Tiered by Size

As Bigger Is Better says, Everything is better when it's BIG. This is just separating big-ness into its own distinct categories, aka a Tier System, instead of each individual size being a unique thing.

Usually used in Video Games, but can be used in Real Life for things like shipping costs, where a range of possible volumes all have the same shipping cost, so long as weight stays the same.

Smaller things are usually lesser in some quantity than bigger things, but they might just be a trade-off instead of strictly worse. Also, these tiers might be different in ways beyond just size, like color, or shape, as a way to show off visual variety instead of just being a scaled-up graphic.

The Gold–Silver–Copper Standard coins usually also get bigger as they get more valuable.

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Examples:

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech: Mechs are classed as either Ultralight (10-15 tons), Light (20-35 tons), Medium (40-55 tons), Heavy (60-75 tons), Assault (80-100 tons), and Superheavy (or sometimes 'Colossal') (105+ tons) based on their maximum tonnage. These designations are only descriptive, as the rules for 'Mech construction are based on tonnage rather than category. In general, heavier 'Mechs may carry more weapons and armor but are generally slower due to engine efficiencies favoring lighter designs.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Across multiple editions, there are multiple tiers of creature size, Fine, Diminutive, Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Gargantuan and Colossal. Smaller is stealthier and can fly better but can carry less, and reach less far, among a few other things.
  • Basic Dungeons & Dragons has dragons appear in three sizes: Small, Large, and Huge, as a direct increase in power. "Advanced" D&D (which, despite the names, is older) had Small, Medium, and Large be a fairly minor variation, and age be the more important variable.
• Heavy Gear separate Gears by weight. Light Gears are usually called Scout Gears due to their small size suiting recon, spy, and sabotage duties. Medium Gears are sometimes called Battle Gears due to their nature as The Workhorse suitable for most combat-related duties such as patrolling, guarding, and skirmishing. Heavy Gears are simply named as such due to their immense size and weight compared to their smaller counterparts.
• Pathfinder: Character sizes range from at least Tiny, Small and Medium to Large, Huge, and Gargantuan. Smaller creatures take up less space, are often much stealthier and harder to hit, but they have far shorter range with melee weaponry, while larger creatures are often stronger and have superior range but become clumsier and easier to hit as they get bigger.
• 13th Age: By default, there are regular monsters, Large (twice as powerful as regular monsters of their level, making them mini-bosses), and Huge (thrice as powerful and thus regular bosses). However, some bosses are normal-sized and instead noted as "double-strength" or "triple-strength".

Toys

• The Transformers toyline has adopted a price point line scaled on size since the era of Beast Wars. The original scale was Basic, Deluxe, Mega, Ultra, Super, Supreme, in increasing scales of size and cost (from the $5 Basic to the $40 Supreme). The current scale starting from the War For Cybertron: Kingdom line is Core, Deluxe, Voyager, Leader, Commander, and Titan, which scales from the $12 Core at an average of four inches up to the $200 Titan at a hefty two feet of height.
  In the modern age, this is Downplayed; while it is common for figures in higher classes to be larger, they are assigned to these classes based on part count, not size, with notable figures being equal in size to figures of a lower class, but more complex ^note of note is Studio Series Ironhide, a Voyager class figure, is near equal in size to his Deluxe, but is capable of assuming his van mode without partsforming, additionally, several Leader and Commander class figures are close to or equal in size to Voyager class, with accessories to bulk them out to their price point.

Video Games

• AdventureQuest: The "Dinozard [Word]" Tiered by Name spells that have versions that imply larger bites: Nibble, Bite, Crunch, Chomp, NOMNOMNOM.
• Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland: Effects are tiered by size, X being a contraction of Extra and S being a contraction of Small. For Health Recovery:
  XS: Recovers target's HP by a very small amount.
  S: Recovers target's HP by a little.
• The Battle Cats: CatCombos are ranked as either Sm (Small), M (Medium), L (Large), or XL (Extra Large), giving correspondingly stronger benefits. The combos with more potent effects generally require more cats to be present in your lineup to activate them.
• Bloons Tower Defense: MOAB-Class Bloons. Higher tiers of these blimps are larger, and split off into four of the former variant upon defeat. Subverted with DDTs, which are considered equal in threat level to a ZOMG despite being much smaller. The BAD, which otherwise plays this trope straight, splits into 2 ZOMGs and 3 DDTs upon defeat.
• Castlevania: Heart Symbols dropped from fire sources usually come in two sizes: Small Hearts give the protagonist 1 Heart, big ones give 5:
  • Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
  • Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
• Diablo: Large health and mana potions give more health and mana respectively, compared to non-large ones.
• Dragon Quest Monsters:
  • In Dragon Quest Monsters 2, each monster breed has a size descriptor (S, M, L, LL, or G) which determines that breed's evasion rate.
  • Beginning in Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2, each monster has a personal size classification; typically small, medium, and large (though some games add extra-large as a fourth size or remove medium to make just two). Big monsters take up more space in the roster — a "four-man" team can be four small monsters, two smalls and a medium, two mediums, a small and a large, or just one extra-large. In exchange, those larger monsters have higher stats and typically can act multiple times a turn.
• Genshin Impact: The enemy Hilichurl subtypes that aren't Samachurls or Hilichurl Rogues go like this: regular Hilichurls are slightly shorter than average adult humans and are typically easy to handle. Mitachurls are taller and stockier, and are tougher than their Hilichurl brethren, capable of stronger attacks, but still simple to fight. The rarer Lawachurls are huge, deceptively fast, and capable of wide-range elemental attacks, making them dangerous if you aren't prepared.
• Katamari Damacy: The basic gameplay of the game revolves around rolling up objects to grow the size of the katamari:
  • At the end of As Large As Possible levels, your katamari will be judged on its size. Reactions go from tiered ranges of disappointed to shocked, with the latter usually being given by a katamari around twice as larger than expected.
  • Larger objects are a different tier from smaller ones. Once you're big enough, smaller objects will be removed from the level.
• Kingdom Hearts: Every lesser enemy Sora/the player defeats releases munny, which can be found in three sizes: mini, medium, and large. As usual, the mini-sized munny icons grant less currency than the larger ones.
• The Legend of Zelda games: Swords:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The player/Link has access to three types of sword: the Kokiri Sword, who is short and only accessible by Young Link; the Master Sword and the Biggoron Sword for Adult Link. The Master Sword is the medium-range sword, the standard weapon and with capable strength. However, the Biggoron's Sword has the largest range due to having the largest blade, but it's double-handed and blocks the use of the shield to... shield oneself.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask:
    1. The player can upgrade the short-ranged Kokiri Sword to the longer Razor Sword.
    2. The Razor Sword can be upgraded to the Gilded Sword, via a sidequest. The Gilded Sword has an even larger range, a stronger attack and allows the player to use the shield.
    3. The player can also find the Great Fairy's Sword via the Stone Towers Temple fairy subquest. The Great Fairy's Sword has the largest blade, allowing for a larger range of attack, but, just as the Biggoron's Sword, it blocks the use of the shield.
• Master of Orion: Ships are classified based on hull size, where larger hulls are stronger, and have more room for weapons. Weapons are also tiered into heavy mount and point defense, although the heavy mount cannot target small ships or missiles.
• Mega Man: Life and energy capsules come in multiple sizes with larger ones refilling the bars more than smaller ones.
• One Step From Eden: The Thunder variants, Mini Thunder and regular Thunder, with the "Mini" dealing 40 damage to the regular's 100, but costs 1 less Mana, a.k.a 0.
• Palworld: Pal Eggs get harder to hatch as they get bigger: unprefixed, Large, then Huge, but with rarer Pals inside, too.
• Paper Mario: The Origami King: Mario can pick up hearts to restore some of his HP. The amount of HP a heart heals depends on its size: small ones heal 30, medium ones heal 50, and big ones heal 100.
• The Planet Crafter: Higher tier drills are larger, and produce more pressure.
• Returnal: Silphium comes in unprefixed, and Small and Large prefix varieties, with Small and Large restoring less and more Hit Points than regular Silphium respectively, making the tiers: Small, "Medium", and Large.
• The Sealed Ampoule: Multiple Elements come in Small and unprefixed forms:
  • Meat Chunks
  • Mind Shards
  • Crystallized Alchemic Elements go from Small Shards, Shards, then Chunks, and finally Boulders. Boulders being "A [Element] Chunk that has grown into a large boulder." Growth means getting bigger.
• Space Empires:
  • All ships are tiered based on hull type, from small fighter to base ship, all with a variable size capacity.
  • Weapons are tiered on size, in addition to their inherent weapon level.
• In the Super Robot Wars franchise, each unit is categorized into five sizes: XS, S, M, L, and XL. Each size helps determine a unit’s durability and mobility — an XS unit like Tekkaman Blade would be squishier yet much harder to hit than an XL unit like Daitarn 3 while the latter would be able to absorb the hits with ease.
• Supraland. There are coins of three sizes. small coins are worth 1, medium-sized coins are worth 10 and large coins are worth 100.
• Sword of the Stars used several different tiers, usually with three tiers.
  • Planets have a size and a climate hazard, both with numerical values. Size were grouped into small (1-3), medium (4-6), and large (7-10), where each new size allowed larger platforms and more stations.
  • Ships are tiered by propulsion and size. Propulsion went from fission, fusion, to antimatter, each one not only giving higher speed and range but also unlocking several other techs. Size went from destroyer, cruiser, to dreadnought. New ship sizes also opened up several new uses for ships.
  • Weapons were also tiered, by the mount size (small, medium, large, and special), and by the propulsion era.
• Titan Quest: Healing and Mana Potions come in tiers going from Lesser, unprefixed, Greater, and Grand, with the first two's icons looking significantly smaller than the latter two, like test tubes, compared to conical flasks that end with the same neck.

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