the concept of negative utility should spread across tier lists

[Anouleth]

If levelling up Wendy is going to accumulate negative utility, guess what pal? I'm not going to level her up. I can avoid having Wendy to become a negative.

Well, that's dumb. You can do that with any character in the game. If you're implying that Wendy = Geese since they're equally good when we bench them, well, that's true but a tier list that ranks the benchwarming ability of different characters isn't very informative or interesting. A tier list that ranked units on the basis that we're never using them and they never do anything is a laughable concept.

Xavier is negative utility the second he steps into my army. Ergo, there is no way to avoid him becoming a negative.

How about we rank Xavier on the basis that we don't recruit him, since it's more efficient? It's no more absurd than ranking a character on the basis that we never deploy her and never use her for anything ever.

[Dat Nick]

If you're implying that Wendy = Geese since they're equally good when we bench them

Why on earth would Geese be benched? He can actually not suck.

How about we rank Xavier on the basis that we don't recruit him, since it's more efficient?

That may as well be it, since he's so undesirable to recruit he may as well not be 95% of the time.

How do you "accurately" weigh that?

Here's the question you should have asked, is having another person on hand to ORKO Knights in C16 worth 5-10k?

Edited April 19, 2010 by Detective Badd

[Colonel M]

Question: 21 mt with elfire was ORKOing armors? I thought some had 40 hp and 2 res at this point. Maybe I am thinking of later on, though.

...he has a good chance with ORKOing Armor Knights.

Some can even have 41 HP. Yeah, he can fail sometimes, but the 10K has the best chance of ORKOing Armor Knights, which is a pretty big positive.

Here's the question you should have asked, is having another person on hand to ORKO Knights in C16 worth 5-10k?

Sure it is. Why wouldn't it be?

Though the 5K one fails more often, but at least there he can severely damage them.

Edited April 19, 2010 by Colonel M

[Rodykitty]

How about we rank Xavier on the basis that we don't recruit him, since it's more efficient? It's no more absurd than ranking a character on the basis that we never deploy her and never use her for anything ever.

This. Xavier's negative can be avoided just as easily as Wendy's or Roshe's or Radd's or etc.

[Narga_Rocks]

This. Xavier's negative can be avoided just as easily as Wendy's or Roshe's or Radd's or etc.

At least Wendy exists. If you rank an unrecruited Xavier I might as well ask to rank Ike in fe5.

[Colonel M]

At least Wendy exists. If you rank an unrecruited Xavier I might as well ask to rank Ike in fe5.

Only under the specific conditions that we can tier both Ike and Marth on the FE6 Tier list, and place those two within their corresponding tiers when compared in brawl / melee.

...I'm being slightly sarcastic with this, but I'd rather just talk about Xavier under the condition that he is recruited and being used, not about the boring and pointless discussion of "if we get him" or "he costs q amount of turns". Then I'd have to develop a formula as of which I tier units based on how many turns they consume to the amount of turns that they save. Shouldn't the tier list, from what I know, tier units based on what they contribute after recruitment anyhow?

Edited April 19, 2010 by Colonel M

[Narga_Rocks]

Only under the specific conditions that we can tier both Ike and Marth on the FE6 Tier list, and place those two within their corresponding tiers when compared in brawl / melee.

...I'm being slightly sarcastic with this, but I'd rather just talk about Xavier under the condition that he is recruited and being used, not about the boring and pointless discussion of "if we get him" or "he costs q amount of turns". Then I'd have to develop a formula as of which I tier units based on how many turns they consume to the amount of turns that they save. Shouldn't the tier list, from what I know, tier units based on what they contribute after recruitment anyhow?

It's just really hard to accept the idea of tiering Hugh and Farina without incorporating their monetary cost.

Now, I wasn't actually saying to not recruit Xavier. I was using my Ike thing to show why if you tier him he must be recruited. And bblade is suggesting that his recruitment is far worse than anything he can give us and as such he should be considered negative utility because of how hard it is to recruit him. fe3 player said then don't recruit Xavier and he = Wendy.

For most things, though, I would rather just look at what they contribute after recruitment. Xavier included. It's just difficult to do that for some units.

[Rodykitty]

At least Wendy exists. If you rank an unrecruited Xavier I might as well ask to rank Ike in fe5.

Xavier, whatever character is forced but doesn't do anything, and Ike all have around the same level of contribution in FE5 at this point, the particular unit that exists having a bit more than the other two.

My point isn't that Xavier shouldn't be tiered unranked, but some of the logic used to negate a unit's negative can apply to him in a different way. The result is that neither unit is on your team being a negative, so it's not that much different other than Xavier being worse.

I am just tired of BB touting around his special negative utility tier as if it's the only way to be a negative. It shouldn't even be called negative utility because a lot of units outside that tier could be negative utility.

Edited April 19, 2010 by Ilyana

[Snowy_One]

Alright... Let's try this again...

In your proposed set-up; units who have difficult recruitments suffer from 'negative utility'. However; you have also stated that a unit has to be bad enough to not be worth the effort.

Alright. Here. Let me try this as a different way of trying to ask. What would happen under the following situations?

1) Unit A and B are both good units, but A is better than B. However, A also has a difficult recruitment while B is a auto-join unit. From a tier-list perspective, would A be better than B because he is better overall, or would B be better than A because of B's easier recruitment?

2) Unit C and D are less-than-good units. D outright sucks barring a massive amount of work; but D joins automatically. C, however, is a unit who is actually decently solid and can perform well. Maybe not enough to be on the prime team, but far from out of the question for a 'just a bit less than prime team'. However, C also has a difficult recruitment. Would C be considered a 'negative utility unit' and be put in/near the same tier as D even though D is a flat-out aweful unit while C is actually useable but difficult to recruit?

3) I know you stated earlier that bottom tier and negative utility are not the same... but... if it's true that only units not 'worth' the cost to recruit can get negative utility, and if you are to claim that a unit who performs well will not be penalized for their negative utility (in other words, agreed with the former in question 1), than wouldn't your suggestion be only one that penalizes those units who are already weak? I know you say they aren't the same, but the only ones who could be 'not worth it' are the ones who are also already low on the list.

[Dat Nick]

Wendy, just like her failbuddies Astrid, Lyre, Rolf, et cetera are not negative utility in and of themselves. The only part about them that makes them negative utility is that lots of superior options exist. The same cannot be said of Xavier. He IS negative utility, in and of himself, and it has almost nothing to do with the fact that he's outclassed.

e.x, as far as gross systems work, when arguing characters, it's assumed that no unit outside your team exists seriously and may as well be locked to the bench. It's quite very difficult to be worse than an empty slot (i'll admit that wendy does it, at least for the early stages, possibly all of her existance), but that is the only thing Wendy has to be better than (and she probably isn't)

btw, I still maintain that Wendy could chuck a javelin at something or act as a mage distraction or just do SOMETHING retarded in her join chapter and it'd still be more useful than xavier.

1) Unit A and B are both good units, but A is better than B. However, A also has a difficult recruitment while B is a auto-join unit. From a tier-list perspective, would A be better than B because he is better overall, or would B be better than A because of B's easier recruitment?

2) Unit C and D are less-than-good units. D outright sucks barring a massive amount of work; but D joins automatically. C, however, is a unit who is actually decently solid and can perform well. Maybe not enough to be on the prime team, but far from out of the question for a 'just a bit less than prime team'. However, C also has a difficult recruitment. Would C be considered a 'negative utility unit' and be put in/near the same tier as D even though D is a flat-out aweful unit while C is actually useable but difficult to recruit?

Both of these questions are far too much of a generalization for me to answer. I don't know if the hypothetical units A and C are worth their "difficult" recruitment costs, so I can't answer either question.

I know you say they aren't the same, but the only ones who could be 'not worth it' are the ones who are also already low on the list.

Some possible victims may be higher up or on the middle of the list. But yes, the main thing this is really going to do is make bad units look worse.

Edited April 19, 2010 by Detective Badd

[Narga_Rocks]

Both of these questions are far too much of a generalization for me to answer. I don't know if the hypothetical units A and C are worth their "difficult" recruitment costs, so I can't answer either question.

Don't know precisely what he was driving at, but the point I'm interested in that results from his question is whether a unit that is "worth" its difficult recruitment is then tiered without consideration for their difficult recruitment cost.

Take Xavier. Now give him wings (9 move with flight). Now give him all 20s except 80 hp and 19 build. And just for kicks, give him 5 movement stars, a 5% move growth (with 19 levels to grow since I just made him level 1 Tier 2), and 5 PCC. And just for fun, give him Ambush and Moonlight and Astra and sol and Wrath. And A swords and A lances (and he's not a mounted unit so he can use them both while indoors or outdoors. He just happens to be able to fly and has canto like the flying bird laguz in fe10. And to top it off he can "land" and "take off" so that you can make use of terrain and avoid bow weakness while on the ground and avoid movement penalties while in the air).

Is he tiered just like any unit with all that insanity would be tiered? Or is he tiered with a unit with all that insanity except he was a pain to recruit?

Even with his lack of availability, I'd be tempted to give Mr. Insane his own tier. Only around for ~1/4 of the game? Well, yeah, but for that 1/4 he happens to be a flying god. Maybe I should throw in an epic PRF just to make sure there is no denying he's the best for 9 maps.

Now, does he get to be tiered as if recruiting him was a walk in the park? Or do we look at what a pain it is to get those 8 ally civilians to talk to the other 8 armors and then get Leaf to talk to Xavier before anything dies? Because really, that is an extreme pain. In fact, it is such a massive pain that I'd be tempted to stick Mr. Insane into mid tier at best if we incorporate recruitment pains into his tier position.

Now, with snowy's question it basically leads to the same thing.

A > B will, in general, mean that good units get to ignore their recruitment cost completely. I'm assuming the idea is that B > A is the conclusion if A's recruitment cost even hurts a little bit. And since C has a difficult recruitment and never really "gives back" what an effort it was to get him (because you can deploy a bunch of 5+ units and thus C can't build a positive due to opportunity cost of deployment), do we apply the full force of his recruitment cost and thus D > C?

If so, why would A get to ignore its cost but C can't?

If A is a 9, but its cost to get is a 3, and B is a 7, then B > A regardless of how good A is because A was such a pain to get. If C is a 4 and D is a 2, but C was so hard to get that we rate its cost a 3 as well, then D > C. Or we even decide that C and D are never worth fielding so they are more like 0s after being recruited, and C = 0 - 3 and D = 0 thus D > C because 0 > -3.

Now, with Xavier, he's like a 2 and his cost is like a 10 (it is that much of a pain), so no matter what he ever does he's not worth the recruiting and thus is "a negative utility unit" because you can't simply not field him (and thus give him no opportunity cost of deployment) and score a 0. By existing, he is a -8. But I ask if the only units that actually feel the backlash of their recruitment are these units that reach a negative number in some equation, and A doesn't actually have to feel that 3 and thus A > B because 9 > 7. Let's assume that you don't have enough 6+ units that you would like another overall 6. Then A is most definitely "worth" his recruitment because what you get is better than what you have. A is good enough to be fielded and help. And in addition, you now have a 9 running around helping out. Is the fact that he is "worth" his recruitment cost enough to put him over B?

It kinda seems like it, given:

Both of these questions are far too much of a generalization for me to answer. I don't know if the hypothetical units A and C are worth their "difficult" recruitment costs, so I can't answer either question.

If whether or not they are "worth" their "difficult recruitment costs" is the only thing that matters, then that seems to imply that if they were worth their "difficult recruitment costs" then that would place them above the unit with which they are competing. It should, however, be possible to be "worth" your recruitment yet fall beneath units you beat statistically because they don't have a cost of recruitment.

Edited April 19, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[CATS]

A tier list that ranked units on the basis that we're never using them and they never do anything is a laughable concept.

Correction: It is a dull and uninteresting concept (in most people's opinions, at least). Not a laughable one. It's not laughable at all, on the contrary, it's much more representative of efficient play than a tier list which assumes that an efficient player will actually use Wendy as a long-term team member. It's just disregarded because it's "boring" (and I put "boring" in quotation marks because that's a highly subjective term).

This is inconsistent with the premise of efficient play and opens the door for all sorts of further arbitrary distinctions to be made (for example, FE6 Marcus is high tier because you only use him during his good chapters, but Wendy has to be used for a long time, even though it would also be more efficient to only use Wendy in her join chapter), so I don't think it should be allowed, but there's no arguing with popular sentiment in matters like these.

Edited April 19, 2010 by CATS

[Rodykitty]

Wendy, just like her failbuddies Astrid, Lyre, Rolf, et cetera are not negative utility in and of themselves. The only part about them that makes them negative utility is that lots of superior options exist. The same cannot be said of Xavier.

Doing 5 damage per hit and needing massives amount of EXP just to not suck isn't negative utility?

And your statement that those units being obsoleted by better units applies to Xavier as well. There are much better options than him. You keep saying dumb stuff that I have to correct you about (which even helps your argument for Xavier being in a tier lower than bottom).

This is inconsistent with the premise of efficient play and opens the door for all sorts of further arbitrary distinctions to be made (for example, FE6 Marcus is high tier because you only use him during his good chapters, but Wendy has to be used for a long time, even though it would also be more efficient to only use Wendy in her join chapter), so I don't think it should be allowed, but there's no arguing with popular sentiment in matters like these.

Depends on how good the utility unit actually is. I don't know how good FE6 Marcus is, but characters like FE7 Marcus actually can last the entire game, and usually characters like FEDS Jeigan are placed above units that join later and have a difficult time surpassing his contributions even if you factor Jeigan's weak lategame.

[Dat Nick]

Doing 5 damage per hit and needing massives amount of EXP just to not suck isn't negative utility?

No, if we eliminate the factor that alternatives to the unit exist.

And your statement that those units being obsoleted by better units applies to Xavier as well.

That's part of the reason why he's negative utility.

It isn't the whole reason.

(will read narga's post later)

Edited April 19, 2010 by Detective Badd

[Don Draper]

This is why FE5 has the best ranking system ever, and I wish that every game followed its system, and characters were ranked accordingly.

To get a high rank in FE5, you need to beat the game in a certain amount of turns, and keep every character alive. If you don't have every character alive at the end of the game, you drop a rank (From A to B, etc). For example, lets say we want to an A rank in mind for ranking an FE5 tier list (since everything above that pretty much requires RNG abuse). You'd have to beat the game in 299 turns with everyone alive. Alternatively, you could choose not to recruit Xavier and Eyvel and probably save 30 turns, enough for an AA ranking. However, because you didn't recruit everybody you drop back down to an A. This gets rid of all of this negative utility bullshit since you end up with the same ranking in the end regardless.

Getting rid of ranks from recent titles, I believe was a mistake. And only having the two categories present in FE5 means you don't have to do anything stupid like not sell your valuables (like in FE7).

We should assumed ranked in FE5 at least, since the rankings at least make sense.

[dondon151]

I like FE5's ranking system too, but the bottom line is that people will complain that having to recruit every character is in itself inefficient, although it certainly does make a lot of sense that since all characters are tiered, then all characters should be assumed to be present on any given playthrough.

[Anouleth]

This is why FE5 has the best ranking system ever, and I wish that every game followed its system, and characters were ranked accordingly.

To get a high rank in FE5, you need to beat the game in a certain amount of turns, and keep every character alive. If you don't have every character alive at the end of the game, you drop a rank (From A to B, etc). For example, lets say we want to an A rank in mind for ranking an FE5 tier list (since everything above that pretty much requires RNG abuse). You'd have to beat the game in 299 turns with everyone alive. Alternatively, you could choose not to recruit Xavier and Eyvel and probably save 30 turns, enough for an AA ranking. However, because you didn't recruit everybody you drop back down to an A. This gets rid of all of this negative utility bullshit since you end up with the same ranking in the end regardless.

Getting rid of ranks from recent titles, I believe was a mistake. And only having the two categories present in FE5 means you don't have to do anything stupid like not sell your valuables (like in FE7).

We should assumed ranked in FE5 at least, since the rankings at least make sense.

If IS can arbitrarily declare that we need to recruit every character in order to AA rank, then we can declare as part of the tier list rules that we have to recruit all characters. It's no less arbitrary and it has the same effect.

Of course, this has the same issue that in later FEs, certain combinations of character can't be recruited. For example, we can't recruit both FE7 Harken and Karel. What do we do in this case?

[Don Draper]

Not following part of the ranking criteria because its "too hard" is just laziness. If you have an assignment, and only follow part of the rubric, you're going to get a low mark. Its the same for FE and it actually makes sense. Recruiting characters and keeping them alive is challenging, and is part of the game. If other people want to make lists that only use one aspect of the game (turncount) as a criteria then thats fine, but its borderline irrelevant.

Edited April 20, 2010 by IOS

[dondon151]

Of course, this has the same issue that in later FEs, certain combinations of character can't be recruited. For example, we can't recruit both FE7 Harken and Karel. What do we do in this case?

You can't have both Olwen and Eyrios, or both Sety and Cyas, in FE5. The requirement is that you have X amount of characters at the end of the game, where X is the maximum feasibly recruited number of characters.

[Anouleth]

You can't have both Olwen and Eyrios, or both Sety and Cyas, in FE5. The requirement is that you have X amount of characters at the end of the game, where X is the maximum feasibly recruited number of characters.

But it doesn't address the issue, does Karel have to take the opportunity cost of not recruiting Harken? We still need to give up something (Harken) to recruit Karel, so should he be penalised? So you see how for some characters recruitment costs are still relevant.

[Snowy_One]

Some possible victims may be higher up or on the middle of the list. But yes, the main thing this is really going to do is make bad units look worse.

That seems fairly... well... wrong. Rather; if it's something that is going to be applied to the low-tier units, it's also something that should be applied to the higher-tier units as well. I would even say that it is a bad idea since it can drop units who can actually be useful down below units who are complete and total junk because they're free junk.

[dondon151]

Care to give an example?

[Anouleth]

Stefan vs Lucia. Stefan forces us to spend turns ferrying Lethe/Mordecai over to recruit him, Lucia shows up for free. Or Shinon vs Haar. Shinon forces us to deploy the horribad worthless archer scrub Rolf, Haar forces us to deploy flying goddess Jill.

[Dat Nick]

Of course it applies to high tier units. I've never disputed that recruitment costs for ALL characters should be counted as relevant.

The problem is, more often than not, said high tier units justify their recruitment cost. So they don't get penalized as much.

[dondon151]

Stefan vs Lucia. Stefan forces us to spend turns ferrying Lethe/Mordecai over to recruit him, Lucia shows up for free.

I'd agree, but I don't think Stefan is very useful in the first place.

Or Shinon vs Haar. Shinon forces us to deploy the horribad worthless archer scrub Rolf, Haar forces us to deploy flying goddess Jill.

Shinon still has those 3 earlygame chapters while Haar doesn't really have anything.