When did tier lists and debating appear at the FE fandom?

[Junkhead]

I have wondered that ever since I got interested in applying logic and reasoning to our favorite little game. =O

Edited January 4, 2011 by Soul

[Blitz]

That title is definitely confusing and I have no idea to the answer of that question either. (is there anybody who actually have the answer to that ?)

Edited January 4, 2011 by Flint Echo

[Momo]

That title is a grammatical nightmare.

[Fayt Zelpher]

I think the question is: When did people start constructing FE character tier lists? And when did debating said lists become commonplace within the community?

I just know it was before my time.

[Junkhead]

That title is a grammatical nightmare.

I know! xP

I'll fix it, though.

[Lilmik11]

Let's face it, tier list are debate paradise and they are very useful to player in a specific run or in a draft.

[Zkirsche]

Years ago, like, I'm a late comer, and I started discussing it back in December 2008.

Back then, to put it in Inui's words, the main debaters were Reikken, Solid, Yzarc Drowsnam and Vykan. Mekkah was also pretty good, but I never really saw him, CATS or Sentenal debating.

Also, FEFF and FEP were both active debating sites back then, now... not so much :/.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Kevin

[Mekkah]

Pretty sure people were doing it on GFAQs already before it started on other sites.

[deleted35362]

Someone was like SAIN>LOWEN>MARCUS>KENT And someone else was like NO

[Ike-Mike]

Certainly not in the fandom's first few years, that much I can tell you.

The first tier lists became established at around 2006 or 2007 when arguing about competitive Smash Bros. became really prevalent on gaming sites and FESS started its first debate contests back then. Tiers and debating became an integral part of the fandom at the time Radiant Dawn came out.

[Tormod]

While tier lists might be only about four years old or so, there was debating and arguing over characters' relative merits, character rankings, etc., from pretty much the moment FE7 was released in the west (and, consequently, people finally noticed it). It might have been longer.

It wasn't nearly as structured as it is now, and the things that made characters valuable or were legitimate arguments were hardly pinned down, because people were arguing from a bunch of different viewpoints and trying to cover every aspect at once (Whileas now the tier lists are all set to pretty specific conditions and objectives - lowest turn count, hardest difficulty, etc) which sort of made things a cluster****.

[Ϲharlie]

Debates have been around since at least 2004. Discussions weren't as "sophisticated" back then as they are now. For example, people would generally look at a character's max level averages to determine their worth.

[Narga_Rocks]

Yeah. It took a while just for people to realize that everyone perhaps won't reach 20/20. Forget thinking about how they perform along the path to 20/20 (or whatever reasonable level).

[Junkhead]

Ah. And here I thought they appeared as early as when FE3 came out. Well, anyway, I'm just glad they exist to actually impose some order.

EDIT: I have a somewhat irrelevant question to this topic. But why do some people, when debating, usually don't reply to the OP? Are they like cowards, or just know they can't win? I find that rude and annoying.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Soul

[Colonel M]

EDIT: I have a somewhat irrelevant question to this topic. But why do some people, when debating, usually don't reply to the OP? Are they like cowards, or just know they can't win? I find that rude and annoying.

Depends on who the OP is really and what they're arguing about. Usually the OP either puts in an argument or two or just makes the changes. "Usually", of course.

[Geriba]

As a latecomer to Serenes, I can't speak of this site's history, but we were having tier debates over at GameFAQs as early as late 2004. Of course, they were pretty archaic compared to the standards we hold today (we cared more about 20/20 stats and actually gave a damn about the Link Arena, for example).

[Loki Laufeyson]

Tiers existed when i dove into the fandom for the first time so that was around 2006 or so. They may not have been AS hotly debated but they existed. The idea of efficient play seems to be relatively new though. The first time i ever saw that pop up was just last year.

[RNG Princess]

I remember when I started playing Fire Emblem games people like Isadora were in the bottom tiers but now its like a tier revolution and it surprises me to see some characters like Yuno not being in bottom tiers. I can't remember exactly the placings but archers have definetly been brought down in current standards, and on the other hand fliers have been brought up for their flight.

I guess back then arguments were based more on growth rates? but now its overall utility I think.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Queen_Elincia

[Galenforcer]

Back then, people were heavily relient in using personal experience and unit variety. Like this old tier list I wrote down had these lulzy positions:

-Top-

Matthew, Ninian/Nils, Serra, Raven, Guy

-High-

Oswin, Priscilla, Lowen, Kent, Erk, Sain, Marcus, Pent, Harken, Eliwood

-Upper Middle-

Lucius, Florina, Geitz, Hector, Legault, Lyn, Fiora

-Lower Mid-

Heath, Hawkeye, Vaida, Dorcas, Jaffar, Canas, Rebecca, Isadora, Rath

-Low-

Karel, Bartre, Louise, Renault, Wil, Nino

-Bottom-

Dart, Farina, Wallace, Karla

Also it could be people like seeing high numbers, cap stat potential and not caring to look at enemy stats.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Lancelot

[Florete]

Back then, people were heavily relient in using personal experience and unit variety. Like this old tier list I wrote down had these lulzy positions:

-Top-

Matthew, Ninian/Nils, Serra, Raven, Guy

-High-

Oswin, Priscilla, Lowen, Kent, Erk, Sain, Marcus, Pent, Harken, Eliwood

-Upper Middle-

Lucius, Florina, Geitz, Hector, Legault, Lyn, Fiora

-Lower Mid-

Heath, Hawkeye, Vaida, Dorcas, Jaffar, Canas, Rebecca, Isadora, Rath

-Low-

Karel, Bartre, Louise, Renault, Wil, Nino

-Bottom-

Dart, Farina, Wallace, Karla

Also it could be people like seeing high numbers, cap stat potential and not caring to look at enemy stats.

That isn't that bad, especially in consideration of ranked runs.

[Radiant Dragon]

Erk randomly being in between Kent and Sain is kind of wierd, though.

[Snowy_One]

FE9 was being tiered almost right out the door. I joined Gamefaqs right about the same time it got released. Almost right away I found myself involved in a tier debate against smash. My 'personal' wager is this. As long as there have been online gaming forums for FE, there have been FE tier lists. I can easily see someone logging on to whatever the original FE website was and asking for help on some chapter he was stuck on and listing his characters only to have someone reply saying they suck and his character choices would help him get through. As for an 'official' tier list, the first one I recall was for FE8 and was JUST before FE9 got released (I was checking forums out to see if this newfangled FE game would be worth checking out and saw a tier topic. Didn't understand what was going on for the life of me). As I recall, when we were getting started on Gamefaqs there were a lot of things that were laughable compared to now. For example, wind was considered the best magic element because you fought more fliers than beasts and more beasts then dragons. So Wind > Fire > Thunder. Also, PEMN hadn't started to pop up on the forums yet, so you can guess how big a mess any attempt to tier characters was.

[Geriba]

Back then, people were heavily relient in using personal experience and unit variety. Like this old tier list I wrote down had these lulzy positions:

-Top-

Matthew, Ninian/Nils, Serra, Raven, Guy

-High-

Oswin, Priscilla, Lowen, Kent, Erk, Sain, Marcus, Pent, Harken, Eliwood

-Upper Middle-

Lucius, Florina, Geitz, Hector, Legault, Lyn, Fiora

-Lower Mid-

Heath, Hawkeye, Vaida, Dorcas, Jaffar, Canas, Rebecca, Isadora, Rath

-Low-

Karel, Bartre, Louise, Renault, Wil, Nino

-Bottom-

Dart, Farina, Wallace, Karla

Also it could be people like seeing high numbers, cap stat potential and not caring to look at enemy stats.

Red's right. As a matter of fact, I believe this is an exact copy of one of the more recent GameFAQs ranked lists. Couple changes need to be made (partly in lieu of the de-emphasis of supports), however: Sain/Kent should be above Lowen and Erk, Guy should probably be in High, and Rebecca and Wil should be moved down.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Jaffar7

[13th]

So, Jaffar, the list would look like something of this sort?

-Top-

Matthew, Ninian/Nils, Raven, Priscilla, Serra

-High-

Oswin, Guy, Sain, Kent, Lowen, Erk, Marcus, Pent, Florina, Hector, Harken

-Upper Middle-

Lucius, Eliwood, Geitz, Legault, Lyn, Fiora

-Lower Mid-

Heath, Hawkeye, Vaida, Dorcas, Jaffar, Canas, Isadora, Rath

-Low-

Karel, Bartre, Louise, Renault, Nino, Rebecca

-Bottom-

Dart, Wil, Farina, Wallace, Karla,

Edited January 19, 2011 by 13_master_x

[Geriba]

So, Jaffar, the list would look like something of this sort?

-Top-

Matthew, Ninian/Nils, Raven, Priscilla, Serra

-High-

Oswin, Guy, Sain, Kent, Lowen, Erk, Marcus, Pent, Florina, Hector, Harken

-Upper Middle-

Lucius, Eliwood, Geitz, Legault, Lyn, Fiora

-Lower Mid-

Heath, Hawkeye, Vaida, Dorcas, Jaffar, Canas, Isadora, Rath

-Low-

Karel, Bartre, Louise, Renault, Nino, Rebecca

-Bottom-

Dart, Wil, Farina, Wallace, Karla,

That looks much better. I might place Florina above Pent and leave Hector unranked, however. The trouble with ranked tier lists comes in the form of the messy Gross/Net ways of evaluating characters and deployment slots.

EDIT: After taking a closer look, more changes need to be made. Heath should be below Hawkeye, Canas, Isadora, and Rath should be above Jaffar, and Dorcas needs to move to just underneath Geitz.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Jaffar7