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The Big Fat Tier Debate


Jonas Albrecht

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Ukrocky Just ignore JPRoth he has some hatred for Marcus and I don't think we will ever know why. Odds are is that he started with Marcus wanted him to be great and lost a ton of games with him or he believes the internet which is against Marcus and JP is now the prime vocal piece of. Or Marcus stole his girlfriend and mother in the same night.

I have nothing against Marcus. I'd actually really like it if he became playable--it kind of sucks having only one option in your chosen faction, after all. However, I'm not going to take one person saying "Look, I'm winning with him!" to mean that everything is fixed.

Book 3 at least gave him a fun, themed list with the Sillurids, but there just wasn't enough to really push him over to the good side of the chart.

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The issue with trying to determine tier is as follows.

The first barrier is that everyone in this thread is using they're own, undefined criteria for how their ranking everyone. This is additionally being colored by their own experience, and maybe even by some odd stuff like fluff and ego.

The Second is that a Master's ability cannot be measured in a vacuum. In any game of Malifaux, the choice of crew determines the vectors by which the player can interact with the game. Each Encounter is a hybrid of the options built into a crew and the decisions made by the player. The Mutability of a Master's potential per Encounter is staggeringly big.

This means that the only real way to test for ranking is to take two players of identical decision making ability and have them run a series of games using every combination of crew for every Master, every combination of Strategey (Combined and Individual) and Scheme.

Everything else is wanton speculation.

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Everything else is wanton speculation.

Which is why (I assume) the thread was started kind've as a joke.

I'm on the side that Tier rankings in Malifaux are not worth the effort. This game seems strongly designed with a 'you can't put a square peg in a round hole' attitude. You have to pick masters based on their individual strengths - IMO, I don't think there is one master in this game that is a true 'jack of all trades' You can't just choose one master and assume you're going to be competitive with every strategy.

I think the only way to create a tier is if you create it based on each strategy.

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The issue with trying to determine tier is as follows.

The first barrier is that everyone in this thread is using they're own, undefined criteria for how their ranking everyone. This is additionally being colored by their own experience, and maybe even by some odd stuff like fluff and ego.

The Second is that a Master's ability cannot be measured in a vacuum. In any game of Malifaux, the choice of crew determines the vectors by which the player can interact with the game. Each Encounter is a hybrid of the options built into a crew and the decisions made by the player. The Mutability of a Master's potential per Encounter is staggeringly big.

This means that the only real way to test for ranking is to take two players of identical decision making ability and have them run a series of games using every combination of crew for every Master, every combination of Strategey (Combined and Individual) and Scheme.

Everything else is wanton speculation.

Eh, that's a common misconception that unless you have all the data and the data is perfect you can't make any sort of use of data. It's, of course, a fallacy.

In any game, talk about tiers is not meant to be a claim of that level of precision. Tau really, really are lower tier than Grey Knights. No ifs and buts about it. And even if a random dude, let's call him "Craig", wins with Tau all the games that he plays that doesn't mean that they are suddenly tier 1. Because tiers aren't about Craig. They are about the experiences of a sizable number of tournament gamers.

So yeah, I'm pretty confident in saying that Dreamer is on a different tier to Marcus (or, hell, Molly, if you want to give Marcus the benefit of the doubt because ukrocky wins every match he plays).

Now, the exact tiering is of course an unexact science but everyone knows that (or at least should know that) and take all such tierings with a grain of salt.

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Eh, that's a common misconception that unless you have all the data and the data is perfect you can't make any sort of use of data. It's, of course, a fallacy.

Sure, we can trundle out the old "Perfection is the enemy of good" whrrgrble, but the alternative here is that we allow anecdote in the place of data.

If no precision is required, what is the use of tiers other than just the vanity of players with competing narratives?

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Sure, we can trundle out the old "Perfection is the enemy of good" whrrgrble, but the alternative here is that we allow anecdote in the place of data.

Most of the human world is divided like that. You don't need exact measurements and tons of hard data to compare things semi-accurately. I don't know of any game where tier data would be available in a way that would satisfy hard science scrutiny. OTOH, soft sciences (humanities) do stuff like this all the time.

If no precision is required, what is the use of tiers other than just the vanity of players with competing narratives?

Tiers can be used as a rough gauge of how a game is likely to go if the players are approximately evenly matched skill-wise. Tiers can also be used to balance things as needed and to inform people new to the game on what they should get if they want a crew that's not handicapped in tournaments (or if they wish to be).

I get the feeling that you're taking this tier thing way too seriously.

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They're called Soft Sciences for a reason.

I'm a Master of Science doing my phd currently, but I still respect humanities and even think that their methods are more applicable to things like this.

But my larger point is this: Without a definitive set of parameters agreed upon by everyone involved, tiers are a useless set of guidelines.

I don't agree. Tiers are used in other games and just as nebulously. I just think that your expectations for tiers might be too high. They aren't an exact science - they're an observable tendency.

I do agree that tiering in Malifaux isn't as exact as in many other games currently. In games with a longer tournament history and with a bigger player base tiers can be very well established and a useful gauge.

Still, I posit that Dreamer is Tier 1. Colette, Kirai, Hamelin and Pandora as well. Perdita and Zoraida I would personally also put there, but I can see debate on those choices and because of that, I think that they should be put to tier 1.5 along with Levi and Vickys. The rest of the Masters tend to be tier 2 with maybe a couple of Henchmen on tier 3 (going with calmdown's tiering that is the one I'm more familiar with - tier 1 being the top guys, tier 1.5 being the almost top guys and tier 2 being the guys that can win tournaments but don't do so quite as often with tier 3 being the guys that win tournaments only extremely rarely).

Folks, let's try to keep in mind that opinions are not facts, they're opinions - before another thread gets derailed in a useless argument.

This thread started out as something funny and is starting to degenerate.

I see no degeneration. I see an intelligent debate. Jonas is one of the most awesome guys here, I respect him immensely. His funny posts are funny (I consider him the funniest poster here by a very large margin) and his serious posts are thought-provoking. Absolutely no bad blood here!

Maybe it's the avatars that make us both look so serious :)

Finally, congrats on another victory, ukrocky.

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Just to let all you Marcus lovers know that Marcus won. 4 wins, +27vps. :)

Anyone who's more interested I'll post in team Marcus later on and will answer out by pms or in there :)

Just to let all you Marcus lovers know that Marcus won. 4 wins, +27vps. :)

Anyone who's more interested I'll post in team Marcus later on and will answer out by pms or in there :)

News so nice you had to post is twice? ;)

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I see no degeneration. I see an intelligent debate. Jonas is one of the most awesome guys here, I respect him immensely. His funny posts are funny (I consider him the funniest poster here by a very large margin) and his serious posts are thought-provoking. Absolutely no bad blood here!

And to be fair, I agree completely with Math here.

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