I mostly want to talk about people using sub-optimal characters in fighting games.
Characters in fighting games are not balanced. Some are better than others, some are terrible, and some are broken on purpose. There are always tier lists, though, and these are often the topic of heated discussion. Not nearly as much so as proposed 40k tier lists, but this isn't about that*.
No, what I wanted to talk about is how these tier lists exist, and are widely considered to be basically accurate, but some people like to play as sub-optimal characters anyways***.
Usually people do this because they just like that character, or because they are so good with them that it just doesn't matter. These players don't often win. They are guaranteed to have the most entertaining matches, and to do far better than anyone expects them to be able to, but they don't win tournaments. They will finish high (definitely top 8) but the best low-tier player just won't be able to beat a solid high-tier player.
So why do they do it? Because they like to. Because they know their character sucks, but that's who they enjoy playing so that's who they're going to play. But, and here's the important part, they don't whine when they lose. They understand the challenges they face entering a major tournament with Twelve, and they play as hard as they can to get as far as possible but never do they get upset when they lose.
Never do they say "no fair, Yun is too cheesy, play a real character and maybe we'll have a decent match" or anything similar. Wouldn't it be nice if the same were true in 40k? Imagine if the "Leafblower" debacle never happened at all. This is the state YTTH is already in, and the rest of the community needs to catch up.
The "leafblower" debacle happened and the community (as well as the asshat that played the list... say what you want about the guy, his reaction to his own list is about the most arrogant shit I've ever seen... so much so that I feel bad even linking it, but journalistic integrity must be maintained(HA!)) made a huge fuss about it and collectively cried nerf. Meanwhile, back at YTTH, everyone went "yeah, so what?" It's a strong list, sure. I'm pretty sure everyone who owned the IG book though, at some point, looked at it and thought about a similar list. At YTTH, it was a non-issue. Someone came up with a strong one-dimensional list. Cool. It wasn't anything particularly ground-breaking. Take an army full of all the best shooty/alpha-strike elements? GASP! It wasn't like the first time someone realized what wound-allocation really means in 5th edition. In 'Ard Boyz season, Stelek was posting a dozen lists a day, this could have just been another one of those. The point being that it's just an army list. Nobody "invented" it. Nobody needs to "apologize" for it. It's just another army list.
So then why did it get so blown out of proportion? Who knows, but I bet Not Brent had something to do with it. In fighting games, it would have gone like this:
-Someone realizes C. Viper is good because of XYZ
-People start losing in games to C. Vipers who have become good thanks to XYZ
-Everyone goes, oh dang I didn't know she could do that
-Everyone learns more about C. Viper and adapts to her "new" abilities
-Some people switch to playing C. Viper because she's cool now
-The world keeps turning
This actually happened a little bit after SF4 vanilla came out. Actually, it's happened several times. C. Viper, Rufus, and Akuma have all had similar things in SF4 vanilla. And maybe now Adon will have the same thing happen to him in SSF4 (chocolate) thanks to Gamerbee. Tier lists change constantly as people discover new things about the game. It's more of an expectation than anything. (as an extreme example, a trick to making ultras unblockable in SF4 was discovered right before SSF4 was released. It didn't change the tiers around any, but this just shows how long it might take for something big like this to be found) Why should it be any different in 40k?
It's worse than that, in fact. Fighting games are static. Once a game is released, it doesn't change. Only very recently with the current-gen systems has there been any ability to patch games, and the staple platform for fighting games (the arcade cabinet) still can't get updates at all. On the other hand, 40k changes constantly. New editions, new codices, new FAQs, new models, whatever. How is it that a community based on a totally static product is more open to change than a community based on something that changes every few months?
This is getting sort of long and I've run out of ideas, so to keep myself from ruining what I've got so far I think I'll end it at that.
YTTH (call them the Ynquisition, if you like) has the right idea. They aren't wrong. Everyone else just needs to catch up already.
***
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* - Tier list discussions are usually more like "I think Makoto should be A+ tier, not A tier" rather than "I think Tau are actually in the bottom 5 and CSM will rock your face". By that I mean, everyone basically agrees on tier lists, but the exact positions of some characters may shift slightly.
It's a lot easier to make tier lists in fighting games, though. Official ones come from big events or some large time interval where all results and matchups are recorded and put into a grid ordered by whoever has the highest cumulative win percentage. Like this:
Doing this for 40k would be rather impossible considering you would have to have a row for every iteration of every army. Having a spot for "Orks vs Eldar" isn't sufficient because who knows what those army lists were like?
** - Let me take a minute (or several) to mention some noteworthy sub-optimal players.
Guilty Gear:
Koichi - Accent Core I-No player
Easily the best I-No in the world and one of my favorite GGAC players to watch. The thing that makes this person so remarkable is just how steap the tiers are in this game, and how low I-No is on that slope.
Eiji - Accent Core Sol player
While not quite as crazy-good as Koichi, he's probably the best Sol I've ever seen. Again, especially considering how average Sol is in this iteration of the game.
Dr. Stormlocke - Accent Core Robo-Ky player
Best Robo-Ky I know of and also my GGAC hero. I don't think he plays anymore, but I used to love watching him play when he was doing so regularly. The best thing about Stormlocke was that he really just didn't give a shit. (ps that video quality is awful, but it's one of my favorite vids of the Dr. at work)
Blacksnake - Accent Core Venom player
I think there is probably a better Venom player that I've seen play from Japan, but I don't remember the name and he isn't nearly as renowned (at least that I know of) as Blacksnake. This guy plays one of the most difficult characters in GGAC like he was nothing.
Nerina - #Reload Baiken Player
Now here is something. Of the above Guilty Gear players, all of their characters are not high-tier, but not complete shit either. I-No is the lowest of the characters above (if I recall, I haven't kept up with GGAC since BlazBlue came out), and she's still somewhere around mid-tier. Baiken in #Reload, however, was basically tied for worst in the game. Nerina didn't ever seem to notice or care, though, and carved himself a sweet niche in the #R PC online community.
(I have no video for this because nobody ever played #R seriously enough to record it, but it's still the truth)
Street Fighter
JR Rodriguez - 3rd Strike Akuma player
My hero at life, the universe, and everything. JR Rodriguez. This guy is the reason I play Akuma in 3S. This is JR in 40k terms: you can make decent Daemonhunters lists using ISTs, inducted guard, etc. JR plays pure Grey Knights. Akuma is a solid B/B+ character, and there are ways to play him that are more effective than other styles. JR plays him the fun way and still wins. As little meter wasted as possible on things that aren't Raging Demon/KKZ. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Akuma? How can you not love this guy?
Aruka - 3rd Strike Ibuki player
Another really-low-tier player that does way better than he should. One of the most fun guys to watch play 3S.
Chikyuu - 3rd Strike Twelve player
Twelve is so-bad-it's-kind-of-funny tier in 3rd Strike. This guy, however, plays him ridiculously well. Sometimes, the most skill in the world isn't going to help you get very far with a character (like Twelve) but he does way better for himself than I thought was possible. You can see in most of his clips, the first few rounds he'll do rather strongly, but then he starts to lose towards the end. This is more proof that Twelve is garbage rather than saying anything about the player. He comes out of the gate strong because people go "WTF? Twelve?" but then they see what he can do for a round or two and are able to easily adapt and counter him. Still though, very excellent player, this guy.
Gamerbee - SSF4 Adon player
Recent super-celebrity/national hero Gamerbee defeated Justin Wong (and a number of other great players) at EVO2k10 this year. Adon is not a good character, and he was still able to eliminate JWong with him. Gamerbee ended up placing 5th overall, and JWong far outside Top 8.
MvC2
Josh360 - Combofiend variant player
Ok, Combofiend is a pretty solid team. The levels that this guy takes it to, however, are completely unprecedented. He is my absolute favorite MvC2 player of all time!! Watch him handily destroy Brett, the best MvC2 player I know of using what is probably the strongest team in the game. See Dr. Stormlocke for the type of awesome that this guy is.
*** - I was trying not to add any footnotes after the giant one above, but I happened to think of something as I was writing the end of my post. This whole thing seems so obvious to me; I know the shining pinnacle of excellence that is the fighting games community, so naturally I would want the same thing for 40k. And it makes sense too, right? They're both essentially the same sort of thing: a social game with big venues/tournaments/etc. But perhaps it isn't so easy for other people to see this. Ok, obviously it isn't so easy for them to see, but I digress.
Fighting games necessitate competition. That's what they exist for. There isn't much of a hobby aspect (though many, including myself, build their own joysticks from scratch), and there isn't much of a fluff aspect. People don't refuse to beat Sagat with Ryu using anything other than a fierce Shoryuken because that's how it happened in the story. These are aspects of 40k that I love, but maybe I was preconditioned by fighting games to focus more on the competitive aspect.
I tend to notice a lot of people talking about competitive wargaming (the decent ones, not the douchebags ones, those types exist too but are somewhat out of the realm of this writing) are ex-card gamers of some sort that turned to 40k, or Warmachine, or whatever. Perhaps it's this background that makes people like us want the competition to be better, and people without this sort of experience just can't relate. My old game was good, why can't 40k be the same way? But if 40k is all you've ever known, then maybe you don't feel that strongly about competition.
I'm not trying to make a point with that. It's just something I happened to notice and thought was interesting.
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