Most of the game involves fighting between different characters, called fighters, with the goal being to knock your opponent off of the stage a certain amount of times. When a fighter is hit, they take damage in the form of a percent value. The higher that the percent value is, the easier it will be to knock them off the map. The game features a wide variety of playable stages, characters and gamemodes. At the beginning of the game, players are limited to a smaller cast of characters to choose from, but can unlock the rest of the characters by completing certain tasks, achievements or just after playing for long enough. The characters have different abilities and attacks, but are used by pushing the same buttons—A is for normal attacks, and B is for special abilities or attacks (such as hitting harder or shooting things). These buttons can be used be used in combination with tilting the analog stick in different directions to use different variations of these abilities or different attacks entirely. Normal attacks used with a quickly flicked analog stick can be used to pull off a smash attack (a powerful attack, usually used for launching your opponent off the stage). The controller triggers can be used to shield, which blocks damage from opponents for a few seconds, until it breaks. Players can also use the controller triggers to grab opponents and throw them. A combination of different attacks and abilities can be used to pull off a combo, where the player traps the opponent in a combination of attacks for high damage. There are many complex techniques and tier lists created by the competitive community of the Super Smash Bros. series.