LogFAQs > #914490658

My thoughts about 40 minutes in:

On reflection, the biggest highlight of this contest for me was definitely that night I had the very special privilege of guest-starring on The Show along with greatone. If it has to be something more general, though, I guess I could just say the Board 8 community, which would also encompass things like Zen (CBX MVP) and his wonderful gifs. Also, it's not really related to anything else in this post, but poor Kleenex... The only Crew member Ng didn't mention.

As for my thoughts on CBX's format changes:

First off, I really like the format of multiple simultaneous 24-hour matches per day for most of the contest. It's the biggest element in allowing us to get through suitably large brackets without seeing them drag on unnecessarily, while also avoiding the 12-hour disadvantage of skewing results and practically leaving some time zones out. One thing I would say is that the middle rounds (3 and 4) don't need to fly by so quickly. To me, it just doesn't give enough respect to the third and fourth-round characters to hold their own, and I don't like the idea of having multiple divisions' worth of matches in one day. For CBX in particular, though, I felt that this quickened pace was reasonable because of the legends and losers brackets. In future contests without legends and losers brackets, though, I would rather see rounds 3 and 4 elongated a bit. I would reduce round 3 from four to two matches per day and round 4 from two to one match per day, which would produce a 47-day 1v1 bracket with 128 entrants (without legends/losers), versus 39 days with the current format (or 31 versus 23 for a 64-entrant bracket, such as a potential Series II).

Second, and somewhat related, I do like the idea of standardizing early-round match pictures, but for the future, Allen should call on the picsmiths among us to produce the best and fairest possible standardized renders. Having anime schoolboy Joker versus constipated Claire just wasn't right, and that's before getting to the poorly photoshopped pics with obvious artifacts. In my perfect world, a future character battle would have CBX-style standardized pictures for rounds 1 and 2, one match per day of sprites and one match per day of models in round 3 (because I like the sprite round and I really like the idea of characters looking as they do in-game, but I also want to consider fairness), and fairly freeform user-created pictures from round 4 on.

I'm rather positive on registered users gaining double votes. That artificial votal bump does feel nice, and it's a good way to encourage people to register and start engaging more fully with GameFAQs, as well as diluting rallies. I can't think of any major negatives - the registered bonus just isn't something I would mourn too much if it went.

As for forcing people to vote in every match, I tend to agree with the consensus that it's good in character battles and the like, but shouldn't be kept for a GotD II, for example, for the reasons you all stated already (side note: I highly doubt FTL makes such a field - it's not a GameFAQs type of game at all, and not a B8 favorite either). I also disagree with the assertion that this is any sort of effective counter to rallies, excepting the unique situation of Just Monika of course. Even in a match like Undertale vs. Mass Effect 3, the ralliers are just going to redouble their efforts if they're not on pace to win.

Finally, I still think the break was a good idea due to the holidays, but it did kill a lot of CBX's momentum, which was reflected in a permanent votal decrease. What I would do instead is both make the break shorter (Thanksgiving Thursday-Sunday would have sufficed) and continue with bonus matches on the break days, so as to help casual visitors realize there's still a contest going on.

Also Advokaiser, you've been doing great so far! Don't fret about your voice. I bet many of us don't like the way our voices sound to others either - I know I don't!
---

Hail the reigning Guru champ, Advokaiser!
You proved yourself more statistically metal-minded than I ever have been - well done!