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[Trevor Dunbar]

It would be nice if they got Gene (GodHand) and maybe Venom in on dis.

They hate Godhand, its s'not going to happen. Also there are only 4 slots left for more characters on the CHARA screen.

[jotapeh]

About a year or so from now, they're gonna MvC4 us instead. Because that's what the "old-school" industry is used to doing.

I think your timeline is a bit optimistic.

[anime witches]

I know it's almost useless asking this, but are there character tiers in this game? I heard something about the developers trying to make everything even in this game to avoid tiering. But then again, most developers say that.

Every game with asymmetric design will have tiers. I'm pretty sure the last fighting game without them was Street Fighter 1. So there will be tiers, the game has not been out long enough for a consensus to be reached on who the strongest and weakest characters are, but there's a lot of raging about a few specific characters right now.

You should also note that, while developers try to make a game as balanced as possible, tiers are really decided by the community that plays a game just as much as the developers. A lot of the shit that becomes standard play later in a game's life is unintended by the developers...

[Dragonmaw]

What Anime Witches said.

Right now most of the old "god tier" characters seem to be seeing a lot of play. Sentinel, Magneto, Storm, etc. There's also a few new characters that seem to be getting a fair amount of attention too, like Dante and Deadpool.

[Pietepiet]

[anime witches]

Also important to note that at a casual level of play you'll find that tiers are generally not important. There are some games with low-tier characters who will appear positively broken to people just messing around with little knowledge of the game (I remember trying to introduce BlazBlue to the bros and and they complained that bottom-tier Tager was broken and/or cheap). It's quite possible that several months down the road everyone who follows the game closely will have found stuff that makes Sentinel competitively obsolete while people who just mess around will still be crying at how Sentinel can kill your character in five easy button presses...

Of course, being a Sentinel fan I hope that never happens
 

[baconman]

Trish and Wesker seem to be on the higher end, from what I've experienced. Sentinel, Dr. Doom, and Storm all seem to be attention-getters still, but there's no doubting that Maggie's been a bit nerfed. Being able to free-aim the Shinku-Hadoken has given Ryu some of his game back, too; and changes to Cap's ranges have upped his game as well. Shield Slash hits coming and going, and Charging Star is quicker and covers more ground. Super-Skrull has good potential too, but it will take a bit of mastery to tell  where he ends up.

[[RM8]]

Also important to note that at a casual level of play you'll find that tiers are generally not important.

This is something that people say a lot, but I strongly disagree. Even among casual players, everyone chooses the 'broken' one that is easy to play as and kill easily. I've seen this in a lot of games. Sure, a casual player is not going to pull an infinite on you, but he's going to spam other newbies to death.

---

I must say I'm really liking Arthur. At first I was like "WTF he can't dash!", but he's really fun to play as. Chun Li is my second character mostly because she's quite similar to her Tatsunoko counterpart, and I still don't find a third character. Really nice game, but not better than TvC in my opinion - no, that doesn't mean I'm disappointed, that means I love both games.

[anime witches]

Also important to note that at a casual level of play you'll find that tiers are generally not important.

This is something that people say a lot, but I strongly disagree. Even among casual players, everyone chooses the 'broken' one that is easy to play as and kill easily. I've seen this in a lot of games. Sure, a casual player is not going to pull an infinite on you, but he's going to spam other newbies to death.

Except that a lot of the shit that inexperienced players think is "broken" or "cheap," like projectile spam or command grabs or w/e, can often be really easily dealt with and punished by people with more experience (i.e. the people for whom tier lists are created). I can think of multiple games off the top of my head where the top tiers are characters that require a lot of effort and a thorough knowledge of the game to use properly (in a perfect game, all the characters are like that but w/e); when you put them in the hands of a dude who knows how to do a quarter-circle motion and a super they might as well be using whoever throws the biggest fireball. And big balls, unfortunately, do not decide tiers. 

Also note that "high tier" does not mean "good and easy to use," it means that the character is judged to have a large number of favorable matchups in relation to the rest of the cast, completely regardless of the character's ease of use.

That's not to say you won't find high tiers who aren't easy to pick up and beat your friends with, because you probably have and/or will. It's just that the ability to "spam newbies to death" does not factor into how good a character is, and often a player with even a little bit of experience can "spam newbies to death" with a "bad" character.

[[RM8]]

Okay, I agree with that. Only top tier characters who are easy to pick up are newbie friendly. Still, let's say a new player picks Servbot and his friend pick Cable - at the same (lack of) level, the guy playing as Cable should have an easier time beating the other guy.

[Dragonmaw]

Generally top-tier characters are also extremely easy to learn. See: Dudley in SF3:3S, Sentinel in MvC2.

[baconman]

Not necessarily; but I do think that's what seperates top-tierers from one-another. Cable, Magneto, and Iron Man in MC2 take a lot of practice and mastery to get down; where Sentinel, Storm, and Dr. Doom are a lot easier to play with. This is why I say Super-Skrull's in the iffys; he MAY have the high-mastery potential in him, but that will only show in time.

[sugarbeard]

I haven't picked this up yet, but I plan on working Super Skrull pretty hard. I see nothing but possibilities for him.

[[RM8]]

Generally top-tier characters are also extremely easy to learn. See: Dudley in SF3:3S, Sentinel in MvC2.

Yeah, I'm not saying ALL of them, but I've seen this is the case quite often. Whenever I introduce a newbie to a fighting game, I recommend picking a character that is considered top or high tier. They may or may not be more complex, but they're overall more effective and some of them have pretty much no bad match-ups. Zafina, the absolute lowest character in Tekken 6 is quite complex with several stances and weird moveset, but she can be spammed to death by a less than spectacular Bob.

[Taiko]

I've never been much a fighter game guy, but they played this at my college's video game club last weekend.  I got absolutely trashed but had fun.  The art in this game is incredible and makes me want to buy it just for that.

[Dragonmaw]

Generally top-tier characters are also extremely easy to learn. See: Dudley in SF3:3S, Sentinel in MvC2.

Yeah, I'm not saying ALL of them, but I've seen this is the case quite often. Whenever I introduce a newbie to a fighting game, I recommend picking a character that is considered top or high tier. They may or may not be more complex, but they're overall more effective and some of them have pretty much no bad match-ups. Zafina, the absolute lowest character in Tekken 6 is quite complex with several stances and weird moveset, but she can be spammed to death by a less than spectacular Bob.

The reason is simple: in the heat of battle, you can't really worry about all that complex shit. The top-tier characters are usually the ones that are super easy to learn off the bat, have good responsiveness (what you input is what you get, which is not the case for some heroes), and have good combo potential (both the moves are easy to combo into and they are strong)

[baconman]

Cable is none of those, and remains a mainstay in MC2. He's all coverage and anticipation, and the HP rapid fire is the only comboability advantage he has.

So, while usually true, it's not always the case.

[[RM8]]

Most "noobs" I know play Cable   

[PGGB]

Only because the pros use him, so the noobs think they've got an advantage using him.

[kenesque]

Generally top-tier characters are also extremely easy to learn. See: Dudley in SF3:3S, Sentinel in MvC2.

Yeah, I'm not saying ALL of them, but I've seen this is the case quite often. Whenever I introduce a newbie to a fighting game, I recommend picking a character that is considered top or high tier. They may or may not be more complex, but they're overall more effective and some of them have pretty much no bad match-ups. Zafina, the absolute lowest character in Tekken 6 is quite complex with several stances and weird moveset, but she can be spammed to death by a less than spectacular Bob.

The reason is simple: in the heat of battle, you can't really worry about all that complex shit. The top-tier characters are usually the ones that are super easy to learn off the bat, have good responsiveness (what you input is what you get, which is not the case for some heroes), and have good combo potential (both the moves are easy to combo into and they are strong)

This is absolutely false on so many levels.

Tournament level fighting games are about "worrying about that complex shit in the heat of battle". They are about reaction, factoring in as many options as possible and reading your enemy at the same time. All tier lists are based on high levels of play. Not low levels. Q is good at low levels of play in 3rd Strike because of how simple he is. He is bottom tier. Zangief is extremely easy to beat idiots with, he is mid tier in the SF4 series. Abel becamse top tier because he WASN'T simple. It took well over a year to discover that in Vanilla SF4, he was in fact, borderline top tier. Then he got buffs in Super after everyone just barely figured this out and pretty much sat near the top of the list. Fei was the same way, everyone took Fei for garbage. Surprise surprise, he is incredibly difficult to use well and ended up mid tier at the end of SF4's lifespan, with the assumption that he was low tier, he received many buffs and became top in Super. Complexity does not factor into tier listing, only visible power does. Simple characters are universally simple.

Eddie in Guilty Gear is outright the hardest character in the game (well arguably, Venom and Bridget give him very close competition) and is the best character in 3 iterations of the XX series. Complexity has zero to do with tier, tier lists are based off the assumption that the best players (capable of handling all discovered complexity) are playing them. Period.