Lurker > MetalmindStats

Vivi
Amaterasu

My impressions at the 1-hour mark:

That GotY conversation was interesting, even though it wasn't relevant to these contests. My personal preference (though very light since I haven't played anything from this year yet) would have either been Smash Ultimate (though I don't think it was eligible), Dragon Quest XI, or something like Celeste or Return of the Obra Dinn. In my opinion, God of War is a much better winner than Red Dead Redemption 2 would have been, though, and not just because of the surprise factor.

On Joker in Smash: I was kinda disappointed at first, but after reflecting on it and with time, I like the choice about as much as I could without having played any Persona games. In particular, I agree that this suggests good, exciting things about Sakurai's choices for the other DLC characters. I'm also a fan of that trailer, which I hadn't watched at first.

On Link v Cloud: I was previously thinking this was pretty much all on Cloud, but current Link's ~68% on a much stronger Alucard than the one who scored 28% on 2010 Link has me agreeing that Link has also boosted, despite his massive anti-votes.

That story of Yo's is something else. TJF is undoubtedly part of Tifa's stability - it's worth noting, though, that Tifa's picture wasn't made by Ulti, but rather by 'Anonymous', which probably translates to Allen himself.

On X-Stats and Mario crushing Sephy who crushed Ryu: As I went into some detail about on the previous episode, anyone who still thinks Ryu is Mr. Consistent is unfairly overrating him. For the cliffnotes version: his previous matches consisted of doing barely better on Lloyd than Fox in 2010, not coming particularly close to doubling a KOS-MOS who looked off all contest (and with no real TJF in her picture, it's no wonder), and that Shepard result. And we all know what happened to the Mass Effect series. Sephiroth himself sucked it up against Wesker (my favorite random trivia point of the contest: Wesker actually got a few cuts against Sephy) and Amaterasu, while only faring well on Falcon relative to very low expectations.

I absolutely think that voters disproportionately make the main character of a series that's had a disastrous game suffer, due to their association with the series in question, plus generally not having the well-liked characterization to compensate. That's the best explanation I can think of for Garrus being ahead of Shepard now, for example. Even if it winds up overrating Chun-Li in the adjusted X-stats, it happens - X-stats aren't supposed to be the bible of these contests. Just take a look at where Dragonborn was in 2013, and consider that even back then, he only 60-40'd Tom Nook and Pyramid Head, so whatever's happened to other modern Western characters alone can't explain his huge plunge from 2013's adjusted stats. Or for extra hilarity, just take a gander at Claptrap's position in the adjusted 2013 stats. The only thing I would be skeptical about is Chun-Li being outright ahead of Ryu, but the Garrus example demonstrates how it's not impossible by any stretch.

As far as adjusting the stats goes, I'm personally fond of Haste's method of taking a character who can be expected to be constant compared to 2013 (ex. Tidus) and adjusting their entire division (for Link > Ganon in this example) based on that (with the other adjustment of setting 2013 Link equal to base Link, but that's just personal preference). I suppose if you were making a hyper-adjusted set of X-stats, you could peg Chun-Li at the 43% on Ryu she got in that favorites poll, but I'm not of the opinion that there's enough definitive proof to say she overperformed on Ganondorf.

Good stuff so far!

Mario

Mega Man with 51.59%
Solid Snake with 50.19%

STEROLIZER posted...

Is there a complete ranking somewhere. Like all contestants ranked 1-400?

This is probably the closest thing to what you're looking for (with adjustments):

http://www.thengamer.com/xstats/ranks.php?type=c

Though keep in mind that 'lol x-stats' is a thing for a reason.

Advokaiser posted...

Am I still alive if Zelda wins?

NewerShadow posted...

MetalmindStats posted...

If Mario beats Zelda in 142, SpikeDragon eliminates XIII.
If Zelda beats Mario in 142, SecretSquirrel and XIII eliminate chocoboslayer.

This is accurate for tomorrow's eliminations, no one else is up.

Assuming you're referring to the current match, yes, you are.

MAX on a two-way parlay on Mega Man and Solid Snake.

red sox 777 posted...

I think, 44% is definitely the best result Crono would have gotten against Cloud in any year.

2013 Crono would have at least broken 45% on 2013 Cloud.

Wreath posted...

Waluigi1 posted...

Chill out, geez. Why are you getting so worked up over it??

It makes no sense to act like something exists when it's been dead forever

What you don't get is that the Noble Nine is a historical concept. Back in the days of 2002-2006, these nine characters were undefeated except against each other (and genuinely the nine strongest characters of the era), and they made every single character battle in that span. Even if their streak has been dead since 2007, it doesn't change the fact of the Noble Nine being a thing. It just means they're no longer undefeated against outsiders, and now no longer the nine strongest (unrallied) characters in these contests.

red sox 777 posted...

I don't think it's ever been clearly defined, but I always thought elite meant characters of Noble Nine strength. So, the Noble Nine, and anyone stronger than the weakest Noble Niner.

This, except I don't know if I would consider Sonic and Sephiroth elites anymore.

Samus

Bowser

redrocket posted...

MetalmindStats posted...

due to the generally negative sentiments around PUBG

Huh?

"Generally negative" is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but least for the Steam version, PUBG has a reputation as quite unpolished, and PUBG Corp. as highly unresponsive to players' concerns and slow to enact change. Most particularly, they started a 'Fix PUBG' campaign a few months back due to all the complaints, which hasn't produced much yet beyond new maps.

BR = battle royale (think the movie Battle Royale), a fairly new, but already phenomenally successful sub-genre in gaming whose main representatives are Fortnite and PUBG (PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds). I can't see any battle royale games getting major rallies myself, due to the generally negative sentiments around PUBG, because Fortnite's playerbase is either under 13 or won't care, and because the other battle royale games aren't nearly big enough.

Mario with 53.55%

squexa posted...

Team Rocket Elite posted...

squexa posted...

The biggest wildcard to me is Skyward Sword. On one hand, nobody really seems to like it, but it is a 3D Zelda game, so there has to be a limit to low it can go right?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5193-character-battle-ix-division-6-round-1-groose-vs-lu-bu-vs

To be fair, Groose is only a side character and Midna has always looked pretty terrible as well despite TP being fairly strong.

Eh, Midna's been around the fodder line at worst every year, which is a huge step above ...that.

Also, Link wins that four-way, no question about it.

Jaden_WE posted...

Squellvine posted...

Final Fantasy really bombed it this year. Maybe if Square Enix did not throw the whole series in the dumpster it could have been more like the old days.

didnt aeris, tifa, and somehow auron do way better than projections? cloud is losing right where is's supposed to too...to link.

Aerith looked good, but a plurality of B8 expected her to reach round 4. Tifa did fare far better than anyone expected, while Vivi and Auron fared as well as most of us expected, in the latter's case thanks to weak competition. In particular, though, Squall and Sephiroth looked really bad compared to past contests, which is coloring people's perceptions of FF as a whole (combined with a few first round losses that most people didn't expect).

GotD II, you say? Here, have my mock bracket:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1THs2OxKDopw_OjYpojEKCqyZkK0AtPCH7SGd0bgvzy8/edit

As for the biggest contenders, no one's mentioned Dark Souls yet. And after the repeated series fiascos plus Shepard bombing well beyond any expectations, I wouldn't expect Mass Effect 2 to be a true contender.

Kumatora
Remedy