What's the big deal with turn-shaving arguments in tier lists?

[Snowy_One]

I agree that the game needs to be tiered in a way that doesn't rely on LTC. Lower turn counts should be a result of having good units. A units shouldn't be good because they have a lower turn-count. And yes, I'd REALLY like to see a FE13 tier list focused on making the game 'easy' as opposed to LTCing the whole thing, but I'm afraid I have yet to beat the game and my copy is currently being borrowed by a friend who is going away to Vermont until next weekend. Still, two to three weeks is nothing in the lifespan of a tier list.

[PKL]

I guess in such a tier list Nosferatu enemy phase skipping no care in the world would be the best thing ever.

[Rehab]

Don't fight the strategy because it's stupid, embrace it for the results it achieves and the purposes it serves

[Florete]

This should really be in the tiering philosophy thread. It's there for this reason. I'm actually surprised no one has pointed that out yet.

I don't want to confuse anyone so I'll merge it in a few hours once people have had a chance to see this post.

[Chiki]

Nosferatanking isn't stupid. It's cheap and invincible.

[General Banzai]

I agree with the OP. You have prodigies like Espinosa who is an LTC player and who also thinks Mia shaving a turn from FE9 is "stupid" even though LTC tier lists are based on cutting turns and reliability. We have to start ignoring certain people at some point.

I'm not sure why an argument not being intuitive is a point against it. Ex: incest is intuitively disgusting even though there's no objective basis to find it disgusting.

A lot of arguments that aren't intuitive are widely accepted.

Speaking of LTC tier lists, I don't think anyone really cares anymore about them. I really do think it's meaningless now because there are some people who, very understandably, don't care; there are people who are just not sharp enough to understand the concepts and contradict themselves as a result; and there are people who come on the tier lists to just spout ignorant stuff.

I think maybe we should start making tiers based on making the game easy. This is very subjective and meaningless, but there's not much of a choice since no one really cares.

A tier based on the subjectivity of making the game easy may get people interested.

Or maybe, more objectively, two things: reliability and combat potential. Intuitively, it's obvious that a unit with high reliability and combat potential will make the game easy. Though earlier I said intuitive doesn't mean correct, we kinda have to rely on intuitions to get people interested.

Would people be interested in me making an FE13 tier list based on reliability and combat?

The bolded is why tier lists not being intuitive is an issue. Nobody likes tier lists they can't understand, or which fundamentally usurp their basic understanding of how the game works. They especially don't like tier lists that have no practical relevance for their gameplay experience.

I agree with your second point about making tier lists about ease of completion/reliability and combat potential, and I said much the same point in the tier philosophy thread. I think the fact that such a tier list would be largely subjective would be irrelevant, because despite that subjectivity the list would mean a lot more to a lot more people, and thus be a "better" tier list.

And since there are a lot of new players prowling the forums thanks to FE13, players who are trying out earlier games in the series for the first time, a helpful, at-a-glance suggestion list for who to use to minimize grief when playing the game might actually generate discussion and get a lot of people interested.

[Redwall]

of course it does, but the very significant problem of using turns shaved as the criterion is that so many units don't shave any turns because they join too late for their contributions to be unique. FE6 provides better examples because it has a larger and more redundant cast. so long as you can claim that a decent unit like noah doesn't actually save any turns (even though early promoting him is definitely helpful), then he's on the same level as dumb units like barth and dorothy. actually, you can also claim that barth > noah because barth breaks down the wall for ogier to trade his armorslayer to marcus or zealot, which may-or-may-not shave a turn.

in the end, it's just not intuitive at all. for a unit to have saved any turns, you have to conclusively prove that there are no viable alternatives. this is easy in some cases (fliers, jagens, warp/rescue users, dancers) and difficult in others. earlygame units will necessarily have positive net benefits because there's no one to compete with them. one could make a case for merlinus > dayan because merlinus goes shopping in chapter 2, for instance.

My second post in the thread addressed this concern:

I wrote my post with the gross definition in mind to account for inferior units like Cecille having the potential to (more or less) replicate Luke's contributions, assuming only one Altean Cav is fielded long-term; if a variety of team compositions are considered, then we can still look at Cecille's gross turn-shaving (assume it's reasonably high gross turn-shaving) in the Cecille teams and find that it isn't as valuable on average as Luke's contributions to the Luke teams, justifying not just Luke > Cecille but also the placement of both in high tier. The net definition is appropriately applied.

Units are appropriately rewarded for having potential to do things across the ensemble; the only difference between that and a "unique" contribution is that the unique contribution occurs more frequently in the ensemble. For this reason, going by some of the arguments you and others have made in other threads, Alance would receive some late-game credit for being a so-so Paladin (although they're not as likely to meet certain stat benchmarks for low-turning, they still are rewarded for their potential due to the gross turns saved in teams without Percival); not as much credit as would Percival, but some credit nonetheless. Similar arguments for Noah.

And as XeKr said, I'm not suggesting that turn-shaving arguments are perfectly objective, that we actually go out and do all the math, assigning weights to different team compositions and such. It is simply a slightly less arbitrary framework IMO than what is commonly accepted.

As I said in the other thread, a tier list in which Vanessa is above Seth no longer means anything to anyone but the mathematician that put the numbers together

Not necessarily. I suspect many would object to having Vanessa above Seth, but for the wrong reasons: namely, that they have committed themselves to valuing combat above utility in all cases. Certainly I would suspect that Seth should be above Vanessa due to Seth's contributions across the ensemble cutting more turns (not just "unique" ones) than Vanessa's contributions, but like I said, I haven't played FE8.

I agree that the game needs to be tiered in a way that doesn't rely on LTC. Lower turn counts should be a result of having good units. A units shouldn't be good because they have a lower turn-count. And yes, I'd REALLY like to see a FE13 tier list focused on making the game 'easy' as opposed to LTCing the whole thing, but I'm afraid I have yet to beat the game and my copy is currently being borrowed by a friend who is going away to Vermont until next weekend. Still, two to three weeks is nothing in the lifespan of a tier list.

Celes has made a tier list like this, with blackjack and hookers. I acknowledged in my first post that some people simply don't like tiering according to LTC; if you don't, that's fine, but it's not relevant to this topic, which discusses the logical consistency (not necessarily the appeal) of turn-shaving as a tiering metric.

This should really be in the tiering philosophy thread.

I see no reason for that. The tiering-philosophy thread, in Narga's words, was created to avoid having people derail existing tier lists. That doesn't preclude the existence of other "unofficial" tiering-philosophy threads.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Redwall

[Florete]

I see no reason for that. The tiering-philosophy thread, in Narga's words, was created to avoid having people derail existing tier lists. That doesn't preclude the existence of other "unofficial" tiering-philosophy threads.

It's made for that, and for discussing tiering philosophy, which is exactly what this topic is doing.

[dondon151]

I agree with the OP. You have prodigies like Espinosa who is an LTC player and who also thinks Mia shaving a turn from FE9 is "stupid" even though LTC tier lists are based on cutting turns and reliability. We have to start ignoring certain people at some point.

I'm not sure why an argument not being intuitive is a point against it. Ex: incest is intuitively disgusting even though there's no objective basis to find it disgusting.

A lot of arguments that aren't intuitive are widely accepted.

Speaking of LTC tier lists, I don't think anyone really cares anymore about them. I really do think it's meaningless now because there are some people who, very understandably, don't care; there are people who are just not sharp enough to understand the concepts and contradict themselves as a result; and there are people who come on the tier lists to just spout ignorant stuff.

i hope that you are not implying that i contradict myself because i'm "not sharp enough to understand the concepts."

your argument against intuition doesn't necessarily apply to all cases. in your stated example of incest, the human intuition against it is innate, and it's presumably innate for a good reason by way of conferring an evolutionary advantage to those who possessed that intuition. that's also not to say that all, or even many, intuitions are beneficial (e.g., our intuition about the physical world obstructs our understanding of quantum mechanics).

the canonical purpose behind a tier list is to rank available choices in the order which a player prefers to use or possess. it doesn't follow that a unit who saves 1 turn in a specific context (e.g., rath) but is rather useless otherwise should be ranked above a unit who saves 0 turns but is far preferable in general contexts (i dunno, kent). this sort of tier list is also not utilitarian because while it states that rath saves 1 turn over kent, it doesn't state when or how rath does it.

[Redwall]

It's made for that, and for discussing tiering philosophy, which is exactly what this topic is doing.

It's made for discussing tiering philosophy, but there is no evidence to suggest that it is intended to be the only outlet for doing so. Narga has stated that his purpose in creating that thread was to prevent people from derailing tier lists:

If Alondite wasn't about to post again, then this is a waste of time, but tiering philosophy and all that discussion can be done elsewhere. I even made a topic for y'all.

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=39440

Don't do it here anymore!

I will probably be moving new relevant posts that I see in tiers into my topic, fyi.

I just want to try to prevent others from bogging down the tier threads.

Also, Narga was reading this very topic at some point and evidently felt no need to merge the threads.

Finally, since it seems that my definitions aren't clear, let me reiterate that units can save turns that aren't unique turns precisely because we can consider an ensemble of team compositions (at least in principle) and subsequently compare the results obtained from removing characters from said compositions. If only considering a single composition, then yes, the proper application of the so-called net definition would only look at unique turns, but it's for this reason that we're not restricting ourselves to one single composition.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Redwall

[Irysa]

The concept of a tier list is supposed to denominate the abilities of a unit vs other units surely? If so, don't you have to propose a unit has negative impact (either via opportunity cost or affecting a route, locking out another posible unit choice, etc) compared to another unit to make a comparison effective? Listing positive utility is all well and good but frankly almost any unit can actually contribute in some manner (unless your name is Wendy...), so you should be looking at the problems instead of the actual benefits.

Like, the whole reason Erk can't be considered better than Pent (stats aside) is that to use him he needs to suck up a whole load of exp, a promotion item, (not too bad) and then needs to grind his staff rank up to be utility (this sucks dongs). Even if he can theoretically replace Pent, Pent didn't affect a strategy negatively and gives exactly what you want anyway. If a player decides not to use Pent that does not make Erk a better unit than Pent.

If a unit cuts a turn uniquely, and needs little to no resources at all to do this, even if he doesn't contribute anything else ever it presumably has to make him "worth" more than another unit. But this only holds true if both units are in the same position, ie, not getting used aside from that single turn shave. Beacuse tiers look at the whole game, tier not just considering that, but their actual contributions as a unit overall. In the case of Rath, when trained, he could definitely contribute in combat (good growth, okay base, can use Killer immediately), and since he's mounted he has rescue utility. Those are +. But in terms of combat, you can list a plethora of units that outclass him without even needing any special treatment. In this sense, if Rath uniquely cuts that single turn and isn't used otherwise (maximum effectiveness for least investment), he's a utility unit exclusively.

So this raises the question to me, how useful is exclusive utility? How much worth is there on combat vs pure utility in a tierlist? That's such a vague question that it almost makes me think you'd need a different tierlist for utility and combat...

Edited September 13, 2013 by Irysa

[Redwall]

The concept of a tier list is supposed to denominate the abilities of a unit vs other units surely? If so, don't you have to propose a unit has negative impact (either via opportunity cost or affecting a route, locking out another posible unit choice, etc) compared to another unit to make a comparison effective? Listing positive utility is all well and good but frankly almost any unit can actually contribute in some manner (unless your name is Wendy...), so you should be looking at the problems instead of the actual benefits.

That's what I'm doing. The framework allows you to look at the gross benefits to start, and the consideration of which character confers the highest amount of gross benefits allows us to determine net benefits, exposing the problems you suggest: some characters are less good than others. Cecille is, for the most part, less good than Luke, for example. I'm not neglecting the opportunity cost as you suggest.

[Elieson]

Is pent valued even more for utility then, for providing access to genesis (a free exp pool) with fast recruitment?

Edited September 13, 2013 by Elieson

[Irysa]

That's what I'm doing. The framework allows you to look at the gross benefits to start, and the consideration of which character confers the highest amount of gross benefits allows us to determine net benefits, exposing the problems you suggest: some characters are less good than others. Cecille is, for the most part, less good than Luke, for example. I'm not neglecting the opportunity cost as you suggest.

Alright, I misunderstood you a bit then, sorry. Still, it seems hard for me to wrap my head around the actual "strength" of a unit compared to another when we start getting into the realm of utility contribution vs combat contribution...how many enemies does Marcus need to kill to equal Matthew stealing a Delphi shield? That seems really hard to like actually gauge in exact numbers.

Something I thought about before was attempting to rank each unit on a particular map, then totaling up the points for the whole game for each unit and ranking as such. This is how tiers are created in many competitive games (broadly speaking, matchups are weighted vs the rest of the cast, and the highest points in positive matchups are placed in higher tiers), but problems with that lie within how you effectively calculate EXP distribution within any given amount of turns for combat. That and unique utility (ie, stealing a delphi shield off a boss) might actually just massively outweigh 10 chapters worth of combat. Ugh.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Irysa

[Florete]

It's made for discussing tiering philosophy, but there is no evidence to suggest that it is intended to be the only outlet for doing so. Narga has stated that his purpose in creating that thread was to prevent people from derailing tier lists:

You don't leave two threads in the same forum for discussion of the exact same topic. Narga's thread isn't just a dump for tier philosophy posts that may spring up elsewhere, it's a place for that topic to be discussed. But before I do the merge, I'll give you one final chance: other than what you've been saying already, is there something about your topic that differentiates it from Narga's? Some good reason that the two should remain separate?

Also, I apologize for this pseudo off-topic discussion, but I needed to post in here for people to see my post in the first place and if anyone else wanted to give their opinion.

[Redwall]

Is pent valued even more for utility then, for providing access to genesis (a free exp pool) with fast recruitment?

I can't really answer this, since I haven't played FE7 in a while (nor have I played it at a very high level).

Still, it seems hard for me to wrap my head around the actual "strength" of a unit compared to another when we start getting into the realm of utility contribution vs combat contribution...how many enemies does Marcus need to kill to equal Matthew stealing a Delphi shield? That seems really hard to like actually gauge in exact numbers.

That's why it's preferable to me to measure their worth in turns instead of combat vs. utility. In practice no one's actually going to go all-out and get exact numbers, but we don't necessarily need to do too much math to get a rough feel of whether one unit cuts more turns (not just unique ones) than another.

You don't leave two threads in the same forum for discussion of the exact same topic. Narga's thread isn't just a dump for tier philosophy posts that may spring up elsewhere, it's a place for that topic to be discussed.

I don't disagree that it's a place for that topic to be discussed. That doesn't mean that it should be the only place for it to be discussed.

But before I do the merge, I'll give you one final chance: other than what you've been saying already, is there something about your topic that differentiates it from Narga's? Some good reason that the two should remain separate?

This thread considers only one method of tiering, whereas the tiering philosophy thread discusses other things as well. I looked through the Code of Conduct and found nothing that would recommend a merge of the two topics.

[Irysa]

That's why it's preferable to me to measure their worth in turns instead of combat vs. utility. In practice no one's actually going to go all-out and get exact numbers, but we don't necessarily need to do too much math to get a rough feel of whether one unit cuts more turns (not just unique ones) than another.

I'm starting to understand your first post a bit more now, but I'm still hazy on the whole "team effort" factor here. Your Thany Rutger comparison makes sense but does that follow through in that a unit that does not need any specific team composition to be highly effective is more highly valued, and thus higher tiered? I THINK that's what you're were trying to say with the Seth/Vanessa hypothesis, but I'm not entirely sure.

Also, how exactly do you rank units when they may neither cost turns nor save any versus other units in various situations? There is the factor of reliability and ease that you outlined, (not having to rig a crit/hit to secure a turn count) which makes sense, but not every single action within a playthrough has a discernable goal or result. You may use a unit to gain some experience from some enemies that did not have to be killed before a seize. It may not be really important to the core strategies of a run that a filler unit recieved that exp, but you could assume it makes the game "easier" or more "reliable" in it's own right (ie, you fluke miss at good hit rate in one chapter where you need a hit, but you have a sufficiently trained backup unit to cover for this miss). In that sense, isn't a "turns saved" list of units a bit prohibitive against units that can be proved to be raised without negatively impacting the turns, but may not be that important in actuality?

Edited September 13, 2013 by Irysa

[XeKr]

I’ll offer a reason against the merge.

In general tiering philosophy, such a topic is inevitably derailed by why some prefer LTC tiering and some don’t. That’s the purpose of discussing philosophy. I think most LTC (and non-LTC) players probably have no interest in such discussion (tedious, repetitive, neither side budges). I know I would rather discuss specific contentions with/consquences of the logic of expected turncount itself and such, which this topic provides a nice niche for.

Of course, this topic got derailed by those irrelevancies anyways, but at least discussion is curving back around to the original purpose.

I'm starting to understand your first post a bit more now, but I'm still hazy on the whole "team effort" factor here. Your Thany Rutger comparison makes sense but does that follow through in that a unit that does not need any specific team composition to be highly effective is more highly valued, and thus higher tiered? I THINK that's what you're were trying to say with the Seth/Vanessa hypothesis, but I'm not entirely sure.

Also, how exactly do you rank units when they may neither cost turns nor save any versus other units in various situations? There is the factor of reliability and ease that you outlined, (not having to rig a crit/hit to secure a turn count) which makes sense, but not every single action within a playthrough has a discernable goal or result. You may use a unit to gain some experience from some enemies that did not have to be killed before a seize. It may not be really important to the core strategies of a run that a filler unit recieved that exp, but you could assume it makes the game "easier" or more "reliable" in it's own right (ie, you fluke miss at good hit rate in one chapter where you need a hit, but you have a sufficiently trained backup unit to cover for this miss). In that sense, isn't a "turns saved" list of units a bit prohibitive against units that can be proved to be raised without negatively impacting the turns, but may not be that important in actuality?

Rutger/Thany still get lots of credit because their contribution is so crazy high. But the fact it's dependent on each other (a specific composition of sorts) means it's not something overwhelmingly high, or something that always happens. Their contribution is appropriately weighted down by these factors. They're good because they shave lots of turns, but not quite as good as if they could do it by themselves. Their specific position would depend on how other characters perform relative to them.

Your second point is directly addressed by expected turncount. Is it worth taking a small risk in Chapter A to feed a kill so that the unit could contribute in Chapter B? That depends on just how much a risk is needed and how much that unit actually potentially can do later.

Sorry, I'm not sure I understood/answered your exact question though, so let me know if not.

Edited September 13, 2013 by XeKr

[Irysa]

That's not really what I meant. In the example I gave, said filler unit really IS filler. They are non essential because the core units are getting enough levels or stats as it is to function without that backup. Even though their contribution is overall negligble, can't you argue that despite being a null factor towards low turns, that the unit is useful by marginally improving the reliability of a strategy, even if said strategy is typicaly reliable anyway?

That's just my presumption from the concept that if removing X unit from the team raises the "expected turn count", that by adding Y unit, whilst it may not lower the turn count, adds a degree of reliability (in the case of a miss or the like). How do you rate a unit there? Are they just irrelevant and in the trash with all other negligble units?

Edited September 13, 2013 by Irysa

[XeKr]

If they are marginally improving the reliability, they are improving expected turncount. This is identical to actual turnshaving in principle if not necessarily magnitude.

[Irysa]

So if I understand this correctly, the proposed tierlists should look something like this;

Top tier

Units that are core to achieving low turn counts on many maps, and do not require many resources or a team composition to do this effectively

High tier

Units that significantly cut turns with some degree of resources dumped into them (exp, statbooster, warped, rescue ferried) or support units that make those units capable of those strategies. Will not work in every scenario but are large contributors if utilised correctly

Mid tier

Units that do not really save or cost turns in most situations, even with resources, but help to add stability to strategies, even if they are not neccessarily required

Low tier

Units that negatively affect turn counts due to factors like extended babying, denial of resources to important members, etc.

Any other confounding factors should be limited to the individual brackets of the tierlist in terms how they are ranked there as, (A is better than B due to having less cost), but no unit should jump beyond each bracket no matter how powerful they are because of the guidelines presented (unit with a shitload of exp dumped and statboosters that saves "more turns" cannot outclass a prepromo who functions in important parts of a strategy without any resources, EVEN IF that single unit with those resources has exclusive access to that turn cutting)

Is this correct?

If this is what the concept is I think that seems to make enough sense to apply to all spectrums of play, not just LTC.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Irysa

[XeKr]

While your proposal could work, it’s not precisely what is being suggested here.

The nature of expected turncount means the ranking can be presented in a gradient encompassing the total cast. Tier labelings are then arbitrary where there seems to be a “big enough” gap.

In addition, reliability and turncount are essentially combined. One does not always supersede the other. For example, a unit that significantly improves the reliability of a strategy even if not cutting a turn may be (much) more valuable than someone who just cuts a single turn somewhere. The former unit might improve expected turncount by a lot more. The methodology already accounts for varying contexts (meaning exp/resource allocation as well as team composition). Taking up resources/exp is not something that needs to be dealt with separately; it's already included.

That’s the gist, but what actually results is probably not so different from your proposal and really most of SF’s traditional efficiency lists.

Edited September 14, 2013 by XeKr

[PKL]

So if I understand this correctly, the proposed tierlists should look something like this;

Top tier

Units that are core to achieving low turn counts on many maps, and do not require many resources or a team composition to do this effectively

High tier

Units that significantly cut turns with some degree of resources dumped into them (exp, statbooster, warped, rescue ferried) or support units that make those units capable of those strategies. Will not work in every scenario but are large contributors if utilised correctly

Mid tier

Units that do not really save or cost turns in most situations, even with resources, but help to add stability to strategies, even if they are not neccessarily required

Low tier

Units that negatively affect turn counts due to factors like extended babying, denial of resources to important members, etc.

Any other confounding factors should be limited to the individual brackets of the tierlist in terms how they are ranked there as, (A is better than B due to having less cost), but no unit should jump beyond each bracket no matter how powerful they are because of the guidelines presented (unit with a shitload of exp dumped and statboosters that saves "more turns" cannot outclass a prepromo who functions in important parts of a strategy without any resources, EVEN IF that single unit with those resources has exclusive access to that turn cutting)

Is this correct?

If this is what the concept is I think that seems to make enough sense to apply to all spectrums of play, not just LTC.

I would love the above way of tiering. Needs more bottom tier though.

Edited September 14, 2013 by PKL

[Irysa]

Bottom tier feels more like a special pit for jokes than anything significant in bracketing, but yeah, it's fun to have it.

While your proposal could work, it’s not precisely what is being suggested here.

The nature of expected turncount means the ranking can be presented in a gradient encompassing the total cast. Tier labelings are then arbitrary where there seems to be a “big enough” gap.

In addition, reliability and turncount are essentially combined. One does not always supersede the other. For example, a unit that significantly improves the reliability of a strategy even if not cutting a turn may be (much) more valuable than someone who just cuts a single turn somewhere. The former unit might improve expected turncount by a lot more. The methodology already accounts for varying contexts (meaning exp/resource allocation as well as team composition). Taking up resources/exp is not something that needs to be dealt with separately; it's already included.

That’s the gist, but what actually results is probably not so different from your proposal and really most of SF’s traditional efficiency lists.

If the reliability is being improved "significantly" you could probably argue that the unit's contribution is more suited towards high tier. Mid tier feels a bit more like units that don't really that much of an impact. Shaving one or two turns whilst being mostly not that useful would still be more than likely a mid tier unit, just near the upper spectrum of it.

Also yeah, I'm not saying that this is a "different" kind of tiering. It's just what I've read in from the OP and your discussion around it, and my attempt to make sense of it. It's intuitive and convenient to have a more concise set of rules, as it helps to standardise the format. As I previously said, a structure like that seems like it can apply to more than exclusively LTC as well.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Irysa

[Narga_Rocks]

Oh, RF didn't get back to you on this. Wasn't I reading this topic back on the first page? Anyway, the CoC doesn't talk about multiple threads doing the same thing getting closed/merged, but it happens. Like, just recently, the TitS SC got two threads and one was closed. Also, the Russian Comedy Star thing closing youtube videos got closed since another one existed. It's a general principle that if two threads do the same thing, one gets closed or merged into the other. Back on the first page, I didn't read in detail. Let's face it, your first post is long. I didn't know what you were advocating as I just skimmed. I assumed this was a thread saying "turn-shaving sucks, other stuff good" or whatever and that isn't a tier philosophy thing. Now that I read more posts, I tend to agree with RFoF.

In two sentences, tell me what is being discussed in this topic. Not why it deserves its own topic, I don't want to read a sales pitch. Just what are you talking about, as I can't read 3 pages of posts. It seems like at one point there was talk about Olwen's "easiness tier list" or whatever and now there is talk about how an LTC list should be structured? Why isn't that in the philosophy thread?