Board 8 > Save My Favorite Final Fantasy Characters XXV: Final Results and Discussion

(+) Yeah! (+)

Maniac64 posted...

Gotta love when someone makes the Top 10 with 0 victories /s

Yeah I don't know who that Crowe person is, but I officially hate them and their smug face too.

v_charon posted...

I'd suggest just using WinRAR. Just be pretty easy once you extract it.

I've been doing winrar. I just don't know what I'm doing. And I've done this before but lost all knowledge.

Yeah didn't we all MAKE one of these before? I guess it doesn't seem weird to me because I've never stopped using the program for years now, even when everyone else probably did.

I'm not great at tech support. Uh... once you unpack the file, you should have a folder that says VideoGameCharacters. Make sure that folder has no spaces in it. I'd suggest just unpacking it directly to your desktop to remove any troubles. After that, you open the folder and keep clicking until you get to the where you see a set of folders and files. Then you should just be able to click the one that says "GauntletApplication"; it's JAR file with a java icon.

I used 7zip

v_charon posted...

Then you should just be able to click the one that says "GauntletApplication"; it's JAR file with a java icon.

Pokewars might be having the same problem I'm having, there is no icon on the JAR file / no program associated with it so I get the "how do you want to open this file" prompt.

So I guess I have to install Java on my computer...? Maybe tomorrow everyone posting their gauntlets has whet my appetite on this!!

I downloaded Java, but it seems to open up something for a flash of a second but not something I can go to when I try opening it with java

VeryInsane posted...

Ramza/Delita right at 16th...

absolutely wild group that managed to hide/kill a billion Exvius characers

when i did mine i had Ramza vs Cid Telamon right near the beginning (100 something) and thought of you

K I got to the window where it says possible problems and it could be 3: list is broken by an inappropriate format, but there are no spaces or anything

any other symbols in the user folder you extracted to, like an asterisk or ampersand?

I started doing it and I guess I should pick it up in the morning or start over, was I supposed to filter out all the trash characters from games I've never played before or is everyone going through the full 1307...

MartinFF7 posted...

any other symbols in the user folder you extracted to, like an asterisk or ampersand?

No. And I somehow got to some gauntlet with tags before (can't get back to it) but it didn't let me start the damn game. I just am lost. There should be no problem with loading a gauntlet when I've reached the message "oh formatted incorrectly '

Xezat skills showcase video is out

https://twitter.com/DFF_OperaOmnia/status/1707304136184586612

... okay that BT (first ability used in the video) is truthfully incredible

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/4/0/AAeYFbAAE4XQ.jpg

ok I finished through the guantlet once this morning, and the results were SO bad, so I just completed a 2nd trip through it and they're somehow even worse!!!!

I refuse to live with this and I am going to do a 3rd trip through the gauntlet this evening and then that's it, damn it.

Like I swear I didn't make any mistakes, was I just unlucky in the matchups that happened...

Pokewars posted...

No. And I somehow got to some gauntlet with tags before (can't get back to it) but it didn't let me start the damn game. I just am lost. There should be no problem with loading a gauntlet when I've reached the message "oh formatted incorrectly '

damn, sorry to hear that's happening :/ don't know if it's a classic "turn it off then back on" situation... if you can get in then it would just be adding in the "ff" tag in the textbox on the upper right and hitting the enter button, and "1307" in the box on the upper left

It does allow you to reset the matches by using the back feature, but where's the fun in that?

yeah my "this evening" plan turned into a "run it right back" plan, and I indeed spoiled the spirit of the game on third go-around by enabling double-elimination, healthily using the back button when it was 1-on-1 match I'd rather avoid & the "kill moar" options on the vast swathes of unknown characters...

but after getting Basch 4th place (??) on my first run, and then Ifalna 2nd place (????) on my second at least now I got something mostly reflecting reality:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/1/8/AAC56kAAE4Ye.jpg

maybe a little more XVI recency bias than warranted, also would swap Sephiroth with like a dozen other characters, but all in all it's pretty, pretty, pretty good.

(Edit: actually now I'm wondering how Aerith ended up 3rd if it was double elimination... she must have faced off against Tifa twice before Belle was eliminated I guess, hm!)

Thanks for maintaining this & posting it in the topic v_charon, was very cool!

Maybe we should follow the gauntlet's example and try to get the mom a win next year instead of the daughter.

well considering she finished 2nd in the gauntlet, like mother like daughter...

I always thought xezat was a lot crazier/evil looking cause of the horns.

No problem, glad you spent a lot of time with it! I was going to say those win totals seem very low for a double elimination gauntlet, but I guess if you used the Burn feature it probably evens out. I just sort of like the chaos it brings when you play it straight out, would have been nice to see those results even if you didn't like them. I would say only about half of the characters who placed in my gauntlet would be in my actual top 10, but the other half were fine enough and I wasn't super upset that any of them made it that far either.

But yeah, it did take a lot of effort (just to get the FF portion of it running like it is now), so I appreciate everyone who's played it so far. Probably got more people than I was initially expecting, glad you all liked it.

Yeah I was basically burning everyone that couldn't conceivably be near top of the house for me, the "kill both" option was pretty handy, lol.

v_charon posted...

would have been nice to see those results even if you didn't like them.

Ah might as well, I did save screenshots titled "ok wtf" and "you gotta be kidding me" for 1st and 2nd attempts, respectively:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/2/8/AAC56kAAE4aM.jpg
first attempt was a pretty good top three but I really don't care about Basch, and Althea and Brahne getting in there, their wins were surely beating up on Exvius characters or something.

Then on 2nd try things fall even further off a cliff:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/2/9/AAC56kAAE4aN.jpg
The fact Ifalna gets there while Aerith was iced out both attempts, come on. I don't know who the hell Anzelm is and I don't want to know. Also lol Cinna, how did he wrangle 9 wins...

ok that's a nomination gimmick idea for some time, Year of Tantalus???

Althea's nice to see!

like yeah she's no Belle or Layle but hey she's a nice girl

Magically got this to work. Don't even know what I did but anywho....

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/4/6/AAB3mmAAE4cC.jpg

RNG just before Top 10 was bogus. And this was double elim.

Funny matches were doggo wars Interceptor vs. Angelo and Rinoa voting out her MOM.

I was losing patience by the halfway point lol double elim sounds tough

though I guess I can probably find it more doable while listening to a podcast

after so many brave exvius tier matchups I get shadow vs iroha ouch sorry ff6 you're not getting that point

also great reminder that quacho queen totally deserves repping woff

*edit* ouch, saw a Tarutaru vs Ace and I just instinctively thought 'n clicked Ace until I thought wait which Tarutaru and saw it was Ajido-Marujido

sorry ace i'm reversing that

*edit* kelger vs a picture of unknown boobs.... fighting my instincts here

the number of unknown boobs is causing havoc with my draft Year of XXX nominations list

Lexa is outrageous

LiquidOshawott posted...

I was losing patience by the halfway point lol double elim sounds tough

double elim gives you the option to burn both elims at once on a single or even on both characters for the quick -2! The double-double burn gets invoked more than anything else for me, lol (going through double elim again now with a strict "no going back" rule this time to see how it shakes out)

1027/1307 Lilith vs Keiss oh ffs how dare you make me vote against Crystal Bearers this soon

*edit* oh you're lexa

i see

*edit* wow i instinctively voted against Edgar because I absolutely did not recognize that picture and then thought for a second and went "wait what was that" and clicked back

*edit* BRUH INTRODUCING JUSQUA & TONBETTY NEXT TO EACH OTHER WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME

okay

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/9/3/AAN7AaAAE4cx.jpg

... absolutely no idea how i ended up with Basch but um okay, or how i didn't end up with more XI

also just before the end I was literally staring at ?????? vs Alphi for so long, because like sure I like what I've seen of him so far but I'm still not really that far into XIV that I actually yeah was close to putting ?????? on top

I'm guessing the person who drew that picture isn't aware that Edgar is 27.

He doesn't look that old if you look up the picture itself, I think the shading and reducing the image size to 150x150 might not do it justice much. I like Edgar too much to make him suffer with an Amano art. There are a few characters I had to leave that way though.

Single with a whole lotta kill 'em alls
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/2/5/AAN7AaAAE4dR.jpg
Feel's more spot-on, Jegran's a big surprise though I don't recall voting him over much tougher competition. Chime kinda makes sense but Little King's the one that really gave me a lot of tough picks I gave to him.

hell yeah Belle properly next to Layle at the top. Which reminds me, did you ever hear back from kateee on a final verdict for FFCC:TCB:TM?

Also, Lilisette is looking pretty cute there though I assume that's fanart...

I have just started playing FFCC:TCB

so far I have to say Layle seems like my kind of character, which makes sense considering he's blond

yesssssssssssss 1 watcher & 1 player wow this year is literally doubling the previous 5 years of gmarketing

tho I dunno where kateee left off at! it was late in the night when we watched and i had to fall asleep and finish in the morning

Double results
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/6/AAN7AaAAE4iI.jpg
got Arciela v Excenmille towards the end and it took me a long time to click Arciela but so it's kinda nice to see I ended up with both

annnd 4-way
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/7/AAN7AaAAE4iJ.jpg

... that final round I did not understand, it was this batch of this 10 and you vote them OUT but I clicked Layle first which then set him on fire and I was realized wait whoops

I don't even remember seeing Dysley and I definitely remember clicking AGAINST Cid O...

Oh yeah, 4 way works a bit different in the final. You choose them in reverse order of the way you'd like to see them finish. Basically, I think in the old days when we ran gauntlets as a group we'd take a poll on who to vote out. I guess it's like elimination style, not sure what the thinking of doing that it that way was about.

My results with some minor back button usage (only in emergencies).

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/3/8/AAKo_HAAE4wO.jpg

started a new game of FF13 - overdue & also wanted to replay it before keeping pace w/ BCT's topic - and already poured a lot of weekend hours into it. Early thoughts:

-I could have swore I replayed the game before 13-2 or LR but apparently I didn't, last save time was June 2010. And apparently I had done 2 playthroughs totalling almost 200 hours, hopefully a chunk of that was leaving my PS3 on for some reason but I do remember really grinding for everything back then...

-Vanille is even better than I remember and she truly is the game's best character

-I forgot how bad the early chapters are... just hanging on desperately until Chapter 11 when I'll spend another 50 hours there maxing my characters out, lol

-Also I cannot believe this but.... I feel my hatred for Fang starting to dissipate. Must be the Vanille victory freeing me, though there is plenty of gametime left to rebuild it LOL

guffguy89 posted...

My results with some minor back button usage (only in emergencies).

complete X and XII domination, nice! I like the Rasler sneak-in, not so sure about the Mika one but considering some of the characters making their way through my gauntlet I guess we're allowed some oddities, lol

Yeah Mika and Vayne were my surprise oddities (I was worried a blitzball player would slip in because I kept picking them early on). Rasler fed mostly on fodder and appeared a lot early on, but I was kind of happy at the end that he snuck in. The FF12 intro has always been very memorable to me.

Looks pretty good to me :P

Lagging on posting my additional stats, gonna blame FF13.

Updated user save stats, if you want to compare to how they were compared to the "point in time" comparison from previously, check the log site for Day 68 page 5. In this case we're looking at contests XXV vs XXIV proper, so Days 1 through 98 / no finals saves.

As previously, keep in mind that we had a lot more user activity this year relative to last which means most users have a decrease in saves due to faster rounds/decreased H3 and H4 opportunities. Though we have several users with YOY bumps, which are split into two tables: one for people who were around w/ regularity last year and increased their attendance, and the other for last year's lesser folks ramping up activity this year.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/2/AAC56kAAE5CG.png

Ulti was ulti-mately the most improved saver among last year's regulars. On the "lesser attending last year" side, don't think there's any surprises with me followed by the FF8 stalwarts. So I guess last year I got 19 saves over the final 8 days, I think that checks out... also TomNook7's 63 really never did budge after Doomtrain went out.

And the dropoffs:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/3/AAC56kAAE5CH.png

At the Day 68 comparison all of these were at 0 or single digits but burke, Steiner, linkhatesganon and RaidenGarai put in a lot more saves over the remainder of the contest to bump up their XXV totals. FBike did eventually show up for a token save in the finals, and MWC never returned...

Rounding things out with top savers from this year, and last year's for reference:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/4/AAC56kAAE5CI.png
(Snuck above VI for the bronze medal this year, nice)

Bringing everything together to highlight the top cumulative-savers over the past two contests:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/5/AAC56kAAE5CJ.png

Perfectly-saving lefty showing a -15 so that's probably like a handicap in golf to beat? Though if you did beat it, that could also mean you were lacking in hitting your full potential last year, hmmm... in any case, lots of folks showing better than -15 and big positive callouts to Koala and guffguy. I'm pretty sure at least -10 of GMUN's were assisted by family interference, lol.

And lastly, everyone else who attained a minimum of 12 cumulative saves over the past two contests:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/0/0/AAC56kAAE5CY.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/0/1/AAC56kAAE5CZ.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/0/2/AAC56kAAE5Ca.png

Special callout to PrinceKaro for being the one user to achieve an identical # of saves in both contests XXIV and XXV!!

I think I still have something else percolating but in the meantime, somebody on discord remind lefty that he posted the full stats (and new stats) lists at the top of page 8 last year andddd wow I thought we were still on page 7. Well there's still page 9 for the full character stats dump!! Including hot new leftystats listings...

I averaged exactly 1 save per round

Calculated

Wait there's only 98 rounds + the finals crap. Still a nice round hundo is pretty cool

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of SMFFFC, would anyone be interested in participating in an SMFFFC 25th Anniversary Tournament? Specifically, a 128-character, NCAA-style tournament bracket.

The characters included would be the 5 highest placements from each contest (no repeats, Bravely included), plus 3 wild cards, which would be the 3 highest characters in stats not yet in the tourney. Doing it this way would actually include the entire top 100 in stats inside the tournament. The other 28 characters would consist of 17 that are not yet stats eligible and 11 that exist just outside the top 100.

Seeding would be by highest placement in a contest (so winners get the highest seeds) with tiebreakers being sorted by placement in stats (with those not yet stats eligible being sorted behind them).

I ran the Disney song tournament (also 128 entries) earlier this year and was thinking about running something again and thought this might be fun, but only if there would be some interest in it, which is why Im putting out feelers in this post.

Sounds fun to me.

where there's a chance to save (vote) my favourite final fantasy characters I probably will do so

big thumbs up, not sure about the Bravely inclusions but I guess they earned their spots...

Nice casual bracket contest is good in this case & preferable to say, a bot contest (still mentally preparing myself for the eventual day when SMFFFC VII-2 launches and I support Celes, lol)

I like contests

MartinFF7 posted...

(still mentally preparing myself for the eventual day when SMFFFC VII-2 launches and I support Celes, lol)

Celes could easily reach the finals in a later year, though. Whoever her opponent is might only get one shot! I say we support her opponent

So I did pretty much everything in XVI except FF Mode

Yeah I can say I really liked it! Its definitely at least a top 5 FF for m I might have to think a little bit on whether I would put it even higher though, there are a few flaws but I can say that about every game in the series. overall really enjoyed it and Clive is my favorite protagonist in the series since Ramza.

Glad to hear that! As I get farther away from playing it... I'm not sure how I feel. Maybe top 5 but it would probably be 5th but I don't know. There's more than a few QoL fixes that would make a replay so much better imo, like I think about replaying it and I cringe at forced fight cutscenes and QTEs and crap disrupting the natural flow of battle. I know 7R had like phase-transition scenes within a battle but never so long and torturous as in XVI's. I couldn't imagine speedrunning this game.

In any case, I can guarantee XVI is ahead of XIII in my rankings because my replay of it, I mean wow. The level design is really just beyond atrocious, like I know there were all those jokes about "hallways" back then but I really didn't remember it being this bad. Characters are great at least but yeah, just so much that's so bad. Though again, once I get to the magical chapter maybe I will feel better, almost there...

Now sorry VI I drafted a monster post so it's going to bury yours but ideally people read everything in the topic so they catch it (before my wall of text)

ok more stats as we head into page 9.... LEFTY-ERA FINALS SAVE STATS!! Now including XX since GMUN logged that final's save stats (thank you again as always for being the stats goddess!!!!)

Before we get into user-save stats, let's talk about general unique saver stats. These are the number of savers that saved in a given final, whether 1 or 10 (or more than 10?) saves.

XX: 68
XXI: 68
XXII: 77
XXIII: 92
XXIV: 91
XXV: 73

Keeping in mind that XXII was 2020 so you get the start of the pandemic-era bump, peaking in XXIII and - for the finals at least - still coming through in XXIV. Then dropping off a fair bit this year.

I know the reduced finals participation was noted earlier and there's another stat worth mentioning: "new user" appearances. Just looking at leftyera finals of course, and only the finals (so any "regular season" saves not counting)

XXI finals had 20 new users over XX's finals making a save
XXII had 14 new users
XXIII had 16 new users
XXIV had 8 new users
but these finals, XXV, only had 2 debut finals savers, coincidentally our two most notable rookie participants in the contest itself: Ashethan and _Keeby.

Of course, "new blood" in the finals isn't as big a deal if past users keep returning but if you believe B8's a dying board, a further decline next year would seem in the cards.

Alright let's talk user stats! There are 128 users who have registered at least 1 finals save in the leftyera, and of those 32 having registered saves in all six finals, an even quarter of the field.

At the top of the house remain our two champions, 6-0 on saving the eventual winner each year of the leftyera:

Robazoid and swordz9!!

A full 10 saves for Fang, Lightning, Squall, Kefka, Ramza and Vanille... truly incredible. Honourable mention to the next rung down, the 5-1 crew:

GenesisSaga
illuminatusbubu
Inviso
MZero
SirChris
TheArkOfTurus
Xuxon

Fun fact: while she favoured Locke in her heart, by saving Vanille 6 times over Locke 4 times that gives GenesisSaga "Vanille" credit for these purposes, hence why she's not 4-2.

Fun fact #2: all of the 5-1 crew picked Lightning so no misses there. Xuxon w/ Cid P, bubu and Ark w/ Delita, Chris on Aerith XXIII, Inviso and Genny on Aerith XXIV, and MZero w/ Locke were their misses.

So of the 32 users in the "perfect attendance" crew, they favoured the eventual champion each year other than XXII when they favoured Delita by a wide margin! Breakdowns as follows:

Fang 17-15
Lightning 20-12
Delita 19-13
Kefka 20-12
Ramza 21-11
Vanille 19-13

Also wouldn't be a surprise after seeing those Kefka and Ramza numbers (y'all are killing me here) but only 6 of the 32 users favoured Aerith in both of her years. TexWolf_1729 at the top of the house among them with a 4-2 record, interestingly enough...

Average finals "wins" for the perfect attendance crew is 3.4375 so, better than average, that's good & expected I guess?

I know I should probably include "ties" for users who were around that year but opted to sit out the final so we bump up that "32 user" group, maybe next time. Funny thing is Chaeix just squeaks in as I see 1 save in XX, 2 saves in XXI and 2 in XXIII, lol.

Another fun stat, this is the leading case of identicalness (identicality?) among the perfect attendance crew. 4 users have identical saving across all 6 contests, a Cid-Edward-Delita-Kefka-Ramza-Locke line establishing a 2-4 record:

bwburke94
Mewtwo59
th3l3fty
VeryInsane

I just thought that was neat, I assume if I looked beyond the perfect attendance crew there'd probably be more users with identical histories but I'm not sure 4 exacts could be topped!

Now the poor souls at the bottom of the leftyera finals successes, unfortunately: each sporting 1-5 records are Arti (Kefka) and greengravy294 (Ramza). However, going beyond our "perfect attendance 32", truly the most poor unfortunate soul is Pokewars. He's sporting a 0-4 record with Cid P, Aerith x2 and Locke finals saves. Maybe next year can be the year, if not a year for a character he prefers...!

Only other thing worth mentioning is we had 4 users who were previously perfect but dropped off due to no finals saving this year: Steiner, Whiskey_Nick, TheManaSword and MWC (he really never returned...)

Ok now I'll drop the overall finals-records for everyone who registered a save in this year's finals, and if there's any other stats you're interested in seeing let me know and I'll see what I can pull together, if I don't spontaneously decide something myself.

In lieu of just doing things alphabetically, I also sorted based on record, and did groupings for people with 5 or 6 finals, 4 or lower will have your record beside your username. If you can't find yourself just Ctrl+F part of your username, and if the username listed doesn't match yours exactly well, sorry, sometimes stuff gets abbreviated and there's multiple years with multiple usernames to contend with here!!

-----Participation in All 6 Finals-----

6-0
Robazoid
swordz9

5-1
GenesisSaga
illuminatusbubu
Inviso
MZero
SirChris
TheArkOfTurus
Xuxon

4-2
Chaeix
ecksgem
Lopen
PlasmaKappa
TexWolf_1729

3-3
Eddv
Great_Paul
GuessMyUserName
Janus5k
Maniac64
Nanis23
TheKnightOfNee
TotallyNotMI
WhiteLens

2-4
bwburke94
captaincanadian
MartinFF7
Mewtwo59
StifledSilence
th3l3fty
VeryInsane

1-5
Arti
greengravy294

-----Participation in 5 of 6 Finals-----

4-1
LuisSera
mnk
red13n
v_charon

3-2
Evillordexdeath
FFDragon
Snake5555555555

2-3
Bane_Of_Despair
BlackDra90n
guffguy89
pjbasis
PrinceKaro

1-4
KommunistKoala
Lea

-----Participation in 4 of 6 Finals-----

SockoressKnight | 4-0
TomNook | 4-0
andylt | 3-1
RaidenGarai | 3-1
Suprak_the_Stud | 3-1
BlueCrystalTear | 2-2
Hbthebattle | 2-2
junk_funk | 2-2
kateee | 2-2
Yankees | 2-2
FBike1 | 1-3
Fiop | 1-3
VengefulKaelee | 1-3
Wicklebee | 1-3
Pokewars | 0-4

-----Participation in 3 of 6 Finals-----

DoctorBlind | 2-1
Jesse_Custer | 2-1
kenrmcha | 2-1
LeonhartFour | 2-1
LordoftheMorons | 1-2
redrocket | 1-2
changmas | 0-3
SaveEstelle | 0-3

-----Participation in 2 of 6 Finals (the past two)-----

UltimaterializerX | 2-0
WarThaNemesis2 | 1-1

-----Participation in 1 Final (this one)-----

Ashethan | 1-0
_Keeby | 0-1

did I at least save Donkey Kong in the finals I didn't participate in

I just checked and yes, you went 10x on Donkey Kong... so you get the first official 1-4-1 record I guess, lol :(