Line #42 Main/TierSystem


1	Tiers are a system commonly used in video games and {{Tabletop RPG}}s to denote the power of a given item or enemy. ''How'' the items are tiered varies by game and by genre.
2
3	For item tiers, usually the lower tier weapons and armor are BetterOffSold and starting equipment, while higher tier items include ArmorOfInvincibility, an InfinityPlusOneSword and {{Bragging Rights Reward}}s that aren't {{Cosmetic\|Award}}. {{Joke Weapon}}s could be their own tier or be lumped in with the low tier items (except for maybe the LethalJokeWeapon).
4
5	Enemies tend to be a bit muddier, though {{Palette Swap}}s and {{Underground Monk\|ey}}ies of older monsters are usually stronger. {{Degraded Boss}}es are bosses reduced to EliteMooks because they were encountered in an area with lower tier enemies first. The chain of progression for these tiers is {{Mooks}} > GoddamnBats > MiniBoss > DemonicSpiders > EliteMooks > BossInMookClothing > [[BossBattle Standard Boss]] > FinalBoss > TrueFinalBoss > {{Superboss}}.[[note]]Depending on the game, a ClimaxBoss could be intentionally scaled to be stronger than other bosses (while still being weaker than the FinalBoss, of course), and a MiniBoss may be more of a threat than the DemonicSpiders and EliteMooks while still being less of a threat than the proper bosses (unless the Mini Boss is ThatOneBoss for whatever reason).[[/note]] Of course, it's all relative to the area they dwell in.
6
7	Sometimes the tiers are made up by players themselves (such as in (Tabletop [=RPGs=]); this is more common in competitive games and usually relate to CharacterTiers.
8
9	!!Subtropes include:
10	[[index]]
11	* CharacterTiers
12	* CharacterLevel
13	* ColorCodedItemTiers
14	* ElementalTiers
15	* HighTierScrappy
16	* LowTierLetdown
17	* SpellLevels
18	* TieredByName
19	* TieredBySize
20	[[/index]]
21
22	Related to UndergroundMonkey, PaletteSwap, EquipmentBasedProgression and ElementalCrafting, which are tropes which can be used to help define the tiers.
23	----
24	!!Examples by genre:
25
26	[[foldercontrol]]
27
28	[[folder:First-Person Shooter]]
29	* ''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' ranks its enemies by their strength: Fodder, Heavy, Super Heavy, and Boss, with Ambient serving as a miscellaneous rank.
30	* ''VideoGame/{{Ultrakill}}'' divides its enemies into Lesser, Greater, and Supreme, along with ??? for unranked enemies or bosses. [[spoiler:Prime is reserved for the {{Super Boss}}es fought in [[BrutalBonusLevel Prime Sanctums]].]]
31	[[/folder]]
32
33	[[folder:MMORPG]]
34	* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has several interlocking tier systems. Ships have five tiers, with tier 1 being StarterEquipment (the ''Miranda''-class, ''B'rel''-class, and ''T'liss''-class depending on faction), and tier 5 being admiral ships (further broken up into rear admiral, vice admiral, and fleet). Equipment comes in Mk I through Mk XII and also has a rarity system. There are also tier systems in the reputation and fleet grinds, which unlock better gear.
35	* VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing has a tier system for consumables: crappy, decent, good, awesome, and epic, ColorCodedForYourConvenience as grey, black, green, blue, and purple, respectively. For adventure-giving consumables, the quality is determined by how many adventures it gives divided by how many points of stomach/liver/spleen consuming it uses, with a range for each tier. For others, it's a bit murkier.
36	[[/folder]]
37
38	[[folder:Platformer]]
39	* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance'': Single coins are worth $1, and the rest are money bags that go in ColorCodedItemTiers, with yellow for $5, red = $25 and grey = $100.
40	* The ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' series: Oblong step cut gems are worth 5 gems, whereas round cut ones are worth 1:
41	** ''VideoGame/ShantaeRiskysRevenge'': Also the third tier of size are beveled rectangular cuts which are worth 10 gems.
42	** ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndThePiratesCurse''
43	** ''VideoGame/ShantaeHalfGenieHero''
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Role-Playing Game]]
47	* This is the center of the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' {{metagame}}. All Pokemon have a spot in {{Website/Smogon}}.com's fanmade tier system (one of many such established systems), said to ensure fairness on competition. The top tier is Ubers, which is simply a ban list to keep {{Game Breaker}}s from taking over the metagame. The standard tier is Over Used, the membership criteria being defined roughly as "this mon is popular enough that if you play 20 matches with Ubers banned, you have a 50% chance of fighting it at least once", and lower tiers being defined recursively from that.
48	* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' enemy mobs come in five tiers: [[ZergRush critter]], [[{{Mooks}} normal]], {{elite\|Mooks}}, {{boss\|Battle}}, and [[{{Superboss}} elite boss]]. Weapons and armor are also tiered by the material they're made from.
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Tower Defense]]
52	* ''War Dragons'' divides its dragons into Red, Blue, Orange and Green, with each successive color being stronger than the last. Extra eggs are used for researches, which fall into the same tiers.
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
56	* Most of the subtropes were made or codified by early, level-based {{Tabletop RPG}}s (especially ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''). The reason that {{Character Level}}s exists is so that the GameMaster can make tougher encounters for the party as they continue on.
57	* ''TabletopGame/DescentJourneysInTheDark'' has three tiers of enemies: minions, master monsters (like minions but with more HP and some unique abilities), and lieutenants (named enemies who grow stronger, the more heroes are on the field, and can perform skill checks unlike the monsters).
58	[[/folder]]
59
60	[[folder:Turn-Based Strategy]]
61	* Weapons in ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' are divided into three tiers: Kinetic (regular bullets), Laser, and Plasma. Certain class abilities give soldiers bonuses that depend on the tier of the weapon they wield.
62	* ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' has 3 tiers and 40 ranks for their items. The Ranks denote how powerful they are when you acquire them, and the Tiers (Normal, Rare, and Legendary) denote how powerful they can be. You can level up items in the game by going into the [[RandomlyGeneratedLevels Item World]], but the tier of the item dictates how many floors you can travel in the item (and thus how many levels the item gets.)
63	** ''Dimension 2'' made it so that items could upgrade in tiers as their Item World is cleared (finish the 30 floors in a Common item? It becomes Rare, and once the 60 floors in a Rare item are cleared, it permanently becomes Legendary), and ''Disgaea 5'' introduced a brand-new tier for items, Epic, which must be worked up towards.
64	* ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' used several different tiers, usually with three tiers.
65	** 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. Climate hazard was grouped into nice (easily colonisable), unfriendly (colonisable, but expensive), and prohibitive (not colonizable).
66	** 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.
67	** Weapons were also tiered, by the mount size (small, medium, large, and special), and by the propulsion era.
68	[[/folder]]

Context Main / TierSystem