Forum:Tier list debate 2020: Part 1

Historically, SmashWiki was part of SmashBoards, and SmashBoards was the unchallenged hub for all Smash Bros. discussion and research. As a result, we only recognized tier lists produced by the SmashBoards backrooms, as they were accepted by the entire community as being the most accurate and trustworthy.

But since then, some depressing realities have arisen:

• SmashBoards is no longer the community's uncontestable central location, and does not even have a backroom for SSBU.
• Some games (i.e. SSBM) may have a metagame that's substantially changed since the last SmashBoards tier list.
• Nintendo keeps applying updates to recent games, regularly invalidating any high-effort tier lists. Only quickly-collected ones with less data can exist.

So we have a problem: we hold up SmashBoards as being the only source for The Tier List, but they have stopped making them. And even if they did, the community might not respect it as they used to.

This will change.

Option one: Step back and go hands-off

Fundamentally, tier lists are opinion. Often a combined opinion of many skilled players, but an opinion nevertheless. In a world where many tier lists of various states of credibility run rampant, perhaps it is best to only note whether a character is good or bad, and let the reader make their own judgement.

• Remove exact tier position from all character pages. Keep general designations like "high-tier" or "mid-tier", but do not go as deep as a specific ranking outside historical notes or extreme outliers.
• Remove exact current tier lists from the tier list page. Keep the history of SmashBoards tier lists.
• Remove matchup charts. Maybe keep them on a "for historical purposes" page.

This is certainly the easiest option: a one-time burst of extra work plus not having to care about tier lists forevermore. But after having tier lists for over a decade, the wiki will feel a bit emptier and less complete, and newer readers will likely feel slighted that they have to look elsewhere.

Option two: Pick a new source for The Tier List

There is an expectation for a series' prime wiki to contain tier lists, so if SmashBoards isn't helping us, we should look somewhere else.

• Select a new source to draw "official" tier lists from and begin using them instead as simply another step in history.
• Remove matchup charts. There's no way we'll find a source that has complete ones.

This is the "cheap" option in that it requires the least work. But it will be very painful to pick the new source, especially as the wiki is supposed to be neutral, and we need to be very confident that whoever we pick has enough staying power so we don't have to repeat this process for a while. (Presumably you have a source in mind if you vote for this option, but try to keep that understated. We're not picking the source in this vote.)

Option three: Aggregate many trustworthy tier lists

There is an expectation for a series' prime wiki to contain tier lists, even if doing so requires a large amount of work and consternation over what is considered acceptable and notable.

• On a semi-regular schedule, or when a major shift/update happens, create a SmashWiki Aggregate Tierlist (SWAT) that combines multiple trustworthy tier lists together. We would show character placements on each list, perhaps elaborate on why each list is valid and notable, and use the aggregated ranking on character pages and such.
• Keep the history of SmashBoards tier lists, but use the SWAT on the main tier list page.
• Remove matchup charts. (Yes, this is happening either way. We can't fix them.)

A whole lot of effort and bureaucracy will be necessary for this idea to work. (Don't worry about the details for this vote.) But if it does work, it ought to be quite useful, and be a mark of pride on the wiki.

Votes

There is no "status quo" or "other" option. Make your stand. Toomai Glittershine The Brass 19:54, January 30, 2020 (EST)

Option 1: Hands-off

1. Support. Tier lists are extremely opinionated, and there is no definitive answer. The best idea is probably to let people decide for themselves. Of course there are people out there with different tier opinions than ours. We could just let the people go to the Smash player they trust or like most, and let them decide on their own, using the bias from someone else. User:SpiritSobble
2. Support. Unless an official tier list that the majority agrees upon is released, it's better to keep tier placements general. This allows the best accuracy as tiers other than the top tier are often immensely different from one opinion to the next, especially with a roster as big as Ultimate. Hitbox Enthusiast Zeck (talk) 20:02, January 30, 2020 (EST)
3. Support. Ultimately, outside of extreme cases such as MK in Brawl, there is no such thing as an objective placement for a character on a tier list. All tier lists are opinions, and a factual wiki is not the place for opinions. I wouldn't be completely against option 3, since it's at least a bit more fair than treating any specific tier list as "official" (which is in hindsight kind of a stupid thing to do), but I think our best option is to simply provide information about how the community generally views the strengths and weaknesses of each character, rather than outright stating that this character ranks at this specific position. Alex the Weeb 20:06, January 30, 2020 (EST)
4. Support: While I don't really care for tierlists, having an up-to-date understand of what character falls where has been valuable information for the Smash Bros. community. That said, we live in a time when updates are continuously happening, which can put some work strain on those at SmashBoards, so I'd rather wait for a finalized tier list than one that is constantly changing. Alex95 (talk) 20:10, January 30, 2020 (EST)
5. Support. Without much competitive expertise personally, I feel like this is the best option. If there isn't a definitive Ultimate tier list to begin with and it's constantly subject to change anyway, it's probably best to just continue what we currently do and list the collective opinion of the community without making a definitive placement. As above, if a widely-agreed-upon tier list is created, we can use that, but I don't think we should make our own list, since as stated earlier the community simply isn't centralized. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 20:13, January 30, 2020 (EST)
6. Support. Option 2 can't prove to be reliable, and would require some arbitrary bias. Option 3 would take quite a bit of time, and ultimate's ever growing roster would cause this method to demand a lot of commitment. Also this option suits best for the amount of diverse strengths and weaknesses the roster has. Super ASuper A (talk) 20:13, January 30, 2020 (EST)
7. Support. Everyone agrees upon tier placements, but in most cases no one agrees where in the tier characters should be placed. I feel like generalizing it is the best, since not only does it give us a more neutral point of view towards all professional opinions rather than just the Backroom, but it's also something people would debate less, especially on the placements. Also, the MU charts - aside from Brawl's - are mostly inaccurate nowadays, although I still believe best and worst MU's should still be noted somewhere. CookiesCreme 20:15, January 30, 2020 (EST)
8. Support I think specific numbered tier placements are sort of outdated nowadays, and I think keeping the old ones for historical purposes is a good option either way. Awesomelink234, the Super Cool Gamer Leave a message if needed 07:37, January 31, 2020 (EST)
9. Support: More general statements like "this character is generally considered to be mid tier" are better suited for a wiki that strives to be neutral. Option 3 is interesting, but it poses a problem in that the continuous updates, and various other metagame developments, continuously call in question the ordered placements within a tier, especially within the lower ones. I think that if we want to pursue option 3 we have to do it only after Ultimate has stopped to receive updates for good, so for now it's better to just stick with option 1. --Rdrfc (talk) 05:32, February 1, 2020 (EST)
10. As per my comment I support going hands-off. SupαToαd64 09:13, February 1, 2020 (EST)
11. Support: Due to the reasons mentioned, at least until (if) a back room is ever convened for a future tier list. Option 2 would be highly prone to bias and Option 3 would have the same problem in addition to taking more time and effort to aggregate. Until there's a clear and obvious alternative we should avoid giving exact tier placements with obvious exceptions like Brawl MK. Antimony (talk) 13:49, February 2, 2020 (EST)
12. Support: I feel this is the best option simply because aggregating a tier list from "trustworthy sources" introduces a plethora of problems. For example who would qualify as "trustworthy" and how do we avoid appearing biased? If we're talking tier lists from notable players, they tend to update those very often and often times find themselves not numerically organizing lower tier characters? Does that mean we should avoid numerically ranking characters and simply stick to a letter categorization format? Then comes the question of if there's even enough tier lists to create an aggregate tier list without seeming too one-sided. In the end, there are just too many factors to consider and a lot of maintenance would be required. Maintenance after every patch would likely not be fast enough to keep up with ever-changing opinions. Pokebub (talk) 21:13, February 2, 2020 (EST)
13. Support: I think that Smash Wiki aggregation would cause a lot of issues, such as what tier lists to aggregate and how they'll be meshed together. I think it's not Smash Wiki's power to do such a thing anyways, and the Wiki should try to remain objective. --Mpo9 (talk) 22:37, February 5, 2020 (EST)
14. Support: I don't think any one widely accepted tier list source exists, and one probably can't be made. While Option 3 is good, I don't think it could be implemented easily in an unbiased way. Many subjective opinions could arise, like "whose opinion should count" and "should outdated tier lists be kept, and how outdated." In addition, people rank in a variety of ways that could be hard to aggregate: some people rank with S/A/B/C/D, some use + or - with letters, some just say top/high/mid/low/bottom, and some don't rank a lot of characters they don't know about, especially Mii Fighters. It sounds good on paper but I don't think it will work to a degree that will be agreed upon by most players as a factual list. Tier lists are an opinionated matter that can vary wildly from person to person and are ever-changing. Even some of the official tier lists are immediately outdated or unpopular, like the Smash 4 tier lists. I think the best course of action for an unbiased article is to not list tier lists at all. Exact placements can be removed from characters' pages, but they can certainly be explained that most people in the community agree they are top/high/mid/low or even a specific placement, like best/Top 5/Top10/Bottom 10/Bottom 5/worst. The Backroom tier lists can be removed from the "Tier list" article, but we should still link to the historical tier lists. The matchup charts should be removed, they are even more outdated and can making them would be difficult post-Brawl. Again, we can list commonly agreed upon matchup spreads and positive/even/negative matchups, and list the historical matchup charts on their pages. --Meester Tweester (talk) 18:49, February 7, 2020 (EST)
15. Support: We talk about not using subjective terms, such as best, worst, and the like. Tier Lists are the epitome of subjective. LegendEH Is Very Handsome~ 10:52, February 14, 2020 (EST)
16. Support: Definitely keep the existing tier lists and matchup charts for historical purposes; no sense in deleting them. But yeah... it's unfortunate, but I don't see any way to get around this. I don't think there's any comparable "official" source to make Option 2 workable. As for Option 3... hoo boy. Not only do you need some way of determining which tier lists to include, you also need some way of aggregating them! And like, uh... Arrow's Theorem, anyone? (At least we don't have to worry about the equivalent of strategic voting here. :P ) Not that you can't come up with a way (I know average placement is often used), but no way anyone comes up with will be, like, the one correct natural way, so... yeah. Probably just best to leave this to others... Sniffnoy (talk) 03:28, February 21, 2020 (EST)
17. Support: I have to agree, Nintendo's updates have killed the potential of a tier list. The added bonus of tier lists being extremely subjective, and you have tier lists that not many would want to set their eyes upon. I feel like a more appropriate list would be to rank usage of certain fighters and their win-loss ratio, like how many Melee Fox mains have won with their specific character, but that's a lot of work. Similarly, aggregating every tier list might be time-consuming on the basis that we have to consider what sources we pull in to make each tier lists, and we can't go around town to see if there's another tier list we can manage. Feels like the idea of a tier list is dead for now. I want to keep it that way, because it means we don't see the community preferring to main a specific fighter because he's high tier and they can't fight jackshit whenever they go to tourney. I'm interested for diversity when it comes to what fighter is picked at a tourney, instead of just high-tier non-stop (though the Melee side will sadly deal with 'Fox only' shenanigans for a long time; that game's never getting updated). -- Scorbunny (talk • contributions) 16:14, February 29, 2020 (EST)
18. Support: I'm torn between this and the third option, but I'm slightly edging towards this one. While I do think it's a good idea to continue documenting characters' strengths and weaknesses as well as what is the general consensus of how good they are, explicit tier lists have always only ever been argument fodder - not only with the precise placement of characters but in terms of whose list is taken as (the most) valid and how egos have historically played into that; as aside, this is one of the reasons why I have never been okay with people seeing SmashBoards and particularly the reclusive Back Room(s) as the sole authority on Smash, so the notion that things are becoming decentralized (which is news to me, honestly) is the exact opposite of what I'd call a "depressing reality". What I'd recommend instead of tier placement on the game and character pages themselves is a collection of links to popular tier lists on each game's competitive page, as a means of quick reference and comparison for people explicitly looking for competitive info. Admittedly, this ties into my long-running wish for the wiki to become a more general informational resource like other NIWA wikis with all the competitive/community material cordoned off into its own hub or sub-wiki, but that debate on the whole is outside the scope of this discussion. On this topic in particular, my vote is for the wiki to be largely hands-off but to point players interested in that kind of info in the right direction rather than just leave them hanging. VinLAURiA (talk) 12:28, April 1, 2020 (EDT)
19. Support: Yeah, with the exception of extremities like Brawl Meta Knight and Smash 4 Bayonetta, it isn't exactly a good idea to claim that, for example, Mr. Game & Watch in Melee is ranked 20th out of 26 (as opposed to 21st, 19th, or 22nd, which have all been his ranking on official SmashBoards tier lists of the past)—the best we can really go for is to say that he's a low-tier character that probably isn't tournament-viable. Not everyone even agrees that Fox is 1st out of 26 in Melee. Option 3 may or may not also be able to work, but deciding on exactly how to average them can be a hard task on its own. A similar thing mostly applies to matchups: there are a select few that are undisputably in one side's favor (such as Sheik against Bowser in Melee), but otherwise, we can't really say much about them (except that high-tiers generally have favorable matchups over low-tiers). Plainly we should at least keep historical tier lists and matchup charts, though, but plainly we should also mark them as being historical and therefore potentially out of date. --Volleo6144 (talk) 18:09, April 5, 2020 (EDT)
20. Support with some doubts: I think one of the safest ones and would cause least controversies for wiki. Option 3 assumes voting, and its unreliable. PGRU voting tier list is an example. Averegly, Palutena got the best result, so she's the best character in the game? And that's my biggest problem with Option 3, altrought it would be much smaller if we use Clarniet Hawk's way. Option 2 has, as stated by Toomai already, painful to aquire trustful and probably notable source and it's the worst one in my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.229.158.109 (talk • contribs) 02:37, April 10, 2020 (EDT)
21. Support. Tier lists are just a matter of opinion, and instaed of trying to classify every single character, keeping it general is overall (maybe) more convenient(apart from exceptions like Brawl's Meta Knight and SSB4's Bayonetta). Weegeegaming|talk 09:50, April 10, 2020 (EDT)
22. Support Look, I make tier lists myself and I always use my opinion on how viable a character's placement is in every spot. Tier lists are basically opinion based on how some top players make a well-desinged tier list based on their opinion. And that is why I chose hands-off. S3AHAWK (talk) 03:25, April 18, 2020 (EDT)
23. Support Tier lists are entirely opinionated as is; everything else I want to say has already been covered. Your Senpai, Iron Warrior 17:45, May 19, 2020 (EDT)
24. Support I agree with the points made in the summary earlier on this page. They are opinions and can vary over time, and between players, version updates, and even depending on how the game is played (competitive, casual, with or without items, and many other vague terms). I like that general terms like "high tier" would stay, as noting a characters many or few strengths is more objective without claiming to be precise when relative to other characters. Instead of S-F tier lists, maybe it should be "strong/neutral/weak" lists that are little more generalised, simply noting their balance of strengths and weaknesses - or maybe forego the tier concept entirely and let people compare characters themselves after reading about their qualities. Pallukun (talk) 16:23, June 28, 2020 (EDT)
25. Support After the release of version 8.0 in Ultimate, it doesn't seem like Nintendo is planning on making any drastic gameplay changes in the future. Games like Melee and Smash 4 have characters who created the metagame in their respective titles, having characters fair better than others. In Ultimate, every character seems capable in any match-up, including characters who are considered to be "medium low-tier". PGRU has proven to be arbitrary with the results conducting characters tiers and is more focused on the players tournament placement. JRaH (talk) 13:19, June 30, 2020 (EDT)
26. Support Given the large number of characters and continual rebalancing, any opinion-based tier list (which all of them are at the moment) is going to have significant flaws. Tier lists are increasingly a very poor measure of viability for Smash. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.29.233 (talk • contribs) 15:11, July 2, 2020 (EDT)
27. support. I do not really care about tier lists. They are just biased opinions and debates on how many Marths exist. So how about we rest on our laurels and wait until Smash brothers is getting old and frail before we do anything about tier lists. I have spoken. JustSomeCloudMain who ain't interested (talk) 11:44, July 30, 2020 (EDT)
28. Support Everyone has their favorite characters and hates them, so a tier list would disrupt everything. --CyberNat2000 (talk) 12:17, August 11, 2020 (EDT)
29. Support. Not really sure why just seems like the best option in my opinion AW MAN 5 (talk) 13:49, September 6, 2020 (EDT)
30. Support. It is true that the competitive scene is a very large part of the Smash community as a whole, and it should be noted which characters are most popular for tournaments, and which of them generally perform best. But treating one tier list as objective fact isn't right--even if it might be the most popular tier list and hailed as most accurate, popular opinion is still opinion. Option 3 is good on paper, but it also looks to be very difficult to manage, could lead to debate over which tier lists to aggregate, and, well, it's still opinion. Yes, we should note a character's strengths and weaknesses, and yes, we should note a character's performance in competitive tournaments. But that's where fact ends and opinions begin. -YFJ (talk · edits) 01:30, September 18, 2020 (EDT)
31. Support. Tier lists are just opinions. Opinions don't have a place on an encyclopedic wiki. ---PinkYoshiFan 18:45, September 18, 2020 (EDT)
32. Support I've never believed the belief that it is the existence of tier lists that draw people to this wiki nor helps them make well informed choices for how to play (which is dumb anyway, anyone will either play the same 10-ish characters as everyone else to show off their life dedication to only winning or will play for fun with whoever they enjoy.). Don't make tier lists, period. If anything, have a page that shows tournament matchups within a major update period, with a running total for all matchups over time to see who appears to do best against who among tournamenters. This could also help show which characters are "top tier" due to just high usage as well as which are "bottom tier" due to mere lack of popular use in tournament play. Jarie Suicune (talk) 22:58, October 11, 2020 (EDT)
33. Support. Tier lists are opinions, and opinions do not belong on a wiki. They never should have been here in the first place. Shadow2 (talk) 22:04, October 23, 2020 (EDT)
34. Support. As above, tier lists are opinions, and an agrregation of opinions, even may be closer to objective truth, is still an opinion. You can never vote for the invalidation of a scientific fact and really forfeit it, anyway. User:Benzene114
35. Support? I agree with SpiritSobble, because I think that most people will be biased on their own or favorite players' opinion. But if we remove them, some people that want other opinions, as said in the description for option one, may be unhappy that we don't have tier lists, and that they may not think that this is a good wiki to get that information from, even though a tier list is not a fact, it is simply opinion. Please correct me if I'm wrong in any way, since I am still new to the wiki, and I know little about how this works. It's ya boi, KirboBoi. Poyo. 14:38, December 18, 2020 (EST)
36. Support. Never liked tier lists. Everyone has their own feelings on characters, and every character can be good. Kirby's Crazy Appetite ~ 01:51, December 29, 2020 (EST)
37. Support. Boy, would I be shocked to hear myself say this back in July, but honestly, heck the entire concept of "tiers." Please, just dump any mention of "high-tier" or "low-tier" or what have you, and leave it at that. Tier lists stink so much for so many reasons, most already mentioned above. Although, that's not to say competitive reception of a fighter is to be completely ignored. Obviously we'd still have sections going over the general opinion and how the fighter has fared competitively. I know many people come here for that, and I fully oppose removing competitive reception altogether. But, it's just, the very concept of the "tier list" screams "fact" in my eyes. This is what bugged me when I voted for option 3 back in July, and while I wouldn't be completely opposed to that option nowadays, as I've gotten more familiar with the Smash community I've felt more and more strongly that drawing the line between "fact" and "opinion" is very, very important, and for some reason, tier lists really seem to blur that line when they put a fighter in a particular spot. Wouldn't you agree? Sincerely, Samuel the Banjo-Kazooie Boss. 00:21, January 1, 2021 (EST)
38. Support. - I was considering option 2, but i realized that tier lists don't really have an exact spot. Also, this way, people don't just go to the tier list and automatically choose the character in the #1 slot. We should keep Brawl Meta Knight in his own tier though. BIG BUSTER
39. Support. After revising this, I feel cramped from choosing option 3. It isn't exactly on how choosing a tier just changes a thing, it's just the way opinions are made. Obviously, since character pages like Smash Ultimate in competitive play have been saying tiers like a top; high; mid; or low tier. This makes an impact on what professional players are making tiers, there are opinions on how most professional players overrating Sonic and placing him in top tier, while ESAM underrating Sonic into upper mid. The effect on an opinion changing into a fact is very subtle and what this change isn't the fact it just a tier list that makes it a fact, but rather confusion and questions on players that they see the tier list as needing or suggesting. This is why matchup charts and tier lists in the wiki are just out of date, it's too weird to think one character is better overall, just because that the tier list is literally made in 2015, while the current meta finds that character worse overall. Matchups also have an effect like a tier list, similar to how a character has a disadvantage in (year), and now meta is now even. This obviously understand not only these facts are outdated and each fact like tier letters (s, a, b, c, etc.), tier lists, matchups, and outdated tiers make an appearance, but rather a thing overall that needs to be fixed and opinions are greater than facts as these tier lists and meta changes overall. The word Appearance is literally a noun, and what does this noun have, the appearance of what a change can have, appearance in smash (especially in smash ultimate) has lots of things that can change the whole meta, updates from buffs and nerfs on characters, player base on each character, characters win in super or major tournaments, new DLC character that can affect the matchups, etc. A thing is a noun and almost every single thing altogether makes a sudden change into Smash Ultimate overall and the Smash community altogether. Howplayz 00:57, January 1, 2021 (EST)
40. Support. - With the ever changing meta of Smash Ultimate, I think the other choices outside of options 1 aren't the safest to do in my honest opinion. I honestly don't care too much about tierlists outside of discussion but there is a lot of misinformation that gets spread around so it's best not to act so soon on making a tierlist at least, we do not need one, Ultimate is a very different smash game. I feel like this time a tierlist would invaidate the opinions of others much more so than ever before. It has already lead to controversy and confusion many times so I would advise again it which is why I am in support of option 1. I see it as the best option with how people have been using bait tierlists and the like and disucssion is less common among these bigger tierlists or the discussion is not constructive.CutterX3 23:50, January 26, 2021 (ICT)

Option 2: New source

1. Support: I think we could find another trusted source for this.Kesterstudios (talk) 20:08, January 30, 2020 (EST)
2. Support. I feel that a new source would be easier than both other options. Option 1 seems to have way too much subjectivity that would make the platform too easy to discredit. Option 3 would be highly subjective and take quite a bit of work that I don't believe SmashWiki will always be able to afford. It doesn't appear sustainable. In terms of what source to use, I feel that one that uses a mix of empirical and general analysis would be best: usage for effect on the metagame, general perceived matchup spread, results, character and overall metagames, and more. While this would likely be difficult to find, I believe that this is one of the best approaches to take without causing some weird outcry that the Smash Community likes to do. --Plague von Karma 20:07, January 30, 2020 (EST)
3. Support for the same reasons as Plague von Karma. Aykrivwassup (talk) 21:43, January 30, 2020 (EST)
4. Support Ryobeat is currently conducting a survey of the MPGR top 100 to create a new tier list (https://twitter.com/RyobeatPeach/status/1232121227088736256). If this gets a good response rate it will likely be accepted by the community as the main tier list. This seems like a much more realistic solution than attempting to aggregate all the tier lists ourselves. Jaydyn (talk) 16:20, February 25, 2020 (EST)
5. Support. There's probably going to be a new reliable tier list of some sort in the foreseeable future. Zakawer2 (talk) 12:37, February 28, 2020 (EST)
6. Support You see the top player tier list from PG? Yeah, that. Pepdog2 (talk) 00:42, March 7, 2020 (EST)
7. Support. As with the above vote, I would like to use the character tier list from Panda Global as our official tier list. It was essentially conducted in the same manner as a SmashBoards tier list with over 30 PGR players offering an opinion, so to me it feels like the direct successor to the SmashBoards tier lists of old. It doesn't even conflict with the wiki's approach that much, as we already deem the PGR to be 'official', so their tier list is a logical step. Complimenting this, I would like to retain the SmashBoards tier lists for all previous games leading into Ultimate. Realistically we can't ask anybody to accurately create new tier lists for old games. Even if the vote favours a different option, I still believe we should retain SmashBoards tiers for the first four games. Toast ltimatum 07:52, March 25, 2020 (EDT)
8. Support: I think maintaining tier lists helps new players a lot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.34.65.94 (talk • contribs) 08:35, April 7, 2020
9. Support. I would just like to point out that we sort-of already do rely on a new source; the most recent SSB64 and Melee tier lists are, as noted, as a result of fan votes and feedback. Additionally, the first SSB64 tier list was provided by GameFaqs. As for Ultimate, I guess this tier list that was briefly added to the article could work. RickTommy 22:16, June 15, 2020 (EDT)
10. Support only if we can truly find a good source. If we can't find a good trustworthy source then option 1. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AW MAN 5 (talk • contribs) 13:51, September 6, 2020 (EDT)

Option 3: Aggregate

1. Support I believe this to be the best method. Picking just one tier list to arbitrarily refer to would just show bias and create controversy as to why we picked this and not others. Listing multiple significant tier lists the competitive scene finds reliable and having an aggregate of that list would be the best way to go. EDIT - I would like to add that Wikipedia has a very similar method for ranking US Presidents based on scholarly surveys. The principle is exactly the same and can be applied to tier lists for us. And for people voting for Option 1, please think long term about this as Ultimate won't always be updating; there will be a time when the patches stop and this isn't just about Ultimate. EDIT 2 - There seems to be running theme in the Option 1 votes that tier lists are based on opinions and therefore don't belong here. 1) Wikis document opinions all the time - I know we're not Wikipedia for me to refer to it again, but I think it's good to take a peek at how they do things: that scholarly survey for US Presidents I mentioned earlier is also based on opinion, and any article for a movie, book, video game, music album, etc. will have a section dedicated to the reception that piece of art received based on the reviews (opinions) it received. All these things are based on opinions and that's okay; all it does is acknowledge how people feel about it by documenting it. While the opinion itself is subjective, it is an objective fact that people feel a certain way about that piece of art; Wikipedia is just simply documenting that, and the same is true for a myriad of other Wikis. The same with the tier list. Yes, they are based on subjective opinions, but it is an objective fact that people feel certain ways about characters and tier lists is the most common and digestible way it is expressed, which leads me to the next point. 2) Tier lists are noteworthy enough to document - Tier lists have such a big part of the Smash community that even if I were to give you the point of it being just an opinion, they still have such a significant place in the community that it would be irresponsible of us to not document them (not to mention we're a common reference for the competitive scene). The best we could do is document the significant ones and create an aggregate. In fact, the original concern brought up on our Discord about the tier lists we currently have was not whether we should have them, but how outdated they are since we normally only use SmashBoard's Back Rooms tier lists, which haveb't been updated in years. On top of that, this concern was brought to our attention by a reddit post on r/SSBM, which just goes to show that people care about not only tier lists, but our documentation of them. Getting rid of them isn't the solution, using current ones and adapting to how they are made now is the solution. 3) A good read - For those downplaying tiers as "just opinions", I encourage people to read Semicolon's Treatise on the Existence of Tiers. VoqéoT 17:14, February 1, 2020 (EST)
2. Support. Given that this wiki is very much focused on not only the franchise, but the community surrounding it, I feel like option one shouldn't even be an option. I also feel like option two isn't the best way to go, because having one source and only one source limits our options (see our current predicament). By both logic and process of elimination, option three seems to be the best. I almost feel like the "general" ranking part seen in option one should be here, because we can very easily say which category (based on letter, not "top/high/mid/low") each character falls into, even while doing this; it would save us the time of, say, "averaging" out the rankings on multiple tier list sources. Aidan, the Rurouni 20:05, January 30, 2020 (EST)
3. Support for basically the same reasons as Voqéo. Tier lists will always be fought over and have multiple thoughts on the matter, so it's best we factor together multiple sources instead of depending on a single one. That way we may be able to achieve the most accuracy possible. Only concern I have is how exactly this WILL be done. It's easy to say there will be a way to combine tier lists, but execution is always harder than ideas. Crazy456Rhino (talk) 20:10, January 30, 2020 (EST)
4. Support: I generally think that aggregated tier lists is a good idea. On one hand, you'll have the opinions coming from the best players in the world, and all of these opinions combined would make for a solid substitute for the Backrooms. While we might have the occasional Samsora with "King K Rool is Top 15", if we opinions from enough top players, it'll balance itself out in the end. Wizardgeno (talk) 20:32, January 30, 2020 (EST)
5. Support Top players make tier lists every day, combining them and listing them with there update number seems to be a great way to get a general overview of tiers. Just dont use sites like Eventhubs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CR4VE (talk • contribs) 20:39, January 30, 2020
6. Support. KungFuLakitu, Spiny Overlord 20:45, January 30, 2020 (EST)
7. Support - Aggregating tier rankings from various trusted sources seems like the best option to go with. Option 1 doesn't sound encyclopedic to me, and at the moment i don't think there is any single widely accepted tier list that we could use for option 2.- Searingjet (talk) 20:57, January 30, 2020 (EST)
8. Support: In a game with over 80 characters, general "high-tier" and "low-tier" has a lot of gray area to it. A high tier can be the very best character in the game, or they can be be the fifteenth best. While Ultimate doesn't have a dominating top tier like Meta Knight, many people on the internet do agree that the best character is Joker. Option 2 favoring one tier list would be a bad idea, as there are multiple reliable tier lists, while Option 1 would make this wiki feel blank after listing the most widely-accepted tier lists for years. Averaging out the tier lists of the top players sounds like the best option, as it doesn't completely favor one player as God, but it also doesn't make this wiki way too vague. While specific numberings may arbitrary, there are too many characters to simply generalize the tiers. 72.203.118.154 16:40, January 31, 2020 (EST)
9. Support: I feel that a reliable tier list is one of the most integral parts of any Wikipedia of an online multiplayer game - players will visit this site much more often to find a tier list than they will to find, say, the size of a stage or frame data on a move. I also think that a compromise could be made between options 2 and 3, and if option 2 was not an option than it's supporters would favor option 3. Of course, a tier list will always create controversy, no matter what. But it's important to have, to create a discussion of what characters need to be changed, and how. And if this site does not have a tier list, controversy will still happen, but there'll be more of it and it'll happen in other places. Mogo (talk) 14:55, February 1, 2020 (EST)
10. Support: In my humble opinion, this option will be the best one for the community. Both other options have their uses, of course, but I feel like it's the most respectful for the community as a whole to try and create an accurate, ultimately beneficial tier list instead of stepping away from it altogether. Although it would take an irritating amount of work, granted, I believe doing this would make the community at large more grateful in the long run. GloverMist (talk) 05:50, February 2, 2020 (EST)
11. Support: This method is easily the best. You're gathering opinions from multiple sources and as such it becomes less controversial. It's unbiased and works perfectly in the long run. Falcon-X (Freedom House) 13:15, February 2, 2020 (EST)
12. Support for reasons pretty much already mentioned above. I think the Wiki should have some form of tier list, and I don’t really like Option 2, hence my choice. Gizmo (talk) 14:57, February 2, 2020 (EST)
13. Support: I think that even though aggregating multiple tier lists will undoubtedly require lots of work and deliberation, these aren't really bad things and are frankly the best for both the community and the wiki. Having an unofficial tier list based on averaging our others is better than having no tier list at all, especially for a website where some players may refer to for information about how a character fares or has fared competitively. I think it will be worth it in the long run to spend time searching for worthwhile tier lists and aggregating them. Acgamer28 19:02, February 2, 2020 (EST)
14. Support: This is the best option. Although I'd love to designate a new official place for tier lists, I personally think it'd be better to create a group of people that take tier lists from various trusted sources and put them together. Of course there will always be controversy, but this method is able to give a voice a number of different places rather than just SmashBoards. Nevertheless, it's been far too long since we've had an update to SSBM's official tier list, and I feel like it suggests (be it true or not) that Melee is dying. Regarding SSBU tier lists, however, I don't think it'll be possible to have one for quite some time. Nitrodragon523 (talk) 02:02, February 3, 2020 (EST)
15. Support: The most encyclopedic approach. Anthony1996 (talk) 21:47, February 3, 2020 (EST)
16. Support. Character pages already have recorded opinions based on how well they're doing in tournaments from Smashers. And yeah, those MU charts are never going to be updated again so absolutely no use for them. MHStarCraft 22:37, February 3, 2020 (EST)
17. Support. Alright so... First and foremost, with no primary source for tier lists now, and some readers having different judgments compared to others, I don't believe the first method to be reliable at all. Tier lists are usually aggregate opinions from top players and/or a large group of well-informed users in forums/similar pages, so the second method seems promising. However, I think that this method, despite being slightly similar to the second one, is the most reliable, since the resulting end will provide us a similar result to the second method while also including opinions from top players, keeping both parties happy. Second of all, all the old tier lists from SmashBoards for the previous four games are still considered to be very trustworthy tier lists, so their history should be kept for research purposes, as events like Super Smash Con will likely still be using these tier lists for mid-/low-tier events. Last but not least, I don't believe it's going to be a sweet goodbye to matchup charts since a lot of people are going to look for them and try to see, for example, what characters do their main excel against; but since no aggregate matchup chart was ever released for SSB4, and it doesn't seem to be the case for Ultimate, it's ultimately for the better to get rid of them. --Beep (talk) 18:16, February 6, 2020 (EST)
18. Support. As a brand new Smasher, I have looked up countless and countless different tier lists, and most of them placed my main, Samus, "mid-tier". Honestly, I don't mind, because Samus fits my play style. But, looking at tier lists from different sites really helped me weed out who I thought I was going to main. So, that is why I support this option. C.J.Anton (talk) 11:10, February 17, 2020 (EST)
19. Support. I think data is the most important thing in a tier list. I dont support gathering tier lists because they have a lot of bias. A person who hates playing against Jokers could easily put him in a lower tier. However, I think the tier lists should go by data such as results and matchups. I know a few Discords like Mac Nation could help with data such as matchups. Birdygamer1122 (talk) 9:28, February 22, 2020 (EST)
20. Support: This is our best option going forward as it provides readers with immediate, concrete information about the current metagame based on a variety of sources, and we can always note which characters have the highest deviation in placement between sources. It will take a bit more work than the other two options, for sure, but there are two important things to note here. First is that no matter which option we choose, we will still have to do some level of work or outreach. 1 and 3 both involve gathering community opinions, just with one being more general than the other, and 2 requires us to reach out to interested parties to create this tier hub in the first place unless we want to use Reddit's or Eventhub's list, which may be shaky. Second, the competitive community would likely be happy to help with this project; we have no shortage of analysts such as PracticalTAS who are able to gather a ton of data for us or possibly help directly with suggesting aggregating methods. Ryobeat (a top 100 level Melee player), in particular, has expressed interest in making a central Google Doc for top 100 players to share Melee tier list opinions, which would take a lot of work off our backs if they allow us to use that data. I feel like Option 1 can only really work with Ultimate in its current state and will just create more work for SmashWiki down the line when Ultimate top player opinions become more concrete. It does not work for older games in the series that are still played because it's far more important to have an ordering of characters in more developed (albeit sometimes still developing) games with smaller roster sizes. Option 2 is extremely prone to bias unless the data is an aggregate from high-leveled players anyway, though I wouldn't be opposed to it if one of the community members mentioned above becomes the host for that central source. -- Yellow of the Grove 15:48, February 24, 2020 (EST)
21. Support: I Ike this idea for many reasons, and as someone who’s been wondering what had been halting a SSBU tier list, this option seems like a beautiful way to compromise giving the people an accurate tier list while the SmashWiki gets to mark its place into Smash history. As long as this approach is done with care, SWAT could be an extremely valuable way to finally give SSBU its long-needed “official” tier lists. TCBlitz (talk) 20:39, March 14, 2020 (EDT)
22. Support (possibly with a slight change)) First off, even as is, this is by far the best option. Tiers are a very important part of the Smash community (and really the fighting game community as a whole). The discussions on this wiki (and Alex's an my treatise in particular) have been discussed not only in the larger gaming community, but in academic writings on gaming culture and design. We need to stay involved in the tier discussion. If we cannot agree on a single source, then aggregating the different sources is the best option. It is also completely within the purview of an encyclopedia to make determinations on what sources meet the criteria for inclusions, so long as that is based on a review of the methodology and larger community acceptance rather than personal dissent. Now, for my slightly proposed change (which some users above have also hinted at): we should aggregate the tier lists, but not assign numerical rankings to each individual character. We can average out the tier placement from however many sources we deem to be worthy of inclusion, then look for the gaps in placement and assign tiers to each group. We do not need to make a firm distinction between a set of characters who average between 1.8 and 3.2 on the tier list, but if the next fighter after those averages at 4.4 we draw a cutoff. Does this require the most work? Yes. But I still think it's by far the best option. Clarinet Hawk (talk · contributions) 12:59, March 25, 2020 (EDT)
23. Support; Tier lists are an important part of competitive play, which is an important part of game culture. Keeping them is better than removing them, and aggregating them is better than using a single source. – Smiddle 06:21, April 10, 2020 (EDT)
24. Support: I believe aggregation would be the best way to go about creating a tier list in the absence of a SSBU backroom on SmashBoards. Of course, this will no doubt be an arduous task, however the main point of concern with this option, for me at least, is what sort of criteria a tier list has to follow to be considered 'trustworthy' - obviously you're more likely to find more 'trustworthy' tier lists from top level players but is that the only condition? (for example, what if there is some bias on their tier list, etc.) Regardless, I recognize this option as being perhaps the best course of action seeing that it is the least likely to cause controversy, due to it gathering opinions of course. - Tantei, 14:00 April 11th, 2020 (BST)
25. Support;Given the constantly changing attributes of characters for each update, a semi-regularly updated tier list based on trustworthy sources sounds like the most logical way to go. What we should consider as trustworthy sources should be people who have played the game a ton. Professional competitive players. Websites like Eventhubs allow anyone with a keyboard and mouse to add their opinion to the tier list, skewing the data. What we need is a google sheet that averages the rankings of the characters ranked by professional players. Echo fighters with close attributes to each other like Peach/Daisy and Simon/Richter will be ranked as one fighter, since they're pretty much the same. Mii Fighters, of course, should be unranked just like in Smash 4 due to their customizable moveset. If a professional does rank Mii Fighters, we will simply skip over them, and that will be the end of that. A few competitive players do refuse to rank certain characters, so if a competitive player does not rank a certain character, we will rank it as average. But what about the other characters? We have a formula that will account for the missing fighter. The formula will be r/a*m, where r is the fighter's rank, a is the amount of fighters ranked on the player's list, and m is the maximum amount of fighters possible to rank. Let's say that Wario is ranked 6th out of 70 on a tier list, a list which only ranks 70 of the 73 possible fighters. The formula for Wario's position will be (6/70*73), making Wario's rank aproximately 6.26, while the missing fighters are ranked as 36.5. These are my ideas that I'm bringing to the table, anyways. A Little WarriorWas Here 12:10, April 14, 2020 (EDT)
26. Support;I think option 3 is the best choice because option one would be a bad idea because this website still needs to have tier lists and number 2 is a bad idea too because it will too long to find a good tier list like Smash Boards. Thegameandwatch The Nerd 12:58, April 14, 2020 (EDT)
27. Support. I think tier lists are a big part of this game and a big point of the Smash community opinion, such as documenting the shift in metagames, from Sheik's domination in Melee to Fox being thought as of the best along with Pichu in Ultimate being dropped down and the constant contention on who is in the top tier, being ZSS, Inkling, Greninja, etc. Aggregating them together isn't a choice that I fully agree, rather I think that if the a group of Smashers from the Smash Back Room release a tier list that asks the opinion of top players and the public and combines them, then I think that's the best option. But if SmashWiki is doing that too, then I don't have any problems. It also would note of how good a character is in the SmashWiki since, if the wiki is about the Smash games and not about the competitive side of it, then I think the wiki would lose a lot of detail and content. Anyways, that's my two cents. Eexey (talk) 01:24, April 18, 2020 (EDT)
28. Support. I understand it will be a lot of work, but I would prefer this than having nothing at all. We are a wiki that strives to collect data as much as we possibly can. If that means we have to go through multiple sources and collate the data, so be it. Black Vulpine of the Furry Nation. Furries make the internets go! :3 20:26, April 23, 2020 (EDT)
29. Support. I definitely think this is the best option; there are already so many varying opinions on this game's characters, so the best option would be to congregate some of the tier lists / opinions of top players.AeroBlaze777 (talk) 12:08, April 24, 2020 (EDT)
30. Support. My gut instinct tells me that this is the most comprehensive way to determine how good a fighter is - get multiple opinions, not just one. infernape612 21:12, May 2, 2020 (EDT)
31. Support In my opinion, keeping tier lists is the best option in terms of continuity. It would do future users of the wiki a disservice to do away with tier lists entirely.JeffStonk 20:14, May 9, 2020 (EDT)
32. Support In my opinion, neither of the other two options are viable. A new source would likely be unreliable, and tier lists are an integral part of Smash history. People aren't going to stop making tier lists just because we do. It would only lead to some other site that is harder to access and less reliable displaying lists. So therefore, as the most viable option, we simply need to make an aggregate list. It would be a testament to our work and we would know that it would be reliable. BitBitio 14:39, May 12, 2020 (EDT)
33. Support While this is the most work-inducing option, just as an opinion I'd rather have a more accurate tier list that's more precise than vague terms such as "high tier" or "low tier", and I think most people would rather have this speciality too. This would also probably make this site a go-to site for Smash-related topics, news, and the star, a tier list. certainlyfour 19:05, May 18, 2020 (EDT)
34. Support This would be the best option. An even better option would be to get pro player opinions in a discussion forum like PGStats. --MrMHM (talk) 10:43, May 27, 2020 (EDT)
35. Support It may take a lot of work, but I don't care how long it takes. Quality is what matters in this case. SonDaniel (talk page) 19:05, May 29, 2020 (EDT)
36. Support for many of the same reasons stated by others above, but mainly because I believe Option 3 is the ideal way to remain a reliable source of information on the Smash community and metagame, while still maintaining our neutrality. --Brick3621 (talk) 14:48, June 2, 2020 (EDT)
37. Support The tier lists on this wiki have been very helpful to me. (choosing a main and stuff) I would hate to see them gone forever. -ChilePepp3r
38. Support It might even be good to have multiple lists, or at least link to the results based list for more empirical data. With proper disclaimers it's just as relevant as the old smashboards lists. Snitchface (talk) 15:19, June 12, 2020 (EDT)
39. Support Tier lists have a place on this wiki, and should stay. Only issue I can think of is finding reliable tier list sources, but I'm sure the wiki can do it. Xm0c (talk) 15:43, June 15, 2020 (EDT)
40. Support Indeed, the tier list system currently in place is biased. Seeing the tier rankings on this wiki that treat the information as objective really gets on my nerves. There should be a system in place more akin to how Wikipedia treats ratings for movies and video games. Sincerely, Samuel the Banjo-Kazooie Boss. (Personal conversation here.) 12:02, July 7, 2020 (EDT) Make that a Semi-support?, with a really big question mark. See my Option 1 Support for more info. Sincerely, Samuel the Banjo-Kazooie Boss. 00:21, January 1, 2021 (EST)
41. """Support""" Aggregating a score would create an even, un-biased opinion. SmashWiki is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Smash-related sites out there, and a lot of people (myself included) look at the tier lists for choosing a main and just to see where certain characters stand. As ChilePepp3r said, tier lists can't disappear. Sure, other methods are less work, but this option would solidify tier lists forever, and make SmashWiki the prime site for tier lists. Hence why we need to choose this option. Super Eli (talk) 11:55, September 24, 2020 (EDT)
42. Support I'm not a huge fan of tier lists personally. However, I recognize that for many people they are a go-to source. I think that as long as they're treated fairly, which aggregation trypically is, I have no issue with tier lists being represented. JohnnyWellens 17:17, October 4, 2020 (EDT)]
43. Support Now I'd waited for my life until the first offical tier list came out and is the closest so far. All I'd wanted to say is that no I'm not crazy of choosing this because this has the most, but it has some reason I needed to choose this one for good reasons. These reasons are from option 3 only due to being a bit lazy. 1. Regularly, tier lists can perform with each individual players in their own perspective with these tier lists, not just one. For example, made a tier list and puts each depth by their own experience by tournaments and one from each basic timeline can tell their own opinions. If one looks more official than the others, they put it first due to how easier it is that these lists are, based on tournament results. 2. Arguebally, the main platforms for tier lists and how each person makes one makes it in a private room like Discord as an example. We should justify the places we would arguably make one. If this wiki has one in the future we can put it in the Discord and make some adjustments into it. Notably, I would also try to use Google Sheets to make it cleaner due to how much people are using Google more. 3. Matchup charts were part of the tier list back then which was used for 64-Brawl, but in Smash 4 they completely removed it. This reason is why match-up charts gotta go. It can still be useable but due to many characters being added from the previous installments to now, it's very hard and not able to know these matchups all combined together. This is why Smash 4 lacked the match-up chart, the big roster and DLC characters made it hard for matchups to begin. This was a problem to Mii Brawler in the early Smash 4 meta and Bayonetta in all when she was released. This is why I gotta choose 3 for a reason with many lackable things like SmashBoards not having one and literally new characters can be hard. But at least we can see other top professional players' opinions. The actual option is actually in Option 1 as I changed my opinion overall. HowPlayz 23:00, September 28, 2020 (EDT)
44. Support I honestly think this is the option we should pick and not just because of all the votes already. This one should be the one we select because it'll show we aren't closed off from the rest of the community since we are picking tier lists from all over the community and plus this choice show we aren't totally dependent on others for simple things like tier lists. Preceding comment that was ptotally signed by CaptainDabsalot (talk•Contribs) 10:51, October 14, 2020 (EDT)
45. Support Definitely sounds like the best option, don't really want to see tier lists removed. --WLord (talk) 21:31, October 24, 2020 (EDT)
46. Support* I do believe that tier lists are important and shouldn't be ignored because they are opinionated by nature. Aggregating is the best option, as the subjectivity is kept to a minimum by averaging out the placements. Still, I believe some disclaimers need to be put in front of all of them. First, tier placements do not mean a high tier character will always beat a low tier character, as the outcome is mostly up to the players and their experience with the game. Second, tier lists are meant for serious competitive players that are looking for every little advantage. They are irrelevant for casual players that don't care about competition and those people should be informed about that. Third, tier lists are not set in stone and are subject to change suddenly at any point. Just because a character is in one spot yesterday doesn't necessarily mean said character will be in the same spot today.
47. Support Tier lists matter, we can't just remove them and act as if they didn't. Also at least for the older games that don't get patched tier lists are in huge parts agreed on by the competitive community Patzui (talk) 05:02, November 22, 2020 (EST)
48. Support: I think that this is an easily implemented solution right now. I think it's a little ridiculous that new players to the game who want to see a tier list still see a 2015 tier list that just doesn't represent the modern meta. Right now I could throw an average tier list based off leffen, hbox, mew2king and armada's lists and it might not be perfect but it would be already be a more reasonable representation of the meta. Aggregate practically is also the best option because it avoids over weighting projected confidence. As long as reliable people are chosen I think it's the obvious decision
49. Support This is the best method because we take a lot of tier lists and put them together, and that is fair to everyone because it combines opinions instead of going with only one. SSBU Boi (talk) 09:12, December 16, 2020 (EST)
50. Support This is clearly the best option, in my opinion. It doesn't remove information from the wiki like option 1, nor may be completely and utterly unfeasible like option 2. Aaaaa (talk) 09:55, January 5, 2021 (EST)

Comments

My biggest reason for not choosing option 3 is that I'm not the biggest fan towards numerical placements, especially for anything Smash. Having witnessed the dumpster fire of the Fall 2019 PGRU and the 2019 MPGR - where many placements and bias were called into question - I believe that even if we do aggregate the tier lists there will still be some discord. CookiesCreme 20:36, January 30, 2020 (EST)

Another point that I should make: Melee and Smash 64 basically have less viable characters than Ultimate or Smash 4, and therefore it's easier to place where the better characters are. Even by the end of Smash 4's lifespan the placements of certain characters like Jigglypuff, G&W, and King Dedede were up in the air since the metagame was still changing 2 years after the last patch. None of these options really cover this point well, but I still believe option 1 does it the best since it's a generalization. CookiesCreme 20:39, January 30, 2020 (EST)

Considering that Brawl and 4 no longer maintain active competitive scenes, i think it'd make sense to keep the SmashBoards-sourced tier lists for those specific games, instead of changing them to a new tier list system. - Searingjet (talk) 21:17, January 30, 2020 (EST)

I agree with this. We could even keep this for Melee and 64 too, just for preservation's sake as well as because their tier lists are hardly ever updated anyway. Aykrivwassup (talk) 22:28, January 30, 2020 (EST)

Ramble:

I'm surprised we kept the matchup information on the pages to begin with: we have considered removing them before after all. But evidently, that proposal went nowhere despite pretty significant comments that the information was at least useful if not horribly out of date, and it was at least worth preserving if not on the character articles where it only detracted from what the rest of the page demonstrated. If we do go the excision route, we might as well nix the tier information in the start of each character article and save it for the history sections, since obviously that information isn't relevant to any other part of the article. Yeah, it'll make the place feel a bit emptier, but I'm hoping that the majority of people can adapt.

Option 2 is never going to work. At least, not anymore. Endless arguing over tier lists created by reddit, eventhubs, and even those of Smash pros make it unlikely in my eyes that there will be a single entity to cite. Even the SBR's tier list was never safe from the flack (however minor/inconsequential it was). Of course, once notable always notable: the back room tier lists should obviously be noted for their historic reputation. But recent developments in the metagames should largely be divorced from them. I can't fathom to count the number of times I've read "viability/tier placement is up for debate": at this point, this seems less as the exception and more of the standard. The Smash community is also bigger than it's ever been, and that will only make establishing consensus for these kinds of things all the more difficult.

But on that note, since we are never getting around a shitstorm, one that's actually productive to the Wiki would be the best choice. Let's begin an effort to at least somewhat iron out the assessments of Smash players. Because honestly? The community already does this. Take everyone's opinion, weigh them based on reasoning, and make a judgement from there. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is exactly how this Wiki works. I imagine the only problem will be "drama", but.....let's be real people. Disputing the notability of certain opinions and sources are literally what talk pages on Wiki's are meant for. If the community can't do that, it probably has no place on the Wiki in the first place. So, since the community will endlessly argue who is the best and the worst, we might as well make it into something productive. If they can decide what sources do and don't matter, we will report on it. If it demonstrates nothing except Smash fans will never agree on anything, let's bury the hatchet and leave this debate in the rungs of threads filled with those satiated by the vapid need to delve into the meticulous detail of something that may never have even existed.

End rant. - EndGenuity (talk) 21:30, January 30, 2020 (EST)

As someone who doesn't play or watch competitive Smash, I'm of the opinion that tier lists shouldn't be on character pages as they go against the neutral point of view, if anything we should have a competitive history page for the fighters for this matter. Tier lists are opinions. Even if they're commonly agreed upon by players, they're still opinions. However we still often treat the tier lists as if they're "official", which they're not, and even though SmashWiki is not official, we shouldn't take opinions from players and treat them like it's "official", as wikis are not supposed to be opinionated.

When we put tier placements on character pages, we're basically describing who is the best and worst respectively. But the problem with tier lists is that once a fighter has been established as a top or high tier character, they become popular in competitive play and thus continue to advance, whereas low or bottom tiered characters are considered garbage and are never used, and if they have untapped potential, chances are it will never be known due to how rarely they're used. Take Melee for example: For years Fox has been consisered the best character in the game and so is seen everywhere in competitive play, and the rest up to the Ice Climbers have recieved good results in competetive play. However everyone else is only occasionally used and a lot have almost non-existent results, and so we cannot say how accurate everyone's placing actually is. When it comes to untapped potential look at Yoshi in Melee: it wasn't until the 12th tier list in December 2015 for him to rise out of the low tiers, nearly 13 years after the first tier list. We often even go as far as saying "X has awful matchups and is non-viable" which goes against SW:NPOV and SW:MOS. And then look at Brawl's tier list: it centers around how well a character can match up against Meta Knight. The question is though "How are the other characters against each other?" "How will it look if Meta Knight was taken out?". A tier list that revolves around one character does not make a reliable source on how good a character is, and we shouldn't make that detetmination.

The biggest problem with option 2 and 3 is that, as I said, it's still an opinion. For option 2 here's the issue: If a new source is chosen, the question is "How accurate is it?". Even if everyone agrees a character is the best in the game, it's still an opinion and we will never know exactly if that is 100% true.

Now for option 3. If we aggregate reliable tier lists, we're still making an opinion based on players. I don't see how this would be any different from the current situation when it comes to accurate tier lists. What we're basically doing is inventing our own tier lists. Of course it is more reliable as it's combined opinions, but nonetheless, it's still an opinion, and goes against the neutral pount of view.

However, competitive Smash is still a big part of the community and we cannot discard tier list altogether, as I'm of the opinion "once notable, always notable". For historical puropses they should stay, but not on the main character pages. As I've mention above I believe adding a competitive history page for each individual character can be considered someday.

So in conclusion option 1 is the best one. It best follows with the wiki policies while still giving an idea on how said fighter matches up. SupαToαd64 09:12, February 1, 2020 (EST)

"[...]tier lists shouldn't be on character pages as they go against the neutral point of view[...]"

In what way? Judging a character based on how well they perform (which is exactly what a tier list does) is not being necessarily biased. This discussion has been had before.

"However we still often treat the tier lists as if they're "official", which they're not, and even though SmashWiki is not official, we shouldn't take opinions from players and treat them like it's "official", as wikis are not supposed to be opinionated."

You're looking at the "we aren't official" thing the wrong way. We aren't official because we aren't affiliated with Nintendo. That's all that policy states. Additionally, the usage of "official tier list" has, in the past, only referred to the one main tier list from SBR that, while they were still active, was accepted as fact.

"[...]whereas low or bottom tiered characters are considered garbage and are never used, and if they have untapped potential, chances are it will never be known due to how rarely they're used."

Is that a fact?

"And then look at Brawl's tier list: it centers around how well a character can match up against Meta Knight. The question is though "How are the other characters against each other?" "How will it look if Meta Knight was taken out?". A tier list that revolves around one character does not make a reliable source on how good a character is, and we shouldn't make that detetmination."

The problem with Brawl, though, is that Meta Knight is undoubtedly the best character in the game, and is perhaps one of the most broken characters in fighting games in general. Thus, the meta of Brawl centers around that. I know you said you don't watch or play competitive Smash, but this is still important in the grand scheme of the game, because if you can't stand up to a god, then where does that place you?

Aidan, the Rurouni 14:13, February 2, 2020 (EST)

If I may butt in, I don't think Shulk is the best example since his most dedicated mains have always performed pretty well at tournaments. I believe SupaToad has characters like Zelda and Jigglypuff in mind, who all have their gimmicks and bouts of success but didn't have the time and the players for metagame development. CookiesCreme 16:24, February 2, 2020 (EST)

My main point was that Shulk is a lower-tiered character in Smash 4 (not as low as Zelda or Jigglypuff, but still low) whose "untapped potential" has been known due to the memes surrounding the infinitely long acronyms for his intricate techniques that have made him not terrible. The people who dedicate their time to play him play him well, but that can be said for just about any character, no matter how bad they are. Aidan, the Rurouni 19:45, February 2, 2020 (EST)

Should option 3 come into fruition, would it be unwise for SmashWiki (admins and perhaps any other trusted users) themselves to create a backroom of players? It would continue Smashboards' method of creating tier lists and if properly managed, would be fairly simple to create new tier lists every couple of months. Of course this plan in mind would require a lot of cooperation as well as careful selection of top players. To be honest, I'm not sure if it'd really work, but I think this would be the best way to go about creating a new aggregate tier list. Pokebub (talk) 21:13, February 2, 2020 (EST)

If I may clarify a few things, I never said tier lists as a whole create bias. Truthfully not only should I have worded it better, this was put in the wrong place. It was supposed to be with why I didn't choose option 3: there can be bias surrounding where the character should be placed on the tier list and there will be disagreements when we are aggregating the tiers. So except for extreme cases like Brawl MK, we shouldn't put the exact placements on the character pages unless it was fundamentally agreed upon that they belong in that spot.

Your second point is justified since I misunderstood the "official tier list" parts.

Cookies already went over the "untapped potential" part with better examples, though for me it was more of the Yoshi example I used: he had the potential to be better but it wasn't fully seen until the 12th tier list.

Even though MK is absolutely busted we still need to see how characters fare against others besides MK as well, especially if it is decided option 3 is the best, which I'm not at all against but still have some concerns about. SupαToαd64 21:25, February 2, 2020 (EST)

Considering that all tier lists innately suffer from some degree of bias/inaccuracy, one point I'm seeing made is that any tier lists we aggregate will also suffer from that as well, and as such the wiki should avoid tier lists because it isn't an objective stance. I personally still support the aggregation process, but if it comes to fruition and we eventually do start assembling an aggregate, would it be in the wiki's interest to provide a disclaimer stating that the aggregate is not meant to be interpreted as an official / objective / widely supported tier list? (Assuming that we don't yet exist in the timeline where the SW goes on to be the primary source of tier lists, lmfao.) Acgamer28 01:22, February 6, 2020 (EST)

This is the best option. We average out several known reliable tier lists, source them, and then have a visible disclaimer that these are just the averages, and should not be taken as the official tier list. In fact, all of the tier lists on those pages should probably have these disclaimers. 72.203.118.154 17:05, February 19, 2020 (EST)

I think that either averaging out the other tier lists from other websites or to make our own but that's just what I think. Special:Contributions/MeleeBoi8:14 PM (PST) Feburary 19, 2020

I have already voiced my support for Option 2, but Option 3 would probably be my second choice. Aykrivwassup (talk) 11:40, February 20, 2020 (EST)

Would it be in poor taste for me to plug my own WIP tier list aggregate? I've been working on it for months and would be very happy to work with the SmashWiki team on tweaks to better fit the wiki's needs. Grapevine (talk) 16:34, February 24, 2020 (EST)

This section isn't for putting what you choose: that's for the actual sections themselves. Aidan, the Rurouni 19:35, March 8, 2020 (EDT)

I’m not sure, but I think that Option 1 is the best choice for me and not Option 2 or 3 as that the tier list needs to be specific like S A B C D E F and G tier. Howplayz (talk 18:45, March 8, 2020 (PST)

OK I just read Clarinet Hawk's suggestion that if we do aggregate tier lists, we average the characters instead of listing them numerically. In my opinion should option 3 work that would be the best way to go, and it's more in line with why I chose option 1. That way tier lists will stay but there will be less discord when deciding the characters' placements. Unless a character is undoubtedly the best character in the game or possibly the most broken character in the series, it's almost not possible to know exactly where a character belongs on the list. OmegαToαd the Toαd Wαrrior (BUP) 02:48, April 4, 2020 (EDT)

Howplayz Guys I'm making a Smash Tier List. You can edit and anything you want. I'm not sure if this is the right choice for editing, so if any staff can edit there it'll be fine for me. This might be the offical smash tier list if possible. https://docs.google.com/document/d/12vvhR8yk0-zYTMx32Huvg9LxoiuyWb3THYpv2_e3j0M/edit (talk 13:54, April 23, 2020

I made a tier list on a separate page from my userpage. If you want to view it, you can copy and paste it on the searchbar. Let me know if i need to change the version 7.0.0 tier list. S3AHAWK (Talk) 18:57, April 25, 2020 (EDT)

UPDATE: I had to reupload the tier list via Google Docs as a request from CanvasK and Howplayz. The tier list is on the same page as the old one. S3AHAWK (Talk) 17:57, April 26, 2020 (EDT)

I may be late for this, but while Option 3 seems to be a good way to keep a "neutral" tier-list on the wiki, I'm afraid finding a consensus on what exactly makes a "trustworthy" tier-list will be a nightmare. The mention "(Don't worry about the details for this vote.)" does not help at all to mitigate this fear and kinda pushes me towards Option 1 by default. If some of you could provide some examples of tier-lists and why they're considered trustworthy, that'd be appreciated. Ponyshment 11:51, May 16, 2020 (EDT)

After seeing how much Smashboards fell from prominence during Smash 4 and the rumblings of whether if we could keep using their tier lists or use the PGR's, I felt this day would come eventually. I certainly agree we shouldn't be giving Smashboards the same reverence as the ultimate competitive Smash authority as we had in the past, because those days were certainly over shortly into Smash 4 and it's an outdated relic now. I do agree with the sentiments that we should still cover tier designations in some way, because they are still of upmost relevance to competitive play, and as I understand, the tier list article has always been one of, if not our most visited article, so it's certainly something of heavy interest to readers. I'm torn though between Options 2 and 3; I don't think Option 3 is very practical, as besides the work involved, how do we determine the "trusted sources"? If we're using individual players, I have absolutely no confidence in it, as you got the whole mess of deciding which players to use, and just basing it on PGR'd players would be awful, as it makes the very flawed assumption that skill = knowledge and there are plenty of PGR-caliber players who simply weren't ranked because of insufficient tournament attendance. Then you also got the issue that individual player tier lists often are not even structured the same way from player to player, complicating how to aggregate them together, and if players know their tier lists are directly influencing the tier rankings used on this wiki, you could very well get players deliberately over-ranking and under-ranking characters to troll or trying to intentionally shift public opinion of a character (e.g. top tier mains downplaying their character in an effort to suppress complaints and possibly prevent their main getting nerfed). Option 3 could be viable if we had multiple acceptably credible groups making tier lists like the Smashboards tier lists of old, but we really don't, it might even be a struggle to decide just one that is "credible enough" to merit documentation on the wiki.

I suppose my current stance is for Ultimate we keep things as is until we get an agreeable enough source for Option 2, and then in the event we have multiple legit and unrelated candidates for Option 2, we then go with Option 3 and aggregate them. Then with all prior games we keep them as is for now but will replace the Smashboards tier list if a new sufficient and up-to-date source comes along (which will probably happen for Melee, but for the other three games those tier lists are probably set in stone barring some miraculous unforeseen resurgence in those games). As for the matchups, I thought that shit was already gone years ago after this thread, my sentiments expressed there are still the same in that the listed Brawl matchups are defensible enough to stay but any matchups listed for other games are just trash that needs to be taken out already, but could merit being brought back in the future if we ever got a legit large scale aggregate effort from a credible group to make a complete matchup chart like the Smashboards' Brawl Back Room did. Omega Tyrant 23:40, June 8, 2020 (EDT)

Heh I was wondering when you were gonna comment, with you being a competitive player and all. Now after a few months I can update my opinions based on my current mindset that's not obsessed solely on SW:NPOV: I'm debating between Option 1 and 3, however the problem I have with 1 is that tier lists should continue to be documented on this wiki, and not just for historical purposes. Tier lists are an important part of competitive play and should not be removed, removing them will only shun potential readers and editors who have an interest in competitive play. My issues with Option 2 are still remain the same: The problems come from the massive struggle in finding a group that is considered a "trustworthy source". Without the help of competitive players like you, or users who have an extensive amount of knowledge about the games and competitive scene, trying to find a single source that is as credible as Smashboards was will be a very difficult task. If there exists somewhere that is considered a reliable group who make tier lists much like Smashboards, Option 2 is definitely a viable option, however as of right now we don't have one, and until we do this option will not work. Reliability is also the issue I have with Option 3. The difficulty of this option not only comes from the amount of work needed, but also deciding which tier lists are considered "trustworthy". All players have their own opinions on who they consider viable or not, and many if not all tier lists suffer from some degree of bias/subjectivity. Different parts of the world can also have substantially different tier lists, such as our Brawl tier list vs the Japanese one (which personally I consider Japan's to be more accurate). You've also raised another important concern that should not be ignored: Some players may intentionally underrate/overrated a character either to troll or try to convince the community into thinking they're better/worse than they actually are. This raises a big issue if we decide on this option, for instance if we aggregate what we think is reliable, but actually isn't, will degrade this wiki's reputation if it is discovered the sources we used are unreliable and we were spreading misinformation. While the chances of this happening may be slim, it is still a risk that should be considered.

Although it may not be permanent, one option for Ultimate is to combine the aspects of Option 1 and 3 as Clarinet Hawk suggested: We aggregate reliable tier lists to an extent, however instead of giving numerical placements they are averaged into top, high, etc. Aside from extreme cases such as Brawl MK or SSB4 Bayo, there is no such thing as an objective placement for characters. Still though this is not something I see as being permanent, however in the current circumstance this would be my current stance for Ultimate, and should we find an agreeable source for tier lists then the other 2 options should be considered. As for past games' tier lists I agree to leave them as is until we find up-to-date sufficient sources to replace them (which is bound to happen with SSBM, perhaps that unofficial reddit tier list can be an option). And I didn't mention this initially but now would be a good time to, matchup charts have got to go. Those haven't been updated in forever and have fallen terribly out of date, for instance it is a common agreement now that Brawl Pikachu and Meta Knight is not an even matchup and is clearly in MK's favor. Perhaps yes keep them somewhere for historical purposes, or if when aggregating we can also manage to do a large scale aggregate effort for matchup charts from a credible group and create our own complete ones like Smashboards. OmegαToαd64 04:44, June 9, 2020 (EDT)

The major reason why I'm in favor of Option 1 is that Smash Ultimate tier lists are near-universally opinion based. So they aren't actually being generated based on matchups directly, they're a vague assessment of character "quality" (whatever that means to the person voting or making it). This largely makes them a terrible measure of viability, so they don't have a lot of objective value. And because of all the subjectivity involved, they aren't actually neutrally assessed. So they directly violate wiki rules on neutrality. Opinion-based tiers lists are especially flawed when there are a large number of characters, since even an experienced pro doesn't know all the matchups for characters they're voting on. With all these issues, I don't think numerical tier lists provide meaningful value to this wiki (not more so than more general categories), not for Smash Ultimate at least. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.29.233 (talk • contribs) 15:18, July 2, 2020 (EDT)

One other thing: I'm not sure how we can even consider option 3 unless we have a reliable sense of what tier lists are trustworthy representations of the meta. Right now I'm not sure any of those exist, especially with how much the meta is changing (both with the introduction of new competitive players and the continual rebalancing). If anything, the default should be option 1 until we have a much clearer sense of which tier lists could be considered both reliable and stable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LightningRT (talk • contribs) 22:10, July 4, 2020 (EDT)

I feel like the best option is for the a Tier list to be made by the website itself instead of using a 3rd Party source like Smash Boards maybe it could be done by either voting or by the admins themselves but if I have to pick between the options listed here in this debate (1,2,3) I would pick option 3 Thegameandwatch The Nerd 17:08, July 14, 2020 (EDT)

I did ask Strong Badam about this on Smashboards https://smashboards.com/threads/is-smashboards-not-releasing-a-tier-list-until-all-characters-are-released.505801/#post-23995402 qwertz143 (talk) 1:51, September 5, 2020 (IST)

Could you make a tier list based on character popularity, the best placement at a major, winning/losing MU's etc.? Or would that not work? Zero Suit (talk) 05:25, September 19, 2020 (EDT)

As I said i in my vote above, why not have a page that shows tournament matchups within a major update period, with a running total for all matchups to see who appears to do best against who among those dedicated tournamenters. This could also help show which characters are "top tier" due more to just high usage as well as which are "bottom tier" due to mere lack of popular use in tournament play. It would serve the same effect as a tier list but able to be more fluid as well as letting people see the actual data driving the status of "top/bottom tier".Jarie Suicune (talk) 22:58, October 11, 2020 (EDT)

I don't get why some tier lists show Ganondorf to be low tier. Palutena (talk) 20:45, October 22, 2020 (EDT)

The reason why Ganon is shown to be low or bottom tier is how the metagame has progressed. Ganon's flaws are so noticeable due to his bad recovery, slow moves, and a big hitbox. Howplayz 22:20, October 22, 2020 (EDT)

And I don't get why Zero Suit Samus is number 1 on Japanese tier lists. Palutena (talk) 06:55, October 23, 2020 (EDT)

Lucina is overrated in my opinion. Some tier lists put here in Top tier when I think she's high tier at best. Palutena (talk) 11:09, October 23, 2020 (EDT)

And I think characters like Pit, Dark Pit and Lucas are probably gonna be high mid-tier in by the end of Ultimate. Palutena (talk) 11:19, October 23, 2020 (EDT)

I don't get why Bowser Jr. is low tier. He seems decent enough on Wi-Fi. Palutena (talk) 11:22, October 23, 2020 (EDT)

But if we're talking about offline then I see why Bowser Jr. is awful Palutena (talk) 11:26, October 23, 2020 (EDT)

Please keep topics relevant to the discussion rather than ranting about character placements. RandomUltimate (talk) 11:29, October 23, 2020 (EDT)

Closing

It's been a year, so I'm closing the vote. Clearly option 2 is not very well-liked. While option 3 is the most popular, I am surprised at how much traction option 1 has gotten, so it doesn't feel right to simply wash it away as a "loser".

So what now? I've been working on-and-off at how to construct part 2 of the vote, as well as a few ideas for how an aggregate list of ours would work. I plan to finish these up and (hopefully, nothing's guaranteed) have them ready for part 2 in a month. Toomai Glittershine The Xanthic 23:47, January 27, 2021 (EST)