+/- Utility

[Vykan12]

I want to see if any consensus can be reached on this issue.

Edited August 6, 2009 by Vykan12

[Rodykitty]

1. Mid tier is roughly neutral utility.

I think a more accurate statement would be "smack dab in the middle of the tier list".

IE: I consider Nagi/Gotoh to be the center of the H5 tier list, but they're in Low Mid because of a tier gap between them and Beck/Jake.

Edited August 6, 2009 by Rody

[cheetah7071]

The way I interpret it, negative utility only emerges in two situations:

A character is forced into a chapter, and must be kept alive, and the protection they receive outweighs their contribution

Two characters have straight 0 utility (i.e., no tier-minded person would ever deploy either) and a tiebreaker is needed, and so their performance in the chapters where they aren't normally deployed is compared.

EDIT: This means that I don't consider a deployment slot to be an opportunity cost the same way say promotion items are. They have to be negative within the chapter itself to have negative utility.

Edited August 6, 2009 by cheetah7071

[Florete]

Poll added.

I like the idea of Mid tier being fairly neutral, maybe slightly positive for availability battles (so if two characters are both completely average, the one who's around longer wins), though I don't see how this rules out the possibility of "no negative utility" either. And then then there are issues if a Tier topic leaves out Mid and just Low Mid and Upper Mid. I generally see only Low and below as really negative utility, depending on the situation of course.

[Rodykitty]

And then then there are issues if a Tier topic leaves out Mid and just Low Mid and Upper Mid.

Low Mid, Mid, and Upper Mid on the H5 tier list are actually varying degrees of being more positive than negative, with Low being when you see truly more negative than positive characters. In this case, a character with almost neutral contribution would probably be bottom of Low Mid.

So really, Low Mid, Mid, and Upper Mid is like a gigantic Mid Tier concerning positive/negative contributions.

Edited August 6, 2009 by Rody

[Vykan12]

The idea is you prove a unit has +ive utility by showing they are better than a unit in mid tier, or bottom of upper-mid, or what have you.

[Meteor]

I consider a unit to have negative utility when a better character should be taking his place, or when he is a liability in chapters where his presence is mandatory.

[Rodykitty]

I consider a unit to have negative utility when a better character should be taking his place

So basically, 90% (possibly 95%) of characters in most FE games are considered negative utility.

I wish people would stop having this "another character should take his/her place" logic.

Edited August 6, 2009 by Rody

[Meteor]

And what logic should I have?

There are limited unit slots; why not fill them with the best units?

[Vykan12]

I consider a unit to have negative utility when a better character should be taking his place, or when he is a liability in chapters where his presence is mandatory.

Why didn't you vote the third option then?

Also, let's say we come to an agreement that an ideal team size is 10 units. Is the 11th best unit worse than a unit with only one chapter of playtime?

[Mekkah]

Just going past them all:

Mid tier is roughly neutral utility

This essentially means a mid tier who joins in Ch12 and is overall exactly mid tier is equal to one who joins in Ch28. It doesn't ever occur in FE, really, but when it does I guess it's somewhat realistic.

Negative utility doesn't exist

This is clearly false. If it didn't, then why do we have any tiers below Mid?

Assuming there's a perfect team choice, anyone who doesn't belong to it has negative utility of some sort.

This is an easy way of approaching it, but has several fallacies, such as that a guy that joins earlier and ends up exactly like someone who joins like 3 chapters later could possibly be worse.

[Dat Nick]

Negative utility is pretty much any unit that can't pull it's own weight on the field rather than making worse use of a unit slot because otherwise anybody not in High tier would be negative utility. Let's use Minerva in FEDS as a random example: She needs to be shielded from enemy fire as Sniper, but she makes up for needing to be fenced with solid offense for a good portion of the game: Her positives outweigh her negatives, so we can consider her a good unit who is pulling her own weight fine, i.e positive utility. A good example of negative utility is primarily found in underlevelled characters: Let's use Rolf as, again, a random example. Rolf needs to be shielded which is not only a bigger issue in PoR than in FEDS since you have a lot of ubergods who can soak up enemy hits like nuts in PoR so actually needing to be shielded stands out a lot more: Rolf's chip damage for most of his existance is so pitiful that it's not worth all the hassle it is to fence him in as anybody who's doing so could have actually been, you know, doing stuff. For most of the game your team is better off without trying to baby Rolf than with it: Making Rolf negative utility.

And believe me, I know from personal experience: Trying to use Ryan in FE3 makes the game MUCH harder than it actually is.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Norton Sez What?

[deleted35362]

What +/- utility? What is that?

[Progenitus]

What +/- utility? What is that?

positive/negative utility.

Negative utility is when not fielding the unit (and giving the kills/resources/etc. that I would have originally given to that unit to other people on the team) > fielding that unit. Usually when the unit performs worse than the average unit, that unit is negative utility.

For example, say we have Lyre. She sucks massively, doing horrible damage and dying really fast and has the worst laguz class ever. The amount of time and effort I have to spend setting up kills for Lyre and/or throwing energy drops/BEXP/etc. on her does not outweigh Lyre's performance. That's why she has a negative utility.

Generally, however, when I say "negative utility", I'm assuming that this unit is trying to get the same number of kills as the other people on the team. For example, if we were using 7 people in the GMs, I'm assuming that Lyre is getting 1/7th of the kills.

This is just for being fair. If you just gave out kills based on who can just do the job rather than trying to spread the kills evenly throughout the team, generally the good units would be killing more (since they have an easier time getting said kills) than the bad ones. For example, in our 7 man team, Ike might be getting 2/7ths of the kills naturally, rather than just 1/7, because he's that good and it's very easy for him to get kills, while Lyre might get 1 kill in the entire map because she's that bad and the chances of an enemy being at a low enough HP for her to kill it off (on top of surviving the enemy phase(s)) are very low. However, this would make future comparisons retarded (yes, unit A with more kills than unit B gains more exp and improves more, and thus wins the next chapter anyway, and future chapters as well!), so in fairness we give both Ike and Lyre the same number of kills.

There *are* ways to use Lyre where she doesn't drag the team down that badly. For example, Lyre can just stand in the back and shove people. This does give her a very minor positive utility. However, it makes debates overall extremely boring, and makes comparisons between crappy units about who has the most availability and/or is forced into more chapters and thus has more opportunities to make small contributions, rather than a debate about actual potential/usefulness. For example, say we had Lyre vs Fiona. And we don't bother to train either of them. Lyre just does a couple of shoves per chapter, and Fiona does a couple of rescues/blocks ledges in 3-13. It makes for a very boring debate.

(However, there are still exceptions to this too. For example, Marcus in FE7, or Sothe in FE10, who steadily decline over the game to the point where they're crap. At that point, we're likely dropping them/not feeding them kills/having them stick to utility roles, rather than try to bother with their suck. Of course, they're an exception because they've had a period of time where they were good, and so there's no real need for them to just build up suck for no reason. It's different from, say, Lyre, who just sucks the entire game).

Or for a rather extreme example, say we had Fiona vs Renning. We could say "Fiona can do rescues/block ledges in 3-13 and be useful, while Renning is only available in 4-E and gets outclassed by many people where we don't even need to field Fiona anymore, and thus can't do anything ever without hurting us!", but that's ridiculously stupid and gives an extreme unfair advantage to Fiona just because she exists for more chapters, rather than actual potential about her combat abilities and being able to help us through the game through fighting/etc. This argument would boil down to "who has more availability", not "who is actually more useful".

Edited August 13, 2009 by smash fanatic

[Scarlet]

I say that negative utility only occurs if the unit in question actually makes any given chapter harder (by sucking at fighting and being a hindrance to the rest of the team) than it would be if we wouldn't use said unit at all. This of course requires to assume that we try to keep said unit alive at all costs.

So even a character in Low Tier, for example, usually still has some positive utility at some point - it's just that he has negative utility in a greater portion of his existance than positive utility, which is why he is considered to be in Low instead of, like, Mid.

On the other hand, if a unit contributes to effectively beating a chapter (more efficiently) without being enough of a hindrance to other units to destroy that efficiency, I consider that positive utility.

This utility combined with a unit's availability should determine its ranking on a tier list.

[Zkirsche]

1) Mid tier is roughly neutral utility

Units like Elincia are put in low solely for lack of availability, not because they are necessarily bad when played. The same goes for units like Volke/Stefan/Ena/Kurth in FE10.

2) Negative utility doesn't exist

Untrue, units can hinder you team or require babying to be good. i can't see how either of those counts as positive utility. It becomes more of a question of whether or not it's possible for the negative utility to outweigh positive utility, and I think it is in some cases (Lolbastian, lolfiona etcetera).

3) Assuming there's a perfect team choice, anyone who doesn't belong to it has negative utility of some sort.

Rubbish, we can't say Nephenee is bad just for not being in the top ten. Plus, this kind of hurts availability leads by saying people take a unit slot for longer.

4) Other (Please state)

Utility should be based on how a unit affects you turn count.

[Vykan12]

How come "negative utility doesn't exist" is getting so many votes when no poster has condoned it?

I like Smash's interpretation of the issue.

There *are* ways to use Lyre where she doesn't drag the team down that badly. For example, Lyre can just stand in the back and shove people. This does give her a very minor positive utility. However, it makes debates overall extremely boring, and makes comparisons between crappy units about who has the most availability and/or is forced into more chapters and thus has more opportunities to make small contributions, rather than a debate about actual potential/usefulness.

In other words, you can use any unit in such a way that they can only be helpful, but it's not an interesting premise to debate under.

[Meteor]

Why didn't you vote the third option then?

Also, let's say we come to an agreement that an ideal team size is 10 units. Is the 11th best unit worse than a unit with only one chapter of playtime?

I was considering the tier list as a range from helpful to hurtful which would mean the negative utility people are below mid tier. I thought this seemed quite like option 1. #3 makes it sound like other characters cannot possibly have utility which I think is wrong. My view is somewhere between #1 and #3, so I chose neither.

The 11th unit will probably be fielded for a few chapters where his usefulness exceeds one of the top 10's. Each chapter like this counts as +utilty for him, meaning he'll most likely be considered better than a character only participating once.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Meteor

[NinjaMonkey]

Although I'd say that there isn't such a thing as negative utility (as even crappy units can contribute to the team, even if it is chip damage), I'd say that it would be possible for a unit to have zero utility.

*prepares for the ass pwnage that is bound to follow this post*

[-Cynthia-]

I would say that negative utility does exist, but not to the extent that many think it does. Being the 11th best unit (assuming we have ~20 choices) doesn't mean you're a negative necessarily, unless the gap is just huge between the two units for some reason but this doesn't actually happen normally. It depends on the game in question, but I would say negative utility is often somewhat below Mid, especially for games like FE8/FE9 where characters do better against enemies generally.

Basically a unit with negative utility is hurting more than they're helping, IE we're spending more energy protecting them/they're consuming resources and such than their damage/healing/dancing is providing a benefit.

Edited August 8, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[dondon151]

I'm fine with either the second or third option, depending on what kind of utility we're talking about. Negative utility not existing is analogous to acknowledging only normal profit while negative utility existing for a large amount of characters in the game is analogous to acknowledging only economic profit.

The first option doesn't even make sense to me. Mid tier is way too arbitrary of a benchmark and I don't understand why exactly units above mid tier are positive while units under mid tier are negative.

For the purpose of arguing characters on a tier list, however, I'd rather not consider negative utility at all. It doesn't make sense that a unit that, although subpar, can do stuff for the team and be considered lower on the tier list the longer that he's around.

I suppose some of you would laugh at me for comparing an FE tier list to basic economics but w/e...

Edited August 8, 2009 by dondon151

[Narga_Rocks]

I'm fine with either the second or third option, depending on what kind of utility we're talking about. Negative utility not existing is analogous to acknowledging only normal profit while negative utility existing for a large amount of characters in the game is analogous to acknowledging only economic profit.

The first option doesn't even make sense to me. Mid tier is way too arbitrary of a benchmark and I don't understand why exactly units above mid tier are positive while units under mid tier are negative.

For the purpose of arguing characters on a tier list, however, I'd rather not consider negative utility at all. It doesn't make sense that a unit that, although subpar, can do stuff for the team and be considered lower on the tier list the longer that he's around.

I suppose some of you would laugh at me for comparing an FE tier list to basic economics but w/e...

Not me, I've done it already at least twice in the Radiant Dawn tier list. I approve.

From an economics standpoint, option 1 makes no sense. Either we ignore the opportunity cost of deploying a subpar character and analyze what they give us from there, or we apply that opportunity cost to everyone that isn't forced. If there are 10 deployment slots remaining after the forced characters, then every single unit has an opportunity cost for being deployed. Even the top units. Their opportunity cost would be less than the profit we get from deploying them, since deploying the top 10 means we can't deploy the 11th best unit so they give us more than we let go, so economic profit = unit profit - opportunity cost (11th best units profit). Everyone from 11th best and worse basically has economic profit = profit - opportunity cost (10th best unit's profit) which will be negative since the 10th best unit's profit is going to be higher. I don't like this idea, and it causes difficulty when looking at units that are around a long time because a slightly subpar unit around for 10 chapters should obviously be better than a unit that is a little more subpar and only around for 2 chapters. The true economic profit idea would basically have that slightly supbar unit build up a lot of negative if we add up it's economic profit over the chapters, and the unit that should be worse will only have a slightly negative total compared to the unit that should actually be better. Also, when a unit is really bad but forced their entire existence, there should be no negative utility from deployment. At this point, we can further place opportunity cost on tactics, but that still might not fix things. Even if the lord is really bad it can't really be any worse than 11th in this case (the lord is one forced unit, the other 10 slots are open), since the odds are if we put opportunity cost on tactics then the Lord could just hide and get a 0 (unless it needs to be trained to beat a boss, then it would have to be trained and accumulate the opportunity cost of not letting better units kill things, pushing it below 0, depending on the outlook) but the 11th best unit (not counting the Lord) would first displace the 10th best unit (for the least opportunity cost), then the other 9 units would all be better used in a chapter than the 11th best, thus the 11th best can never get back to 0. So even if the Lord blows chunks it's entire life, a proper economic profit outlook always makes the Lord at worst the nth best player if there are n - 1 unit slots in addition to him/her, unless the Lord must be trained to beat something.

Anyway, I think I chose other, though maybe I should have chosen negative utility doesn't exist. Anyway, I chose other because of another economic rule (or at least an extrapolation of it, or something): The law of diminishing marginal returns. The way I figure it, even if you have your 10 best units in 10 slots, we aren't likely to cause extra turns if one or two of those guys are replaced with lesser units, unless those lesser units are really bad. The reason being, if all 10 of those units can, for example, waltz out in front of 7 enemies and kill them all and not come close to dying, then having all 10 when we likely only need 3 or 4 able to do it will cause 6 of the units to be operating at less than maximum output anyway. As such, a lesser unit will likely be able to fill in for some of the better units and be able to do the same job it's doing anyway, since the lesser unit's maximum output might be similar to what one of those 6 is now doing.

If negative utility must be assessed, then the only reasonable way I can see it done is if we only apply it to units that would cause extra turns by being deployed. Hence, a unit that isn't so good but isn't really bad is probably going to be able to hold their own well enough if he/she is deployed instead of a better unit (provided we still use a fair number of good units) and as such shouldn't have negative utility. A unit that is a liability and slows us down because feeding it kills is too hard or protecting it is too hard or something similar and thus we take more turns because of that unit should be assessed negative utility. In other words, if a unit is so bad that it can't even match one of those 6 operating at less than maximum output then at that point it is basically a negative to have on the field.

Which is why I chose other because this will not necessarily create a dividing line at mid tier.

[Reikken]

0 utility = somewhere around mid tier is my vote

Someone said that mid tier is an arbitrary mark. I say... Not really. To get to my conclusion, I start with the anyone-not-in-the-perfect-team-has-neg-utility theory, since that makes sense logically. But intuitively, it just seems wrong. Why? Because that assumes that the only team being considered is the perfect team. But the best team ever is not always going to be used. We must consider other teams as well, as other units do indeed get used. Same as with supports. How far down the tier list do other teams extend? They vary a lot, of course, but better teams are more likely than worse teams, so when you average it all together, it doesn't go too terribly far down. It depends on the game, but I think it usually goes down to somewhere in mid tier.

Edited August 8, 2009 by Reikken

[CT075]

I picked the fourth option.

In my view, any given unit only amasses negative utility until the point when s/he can hold his own weight equivalent (more or less) to the original amount of resources given to said unit before that point. From that point onwards (And possibly some contribution beforehand- see below), most contribution can be considered as positive.

For example, let's take a unit such as, say Edward. He builds up some positive utility in the first few chapters, then the laguz start beating up on him. This builds up some negative utility for him, since we're tossing him Vulneraries and EXP (to a lesser extent) that could have gone to help training another unit. Then, in the next chapter, he's a bit weak. Now at this point, we can either give him the Seal we found in the last chapter (Thus using up another resource we could have used) to increase his positive output for this chapter, or we can just let him be. In the first scenario, the question is, does his performance increase outweigh the other possible uses we could have used the Master Seal for (such as saving a unit such as Aran 100 EXP when level 20 is reached)? In my experience, I'd say that the answer is yes for this chapter and a few more later, but overall the answer is no (keep in mind that this is me speaking from experience. You may differ, but for the sake of this argument let's just assume that his taking the Seal amasses - utility). Or we can go with the second scenario which means that he will build up a bit more - utility for this chapter. Then, once Zihark comes (And all but obsoletes him) we now have to share weapons between the two. By giving Edward the better weapons, his performance increases, but if we then compare that performance to that of Zihark without the resources, the question is "is Eddie's taking them > Zihark's?" Actually (again in my experience), Zihark without special weapons = Eddie with them. So of course, Edward can now hold his own for the rest of Part 1 (theoretically). Now, once 3-6 comes along, everyone's contribution here is usually negative (unless you're Leo/Nolan/Micaiah/anyone else with a ranged weapon that does significant damage to laguz or Volug), so his contribution is, relative to the team, neutral. Then, in 3-12 and 3-13, he builds up positive utility by blocking ledges, killing Pegs, etc. In Part 4, his contribution is positive on most teams once he reaches Trueblade. The same goes for Endgame. Now, the big question regarding Edward's overall utility is his positive contribution- his negative contribution. Overall, I'd say that Edward's contribution is positive/neutral.

Then we could go to the other end with a unit like FE7 Wil. He's useful for all of LM, but once he comes back in H/EM he is usually inferior to Rebecca or most other ranged fighters you have at this point. He's mostly a big negative until hie promotes, probably sometime around C22. Then he's nearly all positive. However, we've just funneled 1900 EXP and a promotion item into him just so he can be on par with the team. So his overall contribution is negative.

[Tino]

I suppose some of you would laugh at me for comparing an FE tier list to basic economics but w/e...

Not me, and nobody actually can. For, probably without even realizing it, everyone actually uses at least basic economy law when debating Fire Emblem? The necessity of resources, for example? There's always the "limited resources" argument. It's present in nearly every debate? You may or may not have heard of it, but that's got everything to do with the scarcity of items, and scarcity has got everything to do with economics (at least in that context).

Edit: My view on this thing later.

Edit: I also think about economics a lot when thinking of arguments to use in my debates.

Edited August 8, 2009 by Tino