes a small amount of kills. He does a small amount of work, and took only a small amount of resources. So he ends up with about neutral utility. But, how exactly do you measure Edward's usefulness? How many kills could you give to Edward before you say "nope, his performance of occasional potshots and face tanking does not justify the kills" and he goes from neutral utility to negative? There's enough bickering as is on just even kill distribution; we don't need to make it more complicated. Plus, pretty much anyone can just do small work. Even crap like Lyre can shove or something and make themselves useful. That doesn't really tell us anything about their performance. Thus, generally Edward/*insert crap unit* gets the same kills as the other units you're using, which means his performance has to be weighed against them. In other words, that's how we usually end up with Edward being weighed against the average unit. You're only defining 'X', not negating the point. If everyone in a chapter is performing at a current "high/upper mid tier level," they're all getting positive utility in that chapter in comparison to someone who isn't in it. Sure, they're all net 0 when compared against someone else with in the chapter, but they're beating anyone who can't perform in the chapter. Now, if you could make everyone neutral utility in every chapter they're in, you'd be able to put everyone equal to each other despite they're availability differences. Just giving everyone the same level of performance, though, won't work.

So, since I neglected to read this up until now, I'm just going to clarify. The goal is that every character will have equal usefulness in every chapter they're in. If that's right, this turns the tier list into an availability fest, even if smash and paperblade don't believe it. Read this and tell me that it isn't true. Edit: Make a new thread to talk about the linked post, if you really want to.

The point was that she can use the same walls the heron is using (aka: the durable people) not that she should be walled by a heron.

No, there isn't a formal argument here that Sanaki > Lehran. But, yeah, the basic gist of the argument is that Sanaki's durability isn't a big enough factor that it prevents her high powered potshots from racking up enough positive utility to be better than Lehran. I don't know how high I'd argue her, but at least above Gareth.

You basically understand, tehnikhil. Negative utility exists, it's just what we define to be "negative utility." Both of your 'equations' are correct (to an extent). In fact, both of your 'equations' are basically the same thing 'X' wouldn't be Sanaki's usefulness if we're using it for determining +/- utility, it'd have to be some arbitrary 'X' level of performance that everyone was judged againt (which, I guess, could be Sanaki's usefulness if we wanted it to be). I don't like this idea, though, as "'X' level of performance" is vague and is easily moved about. The only difference here is that there is no "'X' level of performance" being subtracted from the units initial usefulness. I would think of this as the character's usefulness against an empty character slot. + utility comes from being better than an empty slot and - utility comes from being worse. I like this idea a lot more, as everyone can be compared against an empty slot and the usefulness of an empty slot can't change. What most people don't realize (or what causes most people confusion) is that all this "+/- utility" stuff doesn't represent a specific place within a tier list and only matters because units don't always exist in the exact same chapters. When we tier we measure the difference in utility between characters. Anyone who has a positive difference in utility against another character is above that character and vice versa. If all characters were in every chapter, then we'd just go chapter by chapter and compare the difference in utility of the characters and not give a hoot about +/- utility. (In fact, this is what we do do in direct comparisons.) Since that isn't the case, we have to make the difference between existing and not existing. To sum it up; no matter where +/- utility is placed, what matters is that it is consistent and successfully represents the difference between existing and not existing. Edit: Since no one has replied and I have time. (And again for grammar) Here's the problem with smash's list, as I see it. Smash sets average unit X's performance as the standard within a chapter. He then compares everyone in the chapter against X performance. For example: Chapter 1-4 (Eddie) Eddie, in comparison to X, only has a usefulness of, say, .3X. As such Eddie's utility is .3X - X = -.7X Now, the problem arises when we compare him to someone not participating in the chapter with him. Let's take Ike as an example. In smash's viewpoint: Chapter 1-4 (Ike) Ike isn't in the chapter, so his utility is 0. Now, this may seem like a true statement, but, as I said earlier, when measuring utility you have to be consistent from where you measure. For example, Ike should go like this: Chapter 1-4 (Ike) Ike, who isn't in the chapter, in comparison to X, has a usefulness 0. As such Ike's utility is 0 - X = -X You can see the difference. Because Ike isn't in the chapter he can't perform and, as such, can't perform as well as average unit X. Therefore, Ike has negative utility in 1-4. Now, I know what you all are thinking; under this system there is no way for Eddie to be worse in 1-4 than Ike, simply because Eddie exists. This simply isn't true. X is an arbitrarily set value and, as such, is as arbitrary distance above a "0 performance." For Eddie to be worse than Ike, he'd simply have to be bad enough to move past this "0 performance." For example, let's take Meg in 1-4: Chapter 1-4 (Meg) Meg, in comparison to X, has a usefulness of -.2X. As such Meg's utility is -.2X - X = -1.2X As you can see, Meg in this example is in fact worse in this chapter than Ike, who doesn't exist. So, to bring this back to smash's list and its problems, consistency is simply the key. Smash likes to say existing in a chapter means you have to perform to a certain level to have + utility, but if you don't exist in the chapter you have 0 utility. As I've shown, this simply isn't the case.

That is the use for his list, I just hadn't realized it was actually useful before.

Well, smash will absolutely abhor the fact that I'm thinking of writing up a Sanaki > Lehran arguement. Edit: Smash does think Oliver > Sanaki. (By quite a bit, too.) 'Kay, look at Narga's post for the link to the list. Also, I've finally found a use for smash's tier list of GFAQs.

Whether or not 5 HP is better than 5 LCK is solely dependant on whether or not that 5 HP can get to a new #HKO'd bracket. Considering TB DEF, it gets shakier the higher the MT of the enemy. I mean 44-54MT 3HKO's 55HP/26DEF while 41-50MT 3HKO's 50/25. There are a good number of enemies in 4-E that fall within that 44-50MT gap where the 5 LCK is going to be better, at least in HM.

He could only be an M_K alt if he claimed to beat Rsteube's count.

DB units just can't afford to take the smaller EXP for the extra stats from promotion, seeing how most of them are already hurting for stats at the end of the game due to being underleveled starting part 4.

I'm going to put this out here now in hopes of stopping the entire Eddie thing, or at least make it more civil. Easy buttoning Part 3 DB chapters is the ONLY time this strategy could even possibly be worth a positive amount in the end. What he gets over his "regular" usage isn't anywhere near enough to jump Calill/Soren. I don't know if that even does anything but solidify his position at the top of Lower Mid. If anyone still wants to pursue Eddie up, then start with getting him into Mid. Once there you can make arguments about Eddie v. Calill/Soren, but you at least have to be convincing enough that Eddie deserves Mid.

We could just crown Tanith immediately, too. Then we get a character that's better than Sigrun that actually has growths to get somewhere.

Tear doesn't kill everything. 111MT is required for the weakest red dragons that aren't on cover tiles. 124MT for the strongest on cover tiles. Hawks and Ravens not named Tibarn or Naesala need SS strike and 16 STR for the weakest and 18 STR for the strongest. I'll note that Ravens can't even get 18 STR; they cap STR at 16.

I don't see how it doesn't. If there is nothing stopping me from using all 9 mov of a 9 mov unit each and every turn, then a 7 mov unit sure as hell isn't going to be able to easily keep in support range.

Move difference is important in this game because nothing is slowing me down. At least the enemies aren't.

In my opinion, anything that involves how difficult enemies are shouldn't even be brought up when speaking of a units preformance. If someone sucks in a chapter, they suck in a chapter. No making excuses.

Don't blame smash. The only people who responded to the 1-9 BK comment were you and Narga, and we all know smash is ignoring the two of you.

Really? Oh, I thought you had to transfer files from the same playthrough. Nevermind. Does it even matter? We'll have to compare transfer units to both regular units and transfer units, since we can't tell which transfers will be in play in any given playthrough. As long as Transfer whoever is better than non-transfer whoever, they'll be above them. If transfer whoever is worse than non-transfer whoever, they'll be below them. Same for any other case. No one's contributions are going to really change depending on what other characters got transfers.

I apologize, I meant Eclipse.

Lyre lvl 30, A strike. 40% Rend at 118 MT. The only thing that doesn't kill is a Red Dragon on a cover tile. You could use Lethe for this example on the fact she'll only have a 32% activation rate at lvl 30 on average, but she'll kill every dragon period when it activates (128 MT). Now consider cats double while Marshalls usually don't to make actual differences in activation massive, and you'll see why Rend is the most ridiculous skill not named I Can Never Use It Luna. And for that matter, the fact that cats suck should have nothing to do with which skill is better.

Do you really need two different lists that state "lolMarcus, lolRaven, lmao Nino is garbage" at the same time? Rankings are generally made to be consistent with tiers [At least that's how Colonel did the DS rankings] and it's kind of pointless to have two of the same list imo. Have you seen all the problems people have with smash's FE10 rankings? These types of threads give your opinion on the matter.

Fire is cool and all, but support w/ a heron is the toughest to leverage as far as I'm concerned. The combat unit is going to move before Reyson 9 out of 10 times and attack something w/o support bonuses. Then if they can canto back they'll likely move out of the support range again to attack (and once again lose out on the support bonuses). Then they have to canto back just to have a support on enemy phase. Of course, if they don't have canto, they either will move forward and not have bonuses or wait for multiple other people to move before them just so Reyson can go vigor the other people and be ahead for the support. And if my non-canto unit gets vigor'd I might move the unit out of support range and not have the support for enemy phase. I mean, supporting a heron is fine and all, but it kinda constricts how I can act if I want to actually use the support.

The issue of Raisin was "dropped" because I got tired of arguing about it. Well of course you got tired of arguing about it, you weren't actually arguing with anybody to begin with. Pretty much everyone was already in agreement with you. Either that or they didn't care enough to think up counterarguments.

I had thought that the issue of dropping Reyson was eventually "dropped" because no one really had an issue with it.